Confessions of a Shopaholic (32 page)

“I’m sorry to hear it,” says Luke, and looks at me. “Rebecca—”

“Luke, here are the final figures,” interrupts Alicia, hurrying into the room and handing him a piece of paper. “Hello, Rebecca,” she adds, giving me a snide look. “All prepared?”

“Yes, I am, actually,” I say, crumpling my paper into a ball in my lap. “Very well prepared.”

“Glad to hear it,” says Alicia, raising her eyebrows. “It should be an interesting debate.”

“Yes,” I say defiantly. “Very.”

God, she’s a cow.

“I’ve just had John from Flagstaff on the phone,” adds Alicia to Luke in a lowered voice. “He was very keen that you should mention the new Foresight Savings Series. Obviously, I told him—”

“This is a damage limitation exercise,” says Luke curtly. “Not a bloody plug-fest. He’ll be bloody lucky if he . . .” He glances at me and I look away as though I’m not remotely interested in what he’s talking about. Casually I glance at my watch and feel a leap of fright as I see the time. Ten minutes. Ten minutes to go.

“OK,” says Zelda, coming into the room. “Elisabeth, we’re ready for you.”

“Marvelous,” says Elisabeth, taking a last mouthful of
pain au chocolat
. “Now, I do
look
all right, don’t I?” She stands up and a shower of crumbs falls off her skirt.

“You’ve got a piece of croissant in your hair,” says Zelda, reaching up and removing it. “Other than that—what can I say?” She catches my eye and I have a hysterical desire to giggle.

“Luke!” says the baby-faced guy, rushing in with a mobile phone. “John Bateson on the line for you. And a couple of packages have arrived . . .”

“Thanks, Tim,” says Alicia, taking the packages and ripping them open. She pulls out a bunch of papers and begins scanning them quickly, marking things every so often in pencil. Meanwhile, Tim sits down, opens a laptop computer, and starts typing.

“Yes, John, I do see your bloody point,” Luke’s saying in a low, tight voice. “But if you had just kept me better informed—”

“Tim,” says Alicia, looking up. “Can you quickly check the return on the Flagstaff Premium Pension over the last three, five, and ten?”

“Absolutely,” says Tim, and starts tapping at his computer.

“Tim,” says Luke, looking up from the phone. “Can you print out the Flagstaff Foresight press release draft for me ASAP? Thanks.”

I can’t quite believe what I’m seeing. They’ve practically set up an office, here in the
Morning Coffee
green room. An entire office of Brandon Communications staff complete with computers and modems and phones . . . pitted against me and my crumpled piece of notebook paper.

As I watch Tim’s laptop efficiently spewing out pages, and Alicia handing sheets of paper to Luke, a resigned feeling starts to creep over me. I mean, let’s face it. I’ll never beat this lot, will I? I haven’t got a chance. I should just give up now. Tell them I’m ill or something. Run home and hide under my duvet.

“OK, everyone?” says Zelda, poking her head round the door. “On in seven minutes.”

“Fine,” says Luke.

“Fine,” I echo in a wobbly voice.

“Oh, and Rebecca, there’s a package for you,” says Zelda. She comes into the room and hands me a large, square box. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Thanks, Zelda,” I say in surprise, and, with a sudden lift of spirits, begin to rip the box open. I’ve no idea what it is or who it’s from—but it’s got to be something helpful, hasn’t it? Special last-minute information from Eric Foreman, maybe. A graph, or a series of figures that I can produce at the crucial moment. Or some secret document that Luke doesn’t know about.

Out of the corner of my eye I can see that all the Brandonites have stopped what they’re doing and are watching, too. Well, that’ll show them. They’re not the only ones to get packages delivered to the green room. They’re not the only ones to have resources. Finally I get the sticky tape undone and open the flaps of the box.

And as everyone watches, a big red helium balloon, with “good luck” emblazoned across it, floats up to the ceiling. There’s a card attached to the string, and, without looking anyone in the eye, I rip it open.

Immediately I wish I hadn’t.

“
Good luck to you, good luck to you, whatever you’re about to do
,” sings a tinny electronic voice.

I slam the card shut and feel a surge of embarrassment. From the other side of the room I can hear little sniggers going on, and I look up to see Alicia smirking. She whispers something into Luke’s ear, and an amused expression spreads across his face.

