Fiona Harper - Invitation to the Boss's Ball

She’d looked ridiculous. She wasn’t that girl—that frilly, sexy, pouting girl. She was Alice. And Alice looked like a big fat fake in that get-up. This time Coreen hadn’t been going to get her way. Alice had told her friend so in no uncertain terms, and then she’d reached for a tissue and wiped the lipstick off, leaving a wide red smudge on her cheek.

Once Coreen had got over the shock of being contradicted, she’d set to work again, agreeing that the full-on retro look maybe wasn’t for Alice, but a touch of vintage might add a little pizzazz to an otherwise dull department store outfit.

So here Alice stood, the result of makeover number two. Coreen had let her keep the looselegged chocolate trousers, as she’d said they flattered Alice’s shape and made her look like Katherine Hepburn, but she’d replaced the suit jacket with a collarless forties one in deep crimson tweed. Even Alice liked the fake fabric bunch of grapes in autumn colours that adorned the breast. She’s brushed out the ridiculous hairstyle and opted for a low, sleek ponytail, and had let Coreen add some lipstick in a berry shade that complemented both the jacket and her colouring.

It would have been madness to tell Coreen—it would only have made her even more incorrigible—but Alice did f eel smart and stylish, in a way that was uniquely her. At least she did until she reached the tall chipboard gates that barred her entrance to Cameron’s building. Now she was tempted to turn and run away on her chunkyheeled boots. She looked back down the road to where she’d parked her car.

‘Alice Morton?’

She spun round to find a gruff-looking builder eyeing her up and down through a gap in the gate.

‘Yes,’ she said, finding her voice unusually croaky.

He nodded towards the construction site. ‘This way,’ he said, and cracked the gate wider so she could pass through it. ‘The boss and some of the architects are inside. I’ve been told to take you to them. Oh—and you’ll need this.’

He jammed a bright yellow helmet on her head. Alice was relieved for the second time this morning that the quiff hadn’t stayed. She’d have been digging hair pins out of her scalp for weeks if it had still been there.

She clutched the old school satchel that held her drawings and ideas—Coreen had sworn it would make a funky alternative to a boring old briefcase—and followed the man along a path towards the new Orion building.

And then she looked up and her feet forgot to walk.

Wow.

CAMERON had said he wanted a ‘distinctive’ opening celebration, and now she saw why. These types of buildings had been considered ugly and out of fashion until relatively recently—left to crumble or bulldozed and replaced with yet another chrome and glass structure.

The building was a low rectangle, with maybe only three or four storeys—it was difficult to tell where the divisions lay, because the whole width of the building was filled with tall windows with horizontal panes, punctuated by plain white pillars and, in the centre, a fabulously ornate doorway that made her think of Greta Gabo films and Egyptian tombs all at the same time.

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