Time of My Life (14 page)

‘Good morning,’ he said.

‘Wow. Your breath doesn’t smell bad any more.’

He looked insulted. ‘Whatever,’ he said, going back to reading the paper. ‘Your words can’t hurt me. I got you coffee and the crossword.’

I was taken aback, genuinely touched. ‘Thanks.’

‘And I bought a bulb for your bathroom light. You can put it in yourself though.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And that omelette is still hot.’

On the counter was a ham, cheese and red pepper omelette.

‘Thanks so much,’ I smiled. ‘That’s really thoughtful of you.’

‘No problem.’

We sat in silence together, eating, listening to a man and a woman on breakfast television hop from soap gossip to current affairs and then to a recent study into teenage acne. I didn’t replace the bulb; it would have taken too much effort and too much time in a morning that was already rushed after sitting down and eating a normal breakfast. I left the door ajar and took a shower, all the time watching the door to make sure my life wasn’t a perv. I got dressed in the bathroom. When I came out, he was ready with his rucksack and his crinkled suit. I had been surprisingly comfortable with him but all of a sudden I smelled a rat. There was always a catch.

‘Well, I guess this is goodbye for today,’ I said hopefully.

‘I’m coming to work with you,’ he said.

I was nervous going into the office, obviously because I had to face everybody after Tuesday’s incident but mostly because I had Life with me. I was just hoping that security would rid me of at least one problem. I swiped my ID card and the barrier moved for me to pass. Life walked into the bar directly behind me and I heard him make a sound as if he’d been winded. I tried not to smile but failed miserably.

‘Hey,’ security called. They were vigilant at the best of times but after the episode with Steve they were on high alert.

I turned around and tried to look as apologetic as possible at Life. ‘Look, I’m going to be late, I have to run. I’ll catch up with you at lunchtime, okay?’

His mouth fell open and I turned around and hurried to the elevator, trying to blend in with the crowd as if I was being chased. As I was waiting I watched the security guard twice Life’s width make his way over to him as if he was going to bash him. Life reached into his rucksack and pulled out some paperwork. The security guard took it as though it were a piece of rotten fish and read through it. Then he looked at me, looked back to the paper, looked at my life, then gave the paper back to him and walked back to his desk. He pressed the button behind it and the barrier opened.

‘Thanks,’ Life called. The security guard waved him on. Life smiled smugly at me and we rode the stuffed elevator together in silence. The usual suspects were in the office before I got there, huddled together and quite obviously talking about me because as soon as I entered they hushed and looked up. All eyes immediately went to Life. Then back to me.

‘Hi, Lucy,’ Nosy said. ‘Is that your lawyer?’

‘Why, are you looking for one for the wedding?’ I answered cattily.

Graham didn’t laugh and that put me off a bit, he always laughed at my crap jokes. I wondered if that meant he wasn’t going to be a sex pest any more and that bothered me too. My response to Louise had been a cheap comeback, but in reality it was disguising the fact that I didn’t know what to say. I’d had a lot of time to think about how to introduce my life to people but beyond calling him Cosmo – which I guessed would create more questions than answers – I still couldn’t think of a story. I could think of a perfectly good lie. I could think of many perfectly good lies; he was a terminally ill patient whose final wish was to spend time with me, he was an out-of-town cousin, he was a college boy looking for some experience, he was a mentally ill friend on day release, he was a journalist writing an article on modern-day working women and chose me as his subject. All of these things I’m sure everybody would believe but Life would not approve of. I was trying to come up with the perfect lie that he would approve of, which was ironic because in the history of the entire world, I guessed there probably hadn’t been one of those yet and probably never ever would be. Edna saved me from the siege of looks, stares, and pending questions and accusations by calling me into the office for a session of the same, but at least with her it was one-on-one and I could take her on. As I made my way to her office, I smiled at the others, sweet and apologetic for having to part company with them. I turned to Life before I went in and under my breath said, ‘Are you going to wait out here?’

‘No, I’ll go in with you,’ he said, keeping his voice at a normal level, which stopped me from speaking any further.

