The Cinderella Reflex (21 page)

Tess took a deep breath. If she didn’t get a job before her savings ran out, she would be in much the same position. She could go home, of course. But the small village in the West of Ireland where Tess had grown up had even less going on in it than Killty. She felt panicky just thinking about having to live there again.

“Well, good luck anyway,” she smiled awkwardly at the woman as she started to climb the stairs, her earlier optimism completely evaporated now.

She spotted Jack immediately. He was back in the casuals he’d been wearing the first day she’d met him in Rose Cottage – faded jeans and a light shirt. Tess needn’t have worn her business suit after all. In fact, as she watched him smile at the waitress, a willowy young woman with a mane of dark curls framing her face, Tess wished she was wearing her sluttiest dress.

“Tess!” He stood up as she reached the table.

She slipped into the seat opposite him and stole a look at him from under her lashes.

He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I’m glad you came.”

The restaurant was packed and buzzing with conversation and laughter. The women in particular had dressed up, in strapless dresses and lots of bling jewellery. Tess tugged at the collar of her jacket. She could see a glimpse of a balcony through a pair of handsome French doors at the other end of the room and she had an overwhelming urge to get some fresh air.

Jack followed her gaze. “It’s a bit stuffy in here, isn’t it? We could take our drinks out after eating if you like?” His hand brushed against hers, and Tess felt a flicker of electricity go through her. She looked at him, startled, trying to see if he’d felt it too, and as their eyes met she again had that odd sensation of recognition, as if she knew Jack from somewhere else, in the far distant past, almost in another life. But if he felt anything, he didn’t show it and instead started talking about work.

“So. Will you come back as Ollie’s producer? Hopefully it will only be temporary, just for this transition period. Tell me you’re interested!”

“I’m not sure,” Tess said slowly. “I mean, what happens afterwards – when the transition period is over?”

“Oh,” he looked a bit nonplussed, “I haven’t really thought that far ahead. Maybe you’ll have won It’s My Show by then.”

Tess took a deep breath. She needed more than that. She didn’t want to be thrown out on her ear when Atlantic 1 FM was relaunched and Jack and Paulina no longer had any use for her. “It would help me make a decision if I knew I could resume the agony aunt slot. I feel like a fool for the way I handled it. Making a success of it the second time around would help me get my confidence back. It’s the only way I’ll have a chance in the contest.”

Jack gave a rueful shake of his head. “For some reason Paulina has a bee in her bonnet about that at the moment. I talked to her about it again after you left this afternoon. But she’s adamant that we can’t have any more chopping and changing until after the launch. And she is very good at her job, and I don’t have a clue about PR so I need to back her on this one. But look, once the contest is over,” he looked at her winningly, “you can have it back then.”

Luckily, she was saved from answering by the waitress who returned to take their order, and as she filled both their glasses with red wine, Tess began to relax at last. The food was delicious, the wine was soothing and Jack was excellent company. It turned out he was as widely travelled as Tess but, as he explained regretfully, the trips were all business-related and he’d never had time to enjoy the countries he’d visited.

“Going back to some of them is on my bucket list,” he smiled. He was fascinated with Tess’s very different experience of crossing the globe on a shoestring. As she recounted some of her adventures, she remembered how wonderful they had been and for the first time since she’d arrived home, she began to see her “decade of dithering”, as her dad had once called it, in a much more positive light. There were different ways of doing things that was all, she told herself, and as she sat in the glow of the buzzy restaurant and Jack’s company, some of the intense pressure she had been putting herself under to get on the career conveyor belt began to melt away.

Jack’s phone rang, interrupting the atmosphere. He took it out of his pocket, a frown deepening the ridges on his forehead when he glanced at the screen.

“It’s Louisa – my sister. I’ll have to take it.” He shot her an apologetic look.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said lightly. “I’ll get a breath of air.” She still felt uncomfortable in her business suit and was glad of the chance to cool down. She took her glass of wine and walked towards the French doors, stepping out onto the small balcony.

