Lindsey Kelk - I Heart London

I nursed my coffee as though it were the Holy Grail. As long as I had coffee, this would all be OK. ‘Tuesday?’ I tried not to cry. Again. ‘As in four days from now?’

‘You’re going to be totally fine,’ she soothed from across the office. ‘All you have to do is go in and give the presentation you’ve already given a thousand times to, what, three people? This is a formality. This is a hoop for us to jump through.’

I pouted. So she went on.

‘People are already predisposed to be nice to you because their boss has told them to be.’ I could tell she’d already switched into business mode and that meant she had no time to pander to my insecurities. When Delia turned on her monitor and started tapping away at her keyboard, she was almost never on Facebook. ‘You’re going to be amazing. You’ve been amazing so far, haven’t you?’

In all honesty, I thought, so far I had been a liability. Sure, I could sing my own praises with regards to the creative side of things. I was happy enough to say I was a good writer, I had good contacts and great ideas and was perfectly capable of stringing together an attractive sentence. But in meetings? Not so much. First, there was my uncontrollable tendency to be massively overfamiliar with everyone I met. Within fifteen minutes of our first meeting with Trinity’s global marketing director, I was merrily telling him about my adventures with my junior school’s guinea pig, Alex’s terrible haircut and my intense love for Les Misérables . He’d only asked if I’d had a nice weekend. My mouth had a tendency to run away with itself. And that was before we took into consideration turning up to meetings barefoot, outing celebrities, almost blogging myself out of the love of my life and getting into catfights on stage at music festivals in France.

I had enjoyed quite the career.

‘You’re doing it, Angela.’ Delia closed the conversation with her final say-so. ‘And besides, this will give you a day away from your parents. That’s got to be good news, hasn’t it?’

She really was a very bright girl.

The rest of the day was spent obsessively reading over the Gloss publishing presentation, making to-do lists and ignoring text messages from my mother. I was booked on the 9.25 p.m. flight back to London. Alone. For all Jenny and Alex’s promises of supporting me through my family reunion, neither of them was able to fly in with me. Jenny, having remembered that she actually had a job, had to manage an event for Erin and was flying out tomorrow. Alex had studio time booked to record live sessions for iTunes or B sides or something else band-related that I couldn’t quite remember and was coming on Monday.

To be fair, I was struggling with everything I’d been told for the last five days because the only thing I could think about was London. One minute, I’d be super-excited about going. Share Topshop with Jenny, hug my dad, sniff Louisa’s baby, generally show Alex off like a shiny new toy. But then I’d remember the flipside. For every trip to Topshop, there would be a cup of stewed tea with Aunt Sheila. For every dad hug, there would be a passive-aggressive dig from my mum. For every sniff of the baby, there would be a shitty nappy, and it was going to be very hard to show Alex off if my mother poisoned him five minutes after he’d entered the house. And given her cooking skills, she might not even do it on purpose. Of course, there was a chance everyone would just be happy to see me, and my mum would hand me the biscuit tin and forget that I hadn’t been home in two years. There was just as much chance that the house would be picked up in a tornado during the night and dropped on top of a witch in the wonderful world of Oz.

As the office clock ticked towards five, I kept looking at my phone, waiting for the car service to buzz. So far I’d had five texts from Louisa detailing how very excited she was that I would be back on British soil in twenty-four hours, three texts from Jenny asking whether or not she should pack her Jimmy Choo over-the-knee boots, and one from my mum and dad confirming that it was supposed to rain so I should bring a coat. And if I didn’t have a coat, I should get a coat.

I was looking longingly out of our twenty-fifth-storey window at the bright spring sunshine when my phone buzzed into life. The car was here. The end was nigh.

‘Want a hand with your bags?’ Delia piped up from her corner. I looked up and considered throwing myself on her mercy, begging her not to let me go, but it was no use. Not only had Delia been very vocal on the subject of me ‘reconciling’ with my mother all week, but she was now one hundred percent committed to me giving this presentation in London. I’d have more chance appealing to her twin sister’s good nature.

‘I’ve got them.’ I closed down my laptop, heaved myself up out of my chair, grabbed my notepad off the desk and tossed them both into my satchel. It groaned with the weight, echoing my sentiments.

‘What exactly do you have in there anyways?’ she asked as she stood up, offering a hug in commiseration. ‘It looks like you’re packed for a month.’

‘I have every item of clothing I own,’ I explained, heaving the bags along the plush carpeting. ‘And as many bags of peanut-butter M&Ms as I could pack. And a shit-ton of Tide pens for my mum. I feel like she’ll like Tide pens.’

‘Good call,’ she said, hugging me quickly and shoving me towards the door. ‘Even my mom loves Tide pens, and she hasn’t as much as looked at laundry her entire life.’

I bit my lip and shook my hair out from behind my ears. ‘It’ll be OK, won’t it?’ I asked.

‘You can call me any time,’ Delia assured me, arms folded in front of her. ‘You’re going to kill at the presentation.’

‘Weirdly, I’m not so worried about the presentation any more,’ I muttered. I wanted to get changed. I shouldn’t be wearing jeans. My mum hated it when I wore jeans. And I should have tied my hair up, she never liked it down. And all in the space of ten seconds, I’d regressed ten years.

‘Your mom is just going to be happy to see you,’ she replied, holding open the door while I shuffled through. ‘You’re going to be surprised.’

I pressed the glowing grey button to call the lift and looked back over my shoulder. ‘Well, yes,’ I nodded. ‘That’s pretty much a given.’

Obviously, my taxi did not get stuck in traffic and my flight was not delayed. As if that wasn’t bad enough, when I got to JFK airport I discovered Alex had upgraded my flight. What a bastard. Before I could even think to tell someone I had a bomb in my shoe or fake a panic attack, I was on the plane and downing tiny glasses of champagne like they were going out of fashion. I swiped at the screen of my iPhone and reread Alex’s last text. ‘Be calm, be cool, don’t punch anyone and I’ll see you Monday. Love you.’ I closed down the screen and closed my eyes. Easier said than done, Reid.

‘Is there anything I can get for you?’ A tall, blonde flight attendant in a smart red suit smiled at me in the dim cabin lighting.

‘Oh, no, thank you,’ I hiccupped. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Just let me know if there’s anything at all.’ She rested her hand on my shoulder very briefly and then disappeared, presumably to tell the rest of the crew it was OK, I wasn’t going to drink them dry.

I had planned on sleeping through the flight, but I already knew I was too restless. Every time I closed my eyes, something started niggling. I’d spent the first couple of hours going over and over and over my presentation for Gloss . I’d spent the next hour eating peanuts. And then I’d gone over the presentation again. And I couldn’t quite get my head round how much had changed since I’d flown the other way, out of Heathrow. I was proud of myself, I was. Two years ago, I’d been scared and alone and entirely directionless. Now I was so close to realizing so many dreams. Which didn’t stop me being scared. The more you have, the more you have to lose.