Lindsey Kelk - I Heart Forever

‘You mean Irene,’ I corrected with a sigh. ‘Fine, I’ll do it.’

Classic. Everyone else gets to fly to LA and Paris and I get to wake up in the middle of the night to interview a model about her Snapchat. The joys of being in charge.

‘OK, this is a fun one. You know Generation Gloss is coming up.’

For the past three years, we’d hosted an interactive reader event at the Market Design centre in Manhattan. A weekend of panels, makeovers, tutorials, meet and greets and general shenanigans that were made all the more stressful by the hangover everyone always had after the opening-night party.

‘The event is all taken care of, but I need someone to manage the party,’ I said, and offered the team a pleading smile. Every year previously we’d handed the whole thing over to an events production company but this year, unless there was an events production company that enjoyed working for literal peanuts, that was not an option. Yay, budget cuts.

‘We’re keeping the costumes so everyone needs to dress up as something,’ I said, scanning my notes. ‘Nothing says circulation increase like Kanye West in a toga.’

Jason shuddered at the end of the table.

‘But who doesn’t like organizing a party? It’s all but done, to be honest, I just need someone to take over now it’s a couple of weeks away, liaise with the sponsors, secure VIPs. All the fun stuff. Any volunteers?’

Silence. Either everyone had a mouth full of donut or the entire team had decided their job was done once they’d congratulated themselves on last week’s work.

‘Really, no one?’ I tried again. ‘Who could turn this down? Celebs, fashion, big massive piss-up, there’s even a free frock in it for you. Seriously, no one?’

‘I’ll do it.’

Oh, sweet baby Jesus, no.

Cici looked at me, blinking behind her clearly non-prescription lenses. Her eyes were enormous, it was all very unnerving.

‘I’ll do it,’ she repeated.

Well, bugger me backwards, Bob.

‘You … it’s … you want to?’

I tried to make eye contact with anyone else at the table and got nothing. What a bunch of absolute arseholes.

‘I said I’ll do it.’ She tapped her fingernails against her phone, two tiny red spots blooming in her cheeks. ‘So, can we move on?’

‘Let’s move on,’ I nodded, flicking my pen against my notepad and trying to work out how to make it look as though every single member of my staff had suffered mysterious accidents in the same week. ‘Thanks, Cici.’

‘You’re welcome,’ she said, almost smiling.

Taking a deep breath, I looked back down at the agenda, attempting to focus. If this was karma’s idea of making things up to me for the Monday I’d had, karma had a very dark sense of humour.

Later that afternoon I was drowning in admin, the least exciting part of my job. You never saw Miranda Priestly going through everyone’s expenses and yet, here I was, trying to work out whether or not I’d get fired for allowing my news editor to expense three muffins. A knock at the door drew my attention away from the pile of Starbucks receipts and up to a tall, obscenely handsome man, glaring at me through the glass.

‘So help me god, if you’re a stripper …’ I stood up, pulled my skirt down and scuttled over to let him in. ‘I warned you about this last time, Lopez.’

‘Angela?’ he asked in a crisp, clean voice.

‘Yes?’ I nodded, scanning him for a boom box, bottle of baby oil or Velcro strips on the seams of his trousers. They seemed sturdy enough.

‘We have a four thirty,’ he replied, stern features relaxing into an almost smile. ‘I’m Joe Herman, the new director of women’s brands.’

The smile on my face went blank and my lips pressed together until they were nothing more than a thin, pale line in the middle of my face. Joe? This was Joe? Joe was a man? A giant, handsome man? And definitely not a woman or a stripper?

‘Shit,’ I said sweetly. ‘I mean, yes, of course we have. Come on in.’

Flinging the door open, the reinforced glass hit my filing cabinet with a sickeningly loud crack just as Joe stepped into my office.

‘Don’t worry about that,’ I insisted, skipping past him in my high heels so I could clear some space on my desk. ‘It won’t break. We changed it to reinforced glass after the second time I smashed it. Now, can I get you a drink or anything?’

Joe shook his head, considered the two seats in front of him, and reluctantly sat down.

‘That’s a coffee stain,’ I said, watching as his eyes lingered on the other empty seat. ‘We’re going to get it cleaned. Someone spilled coffee yesterday.’

Someone quite clearly meaning me.

‘I’m not interrupting anything?’ Joe asked, pulling an iPad out of a handsome leather briefcase and ignoring my explanation entirely. ‘I’m still getting to grips with the scheduling system here. My assistant has had some trouble synching my calendar with everyone else’s.’

‘The calendar system is a bit rubbish,’ I fibbed as I checked my schedule, which I had never, ever once had a problem with. ‘Sometimes things don’t copy over, but you’re not interrupting at all.’

There it was, clear as day in the schedule: 4.30 p.m. – meeting with Director of Women’s Brands, JHerman@spencermedia.com. Nowhere did it mention that JHerman was a Joseph and not a Josephine. That would have been good information to have.

‘Sorry, we’re always a little bit hectic around here. Or I am at least, everyone else is great. I’ve been a bit scatty this week, actually. The other morning I couldn’t remember if I’d left my straighteners on and had to go back home to check, and of course I hadn’t, but you know how it is.’

I gestured towards his perfectly straight, swept back blond hair. There was no way it was behaving that well without help; the humidity gods of New York simply wouldn’t allow it.

‘I don’t straighten my hair,’ he said quietly.

‘Of course not, sorry,’ I replied. What a liar. ‘Not that there would be anything wrong with it if you did.’

‘But I don’t,’ he repeated.

‘Noted,’ I nodded. ‘Sorry.’

‘Please stop apologizing.’

‘Sorry, I mean, of course. Yes.’ I sucked in my bottom lip and took a deep breath in. ‘Sorry.’

He dispensed with his starter smile and opted for a more professional semi-grimace.

‘Angela.’

‘Joe.’ I clicked my fingers and pointed at him with the double guns. If it was good enough for Bob Spencer, it was good enough for Angela Clark. ‘Shoot.’

‘So, Gloss .’ He crossed his legs, his perfectly tailored, charcoal grey trousers straining against some impressively chunky muscles. Not that I was looking. Well, yes, I was looking, but only in the sense that I had eyes and because he was sat in front of me, not because my husband had nicked off on a two-month, long-distance vacay and sometimes you’re only human, goddamnit, and really, they were very big legs and—

‘Angela?’

I looked up to see him staring at me across the table. My beloved, if poorly ageing Alexander Skarsgård poster rolled its eyes at me from its spot on the wall behind him.

‘Sorry, I thought there was going to be more to the question,’ I said, snapping to attention. ‘ Gloss , that’s us. We’re really excited about the new strategy.’

If there was one thing I’d learned about corporate life in the last few weeks, it was ‘when in doubt, bullshit’. I’d originally been introduced to the concept as ‘fake it ’til you make it’ but I soon realized it wasn’t so much faking it as talking whatever absolute shite the other person wanted to hear until they went away and left you alone.