Bad Guys Read online

  When we first moved down here, we were barely twenty-two. Chloe wasn’t sure what she was going to do with her life so she was temping and I was working as an intern at the company I’m still at now. She got tired of temping and went to work for a solicitor’s somewhere that specialised in fraud. She quickly got bored of it and decided to do the BPTC, but she could only afford to do it part-time and she ended up waiting tables wherever would have her, just to pay the rent. We used to eat food out of tins or if one of us found money on the street, we’d run to the nearest pizza place and buy as much food as we could until we’d pass out in a food coma.

  Chloe would come home ranting about all the know-it-alls on her BPTC course and I’d give her a head massage while she calmed down. I somehow got her to agree to a pact with me – no men inside these walls – and there never was. She’d spend the night with her boyfriends at their houses and we maintained the inner sanctum of our girly paradise. I think she liked that because it meant our place didn’t remind her of her mother’s… where anything and anyone goes.

  Then she met Cole and all of that went away. Our nights in front of the box in our onesies… or the few times when the guys would pick us up and we’d go out on the town, courtesy of their generously lined pockets, of course. By guys I mean Theo and Adam B.S. (before Susan), who were often out on the town, not to pull or anything… just to get sloshed and relive the good old days, I thought. Oh, and there was Adam’s trainee stockbroker friend. Can’t remember his name now. But that guy had a serious thing for me and when he offered to pay for me to have a full shopping experience at Harrods, I took it, of course. And in exchange, me and Chloe posed in the lingerie he was buying. It wasn’t our finest hour, but we both got away with our dignity mostly intact and a lot of new clothes. Those times were crazy, heart-poundingly erratic and mad… but I wouldn’t swap them for the whole fucking world.

  When Cole came along, she disappeared for about a week while she slept at his place – a flat in Notting Hill no less. I knew right away, as soon as I saw her face when she got home needing new pants and her hairbrush, she was in love. I’d never, ever seen her like that before. And she kept saying, “It’s casual, totes cash…” and I would smile like I believed her, while knowing deep down, wherever that man went, Chloe would probably follow.

  And I didn’t blame her. Cole is the kind of guy you drop everything for. And Chloe, the same. They were meant for one another.

  And so here I still am, not moved on, not at all. My best friend left for Oz three months ago and I’ve had six flatmates in that time. It’s not right without her and I hate myself for feeling so wronged and sort of silly, for missing her… for missing that loud craziness that was my life when she was in it, day after day, night after night.

  Now I’m a twenty-five-year-old virgin, living alone (almost), soon to be twenty-six and with this guy’s number in my phone. Do I carry on as I am? Or do I take the risk?

  I’ll tell you what I’ll do first… I’ll stalk him on Facebook. If he’s even on it…

  I look up Adam and search through his friends. Sure enough I find a Robert Shah who is pictured just as I saw him last night… full of life and smiling, handsome and looking like he contains a million witticisms and would never let you down on that front.

  I can’t see anything but his profile picture, also that he works in Leeds. His account is private and therefore I can’t check out my perceived competition or find out more about him… unless I friend him on this damn fucked-up technological mechanism for self-destruction.

  I leave the app and throw my phone to the other side of the bed. I’ve always told myself that I won’t be like everyone else. I’ll be different. I won’t get caught up in that online world and I won’t allow myself to be interested in guys who are already attached.

  No, Robert will just have to try harder.

  Chapter Three

  Two weeks later, my flatmate has moved out and I’ve given notice on the flat. I might not tell Chloe about that because it might put her off ever coming back. If I don’t tell her, then she may think she still has a window to come back and stay with me. I know it’s a long shot… why would she leave Cole to come back here, for me? And maybe I don’t want to upset her by telling her our flat is going to be the home of two new people soon… the four walls will once more bear witness to a brand-new set of friends trying to make it in London, or else two people wanting something simple while they figure out their next move, a bit like we were at one time.

  I’m at my desk, working on some ideas for a new pitch… something for a billion-euro car manufacturer. People in this business don’t last long unless they can continue to move with the climate (literally) and every client wants an injection of something different when they are branding a new product, mostly while remaining true to what they’re already known for.

  “Saskia Ivanova?”

  I look up when I hear my name. It’s the woman from the front desk with a bouquet of boxed flowers in her hands. She’s wearing a headset, a severe black skirt and waistcoat set, plus a fairly annoyed expression.

  “Yes,” I mutter, my lips parched.

  “These came for you.”

  She puts them down rather unceremoniously and people around the office either scowl or stare, concerned for the poor dickhead who likely sent me these. I mean… let them think what they want about me. Fuck them. I drive a VW … in London!

  Shit, though.

  Who the hell sent me flowers?

  Chloe! Please say yes! Say she’s coming back… she apologises for ever leaving.

  Or even better, Mum and Dad, remembering it is my birthday soon.

  I put the box on the floor and huddle over the flowers, searching for a card. I bet that bitch on reception steamed it open earlier and took a look, or else it wasn’t sealed before and she only sealed it once she read it.

  I open the tiny envelope and read a printed message, this being from one of those big florists:

  I’m in London. Call me if you’d like to get dinner tonight.