The panorama of the city spread out before her, the old red rooftops jostling with the newer, greyer buildings. Above her, pale stars had started to spike the darkening sky. The air was heavy with the scent of the spring flowers that were stuffed into the small balcony space – extravagant arrangements of mauve and white hyacinths, late yellow daffodils and pink tulips planted in giant terracotta pots. Tess sat down at a tiny, ornate table topped with mosaic purple tiles and sipped her wine thoughtfully. Had she imagined the chemistry between her and Jack this evening?

By the time he came out to join her she was sure she had. He was rubbing one hand distractedly through his hair and looked a million miles away.

“Sorry about that. Louisa’s still mixed up about that idiot Richard!” He raised his eyebrows. “I did try to tell her that her troubles wouldn’t be over simply because I bought Atlantic. I couldn’t make much sense of what she was saying on the phone right now to be honest. But ...” he stopped, as if wondering whether he should continue. Then he fixed solemn brown eyes on Tess. “Look, I’m just going to come out with this question. Have you heard anything about Richard having an affair with someone at work?”

“No!” The instinctive response was out before Tess could think about it. She bit her lip. That was an outright lie. But on the other hand, she wasn’t one hundred per cent certain about Helene and Richard. It might just be run-of-the-mill office gossip. She twisted her hands together uncomfortably, as she remembered what Helene had said to her the day in the pub, just before she’d sacked Tess. “
I know what you must think about me and Richard. What everyone thinks when they hear about us.
” But that wasn’t an admission of anything, was it? Tess would need cast-iron evidence of an affair between Richard and Helene before she’d say anything that would ruin a marriage. Thankfully, Jack’s phone bleeped again, this time with a text message.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Believe me, I am not always this rude.” He scanned the message and his features darkened. “It’s Paulina. Something important has come up. I really am sorry but I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave.”

Disappointment surged through Tess like a sudden winter shower. She had almost forgotten that Jack was with Paulina.

“So?” Jack looked at her quizzically. “You still haven’t given me your answer about coming back to produce Ollie.”

She opened her mouth to reply but he held up a hand. “Before you answer, I just want to remind you of something. When I first met you at Grandma Rosa’s you told me you worked for a tiny flop radio station.”

“Er ... did I say that?” Tess flushed.

“You did!” Jack grinned. “I remember it very well because of the misgivings I felt about it at the time! But, if you come back to work for me, you would have a chance to help change all that – to be part of something really big!” He sounded so passionate that even if she hadn’t witnessed the dispiriting job queue earlier Tess probably would have agreed.

“Yes. I’ll come back.”

Jack punched the air. “Result! I promise you won’t regret it.”

Tess smiled weakly. She somehow doubted that. She knew that whenever Ollie Andrews or Helene Harper was giving her grief she would think back to this moment and be sorry she’d agreed to backtrack on her life. But it would give her a chance to save some money and plan the next stage of her life. And, as she watched Jack turn to leave, she knew a large part of her decision was also because going back to Atlantic meant she would see more of him. There was something about him that made her want to be near him, in his orbit, absorbing his almost ridiculous sense of enthusiasm for life.

She stayed to finish her wine, sitting at the pretty mosaic table, thinking about the evening. She was disappointed that she wouldn’t be moving to Dublin after all, but there were parts of working at Atlantic that she missed – the buzz of the daily deadline, Sara’s unique take on life, the camaraderie she’d shared with Andrea.

Thinking about Andrea made her realise that she hadn’t spoken to her friend for nearly a week now. She pulled out her mobile and scrolled down to her number, looking forward to telling her about everything that had happened since. How she had somehow become enrolled on the Chris Conroy Crack Academy for Career Advancement. The ill-fated elevator speech! And, of course, about Jack asking her out to dinner, and the fact she was coming back to the station.

