‘Here’s the thing,’ Ted stopped short in front of one of six identical plywood doors. ‘We’ve already got a show for you. PodPad signed an incredibly talented person and they have the potential to be massive but they need the right producer to help them. Someone creative, someone who isn’t afraid to take risks, someone who can get a brilliant show out of a brilliant mind.’
‘And I’m that producer?’ I asked, a little surprised but pleasantly flattered.
He clicked his tongue and shot at me with double-finger guns.
‘So,’ I said, bracing myself against the sudden drop in temperature. Downstairs was much colder than upstairs. ‘Who is the incredibly talented person and why are we in the basement?’
‘This is where the studios are, soundproofing, yeah?’ He opened the door to a tiny, dark, dingy room and suddenly I was very nostalgic for the home comforts of my shed. ‘And you’re not going to believe it when I tell you. It’s insane that we’ve been able to get him, totally mad. Even I can’t believe we got him and I’m the one who signed the massive cheque for the bastard. He’s a genius. And not a book genius, like, a proper genius normal people have heard of.’
My heart began to pound and not just because I was incredibly claustrophobic. Here it was at last, my opportunity to put myself on the map, show everyone what I could do, working with a non-book genius. Who could it be? Lin-Manuel Miranda? The Rock? Anyone but Kanye.
‘OK, the anticipation is killing me,’ I said, watching Ted flick six switches on at the wall only to see half as many bulbs light up. ‘Who is it?’
He sat down in a beaten-up leather office chair that had been patched up with duct tape one too many times and grinned. ‘He’s an athlete.’
‘David Beckham?’ I guessed, heart pounding. I couldn’t do it to Posh and the kids obviously but a feverish flirtation would probably be morally acceptable.
‘Bigger,’ Ted grinned.
‘Roger Federer?’
‘Even bigger,’ he replied, eyes closed and hands up in the air, ready to conduct an invisible orchestra. ‘It’s Snazzlechuff.’
It was at that precise moment I realized I had followed a man I did not know into a soundproofed basement with no idea about his mental state and, to make matters worse, I was wearing shitty kitten heels that would never in a million years be able to penetrate his skull if I needed to use them as a weapon.
‘Excuse me?’ I said, very politely.
‘It’s Snazzlechuff,’ Ted repeated. ‘Snazzle. Chuff.’
‘Are you having a seizure? Should I get help?’ I asked, looking around for signs of human life besides the two of us. I knew I shouldn’t have listened to Murdered to Death on the train to work.
‘You’ve never heard of Snazzlechuff?’
I shook my head as I calculated my best possible route of escape. Probably bash him in the head with my backpack, bolt back upstairs, grab one of the free beers and launch myself through the plate-glass window.
‘He’s literally the most famous person in the entire world,’ Ted said, not even trying to hide the disdain on his face. ‘He’s got the most successful gaming channel in history, more than 15 million followers across all platforms and you’ve never even heard of him?’
He shoved his phone in my face, waving it around until I grabbed it out of his hands.
‘This is him?’
Ted nodded.
‘Why’s he got a dog’s head?’
The picture in front of me showed a skinny body, clothed head to toe in a bright red tracksuit, with an enormous Wes-Anderson-looking Dalmatian’s head on its shoulders.
‘He always wears a mask,’ Ted explained. ‘It’s part of his mystique.’
‘What’s his real name?’
‘No one knows,’ he replied, waving his fingers around and making spooky noises. ‘He’s an enigma.’
‘You said you signed his cheque?’ I said as I swiped through the photos. ‘Surely that had his name on it?’
‘Cheque went to his agent.’
‘I thought you said he was an athlete?’ I said, deflating by the second. Bye-bye David Beckham, farewell Roger Federer, see you in my dreams. Both at the same time, hopefully.
‘He’s an e-sports athlete,’ he explained. ‘He’s a god on YouTube.’
‘Then that explains it,’ I replied, folding up my dreams of a workplace romance and storing them neatly next to my Ted-might-be-a-serial-killer anxieties. ‘I’m not really a YouTube woman.’
He sat forward and peered at my forehead.
‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty-two but very dehydrated,’ I said, tossing my hair to cover as much of my face as possible. ‘So, when am I meeting this superstar? Is he here?’
‘Course not,’ he answered. ‘It’s Wednesday, he’s at school.’
It just got better and better.
‘How old is he, Ted?’ I asked.
My new boss scratched his stubble thoughtfully. ‘I want to say fifteen but he could be a tall twelve. It’s very hard to tell with kids these days, isn’t it?’
‘It is,’ I agreed readily, wondering whether or not I could drive the heel of my shoe through my own temple if I was truly dedicated to the act.
‘He’s not like a normal kid though,’ Ted assured me. ‘He’s clever. And funny! So it doesn’t matter that you’re not.’
I looked around the studio, such as it was. Cheaply painted dark grey walls covered in black soundproofing, like foam egg boxes that had been dipped in tar, flickering fluorescent overhead lights and a filthy sheet of glass that separated the producer’s bay from the recording booth. It was covered with so many handprints it looked as though it had recently been used to reenact that scene in the back of the car in Titanic. God forbid I ever turn a black light on the room, I thought to myself. The whole place was crying out for an anti-bac wipe. Or a nuclear blast. One or the other.
‘If I’m being totally honest with you, I haven’t really done anything like this before,’ I said, tugging at the sleeve of my smart white shirt. ‘Not that I’m not up for the challenge but it isn’t something I have a lot of experience in. You’re all right with me learning on the job?’
Ted waved away my concerns with an unmoved ‘pfft’.
‘Mate,’ he replied, even though we were not mates. ‘If you can make books sound interesting enough for people to tune into your show, think what you’ll be able to do with a genuinely fascinating subject like e-sports!’
‘You really mean that, don’t you?’ I asked, glancing around the studio-slash-dungeon one more time.
‘I most certainly do,’ he said with a grave nod. ‘You’re welcome.’
‘And this is only the studio? I don’t have to stay down here all the time?’ I asked, afraid I already knew the answer. ‘My desk’s upstairs, right?’
‘Thing is,’ Ted sucked the air in through his teeth like he was about to tell me my carburettor needed replacing. ‘We’re short on desks at the moment. But you can do a bit of decorating if you like? With your own money.’
He rapped his knuckles on the desk and its loosely attached drawer crashed to the floor.
‘We can probably get you a new one of those,’ he muttered, kicking it away as I held my breath.