A Brand New Me: The hilarious romantic comedy about one year of first dates. Shari Low

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ five foot eight, and even in my highest ankle-straining heels (eBay, ridiculously impractical panic buy for city plumbing Christmas party, can only be worn in presence of crash mat and paramedics) he towers above me. His shoulders are the approximate width of the average pavement, he has sallow young Marlon Brando-type features and his topaz eyes glint brighter than those horrible bloody stars in reception. But the most remarkable thing about him is his hair–dark, long and windswept, it’s not so much Led Zeppelin, more the shoulder-length cut adopted by Jon Bon Jovi after he got a bit older and decided that heavy-metal hair was costing a fortune in conditioner.

      According to Zara, Conn was born when she was sixteen, so he’s twenty-nine now–yet, despite being only a little older than me he has a composed confidence that makes him seem much more mature than his years–a disposition that renders him perfect for his role as Zara’s manager. And yes, I could tell all that from the five conversations we’ve had since I started here two weeks ago. Oh, okay, I confess–a couple of times I accidentally listened in when he was chatting to people on the phone, courtesy of the hopelessly inefficient phone system that allows you to cut in on anyone’s call. I’d complain it was intrusive and invasive to privacy, but then, if Zara is as good as she claims, doesn’t she always know what everyone is thinking anyway?

      A shiver ran up my spine to accompany that now-familiar mental mantra–think nice things, think nice things…Most employees give an occasional thought as to whether or not their boss will check their desk drawers. Some people even worry about management installing spyware on their computer to check their emails. Me? I’m too busy fretting that Zara can see right into my mind and that I’ll get fired because some irrepressible brain cells will blurt out, ‘Hey, you in the dodgy kaftan, you’re a few decades too late for Woodstock.’

      I made my way up to Zara’s office and opened the door with not a little trepidation. The thing is, you just never knew what you would find. One day last week she had been dangling a large kite out of the window, convinced that the patterns it made in the air would tell her whether or not she should book a spiritual retreat to Mongolia next Christmas. Yesterday I’d walked in on her in deep conversation with a goat. Yep, a goat. I’m still contemplating whether the NSPCA would find anything untoward about a grown woman demanding to meet and vet (no pun intended) the animal that will be supplying her morning beverage. Archie Botham and his ballcocks seem positively mainstream compared to this.

      Thankfully, this morning there was no livestock in sight–just Zara, in a fluorescent pink boob tube that flared at the waist into a full-length gown, complete with matching headband. As always, she came to greet me, placed her palms against mine and closed her eyes tightly.

      ‘Let the cosmos deliver a fruitful day of peace, progress and harmony.’

      I said it with her, trying my best not to feel like a twat and just to be grateful that the day had started well. I’d already come to realise that she’d ignore me when she was upset or furious about some cosmic problem, but when she was on the sunny side of the street she liked to perform our little morning affirmation. It was just one of the quirky little rituals I’d come to consider run of the mill. There’d be hell to pay if she realised that I hadn’t checked my aura for celestial darkness since a week last Tuesday. And I didn’t suppose she’d appreciate the book that was tucked safely out of sight in my rucksack: Surviving a Crazy Boss–a Guide to Creating a Positive Working Environment. It was doing the trick. I was more positive than ever that Zara was bonkers. Sudden scary thought: would she sense the book was there? Did she know I was thinking about it?

      I switched to efficient PA mode, while thinking nice things. Nice things. Nice thing number one: I actually enjoyed working there. The hours were fine, the job was interesting, and despite the fact that Zara could switch from the epitome of serenity to ranting egomaniac in less time than it took me to read my horoscope, I’d so far managed to avoid her wrath. Nice thing number two: the salary was great and lots of interesting things happened every day. Nice thing number three: the…Conn. Whoa, that just slipped out there. But okay, I will admit that working in close proximity to GQ man did occasionally stir the…

      Alarm bells shrieked inside my head and the voice of doom yelled, ‘DO NOT THINK SEXUAL THOUGHTS ABOUT A MAN WHEN HIS PSYCHIC MOTHER IS STANDING IN FRONT OF YOU!’ Beads of sweat formed on my upper lip as I rapidly shut down the mental porn channel and reverted to capable secretary mode.

      ‘Your schedule for today is already on both your computer and your BlackBerry and I updated it last night before I left. You’re in the office all day today and you have three private readings–one is with a Mrs Callow from Bridgend, standard six hundred-pound fee for the hour. The second is with the competition winner from last week’s Great Morning TV! competition–it’s a freebie so I told them you’d only see them for half an hour, as you said. And the third is with Sher DeMilo–she’s just been dropped from EastEnders and she was hysterical when she called. What should I charge her?’

      Zara closed her eyes and was silent for a moment, then ‘A thousand pounds–she’ll make more than that opening a new supermarket.’

      Did I mention that I’d discovered yet another surprising and fairly scary truth about Zara? Her image might be one of superior spirituality, she might be an earth goddess, she might even live within the principles of karmic equality, but when it came to her bank balance she was as astute as a supremely gifted accountant.

      ‘Conn asked me to pick up your crystals and organise the house cleaning, so I’ll do that while you’re with your first client. Is there anything else you need me to do?’

      ‘Yes, could you find out the dress code for the TV Times awards and ask Mrs Chopra to come in to discuss my outfit please.’

      I made a note on my pad. Far from sourcing all her clothes in vintage markets and on her Third World travels (as many of her press articles claimed), Zara actually had most of them made by Mrs Chopra, a lovely little Indian lady who ran a sewing business from her two-bedroom terraced house in Hounslow.

      I made my way over to my desk and chair–sorry, my cushion and tree stump–in the corner. As my coccyx thumped onto the floor, I reminded myself for the tenth time to pick up a pair of those cycle pants with the padded buttocks. Not a wardrobe item that I’d ever considered I’d need in my professional career.

      My eyes immediately went to the red file in the middle of my desk. Or should I say bark? Anyway, no time for semantics because my brain was suddenly beating to the sound of da dum. Da dum. Da dum. Da dum. Then the hand tremors started and a solid mass formed in my throat making swallowing impossible. The da dums were speeding up now. I decided to add a defibrillator to the next office supplies order.

      Da dum. Da dum. For two weeks I’d forced myself into denial, hoping that Zara would change her mind, think of a new plan, or get run over by a bus before I had to go through with this ludicrous project, but now the reality was in front of me in black and white–the first of the candidates selected from the bag of replies Zara had received after she’d announced to Goldie that she was looking for blokes who wanted to find their Miss Right.

      At the moment I was definitely channelling Miss Absolutely Bloody Wrong.

      A new wave of panic began to rise from my toes and stopped somewhere around my aching posterior. Why had I ever thought I could do this? Why? This wasn’t my role in the universe. In our daily existence, Trish took care of ‘fearless, outrageous and blunt to the point of abuse’, Stu took care of ‘gorgeous, thoughtful, funny and hip’, and I took care of ‘safe, dependable and predisposed towards the uneventful’.

      I pulled out an A4 sheet of paper with a photograph attached to the top. ‘Harry Henshall’, the title announced. My stomach gave a lurch as I looked at the photograph and realised immediately СКАЧАТЬ