Brigid Coady - Persuading Austen

‘No worries,’ she said, sliding past him.

She rushed off but couldn’t help glancing back to see the bloke still holding the door to Maggie’s open and watching her with an appreciative but calculating stare. She shook it off.

***

‘Champagne. Check. Custard tarts. Check. Frivolous French macarons, even the green pistachio ones. Check.’ Annie counted off the supplies onto Cassie’s desk. A pair of mismatched champagne flutes waited for the frothy contents.

Annie went to open the foil on the top of the bottle.

‘Hold on. I think we’re missing something?’ Cassie said.

Annie checked again. They had everything they needed. ‘What?’

Cassie winked and flourished a piece of paper in front of Annie.

It was the print-out of some emails.

Annie read it.

Then she read it again. Her hand trembled and the paper shook.

‘But …’ Cassie quickly rescued the champagne bottle that was in danger of dropping to the floor from Annie’s suddenly slackened fingers.

Annie knew that the black type were words. And she could read them all individually. In fact she could’ve read it out loud. What she was struggling with was actually comprehending what the email meant.

‘How come Eric Cowell wants me to be a producer as well as the production accountant?’ It was better to ask questions. Yes, questions and then maybe the reality would sink in.

‘I might have mentioned that Northanger was looking at expanding their expertise into producing.’

That wasn’t a complete lie. Cassie knew how much she wanted to take control and move into producing. All those long lunches and wine-soaked evenings when Annie had waxed lyrical about her ambitions.

But that had been about testing the waters with a small production, something under the radar. Not this. This was as if someone had taken her pipe-dream and put it on a course of steroids.

Could she do it?

‘And what is this?’ Annie’s trembling finger pointed at the paper. ‘The bit about Les Dalrymple offering Dad and Immy roles? They haven’t even read for him yet.’

This was unprecedented. She would have known if they’d had auditions. There was no way they would have kept it quiet.

‘He might have come across those audition videos you made them do for that Downton Abbey spin-off that never went anywhere …’ Cassie tried to look innocent.

‘How would he come across them …?’

Annie knew the videos had been sitting on the work server because she’d edited them during her downtime. But then they hadn’t been seen by the world ever since Dad had decided that Julian Fellowes was, as he said, ‘a horrible little tick’. This, of course, only after Julian hadn’t shown him quite the deference William Elliot expected was due of him at an awards ceremony.

‘They fell on an email?’ Cassie said trying to look innocent as she took off the wire and popped the cork. ‘And if we can keep your dad and sister sweet until the production is too far gone for them to be fired then we are good to go.’

The custard tart in Annie’s mouth suddenly tasted like ashes.

Her dream job that at any point could turn into the night terrors. Because having Dad, Immy, and Austen in the production was one huge perfect storm brewing. How the hell was she going to come out of it without drowning?

Chapter Four

‘Darling, I knew you wouldn’t forget your family.’ Immy engulfed her in a hug that smelled of exotic flowers that only bloomed at night. Annie knew how much the personalized scent cost down to the nearest ounce. It would’ve been cheaper to import the flowers in on a weekly basis. But it would be pointless asking Immy to change perfumes.

‘And why would Annie forget us?’ Dad said, as he adjusted his tie in the mirror over the mantelpiece.

Honestly, she thought, she wished she could forget. Life would be so much easier.

And more financially stable.

Annie watched as Dad and Imogen got ready to go out to celebrate their new roles.

They had invited Annie.

Eventually.

Even if she hadn’t known she was an afterthought, she did after Immy said, ‘I’m sure Carlo will be able to squeeze an extra chair at the table, but then we might not get the good spot …’ Immy’s forehead creased as much as it was able to.

Throw me a bone why don’t you, Annie thought. One day she was going to call them on all this. She was going to start sailing through life not giving a crap about them. Letting them sink or swim on their own.

Annie drifted off into a dream where she was an orphan. A dream where she knew exactly how much money was in the bank account because she was the only one who used it.

‘Annie.’ Imogen’s voice brought her back to the present with a bang. The world of Christmases spent alone in exotic locations popped like a balloon, catapulting her back into her real life.

‘Yes,’ she said, the taste of a fruity cocktail fading on her tongue.

‘As you’re going to be on this shoot anyway, Daddy and I have decided that it would be nice if you took care of us while we’re on location.’

Took care of them?

Any thoughts Annie had of keeping her personal and professional life separate whilst on this job were shot out of the sky by a Messerschmitt and went twirling in a smoky tailspin to the ground.

‘Look, Immy, I’m going to be working on this shoot. I have two jobs already. Accountant and producer. I’m not there to look after you and Dad.’

Imogen patted Annie’s cheek with her manicured, soft hand. The feeling of the palm against her skin made Annie cringe. Should she tell Immy that her hands were clammy with moisturizer?

Or maybe Annie was cringing because she was yet again being treated as if she meant nothing. As if she were a pet to be patted on the head and then ignored.

‘Whatever, darling; Daddy, we need to go.’

And in a flurry of clicking heels and ciaos, they were gone leaving Annie in a fog of exotic scent and anger.

Why couldn’t she tell them no?

The whisper of her mother’s voice was in her ear: ‘Promise me, Annie. Promise to look after them.’

Annie stood in the hall, her chest heaving with all the unsaid words she wanted to shout. Her throat choked by familial feelings.

This had to stop. She needed to make a stand.

***

‘What the hell?’ Annie poured the rest of the white wine from the bottle into her glass.

Taking a stand meant Annie needed to figure out the family finances. Ever since Mum died, she had been the one who managed everything. At first because Marie was too young, Immy had stuck her face in a pile of drugs and Dad, well he’d just let her.

Which was why Annie was sitting downstairs in the kitchen. She shifted as her bum was going numb on a rickety kitchen chair and her laptop wobbled slightly on the uneven surface of the table.

She took a massive gulp of wine and rubbed her eyes.

There should have been enough in the family’s account for the next mortgage payment. Everyone’s salary went in, the big bills were paid, and then everyone got an allowance in their own account. Annie had come up with the system and with a few tweaks it worked.

But now she was sitting looking at the statement on the bank’s website and it had a very different figure than it should have, a much lower amount than the one her spreadsheet said should be there.

Hadn’t she taken Immy and Dad’s cards away that linked to this account? They weren’t allowed access ever since she found Dad had left the card behind the bar at a pub and charged the whole of a wrap party’s tab to it.

Annie downed the rest of the glass, her lips pulling back as the acidity hit her tongue. She squinted at the website. Slowly she scrolled through the past month’s transactions. Her salary had gone in last Monday and almost immediately it had nearly all gone.