Abbingtorn has earned their place as one of the best luggage providers around, dominating the UK and beyond with their chic but practical items and accessories. Not only has their aggressively flashy marketing got every content creator around flaunting their bags, but their launch parties and collaborations dominate the news sphere for weeks at a time.
Before I started at Abbingtorn I imagined that each morning would take place like a flawlessly choreographed dance, in which I floated through the revolving doors, whipped my coat off and glided up to my desk. Each team would greet me with smiling faces, and cute sassy one-liners, complimenting my shoes and my effortless style. I’d go for afterwork drinks with Design, lunchtime coffees with Production, and gossip with the IT girlies over shaken espressos. But then I joined, and it took about two weeks to realise that workplaces are just school-level arenas with fewer repercussions. My dream came crashing to a rough halt and here I am, four years later, still caught in the wreckage.
‘Sorry I’m late– had a nightmare with buses!’ I pant as I weave my way through the sea of office chairs.
‘It’s 8.58,’ Gus says, looking up at me in confusion.
‘Exactly. Pippa’s here already?’ I ask. Her lilac handbag sits in pride of place on her desk, taunting me with its earlier-than-usual arrival.
‘She got here before me and she’s wearing ablazertoday.’ Gus grimaces.
‘A blazer?’ I ask, my heart sinking.
I know my outfit’s not cute, but at least it’s still smarter than Pippa’s normal attire. She wholeheartedly ignores the ‘smart’ in ‘smart casual’. The blazer must mean something– a mind game or a statement to snatch that pay rise right out of my already shallow hand.
‘How early did she get here?’ I ask, sniffing for more clues.
‘Jackson said she signed in a little before eight. It’s got to be because of this big meeting, right?’
The words make my heart plummet even further down in its new pit. My appraisal’s been booked in for the better part of a year, rescheduled more times than I’ve been able to count, and each time it’s been called just that– an appraisal. There’s no reason she’d be referring to it as the ‘big meeting’ unless there’s more to it now. Unless it’s been continuously moved to bide time for a bigger purpose. . . a dismissal.
‘What big meeting?’ I try to level my breathing.
I need clarification before I fully freak out, but Pippa saunters through the door before Gus has a chance to answer.
Pippa Shaw was the first person I met at Abbingtorn. She collected me from Reception with a freshly whitened smile and gushed over how excited she was to have another girl around. She was chirpy and bubbly, and gave me a whole twenty-four hours in the role before asking if ‘that was my real hair’. Her constantly upbeat nature and intrusive questions took some getting used to, given that most of it is rooted in how easily everything has come to her, but, once I realised that she’dlobbied for me to get the job, my resistance to her lessened. Mostly.
‘You’re not usually this late in– everything OK?’ she asks, taking a sip of her mint tea.
She wouldn’t know– she’s never here when I get in. She’s never usually here within the first twenty minutes of the workday. Of course she’d pick today to outshine me, to dress smarter and portray the image of a perfect manager. An image she has never once kept up.
‘Bus troubles,’ I say, my heart beginning to thump in my chest.
She coos. ‘Bless! In this rain as well? No wonder you look so. . . tired.’
Of course, I look tired. Anyone would look tired if they’d been up since the crack of dawn fighting for their life.
‘Wild night?’ Gus asks from across the desk. ‘I can barely function the morning after the night before!’
‘Nah, just dinner with my family and some reading in bed,’ I reply.
‘Ugh. I wish I was more like you. Someone suggests one drink and that’s it, I’m out until two.’ Pippa sighs wistfully. ‘By the way, Maddison, your hair suits you like that! All frizzy and puffed out.’
I flinch and try my hardest not to link Pippa with every mean girl I’ve encountered rolled into one. Then I grab an elastic band out of my desk drawer and drag my hair into a sad little bun that hangs limply on my scalp with no structure. It’s the best I can do without a hairbrush or edge control, and it’s not like anyone in the office will even notice. Pippa plops down onto her seat, running a hand through her own hair and giving herself a quick once-over in the reflection of her blank desktop screen.
The two of us have pretty similar stories, in the sense that we graduated with no clear career path or professionalevents experience. The main difference, however, is that she then turned to her uncle, whose golf buddy happens to own significant shares in Abbingtorn. One informal ‘interview’ at a family party later and she jumped into a project manager role that she was entirely unqualified for. A year later, the head of department quit, two weeks before one of Abbingtorn’s biggest events. Left with very little time and no other real options, Pippa was thrust into her current role as head of events and project management.
‘Look at the time– we should probably start heading upstairs.’ She fishes a purple notebook from her bag.
‘Upstairs?’ I flick through my calendar. ‘Weren’t we booked in for Meeting Room H?’
‘Shit, I was meant to email you.’ Pippa sighs, unapologetic as can be. ‘I have to move your appraisal– we have a team meeting upstairs.’
‘Oh? The three of us?’ I ask.
‘Yep. And Olly and Max.’
She lifts her bag from the desk, avoiding my glare as she smooths down her skirt and makes her way to the exit.
