She nodded a couple of times and then rolled her eyes. It was something that had crossed my mind before, but sometimes she really did remind me of Jenny. It was quite frightening how someone you loved and someone you were terrified of could be so similar.
‘Sounds dreadful,’ she said. ‘Do you know what else is dreadful? Getting fired at Christmas time. It’s press day. You don’t call in sick on press day. In fact, you didn’t even call in sick, did you?’
‘Cici!’ I shook my head, making mad ‘cut’ motions with my hand. ‘Don’t!’
‘Yeah, really?’ She was too busy shouting down the phone while the rest of the office looked on in stunned silence. ‘Then I’ll take that as your resignation. Happy holidays.’
She was carefully replacing the handset and blithely turning back to her monitor as I screeched to a halt by her desk.
‘What just happened?’ I asked, my heart beating hard and fast. ‘What did he say?’
‘Something about food poisoning,’ she scoffed, eyes still on the screen, as though it wasn’t even important enough to bother with eye contact. ‘Clearly lying, clearly hungover. And then he was incredibly rude. I don’t think he’ll be coming back in any time soon.’
‘Cici, you can’t fire people,’ I said, breathless. ‘We need Jesse. All I asked you to do was to find out where he was.’
‘And I did,’ she said, looking up at me with big blue eyes. A complete lack of conscience combined with no concept of the real world made for a distinct lack of dark circles. There wasn’t a fine line in sight. ‘He was at home when he should have been here. He’s clearly not a team player. Dead wood.’
‘But you can’t sack people, Cici,’ I said again. ‘
I
can’t even sack people. There are systems and warnings and HR and lots of annoying paperwork.’
‘Technically he quit,’ she rationalised. ‘So I’ve saved you all that paperwork. See? I’m super efficient.’
I had no words. The rest of the office was staring at me but no one had said a word since Cici had picked up the phone.
‘A leader needs to make difficult choices,’ Cici said, lowering her voice slightly. ‘You can’t have people taking advantage on your first day in charge, Angela. You don’t want to look weak, do you?’
I wasn’t sure if it was advice or a threat.
‘I will call Jesse back,’ I replied as evenly as possible. ‘And explain that you had the wrong end of the stick. And you will apologise when he comes into work after the holidays.’
‘I don’t have a stick.’ She looked puzzled. ‘Is this a cute British thing?’
‘I really wish I had a stick,’ I said, trying to look vaguely menacing although I was sure it came off as more constipated.
‘Oh, you,’ she called as I stalked back into my office. ‘I’ll get you another coffee, I think you’re tired.’
‘I’m fine,’ I barked. ‘Megan, can you come in here, please?’
The little brunette jumped up from her seat and ran into my office, stuck to my side as I shut the door with slightly more force than I had intended. It wasn’t quite a slam but it definitely had a distinct air of miffed-ness about it.
‘Holy shit, Angie, did she just fire Jesse?’ Megan looked horrified.
‘She doesn’t have the authority to fire Jesse,’ I reassured her. ‘Honestly, I don’t even think I have the authority to fire Jesse. But until I talk to him, I think we’ve got to assume he’s not going to be coming in today. Can you have someone set up the system so I can start approving the pages?’
‘Yeah, about that …’ She wove her fingers together and twisted them awkwardly. ‘We’re having a little trouble with it.’
‘Trouble?’
Meep.
‘IT are coming down, like, any second now,’ she said quickly. ‘It should be fixed super soon. The pages don’t want to load or something. It’s stuck on last week’s issue.’
‘Doesn’t the whole company use the same system?’ I asked, a trickle of cold desperation running down my spine.
‘Everyone’s set up independently,’ she explained. ‘In case this happens. I could maybe call Jesse and see if he knows how to fix it?’
‘I’ll call him,’ I said with a sigh. ‘What do we do if the system doesn’t start working soon?’
‘We’ll go with hard copies,’ she said. ‘Old school. I’ll make mock-ups of each page and fix a sign-off sheet for everyone to initial once they’ve checked them.’
‘Right.’ I sat back in my chair and cursed the day Mary Stein met Bob Spencer. Bobbity Bob Bastard Bob. ‘Let’s start doing that now. No one wants to be here all night. And let me know what IT says.’
‘Angela,’ Megan said, looking at the floor and sniffing, ‘is she really going to be sticking around?’
‘Who knows?’ It didn’t take a genius to work out whom she was talking about. Thankfully. ‘Honestly, I can’t see it. But you don’t need to worry, she’s not going to fire anyone and if she even looks at you the wrong way, tell me.’
