‘Of course I don’t! I’m not going all the way up to North Yorkshire to return his phone. I’ll do exactly what I thought from the start – post it to him. Problem solved. End of story.’ I reach over the desk and try to grab his phone from Daph’s hand but she pulls it out of my reach. ‘Give it here, I’ll text him for his address now.’
‘Oh no, you won’t.’ Zinnia appears in the doorway of Daphne’s office, sounding so much like a pantomime villain that I half-expect her to follow up with a rousing ‘it’s behind you’. How long has she been standing there again? Is her entire job description to lurk outside doorways and eavesdrop on the staff? How does a woman in four-inch heels move so silently?
‘What?’ Daphne and I say in unison. I absolutely do not feel that little flutter in my chest again.
‘Viral.’ Zinnia shoves her iPad into my hands. ‘Eighteen thousand views and counting. This is wonderful, Vanessa. Even better than I expected.’
My eyes scan the screen, unable to believe what I’m seeing. The page of statistics in front of me is a jumble of numbers and graphs, but sure enough, on the page views line, it says 18,267. That can’t be right.
‘This is an amazing story,’ Zinnia says. ‘I was telling my husband about it and even he was interested, and the most romantic thing he does is plunge the sink when it’s blocked. I couldn’t stop thinking about it while I was lying in bed last night, and our readers are obviously thinking the same. Look at the comments.’
I tap the screen to close the statistics and go back to the article, which I spent most of yesterday afternoon looking at when I was supposed to be fact-checking – surely most of these views are me? The social media sharing buttons along the bottom of the article have numbers showing the amount of times it’s been shared, and they’re all well into the thousands. There are a couple of hundred comments as well. Too many to take in. They’re all saying things like ‘OMG, don’t leave it there!’ and ‘I HAVE to know what happens next!’
This is unreal. Even Daphne’s articles don’t get this kind of response. This is what I’ve always dreamed about, but my dreams have never included writing something with even half this amount of comments and shares. I can’t believe this is happening.
‘I told you, didn’t I?’ Zinnia says excitedly.
Daphne and I share a wary glance. Zinnia getting excited is generally a sign of an impending apocalypse or something equally welcome. Even the Botox gives way to a slight forehead wrinkle.
‘This whole thing is like something from a film. It’s exactly the sort of feel-good story that everyone needs. And it’s only getting better. Now we’ve got the perfect phone call in which you discover you’ve got so many things in common, an adorable vintage carousel – carousels are romantic without even trying – and the invite to this idyllic little village …’
‘He didn’t invite me; it was a joke. He doesn’t actually want me to go.’ I feel like I’m repeating myself. ‘I’m just going to put the phone in the post—’
‘You’re going to Pearlholme.’ Zinnia doesn’t let me finish the sentence. ‘Yesterday I was planning on getting Daphne to write the second part, documenting your first meeting with the mysterious Train Man, but I didn’t expect this incredible response. People want the second part of your article and they want it now. Daphne’s too pregnant to be sending to some obscure little village in the back end of beyond. This is your story, Vanessa, and you’ve done well with the first part. You’ve captured the public’s imagination and I believe in rewarding good work where it’s due. It’s only right that you should be the one to write the rest of it.’
‘What’s the rest of it?’ I ask. I’ve got butterflies again for an altogether different reason now. This is amazing. Writing something that people connect with is what I’ve always wanted.
‘We’re going to run a massive campaign to find Train Man.’ The Botox makes Zinnia’s smile look more like a grimace.
‘He’s in Pearlholme,’ I say. ‘I’m sure it won’t be too difficult.’
‘Oh, we don’t worry about a little detail like that.’ She waves a dismissive hand. ‘Over the course of a few issues, we’re going to run a real-time crusade to find the mystery man. It guarantees repeat readers coming back for the next part. You’ve already started the ball rolling with that fantastic closing line, so in part two, we’ll publish some key clues to his identity and get our readers involved in discovering who he is. I’m picturing big, flashy “have you seen this man?” headlines. We’ll ask for their help in finding him. Of course, you’ll have already been to Pearlholme and found him by then, but we won’t tell them that. Now, I’ll have the shopping list and that photo of a carousel horse with his foot in it. They’ll make excellent titbits on the trail of breadcrumbs we’re starting, and I’m going to get the art department to mock up some “wanted” posters that we can start splashing all over social media.’
‘You can’t use his photos, you need permission.’ I know that because triple-checking photograph permissions is one of my most mind-numbingly boring jobs.
‘We’ll blur the photograph and change a few items on the shopping list. No one will ever know …’ She moves on without taking a breath. ‘You can write about how you’ve been hunting for him every morning on the train but haven’t seen him since, and then in part three you can tell all about this darling little village and meeting up with the gorgeous Train Man, and then for the final part, you can write about falling in love with him and living happily ever after, and we’ll end with a lovely photograph of you two together on the carousel as we finally reveal the identity of this mysterious carousel reconstructor and end with a perfect balance of old-time nostalgia and a modern feel-good happily-ever-after.’
‘What if I get there and he says, “Thanks for the phone. Have you met my wife?”’
‘He won’t,’ Daphne says. ‘Don’t forget, if he bought a pay-as-you-go phone then he paid for that call.’
I go to deny it, but it’s a nice thought. We did chat for ages last night, and it never occurred to me that he must’ve been paying for it by the minute.
‘You’re doing that smile thing again,’ Daphne says. ‘I can’t remember the last time I saw a smile like that on you. He must be really special.’
I force the corners of my mouth to turn downwards, which is harder than it looks. ‘My smile has nothing to do with him.’ I wave the iPad towards her, even though the screen has turned itself off by now. ‘And speaking of Nathan, what about him? He might not agree.’
‘Oh, we don’t worry about that either,’ Zinnia says. ‘Who cares whether he agrees or not? He’s just fodder for the article. You’ll keep him anonymous until the very last moment, by which time you’ll have made him like you enough to agree to the final unmasking.’
‘I’m not very good at making people like me.’
‘Well, I didn’t like you very much, Vanessa, but this wonderful story has certainly changed my opinion of you. But don’t you dare start worrying about him and what he wants. This is about you and what you want. You want a career writing features for us here at Maîtresse, don’t you?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then this has nothing to do with Nathan. You use him to get what you want. Keep him anonymous so it won’t affect him in any way. If the absolute worst comes to the absolute worst then we’ll hire a model who matches his description.’ She casts a critical eye over me from my frizzy hair to the scuffed toes of my shoes. ‘On second thoughts, maybe two models would be ideal to play the parts of Vanessa and Nathan, and then we won’t have to worry about your hair, that outbreak of blackheads on the side of your nose, or what he wants or doesn’t want. But we’ll cross that