I went into Edna’s office and sat down at the circular table she had by her window. She had a fake white rose in a tall slim vase, and a copy of
Ulysses
on the shelf behind her desk; two of the things on my list that always annoyed me about her because I despised fake flowers and guessed she had probably never read
Ulysses
in her life but liked how having it on her shelf made her look. She looked at my life.

‘Hello,’ she said in a
who are you
kind of way.

‘Ms Larson, my name is…’ he looked at me and I saw his lips twitch as he fought a smile, ‘Cosmo Brown. I have some paperwork here for you which details how I’m allowed to be with Lucy Silchester at all times, and includes confidentiality agreements which have been signed by me and have been stamped and notarised by a recognised notary. You can trust that anything I learn about the company in this conversation will not go any further but anything that is discussed with Lucy regarding her personal life will be well within my rights to discuss as I so wish.’

She took the paperwork and as she read, I saw the realisation pass over her face. ‘Okay Mr Brown, please have a seat.’

‘Please, call me Cosmo,’ he smiled and I knew it was a dig at me.

She looked at him when she spoke. ‘This meeting is about the events which took place on Tuesday. I’m sure you’re aware of the incident regarding Steven Roberts.’

Life nodded.

‘Excuse me, do you have to address him when you speak about me?’ I looked at Life. ‘Does she have to address you?’

‘She can look at whoever she likes, Lucy.’

‘But it doesn’t
have
to be you.’

‘No, it doesn’t have to be me.’

‘Okay.’ I looked back at Edna. ‘You don’t have to address him.’

‘Thank you, Lucy. Now, where was I?’ She returned her gaze to Life. ‘So what we are going to discuss is not what happened to Steve, though if there are any personal worries that Lucy has about what happened and frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if there were, then as her immediate superior I am the person she can speak to about any issue that arises from what happened—’

‘Eh, excuse me, but I’m here. You don’t have to speak as though I’m not here.’

She looked at me then, fixed me with a steely stare and I wished she’d continued looking at Life. ‘This meeting is to do with the revelation that surfaced from those events in which we discovered that you can’t actually speak any Spanish.’

‘I can speak Spanish. I was just under so much pressure. There was a gun in my face and I couldn’t think.’

Edna looked relieved and she finally softened. ‘Lucy, that is what
I
assumed, I mean, my goodness, I could barely remember my own name under the circumstances and I was just hoping to hear confirmation of that. As you can understand I have to officially go about—’

‘Excuse me, can I interrupt here?’ Life said.

I looked at him with wide eyes. ‘I don’t think you’re allowed to.’ I looked at Edna. ‘Is he allowed to? I think he’s just supposed to witness my life and not actually partake in any—’

‘No, no, I’m allowed to partake,’ he said to me. Then he looked at Edna. ‘I’d like to confirm that Lucy cannot speak Spanish.’

My mouth dropped. Edna’s eyes widened even more than her fish eyes.

‘I’m sorry, did you say “can” or “cannot”?’

‘I will verify that I said “cannot”.’ He said the word slowly and accentuated the t. ‘She,’ he pointed at me to make sure we were all totally clear it was not the fake rose on the table that we were talking about, ‘is unable to speak Spanish. I think there is a danger here of you being deceived again and it’s only appropriate that I jump in and keep you wise to the situation.’ He looked at me as if to say,
That okay? Did I handle that well?

I was speechless. My life had stabbed me in the back. Edna was momentarily speechless too but then she found her voice again. She continued to talk to him instead of me.

‘Cosmo, I’m sure you understand that this is a very serious situation.’

I felt beads of sweat break out on my forehead.

‘Of course,’ he agreed.

‘And so as Lucy is employed as our language specialist for the manual and has been for the past two and a half years, I am concerned that her lack of knowledge of Spanish has put the customers who buy the products in grave danger and the company in jeopardy. I mean, who on earth was writing the Spanish translations? Were they even accurate? Were they from a dictionary?’

‘They were from a very reputable national Spanish speaker whose translations of the appliance directions have been second to none,’ I said quickly.

‘Well, you don’t actually know that,’ Life said.

‘There have never been any complaints,’ I said, tired of being stabbed in the back.

‘That we know of,’ Edna said and Life agreed.

‘Who is this person who was translating the work for you?’ Edna asked, unable to hide the shock from her voice.