‘It’s so hard to believe she’s related to Delia,’ she said in a whisper. No one wanted to be on Cici’s shit list. ‘I was talking to some of the girls who worked with her on
The Look
and they told me all the shit she used to do up there.’
‘She’s not going to be doing it down here,’ I promised, almost sounding as though I believed it myself.
‘I don’t want to be an asshole,’ Megan smiled awkwardly, ‘but if she wants to, who’s gonna stop her? She’s a Spencer.’
‘It’ll be fine,’ I replied. ‘She’s a Spencer, she’s not Superman. I’m watching her.’
The look on Megan’s face did not convince me that the team had faith in my leadership abilities.
‘When people told you those stories, did anyone tell you about the time I kicked her arse in London?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ she said, doubtfully. ‘But I wasn’t sure. You’re so nice.’
‘No, I’m English,’ I replied. ‘Americans often get the two confused.’
Unsurprisingly, Jesse’s phone went to voicemail sixteen times in between nine a.m. and midday. By lunchtime, I had given up calling and resorted to sending a short but not terribly sweet email that suggested he give me a call and that I would see him in the office the following day. When he didn’t reply to that either, I went for a brief sweep of social media but he had gone to full radio silence so he was either genuinely sick, genuinely pissed off or dead. I didn’t know which to hope for as none of them made me feel like I was going to the top of Santa’s ‘nice’ list.
On the upside, the crisis had really pulled the office together. A lot of people, me included, had never sent a magazine to print without our online approval system so Megan’s mock-up of the magazine made for a fun novelty. By one o’clock, we were already halfway through the approvals, way further than the average Monday, and whether it was because everyone was shitting themselves or because they just wanted to go home, I didn’t care. Even Cici seemed to be pulling her weight after the drama. Or at least she’d been answering the phones, taking messages and hadn’t tried to fire anyone in the last three hours. When the intercom buzzed, I answered without looking, assuming she was offering to get me my fourth coffee of the day. I was already shaking from ODing on caffeine but every minute she was in Starbucks was a minute she wasn’t in the office.
‘Angela, you have some visitors.’ Her voice was clipped and cold, making me look up through the glass wall. ‘They don’t have an appointment and I have explained that you’re very busy.’
Held at her desk, I saw a very, very annoyed-looking Jenny, accompanied by Louisa and Grace, both seeming to be struggling to keep their fists under control. And she hadn’t even been involved in last summer’s brawl, bless her tiny, cotton socks.
‘They can come in,’ I replied as quickly as I could. ‘They can always come in. You don’t need to buzz me.’
I watched her quirk an eyebrow before hanging up and waving my friends into my office.
‘I’m not sure about this, Angie,’ Jenny said, flinging the door open and not even waiting for Louisa to shut it before she let rip. ‘Once a psycho, always a psycho. I don’t care if they upped her meds, no amount of Xanax can chill a bitch like that.’
‘She hasn’t upped her meds.’ I stood to give them all a quick hug. ‘She went to India. And I know. Everything. All of it. What’s up?’
‘So, merry Christmas.’ Jenny paused and prompted Grace to give me half a chocolate chip cookie and a grin. ‘We know you’re totally super crazy busy and that it’s press day and this makes us complete and utter assholes but could you watch Gracie for an hour?’
‘Say if you can’t,’ Louisa butted in before I even had a chance to explain why it was impossible. I noticed she was in her jeans and sensible shoes again, her ponytail back in place. ‘I know today is your mad day. We can just go home and do Christmas things, it’s fine really. We could make paper chains.’
I couldn’t imagine for a second that Grace knew what paper chains were but the very thought of it was enough to make her bottom lip start to quiver.
‘It is a bit mad, yeah,’ I said, feeling horrible for taking the cookie. Which I absolutely was not giving back regardless of the lip wobble. ‘Where did you want to go that you can’t take madam?’
‘James got us last-minute tickets to the Christmas thing at Radio City Music Hall,’ she explained. ‘But Grace won’t sit through it, I know she won’t. I mean, she’s about ready for her nap but if she wakes up and screams blue murder, it’ll be a nightmare.’
‘They’re front row, centre,’ Jenny added, waving two tickets in my face. As though that would help her case. I couldn’t be more jealous. ‘And Erin is out of town at Thomas’s parents’ place or we totally would have asked her to take Gracie for a couple of hours.’
‘We did have a full cookie for you but, well, she ate it.’ Lou looked so apologetic and I felt like such a twat. ‘Don’t worry, we don’t have to go. I’m sure James can find someone else to take the tickets.’
