Is She Really Going Out with Him?

Chapter 9

Google searches:

Is it bad to lie about your age?

Age difference, George Clooney and Amal Clooney

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*Orders shampoo*

I get to the office before Will. His lovely new ergonomic desk chair is just sitting there, unoccupied. Smiling to myself, I wheel it over to my desk, then swap it with mine. Am I deserving of a comfy new chair with superior back support? Yes, I am. Tapping my pen against my lip, I pretend to work, but really, I am strategizing. I’ve never waged war on a colleague before. What do I even want? An apology? For him to leave? Or do I just want to wipe that smug look off his face?

When Will arrives, I watch him notice his lack of a chair. He glances across the office at me. I stretch my arms out on the armrests, doing a little shimmy to show how comfortable I am. While I can’t quite make out his expression, I suspect a hint of a smile. Then he sits down in my old chair, adjusts the height, and pulls out his laptop. A few minutes later I get an e-mail from him.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Anna,

How was fishing? I’m sorry things got heated last time we spoke. It wasn’t professional. Please can we discuss the column and how it’s going to work? Can I buy you a coffee at Colonna I can’t believe that beneath all that cocksure confidence, he is willing to cry in a crowded café. Now I feel awful that I’ve upset him, but also distractingly aware of how firm and broad his shoulders are. “I’m so sorry, I had no idea. I shouldn’t have made such a personal comment. You’re right, I don’t know anything about you, it was wrong of me to assume.”

“When I meet someone that I like, after a few dates I just freeze, shut down. I’ll probably be alone forever.” Will wipes his eye, and I start gently rubbing his back.

“You’re a great guy, Will. You’re smart, you’re attractive. You’re still really young. I know heartbreak can be hard, but I’m sure eventually someone will come along who makes the risk—” I stop talking. Will has tilted his head toward me. He is not crying. He is smiling, a sly grin plastered across his face. “What?”

“You’re too easy, Appleby,” he says, eyes glinting.

“What? Was that a joke?” I push him away from me, so I can see his expression more clearly.

“I knew it. Beneath that rottweiler exterior you’re just a soft little puppy,” he says, beaming at me.

“You made all that up?” I ask, feeling my cheeks heat as I gently punch him on the arm.

“Just testing a theory. Seems like you’re fine with me sleeping around, as long as it’s because of some emotional trauma.” He tilts his head, challenging me to deny it.

“You’re despicable. I really thought you were upset,” I say, narrowing my eyes at him as I sit back down on the other side of the table.

“Sorry to disappoint you.” Will holds my gaze, his eyes the color of a forest you could get lost in. “But I think you’re right,” he says, “it might read better without those lines. I’ll edit it before sending it to Jonathan.”

I roll my eyes at him, pick up my coat, and stride out of the café. All my instincts about Will were correct, and working with him on this column is going to be a real endurance test.

Back at the office, I nip to the loo, and when I return to my desk, the chair is gone. In its place sits an overturned wastepaper basket. Resisting the urge to laugh, I look across at Will, but he’s sitting in the chair, studiously ignoring me.

I think today I might have lost the battle, but the war is not over.

—

That afternoon, the whole editorial team has a meeting in the living room. Jonathan gushes about the columns Will and I have submitted. They’re “just what the magazine needs,” and he “can’t wait to see what we come up with next.” Will swells with pride. I can see him physically expanding, like a silverback gorilla puffing out its chest. I want to reach over and pop him with a pin.

“I’m glad I’ll have something fresh to show Crispin. He’s coming to the office next week.” Jonathan pulls a cartoon grimace. “He’s going to reinterview everyone, give people a chance to prove how indispensable they are.” Jonathan chuckles, though I don’t see how this is funny. “You’ll all be fine.” He holds out a hand toward us. “He needs local journalists, it will be accounts and marketing who bear the brunt of it.” He pauses, and a few of the more junior writers exchange worried looks. “If it’s any consolation, he’s cut my Friday afternoon cocktail budget to the nub. Bleak times, bleak times.”

Jonathan’s reassurances are anything but reassuring. A newly framed “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster has appeared on the wall in the main office, and I suspect it’s having the opposite effect on morale. I’ve also noticed Jonathan’s postprandial sherry, which he usually indulges in at around three o’clock, is now being consumed at eleven a.m. He’s a stickler for convention and has told me it’s “unseemly” to have a drink before “the sun is over the yardarm.” I don’t know what this translates to in normal language, but I doubt it’s eleven a.m.

