The Bucket List to Mend a Broken Heart (37 page)

My heart is racing and my mind is whirring.
Is he saying what I think he’s saying? I get the impression that I’m in for more than a slap on the wrist.

‘Hang on,’ I say, trying to keep up and process what’s gone on. ‘What about my purchase order? It’s for the same dimensions that are on the paper list, for the files I designed to the same size. Melissa said she’d checked the purchase order with the printers and it matched the panels.’

‘What are you saying, that there are two purchase orders?’ Rick shakes his head before bringing his hand up and rubbing his eyes. ‘Abi, this is sounding nuts.’

‘I know, I know. But listen, someone sabotaged my work before when the files were deleted, and now this.’

‘You don’t honestly believe that, do you?’ he says, looking at me with incredulity.

‘What else am I supposed to think? I didn’t
do this. I didn’t mess up with these dimensions.’

Rick shakes his head. ‘Abi, I can’t stand liars and with the money we’ll now lose on this account and your recent poor performance, in the old days I’d be firing you right about now. But with all the tribunals and legislation these days, I can’t. So instead I’m going to suspend you. For all I know it’s you sabotaging the company. Maybe you’re
making it look like someone else is doing this stuff.’

I scrunch my face up. ‘Why on earth would I do that?’

‘Who knows? Maybe you’re defecting to start your own company or you’ve got a new job.’

Now who’s the crazy paranoid one?

‘Look, I’m as confused about all this as you are. All I know is one of my most trusted designers has let me down, but until we get to the bottom of it I’ve got no
choice but to suspend you. I’ll get HR involved and there’ll be a resolution, one way or another,’ he says.

I’m not going to think of the fact that I don’t know of anyone that’s ever been suspended from work and then reinstated. I know it’s code for giving HR time to go through the proper disciplinary procedure before they fire me so the agency doesn’t get dragged through a tribunal.

I can’t
think what it would mean if I did lose my job. What with my rent having increased and me having used my little cushion of savings to do the list, I’d be in big trouble.

‘Get your bag and leave as soon as possible,’ says Rick.

I walk out of the door and all eyes in the office are on me. Everyone can sense what’s happened and whilst everyone’s looking, no one is making eye contact with me.

I
walk over to my desk, retrieving my bag and shutting down my Mac. I can’t face putting up an out-of-office or tidying anything away. I just want to get the hell away from here.

I turn to walk out of the office when Linz comes bounding up to me.

‘Abi,’ she says in a quiet voice. ‘I can’t believe you’re going.’

Word has obviously travelled quickly round the office.

I shrug my shoulders. ‘Well,
I’m hoping it won’t be permanent.’

‘I hope so too. I can’t imagine working here without you.’

She gives me a sympathetic puppy-dog look and for a minute I think she’s going to burst into tears. She reaches over to me and pulls me into a hug.

‘I’ve learnt so much from you. I was beginning to think of you as my mentor. I can’t believe you’re not going to be here,’ she whispers.

She pulls out
of the hug and gives me one of her winning smiles.

‘You’ll keep in touch though, won’t you? We still need to do that advanced windsurfing course.’

I’d rather stick pins in my eyes. I look at her smiling sadly at me and I wonder if this is all for show. Perhaps this is the final part of her plan to convince others that’s she’s not masterminded this whole thing. Pretending she cares and she’s
sorry I’ve left when deep down she’s responsible.

God, she’s good. She almost has me believing her for a split second.

‘Goodbye, Linz,’ I say through gritted teeth.

I’d love nothing more than to shout at her and grab her by the ponytail to make her confess. But I’ve got to rise above it, as that really would be the final nail in my coffin with HR.

I push past her and carry on towards the back
stairs. I don’t want those from the other companies in the building to see me do my walk of shame.

‘Abi, what’s going on?’ asks Giles, grabbing my arm.

‘I’ve been suspended,’ I say, almost in a whisper as the magnitude of what’s happened starts to hit me.

‘What for?’

‘There was a cock-up with the dimensions of the exhibition panels.’

‘And Rick’s suspending you for that?’

‘Not just that,’
I say sighing. ‘There was the lack of printouts at the Vista meeting too.’

