The Cinderella Reflex (11 page)

“Well, that depends on what the problem is.” Tess’s words felt like cotton wool in her mouth.

“In a nutshell? That’s easy – my business is going down the drain.”

Tess opened her mouth to reply but, again, no sound came out. She could hear the silence roaring in her ears. But what was she supposed to say here? She wasn’t a business guru! And she knew by now there was no point in looking to Helene or Ollie for help.

“So aren’t you going to ask me what my business is, dearie?” Rosa said.

“Right. Good idea.” Even to her own ears, Tess sounded slightly dazed. “So what is your business, Grandma Rosa?”

“I’m a fortune teller. But,” Rosa’s voice dipped to a confidential tone, “things have been pretty slow of late. I think one of the reasons is because I had a little heart scare? Maybe my clients think I’m out of action, but I am most certainly not. I’m fully recovered and if I could just give out my number …”

“Oh, we’re not a free advertising service!” Tess cut in quickly.

“Oh!” Rosa sounded disappointed.

“The problems we’re interested in hearing about are the kind that other listeners might identify with. Maybe more of an emotional nature? For a business venture, perhaps you might be better off contacting your local enterprise board?”

“Well, I’m sure I’m not the only listener with business problems,” Rosa replied. “Not in this day and age. I mean, if Michael O’Leary or Richard Branson, for instance, rang to say they were having a slump in their business, would you tell them to contact their local enterprise board?”

Tess massaged a vein pulsing in her temple. If Michael O’Leary or Richard Branson were to ring an agony aunt on a flop local radio station looking for business advice, proverbial pigs would be flying around the studio.

“I don’t think that scenario is very likely, do you?” she managed to mutter.

“Hmmm … I suppose it isn’t, now that you say it,” Rosa agreed. “Look, I’ll be honest with you. What I really want to know is how can I get on to the radio like you? Telling fortunes? People would be very interested, I think. And it would give my business a nice little boost.”

Tess put her head in her hands and, at the same time, Helene finally came back to life.

“I’m cutting off this old bat!” she hissed in Tess’s ear. “Just say goodbye to her and that you hope she has better ‘fortune’ coming to her. Geddit?” She laughed mirthlessly at her own joke before adding ominously, “And Tess? You have another caller!”

Tess looked out at her in alarm. Where were they all coming from? Tess had no sooner said goodbye to Rosa than Helene had plugged the next caller through.

“Hello, caller, can I ask you your name and problem?” Tess asked tonelessly.

“Yes. Like your last caller, my problem is a business-orientated one.”

It was a male voice.

“Well, you must have also heard me say that we’re just dealing with emotional problems this morning,” Tess said flatly.

“But there’s an emotional side to it as well,” the caller cut in quickly.

Tess thought she caught a funny, familiar lilt to his voice.

“So? Are you going to tell me what it is? The problem?” she asked impatiently. She was aware of Helene giving her dagger looks through the glass screen but all Tess cared about at this stage was getting rid of this caller and getting herself out of the studio.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I’m considering investing in a business. But it’s mainly because someone very close to me has asked me to. And I’m not convinced it’s a good idea.”

“And?”

“So should I heed what my head is telling me to do and give the business a wide berth – which is what any self-respecting businessman would do? Or should I indulge the person who wants me to invest and, for once in my life, do something that isn’t motivated by the bottom line?”

His voice rose on the last word and Tess realised why he sounded familiar. He was the guy she’d met at the fortune teller’s house! She drew her brows together, perplexed. How strange he would call directly after Rosa. But she had no time to figure it out. They were still live and she needed to perform.

“You’re asking if you should indulge the person who wants you to invest. But isn’t the standard advice for business folk that you don’t let your heart rule your head?”

“Yes, it is. But isn’t there more to life than business?” the caller countered.

Ollie chose that moment – finally – to speak.

“I think you seem to be going around in circles here, Tess!” he sniggered.

“Yes, I think we are,” Tess quickly agreed. She had told everyone this was going to be a disaster, but it gave her no pleasure to be proven right. She leaned into the mike. “In fact, I don’t think I’m the best person to consult on this problem. So from Tess Morgan on the
This Morning
show … it’s goodbye.” Tess heard her voice shake on the last word.

