The Cinderella Reflex (16 page)

Tess looked at him blankly.

“Richard said he’d get Helene Harper to come and talk to you about it. I thought the agony aunt slot was great – except the part where you walked out, of course. It’s
exactly
the sort of thing I have in mind for when I revamp the station.”

Tess opened her mouth to speak and closed it again. Helene had wanted to get rid of her, she thought dully. She’d agreed with Ollie that she just didn’t have what it takes. They’d probably cooked up the agony aunt slot for her, knowing she’d make a complete mess of it and give Helene the perfect excuse to fire her. And she had walked straight into their trap.

“So?” Jack was still waiting for an answer. “Helene said yesterday you were looking at other options?”

Tess thought quickly. She didn’t want to look like a complete loser.

“Actually, I’ve decided to concentrate on other things. I’m er ... writing a book and I need to devote a lot more time to it if I’m ever going to get it finished.” As soon as the sentence left her mouth, Tess wished she could take it back.

“Really?” Jack’s eyes widened with admiration. “So that’s why you’re still in your dressing gown? “ He looked her up and down. “I was wondering about that.”

“Yes, that’s it. I don’t feel I can write a word unless I have my lucky dressing gown on.” Tess gave a slightly hysterical laugh.

“So what’s it about – the book?” Jack asked.

What was it with all the questions? This guy should have been a journalist himself.

“It’s ... it’s a self-help book ... how to deal with difficult people.”

“Oh!” Jack looked distinctly underwhelmed. “Who’s publishing it?”

“I don’t have a publisher yet. But,” Tess had a flash of inspiration, “I have a meeting set up with an old college friend of mine. Chris Conroy?” Tess waited for name recognition to dawn on Jack. He looked at her blankly and she continued encouragingly, “Chris Conroy? Former foreign correspondent. Commentator on TV shows?”

“No, I can’t say I’ve heard of him. Not that that would mean anything, because I generally only watch movies or business programmes. Looks like I have a lot to learn about the media business,” he said cheerfully.

“Well, he’s, like, famous. And he’s promised to help me find a publisher or, like, an agent or something.”

“That’s great – if it’s what you want to do. But I’m disappointed you won’t be coming back to us.” He stood up and moved towards the living room. “Still, I’d like to thank you for helping me with my dilemma, and apologise for any trouble I caused. It wasn’t intended.” He reached into his briefcase and held out a parcel. “Peace offering?”

“Oh!” Tess slipped off the brown paper wrapping to reveal a framed black and white caricature of her sitting in studio with headphones on and an Agony Aunt of the Airwaves banner behind her.

“I got it done because I thought you’d be staying on at Atlantic 1 FM,” Jack said apologetically. “But I can see now it should have been a writer starving in a garret.” He looked around Tess’s tiny apartment. “Not much money in self-help books then?”

“Nor in local radio,” she reminded him. She tapped the glass frame. “Thank you for this. You really didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to. I’m just sorry we weren’t able to persuade you to come back.”

Tess opened her mouth to speak. This was the time to tell him the truth, that there was no book and no big meeting with Chris Conroy. She could have her job back there and then. But then she remembered Helene in Ryan’s bar, the way she had sacked her without mercy. And Ollie and the way he’d made her life so difficult over the last few months. And Grandma Rosa suggesting that maybe it was time to move on if she was finding her situation so difficult. Maybe it
was
time to do something else – go somewhere she didn’t feel like a square peg in a round hole?

Jack closed the briefcase and hoisted its strap over one shoulder. He gave her a lopsided smile and Tess felt a powerful, magnetic pull towards him. For a second she felt as if she’d met him before somewhere, in another life even.

“Good luck with everything,” he said.

“Yeah, thanks,” she said shyly.

She walked over to her bay window and watched him drive away. Funny, he hadn’t seemed like the psycho-stalker she’d thought he was, after all. He had been perfectly pleasant today. Funny even. She found herself wishing she could get to know him better. But he was bound to have a partner already, probably a go-getter like himself. He’d hardly be interested in a hippy drifter like her.

She switched on her mobile and rang Andrea who was all agog with the news that Jack had bought the station.

