wasn’t enough to mess with my tiny mind, the tourists on their way to Times Square really didn’t want me to get to my meeting with Mary on time. I’d spent far too long scrubbing at my hair in the shower and troughing Goldfish crackers, watching The View instead of doing any of the things I was supposed to do, and now I was late. I could understand why Alex loved Williamsburg, it was so chilled out, but I was still in love with Manhattan, despite the maddening crowds. The noise, the people, the feeling that anything could happen at any given second. That was what inflated my blood pressure, that was what sent adrenaline surging through me as the streets got narrower, more congested. I loved the neon billboards, the giant Target ads, the garish Hershey store, Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Co, Virgin, Sephora, Toysrus. They were just adverts, stores, restaurants, but it was the clicking cameras and the pushing people with the happiest faces you’d ever seen that made the place what it was. And it was amazing to me.
Also amazing, was the hit of the air conditioning when I walked into the Spencer Media building. Bliss. I was late, but sent straight up to Mary’s office and without a lecture and shockingly, given coffee and iced water and, Jesus, a smile, by Cissy, as soon as I stepped over the threshold.
‘Angela Clark, get in here!’ Mary yelled from behind her desk.
‘I’m in,’ I said nervously, balancing the drinks, trying not to spill anything on my bag. ‘Hi, Mary.’
‘So yesterday’s post? Oh my God?’ She was actually grinning. Not a wry smile, not a disappointed frown. A big fat grin. ‘Great writing, Angela, I can’t wait to post it.’
‘So the blog is still going?’ I sighed with relief.
‘Of course it’s still fucking going!’ Mary stood up and gave me a hug that was much bigger than she was. ‘You’re my little success story. Do you know how many emails we’ve had about your column? More than about anything else on the website. Hell, more than most things in the magazine. Everyone at The Look loves your column.’
‘Everyone,’ I said cautiously. I couldn’t tell whether Sara had called yet. ‘I mean, that’s good. Isn’t it?’
‘It’s really fucking good. People love you, Angela, and they love to live vicariously through someone else. They don’t want to run away to another continent and leave everything they’ve ever known, but they love that you’re doing it for them,’ Mary nodded, perching on the edge of her huge desk and pushing me backwards into a seat. I managed to keep the coffee in the cup, but the water went everywhere. Except on my bag. Phew. ‘It’s good for me and it’s really good for you. So I need to put you on a contract.’
‘What?’
‘A. Contract,’ Mary said slowly. ‘We want to keep the blog going long-term, Angela. I won’t make you sign it in blood, but I will make you sign it.’
Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit.
‘A Sara Stevens hasn’t called you from the UK office has she?’ I asked, gulping down the coffee in case Mary felt like taking it away shortly.
‘The UK Look? How do you know about that?’ Mary asked, hopping back behind her desk at lightning speed. ‘That hasn’t even been announced internally yet.’
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
‘Well, they called me today and asked if I would go and work for them. As senior staff writer.’
‘Are you shitting me?’ Mary’s face went from red to white to purple in what seemed like a heartbeat. ‘They tried to poach my fucking writer?’
‘She said it wouldn’t be like poaching …’
‘What else is it exactly? When was this? Why didn’t you tell me?’ Angry Mary was very, very scary.
‘It was just now, literally, like an hour ago,’ I explained hurriedly. ‘Right before this meeting. I didn’t think I should call to talk about it when we were meeting now.’
‘Right. I suppose I should appreciate your coming to tell me face to face, even if those sly London bitches couldn’t be respectful enough to tell me,’ she shook her head. ‘Congratulations Angela, it’s a great opportunity for you and I think you’ll be very good at it. I’m just fucking furious to have found you and then to lose you.’
‘But I haven’t accepted yet, I have until Monday,’ I bleated, jumping up off the leather chair and leaving half my thighs behind. Ouch. ‘I’m not sure I really want to go back to London, or work for Sara.’
Especially work for Sara, I added silently, she’s clearly nuts.
Mary stared over her desk, not speaking. I didn’t know whether or not that was a good thing.
‘Are you serious?’ she said eventually.
‘About?’
‘About not going home and taking up this huge opportunity to risk it all to write a blog in a city that you’ve lived in for three weeks?’
‘Well, when you put it like that, I know it sounds a bit silly.’ I sat back down, trying to pull my Velvet T-shirt dress underneath me.
‘Don’t you want to go back home to London?’ Mary asked.
‘Does it matter what I want?’ I bit my lip hard. ‘I’ve got to go, haven’t I? Everyone keeps telling me.’ Everyone but Alex, I reminded myself unhelpfully.
‘Well, you’re not a US national, so it wouldn’t necessarily be easy,’ Mary stood up and walked back around her desk. She bent down in front of me, forcing me to look at her. I was so embarrassed. ‘But if you wanted to stay, you would always have a job with me.’
‘Really?’ I blinked back a tiny tear before it could make a real break for it.
‘Angela, I’ve been reading your diary for three weeks now, and it’s quite clear that you really don’t know what you want,’ Mary knelt on the floor, one hand on my knee. ‘That’s why people are relating to your blog, they want to be there when you work it out. I don’t know if that’s going to be here in New York, or back in London, but I do know you don’t have for ever to work it out any more.’
‘I know,’ I said, taking a deep breath and wiping my eyes. I really had to pull myself together.
‘You know I’m pissed about the UK team,’ she said, ‘but if you’re planning on going home, you should go now. This really is an amazing opportunity. If you stay here, who knows? The blog isn’t going to pay as much as a staff job, but it will pay. We can help you apply for a visa, but I can’t tell you what will happen after that.’
I stared at the pavement all the way back to the apartment, only just aware of people and cars and any other potential obstructions. Fumbling my keys into the lock, I rolled straight over the back of the sofa and stared at the ceiling. I had just worked out I was happy, I had just worked out it was definitely Alex, not Tyler, and now this. Jenny would say it was life testing my decisions. My mum would tell me it was fate bringing me home. I would say, enough, have we got any more Ring Dings. And since I was the only person in the room, I went with my option.
Tyler arrived on the dot of seven to find me on my doorstep, juggling brown paper grocery bags, my handbag and my keys. I’d completely forgotten he was
