Victoria Cooke - A Summer to Remember

When I’m tucked away in my room away from the others, I call Bridget for a catch-up.

She answers on the third ring. ‘Hello, you.’

‘Hello,’ I say, exhaling loudly for effect.

‘Oh no. Are things still terrible?’

‘Yes! When I speak it’s like nobody at all has heard me. Honestly, I’m not exaggerating. It’s bizarre. There are moments where I sit there wondering if I’ve actually spoken at all, or if I just thought the words in my head. I honestly think I could strip naked in the centre of the boardroom and nobody would notice.’

‘Oh, honey. Please don’t strip naked in the boardroom. Have you spoken to any of the UK team about it?’

‘I tried to after the first couple of days. It just sounded so petty and whiney when I said it aloud. I asked Tony if he’d heard my idea today, and he just paused for a moment until I reminded him what it was, then he said, “Oh yeah, I think so” but that was it. Nobody is interested in what I have to say. It wouldn’t be so bad if they were interested enough to say, “Your ideas are rubbish”, but they don’t even do that. I might as well be invisible.’ My voice falters on the last word as emotion hits me from nowhere. Even my own body is choosing to ignore me. I’m not even emotional, I’m angry.

‘Oh, Sam,’ she says. ‘Keep at it, hon.’

‘I know. I’ve just never felt so small and insignificant before.’ Or at least not in a very long time. I suck up a lungful of air. ‘At least I’m in a wonderful place and I can go to the beach at the weekends.’

‘Definitely. How was Cape Cod?’

‘Amazing.’ I fill her in on my escapades and Harry and Barney and Ethan.

‘So, let me get this straight; Ethan is the arse from Boston? And he was there ?’

‘Yes, and yes. What are the odds of that? He has now apologised, at least. He was having a bad day apparently.’

‘Well, we all have those but jeez. At least you can put it behind you now.’

‘Yes,’ I agree. Except I can’t. Not the incident as such, but Ethan. Over the past few days, I’ve caught myself randomly thinking of him. When I’m walking to the office, eating lunch, even brushing my teeth, for goodness’ sake, I see his face and hear his voice. He’s got under my skin and I don’t know why. I’ve encountered rude people before, but something about the dark look in his eyes that day, the tense muscles in his face, were different to how he was on Saturday night at the bar. Even when he was being all cocky in the bike place, the vacant, disengaged look I saw at the harbour was nowhere to be seen. I can’t shake the feeling that he was having more than just a bad day.

‘I’m going back to Provincetown at the weekend for a cookout – a barbecue, as far as I can tell – with Harry and Barney.’

‘Ooh, lovely. Don’t forget your real friends here in miserable and grey London, will you?’

I giggle. ‘As much as I love the sunshine and gorgeous beaches of Massachusetts, you can’t beat a bit of drizzle and a bitch-fest with you lot.’

‘My sentiments exactly. Anyway, I have to go. I need to be in bed before midnight at least one day this week.’

‘Oops. I’d forgotten about the time difference,’ I say, feeling bad for calling so late.

‘It’s fine, I’ll catch a few mid-morning zeds when I’m at my desk tomorrow.’

‘I hope you’re joking, I can never tell.’

‘Unfortunately, the truth is in the eyebags,’ she cackles.

‘Okay, give the others my love.’ We exchange goodbyes, and I hang up feeling a little lighter. Just one more day of work to survive before I’m back in my happy place.

***

The ferry journey to Provincetown passes pleasantly. It’s a great way to blow away the office cobwebs on a Friday afternoon. I shall definitely be making it a thing. I while away the time switching between reading and looking out across the ocean, watching the city fade away until it’s clouded by the rugged little islands that surround it and the deep blue of the water and sky all around.

I get a warm welcome back at the hotel as the lady on reception recognises me, and once I’ve dumped my bags, I head to the main street to find Barney and Harry, who are just packing away their body paints.

‘Knocking off early?’ I say.

‘I need to go and see my meat guy for the cookout tomorrow.’

‘Your meat guy?’ I ask.

‘He means the butcher,’ Barney says. ‘Everyone has to be “a guy”.’

‘Oh, okay,’ I say, trying to sound upbeat at the discovery of my being at a loose end.

‘You should come,’ Barney says. ‘We’re going to cocktail afterwards.’ He does a little wiggly finger dance, whilst I amuse myself, imagining the Collins Dictionary entry for his new use of cocktail:

Cocktail (verb)

Kok-teyl

to sip mixed alcoholic drinks in the company of friends.

Unless to cocktail is like the US version of peacocking or something. I hope it isn’t. I hate drawing attention to myself, and besides, I don’t have my good shoes. ‘That sounds great. Are you sure you don’t mind me tagging along?’

‘We invited you. Of course not.’

I relax a little. ‘Okay, but this time, cocktails are on me.’

Harry winks. ‘I knew we liked you.’

***

‘So, have you climbed a rung of the ladder yet?’ Harry leans on the wooden table, sipping a blue cocktail which he says is called ‘The Harry’. It tastes like a Blue Lagoon to me, with perhaps a hint of something cherry-flavoured if I’m being optimistic. Barney has gone to back to their apartment to put the meat in the fridge and said he’ll catch us up.

I shake my head. ‘I almost gave a big Jerry-Maguire-cum-Erin-Brockovich speech, but I didn’t think it would get me anywhere.’

‘Good. It wouldn’t have. What you need to do is show, not tell.’ Harry’s tongue is blue. It’s hard to take serious advice from him when he looks like he’s eaten a Smurf.

‘How do I do that then?’

‘Well, you’ve said their campaign ideas are unoriginal and that you’ve tried telling them how to be different, yes?’

I nod. ‘The problem is, I’m dealing with an international company who’ve been running campaigns for some of the biggest global brands for years. What if I’m wrong? All my other projects have been for much smaller, local businesses in London.’

‘Are those things on your feet the trainers you’re marketing?’

‘Uhm, yes.’ I’d forgotten I was wearing them. As hideous as Rocks are on a woman of my age, they are bloody comfortable.

‘Okay, so I’m assuming your target market is tweens to teens?’ he says.

‘How did you guess?’ I say dryly. ‘They don’t seem to have the target audience in mind, though. They’ve gone too young with the pitch, and I think that kind of campaign will alienate the older kids. Young kids will want them anyway if the older ones are wearing them, so targeting them seems redundant.’

‘I agree with you, not that I know anything about the field of marketing, but I definitely think the image needs to be cool.’

‘I think they’re trying to go head to head with Strides, and to me that seems like a bit of a cop-out. They can piggyback off the brand strength of Strides and undercut the prices or throw in some tacky gimmick like a free keyring or something, but that won’t build the Rocks brand, which is I’m sure what the client will want.’

Harry nods. ‘Agreed.’

I sigh. ‘So, what are teens into? I could sell sand to a desert-dweller normally, but when it comes to kids, I’m not really au fait .’

‘Pop concerts, smartphones, skateboarding …’ Harry tails off.