Chapters (50)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication Page
- Contents
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Ninteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Epilogue
- Letter From the Author
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
I went into the living room, where she was sitting at the computer. This was starting to become a habit: me getting up in the night to find my girlfriend doing something in the dark in the front room.
‘Charlie?’
She didn’t respond. Getting closer, I saw that she was on Victor’s company website. Old Street Design. Specifically, she was on the ‘Meet the Team’ page, an area of the site that profiled the staff. Each person who worked there had a photo along with their name, job title and a couple of factoids: favourite cartoon character, what they wanted to be when they grew up, that kind of thing.
‘So this is who you’ll be working with,’ she said.
She scrolled up and down the page.
‘Does Victor only employ attractive young people?’
‘Not only,’ I said, feeling groggy. ‘But yeah, I guess mostly.’
She glared at the screen. ‘He should be taken to a tribunal. I bet if he interviewed two equally qualified women he’d give the job to the prettier one. Actually, he’d probably give the job to the prettier one even if she was less qualified.’
‘I don’t think that’s true,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you come back to bed?’
‘I wish you weren’t going to work there,’ she said.
‘You’re being stupid,’ I said. I was tired, fed up. This was the harshest thing I’d ever said to her. ‘And it’s too late now. I’ve already told Victor I’m going to accept the job.’
I went back to bed, leaving her clicking around the screen, zooming in on the images of one young, attractive woman after another.
The next morning, I woke up to find Charlie sitting on the bed holding a plate loaded with scrambled eggs and toast, a steaming mug of coffee already on the bedside table. As I pushed myself into an upright position, she handed me a folded-over piece of paper. On it she had drawn a caricature of herself, a frowning girl with a tear rolling down her cheek, an arrow pointing to her with the word IDIOT.
Inside, it said SORRY. C xxxx.
‘I love you,’ she said. ‘And I really am sorry. I know it’s a brilliant opportunity for you.’
I kissed her. ‘Why were you so weird about it?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I guess I don’t like change.’
‘But it’s change for me, not you.’
She took the plate and set it to one side. ‘Let’s leave it, can we?’
She slipped back into bed beside me. ‘I’ve got five minutes,’ she said.
Fourteen
Fourteen