The Cinderella Reflex (13 page)

As they shared a bottle of wine, she confided that she was worried about the agony-aunt slot.

“That’s your trouble, Helene,” Richard teased, kissing her on the forehead. “You worry toomuch.”

“But I want it to go well,” she fretted. “Maybe I should have arranged for someone to ring in?” She looked at the clock. “I wonder is it too late to get someone now?”

“It’s never too late, Helene,” Richard said jovially, pouring himself another glass of wine.

She looked at the half-empty bottle. She had barely started on her wine. She sipped some while she watched him punching some numbers into his phone.

He looked at her. “Relax. I’ll deal with it.”

Helene heard a female voice on the other end as Richard took the phone out to the hall. When he returned, he told her everything was sorted. A woman named Cindy, who he described as an out-of-work actress, would call in to the show the next day and she’d have a problem. Simple.

Relieved, Helene had finally allowed herself to relax. They had gone back to bed and he’d stayed much longer than normal. At one stage she even thought he was going to stay the night but at the last minute he insisted he had to go home. But everything had seemed absolutely fine. Better than fine.

And then, the very next morning, all hell had broken loose. Helene had been so preoccupied with Cindy’s ‘problem’, and why the hell it had been about a love triangle involving a married boss, and whether Richard was making some sort of passive-aggressive point
,
that she hadn’t paid any attention to the caller who had turned out to be Jack McCabe.

She had thought he was a random caller and put him through as absentmindedly as she would anybody. Next thing she knew Tess Morgan was barging out of studio, leaving the caller hanging on in mid-sentence. And then, just as she was trying to find out from Sara what the hell had happened, Richard had come storming into the studio, asking why had Helene allowed Jack McCabe to go on air without informing him.

“He hasn’t signed on the dotted line yet, Helene! Didn’t you think it
important
enough to tell me he was about to go on air?”

She had never seen him like that before. Looking at him, in a full-on temper tantrum, with his complexion all red and his eyes sort of bulging, she’d been afraid he might have a heart attack there in front of her. She’d been that concerned for him.

But then he’d hissed at her, “I cannot stress how important it is that Jack McCabe buys in, Helene. I just hope you haven’t blown it!”

“Actually, I was listening to Cindy, and her interestingproblem about having an affair with a married man,” she’d snapped. “Did it remind you of anyone, Richard? Like us, perhaps? Did you tell Cindy what to say?”

Richard had looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Of course I didn’t. She’s an
actress.
She made it up.”

“Well, I think it’s a great big coincidence that Cindy would just happen to phone in with that particular problem,” she’d said stubbornly.

“Helene!” Richard had thrown a warning look at Sara, who was all ears, her head swivelling from Richard to Helene and back again, openly staring at them as it dawned on her that her boss and her boss’s boss were having an affair. “Great! Bloody great!”

Richard turned on his heel and left, slamming the studio door behind him.

Helene had settled back shakily into her chair. She was acutely conscious of Sara stealing sidelong glances at her and knew it was only a matter of time before it was all over Facebook, Twitter and whatever other hideous social-networking site had been invented in the ten minutes since Helene had last looked … unless she could come up with a way of silencing her assistant. That’s when she’d had the idea of offering her the producer job she’d wanted for so long. Tess Morgan’s job. It had only been a fleeting thought. She would never have gone through with it if she hadn’t gone to Ryan’s. She had left a message on Richard’s phone, asking him to meet her there but he hadn’t shown up. And she had become so stressed that she drank the whole bottle of wine she had ordered for them to share. She had then spotted Tess Morgan acting as if nothing at all had happened and something in her had snapped.

Now, of course, she realised she had acted way over her pay grade. She didn’t actually have the right to fire anyone. She was surprised Tess hadn’t figured that out by now. She was probably going to sue her for wrongful dismissal! Helene wiped her forehead with one of the white towels piled up beside her and picked up a leaflet from the table – anything to distract herself from the torture of her own thoughts.
The Spa Fantastic is where top people come to relax and bepampered
, she read.
A sumptuous oasis of Me Time, a place to renew andrevitalise.

