I opened the brochure to find the agency’s phone number, but I have a quick read of the message underneath Olly’s picture.
Olly Corrigan
Founder
New York born and bred, NYU-educated entrepreneur.
‘If I can’t find you love, no one can.’
I raise an eyebrow. Cocky. Underneath is the address and phone number of the agency. I can feel Derek’s eyes on me, so I pick up the receiver.
‘Is there a dial-out code or anything?’ I ask.
‘Nope. You’re good to go,’ Derek replies.
‘Okay!’ I dial the number, feeling a little self-conscious with Derek listening in. After three rings, a polite receptionist answers with a crisp, clear upbeat voice. I tell her my name is Polly Wood and I’d like to book in for a consultation. I’m slightly worried she might ask me about my job since I’m still not totally down with faking being a chartered surveyor yet. I need to at least read up on it a bit. Fortunately, the conversation is pretty painless and all she does is take down my name and number and book me into the diary. I’m just about to breathe a sigh of relief and hang up, when she makes an unexpected request.
‘I’ll need to take the one-hundred-dollar consultation holding deposit, an additional fifty dollars will be payable on the day. Have you got your card ready?’
‘Errr…’ I mutter. ‘One second!’
I place the phone down on the desk. Derek looks over curiously. I dash over to him.
‘She wants money! A holding deposit!’ I tell him in a hushed voice.
‘Give it to her then,’ Derek suggests with a shrug.
‘But…!’ I feel my cheeks burning. I don’t want to admit to Derek that my bank account is so depleted that if I pay this woman a hundred dollars, I’ll have approximately twenty dollars left for the rest of the week, including travel, food and everything.
‘I’ll transfer it to you now, but you can’t give her my card details, can you?’ Derek says. ‘She knows who I am.’
‘I guess not. Okay…’ I grumble, skulking off back to my desk. I grab my handbag and reluctantly retrieve my wallet. Derek had better pay me back because if he doesn’t, I’m screwed.
I pick up the phone. ‘Sorry about that,’ I say. ‘I couldn’t find my wallet for a second there.’ The lie rolls effortlessly off my tongue and I find myself wondering whether this whole phoney mystery shopper thing will really be that hard.
‘No problem,’ the receptionist replies, flawlessly polite, before asking for my card details.
She takes them down.
‘Excellent, thank you,’ she says eventually. ‘We’ll see you on Wednesday!’
‘Fab!’ I enthuse, but I can barely believe that people are willing to spend $150 just for a consultation when I can barely afford to upgrade to Tinder Plus.
I say goodbye and hang up.
I look over at Derek, still a little flustered. ‘Well, there’s your first bit of insider info. It’s $150 just for a consultation,’ I tell him.
‘That’s okay. It’s worth it for the research.’
‘Hmm…’ I muse. ‘Derek, I’m not a $150 consultation kind of girl. They’ll surely sense something’s up?’
‘Nah!’ Derek rejects the idea, still looking at his screen.
I feel a twinge of anxiety bubbling in the pit of my stomach. I have a feeling something is going to go wrong and I’m going to make a complete fool of myself in front of the utterly gorgeous Olly Corrigan.
‘I just transferred the money to you,’ Derek says, and for a second, I have no idea how he did it without my card until I remember that he has my bank details to pay my wages.
‘Great, thanks.’ I feel a small wave of relief. At least that’s something. Although I’m still not looking forward to my consultation on Wednesday.
What does a chartered surveyor wear? Pretty much standard office clothing according to Google. And certainly nothing particularly trendy, which is why I’ve teamed an old black skirt I haven’t worn since graduation with a white shirt and a pair of frumpy court shoes.
‘What do you think?’ I emerge from the office loo, having just changed. ‘Do I look like a chartered surveyor?’
Derek scrutinises my outfit. ‘Yeah, I think so.’
Thankfully, To the Moon & Back has a laid-back dress code and over the past week, Derek hasn’t seemed to mind me wearing my regular clothes, which tend to consist of leggings, smock dresses, jeans and checked shirts. I love a good checked shirt. Gabe used to make fun of me for having what he refers to as a ‘lumberjack aesthetic’ since my standard outfit of choice consists of ripped jeans teamed with a plaid shirt, tied at the waist in a vague nod towards femininity. I think it looks cool, but Gabe teases me that I belong on a logging farm rather than the streets of Manhattan. I don’t care though, it’s been my style for years and I’m comfortable with it. Unlike how I feel now, in my stiff office get-up. Nope, right now, I most certainly do not feel comfortable. Not only does the outfit feel unnatural to me, but it’s also a bit tight. I haven’t worn the skirt for three years, when I was at least a dress size slimmer. It’s so tight that the zip only goes three quarters of the way up. I’ve managed to loop a hair tie through the clasp fastening at the top to make it stay up, which is fortunately covered by the hem of the white shirt. It’s not ideal, but it should do. With my black tights and hair pulled back into a bun, I feel dowdier than I’ve felt in a very long time.
‘You look great,’ Derek comments, not entirely convincingly. ‘You definitely look the part.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yep. You look like a chartered surveyor,’ Derek insists.
I laugh. ‘That’s what every girl wants to hear.’
Derek grins. ‘I aim to please.’
I smile and pick up my handbag from the desk. I’ve already checked my make-up (I tried to go for a toned-down professional look), so there’s nothing really keeping me here. I’ve powdered my nose, re-read the Wikipedia page on chartered surveying at least fifty-seven times and made Derek scrutinise me from head-to-toe, which isn’t something I’d ever imagine requesting. I pull my handbag bag onto my shoulder.
‘I guess I’ll be off then,’ I announce.
‘Go get ‘em!’ Derek says, punching the air.
‘Haha,’ I laugh weakly. ‘Right, see you later.’ I edge towards the office door. My hands are already clammy, and I haven’t even set off yet. I’m simply convinced Elite Love Match will sniff me out as a fraud, a spy, a mystery shopper. I’m sure it’s going to be awkward as hell, maybe worse than awkward, probably downright humiliating. There’s a reason I gave up drama classes at the earliest available opportunity at school. I am not a good actress. I’m a behind-the-camera person, not the kind of person who wants to take centre stage. Derek would probably do a better job at this if he just shoved a wig and a dress on.
‘You’ll be fine, Polly! You’ve got this,’ Derek insists.
‘Haha, sure. Okay, bye!’
‘See