‘From a reputable—’

‘You said that,’ he interrupted.

‘—Spanish business person,’ I continued anyway. ‘It was actually more of a sub-contract than
cheating
though I know nobody has brought up that word but that is what I’ve been made to feel like I’m doing.’ I took the high ground. ‘Look, I speak every other language perfectly, that is definitely not a lie, tell her.’

I looked at Life to back me up but he put up his hands. ‘I don’t think that’s my role here.’

I gulped and lowered my voice. ‘Look, if you could just allow me to keep my job, please, then maybe let Quentin do the Spanish translations and it’s all kept in-house and it’s all perfectly legal and there’s nothing to worry about. I apologise profusely for not telling the complete truth—’

‘For lying,’ Life said.

‘For not telling the complete truth,’ I continued.

‘For lying.’ He looked at me. ‘You lied.’

‘Look, who doesn’t lie on their resumé?’ I finally snapped. ‘Everybody does. Ask any of those guys out there if they’ve ever lied and they’ll all tell you they exaggerated the truth a little. I bet you have too.’ I looked at Edna. ‘You’ve said you worked at Global Maximum for four years and everyone knows it was only two years, and half of that was in junior management and not senior like you said you were.’

Edna’s eyes widened. Then realising what I’d said, mine did too.

‘But that’s not to say you
lied
, I just mean we all exaggerate the truth, that’s not to take away from any accomplishments that you or I may or may not have—’

‘Okay, I think I may have heard enough here,’ Edna said, massaging her temples. ‘I’m going to have to bring this up on a higher level.’

‘No, please don’t do that.’ I reached across and held her arm. ‘Please don’t. Look, there’s nothing to worry about. You know legal wouldn’t have cleared any manual we did if it all wasn’t one hundred per cent accurate. Things get checked all the time, I’m not the person with the last say here. So nothing can backfire on you and if it ever
ever
did, then you’ve nothing to worry about because you didn’t know. Nobody knew.’

‘Did Quentin know?’ she asked, her eyes narrowed.

‘Why do you ask?’ I frowned.

‘Just tell me the truth, Lucy. Quentin knew, didn’t he?’

I was taken aback. ‘Nobody knew.’

‘But he knew on Tuesday, when Steve was asking you to translate. He knew then, he was straight up from under the table.’

‘I think everyone knew then, it was obvious I hadn’t a word in my head.’

‘I think you’re lying again,’ she said.

‘No, I’m not. Okay, I’m not exactly lying, I think Quentin found out a little earlier when—’

Edna shook her head. ‘How much else do I have to pull out of you, Lucy? I mean—’

‘No no, listen,’ I interrupted. ‘He only knew a couple of minutes earlier when I was trying to speak to Augusto Fernández.’

She wasn’t really listening to me. She had given up. ‘I don’t know.’ She was tidying her paperwork away and she stood. ‘I don’t know what to believe any more. Frankly, I’m surprised at you, Lucy, I really thought that you of all people had it all together, out of everyone in this …’ She looked out at the desks outside. ‘Well anyway, I’m surprised at you. But then,’ she looked at Life, ‘I thought the same about my sister and she found herself in the same,’ she searched for a word to describe my current situation, ‘
predicament
as this.’

Life nodded as if they’d shared a secret.

She sighed. ‘Quentin did know, he didn’t know, you don’t seem to be very clear or convincing on that fact.’

‘No, no, I’m sure about this, please—’

‘I think we’ve taken enough time here,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go back and join the others and I’ll have a think about what we’ve discussed. Thank you, Lucy. Thank you, Cosmo.’

She shook both our hands and I was quickly ushered out of her office. I went back to my desk in shock at what had occurred. Life followed me. Sat down at the empty desk that looked directly opposite. He drummed his fingers on the table.

‘So what do you do now?’ he said. ‘Want me to photocopy anything?’

‘I can’t believe you did that,’ I said. ‘I just can’t believe you had the nerve to do that to me. What happened to the
we’re a team
talk? You were just sweet-talking me so you could make a fucking fool out of me.’ I raised my voice by accident and the others looked over at me. ‘I’m going for a cigarette,’ I said, then stood up and left the room, my chin high and mighty as I made my way under everybody’s watchful gaze.