‘But that wasn’t your fault.’

‘And my poor performance when I was away. It’s just a suspension, but between you and me, I think Rick wants me gone. The only way I’m going to save my job is to prove that I didn’t mess this up,’ I say, sighing.

Giles’s eyes blink in rapid succession as he tries to keep up with what I’m
saying.

‘Prove you didn’t do it? What, you think someone else did it, like the missing files?’

‘Uh-huh.’

Rick was right, it sounds ridiculously far-fetched.

‘Do you need any help?’

‘I think I might,’ I say, smiling, relieved that I’ve got one person in the office I know I can trust. ‘I’ll call you tonight to fill you in.’

‘OK. Now take care,’ he says, rubbing my arm.

‘Thanks.’

I don’t
know whether it’s the sympathetic look on Giles’s face or the fact that I’m leaving the office via the back stairs in the middle of the day because I’ve been suspended pending firing, but I just about make it down the fire escape before I’m in floods of tears.

Why is this all happening to me?

Sian and Ben aren’t talking to me, and now the only stable thing in my life – my job – is being taken
away from me.

I guess I could focus on Joseph walking back into my life, but I can’t help but think that my break-up with him and the pursuit to get him back have landed me in this mess in the first place.

As I see it, there are two ways I could go with this. Sorting out my friendships and proving that I didn’t sabotage my own career; or going back to my flat, ordering a takeaway Chinese and
having the mother of all moping sessions. And right now, I choose moping.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Tomorrow is the dreaded abseil, but with Joseph back on the horizon and me suspended, I’ve got absolutely no reason to do it – yet I’m not exactly jumping with joy . . .

I’ve been semi-unemployed Abi for all of four days. Four days and I’m already bored.

After spending the rest of Monday in stunned silence and denial, watching episode after episode of
Grey’s Anatomy
, by Tuesday reality had sunk in.

I decided that maybe I shouldn’t be hanging around in suspension limbo, and should look for a new job instead. I started the day in a flurry of activity getting excited that this could be my new start. I reasoned that I’d been in my job for seven years and perhaps it was time to spread my wings and have a fresh challenge. I earnestly looked at the jobs pages online,
and then remembered how few design agencies there are in Portsmouth. After applying for a random design job that I’m not suited to, I had the brainwave that I’d go freelance. Seven years of contacts surely would mean that I’d be able to get some work.

I began making list after list of possible leads and things I’d need to do to get it up and running. I set up my own free website on Weebly and
searched my Mac for things I could put in my portfolio, but aside from a freebie book cover that I designed for my friend who self-published, I had nothing that didn’t belong to the agency.

I’d always intended to grow a little sideline for when I had my 2.4 kids, only with me not getting anywhere close to that stage in my life, I hadn’t done anything about it.

Pissed off that I’d spent the evenings
in my twenties going out drinking and watching too many box sets rather than setting up a side business, I sulked for the rest of the night and put on more
Grey’s Anatomy
.

On Wednesday I had an even better brainwave: I could still go freelance, and start my own company from scratch designing book covers. My self-published author friend said there was a huge demand for good cover art and since
I love books, it would be perfect. I spent the morning researching other firms that offered similar services, and decided that there was room in the market.

Then I had probably the best idea ever, which was to write my own book. What better way to get my cover art noticed than to write a bestseller that would storm the charts and have everyone wondering who designed the cover? I’d always wanted
to write a Jilly-Cooper-type bonkbuster.

But by midnight I had exactly the same number of words written as I had at midday. Zero. I’d spent most of the afternoon and evening trying to come up with a sexy man’s name to rival Rupert Campbell-Black. I went to bed exhausted and depressed.

Yesterday, I got up thinking that I’d move from Portsmouth. With Joseph potentially back on the scene, I widened
the search to include the surrounding towns like Chichester and Petersfield. I even started to imagine that I could move in with Joseph to make a new commute easier and to save me from financial ruin. It was a win-win situation. But then I started to think of him and our relationship and my head started to spin. I’d been putting off seeing him all week as I still didn’t feel ready to hear what
he’s got to say.