I looked at Grace, her face covered in cookie and her eyes drooping in her pushchair. She waved at me lazily and stuck out her tongue. Behind the pushchair Jenny and Lou, wrapped up in scarves, gloves and stylish but not terribly warm-looking coats, huddled together, the light of hope still in Jenny’s eyes. Damn them, they knew I couldn’t say no to a Christmas-themed activity. After all, if she was going to sleep, what was the difference? I was going to be stuck to my desk all afternoon anyway, and it might be nice to have some sensible English company for a change, even if that company was under two years old and occasionally pooped itself.
‘She can hang out here,’ I said, immediately regretting my decision. ‘What time will you be back?’
‘Four, four thirty tops.’ Jenny clapped her leather gloves together and did a little dance. ‘We’ll bring you some shit, I promise. I’ll kidnap a Rockette for you.’
‘Just go,’ I said, rushing them out of the office before I changed my mind. ‘Have fun. I’m jealous.’
‘She’ll go right to sleep,’ Lou said, ignoring the fact that Jenny was stood by Cici’s desk making hissing noises. Cici was studiously ignoring the two of them and staring at her nails. ‘Don’t give her any sugar.’
‘No sugar, check.’ I saluted and waved them into the lifts. ‘See you later.’
Ignoring the look on my assistant’s face, I turned back towards my office to see the previously sleepy Grace leaping out of her pushchair and grabbing the remaining half-cookie from my desk and shoving it into her face.
‘Indian giver,’ I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
‘That’s offensive to native Americans,’ Cici said over my shoulder before handing me the updated mock-up magazine. ‘Fashion pages. Megan needs them back in fifteen minutes.’
I nodded and tried to pretend Grace wasn’t climbing up the bookshelf and throwing herself onto the armchair in the corner of my office as we spoke.
‘I might need twenty,’ I replied. ‘She’s nuts.’
‘Let me look after her,’ Cici offered, crouching down in front of the armchair and clapping at Grace with wide eyes. ‘I love children.’
Yeah, right.
‘Is that for lunch or dinner?’ I asked.
‘Really, I have a way with kids.’ She made goldfish faces at my goddaughter while she spoke and held out her arms for a hug. Grace immediately leapt onto her new playmate, grabbed a handful of hair extensions and pulled. Hard. I winced, waiting for her to chuck the toddler out of the eighteenth-floor window, but instead all Cici did was laugh. A genuine, sweet tinkle of a laugh, not her raucous LOL in real life guffaw but an actual, honest to God chuckle. I pinched myself and snapped back to reality.
‘She’s fine,’ I said, marching over and grabbing Gracie out of her arms and getting a slap in the face for my trouble. Someone needed to teach that girl some manners. And it wasn’t going to be me. ‘We’ll be fine.’
No matter how tempting it was to palm Grace-sitting duties off on someone else when I was busy, Louisa would end me if I gave her baby to someone who made Cruella De Vil look like an animal rights activist.
‘I’ll go get her some juice.’ Cici stood up and smoothed out the tugs and pulls in her outfit. ‘And check back in twenty.’
‘That would be great,’ I replied, just as Grace sneezed on my shoulder. The amount of crap that came out of someone so small … ‘But we’ll be fine.’
Cici nodded and shrugged, leaving us alone in the office.
‘We’ll be just fine, Gracie,’ I told her as I wiped down my sticky cashmere. ‘You would have to get up to some pretty evil shit before I asked Cici for help. And you’re not going to do that, are you?’
She sat prettily on the edge of the armchair and shook her head, smiling and swinging her pink T-bar-clad feet back and forth.
‘Of course not,’ I said, sitting back at my desk with the magazine mock-up. ‘You’re a bloody angel.’
‘Cici …’ Not even fifteen minutes later, I threw myself around my office door, panting. ‘I need your help.’
There weren’t many sentences in the English language I’d never imagined myself saying but that was one of them. My shiny new assistant jumped out of her chair and came running as fast as her Louboutins would carry her, which was actually surprisingly fast.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, closing the door behind us.
In lieu of more words, I pointed to the corner of my office that Grace was currently terrorising. Everything that had ever been on a shelf was now on the floor, pages had been torn out of magazines, she was covered, head to toe, in slashes of black ink and fluorescent yellow and was traipsing up and down the office with my Jimmy Choo black patent pumps on her feet and my grey suede Gucci Mary-Janes on her hands. This was entirely my fault for keeping such an extensive shoe library under my desk. Of course, she hadn’t bothered with the Topshop ballet pumps or the Aldo heels, had she? Oh no, like most terrorists-in-training, this one had great taste. I had got up at six a.m. on the first day of the Saks sale and then fought like a dog to get those Mary-Janes, there was no way they were going out like this.