I nodded, half listening, distracted by the water. I might be in her hair but Sam still wanted me in his and until he’d made it absolutely clear he was absolutely sure that he wanted to marry into this new life, then I was never going to be too far out of it.
‘And if you ever need a change of scenery,’ Joshua continued, walking towards the waves, ‘you know where I am.’
I followed him into the water, gazing out across the pinks and blues of the morning dawn, stretching as far as the eye could see. I flung my body onto the board, starting to paddle. I was surfing in Sydney, on the morning of opening night, with Sam waiting back home, knowing he’d rather be here with us, with me – for the first time in a long time, this kind of scenery was exactly what I wanted to see.
Chapter 24
‘It looks fabulous.’ Tim elongated the last word as I walked into CreateSpace. ‘Tonight’s the night!’
The PAs had rallied and finally we had an opening night guest list to rival an old-school Taylor Swift sleepover. ‘So, the plan…’ Tim puffed out his shoulders authoritatively, giving me one of the first glimpses of the fifty-something-year-old his ID claimed him to be. ‘Olivia, you arrive at six p.m., sharp.’ Olivia nodded, though she may as well have saluted. She rocked on her heels and held onto the clipboard a little tighter. Somewhere over the last month or so I had been promoted out of the clipboard-holding role – I still wasn’t entirely sure I deserved it.
‘Welcome the guests, steer them into this room,’ Tim continued, throwing his arms wide against a backdrop of morning sunrises and bright blue skies. ‘Offer them champagne.’ He gestured to a long wooden table, now placed in the centre of the space. ‘Jess, you are to arrive at eight p.m.’ Olivia’s wrinkle-free face looked like it was trying to frown. The temp-help shouldn’t get a later call time than her. ‘I want you to make an entrance. Fashionably late – emphasis on the fashionable.’ I knew he was being nice, but it sounded like a threat. I reached for my phone and pulled up a photo of the outfit I was planning to wear, seeking managerial approval. He gazed at the image, his expression noncommittal. ‘You’ll handle the interviews as we agreed.’ The thought of handling the publicity still sent waves through my stomach, nervousness setting in. It was a long way from my usual position, behind the scenes. But I needed Tim worlds away from Sommers. His commitment to mystery, his Banksy-esque, Leo Todd-inspired anonymity was the only thing that would keep him out of the journalists’ paths for sure. My pulse started to race faster, heart caught in my throat as imposter syndrome hung heavy on my shoulders. Could you still blame imposter syndrome when you had knowingly created the imposter in question? ‘Unless you don’t want to?’ Tim must have noticed my hesitation. Showing the press around, being left alone with Hannah Sommers – it was petrifying and perfect at the same time.
‘I can do that,’ I assured Tim whilst also assuring myself.
‘Good.’ He nodded, as if I didn’t really have a choice. ‘I want those journalists to flock to you, for there to be a real buzz.’
My phone vibrated in my hand, just on cue. We both looked at the screen. It was a text from Sam.
lunch?
I swiped the message away. After a few boozy brainstorming sessions, Tim knew drunken scraps of what was going on; that there was an ex-boyfriend on the scene and that he was no longer available. I was pretty sure his artistic imagination had filled in the elaborate affair-fuelled blanks. All bar one: that he actually knew the man and was friends with the reason he couldn’t currently be mine.
‘Sam?’ he asked, although I knew he had just seen it. ‘Is he coming tonight?’ Tim looked somewhat hopeful. I had figured from the way he gushed about Jamie’s fiancé that he may have a soft spot for him too. I shrugged in response; I really didn’t know.
‘And how about your… man?’ Tim lowered his voice so Olivia wouldn’t hear. Even though she was next to us she was already miles away. I knew he had spied the mysterious stranger standing against the wall outside on several occasions and suspected he’d also developed a fantasy crush on my fantasy man. Thank God he was too short-sighted to realise he and Sam were one and the same. ‘Invite him,’ Tim commanded, stealing the guest list clutched in Olivia’s hand.
‘But what if he… doesn’t come alone?’ I asked, eyes flitting to Olivia, who was still too busy to be bothered. ‘This is important to me. My… boss will be there,’ I stuttered. ‘I… don’t want to lose my focus…’
Tim looked at me earnestly, his glasses perching on the end of his nose. He sighed and then smiled. ‘Honey, trust me, if you’re wearing what you’ve just shown me’ – he nodded to my once outfit-displaying phone – ‘the only one losing focus will be him.’
11 September 2019 – London, England
‘Focus, Jessica, please.’ Devon stopped her pacing to stare me dead in the eye; thankfully I had just looked up from my phone. I’d have felt half bad if she wasn’t regurgitating yesterday’s notes verbatim and passing them off as new. I had every intention of emailing over yesterday’s and changing the date.
‘Are you even listening?’ she asked, walking her bright white pant suit over to sit on the other side of her grandiose desk. I could just glimpse her green Jimmy Choos below and willed myself not to become the same colour.
‘I am.’ I nodded. And I was. And I’d listened the first time she’d told me, yesterday.
She cocked her head with a non-frown, which in her case equated to a smile, and began to pour herself a glass of wine. I watched her hand quiver as she filled the glass.
‘Oh.’ She started laughing to herself. ‘This isn’t what it looks like.’ It looked like Art Today’s editor-in-chief was drinking red wine at ten in the morning, like she had stayed out so late rubbing shoulders with whatever influencer was now in vogue that she needed a bit of hair of the dog to bluff her way through the day. ‘You know I have a Skype meeting with Sydney now, don’t you? It’s nine p.m. there and Hannah suggested wine. International networking, you know,’ Devon carried on in a way that made clear that I didn’t know, that I couldn’t possibly be privy to something as highbrow as international networking. ‘In fact, Hannah will be ready now. So, focus, Jessica.’ She pointed a manicured finger at my notepad before opening her laptop screen so that its back faced towards me, making my notetaking invisible to Hannah Sommers. I knew the drill. Devon was to match Hannah wine for wine, whine for whine, as I – sober as a judge fresh out of rehab – was to discreetly record Hannah’s boasts of exclusives and trends to enable Devon to play a grown-up game of ‘anything you can do, I can do better’.
Before I could even entertain the thought of objecting, the iconic Skype bloop filled the room and Devon’s face disappeared behind the monitor. Now safely under my powers of invisibility, I pulled my phone back out to sit on the table, hidden from Devon by the screen. I flicked back to Austin’s Instagram. I hadn’t seen him since the break-up. We’d all moved on from uni anyway – I got Zoe, Sam got him – and I’d promised her I wouldn’t look back but what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her. He looked to be doing well though – back in his Texan namesake, drinking, working and, by the looks of things, dating. My fingers hovered over a picture of him in a suit, arm slung around a pretty blonde, her face turned slightly to look up at him, proud of her man. I looked up from his feed to scribble Hannah’s last sentence, sung out from the screen before returning to Austin. He looked exactly where he’d always wanted to be. My fingers almost went to check his friends list, seeing if he and Sam had stayed in touch – but I wouldn’t, I couldn’t.