But I can’t stop here. After compliments like that, I decide I’ve got nothing to lose. I need an answer.
‘Roland, tell me about this lunch meeting,’ I probe. ‘Did they talk about plans beyond Van Gogh? What can I expect to be working on after that? Is it the Women in Renaissance exhibition maybe? I adore that period, and it would be a great win for the museum.’
‘Okay.’ He wriggles uncomfortably, like he has an itchy bomb in his pants. I’d allow myself to entertain that idea if it weren’t for the fact I might laugh in his face. ‘I’m really glad you asked, because there’s been a lot of chatter about who’ll be filling my role and what the office is going to look like—’
‘And?’ I cut over the top of him, too excited to care for rigmarole or patience. Now is good. My heart is beating against my ribs like a muffled xylophone. Flight of the bumblebees, maybe.
‘Management went through each interview: yours, Steve’s, and the other applicants. They looked at responses, qualifications, roles within the team, work that needed to be done, and matched it all up against the criteria matrix, et cetera and so forth.’
He swallows. Hard. And he isn’t making eye contact, instead looking anywhere but at me.
I roll a hand in the hope that the breeze I create will hurry him along. I know I ticked all the boxes on all their checklists; I’d studied the job ad profusely, made notes and carried index cards around the entire week before my interview. Hell, Lainey was even roped into no less than six mock interviews. Nobody could tell me I didn’t meet the qualification criteria – I hold a Masters in Curating and Collections, something Roland likes to throw out to the investors like it’s a dangling carrot. If that isn’t enough, then poke me with a fork because I am done.
‘They’ve decided to run with Steve.’
He says this with such finality that it’s like dropping a brick from a height. For a moment, I can hear nothing but my own blood racing through my ears.
‘Steve?’ I ask, knowing how incredulous I sound. Not even sorry; I can’t help it.
Roland fumbles, for what I don’t know. ‘W-w-well, y-yes. He’s got the experience of his stint at MoMA, and he does consistently great work.’
‘He was at MoMA for ten whole days,’ I deadpan before mumbling, ‘And that was including the jetlag.’
As I say this, I can see Roland’s frame shrink back. He knows this is bad, and not at all the answer I was expecting. I also suspect he knows this makes no sense either, other than the preferential treatment of friends, but no more words come. My mouth gawps like a sunbathing goldfish.
‘All right then.’ I nod and purse my lips.
What else am I supposed to say? I can’t argue, because it would only make me look bad. Assertiveness is often dismissed as aggressiveness in women, and it’s no different here in the art world than it is in any other corporate office. Roland’s leg starts bouncing, and a sinking feeling sets in. This is about to get worse. I’m acutely aware that there is now complete silence in the office behind me; no radio, no chatter, nothing.
Until laughter erupts outside. I glance sideways to see Steve hovering over the desk of one of the other male curators, a sly look trained my way. He knows that I know, and he knows exactly what he’s doing. Right now, I want to grab him by his scrawny designer-shirt-clad shoulders and shake the smug out of him. But I can’t. Instead, I bite the inside of my cheek so hard I can taste the iron tang of blood.
I am furious in a way I don’t think I have ever been before in my life. I wasn’t even this angry when I was nineteen and my brother borrowed my clapped-out Ford Escort and deposited it into a brick wall.
The next few minutes don’t register, not really. Breath coming in short spurts, I get up from the seat as calmly as I think I can, and yank the door open so hard I’m surprised the hinges are still intact. Walking into the open-plan area from Roland’s office, I reach for the first empty box I can find and drag it over to my cubicle.
Family photos and postcard artworks are tacked on the walls of my desk partition, a designer ceramic pot that found a new life as a pen holder is slumped in the corner, and a folder of plans that has been dropped on my keyboard during the time it took for Roland to drop his bombshell leaves my computer trilling its disapproval. A tiny brass plaque with my name engraved sits above my monitor as if to taunt me.
I tear everything down and toss it into the ratty box. There’s no rhyme or reason, and I’m far from gentle with any of it. When I’m done, I reach into my messenger bag and feel around for my next target. From the corner of my eye, I can see the room at a standstill. Roland is pleading with me to come back into his office and talk, but he’s an underwater mumble in a raging torrent of anger.
What am I even doing? Who the hell knows? All I can tell you is that I am not putting up with this anymore. I am not being overlooked in favour of jobs for mates, not anymore. I am not smiling and nodding while I watch the incompetent leap-frog over me. Again. I am not working nights and weekends and overtime just to be kept in a holding pattern. I have had enough. Time to draw a line in the sand.
And I draw it in Taylor Swift-red lipstick. Before I can talk myself out of it, I grab a sheet of paper from my in-tray and scrawl ‘I QUIT’ across it in big bold letters, the lipstick crumbling and mashing as I go. Grinning at Roland, who I can’t quite hear over the siren call of blood in my ears, I hold my sign aloft like I’m about to announce a wrestling match.
The office erupts into a cacophony of noise. Roland shouting for me to stop breaks through the hoots and hollers. I push past him, head held high until I pause below the glowing Exit sign and clock my sight on Steve. One hand on the emergency exit door, I raise the other up in line with my face and indulge in one last act of pettiness, showing him my middle finger. The drum of my chest is replaced by the clacking of heels as I flee down the stairwell, and, somewhere behind me, I’m sure I can hear the faint clatter of clapping.
Chapter 2
Above my head, the shining face of Big Ben lights up against the dusky sky, reminding me that as of 5.09 p.m. on a muggy Friday in July, I am now unemployed. A busker croons by the Westminster tube entrance, but I’m not sure his upbeat Ed Sheeran covers are going to cut it tonight. I don’t need castles on hills or to sing at the top of my lungs. The exhilaration of leaving the office is beginning to wear off, so I need food and drink and the company of a good friend to help unravel the humiliated knot in my stomach.
When I finally stop and take stock, I realise that I am absolutely, bottom of the well without a ladder terrified. I could barely afford to live in London on my wage, let alone without it. Sure, I’ve got some savings stashed away, but they won’t last forever. Hell, they probably won’t last until the change of seasons.
A summer breeze tickles the backs of my wobbly legs as I hoist my messenger bag higher on my shoulder and scramble to stop my small box of junk cascading out of my arms and onto the pavement. It’s not like it’s an Aladdin’s cave of treasure, but it is mine and I’d rather keep it that way. I jab at the pedestrian crossing, once, twice, three times in quick succession while my mind runs over the last excruciating thirty minutes of my life.
‘Hurry up!’