‘And if you’re successful, you’ll start the job tomorrow as well,’ Rose confirmed. ‘Fran, don’t turn this down. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.’
‘Once in a lifetime doesn’t automatically translate into a good thing,’ I replied, newly formed doubts beginning to take root in the back of my mind. ‘Lots of bad things only happen once in a lifetime.’
‘The interview is with a Sarah Pierce – don’t worry about writing it down, I’ll email the details – and I’m quite certain it’s just a formality,’ Rose said, talking over me excitedly. ‘They love your CV, and from the sounds of it, they’re desperate. You’re a shoo-in.’
Charming.
‘So, you’ll sign the NDA and send it back right away?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you can be in London tomorrow?’
‘I can.’
I peered out of the window to see Stew and Bryony still standing outside the salon, grinning at each other as it began to rain. Perfectly normal behaviour that didn’t ring any alarm bells in the slightest. She held out her vape pen and Stew leaned forward to take a cheeky toke, his cough blooming in the chilly air as she pulled it away, laughing.
‘Then I think that covers it,’ Rose cut through my miserable thoughts and brought me back to earth with a bump. ‘Any questions?’
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, focusing on work and pushing what was clearly happening right under my nose as far away as possible. I’d always been good at that.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ I replied confidently. ‘This is amazing, thank you so much.’
‘I’m sending all the info over now,’ she sang down the line, her voice full of cheer. ‘Call me if you have any problems at all, any questions, any issues with the job.’
‘I will,’ I promised as I ended the call, knowing that I wouldn’t. I didn’t have problems, that was part of my charm.
Fran Cooper, dependable, reliable and one hundred percent guaranteed to make your life easier. That was my brand. As I watched Stew wander off down the street with a great big smile on his face, I realized the only person I ever made things difficult for, was myself.
CHAPTER TWO
‘What are these and why aren’t we burning them right this very second?’
Jess held a pair of pink flowered culottes aloft with a horrified expression on her face.
‘They’re Stew’s mum’s,’ I said, snatching them out of her hand and tossing them back into the ironing pile that lived on the spare bed. ‘I had to borrow them last Sunday after Mandy’s youngest decided to hurl his pudding across the room and I got doused in custard.’
‘What I wouldn’t give to get doused in custard,’ she sighed as she flopped onto her back. ‘And now I’m hungry. What have you got for pudding?’
‘I haven’t got anything for pudding,’ I told her, holding a smart black blouse up to the light to check it was in fact still black and hadn’t been washed into a sad state of charcoal grey by our archaic washing machine, before putting it in my suitcase. ‘In fact, I haven’t even got anything for dinner, I was busy getting ready for tomorrow and I forgot. Pizza?’
‘Can’t beat pizza.’ She took the sensible black blouse out of my suitcase and dropped it down the back of the bed. ‘You really don’t have any clue who you’ll be working for?’
‘Haven’t the foggiest,’ I replied, reaching across her to pick up the blouse and put it right back in the suitcase. ‘I tried Google, but there are about a million Sarah Pierces, I gave up after an hour. It’s all very intense though, I’ve never had to sign an NDA for an interview before. And the job requirements list is a lot.’
‘The no jewellery rule seems a bit much, but I do support the proper manicure and pedicure regulations – I can’t bear manky feet.’ Jess had not signed an NDA but she had sneaked a peek at my phone when I was in the toilet, so she knew just as much about my potential new job as I did.
‘Hopefully they’ll accept my DIY job, or I’ll be out on my arse before I’ve even started,’ I said, peering down at my newly polished pink toes. ‘Fingers crossed it’s not a foot fetishist.’
Jess pulled an ancient bottle of sunscreen out from the pocket of my suitcase, took a sniff and gagged, before throwing it in the bin. It had been a while since the suitcase had seen any action.
‘I reckon it’s Oprah,’ she guessed. ‘Or Mark Zuckerberg. Or Paul Hollywood.’
‘Why Paul Hollywood?’
‘Strikes me as someone who would enjoy the power,’ she reasoned. ‘I bet he goes through assistants like I go through hot dinners. To be honest with you, Fran, I don’t know how you do it. I’ve seen too many people treat their assistants like absolute shit.’
I held my hand out for the pair of socks she had stuffed down the front of her shirt and tucked into her bra. ‘Is this a good time to point out we only met because I was covering for your assistant?’
‘Proves my point entirely,’ Jess said, jiggling her boobs until the socks fell out. ‘I’m a monster and you’re a masochist. I thought you were looking into teacher training?’
I froze, socks in hand.
‘Did Stew tell you that?’
She nodded slowly. ‘He mentioned it at the pub quiz last week. Should he not have?’
‘No, he shouldn’t,’ I bristled. ‘Teacher training is his idea, not mine. Or, more specifically, it’s his mum’s idea. After twelve years, she’s decided she doesn’t like telling people I’m a temp, apparently. Can you imagine me as a teacher?’
Jess laughed so hard and so sharp, she started to cough and had to pause to wipe tears from the corners of her eyes. ‘Sorry, but no, absolutely not.’
I shook out a black jumper with slightly more force than necessary.
‘I love kids, don’t get me wrong, but I couldn’t cope with them all day long. My class wasn’t that badly behaved and we gave my French teacher a nervous breakdown. He just stopped coming in one day, then we saw him at the duck pond in the next village over wearing a tracksuit with a massive beard. That would be me within a week.’
‘And you could not pull off a beard,’ Jess said.
‘Not with my colouring,’ I agreed. ‘Shall we order the pizza? Large pepperoni and a medium whatever you want.’
She stuck out her tongue and gagged. ‘Why are we getting pepperoni when we both hate it?’
‘Because Stew loves it and I’m trying to butter him up.’ I tossed a white T-shirt at my packing pile with a grimace. ‘He’s not going to be happy when I break the news about me going away.’
Jess clucked her tongue and shrugged.
‘The only things that make Stew happy are the Blades winning and his mum. He’ll get over it.’
I bit my lip and grabbed an assortment of clean underwear out of the chest of drawers, dumping it all into the suitcase. Even though I knew she was right, I still felt an unwelcome pang of disloyalty when I didn’t rush to his defence. Jess would always be Team Fran, even though the rest of the world thought Stew was the greatest thing since sliced bread. One of the problems with moving back to your boyfriend’s hometown, living within a five-minute radius of the rest of his family, was that he would always be the golden boy and I would always be the outsider. Most of the time it didn’t bother me, but every once in a while something happened to remind me I didn’t quite belong. Something like seeing him chatting to his childhood sweetheart when he was supposed to be somewhere else entirely.