“No. Wait!”

The caller was still on the line, but Tess threw her headphones onto the desk. She stood up to leave. She could vaguely hear Ollie talking to the caller in soothing tones, apologising on her behalf.

“I’m so sorry about this, caller. But it seems that’s all for today, folks, from our new Agony Aunt of the Airwaves, Tess Morgan. Not exactly what I was expecting, mind you, and probably not what you were expecting at home either. But these things take time to settle and no doubt Tess will be back soon to ‘solve’ another batch of your problems. Can’t wait. Meanwhile, it’s time for another disc.”

And the sound of another heavy-metal number blasted over the airwaves.

Chapter Seven

Tess’s face was flushed scarlet as she stumbled out of the studio. She was dimly aware of Helene waving her arms at her, exclaiming how she had just abandoned a caller on air, and Sara saying she hadn’t given any details for where listeners should send their problems.

Tess rushed past them, close to tears. She hurried to her desk, intent on grabbing her bag and getting out of the building. She glanced at Andrea, who was staring at the radio with a bewildered expression. She jumped up when she saw Tess, her eyebrows almost disappearing under her fringe.

“
What
just happened?”

Not trusting herself to speak, Tess gestured for Andrea to follow her. Outside on the main street, while she waited for Andrea to catch up, she gulped in deep breaths of fresh, cold air. Passers-by were going about their business, shopping and sipping coffee in Zelda’s café across the street, unaware and uncaring that Tess had just made a monumental fool of herself. That thought calmed Tess down somehow and, by the time Andrea exited the building, she was already beginning to rationalise everything.

The sky hadn’t fallen in, she told herself, as Andrea linked her arm and steered her across the road. People were continuing with their lives, oblivious to Tess Morgan’s woes. They by-passed Zelda’s, the smell of greasy fish and chips making Tess feel nauseous, and headed automatically for Ryan’s bar. The dark cool interior of the pub felt safe after the experience in the studio. Tess picked a seat at the back while Andrea went to get the drinks.

“Bit early for vodka, but in the circumstances,” Andrea said wryly a few minutes later, plonking two glasses of vodka and miniature bottles of tonic water on the table between them. She poured, then took a sip of her own drink, looked at Tess gravely and deadpanned, “Well, the slot didn’t go too badly in the end, did it?”

Despite herself, Tess felt her mouth twitching. “It’s launched my new career in style, that’s for sure,” she joked, but her hand still shook a little as she took up her glass. “Cheers!”

“Did you know the fortune teller was going to ring?” Andrea was perplexed.

“Of course I didn’t know! I thought I would be doing a straightforward read-through of the script, like you and I prepared.” Tess closed her eyes against the memory.

“And that Cindy! And the guy saying he wanted to know if he should allow his head to rule his heart. I was dying to hear more from him.”

“I met that guy when I went to the fortune teller’s. I’m almost sure of it. I recognised his voice. It is so weird that they both rang in today! I wonder if they planned it?”

Andrea shrugged. “Maybe he’ll call back next week and you can find out.”

“Or
you
can find out. Helene will be hunting for a new Agony Aunt of the Airways so you’d better start preparing now.”

“She’s not going to drop you the first time out. Look, Tess, today was a baptism of fire, but you’ll know what to expect next time. You’ll be better prepared
and
you’ll soon learn to think on your feet.”

Tess shuddered. “No. Even if Helene doesn’t axe me, I’m done. In fact, if you see me going near a microphone again you have permission to cut my head off.” She shook her head ruefully. “Remind me again why I thought Ollie’s job was easy?”

“It looks easier than it actually is. Maybe that’s why Ollie is always bad-tempered. He’s probably full of stress with his figures spiralling downwards.”

“I’m full of stress and I don’t bite people’s heads off on a daily basis,” Tess said sharply. “Although maybe I did today.”

“Anyway,” Andrea swirled her drink around her glass, “we’d better think up a defence for the post-mortem this afternoon.”

“
Yes, and it had better be a bloody good one!
” came an assertive voice.

Tess whipped around to see Sara approaching their table, a reproachful look on her face.