“In any case, back to today’s business. What’s on everyone’s agenda next week?” Jonathan asks, sitting up straighter in his chair and fiddling with his tie. “Anna, are you still covering Hay this weekend?”

“Yes, of course,” I say, surprised he needs to ask. I attend the Hay literary festival every year. It’s only a two-hour drive from Bath, and it’s a highlight of the events calendar for me. Two whole days of book talks and panel discussions. It is heaven. I had to swap two weekends around with Dan to make it work, and now I owe him one in the favor bank, but it will be worth it.

“Excellent. I loved how you covered it last year,” Jonathan says. “Are you imagining a double-page spread, or could you stretch to four? You had an embarrassment of riches last time.”

I blush and take a breath to answer.

“I’m going too,” says Will, casually raising his pen in the air.

“What?” I ask, a little too sharply.

“I’ve been asked to host a panel, stepping in for someone who dropped out,” he says, knitting his fingers, then reaching both hands behind his head, as though he’s having a nice relaxing time at the beach.

“What? What panel? Why?” I ask, possibly too aggressively. People in the room look back and forth between us.

“One of the organizers called,” Will explains. “They were looking for a local journalist who knows about books; I said I’d do it. Come along if you like?” His face is a picture of innocence.

Verbal darts ping inside my mouth, but I swallow them down. Who called, and why didn’t Will put them through to me? He knows I cover arts and culture. He’s purposely muscling in on my turf again .

“Will, that’s excellent news—you’re a credit to us, you really are,” Jonathan says, standing up and walking across the room to pull out his drinks trolley. “Anna, let’s stick with two pages for your coverage of the festival. Will, could you pen a couple of pages about this panel? Maybe get Anna to take a few pictures of you in action?”

“Absolutely,” says Will, then he turns to me. “We could drive up together if you like, save on petrol.” His mouth is all friendly smiles, but his eyes are a gloating green.

“I’ll have to check my schedule,” I say evasively, feeling my neck prickle with heat. There’s a snapping sound and I look down to see it was the nib of my pencil, pressing too hard into my notepad.

—

After the meeting, Steph finds me in the loos washing my hands in cold water, trying to dampen my inner rage.

“It wasn’t a cold call, you know, this person who offered Will the gig in Hay,” she says, handing me a paper towel.

“Oh? What was it then?” I ask. If there’s gossip to know, Steph will know it.

“Some woman who fancies him. A friend of a friend introduced them in London. He wasn’t interested, until he found out she worked for the literary festival. The panel is being livestreamed; he probably sees himself as the next host of BBC’s Beneath the Covers .” Steph shakes her head, then sighs. “I bet he’ll get it too.”

“He’s unbearable,” I mutter.

“Hot though, right?” she says, winking at me, and I flick my wet hands at her until she starts laughing. “By the way, Kelly, Karl, and I are going out tonight. You want to come?”

“I can’t. But thank you.”

“Anna, you never come out,” she says, then puts her hands together, pleading with me. “Next time?”

I pause, realizing I just said no as a reflex. “Maybe,” I say, then give her a genuine smile.

—

As I’m leaving the office, Will intercepts me at the door.

“Shall I pick you up from yours tomorrow morning?” he asks sweetly, as though he’s suggested taking me on a picnic to Cotton Candy Land.

“I’d rather drive separately, but thanks.”

“That’s interesting,” he says, looking like someone who’s about to make a winning move in a game of chess. “Only because I seem to remember a column you wrote that highlighted people’s reluctance to car-share as one of the main reasons we have a traffic problem in Bath.”

Checkmate. Damn him. “Fine, we’ll go together, in my car. I will drive,” I say.

“There’s more space in mine,” he says.

“I have a Volvo estate, so I doubt it.”

“Okay, my car is nicer,” he says, his mouth curling into a boyish grin.

“I don’t want to be stranded if you decide to leave early.”

“We’ll come back whenever it suits you. And we can brainstorm next week’s column in the car.”

I rack my brain for another excuse, but nothing is forthcoming. “Fine,” I say, relenting. “I’ll text you my address.” He saunters away, and my gaze is drawn down to the curve of his firm physique in the perfectly tailored trousers he’s wearing. Snapping my eyes away, I chastise myself for such an inappropriate eye line. Why is it always the biggest arses who have the most incredible arses? Someone’s probably written a thesis on it, where gluteal firmness is inversely proportional to agreeableness of personality. Either way, I’m not relishing the prospect of spending a two-hour car journey with such a perfect arse.