From: [email protected]

Subject: Death threat

Helen, this isn’t funny anymore. If someone really tried to shoot you—and I can’t imagine even you lying about something as serious as that—you’ve got to stop all this. Right now!

Anna

With shaking fingers, I sent it off, then e-mailed Neris Hemming’s people to see if my interview with Neris could be rejigged to the following day. Or the previous day. Or earlier that same day. Or later. Anytime other than 8:30 A.M. on October 6. But nothing doing. A speedy reply told me that if I missed this window, I’d have to go to the back of the queue and wait the mandatory ten to twelve weeks before the next appointment became available.

And I couldn’t! I just couldn’t! I was so desperate to talk to Aidan and I’d waited so long, been so patient.

But if I didn’t make the pitch, I’d be sacked. There was no doubt about it. But couldn’t I always get another job? Maybe not, actually. Especially if potential employers found out why I’d been sacked—not showing up for the most important pitch the company had ever done? And my job was pivotal to me. I needed it; it kept me going. It gave me a reason to get up in the morning and it took my mind off things.

Not to mention that I got paid for it, which was vital, as I was up to my eyes in debt. I’d moved two and a half grand into a separate account as soon as I’d heard from Neris Hemming’s people, so at least that was safe. Other than that, I was just making the minimum card payments every month. I’d done a very good job of shutting out the fear but the idea of being unemployed brought it all rushing in. I’d read somewhere that the average New Yorker was just two paychecks away from the street. For as long as I was earning money I could keep the show on the road, but even a couple of wageless weeks could mean everything collapsing. I’d probably have to give up the apartment, I might even have to go back to Ireland. And I couldn’t do that, I had to be in New York to be near Aidan. I had to do this pitch.

Then I got indignant: What if I really was seriously sick? What if I had cancer and was due my first session of lifesaving radiation treatment the morning of the pitch to Devereaux? Wasn’t Franklin being a little inhumane? Hadn’t this whole work ethic thing gone too far?

I tried to think of other ways around the dilemma: I could call Neris on my cell phone from a coffee shop near work, then be at work just after nine. Indeed, I could even try to make the call from my desk. Except I couldn’t; I wouldn’t be able to properly savor my conversation with Aidan.

Things clicked into place; I’d made my decision. Not that there had ever really been any doubt. I would talk to Neris and blow off the pitch.

I made my way to Franklin’s desk.

“Can I have a word?”

Coldly, he nodded.

“Franklin, I can’t be at the pitch. But someone else could do mine. Lauryn could.”

Exasperated, he said, “We need you, you’re the one with the scar. Lauryn hasn’t got a scar.” He was silent for a moment, and I’m sure he was considering if he could scar Lauryn. He must have decided that, darn, he couldn’t because he asked, “What’s got you so sick?”

“It’s, um, gynecological.” I thought it would be safe saying that to him, what with him being a man. It had always worked in other jobs—telling a man boss I had period pains, when I just wanted the afternoon off to go shopping. Usually they couldn’t get rid of me quick enough—you could see the terror written all over them: Just don’t say the word menstruating. Instead Franklin leaped up from behind his desk, grabbed me, and wove speedily through the desks.

“Where are we going?”

“To see Mommy.”

Shite, shite, shite, shite, shite.

“She says she can’t make the pitch,” Franklin said, very loudly. “She says she’s got a medical appointment. She says it’s gynecological.”

“Gynecological?” Ariella said. “She’s having an abortion?” She looked at me in powder-blue shoulder-padded fury. “You’re missing my pitch to Formula Twelve for a lousy abortion?”

“No. Oh my God, no, not at all.” I was terrified at what I’d got myself into, terrified by her rage, terrified by my lies, terrified at what I’d unleashed.

And I’d have to come up with more lies. And quickly.

“It’s um, my, cervix.”

“Is it cancer?” She tilted her head inquiringly and held my look for a long, long moment. “Do you have cancer?” The message was clear: if I had cancer, she’d allow me to miss the pitch. Nothing less would do. But I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

“Precancerous,” I choked out, dying with shame at what I was saying.

Jacqui had had a precancerous situation in her cervix a couple of years back. At the time we’d all cried, convinced she was going to die, but after the tiniest little operation that didn’t even involve a local anesthetic, she was fully restored to health.

Suddenly Ariella went very calm. Scary calm. Her voice dropped to her sore-throat whisper.

“Anna, have I not been good to you?”

I felt sick. “Of course, Arie—”

But there was no stopping her. I’d have to sit through the whole speech.

“Have I not taken care of you? Put clothes on your back? When we were representing Fabrice & Vivien before the ungrateful fucks went elsewhere? Do I not put makeup on your face? Food in your mouth in the finest restaurants in town? Did I not keep your job open for you when your husband bought the farm? Took you back although you have a scar on your face that would scare even Dr. De Groot?”

As she said the final, damning line, I said it, too, in my head.

And this is how you repay me?

76

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Off the case!

All right, all right, keep your pants on! Just ’cos Aidan died doesn’t mean rest of us will. Anyway, showed Harry the photos of Detta drinking tea with Racey and he said: Ah, there’s no sexual chemistry there at all. Nothing going on there, nothing. No, the leak must be coming from somewhere else. Colin, back to the drawing board. Miss Walsh, I’m happy to say you can go now.

Me: Thanks be to Christ. Antipathy is mutual. (Liked saying that.) Bye, Colin, nice working with you, stay in touch.