Getting Over Mr. Right (30 page)

I needed the money. I needed to get out of my parents’ house. I needed to pay Mum back for the course I hadn’t taken before she guilted me to death.

At midnight I knocked on Lucas’s bedroom door. He was still up, playing a computer game.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll agree to it. At least, I’ll agree to further discussion as to what exactly Maximal are planning to do.”

Lucas jumped up from his seat and gave me a huge hug that lasted until he started to panic that his on-screen avatar had left some imaginary castle or other undefended.

So, two days later I found myself back in my old workplace, in the boardroom where so many of my worst nightmares had come true. Ellie stood at the head of the table, in the place I had occupied on the day of the Effortless Bathing debacle, and gave me and Lucas a presentation on Maximal Media’s plans for Mini-Michael. I couldn’t help laughing when she assured me that she would work hard to make sure none of my original creative vision was lost.

“The integrity of your creation is of utmost importance,” she said.

“Ellie,” I laughed, “get real. You’re talking to me.”

The figure they offered us straight out of the box was impressive, but, having spent so much time on Ellie’s side of the table, I knew it was in all probability only half of what they were prepared to spend. There were serious licensing possibilities at stake here. When I told them that Lucas and I would not be signing the deal they had offered so far, Lucas looked bereft. He thought I had just vetoed the entire project, but I assured him that haggling was part of the process. By the time Lucas and I had finished a pub lunch, we were looking at a deal twice as big as the original and a guarantee he would get to direct the animation. That clause was far more important to him than the money. Lucas ordered a bottle of champagne in celebration. While he got drunk, I drank just half a glass and prepared to go into battle over residuals.

Everything changed that September afternoon. Suddenly, after months of having to rely on my parents and benefits for everything, I was about to be an independent adult again. I left Maximal’s office with a check for a grand in my hot little hands, with more to come later. It gave me great pleasure to go into the Jobcentre and tell my case manager that she would not be seeing me again anytime soon. When I explained that I had signed a deal with Purple Phones, her jaw almost hit the table. If I’d had a Big Mac in hand, I would have shoved it right into her open mouth.

At last I was able to leave home for a second time and get a new place of my own. When I announced my intention, Mum and Dad were delighted. Mum was rather less delighted when Lucas followed suit, but while I found myself a place a long way from my parents’ house, back within Zone 2, thank goodness, Lucas found a studio flat just one bus stop away, and when he moaned that there was no washing machine, Mum’s face was covered by an enormous grin.

“I suppose that means you’ll still be bringing your washing home to me.”

I can’t tell you what a joy it was to have my own space again. Having to move back in with my parents had been a humbling experience, to say the least. Who expects the forward motion of their life to be brought to such an abrupt halt and then thrown into reverse? And who would have believed that it was a silly knitted voodoo doll that got my life moving forward again?

I was in my new place by the beginning of October, and since I had nothing to bring with me from my old flat, it truly was a fresh start. I could furnish my new home exactly as I wanted. As befit my new life. The new me. I’d even had my hair dyed back to my natural color to further represent the end of my period in ginger-tinged limbo.

As I relished the simple pleasures of being able to choose what was on the television and letting the washing-up pile up next to the sink until I felt like doing it, I told myself I was going to be much more careful with this second chance. No stupid man was going to entice me to throw what I had away. Things were going to be different from now on.

And indeed life got better and better. The Purple Phones ad was rushed out and became a huge success. The clients were delighted when it won an award at an annual advertising industry event. Maximal Media was saved by the sudden injection of cash. And how could I refuse when Purple decided it would be a good idea to try to rush out a cuddly-toy version of Mini-Michael for Christmas? I was more than happy to sign another contract that would pay off all my debts and allow me to buy my first car. At thirty-two! It was about time I upgraded from a bicycle.

As Christmas was approaching fast, I was especially excited about the presents I would buy for my family. Mum and Dad had always wanted to go on a cruise, and now that Ben was gone they no longer had an excuse not to. (I know that Ben had officially been Lucas’s responsibility, but somehow the dog-sitting always fell to Mum and Dad.) I gathered together a pile of brochures and used my laptop to create a special voucher promising the holiday of a lifetime. I couldn’t wait to see Mum’s face.

Lucas was doing very well, too. He had decided to take a sabbatical from college. It seemed silly not to when the Mini-Michael campaign had brought him to the attention of so many people who were willing to give him actual paid work right then, no matter that he hadn’t finished his degree. Lucas was wisely capitalizing on their interest while he had it. He knew a golden opportunity when he saw one.

Lucas wasn’t the only one who had been offered a job. Having seen me at my steely best in the boardroom when we negotiated
the Mini-Michael contract, Barry had asked me if I would like to go back to Maximal Media as a consultant. After the company had wallowed in the senior-products market for so long, the Purple campaign meant Maximal Media was finally a force to be reckoned with in the advertising world. And that meant that Barry was suddenly courting clients who wouldn’t be fobbed off with tinned-salmon sandwiches in the boardroom and the promise of Betty White. Ellie was leading the revolution, setting up meetings with prospective clients of the kind that Barry had hitherto only dreamed of. More mobile-phone companies, soft drinks, cars followed … even record labels were calling up to see whether Maximal did pop promos as well as TV ads. At last the company had a client list befitting its funky name.

