Something Only We Know Read Free

listened, and said he did like me and admired my energy but he wasn’t interested in a girlfriend, he didn’t have time for one. And I’d been so loved-up
I’d just ignored this and kissed him and he kissed me back and shortly afterwards it turned out he was quite interested after all. Happy days.
    A warning cough nearby. I looked up from my desk to see Gerry’s eyes on the main door.
    ‘Our glorious leader’s arrived. Chop chop.’
    That would be Rosa, returned from lunch. The rest of us have to grab a sandwich, but my boss dines out nearly every day. Networking, she calls it. She came round the corner of the water cooler,
headed in our direction. Not an attractive woman in the conventional sense – her chin was too strong for that and she was what Dad liked to call ‘broad in the beam’ – but
she did know how to carry herself. Most likely been to finishing school to learn how to walk with a stack of books on her head. Good breeding, confidence, I don’t know what you’d call
it, but she had it. A healthy, forty-something county girl. I’d slipped into the habit of calling her Tweed-knickers when she was out of earshot.
    ‘Busy, are we?’ she trilled across to Gerry and me.
    I nodded guiltily, even though I had nothing to be guilty about.
    Gerry said, ‘You had a phone message from the new events manager at the racecourse. I’ve put the number on your desk.’ He does that, throws the conversation back at her,
refuses to be fazed. I tend to blush and lower my eyes, even when I’ve been slaving away on an article for hours.
    ‘Good.’ She started to walk away, then paused and retraced her steps. ‘Jennifer?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘How far are you on with the piece on infidelity?’
    Infidelity? She’d lost me. ‘Do you mean the worst-ever-dates thing?’
    She sighed. ‘No. If I’d meant worst-ever-dates I’d have
said
worst-ever-dates. I mean the piece on infidelity. The tell-tale signs of cheating. That book we were sent.
We talked about it yesterday.’
    I glanced over at Gerry but he had his eyes fixed on his PC screen.
    ‘Oh, right. That. I didn’t realise you needed it immediately. Did you want me to start it now, Rosa?’
    ‘I believe that’s what I asked for.’
    Had she? ‘I thought you needed this date piece finishing.’
    ‘I do. I need them both, by the end of the day. Or is that going to cause you some kind of problem? Did they not cover multiple deadlines on your university course?’
    You didn’t
say
you needed the other article for today
, I wanted to snap back.
It’s not
me
who’s causing the problem here. Last week we
didn’t need the Life Class piece till Friday, so why the rush? If you’re going to change the timetabling, you need to flag it up. I’m not a damn mind-reader.
    ‘Well?’
    What I’d assumed was a rhetorical jibe clearly required a response. ‘Yeah, I’ll get onto it. Do you want me to finish the dating stories first?’
    Rosa just rolled her eyes as if the question was more than her patience could bear, then turned on her heel and left.
    I waited till she was gone. ‘Hell. What do you think she meant by “the end of the day”, Gerry? Four p.m? Five? In her email folder first thing tomorrow so it’s there when
she comes in?’
    He removed the end of his pen from between his teeth. ‘Who can tell?’
    ‘How am I going to get through both pieces in time?’
    ‘You’ll just have to squeeze them out. Like toothpaste.’
    ‘I just don’t get why she has to be so stroppy with me, though. Why did she even hire me if she thinks I’m so useless?’
    But I knew the answer to that. Partly it was because Rosa had been impressed with me on paper, with my degree and with my tutors’ references, and she’d offered me the placement
before she’d had chance to realise she didn’t like me in the flesh. Mainly, though, I was kept on because I was an unpaid intern, doing the job for free so as to get my foot on the
ladder. And I considered myself