It was exactly what Helene had thought she needed. But when she turned her gaze towards the floor-to-ceiling windows of the spa, all she could see was rain driving through the fields. She could hear the wind howling like a banshee through a small vent in the windows.

“You ready for your Sole to Soul experience?” A girl with an Australian accent appeared beside Helene’s day bed. She had a name badge with
Annie
printed on it pinned to her white therapist jacket.

Annie looked unnervingly healthy – a tall and tanned young woman with athletic limbs, big white teeth and an absurdly cheerful countenance.

“I think so,” Helene said with some trepidation.

She followed Annie down a dim corridor and into one of the treatment rooms, her spa slippers sinking into the thick pile carpet.

“Just relax,” Annie soothed.

She started by pouring oil on Helene’s feet and as the scent of roses filled the room Helene could feel the muscles in her body relaxing. But then Annie got her to remove her robe and began to hum and wave her hands in a weird formation over Helene’s body, stopping at certain parts as if she was listening to something.

Helene’s shoulders shot up around her ears, all the tension back again.

“Relax. I’m trying to unblock your chakras,” Annie explained cheerfully.

“My whats?” Helene frowned.

“Your energy points, according to Eastern philosophy. Your throat chakra in particular feels blocked. That means you have a lot to say for yourself but you’ve never really been able to express it. Does that make sense to you?”

“Yes, it does!” Helene was amazed. That’s exactly how she felt when she was talking to Richard lately. Unheard. She felt a surge of excitement. “Can you unblock it for me? The chakra whatsit?”

“Not in one session, mate,” Annie replied, thumping her on the shoulders. “And not by me. It’s something I picked up on in India but I’m only a beginner.”

“You’ve been to India?” Helene thought of Matt and all the places he’d been to, and the way he’d marked them out with tiny yellow pins on the map on the wall of the café.

“Yeah. It was part of my world trip. This is too.”

Annie asked Helene to turn on to her stomach and began to knead the knotted-up muscles in her neck and shoulders.

It must be the travelling that made Annie and Matt so relaxed, Helene decided.

The thought of her and Richard travelling together came back to her and she drifted into a very pleasant daydream where she was backpacking with Richard in India. She had given away all her designer clothes and she didn’t need any products at all, just a bit of soap and a toothbrush and an old comb because her hair was cut really short.

But then Annie spoilt it by giving her a slap across the small of her back.

“That’s it,” she said. “You’re all done.”

She led Helene to yet another relaxation area, where a tray of mint tea and a single strawberry was set out on a small table beside another heated lounger. Helene settled into it, sipping the tea and flicking through the pages of one of the glossy magazines piled up on the table beside her. After only a few minutes she dropped the magazine listlessly. Jesus, she hadn’t realised spas were so
boring.

She fished out her mobile again and felt her heart rate quicken. Four missed calls! She’d switched her phone to silent while she’d been having the Sole to Soul treatment. She stared at the screen. They were all from the same number: Richard’s. She hadn’t heard from him since he’d stormed off in his huff, even though she had texted him several times. Well, she wasn’t going to be available as soon as he decided he was ready to talk to her.

She stuffed the mobile unanswered into the pocket of her robe and picked up a silver vanity mirror from the side-table. She pulled her chestnut-brown hair away from her face and scrutinised her features carefully. Her eyebrows were artfully plucked, her hair carefully coloured, her high, disdainful cheekbones a distinct genetic advantage. She looked at her long, pale throat, picturing it blocked because she couldn’t express herself.

She spotted Annie carrying a bale of white towels to another treatment room.

“Hey! Can you tell me how I can find out more about this chakra stuff?” she called after her. She felt excited at the idea of being able to express herself properly.

“Sorry, I have another client at the moment,” Annie called back.

“Well, can you get me a radio then?” Helene had promised herself a media-free few days, but the whale music echoing eerily through the room was seriously freaking her out.

“I’ll get the manager to look after you,” Annie promised, disappearing into a therapy room.

Five minutes later the manager arrived at Helene’s lounger, proffering a personal radio with earphones.

“Is everything to your satisfaction, madam?”