“How did you find us?” Tess asked. She needed to be left alone until she and Andrea could work out how to minimise the damage she’d done.

Hand on hip, Sara looked at her pityingly. “Zelda’s? Ryan’s? It wasn’t difficult to check both venues.” She pulled up a chair and plonked herself down, looking at Tess with saucer eyes. “What happened to you in there?”

“I didn’t know anyone was going to ring in and so I didn’t have any answers prepared,” Tess said. “I don’t have Ollie’s gift for ad-libbing.”

“But you were doing so well – giving Cindy all that advice. Telling her to get a life – that was priceless!”

“Really?” Tess was astonished at what sounded like praise.

“It was great,” Andrea agreed. “Radio gold.”

“Except you ruined everything by walking off mid-conversation,” Sara reminded her. “What came over you?”

“I think I may just have had my first panic attack. I guess I’m not cut out to be on-air, which serves me right for all the times I sniggered at Helene for her efforts. Is she furious because I walked out?” She interlinked her fingers to stop herself from fidgeting and steeled herself to hear all about the fallout from her disastrous debut.

“Furious is an understatement.” Sara looked up as the barman approached and ordered herself fizzy water.

“Helene is always furious about something,” Andrea pointed out. “She’ll get over it.”

“But this is different. Because something happened after you left. Something big!” Sara looked from Tess to Andrea with suppressed excitement. “Guess what it was?”

Tess shook her head and Andrea shrugged.

“Guess who the guy was who called in?”

“An escaped prisoner?” Tess offered mildly.

“Hah!” Sara laughed mirthlessly. “Can you guess, Andrea?”

Andrea shook her head. “Tess met him at the fortune teller’s house – but she didn’t know either of them was going to ring in to the show. Come on, tell us who it was, Sara! Tess has had a very bad morning – and she still has to face Helene and Ollie this afternoon. We don’t really have time for guessing games.”

Sara tutted. “Call yourselves journalists!” She sat up straighter. “That caller,” she took a deep breath and put on her most important voice, “was Jack. As in Jack ‘Midas-touch’ McCabe!”

“
What?
” Tess shot upright, spilling her drink in the process.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Andrea nabbed a wedge of napkins from the tray of a passing barman and dabbed vigorously at the liquid pooling in the middle of their table.

“It’s true!” Sara’s voice rose an octave. “Richard Armstrong recognised his voice straight away. He came storming into the studio just after you left, Tess. He really laid into Helene for letting Jack McCabe on without telling him about it first. Said negotiations are at a very sensitive stage. Helene asked him how she was supposed to know it was Jack McCabe when he didn’t give his name and Richard hadn’t told her
anything
. And then she started quizzing him about that caller Cindywho was having the affair with the married man
.
She said to him, ‘
Did it remind you of anyone, Richard? Like us, perhaps?’.”
Sara stopped to take a breath. “Did you two know Helene and Richard were having an affair?”

“No!” Tess was shocked.

But Andrea was silent, still swirling the dregs of her drink around the bottom of her glass.

“You knew, Andrea?” Sara was openly astonished.

“I had a suspicion, that’s all.” Andrea changed the subject. “So, what’s the strategy for the post-mortem?”

“I don’t know.” Tess was still trying to get her head around the fact that she had just left the future owner of the station dangling in the middle of an on-air call. “That can’t be right, can it, though? A top businessman looking for advice from an agony aunt? And going to a fortune teller? What sort of man would do that?”

“I know.” Andrea shook her head. “You couldn’t make it up!”

“I suppose I did ask him to ring …” Tess said vaguely.

“You what?” Andrea looked bewildered.

“When I met him at Rose Cottage – that’s where the fortune teller lives – I asked him to call in to the programme with a problem to start the slot off, but then he wouldn’t tell me what his problem was so I told him not to bother.”

“But he was Jack McCabe, so he did, ” Sara butted in. “Of course he did! He was probably doing his research.”

“Into what?” Andrea raised her eyebrows.

“Into the station. How we get our stories, that sort of thing.”

“But he never said who he was – even after I said I worked for Atlantic,” Tess said.

“Well, he wouldn’t. It was probably a test,” Sara declared.