good job of looking as normal as I possibly can under the circumstances.
I’m half an hour late for a meeting with Will Powers Jr. I should be terrified. I urge the elevator to speed up. My heart begins to race. See, it works. It may be broken but it works and I am reminded of its presence every day as it breaks into tinier pieces over Jeff and that cat-loving smurf he is living with.…
But anyhow…Will Powers… the boss’s son … the smooth-talking, suit-wearing, stereotypical rich kid who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and was blessed with brooding good looks to boot is waiting for me and he is probably foaming at the mouth in temper.
Will lives in Spain most of the year but comes back and forth to deal with mainly human resources matters and is always tanned and tries his best to be nice but would stab you in the back if you didn’t watch yourself. You could say he has it all really… until he opens his mouth and talks the biggest load of shite you ever did hear in a fake American accent. He has it all, apart from a heart, that is. He could be doing with a transplant too, I often think. Swap his swinging brick for something that actually shows some compassion now and again.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ I say, trying to sound convincing but I’m not really sure that I’m sorry. I can’t feel sorry for anyone, only myself, these days.
Will looks at his watch, then, like a Mexican wave at a football match, the rest do too. Copy-cats. Five faces stare back at me and I feel my face flush.
They are waiting on my excuse. Their silence tells me so.
‘I… I was…’
‘Sit down, Maggie,’ says Will.
I wasn’t expecting such a gathering and I have no idea what this meeting is even about. I was probably informed in advance, but, surprise, surprise, I can’t remember.
The company directors, all of them, are here in one room. I bet I have big red blotches all over my chest, which always bloody happens when I’m under pressure, but, more importantly, what on earth is going on?
Will pulls out a seat and I do as I am told. I sit. He smells of posh cologne and flashes an uber-white smile. ‘I know this is a difficult day for you.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Just try and relax, Maggie. Thirty minutes late is not going to change the world. Have a seat and chill.’
Chill? Who does he think he is, Jay-Z? Who even says ‘chill’ these days?
Why is everyone staring? And what on earth does he know about my difficult day and its relevance to my life? I hadn’t told anyone that it’s my heart anniversary and I keep my private life very much private. No one even knows I broke up with Jeff. Well, apart from Bridget downstairs whose brother knows Jeff’s family and, yes, I told Diane who sits opposite me and… okay, so I may have told a few people. Maybe they all know more than I thought they do about me. But what the hell is going on?
‘I’m sure you have been wondering what this meeting is all about, Maggie,’ said Will. ‘I hope I haven’t been causing you sleepless nights.’
Sleepless nights? I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since Jeff dumped me. It’s not easy to sleep and stalk mutual friends on Facebook for clues on his whereabouts at the same time.
‘I haven’t been sleeping well lately but…’
The five faces are staring at me.
Will looks up at me from beneath dark knitted eyebrows that I notice are the exact same as his father’s. No, Will Sr’s are even thicker. But greyer. Why am I even thinking about eyebrows?
‘Maggie?’
‘I’m fine. Just the odd sleepless night, but yes. I’m… I’m fine,’ I say, screwing up my forehead. I think I have overused that word for one day but it’s all I can think of. I reach out my hands in front and clasp them together. I wish I had papers to shuffle, or a diary to check or something to do with my hands.
‘You don’t have to pretend you are fine,’ says Sylvia Madden, one of the CEOs, from across the table. ‘You have been through quite a lot personally lately and no one expects you to be fine.’
They are all staring at me. I need to get out of here. I don’t want to be here any more. I feel the room closing in.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ I say, but I barely recognise my own voice. I stand up. ‘I need to go… I need to quit. I can’t do it. Sorry.’
I am going to cry. Will shakes his head. He is smiling. Why is he smiling?
‘I understand why you would feel like giving it all up, quitting,’ he says. ‘But you’re not a quitter, Maggie.’
Now, I really am crying. Big sobs just like I was earlier when I was on the phone to my dad. I sit down again.
‘I have to… I just need some time to get through this.’
I manage to blurt out the words semi-coherently as Sylvia hands me a tissue across the table.
‘Yes, I can see that,’ says Will. ‘Your work has slipped since the promotion and having done some homework, we think you need a break, but only for a while, for health reasons.’
‘Slipped?’ I splutter. ‘I suppose that’s one way of putting it. I feel like a failure. I should probably go.’
I try to recall how my work has ‘slipped’ and I cringe at the realisation. Sure, I’d taken some days out after the break-up with Jeff and before that, when things weren’t going well with us, I’d had to leave early a few times and then there was the day when I broke down in the coffee room, but that was it really. Oh, apart from the day when I was showing a client around a property and I cried because he reminded me of Jeff and I might have flirted with him a bit more than was professionally advisable… crap. And that day last week when a potential buyer from America had to wait while I got sick in the bathroom of a boutique hotel I was showing him round after drowning the poor man in the stink of vodka from the night before. Oh shit.
‘Yes, it has been poor lately and not like the vibrant go-getter we know, Maggie,’ says Will, but he is still smiling. He is not mad. ‘Days off, working ‘from home’, late arrivals, missed appointments… but your health comes first and foremost and you are too big an asset to our team to take any chances on. You seem very stressed and upset so I’d like to offer you some time out, with a payment plan, of course, to get yourself together and when you feel like coming back, the door is always open.’
Stressed? Well, of course I am stressed. My husband left me for a younger model and seventeen years ago today I lay on an operating table and I’ve outlived any expectancy the doctors could have given me, and believe me, the reminder every year of another year of survival is a big burden and a huge heap of gratitude to carry around.
But time out… a payment plan? I think I am going to choke and the walls are moving towards me again. Why are they offering me this lifeline? I don’t deserve this.
‘Can I get you some water?’ asks Sylvia. I wish they would stop staring and smiling. Why do they have to be so nice? It’s making me worse.
I look up to see Will Powers Sr enter the room, apologising too for