“You should have been there when the woman ... Paulina her name is ... I think she and Jack might be an item actually. Anyway, when she said they were launching the contest to find a new star Ollie went mental! I think he might have been drunk. Now, it seems Atlantic will definitely go national later this year. Tess, you have to ring Helene and get back in here before you leave it too late!”

Tess glanced at the framed caricature of herself, still in its brown paper wrapping. She already felt ridiculous for spinning such a web of lies to Jack.

“I think I already have, Andrea.”

“So what are you going to do now?” Andrea asked anxiously.

“Get another job?” Tess shrugged. They were chatting over a coffee and Tess had filled Andrea in on Jack’s astonishing visit.

“Where, though?” Andrea persisted.

“I don’t know.
Somewhere.
Atlantic 1 FM isn’t the only employer in the world, you know. Look at Chris Conroy and how well he’s doing for himself.”

“Chris?” Andrea couldn’t hide her surprise. “You’re hoping you’ll get a job like
his
?”

“Hey, I got
better
results than he did in college!” Tess said defensively.

“And then you went rambling around the world,” Andrea reminded her, “while he devoted himself to his career!”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Tess didn’t need reminding of the ten-year gap on her CV just now.

“I’m just saying that maybe you should have more realistic expectations. What about that reunion he emailed us about – it’s next week, in Dublin? I can’t make it, but you should go. It would be a good place to start networking. When is it?”

“I’m a bit reluctant though because well, you remember what happened between myself and Chris.”

“You and Chris broke up years ago,” Andrea reminded her.

“I know. But I wasn’t planning on meeting up with him again in this lifetime.”

She and Andrea had been friends at college, so she was well aware of how badly Tess had taken the break-up. What she didn’t know though was that Tess had developed a habit of checking up on Chris afterwards. Devouring his newspaper articles online, reading his blog – and since she’d been home, analysing his performances on radio and television in a mildly compulsive way. In fact, she had been telling herself she needed to stop when she had received his email about the reunion.

“Look, there’ll be other people at the reunion besides Chris Conroy,” Andrea pointed out. “People who might help you to find another job. And meeting Chris again might mean you’ll finally get over him – leave you free to meet someone else.”

“I am over him. So, what if everyone at the reunion has heard about the agony aunt fiasco?”

“Come on! This is Killty we’re living in. And if Helene Harper’s histrionics are anything to go by, we must only have about ten listeners by now.”

“That’s true.” Tess started to relax.

“So, that’s it then.” Andrea was matter of fact. “You’re going to go to the reunion and network like crazy and I’m going to pitch for my own show.”

“I can help with that if you like,” Tess offered. “Now that I’m at a loose end.”

“Would you? It would be a great help. Thanks!” Andrea smiled. “So can you tell me any more about Jack McCabe?”

“Only that he seemed really keen to get started and that he had big plans for Atlantic.” Tess said. She didn’t want to talk about Jack McCabe. She didn’t want to let slip that she’d felt so attracted to him. It wasn’t as if anything could ever come of it, since he was with his glamorous PR woman.

A week later, Tess was standing in a dressing room in a shop off Grafton Street wearing a red, short shift dress and skyscraper heels. The reunion had seemed like a good idea when she and Andrea had been talking about networking and re-inventing yourself and yadda yadda ya. But now that she was in Dublin, in an over-bright changing room, it felt different. Wrong somehow.

“It’s perfect.” The sales assistant was nodding approvingly.

The venue for the reunion was a five-star hotel and Tess simply didn’t have anything suitable to wear in her wardrobe. She wasn’t sure about this outfit, but then she always felt awkward out of her jeans. The dress looked vaguely glamorous and she wouldn’t have to wear it after tonight. She paid with her credit card and made her way back to the hotel, where she’d checked in overnight. She felt slightly paranoid that she might run into Chris if she stayed in the main shopping thoroughfare, so she spent the best part of the afternoon in the hotel’s swimming pool, doing fast lengths to work off some of her nervous energy.

