Alexa inwardly screamed at herself for adding the unnecessary final sentence. This had always been a problem. It wasn’t just first-day nerves; it was her pathetic inability to talk in a normal way to attractive men. It maddened her. She could devise a ten-million-pound business plan and execute it within a year, she could build websites and draw up cross-platform strategies, but she couldn’t have a normal conversation with a good-looking guy.
‘Yeah, we got the email.’ Riz moved a little closer, lowering his voice. ‘That caused a few ripples.’
Alexa tried to laugh, but nothing came out. The email. What had Peterson told them? How much did they know about the ultimate purpose of her secondment to Banter? The fact that the title’s future was in jeopardy would have been kept from the team, surely, in which case, why the ‘ripples’? She couldn’t think of a subtle way to ask.
Riz looked around the office. ‘You’re looking for a desk, I presume?’
Alexa nodded, still thinking about the email. ‘A desk would be good.’
He was wearing low-slung, casual jeans and a T-shirt, she noted, clocking his muscular shoulders as he headed off along the gangway. The trouser suit had been a mistake, she thought, cursing her lack of foresight. This was media; she knew how people dressed here. Why had she gone for the formal look?
Riz walked quickly to the far corner of the office and then stopped.
‘Hmm.’
Alexa followed, as speedily as her inappropriate high heels would allow.
Riz was squinting at one of the monitors on the last bank of desks, gently stroking the stubble on his chin.
‘I think . . .’ He grimaced. ‘I think the news desk might have got here first.’
Alexa drew level with Riz and then froze. On the desk in front of her, gleaming in the weak morning sunlight, was a black rubber dildo about four times the size of any she had seen in any shops. It rose up above her monitor like an obelisk.
‘Delightful.’ She managed a smile, but inside, she felt anxious. She could imagine it now, half a dozen grown men crowding round her desk like little school boys, smirking as they tried to agree on the optimal position.
Riz stepped forward and made as if to remove the offending article. ‘Shall I?’
Alexa nodded. ‘If you don’t mind.’
He lifted it off the desk and then looked around, surveying the mounds of paper and toys around them.
Alexa was about to suggest the nearest waste paper bin when she had a better idea.
‘Put it there,’ she instructed, clearing a space on the window sill next to her desk.
Riz looked at her. ‘You sure?’
Alexa nodded. ‘Yeah. It’s a lovely gesture, don’t you think?’
He smiled, slowly. ‘I see. Yes. Lovely.’
Alexa pulled out her chair and was only half surprised to find an A3 poster of a glamour model, spread-eagled, staring up at her with a wanton expression.
‘Am I to expect . . . quite a few of these little treats?’ she asked, unsticking the poster from her seat and folding it inside-out, only to find another image on the reverse, this one of a blonde on all fours.
He looked at her, one eyebrow raised. ‘You’re not at Hers any more.’
Alexa watched out of the corner of her eye as Riz returned to his desk, allowing herself a quick moment to wonder what might be going on two floors below. It was nearly half-past eight. Annabel would be sifting through the post in her slow, dreamy way, waiting for the kettle to boil for her herbal tea. Deirdre would be moaning about over-crowding on the Central line and Lily would be printing off knitting patterns. Riz was right; she wasn’t at Hers any more.
Logging on was a predictably slow, painful process that involved a multitude of error messages and three phone calls to the IT help desk. It was while she was on one of these calls that she realised she was being watched. The office had been slowly filling up with boisterous young men and until now, Alexa had kept her head down, waiting for a full house before she started to make her introductions. But it was becoming increasingly hard to ignore the man in his early thirties who was bearing down on her from across the desk. He had shoulder-length, oily brown hair and a small tuft of stubble at the base of his chin.
‘Oi oi!’ he cried, as she put down the phone.
‘Hi,’ she said, smiling up at the man. She couldn’t help thinking that he might be reasonably good-looking, if it weren’t for the hair or the goatee.
‘I’m Derek,’ he bellowed, despite the fact that Alexa’s ear was no more than a metre from his mouth. ‘And you must be our new managing director.’
He said the last two words slowly, with emphasis, as though expecting some kind of applause. Alexa looked over his shoulder and realised that, in fact, the deputy editor did have something of an audience. Half a dozen young men from the nearest bank of desks were looking over, smirking. Derek Piggott clearly had a following.
Alexa rose to her feet with what she hoped was a mixture of grace and poise, offering out her hand. It was only as she did so that she realised how incredibly short the man was. He couldn’t have been more than five foot six.
‘Alexa,’ she declared, as boldly as she dared. She had a feeling that Derek was not the type of man who liked to be talked down to, but there was little she could do about the practicalities of the situation.
‘Well,’ he replied loudly, having offered a surprisingly weak handshake. ‘I look forward to seeing your managing and your directing.’
She held his fake smile. This was bad. Already there was hostility between them and she had barely taken off her coat. Alexa wondered again about the contents of that email. Perhaps Derek felt that she was partly to blame for his demotion. He obviously saw her as some kind of threat.
‘I’m looking forward to working together to monetise all the great content you produce,’ she said calmly.
Alexa instantly regretted her choice of words. They were too condescending. She could see that in the way Derek turned his back on her, clearly pulling a face to the other members of the team and sitting back down at his desk, which, she realised with dismay, was the one diagonally opposite hers.
‘Oh,’ he said, in the same oratory tone. ‘Alexa, the kitchen’s down the corridor, on the left.’
There were sniggers from the nearby band of desks. Alexa could hear the laughter travel through the office like a wave. Her cheeks burned, her whole body starting to shake with a mixture of rage and embarrassment.
What was the appropriate response? The longer she stood there, the more she felt like a freak: tall and conspicuous, the butt of the joke. Sitting down now would be to concede defeat. She had to say something. But what? She didn’t understand the office dynamics yet. It seemed very much as though everyone looked up to the deputy editor. In her head, she could hear the voice of Miss Calder, her old English teacher: Do you find something funny? Hmm? Would you care to share the joke with the rest of the class? The last thing she wanted was to come across like Miss Calder.
Eventually, after what felt like hours of standing in mute panic, Alexa was saved. She didn’t need to say anything, because, she realised, nobody was looking at her any more. All heads had swivelled towards the peroxide blonde who was sashaying across the office in a pair of gold hotpants, stilettos and a push-up bra.
‘Hi,’ the girl purred, winking flirtatiously at the rather unattractive redhead on the near bank of desks and sliding into the seat next to Derek’s. Alexa