He’s laughing at me. They’re all laughing at Rebecca Bloomwood and her singing balloon. For a few moments I can’t move for mortification. My chest is rising and falling swiftly; I’ve never felt less like a leading industry expert in my life.

Then, on the other side of the room, I hear Alicia murmur some malicious little comment and give a snort of laughter. Deep inside me, something snaps. Sod them, I think suddenly. Sod them all. They’re probably only jealous, anyway. They wish they had balloons, too.

Defiantly I open the card again to read the message.

“
No matter if it’s rain or shine, we all know that you’ll be fine
,” sings the card’s tinny voice at once. “
Hold your head up, keep it high—all that matters is you try
.”

To Becky
, I read.
With love and thanks for all your wonderful help. We’re so proud to know you. From your friends Janice and Martin
.

I stare down at the card, reading the words over and over, and feel my eyes grow hot with tears. Janice and Martin
have
been good friends over the years. They’ve always been kind to me, even when I gave them such disastrous advice. I owe this to them. And I’m bloody well not going to let them down.

I blink a few times, take a deep breath, and look up to see Luke Brandon gazing at me, his eyes dark and expressionless.

“Friends,” I say coolly. “Sending me their good wishes.”

Carefully I place the card on the coffee table, making sure it stays open so it’ll keep singing, then pull my balloon down from the ceiling and tie it to the back of my chair.

“OK,” comes Zelda’s voice from the door. “Luke and Rebecca. Are you ready?”

“Couldn’t be readier,” I say calmly, and walk past Luke to the door.

AS WE STRIDE ALONG the corridors to the set, neither Luke nor I says a word. I dart a glance at him as we turn a corner—and his face is even steelier than it was before.

Well, that’s fine. I can do hard and businesslike, too. Firmly I lift my chin and begin to take longer strides, pretending to be Alexis Carrington in
Dynasty
.

“So, do you two already know each other?” says Zelda, who’s walking along between us.

“We do, as it happens,” says Luke shortly.

“In a business context,” I say, equally shortly. “Luke’s always trying to promote some financial product or other. And I’m always trying to avoid his calls.”

Zelda gives an appreciative laugh and I see Luke’s eyes flash angrily. But I really don’t care. I don’t care how angry he gets. In fact, the angrier he gets, the better I feel.

“So—Luke, you must have been quite pissed off at Rebecca’s article in
The Daily World
,” says Zelda.

“I wasn’t pleased,” says Luke. “By any of it,” he adds in a lower voice.

What does that mean? I turn my head, and to my astonishment, he’s looking at me with a sober expression. Almost apologetic. Hmm. This must be an old PR trick. Soften up your opponent and then go in for the kill. But
I’m
not going to fall for it.

“He phoned me up to complain,” I say airily to Zelda. “Can’t cope with the truth, eh, Luke? Can’t cope with seeing what’s under the PR gloss?”

There’s silence and I dart another look at him. Now he looks so furious, I think for a terrifying moment that he’s going to hit me. Then his face changes and, in an icily calm voice, he says, “Let’s just get on the fucking set and get this over with, shall we?”

Zelda raises her eyebrows at me and I grin back. This is more like it.

“OK,” says Zelda as we approach a set of double swing doors. “Here we are. Keep your voices down when we go in.”

She pushes open the doors and ushers us in, and for a moment my cool act falters. I feel all shaky and awed, like Laura Dern in
Jurassic Park
when she sees the dinosaurs for the first time. Because there it is, in real life. The real live
Morning Coffee
set. With the sofa and all the plants and everything, all lit up by the brightest, most dazzling lights I’ve ever seen in my life.

This is just unreal. How many zillion times have I sat at home, watching this on the telly? And now I’m actually going to be part of it.

“We’ve got a couple of minutes till the commercial break,” says Zelda, leading us across the floor, across a load of trailing cables. “Rory and Emma are still with Elisabeth in the library set.”

She gestures to us to sit down on opposite sides of the coffee table, and, gingerly, I do so. The sofa’s harder than I was expecting, and kind of . . . different. Everything’s different. The plants seem bigger than they do on the screen, and the coffee table is smaller. God, this is weird. The lights are so bright on my face, I can hardly see anything, and I’m not quite sure how to sit. A girl comes and threads a microphone cable under my shirt and clips it to my lapel. Awkwardly, I lift my hand to push my hair back, and immediately Zelda comes hurrying over.

“Try not to move too much, OK, Rebecca?” she says. “We don’t want to hear a load of rustling.”