Helene nodded and clamped the earphones over her ears, already fiddling with the dials on the radio, trying to tune in to Atlantic 1FM. All she could find was a local station playing country songs. As she listened to some love-gone-wrong song, her eyelids grew heavy and she dozed off into a dream where Richard told her that he and Louisa had mended their relationship, and were going to travel the world together, and she was pleading with them to take her along too, that three wasn’t really a crowd, and Richard was telling her to answer the phone … answer the phone …

Helene awoke with a start, conscious of something vibrating against her thigh. Bleary-eyed, she groped around until her hand closed over her mobile. She pulled it out in a panic and squinted at the screen. Richard. Deeply upset by her nightmare, she hit reply straightaway.

“Hello …” she began. She saw the manager lurking behind a palm-tree plant and hissed, “I’m in a
spa
, Richard. Supposed to be chilling. Why didn’t you call me before now?”

But even as she spoke Richard said something in an urgent tone. She only caught the words “get back”.

“I need to get back? Why?” She looked at her phone. Maybe she had misheard.

“No. Get
her
back!”

“Who back?” Helene frowned as she tried to focus. She was still feeling quite drowsy.

“Tess Morgan! Andrea told me you
sacked
her?”

“Um … it was a breakdown in communication, actually.” She chewed on her lip.

“Jack McCabe
likes
her, Helene!”

“Likes her?” Helene was mystified. “What was there to like? She was on-air for ten minutes and caused absolute chaos in that time!”

“Be that as it may,” he replied, “Jack has been on to me raving about her. I think he’s definitely going to buy, Helene.” He couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice. “So it’s up to you to get Tess back – to keep Jack on side.”

Helene thought of her last meeting with Tess and swallowed.

“It might not be that easy,” she said cautiously.

“Offer her more money. Or her own programme. Whatever it takes,” he instructed as if she hadn’t spoken.

“Her own programme?” Helene was outraged. “The whole reason the agony-aunt slot went so wrong in the first place is because Tess is not cut out to be on-air.”

Jesus. Didn’t Richard ever listen to a word she said?

“Well, persuade her, Helene,” he said flatly. And then, “Look, as soon as Jack signs on the dotted line, it won’t affect us whether Tess Morgan creates chaos or not.”

Helene’s heart skittered. He had said “us”.

“Because we’ll be leaving Atlantic?” She held her breath.

“It will be all to play for,” he confirmed. “But nothing can go wrong at this juncture, Helene. So I want you to leave whatever it is you’re doing there and go and find Tess Morgan.”

“Right this minute?” She thought of the paraffin pedicure she had lined up next.

“Yes.” A touch of impatience entered Richard’s voice. “There’ll be plenty of time for spas later.”

“It’s
work
,” she reminded him acidly. “Research for my
Ten Years Younger
series. Why can’t you just phone her yourself, anyway? Say it was all a mistake and that you’re going over my head.”

“Tried already, I’m afraid. Her mobile is switched off.”

Helene wrinkled her forehead. He’d already tried to go over her head without even informing her? That wasn’t good. But then everything was all mixed up since the takeover bid. As soon as Atlantic was sold, she and Richard could get back to normal. Hopefully.

“Andrea will know where she lives,” she said. Maybe
you
could call around?”

“Andrea is off work today. Apparently one of her kids is sick.”

Helene snorted. “Welcome to my world. Now you know what I have to deal with every day.”

“Look, Helene,” he confided, “I shouldn’t really be telling anyone this yet, but Jack is about to make his announcement about buying the station shortly.”

Helene recalled her conversation with Paulina, Jack’s right-hand woman. “Really? And have you heard anything about a search for a new star? One with the … er … X-factor?”

“How do you know about that?” Richard asked sharply.

“Oh, there are lots of things you don’t know about me, Richard Armstrong,” she said flirtatiously.

But Richard wasn’t in the mood. “Can you get Tess Morgan back?” he asked sharply.

“Fine,” she snapped, deflated. “I’ll do it! But, Richard?”

“Yes?”

“
Afterwards
,” she let the word hang meaningfully in the air, “you had better make this up to me!”