The Cinderella Reflex (17 page)

“Sorry I’m late, folks!” He grabbed a seat and ordered a beer. “I got called in at the last minute to do a live TV link. That’s why I’m so overdressed.” He looked down at his formal navy suit and sharp white shirt with self-deprecation.

“It must be great being a celebrity, Chris,” Katie said slyly, but any irony was entirely lost on Chris. Within minutes he had become the centre of attention, regaling their small group with tales of his derring-do. They sat riveted, their own achievements dwarfed by his tales of assignments in war-torn countries, the big political stories he’d broken, even a near-death experience he’d allegedly had at the hands of the Taliban. Tess felt certain he was embellishing events, but no one seemed to mind. Another effect Chris had on people.

“Tess Morgan.” Finally he seemed to notice her. “Agony Aunt of the Airwaves. I tuned in to Atlantic 1 FM on the internet and there was our Tess, solving the problems of the nation,” Chris unfurled himself from the bar stool he was straddling and moved closer to Tess. Katie, knowing their history, turned to talk to Elaine.

“So, tell me, what’s this Jack McCabe really like?”

“I hardly know Jack McCabe,” Tess said primly.

He leaned in closer, and lowered his voice, “I often wondered about you, Tess, and how life had treated you after we split up.” His voice was soft. “I always harboured a vague hope that we might be friends again someday, but you seemed to go off the radar after college completely. Did you ever think of me?”

“Not that you’d notice.” Tess gave a small shrug.

Chris gave a rueful smile. “I wouldn’t mind, Naomi and I barely lasted five minutes after I broke up with you.”

“Naomi? Her name was Claire.”

“It was?” He looked perplexed. “Well, anyway. We don’t want to waste time on that old story. Let’s talk about you, Tess. So how did you get into radio then?”

For a moment, he looked so genuinely interested that Tess toyed with the idea of telling him the long version. About arriving home after years of travelling, desperate to put down some roots. About Andrea getting her into Atlantic 1 FM but that it hadn’t exactly worked out and about how she was sacked and ... but she guessed Chris would be bored with all the details.

“I’ve, er ... moved on from Atlantic now.”

“Moved on?” Chris frowned. “But I heard you just recently.”

“Yes, well that was my last day actually.”

“It was?” He was puzzled. “I thought the presenter said it was your debut slot?”

“It was. It was my first and last slot.” She swallowed a large mouthful of vodka.

“Oh! So what happened?” Chris looked at her intently. “You got a better slot? A better time? What?”

Tess smiled. “None of those things. I’ve just told you. I’ve moved on from Atlantic.”

“But moved on to where?” he asked patiently.

“Well, to nowhere in particular ... I haven’t got another job yet. I’m examining my options.”

“You’ve got options? In these times?” Chris raised an eyebrow and she felt a stab of resentment. How many times had
he
switched jobs to get to where he was now, she wanted to ask him? Plenty of times, according to the stories of adventure and success he’d just been regaling them all with.

“I felt I had gone as far as I could go there, really.” That sounds right, Tess thought, pleased. It was the sort of comment that an ambitious go-getter would make, not someone who had let the grass grow under her feet for the last ten years.

“Tell him about your other projects,” Elaine piped up.

Tess swung around and realised that Elaine had been listening intently to their conversation. Elaine misread her panicked expression. “Don’t be modest now! My aunt lives in Killty and she read all about it in the paper. She remembered we went to college together and told me all about it.” She frowned, trying to remember the details. “Wasn’t there some controversy about you walking out of studio or something?”

Tess’s head was starting to swim. She couldn’t believe a tiny story in a tiny local paper had spread this far.

“No, that really is enough about me. Tell us about your life, Elaine.”

“Well ...” Elaine began, flattered to be asked.

But Chris interrupted her. “Is that true? That you walked out? I only heard the start of that item and I had to go and do an interview myself.”

“Sort of ...” Tess wracked her brain wondering how she could change the subject.

“But you must have heard that Atlantic might have been going national?” Chris looked at her appraisingly. “Come on! And the real reason you left is?”