I agreed to go back into the office for two days a week as a consultant, earning for each eight-hour stint roughly what I used to earn in a month coming up with ever-more-outlandish creatures to become mascots for many household brands. Nobody seemed to mind that most of them started from a knitted tube. Handicrafts were very credit crunch, apparently. Apple even brought out a holder for their iPhone that looked like an old gray school sock. It retailed for twelve pounds a pop.

So suddenly I was no longer a clinically depressed stalker/arsonist. I was a trendsetting marketing guru with the kind of life that made me the envy of many a girl about town. I had an interesting job, a plush flat, and a brand-new Fiat Panda. Even Ellie seemed to be happy to give me some respect. Now, that really was a result!

The only thing I didn’t have was a best friend to share the good times.

Christmas drew nearer. News of my curious and unusual success had spread and from having no friends, I was now very popular indeed. My diary began to fill up with party invitations. There was even one from Helen, the friend who had introduced me to Michael and subsequently dropped me when Miss Well-Sprung came on the scene.

I hadn’t spoken to Helen since she sent me an email after Becky’s wedding, telling me, quite rightly, that I was a horrible person and she saw no reason why she and I would ever speak again. But now she was inviting me to her Christmas party. I toyed with the idea of telling her where to stick it. After all, even before the wedding-cake debacle, Helen and her husband had chosen Michael over me. But another part of me wanted to rock up in my new car, wearing my new clothes and sporting a new haircut. It would be so much more impressive to people who knew how low I had sunk just six months earlier. “But would Michael be there?” I asked. Helen assured me he wouldn’t.

When I got to the party, Helen seemed genuinely pleased to see me. She threw her arms around me, and when she said, “You look fantastic,” her voice seemed full of real pleasure rather than envy. There was no doubt I had hoped for envy, but I was very surprised and gratified to learn that Helen’s happiness for me felt better.

“We’ve missed you,” she said.

I dared to think that might be true.

Later, as she circled with a selection of Marks & Spencer canapés, Helen took me to one side and confessed, “Well, you know that Kevin is looking for a new job and we wondered whether there might be any openings with you, or whether you just need someone to look after your personal accounts.”

“I haven’t made a million,” I said, disappointing her and everyone within earshot, “but I will talk to Barry on Kevin’s behalf.”

“We’d really appreciate that. It’s fairly urgent. There are rumors of big layoffs at Wellington Burke.”

I wondered if Michael would be among them. It was hard not to wish it might be so, but I managed not to ask. That was quite a breakthrough for me.

I didn’t feel like staying at Helen’s party too much longer after that conversation, but I did catch up with some people I hadn’t seen since Becky’s wedding reception, all of whom seemed happy enough to see me considering I had been public enemy number one. I suspected that quite a few of them were actually grateful to me for having provided them with such a wonderful anecdote. Or perhaps they were eager for dirt. There must have been some darker reason behind my actions than being pissed off about being single …

“I did a terrible thing,” I said, apologizing over and over. “I will quite understand if Becky never speaks to me again.”

“Why don’t you call her?” someone asked. “You might be surprised.”

Deciding that I had gotten everything I could from Helen’s party, I retrieved my coat and slipped out into the cold night. I pulled my iPhone out of my pocket. Becky’s number was still in there in the contacts list. I could just call her. I brought her number up on the screen, but then I chickened out. I was feeling
pretty good. I didn’t think I could cope with an ear bashing that night, and in any case I had another party to go to.

Lucas had made me promise that I would be at the Christmas party he was throwing in his flat. It was a proud moment for him. His first proper party in his own home. No need to worry about getting cigarette burns on Mum’s sofa, though of course he was very worried about cigarette burns on his own sofa and made all his friends smoke outside.

He accepted my gift of a bottle of champagne gratefully.

“I’m going to hide it in my wardrobe,” he said. “Don’t want to waste it on this riffraff.”

Lucas’s party was heaving. If his neighbors hadn’t been mainlining vodka shots in the kitchen, they would definitely have had cause for complaint.

“Is there any food?” I asked.

“There’s chips” came Lucas’s reply.

I found myself a corner of the sofa and talked about the Purple Phones campaign with a series of starstruck art students who saw Lucas as a hero for having gotten his work not just on YouTube but also on cinema and television screens around the world. It seemed that Lucas had been kind enough to make sure they all knew that Mini-Martin, as he was now known, was my creation.

A girl, with hair like a pair of thin black curtains, wrapped her skinny fingers around my wrist and said, “But before you got the advert … tell me, do you think the voodoo worked?”

I hesitated for a moment. The truth was, I didn’t know. I knew nothing of Michael’s life except for the fact that the firm he worked for might be laying people off. The girl with the Morticia Addams do looked disappointed when I told her, “I don’t think so. Though knitting is great for stress relief.”

“I think voodoo has real power,” she said. “I think someone might have put a curse on me. That’s why my last assignment was marked down.”

“I suppose that believing in something helps create a self-fulfilling prophecy,” I said, not liking where the conversation was going.