‘So, you’ve come straight from work, Georgia?’ My mum nodded at what I was wearing: my creased work skirt, two-day-old blouse that now had both an ink stain and a coffee stain on the cuff and my Kelli-inspired, emo make-up.
‘Yeah, sorry. I’d planned to go home first but I –’
‘You were running late,’ she butted in, and then sighed. ‘Well it’s so nice to finally get to have a proper catch-up with you. Although, I have to say, you are looking a little peaky, love.’
‘I, erm, tried out a new make-up look today; don’t think I’ll be doing it again,’ I said, brushing crumbs from my lap. ‘So anyway, happy birthday, Dad.’ I raised my glass of Chianti and pecked him on the cheek, smelling his familiar scent of clean linen and tomato plants. ‘Your present’s in the post,’ I lied. Well, half lied. As soon as I got home I’d order something super-duper online to be delivered as soon as possible.
‘Seeing you is the only gift I need.’ He ruffled my hair. ‘Now tell us everything. It’s been ages since we’ve seen you, pet; how’s it all going? You’re not working too hard I hope?’
‘Well, you know the first year of any new business is always a little tough, but we’re fighting our corner of the travel market and even making a small profit.’ I winked, feeling a warm glow inside of me. This was why I worked my bloody socks off: to get results.
‘That’s excellent news.’ My dad grinned and chinked his glass to mine.
‘What about outside of work? Any men on the scene we should know about? I always thought you and Ben would make such a lovely couple. With your intelligence and his dark brown eyes the children would be like genius supermodels.’
‘Mum!’ I hurriedly wiped the dribble of crimson wine from my chin.
‘What?’ She innocently shrugged. ‘Don’t be so busy working that you forget to have fun, Georgia.’
‘I do have fun.’ I half pouted, ignoring her as well as trying not to gag at the smell trailing an overweight man who’d just squeezed past us coming out of the toilets. ‘I’m having fun right now.’
‘Coming out tonight for your dad’s birthday doesn’t count. It’s not like you’re going to meet the man of your dreams in here,’ my mum tutted.
‘I have to say I agree, pet.’ My dad jerked his head to the male bogs before laughing.
‘I haven’t got time for all that at the moment.’ I wafted my hands around, wishing the waitress would hurry up with our mains and take the attention away from what a failure I was in every area other than my career. No way did I want my feelings about Ben bubbling to the surface, not when I’d tried so hard over the last few months to keep them neatly locked in a box marked do not open.
‘Hmm, well we’re worried about you, that’s all,’ my mum said, gently placing a hand on mine. ‘When you came back from your travels you were so fired up about this business idea and it is great it’s working so well. Really it is.’ She sighed. ‘But, Georgia, you need to be careful it isn’t taking up all of your time.’
I pulled my hand away, took a big gulp of wine, and smiled at her. ‘I told you I’m fine.’
My mum kept her eye on me and raised an eyebrow before slowly nodding. ‘So, how’s Marie? And little Cole? It’s been ages since we’ve seen him; I bet he’s growing up so fast.’
‘They’re fine …’ I said, thinking about my best friend and her son. ‘I’ve not seen them for a while but you know how it is, she’s doing her thing and I’m doing mine. I’ll give her a call soon.’
‘Well when you do please say that your dad and I said hi.’
‘I will, I promise. So how have you spent the rest of your birthday? Get any nice presents?’ I asked my dad, wanting to change the conversation and quickly. There was something about being around my parents that made me revert to being a sulky teenager, not wanting to talk about boys – or at least this one boy in particular.
‘Well yes. Your mother here outdid herself this year with this top-of-the-range digital radio.’ The laughter lines around my dad’s eyes crinkled as he spoke. ‘You should see it, Georgie. I can tune into radio shows I never even knew existed before. I mean, what will they think of next?’
I was listening to him tell me about how he was listening to a gardening talk show hosted by a man called Wayne in Dorset, when my phone buzzed. ‘Sorry, I need to take this. Hold that thought; I’ll only be a minute.’ I got up, trying not to bang my head on the eaves we were sat under to answer it.
‘Oh right, OK.’ My dad nodded sadly.
I quickly headed outside, walking out of the warm cosy restaurant into the chill of the spring wind so I could hear the caller better. I had completely forgotten I’d scheduled a late call with Dan Milligan, head of sales for the leading travel magazine Itchy Feet. I’d been working on trying to secure some advertising space with them as I’d noticed all our competitors had super-snazzy, full-paged ads and whatever they could do we could do better.
‘Evening. Georgia Green speaking,’ I said in my poshest phone voice, hoping the fading sound of sirens wouldn’t be too noticeable.
‘Hey, Georgia, Dan here. I wanted to give you a call ‘cause, as you know, today’s the last day for advertisers to bag space in the next issue. I’ve got a cracking deal that I may be able to sort out for you.’
He then launched into a rehearsed sales pitch covering readership numbers and other figures I didn’t fully understand but that sounded impressive before taking a dramatic pause.
‘So … as we’re really keen to include up-and-coming tour operators in the mag, keep it fresh and bang up to date you know, we could do you a half- or full-page ad for …’ he paused again ‘… forty per cent less than the usual price.’
‘Wow, that’s a lot less than I’d expected.’ I coughed in surprise.
He let out a cheesy, game-show-host-style laugh. ‘The thing is, I can offer it to you at this price as we are literally down to the wire, meaning I will need that information, like, pronto. It has to get off to the printers ASAP, if you know what I mean?’
‘Tonight? It can’t wait until tomorrow?’ I glanced at my watch. I’d have to leave my dad’s birthday dinner to rush back and quickly knock something up. Plus it would mean not running this past Ben first. Surely they could wait until tomorrow morning?
‘No can do. I’m already stalling things ‘cause I wanted to offer this heavily discounted rate to you. We’re basically giving this away!’
I stayed silent thinking it through; even with the cheaper price it was still a huge chunk of our advertising budget.
Dan must have sensed my apprehension. ‘You know, I do have Totally Awesome Adventours waiting to hear from me too. I wanted to offer you first refusal but I know as soon as I get off the phone to you they’ll snap this offer up.’
Usually Ben was in charge of the advertising budget but this was too good a deal to resist; I’d have to apologise to my dad but I was sure he’d understand. I took a deep breath.
‘Yeah, great, let’s go for it. Count us in.’
‘Excellent. Let me make some calls and I’ll bell you back to confirm. Once that’s done then I’ll need your copy in the next hour.’
‘You have my word.’ I smiled to myself and hung up.
I’d lost track of time. My arms were covered in goosebumps and my teeth were chattering, but I’d managed to bag us a full-page coloured ad in the next issue. I couldn’t wait to tell Ben. OK, so he may go a little mental at how much of the advertising budget I’d just blown in the space of five minutes, but I was convinced it was the right thing to do.
Things were really taking