“Right,” I say. “Sorry.”

Suddenly my voice doesn’t seem to be working properly. I feel as though a wad of cotton’s been stuffed into my throat. I glance up at a nearby camera and, to my horror, see it zooming toward me.

“OK, Rebecca,” says Zelda, hurrying over again, “one more golden rule—don’t look at the camera, all right? Just behave naturally!”

“Fine,” I say huskily.

Behave naturally. Easy-peasy.

“Thirty seconds till the news bulletin,” she says, looking at her watch. “Everything OK, Luke?”

“Fine,” says Luke calmly. He’s sitting on his sofa as though he’s been there all his life. Typical.

I shift on my seat, tug nervously at my skirt, and smooth my jacket down. They always say that television puts ten pounds on you, which means my legs will look really fat. Maybe I should cross them the other way. Or not cross them at all? But then maybe they’ll look even fatter.

“Hello!” comes a high-pitched voice from across the set before I can make up my mind. My head jerks up, and I feel an excited twinge in my stomach. It’s Emma March in the flesh! She’s wearing a pink suit and hurrying toward the sofa, closely followed by Rory, who looks even more square-jawed than usual. God, it’s weird seeing celebrities up close. They don’t look quite real, somehow.

“Hello!” Emma says cheerfully, and sits down on the sofa. “So you’re the finance people, are you? Gosh, I’m dying for a wee.” She frowns into the lights. “How long is this slot, Zelda?”

“Hi there!” says Rory, and shakes my hand. “Roberta.”

“It’s Rebecca!” says Emma, and rolls her eyes at me sympathetically. “Honestly, he’s hopeless.” She wriggles on the sofa. “Gosh, I really need to go.”

“Too late now,” says Rory.

“But isn’t it really unhealthy not to go when you need to?” Emma wrinkles her brow anxiously. “Didn’t we have a phone-in on it once? That weird girl phoned up who only went once a day. And Dr. James said . . . what did he say?”

“Search me,” says Rory cheerfully. “These phone-ins always go over my head. Now I’m warning you, Rebecca,” he adds, turning to me, “I can never follow any of this finance stuff. Far too brainy for me.” He gives me a wide grin and I smile weakly back.

“Ten seconds,” calls Zelda from the side of the set, and my stomach gives a tweak of fear. Over the loudspeakers I can hear the
Morning Coffee
theme music, signaling the end of a commercial break.

“Who starts?” says Emma, squinting at the TelePrompTer. “Oh, me.”

So this is it. I feel almost light-headed with fear. I don’t know where I’m supposed to be looking; I don’t know when I’m supposed to speak. My legs are trembling and my hands are clenched tightly in my lap. The lights are dazzling my eyes; a camera’s zooming in on my left, but I’ve got to try to ignore it.

“Welcome back!” says Emma suddenly to the camera. “Now, which would you rather have? A carriage clock or £20,000?”

What? I think in shock. But that’s
my
line. That’s what I was going to say.

“The answer’s obvious, isn’t it?” continues Emma blithely. “We’d all prefer the £20,000.”

“Absolutely!” interjects Rory with a cheerful smile.

“But when some Flagstaff Life investors received a letter inviting them to move their savings recently,” says Emma, suddenly putting on a sober face, “they didn’t realize that if they did so, they would lose out on a £20,000 windfall. Rebecca Bloomwood is the journalist who uncovered this story—Rebecca, do you think this kind of deception is commonplace?”

And suddenly everyone’s looking at me, waiting for me to reply. The camera’s trained on my face; the studio’s silent.

Two point five million people, all watching at home.

I can’t breathe.

“Do you think investors need to be cautious?” prompts Emma.

“Yes,” I manage in a strange, woolly voice. “Yes, I think they should.”

“Luke Brandon, you represent Flagstaff Life,” says Emma, turning away. “Do you think—”

Shit, I think miserably. That was pathetic. Pathetic! What’s happened to my voice, for God’s sake? What’s happened to all my prepared answers?

And now I’m not even listening to Luke’s reply. Come on, Rebecca. Concentrate.

“What you must remember,” Luke’s saying smoothly, “is that nobody’s
entitled
to a windfall. This isn’t a case of deception!” He smiles at Emma. “This is simply a case of a few investors being a little too greedy for their own good. They believe they’ve missed out—so they’re deliberately stirring up bad publicity for the company. Meanwhile, there are thousands of people who
have
benefited from Flagstaff Life.”