Really could my life be in any more of a mess?

The only saving grace in this whole thing is that now that I’m suspended I don’t have to go through with that terrifying abseil and, with Joseph potentially wanting me back, I have no reason to finish the list, no matter what Ben said.

When I woke up this morning, I didn’t know what to do. I’ve realised I don’t want to start my
own business. There aren’t any jobs locally. I can’t write a bestseller. If I’m honest, I don’t want a new job. All I want is my old job.

And that’s when it hit me: I’m only suspended – I’ve still got time to fight to get my job back.

I’ve been at the company for seven years and apart from letting things slide when I was moping post-Joseph, I’ve done nothing but good work.

I love my job, my
colleagues, and, when they don’t constantly change their mind, I love my clients. Pat the office manager always keeps the biscuit tin well stocked and I’ve just got my leather seat perfectly moulded to my bum. I don’t want to start somewhere new.

Is that bad? There are still plenty of things that I could achieve there and the company is expanding all the time so it’s not like I’ve got no room
to grow.

And even if I didn’t want my job back I feel like I need to clear my name. What sort of reference would Rick give me if I got fired? Who would dare employ me?

If I’m going to leave Design Works it’s going to be on my terms.

I dial a number on my phone and wait for it to be connected.

‘Hiya,’ says Giles, the smile evident in his voice.

‘Hey, any news?’

I know I probably should start
with some niceties to be polite, but I was born three weeks early and I’ve been impatient ever since. When I told him the whole story of the suspension on Monday, he’d offered to do some digging at work, and I’d finally rung him back this morning to give him the go ahead. It’s been the most agonising two hours waiting for an update.

‘Hang on.’

I hear a loud clatter that I recognise as him opening
the bar on the fire escape.

‘Right, then, I’ve managed to get Sue from finance to pull up the purchase order and she found that there had been two created. Your original one, and another one.’

‘There are two?’ I say, wondering how he’d got Sue from accounts to do anything nice. She usually barks at me and writes me emails in capital letters telling me that I haven’t done my paperwork properly.

‘That’s right. She said it would have usually been flagged up on the system, but she’d had a note on her desk asking her to cancel the first one, so she had.’

My heart’s starting to race. Up until now I’d started to believe that Rick had been right, that I’d been so distracted lately that I’d fucked up. But here is proof that I hadn’t. Unless I somehow forgot that I’d created a whole other purchase
order and written a note cancelling the first – and even I know that’s unlikely.

‘So when was it done?’

‘Um, the second one was created at seventeen twenty-five on 19 April.’

I usually have a terrible head for dates and times, but I know categorically where I was at that time.

‘I wasn’t in the office,’ I say, relieved that I haven’t had some weird spell of memory loss. ‘I left work at five
on the dot as Ben and I got the train up to London, the night before we went to Paris.’

A jolt of pain hits me as I fleetingly remember Paris and then subsequently my argument with Ben.

‘It says your name on the order.’

‘But I didn’t send it.’

‘Is there anyone else that could have used your account?’

I rack my brains and screw up my eyes. ‘Well, Linz has been doing some of the orders for
me, as she hasn’t got her own finance login yet, and I’ve been showing her how to use it.’

The words tumble out of my mouth. I’ve been showing her how to use it, and how to get my job.

‘Then it must have been her. Rick’s already given her the Vista account to work on – it’s only going to be a matter of time before he takes her on permanently and gives her your job. She must have planned it all
along. We just need to present the evidence to Rick and then you can have your old job back.’

‘Hang on there, Columbo, what evidence? It says I did the order, it doesn’t prove it was her,’ I say with a big sigh.

‘Yeah, but you know it couldn’t have been you. Have you still got your train ticket?’

I scratch my head. ‘Probably. I expect it’s still in my backpack.’

‘Great, I’ll talk to Rick and
–’

‘Giles, I think you’ve done enough . . . hello?’

I’m talking to my phone but there’s no one there. Giles has hung up.

I can feel the perspiration starting to form on my brow. What’s he saying to Rick? I slip my shoes on and wonder if I should go to the office. No, I think, sitting down on the couch. I don’t want to cause a scene.