Tess finally broke. “Okay! I had a row with my boss over ... well, it doesn’t matter what it was about now. The thing is, she sacked me. But,” Tess added quickly as there was a collective intake of breath, “then my boss’s boss, Jack McCabe, the entrepreneur who is buying the station?” She nodded at Chris, “He called to see me and said he really liked the agony aunt slot. But by that stage I had already told him that I was ... er ... writing a book. Which I am. Of course. But I do need a new job as well so if anybody knows of any openings ...”

Tess looked around. She was the centre of attention now. For all the wrong reasons. She twisted her hands together, praying for someone to break the silence. Make a joke. Anything.

Chris rested his chin on his steepled fingers. “My advice is to go back to Atlantic.”

Tess stared at him. Hadn’t he listened to a word she’d said? That she had been sacked and was supposed to be writing a book and exploring her options?

“Tess, they are going national and you said Jack McCabe wants you back,” Chris pointed out. “An opportunity like that doesn’t come around every day, you know. You can’t just let it slip through your fingers.”

“Er ... I think I already have,” Tess reminded him.

Chris looked at her, his forehead creased in thought. “Haven’t they just announced a nationwide contest – where the winner gets their own show?”

“I’m sure I’m disqualified on the grounds of being fired from there already!” Tess joked.

“But you just said Jack liked your agony aunt slot. Tell him you’ve changed your mind, that you want to come back. That would give you a fantastic advantage over external contestants – you’ll have insider information.”

“I’ve already turned down his offer.” Tess lifted her chin defiantly. “I’m afraid that particular ship has sailed without me, Chris.”

“Persuade McCabe to take you back!” Chris was insistent.

“How?” Tess asked.

“Go and find him. Hit him with your elevator speech.”

Tess looked at him uncomprehendingly. “My what speech?”

“Your
elevator
speech. People use them in Hollywood to pitch ideas for a movie. They only have a short window to sell their ideas to the movers and shakers. So they encapsulate their story right down to a forty-five second speech. The idea is if you’re ever in an elevator with someone who can help you to progress your career, your pitch is powerful enough and short enough to grab their attention, while you have them as a captive audience.”

“Right,” Tess said slowly. “And how does that relate to me getting my job back, exactly?”

“Lots of people have adapted the idea to use in their careers,” he said.

She stifled a giggle. “And do you actually have to be
in
an elevator with the very important person?” She drank more vodka, beginning to enjoy the mad twist the conversation had just taken. This was what she’d liked about being with Chris – you never knew what he was going to come out with next. She scanned his features for signs of a smile. “You are joking, aren’t you?”

“I’m not. I have used my elevator speech so many times in my career. And with amazing results, if I’m allowed to blow my own trumpet for a moment.”

“Right,” Tess murmured. Maybe he’d gone a bit bonkers since she’d last seen him. Something to do with all those war zones he’d been caught up in.

“And I’ve used other psychological techniques too.” Chris continued seriously. “Like ... have you heard of mirroring?”

“Erm ... no. But you’re going to tell me about it, right?”

He narrowed his eyes. “This is serious stuff, Tess. It
works.
What you do is mirror people’s actions back at them. So if they move their head one way you copy them. And if they cross their legs you cross yours as well,” Chris crossed and uncrossed his long legs in demonstration. “They get the idea that you like them – and they like you right back. It’s basic but it works. It’s all about body language, Tess.” He reached out and grabbed her hand in his enthusiasm.

“Right.” Tess looked down at her small hand enveloped in his large one.

“It’s difficult to explain it here.” Chris was looking at her with his intense stare again. “I’d need to show you how it all works with role-play. But I can’t do it here. We’d need somewhere more private.”

Tess looked around the bar. Katie and Elaine were now engaged in a giddy Do you remember? game and everyone else was also deep in conversation.

“I have a room here at the hotel,” she said slowly.

“Really?” Chris stroked the underside of her wrist with his thumb.

“Really,” Tess said decisively. She had wanted to lay to rest the ghost of Chris Conroy for a long time now and she was going to do it tonight. She had to admit he had a strange chat-up line nowadays.
Come up and let me role-play my weird job-seeking techniques with you.
But then he had always been a strange sort of guy. Charismatic, but strange. Tess drained her glass and got to her feet, wobbling a bit on her heels. She scribbled her room number on the side of a damp beer mat.

