I rushed over and started stroking the paintwork.
‘This is too much, Anya. You can’t go on spending all this money on me. It’s ridiculous.’
‘I didn’t spend a penny. Vell, only shipping costs. I drove it in an advertisement and the company said I should keep it. Who am I to argue? Especially ven I have a best friend whose dying ambition is to drive a red flashy sports car.’
I clasped my hands together with glee and started hopping up and down. I wriggled my fingers at Anya to bring her in for a hug. Anya, never good at showing affection, stood like an ironing board as I wrapped my arms around her thin frame and tried to swing her around.
‘I have the key.’ Her voice was muffled through my hair as I continued to hug her to me. ‘But it’s inside.’
I pulled away and looked deeply into Anya’s eyes.
‘It’s a fantastic present, darling. But I am worried about you. I hope you can talk to me about this man one day. You know? If you need to. I’m happy you’re in love and I want it to work out. Honestly I do.’
Her green eyes looked as though they might start to become glassy so I turned towards the house and linked her arm because I knew she wouldn’t want me to see her getting emotional.
‘Let’s go in,’ I said. ‘These are my last few days of freedom until my job starts on Monday morning. I’m sure you’ve got lots to tell me about your trip.’
Anya’s thin smile returned. She patted my hand. That would have to do as her gesture of gratitude for not probing her any further about the mystery man.
At nine o’clock on Monday morning I was outside the two-storey office building of A Shearman Leather Designs. I’d seen Cassandra, the sullen receptionist, unlock the door and step inside as I approached so I’d run to catch her up. Her response was to ignore my friendly, ‘Hi there,’ from a few doors down and to close the door in my face when I caught her up.
‘Wait, it’s me, Magenta. I work here now,’ I said, pushing open the heavy door with its frosted glass panels.
Cassandra turned and looked me up and down the way she had done a few days previously and strode across the marble hallway into reception. I followed, all smiles. She grunted and pulled the silk scarf from her neck and dumped it and her handbag onto the reception desk.
‘Er, Anthony told me nine o’clock,’ I blathered on regardless. ‘He did tell you he’d hired me?’
‘I gathered as much. I suppose he did the best he could.’ She looked down at my Jimmy Choos. I’d wondered if I’d gone for too high a heel when I got dressed earlier but the Emilia Wickstead day dress I’d bought the week before in her Sloane Street boutique just cried out for height. Maybe I’d overdone it. I towered over the stocky Cassandra and her neat, red bob.
On closer inspection I saw that her skin was flawless. Her fringe was cut to perfection and her thick-framed glasses gave her a superior air. But one look at her thin lips, pursed as tightly as they were, and I knew I wasn’t going to be her favourite colleague by a long mile.
What was her deal anyway? Had she wanted the job as PA? Who could tell? All I knew was that this woman didn’t like me and 365 days of having to work was going to be even tougher if I had to look at that miserable face for all of them. I felt as if I’d walked into a war zone, ill-equipped and unprepared to do battle with a pro like Cassandra.
‘Should I just go to my office?’ I said, sounding far too wet behind the ears. Cassandra pounced.
‘Well you won’t be much good standing there, will you?’
‘It’s just that Anthony didn’t show me where –’
Cassandra dragged herself out of her seat and brushed past me and out of the door. Again I followed her. She heaved her shoulders up and down with a loud tut that echoed in the wide space of the hallway. I trotted up the stairs behind Cassandra and followed very closely. So close in fact that when she stopped outside the door of an office on the top floor, I bumped into her.
‘Sorry,’ I said. She tutted again, opened the door and stood back to let me in.
The office faced the front of the building. It was fairly large but couldn’t really be considered plush. The chair wasn’t as fancy as the one in Anthony’s office, or in reception come to that, but the desk was large and so highly polished I could see my reflection when I put my bag onto it.
Other than a desk tidy and filing tray (empty) the room was quite bare and screamed out for a revamp. Obviously the last PA had no taste and I’d have to address that as my first task. I made a mental note to order in some plants for the windowsill, perhaps a couple of black and white prints for the wall and the wooden floor could possibly do with a rug of some sort. I was very sure I’d seen just the thing last time I was browsing in John Lewis for a vase. Oh and flowers – the office needed them.
‘Who’s your florist?’ I asked Cassandra. She looked at me blankly and went to leave.
‘Just a minute,’ I called to her. She stopped, not bothering to face me. ‘Have I done something to annoy you?’ I said to the back of her smooth bob.
Cassandra turned around slowly. I expected her face to be bright red and angry but instead she arched an eyebrow above her glasses and stared hard at me.
‘For your information, I did everything for the old Mr Shearman. I worked as his secretary and PA for fifteen years. It was my first job after leaving school at eighteen. I’ve worked all of my adult life – hard. I know what hard work is. I didn’t come here with a silver spoon in my mouth, a rich mummy and daddy and a sister who more or less called in every favour she could to get me here. No. Like I said, I worked hard. Mr Shearman never had a worry or a care and he has no idea what he’s letting himself in for allowing that dolt of a son of his to try to take over. He doesn’t know a leather belt from a briefcase or a sales report from a marketing budget.’
‘But you do, I suppose?’
Immediately Cassandra parroted what I said in a pseudo-posh accent.
‘Is that how I sound to you?’ I said crossing my arms. ‘Well pardon my middle-class upbringing. It doesn’t define me. You don’t know if I’m a hard worker.’ I wasn’t. ‘And you don’t know if I had help getting this job.’ I did. ‘In fact, you know nothing about me so don’t be so quick to judge.’
‘All I know is that someone who comes to work dressed as if she’s just walked out of a designer clothes shop doesn’t need a job as a PA.’
I opened my mouth to respond but Cassandra had walked out and I could hear her stomping her way downstairs followed by a loud bang of something or other landing on her desk. Maybe her boxing gloves. But I wasn’t about to take this lying down, not without a cappuccino anyway, so I stormed down after her. Cassandra whipped her head over to stare at me as soon as my first Jimmy Choo toe touched the reception floor. Her eyes bulged through her glasses at me. I faltered.
‘Um, I wondered where you kept the coffee things,’ I said in a soft voice. She pointed a finger, with a nail that could do with a good manicure, towards a door down the corridor and I followed her glare towards it.
I was seething as I entered what turned out to be a small kitchen. Round one had gone to Cassandra but she wasn’t getting away with treating me like that for the rest of my time here. She was judging me by my cover: posh accent, designer clothes. But I had to show her there was more to me than that. I mean, there was – wasn’t there? So I hadn’t worked my fingers to the bone exactly but then again I’d never had to. Was that my fault?
Carrying a cup of coffee past reception and up to my new office, I decided to keep my head down and keep out of Cassandra’s way for a while. Maybe in time she might come to like me. Maybe