How. Zoe May

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       Chapter Four

      I check the text that buzzed on my phone, causing me to drop that mortifying card. It’s from Phil.

       Where are you? Lots of wedding press samples have arrived. On your desk!

      As the lift arrives at my floor and I head into the newsroom, I can’t help wondering what I’m going to find at my desk, even if I am still reeling with the embarrassment of my encounter in the lift. I never normally receive press samples. I’m usually happier to have a Freedom of Information request granted than get a freebie. I get the odd sample from time to time, normally when an inexperienced PR intern takes a scatter-gun approach and sends free stuff to everyone and anyone at the national press. I was randomly sent some luxury bubble bath a few weeks ago, but on the whole as a politics reporter, my desk is pretty much sample free. Although my colleague Becky, who I sit next to, makes up for both of us on that front. Becky’s the Daily Post’s fashion editor and her desk is often overflowing with freebies from the latest designer collections. There’s generally an assortment of handbags, scarves and the latest luxury footwear scattered about, but today, as I approach our desk, it’s a whole different story.

      I stop in my tracks. My desk no longer resembles a desk. It’s a mountain of wedding kitsch, like a six-year-old girl’s fairy-tale fantasy has exploded all over the place where my computer used to sit. I can barely see it for all the reams of lace, veils, glittering tiaras, roses, bottles of Moët, sparkly cupcakes and pastel-coloured macarons in tiny wedding favour pouches swamping it. I take a step closer and see a pile of lace is a pair of rhinestone-embellished glass slippers resting on top of where my keyboard used to be. They’re quintessential princess shoes, the kind of thing Cinderella would have worn.

      ‘What is going on?’ I utter in absolute shock to a guy I’ve never seen before who’s sitting at Becky’s desk. Even coming up to fashion week, when Becky was constantly getting new stuff, our desks never looked like this. It’s like a fairy godmother has come along and waved her magic wand, not once, but over and over again in some kind of demented frenzy. I can’t even sit down because there’s a huge box of keyrings on my desk chair featuring tiny sculptures of Holly and Prince Isaac in a passionate embrace, gazing into each other’s eyes.

      The stranger in Becky’s seat watches me, his mouth full of a glittering pink cupcake he’s holding, half eaten, in his hand. He swallows.

      ‘Fabulous, isn’t it?’ he says. I check him out again, but I’ve definitely not seen him around the office before even though he looks completely at ease amid the debris of the royal wedding explosion that seems to have occurred at my desk.

      ‘Umm…yeah! Where did it all come from?’ I ask as I move the box of royal wedding keyrings from my chair and sit down, except one falls out and I fail to notice before I sit on it.

      ‘Ouch!’ I pull a mini Prince Isaac and Holly from under my bum.

      ‘Phil said a ton of press stuff’s been in storage while Ella’s been away but now that we’re covering the royal wedding, they've brought it all out! Plus a few couriers arrived this morning with more stuff.’ He picks up a basket of frosted pink cupcakes and thrusts it towards me. ‘They’re great, try one!’

      ‘Er…okay!’ I reach into the basket and take one of the baby pink cupcakes dusted in tiny hearts and edible glitter.

      ‘So, umm, what was that you said about us covering the royal wedding?’ I ask, meeting his gaze. He looks about my age, with sleepy-looking brown eyes that match his tie and artfully messy dark gelled hair. ‘And where’s Becky?’

      ‘Oh, she’s over there,’ he says, taking another cupcake from the basket, before pointing across the office towards the technology desk where Becky’s sitting next to a geeky guy called Neil, the technology editor, who brags in his Twitter bio about being ‘comically witty’ despite having never, in living memory, made anyone in the office laugh. Becky doesn’t notice me looking over, her eyes fixed dully on her monitor.

      ‘What’s she doing over there?’ I ask as I take a bite of my cupcake. It’s delicious: sweet but not too sweet with the softest, lightest, fluffiest sponge. The tiny hearts and edible glitter taste ever so slightly tangy, adding a moreish touch. I reach for another.

      ‘I don’t know. That’s just where Phil put her.’ He shrugs, popping the rest of his cupcake into his mouth.

      ‘I don’t understand,’ I say distractedly as I tuck into my second one.

      ‘Didn’t Phil tell you?’ He looks taken aback. ‘Phil hired me to help with the royal wedding coverage.’

      I glance at this guy’s computer screen, which unlike mine isn’t swamped in vast lace veil, and spot pictures of Prince Isaac and Holly and half a dozen tabs on royal wedding stories.

      ‘I’m Simon Chamberlaine. I’m freelance.’ He shakes my hand. ‘Phil brought me in to support you with the coverage. Didn’t he mention it?’ He looks a little embarrassed.

      ‘Umm…no, he didn’t.’

      ‘Well, I’m on a three-month contract. Phil said he needed “extra reinforcements”,’ Simon explains, doing air quotes. He’s smiling, but I can’t help noticing a flush creeping across his neck. He’s probably trying to suppress first day nerves, and here I am, acting like he shouldn’t even be here at all. Suddenly, I feel really bad, realizing just how unwelcoming I’ve been, but even though I’m disappointed in myself, I’m mostly irritated at Phil. He told me that press samples had arrived and yet somehow failed to mention that so had my helper!

      ‘I just finished a contract at the Weekly Echo and Phil head-hunted me on LinkedIn,’ Simon adds.

      ‘Oh, I see. Well, it’s good! It’s great!’ I insist. ‘I’m Sam.’ I extend my hand.

      ‘Hi, Sam,’ he laughs.

      ‘Sorry about that introduction! Wasn’t exactly my finest moment.’

      ‘No worries,’ СКАЧАТЬ