‘Hello, sis, what have you done now?’ are the first words out of my brother’s mouth when he answers my call.
‘Um, excuse me . . . why would you think I’ve done something?’
‘Because, Ellie, it’s half ten in the evening. You only ever call at this time of night when you’ve done something, have thought about the problem for as long as you can on your own, have arrived at no decent solution, and therefore decide to give me a call about it.’
My brother is unwholesomely smart, as I’m sure you’ve probably noticed. He’s also bang on the money, 90 per cent of the time.
It must be a nightmare for the kids in his class.
‘Well, okay. You’re right. But try not to be smug about it.’
‘What’s up?’
I take a deep breath, and fill Sean in on all the gory details.
I’ve been filling Sean in on all the gory details for the best part of my life. Out of the two of us, I’m always the one that creates the gory details, and he’s always the one that suggests ways to clean them up. That’s always been the dynamic of our relationship. I’ve been promising myself that I’ll do something about it at some point, but life always seems to get in the way, and I never get around to it.
‘Hmmm, tricky,’ he says, when I’ve finished weaving my sorry tale.
‘Any ideas?’
Sean pauses for a moment.
‘Pot plants?’ he suggests.
‘Pardon me?’
‘You say you need to impress your new environmentalist boss . . . how about some pot plants around the office?’ he says. ‘They’re green – in both senses of the word.’
‘I don’t think that’s going to cut it, Sean. Me waggling a rubber plant in Nolan’s general direction isn’t likely to do me that much good. I need something a little bigger, and more obvious, to get me on his good side.’
‘Well, I don’t know, sis. Maybe look him up on social media? Find out what he gets up to in his spare time? That might lead you to something.’
‘Facebook-stalk him, you mean?’
‘Yeah. I guess so. You’ll get to know him a bit better, if nothing else. That couldn’t hurt, could it?’
‘No . . . it couldn’t.’
It’s a great idea, to be honest. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself.
Because it’s sensible, Ellie. And Sean is the one that does sensible. You do silly. Hence the ridiculous idea of seducing a man you’ve only met once.
‘Thanks, Sean, I’ll give it a go. And I’ll let you know how I get on.’
‘Okay, sis. If you could see your way clear to not letting me know at ten thirty at night, when I’m still in the middle of marking English essays, that’d be favourite.’
‘Agreed. Love you lots.’
‘You too.’
I put the phone down on my clever brother, feeling ever so much better. I don’t think I’ve ever put the phone down on my brother without feeling better – especially when he’s given me some decent advice.
And I’m going to take the advice he’s given me this time, by doing a bit of constructive online investigating . . .
I grab my laptop and spend a couple of hours on social media, stalking Nolan Reece like there’s no tomorrow.
I’m not the biggest fan of Facebook or Instagram to be honest, but they are very useful ways to discover more about a person – and Nolan has recently been very active on both.
And what he’s active about is the environment – as you’d expect.
Consistently and constantly.
What he told us in that meeting the other day really does seem to ring true. He is very environmentally conscious – to the exclusion of almost everything else.
If I had decided to seduce him, I could have just dressed up like a vegan sausage, and showed him that my boobs are 100 per cent plastic-free.
Nolan’s Facebook feed is full of memes and comments about the planet, the environment, climate change, and sustainability. He doesn’t appear to have that many friends or followers, but that means nothing in this day and age. Long gone are the days of people manically adding everyone they can to their friends list to appear popular. It almost seems like it’s more a badge of honour to keep your friends list small these days.
It becomes more and more apparent as I continue the online stalking of my new boss that the only way I’m going to impress him is by persuading him that I am also an environmentally conscious person – despite the backfiring car and plastic-bottle squeezing. And I’m sure I’m not the only one in the office who thinks that way. Everyone will be wanting to prove their credentials. The question-and-answer session that I botched so magnificently proved that.
If I’m going to stand out from the crowd, I’m going to have to do something BIG. Something noticeable. Something obvious.
I have no idea what that might be, until I find a post on Nolan’s Facebook feed from a week ago that gives me the answer . . .
Someone called Jill is asking Nolan if he’ll be attending the event on Saturday ‘at the shopping centre’, to which Nolan has replied that yes, he most definitely is.
Aha!
There’s nothing much more to go on than that in the actual post, but I then spend half an hour searching for environmental events in my local area, and discover that on Saturday, at Whitehaven Shopping Centre, an organisation called Warriors For The Planet will be staging a protest.
That must be it, right?
An environmental event ‘at the shopping centre’ on Saturday?
That’s got to be it!
It’s not an official event, of course. I doubt the owners of Whitehaven particularly want an environmental protest getting in the way of their consumerism, but there’s enough buzz about it online to suggest it’s going to be well attended by those of an environmentally conscious nature.
And maybe, just maybe, if I can get down there . . . and just happen to bump into Nolan, I can show him just how green I truly am! After all, I’d have to be, if I attended an event like that, wouldn’t I?
Yes.
Yes, that’s it.
I’ll go down to the protest, find Nolan, impress the shit out of him with my heartfelt love of our planet, and make him see that keeping me on at Viridian PR is absolutely the right thing to do!
. . . stop looking at me like that.
No. Stop it.
I know it’s a deeply cynical move, but can you really blame me? This is my livelihood we’re talking about. And if keeping my job means pretending just a little bit, then so be it.
And it’s either that or sling on the bloody Vicky’s Secret underwear for my new Adam Driver–ish boss – and I still have half a bag of Minstrels in the cupboard which I do not intend to waste!
Not having a clue when the protest is meant to kick off, I figure I’d better get down to Whitehaven as early as possible. In my experience, public events tend to happen more in the mornings than the afternoons, so it’s probably a good bet that things will start not that long after I arrive.
And if not, I can always get a Costa coffee and do some light shopping while I wait. There’s a roll neck from FatFace I’ve had my eye on for a couple of weeks now, and I definitely need some new tops for sleeping in too.
Whitehaven Shopping Centre is a monument to Western consumption that sits just off the motorway, for maximum ease of access. Each and every one of the seventy or so stores is housed in massive, grey identikit buildings that are 100 per cent glass-fronted, and have about as much personality as a maths teacher’s wardrobe.