When she heard Andrea’s voicemail click on, Tess finished her wine and stood up. If she hurried, she’d make the last train back to Killty and she could arrange to meet Andrea for lunch tomorrow. She didn’t want to go back to Chris’s apartment tonight anyway – she could arrange to pick up her things in a day or two. She couldn’t face him quizzing her about why Jack McCabe wouldn’t give her a second chance at the agony aunt slot, and what exactly he’d said at dinner. She wanted to be at home in her own cluttered apartment. She needed time – to organise getting back to work, to figure out how she would make a better go of it this time, to
think
. Dammit, Tess smiled to herself, she needed
me
time. Maybe Andrea’s husband, Joe, had a point about that after all.

She walked back into the restaurant to leave and stopped dead. Because, almost as if her thoughts had conjured him up, Joe McAdams was sitting near the back of the restaurant, his side profile in clear view. Tess automatically looked around for Andrea. It was so unusual they should both be in Dublin on a weeknight.

She started to walk over to say hello when she stopped short again. A woman was slipping into the chair opposite Joe. She had short dark hair cut in an elfin style. She was dressed in a maxi floral dress and pink cardigan. And she most definitely was not Andrea. Tess watched Joe lean over and interlink his hand casually through hers. There was something wrong about the gesture – something unnervingly intimate and Tess sidestepped out of sight, desperate suddenly for Joe not to see her.

She was vaguely aware of the waitress looking at her quizzically. “Are you all right? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

But Tess barely heard her. She was too busy trying to work out who the woman sitting with her best friend’s husband was.

Two days later, Tess was sitting at her old desk. She fiddled forlornly with the settings on her computer. Someone had changed all the passwords since she was here last and she had spent the last hour trying to sort them out. And they weren’t the only things to have changed in Atlantic 1 FM. The atmosphere was even tenser than before. An hour ago Tess had spotted Paulina Fox swanning into Helene’s office, and now they were both lurking in the corridor, their heads bent together conspiratorially, as if they knew some top secret everybody else was excluded from.

And where was Ollie, Tess wondered? This Morning was due to start in just under an hour and she needed to run through the show with him. She was not looking forward to it. Ollie would
not
like the content of the programme today. Tess looked dubiously at her running order. Helene was coming on to talk about her Ten Years Younger project. And Grandma Rosa was booked in for a Psychic Granny slot – some pilot Helene wanted to try. The content of the show had changed so much since Tess was here last that Sara was already calling it Ollie Lite.

Tess cast her mind back to her first visit to the fortune teller and smiled. If anyone had told her then that the old woman would have a slot in Atlantic 1 FM she wouldn’t have believed it. What was it that Grandma Rosa had said to her back then? “
There are big changes on the horizon for you.
There’s a big romance showing here.
”

For a short time, when she’d met Chris again, she’d thought Rosa might have got something right. But she couldn’t call that a romance. She had texted him on the train home to Killty and said she wasn’t feeling well and had to go home. It wasn’t a lie either. On the train home, her stomach lurched each time she replayed the scene in the restaurant over in her mind. When Andrea had returned her call, Tess had pretended there was no coverage and hung up on her friend. Then she’d switched her phone to silent, rammed her headphones over her ears, and listened to loud pop music, trying to forget the evening had ever happened. But of course it had, and she was dreading having to face Andrea later today.

She looked up and saw Ollie marching down to his desk. Tess tried to hide her surprise at the sight of him. He was pale and dishevelled – his shirt crumpled and his trousers baggy, as if they were too big for him. He was clutching a gigantic take-out coffee to his chest and Tess could see a light sheen of sweat glistening on his bald spot.

A stab of sympathy for him took Tess by surprise. The takeover was hard on all of them, but probably it was most difficult for Ollie. If, or when, he got axed, it was going to be a very visible humiliation. And since her agony aunt debacle, Tess knew what that felt like.

“Morning, Ollie!” Tess said cheerfully, determined to start over on a new, more positive footing.

“What’s good about it?” Ollie pushed a lank lock of hair out of one eye. “You’re back.”

Tess felt her positivity evaporating, to be replaced by a cold fury at Ollie’s dismissive attitude. She felt like shouting,
It’s not as if people were queuing up to work with you! Jack McCabe had to take me out to dinner and practically beg me!

“So. What have you got for me this morning, then?” Ollie sat down, took a deep slurp of of his drink and turned on his computer.