By the time she got back to her room she was feeling a lot calmer and more optimistic. Wrapped in the complimentary white robe she’d found in the bathroom, she sat on the bed and pulled out a photograph. It had been snapped in London, shortly before she and Chris had broken up. Tess remembered it as a golden weekend, where they had done shamelessly touristy things, getting on the London Eye and even taking a city bus tour, which seemed to mortify Chris but he’d gone along with it because Tess had been so insistent. She had given her camera to an obliging passer-by in Hyde Park. She still looked like the hippie student she had been way back then – same untamed frizzy hair, same casual wardrobe of jeans and jumpers. Chris, she knew from watching him on TV, looked even better now. He had filled out, looked more mature. Wore way better suits.

Maybe Andrea was right. Maybe she needed to get Chris out of her system once and for all so she could stop obsessing about what might have been? In her years of monitoring him, his Facebook status had changed with startling regularity – from
Single
to
In a relationship
to
Still looking.
Once he’d even written
In an open relationship
, but Tess assumed that was a joke. Now he’d updated it again – this time to
It’s complicated
.

Since they had broken up, she’d had plenty of romances, but they had been short-lived relationships, which she ended whenever she thought they were in danger of becoming something more.

Maybe that was because Chris had hurt her all those years ago, as Andrea had been hinting. And maybe meeting him tonight might lead to closure for her, after all? Tess got ready in a flurry. She didn’t want to spend any more time soul-searching and she headed down to the reunion early and chose a seat which gave her a vantage spot to keep an eye on the door.

She wriggled onto the bar stool, trying to get comfortable. The dress felt a little too tight and a little too short now. And if she attempted to walk far in her sky-high heels, she mused, she’d probably go flying across the floor. Still, there was probably no need to venture far from the bar.

She ordered a vodka and tonic, and tried to stop worrying. She had lost touch with practically everyone from college and felt a bit guilty now that the only reason she was here was because she had lost her job. She spotted her reflection in the mirror running below the long row of upended spirit bottles opposite her. She’d spent yesterday afternoon at Veronica’s Cuts in Killty’s main street. The salon was most definitely
not
at the cutting edge of hair design. Tess’s hair was still brown and still frizzy, just a little shorter. In fact, after spending so long in the swimming pool this afternoon, it was frizzier than ever. Tess pushed her hand through her shorn locks, trying to get it to sit straight.

“Tess Morgan! Look at you!”

Startled out of her reverie by a familiar voice, Tess swirled around.

“Katie Lawlor!” Smiling widely, Tess stood up to greet her old friend. She needn’t have worried that she mightn’t recognise people after all. Katie looked much like she did when she’d last seen her, only a bit older. The same straw-blonde hair whipped around her freckled face, her wide green eyes crinkled when she smiled. She even had the same dress style. Tonight she was wearing a floral maxi and skyscraper platforms. Within minutes Tess discovered that Katie was now a divorced detective.

“A detective? How did that happen?” Tess asked amazed.

“I went on to study criminology and that became my passion.” Katie shrugged.

Elaine Seymour was next to arrive – she was working as a medical journalist. And then a whole batch of people arrived together and they were all swept up with the excitement of hearing each other’s news. Jerry Healy was now a balding book publisher; Shay Murphy had put on at least two stone, worked as a news editor and had two children.

Everyone seemed well established in their careers and Tess was feeling bad about her own jobless status when Elaine suddenly said, “And you’re an agony aunt, Tess.” She smiled at the expression on Tess’s face. “My aunt lives in Killty – and she remembered we were friends back in the day.”

Tess’s fingers tightened on her glass.

Katie gave her a sidelong glance. “You’ve an agony aunt? Remind me to tell you about a few of my problems when we get a chance.” She threw back her head and laughed and Tess had to smile, despite the tension building up inside her.

She cleared her throat to explain how she didn’t work in Atlantic 1 FM any more but the collective attention of the group was suddenly diverted elsewhere. Tess followed their gaze and her pulse quickened. Chris Conroy had arrived. She watched as people shifted slightly as he passed, moving automatically to allow him through. He’d always had that quality, she thought. Something intangible which marked him out as different. Something people recognised and responded to.

Tess had often wondered how she’d feel when she finally saw him again in the flesh. He was certainly as good looking as ever. His blondish hair was thinner than she remembered, with a few streaks of grey already showing around his temples, but he was tanned and fit looking, and had a certain joie de vivre etched into his craggy features.