My mouth turned to sandpaper. How the hell could she drop something like this on me and then expect me to reel off an impressive array of ideas?! I wanted to say as much but drew it back.

Whether I liked it or not, I had been thrown in at the deep end without a rubber ring and I had to try and stay afloat. My brain raced to pull up something intelligent to say. I forced my mouth into a rictus smile. “It depends on the fashions.”

“Avanti,” repeated Athena with growing frustration, “is a brave and bold cosmetics brand. The clothes are secondary, but I envisage wispy, ghostly tunics and shirts. It’s all about the make-up.” She raked me up and down with a withered smile. “I take it you have heard of them?”

I swallowed, realisation festering. What the hell was I doing? I was out of my depth. But you need this job, reminded an echoing voice from the ether.

I pretended to glance at my notebook, even though I only had a doodle of a triangle and a cuddly bear on it. “Oh yes. Of course. Who hasn’t?”

“Well then?” she pushed, leaning forward against the table. “Suggestions?”

I had heard of the very expensive, sumptuous brand of cosmetics, favoured by the likes of Jennifer Lopez and Nicole Kidman, but it was somewhat out of my price range. I didn’t dare tell Athena that my cosmetic purchases were normally conducted during my weekly supermarket shop, where I would purchase a pretty rose-pink lipstick or my favourite coffee-coloured eye shadow for a fiver.

I raised my chin, hoping that this would make me seem far more confident than I was feeling. Right now, whenever I opened my mouth to say anything, it sounded like I was just saying “Flump”.

I scanned the bemused faces of my colleagues, who were clearly relieved it was me and not them making a spectacle of themselves.

There was a painting on the far wall of Athena’s office that depicted Glasgow’s Queen Street Station in the early 1900s. “Maybe we could have an old hotel lobby or a train station as the setting?” I gabbled, seizing on that sudden idea and clinging onto it like a slippery life raft.

Athena cut me off with a bored look. “Done to death, both of them. Can you come up with something else asap please? Thanks.”

Then she moved on to Carter, the graphic designer stationed opposite me.

I felt like slumping back in my chair and begging for oxygen. Bloody hell! The morning had only just begun and yet I was already drained!

When the meeting limped to a close, I hurried back to my desk. It was as if my insides had been tossed around in a blender.