Across the island, Shona lowered her glass from her lips and nursed it in both hands. Very, very slowly, I reached out for the carving knife and placed it in the sink behind me.
‘Victoria was crap,’ she said in a crisp voice, never taking her eyes off me. ‘Compared to me. Compared to most other people in the industry, she was brilliant.’
‘OK.’
I wished I could have recorded that and sent it to Vic. It might have made up for the time Shona emailed the entire office asking them not to eat snacks in front of her because she’d just joined Weight Watchers and we should all support her in her weight-loss journey. It was just about the nicest thing she’d ever said about anyone.
‘But you won’t get that job, Maddie. So don’t embarrass yourself by applying for it.’
For some reason, it seemed as though I had suddenly decided to stop breathing. What?
‘You’re a decent assistant, Maddie, but there’s a lot to learn and a long way to go. You know I’m not an event planner, I’m—’
She cued me to complete the line.
‘An experiential architect,’ I said, trying not to be sick in my mouth.
‘An experiential architect,’ she confirmed. ‘And let’s be honest, you’re not cut out for management, are you? I know I can say that to you without hurting your feelings because we’ve known each other for such a long time.’
Too long, some might say.
‘If you were working for anyone else, I’m not sure they would have been as patient as me,’ she said, raising her glass and sipping. ‘I’m so used to you, it’s like I hardly notice how you let me down me sometimes.’
I didn’t say anything, I just nodded.
‘I mean, you’d have to apply like everyone else, submit your CV, interview with Mr Colton,’ Shona’s eyes sparkled at the very thought. ‘And to be honest, he’s so totally threatened by me, your being my assistant for so long would probably go against you.’
‘It would?’
‘That’s if they even gave you an interview,’ she said, wincing at the very thought. ‘I know everyone likes you, and your job must seem like a lot of fun, but moving up would mean a lot of responsibility. You would literally have to be me.’
I’d have to lose three stone, fuck up my hair and start taking motivational tips from Darth Vader first.
‘Don’t overreach, Maddie. When you shoot for the moon, you end up with your face in the mud.’
I blinked several times and gently reminded my lungs that I needed them to work for me to go on living. They weren’t convinced. It had been a bloody long day.
‘I thought it was reach for the moon and you might land amongst the stars?’ I said. ‘Isn’t that the saying?’
‘To be in the stars, you’ve got to be a star.’ Shona gave me a sharp, kindly look. ‘Do you feel like a star, Maddie?’
I looked down at my slightly too-small-across-the-bust shirt, knee-length black skirt and nana-approved shoes. I did not feel like a star. I felt like a girl at the end of year nine who has grown out of her school uniform but her mum doesn’t want to buy her a new one until September.
‘Do you know what −’ she slipped off her stool in her three-inch black patent heels and sleek grey dress and knocked back the dregs of her drink without so much as a champs shiver − ‘why don’t you take the rest of the night off? No point in having an assistant around if her head’s not in the game anyway, is there? I’d only spend all night worrying and double-checking.’
I wasn’t sure how I’d managed to be so thoroughly insulted and abused but still get away with an early finish, so I kept my mouth shut and my eyes down. Shona rounded the kitchen island and patted me on the shoulder.
‘Go home and think about what you’re suggesting,’ she said as I flinched. ‘Ask yourself if you really want to put yourself through it. I can’t guarantee that your job will still be waiting for you if you decide you want to play at being me and it all goes wrong.’
‘That’s not—’ I started to explain but she cut me off with a sad shrug.
‘It’s just not who you are, Maddie,’ she said with a sympathetic smile. ‘You’re an assistant. You’re good at that. Mostly. Don’t rock the boat.’
Left alone in the kitchen clutching the bottle of champagne, there was nothing for me to do except storm back outside into the gardens. The party was in full flow inside, big picture windows lit up with flashing lights and silhouettes of people much happier than I was. Or at least more drunk than me. Pouting, I considered the champagne and decided it was churlish to waste it just because I didn’t want it. Besides, nothing said thirty-one and going nowhere better than binge-drinking alone.
Staring blindly into the party, I was vaguely aware of a vibration against my right thigh. Phone. It was my phone.
‘Oh no, Sarah,’ I remembered, throwing myself down underneath a tree like a fifteen-year-old with a bottle of White Lightning. ‘You home?’
This was followed by a sad-face emoji and a gun. And that was followed by two Martini glasses and a dancing girl. The phone rattled in my hand as I tried to decipher the pictograms while swigging champagne out of the bottle. Class act all the way.
‘Tell me you haven’t killed yourself.’
‘If I’d killed myself, I couldn’t tell you, could I?’ I typed. ‘I’m still at work, you ok?’
Turns out there wasn’t a better way to ask that question.
‘No.’
And no better way to answer it.
‘Have you seen FB?’
‘No.’ I typed, wondering what fantastic news awaited me on the wonderful world of the Internet. ‘What?’
There was a pause, followed by three little grey dots on the screen.
‘Seb’s missus had the baby.’
If only they had stayed dots.
Seb had a baby. There was a baby Seb. A tiny, red-faced, screaming mini Seb.
And it wasn’t mine.
Seb. Formerly Bash or Sebby, latterly Knobjockey, Cockchops and, most recently and accurately, that absolute bastard who systematically pulled apart every single one of my organs like Cheestrings before getting to my heart, taking it out, freezing it, defrosting it in the microwave, freezing it again, defrosting it and freezing it one last time until all that was left was a leathery bit of offal that would nourish neither man nor beast. I was still getting letters from Direct Line about his car insurance renewal and he was married with a baby.
‘So?’
I tapped out the letters, totally not imagining the former love of my life sitting in a fancy private hospital room holding his new baby while his sweaty but beautiful wife smiled at him knowingly. I had some dregs of champagne and a shirt that was a size too small. The only thing that could even this out was a kebab on the way home.
‘I’ve got to get back to work.’ Lying was so much easier through the medium of text. ‘See you tomorrow?’
‘There you are. I’ve been looking for you.’
A very tall man appeared from nowhere in the semi-darkness before she could reply, and for a split second I was very worried that I might not live to see that kebab.
‘That’s not an incredibly creepy way to address someone you don’t know,’ I replied. It was the insulting usher. ‘I