Bella Osborne - A Walk in Wildflower Park

She took the stairs to the second floor and scanned the office for any new faces in their area; she was keen to meet the person who she’d be working closely with over the next year. The company operated a hot-desking policy, which was a bone of contention with everyone. A few people had allocated desks for a variety of valid and spurious reasons, leaving the rest of them to fight on a first-come, first-served basis. Anna was in luck as her favourite desk was free. It was a little like an old folks’ home in that they didn’t have their own seat but they all liked to sit in a certain one – and woe betide anyone who sat in a different seat.

She plugged in her laptop and while it fired up she went to get coffees for her, Sophie and their lead designer, Karl. Anna, Sophie and Karl had met when they’d been put on the same special project a few years ago and had quickly bonded over long days, a shared sense of humour and a love of good coffee. When she returned, Sophie and Karl were behaving like a pair of snooping meerkats, both on tiptoes peering over the filing cabinets towards their boss’s office.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Anna, handing out the coffees.

‘Venti, Americano, with hot milk?’ asked Karl, not averting his eyes from his surveillance operation as he took the cup.

‘Yep,’ said Anna, trying to see what they were watching.

‘With an extra shot?’ added Karl.

‘Yes, of course. What’s going on?’

‘And the cute brunette’s phone number?’

‘Y … No!’ Anna gave him her best withering glare and he replied with a wink. Karl was incorrigible; one of the last non-PC people she knew and also the gayest straight man she’d ever encountered.

‘We think Roberta’s meeting with the project manager from West Midlands Insurance,’ said Sophie.

Anna went up on tiptoes herself but it did no good – she was already in very high heels and still too short to be able to see anything. Her mobile trilled into life: it was Roberta.

‘Anna, could you come to my office right away? I’d like you to meet the new PM.’

‘On my way,’ said Anna, but Roberta had already ended the call.

‘Cover me, I’m going in,’ said Anna, picking up her trusty project folder and coffee.

Anna knocked on the glass office door. Office was too grand a term for the small corner sectioned off with boards and a sliding smoked-glass door but Roberta was very proud of it, having battled tooth and manicured false nail to get the ‘office’ she deserved.

‘Come in,’ said Roberta. ‘Ah, Anna. You took your time.’ Anna ignored her. Roberta was an odd sort and it was best not to challenge her. ‘I’d like you to meet Hudson Jones.’ What sort of name was that?

The person sitting with their back to the door stood up and turned around. Anna noticed he was rather tall and slim in his trendy suit, good-looking in an obvious way, and unnervingly familiar. When she saw one of his eyes was swollen it all clicked into place.

‘Hudson, this is Anna Strickland, our lead PM.’

‘You?’ said Hudson, blinking with his good eye, which she noticed was a beautiful shade of blue.

She gave a nervous laugh and extended her hand. ‘Yes, it’s me. Lovely to meet you. Again .’ She gave a little nod with the last word but had no idea why.

‘Oh, you already know each other. That should speed things up. Hudson has some excellent suggestions for project team structure, operational integration and …’ Roberta was checking her notes.

‘Project approach,’ said Hudson, sounding confident.

‘That’s terrific,’ said Anna, thinking the opposite. ‘I’ll walk you through what I already have in place.’ Hudson didn’t look pleased. They had both quickly picked up on the other’s frostiness.

‘Anna will bring you up to speed. I have a very important meeting to go to,’ said Roberta, squeezing her ample form from behind the largest desk the company could provide.

‘I think we’re all in that meeting,’ said Anna, giving her printed calendar a quick check.

‘Then I’ll follow you,’ said Hudson. ‘From a safe distance,’ he added for Anna’s benefit.

It was a day of back-to-back meetings, never her favourite thing and even less so as she’d found herself going head-to-head with Hudson in the last two sessions. He was overconfident – or cocksure, as her grandad would have called it – and so far he had challenged everything Anna had raised. He had a bunch of ideas he seemed to think he could apply without knowing the first thing about their company processes and it was already starting to infuriate her.

She had a long list of things she would need to explain to him when she got the chance. The next meeting was with Karl, so Anna hoped that would offer a little light relief. She headed off to the room she’d booked, which she knew was barely more than a cupboard. When she got there the blind was down and the ‘In Use’ sign was on, so she waited. She was mulling over what to have for tea when she recognised the voices giggling inside as Karl and Sophie. She opened the door expecting to be greeted by friendly faces rather than a shifty duo caught in the act of something they shouldn’t have been doing.

Anna stared at the small table where Karl had two teaspoons and a small pile of white powder. She gazed disbelievingly at the guilty-looking pair and hastily shut the door behind her. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ asked Anna. Sophie stepped forward but erupted into giggles. ‘OhMyGod. Have you taken some of that?’ Anna was beyond shocked. She looked to Karl for an answer. They would all be instantly dismissed if anyone saw this.

‘It’s not what you think,’ said Karl, before joining Sophie in hysterics.

‘For goodness’ sake – shhh. And pull yourselves together,’ snapped Anna, anxiety coursing through her at the thought of being caught in this situation. ‘Get rid of it!’ Anna stabbed a finger at the white powder.

Sophie paused her giggling to sweep the white powder into a plastic cup of what looked like water. The liquid fizzed. Sophie gave it a swirl, lifted it to her lips and to Anna’s horror drank it down. Anna dropped her notebook and papers as her hands flew to her head. Was Sophie trying to get rid of the baby?

‘Whoa. It’s okay,’ said Sophie, seeming to realise Anna’s distress was very real. ‘It’s only paracetamol.’

Anna didn’t believe her. Paracetamol came in tablets not white powder. ‘You’re mainlining paracetamol?’

She glared at Karl. ‘Sophie’s got a headache and I read somewhere it acts quicker if you crush the tablets and take them in lemonade,’ he said.

Sophie was nodding. ‘I had a wicked headache and I don’t like taking anything when I’m pregnant. I thought I’d try a single crushed paracetamol and see if it worked. It’s probably hokum.’

Anna was shaking her head. ‘I thought it was … It looked like … Bloody hell, you scared the life out of me.’

‘Did you think we had a crack den going in here?’ Karl looked amused.

‘No … well, possibly. What on earth was I supposed to think?’

‘This was totally innocent. If you’re after the real crack den, it’s in the stationery cupboard up on the fourth floor,’ he said, with a tap of his nose.

‘You are a pair of idiots. Anyone would have thought the same as me. Now clear away any trace of that stuff,’ said Anna, picking up her things from the floor.

‘Sorry,’ said Sophie. ‘We didn’t mean to freak you out.’

‘We’d have been snorting it through ten-pound notes if we did,’ said Karl, with a chuckle.

‘I hope your headache goes,’ said Anna, as Sophie left the room.

‘Right, Karl, let’s talk Design Architecture,’ said Anna, turning back to him.