  I can’t stop thinking about you,

  Robert x x

  Well, fuck me. He’s good.

  I was wondering who the hell had been scoping my LinkedIn profile the other day. I don’t have premium so I didn’t see who it had been… but I bet it was him. That shit.

  And now everyone in the office is staring, waiting for my expression, and here I am… embarrassed because I actually give a shit for once.

  I stare at the flowers which are unusual and not any particular type I’m familiar with. There are some which resemble orchids and others which are bulbous and have exotic antenna things – not quite poppies but along those lines. All I know is that they are beautiful and strange and precisely the sort of arrangement a man who’s dedicated to impressing me would send. Also, something to remind me of him… like these came direct from the wildflower fields in India or something.

  I leave them on the floor, safely stowed beside my filing cabinet. They’re housed in a box but have water… they will survive until home time this evening.

  I try to get on with some work but the thought of him… nearby… it makes me crazy.

  I can’t stop thinking about him.

  There’s a collective gasp in the office when I take my phone in my hands, like they’re waiting to see what I do… like maybe I’ll marry the sap and leave this place. They should be so lucky.

  I give them all evils and remind them to beware. I won’t be the soap opera of the day. Not today, not any day.

  Still…

  I type out a message:

  Thank you for the flowers.

  I press send, holding my breath.

  I’ve done the thing I swore myself off… the thing I’ve been banning myself from doing for two whole weeks now. I’ve resisted temptation all this time… and he sends me a bunch of flowers… and I’m as weak as any other girl, aren’t I?

  Shit, man.

  My heart almost leaps right out of my chest when he
texts back. I try to savour the moment, not open my phone too quickly or anything. Take my time.

  Saskia, I’m glad you like the flowers. How are you? x

  How am I? In hell. Baffled. Blindsided. Annoyed that all my underlings sat around me now have the idea that I am human, after all. Because someone deemed me worthy of flowers.

  I’m currently very embarrassed and half-wishing you hadn’t x

  I smile to myself and decide this is too much. I’m taking an early lunch… and I’m taking the card with me. I lift my bag off the floor and stand up to leave, trying not to grin as everyone watches me go, my cheeks like someone set fire to me underneath my chin. I enter the elevator and use the time it takes to go down ten floors to try and cool myself.

  I get outside the Shard and start walking towards my favourite café down the street which sells big sandwiches and huge slabs of rocky road. I’ll be needing some of that today.

  I’m sorry you’re embarrassed but glad you’re only half-wishing… xx

  I walked into that one.

  I get to the coffee shop and put in my order… a cucumber and cream cheese baguette and a nice big piece of rocky road, not to mention a delightful flat white with a special love heart topping the server always gives me. As I’m sitting down at a table, which are never available at the time I usually come, another text drops.

  What are you up to, then? x

  I don’t know what to reply to that, so I take a picture of my drink and send it to him.

  Coffee place? he asks.

  I left for an early lunch. My staff aren’t used to seeing me… affected.

  So you’ll come for dinner then?

  So you’re single, then?

  I don’t get a reply right away. That doesn’t bode well. He knows if he lies I’ll find out, but maybe if he tells the truth we won’t be meeting for dinner later.

  I’m moving out of our place. It’s taking time.

  So he lives with this woman of his? And what does ‘it’s taking time’ mean? Is she keeping him held hostage? Has he been avoiding rent and paying her in sex?

  My question was, are you single?

  You wanted me to be honest and I’m being honest. We’ve agreed to go our separate ways but I do still have to share the same house until she can get a lodger and afford the bills. I’m not totally single. I’m still paying half the bills x

  Ha ha! You’ve still not said you’re single…

  Well, if you mean am I shagging her? Then, nope. Not for a while actually.

  Men! Why can’t they give a simple answer? Is he trying to tell me that we’ll have to go Dutch if we eat out tonight? Is he trying to tell me that he still feels a responsibility towards this girlfriend of his and he can’t fully be mine until he’s not having to see her anymore? I don’t know.

  I eat my lunch and don’t send him a reply. I’m not into people who can’t make their minds up.

  By the time I’ve finished my sandwich and am dunking my rocky road into the foam of my drink, another text arrives.

  I’ve booked a table for two tonight at the restaurant in my hotel. It’s the Dorchester. Don’t worry, I’m not disgustingly rich yet and won’t try to buy you. I’m at a medical conference so this is just the accommodation that has been put on for us. If I see you at 7, I see you. If not, I cry myself to sleep. But I really hope to see you, Saskia. R xx

  I bite my nails as I read his words and re-read them.

  God, I am tempted.

  Fuck, I am.

  I get back to my desk and admire the flowers. It doesn’t look as though they’ve been touched since I left for lunch earlier. Checking through my emails, I find nothing of significance and try to get back to what I was doing earlier – outlining a potential new brand for that car manufacturer. I try to put Robert to the back of my mind but I can’t.

  I’ve spent the past two weeks thinking about him constantly, how I told him things upfront, even though I hadn’t even spoken about half those things with Chloe – and I’d only just met him, whereas I’ve known her years. Lived with her, for Christ’s sake.