“Follow me up in a while and don’t make it obvious,” she instructed.

She slipped away before anyone noticed. Once in her room, she threw off her shoes and sat on the end of the unfamiliar bed, her heart fluttering a bit too fast. Some part of her realised this probably wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had.

There was Chris’s
It’s complicated
Facebook status to consider. And the fact that he had dumped her before and had never tried to contact her in the intervening years. But how else was she going to do the closure thing, she asked herself, a bit drunkenly. How else was she going to quit thinking of Chris as the one who got away?

The knock at the door made her jump off the bed. She padded across the room in her stocking feet and hesitated for a few seconds before twisting the doorknob and pulling it open slowly. And then it was as if ten years and a lifetime of What Ifs had disappeared and she was back to the star-struck girl she had once been.

Chris Conroy looked crazy, dirty, sexy.

“Come in,” she said quietly and walked across to the window. “There are drinks in the minibar,” she called over her shoulder.

Chris pulled out a bottle of beer and a vodka and tonic and walked over to join her.

She pressed her glass against the windowpane and stared out at the cityscape below them. The reflection of the streetlights illuminated the scene outside, the lovers walking arm in arm, a gang of young women out on a hen night.

She stiffened as she became aware that Chris was standing right behind her now, so close she could feel the feather touch of his breath on the nape of her neck. She shivered and turned around to face him, lifting her face slightly to his. She had forgotten how blue his eyes were.

“So Tess,” he said softly, “about the elevator speech script.”

Tess snapped her head downwards. He
actually
wanted to talk about an elevator speech? She turned away, so he couldn’t see the expression on her face.

“Look, Chris, I’m sure this sort of thing goes down well in Hollywood or London. Possibly even here in Dublin. But ... Killty is small. And kind of ... quaint. It’s not an elevator speech sort of place.”

“Everywhere’s an elevator speech sort of place, Tess,” he said. “Besides, you won’t always be stuck in Killty.”

The way he said it made Tess want to jump contrarily to the town’s defence. But then he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around to face him again.

“I have a hunch about you, Tess Morgan. And my hunches are hardly ever wrong. So – trust me on this one – you need to go to Jack McCabe and pitch him the idea that you want your job back and why he should give it you. You owe it to yourself. Promise me that you’ll at least try?”

“I’ll try,” Tess agreed, but only because she knew if she didn’t he wouldn’t let it go and she’d never succeed with her quest to consign him to her romantic recycle bin. She tilted her chin upwards again, convinced he was finally going to make his move. But he let her go again and bounded across the room.

She watched, bewildered as he hunkered down at the bedside locker and pulled out a notepad with the hotel’s logo on it and a tiny pen attached with a string. He came back brandishing the stationery like a weapon.

“We’d be better off with index cards but this will have to do for now. So, Tess ... what five words would you use to describe your best qualities?”

Helene wasted no time in devising her strategy to win the contest. She’d slotted herself into This Morning for a series of reports on her Ten Years Younger efforts, determined to get her talent recognised by Jack McCabe. She decided that he couldn’t know she was having an affair with Richard because he would have let her go by now.

Helene was finally starting to appreciate why Richard had insisted on keeping their relationship secret. Of course Rachel Joy’s poisonous postscript to her report in the
Killty Times
was a cause for concern. Helene twirled a strand of hair around her finger, wondering if there was anything she could do to stop the journalist from naming her in a future edition. The phone on her desk rang and Helene was jolted back to reality.

“Hello, may I speak to Helene Harper?”

“Speaking ...” Helene said cautiously, trying to place the voice.

“Oh! Well, look, my name is Grandma Rosa and—”

“You!” Helene remembered now. It was the old bat who had phoned in to the ill-fated agony aunt slot.

“Er ... yes, it’s me. I’m phoning with an idea I have for the radio? The Psychic Granny Show.”

Despite Helene’s worries, she found herself smiling. “I’m afraid we’re fighting a constant battle at Atlantic 1 FM to attract younger listeners, Mrs ...?”