Shit.
I walked across the empty dance floor. The entire room was silent.
He knew I didn’t want to commit yet. Why had he done it? What did he think, that because everyone was here I’d be forced to agree?
Images of his slippers, pyjamas and cardigans spun around in my head.
I wasn’t ready to settle down into a quiet domesticated life. I wasn’t a dog to be sat with and stroked on the sofa every night. I wanted to live life, to see and do things I hadn’t done yet; to be allowed to go crazy when I wanted to.
I wanted to do lots of things. New things. Wild things.
I didn’t want to be sitting at home forced to look after the kids he wanted me to breed.
I hid in a cubicle in the toilet still trembling.
The door into the toilets opened. ‘Ivy.’
Milly.
The door into the toilets slammed shut behind her. ‘Are you okay?’
‘No.’ I opened the cubicle door. ‘Will you get my coat for me? I need to get out of here. I can’t stay with Rick. I can’t go home with him.’ My eyes filled with tears that ran on to my cheeks, probably smearing the mascara I’d so carefully applied before I came out. I wiped the tears away.
‘It’s okay. Wait here?’
Shit. Steve was his friend. If I went home with them, this was going to be so awkward. But I couldn’t go home with Rick.
Today, December 24th
The phone rang out its sixth ring. It was annoying me. Jack hadn’t come into work yet so the phone in his office wasn’t going to be answered. The answer machine would kick in on the next ring, like it had done four times in the last ten minutes. But whoever was calling hadn’t left a message and I was guessing it was the same person.
Oh bugger. I snatched up my phone and keyed in the number to pick up the call. Jack didn’t like his calls answered unless he’d transferred the calls to someone. But whoever it was wasn’t going to stop ringing and I wasn’t in the mood to listen to it. ‘J’s Advertising.’ I glanced at the clock; it was after twelve. Jack was really late. ‘Good afternoon. This is Ivy. How may I help you?’
‘It’s Sharon. Where is he?’
Shit. What did I say? I had no idea how my boss would like me to respond to the wife he was divorcing, and I had no idea where he was anyway. That was probably why he hadn’t transferred his phone to anyone. ‘Hello, Sharon. I’m sorry, he’s not in the office.’
‘Well, where is he, then? I want him to do something for me.’
I opened up his e-calendar to take a peek, although I didn’t plan on telling her. It said ‘private appointment’. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know. I’m afraid he hasn’t let anyone know.’
‘Well, tell him to call me when he does come in.’ The call was cut off, with no goodbye, and no thank you.
‘Who was it?’ Emma, Jack’s business partner, called over.
I turned and smiled at her. ‘Sharon.’
‘Oh.’
A couple of glances passed around the office.
Rumour had it that Sharon had caught him cheating. But that was Jack; he flirted constantly with clients, it was part of his winning sales approach. But Sharon had been as bad – and the two of them put together—
The door into the office opened. ‘Morning, all you lovely happy people!’
Talk of the devil.
‘Nice to see you all smiling at me, but not surprising, seeing as you’re about to get a few days off. I suppose you’re going to the pub after work.’
‘Aren’t you, then?’ Mark asked him.
‘No, I need to work on the Mack’s account, seeing as you are all finishing early.’ Jack said it with a smile. ‘But you can knock off at two, and have several on me, so you can get thoroughly drunk.’ He stopped at the desk near the door, pulled out his wallet, and selected two fifty-pound notes, which he let flutter down on to the table. ‘That should do for a few rounds.’
He shot a smile around the room, gave us a nod, then walked on.
He was a good boss in many ways. Fun-loving and a little crazy, even if he had tendency to be a control freak. He liked laughter and noise. He said laughter and noise had energy, and energy was inspiring, and as we were an advertising agency we needed to be inspired.
He was the thing that inspired me. He had magnetism. It was in his smile and his enthusiasm. He pulled me along like the Pied Piper of advertising and his levels of positivity gave me more energy.
‘The Mack’s account isn’t urgent! They don’t need the idea until mid-January! You can come for a drink!’ Emma called over as he walked into his office.
He turned and gripped the doorframe, leaning back out. ‘Thanks, but no thanks, Em. I’ll pass this year anyway.’
‘Jack Rendell passing on a drink…’ I said in a low voice.
He heard and looked at me. ‘Jack Rendell working late, now that is nothing different.’
‘No, that is true.’ I smiled at him. He had nice eyes; they were a very pale blue.
‘Good morning, Ivy.’ His gaze skimmed over my hair and my face, then settled on my eyes.
‘Good afternoon, Jack. You’ve missed an hour or two.’
He glanced up at the clock, then shrugged. ‘Yes.’
He was being weird today. He wasn’t himself. He was missing his usual exuberance.
‘Sharon called you. She asked me tell you to call her when you came in. She said there was something she wants you to do.’
‘Well, she can get lost and find another fool to do her chores, and if she calls again you can tell her I said that.’
I didn’t know how to answer. But he didn’t expect me to. He turned and went into his office, a glass walled box to one side of the room, then took off his coat.
When he hung it up on the coat rack in there the movement pulled his jumper up a little and his shirt out of his waistband, revealing a line of pale flesh. He was always well dressed, in designer clothes, mostly. Today he was wearing skinny-cut black trousers and a black pinstripe shirt beneath a burgundy jumper. The jumper was tight and I’d guess the shirt beneath it was fitted. From side on, his stomach was like a board. He was slender and muscular. He must spend hours in a gym at his house – or somewhere.
His hands slipped into his pockets and he walked over to the window, looking out at the view the office had of London. After a moment he turned around and caught me watching. He smiled. I smiled back and when he sat down I picked up my phone.
‘Jack,’ was all he said when he answered.
‘You don’t seriously expect me to get in the middle of your messy separation do you? Because I’m not up for that.’
He laughed. ‘Not if you can’t take a dozen rounds with Sharon; she fights hard and she has a cracking left jab.’ He sighed out a breath. ‘Okay, if she calls again put her through.’
‘Okay, but she was calling your phone.’
‘Then why did you answer?’
‘Because she kept ringing and it was annoying.’
‘Well,