  Moving into the conference room, I start scribbling some ideas down on the whiteboard and before I know it, I’ve got a bunch of ideas for us to get started on.

  I look at my watch and it’s two already.

  “Meeting in five,” I call out to the office. “Round ’em up, people.”

  Everyone pretends they’re hard pushed but I know my people secretly love how hard I work them.

  Once they’re all seated, I get my stick out and point at the speech bubble in the middle. “We’ll build everything around a concept for this one. Ryan and Pippa, I want you to start storyboarding something revolving around a group of friends going on a trip or something, we’ll build on it as we go.” People start writing down notes and I feel gratified I can work because it’s taking my mind off everything. “Hoardings, broadsheet ads, new brochure layouts and digital… all of it has to be clean, fresh and original, including the name.”

  “But didn’t the client say they wanted something familiar?” asks Martin, one of my newer underlings. There’s a collective intake of breath from everyone else, because they know better.

  “They did,” I tell Martin, fake smiling, and most people know that’s my tell… that I’ve now got his card marked to do the donkey work on a project like this. “But, we must make something different.”

  “But why?” Martin persists, and everyone begins to sink in their chairs, scared for him – and maybe a little for themselves.

  I give him the fakest smile I’ve ever given and many of the staff even cover their eyes partially because they can’t watch.

  “Did you not see when you came in? The wall, I mean.”

  Martin frowns.

  “I’ve steered this ship through two previous pitches for billion-dollar companies… and you want to question me? When I’ve been given this position of trust, nobody else.”

  The wall as you walk into our inner sanctum here is splattered with graphics that are instantly recognised around the world. And I drove this team of creatives and designers and videographers… steered them all to one shared goal.

  Martin puts his head down and says no more, realising he’s coming across as a nasty, filthy interloper… finally ashamed of himself.

  “We’re not about the family system anymore, we’re about the larger picture… the four best friends going on a hiking holiday together… the gays off to Pride in their get-up… different races… different sexes… different sexual orientations… it shouldn’t be clear cut anymore. It’s about the spectrum not the unit. A radical brand, if pitched right, could give this client the refresh they didn’t even know they needed. Our job is to show them what they can’t see themselves.” Then I give Martin a quick fake smile and he sinks into his chair until his notepad is covering his shame. “Unless, of course, any of you think you know better than me.”

  “So, we’re pitching a gay car?” Aaron asks, our resident gay.

  “No, my love,” I tell him in my thickest Yorkshire, “we’re pitching a car that has fluidity, of course. It’s just a fucking good car with a fucking good brand and it’s available to everyone… and, it’s cool. It has to be cool first and foremost. Do you understand? Is everyone with me?”

  Everyone nods. “Work in progress, guys. Work in progress. Ideas by the end of the day. Anything goes at this stage. We reconvene tomorrow.”

  I send everyone away and people split off into their groups, chattering wildly for a few minutes before sitting behind their desks looking for inspiration or jotting down notes or collating mood boards. From out of their collective brains, we’ll pluck something good. A new brand… something… unique, but viable.

  Certainly not a gay car! If such a thing even exists (it doesn’t).

  I start scribbling stuff down of my own, such as ideas for a showroom movie to get people’s attention.

  “Erm, Saskia,” someone says, coming to my desk.

  “Yes, Lars,�
� I say, looking up.

  He hands me a piece of paper with a huge amount of scribbles on it… like it fell out of him at the speed of light. I read between the lines and see what he’s saying.

  “So, this guy is posing by the side of the car at the weekend in his tweed and wellies with his two gun dogs, but then he’s shown in flashback falling in and out of it at various events, in various other outfits and whatever?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “This seems like he’s living a double life, my chuck.”

  Lars winces as I throw the paper back at him.

  “It perhaps needs clarification,” he argues, “but if you imagine the hoarding and the broadsheet ad… just this dude and overcast Scottish mountains in the background, a shotgun under his arm… the car dwarfed and yet unassailable as this reliable mode of transport… it’d be quite striking.”

  “Done before and smells too much like whisky or tweed to me. Have another think. Take longer next time.”

  He plods away, scratching his head.

  “Don’t worry Lars,” I mutter to myself, “lesser mortals have risen from the ashes, in the end.”

  Everyone’s ideas are a little outside the box to start with. It’s a matter of fashioning something that resembles some shape in the end, but still outside the lines of what was known before. That’s what I’m known for. Cobbling together, if you like. Pulling all the strands into one, concise masterwork. I love this stage… it’s the filtering that comes later which always wrecks my serenity.

  I watch everyone start to filter out of the office at five o’clock, laptops in bags, papers stuffed under arms and pens behind ears or in many cases, still being chewed. Before long the whole place is empty and it’s just me and the security staff. The big bosses are rarely in the office with us and mostly video call in from wherever they are currently vacaying (most of our business comes from the US). People here must think I have no life, but hey, they’d be right. How else did I get here within three years? I’ve worked my butt off… and I have an eye for this stuff. Plus, my secret weapon is a fresh perspective. That can’t be underestimated in this industry and a price can’t be put on that. Wherever I go, my vision comes with me.