The Cinderella Reflex (19 page)

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave. That was my boyfriend. We had a bit of a tiff but he’s just told me he wants to arrange a party for my fortieth!”

“You’re forty?” Rosa looked surprised. “You don’t look it.”

“Well, that’s probably because of my Ten Years Younger series.” Helene was gratified, but she didn’t really want to think about that particular project right now. Sara had been researching more anti-ageing treatments but they still sounded gruesome in the extreme. Acid-based gels. Vein-zapping lasers. She didn’t even know if she wanted to try Botox any more. Not now that she’d read it was like injecting poison into your system. And when she realised that it hadn’t done Ollie’s career much good after all.

“Are you in a stable relationship with this boyfriend of yours?” Grandma Rosa asked suddenly.

Helene laughed hollowly. “Stable is the last word I’d use to describe it.”

“So could he be the person who is deceiving you, then?”

Helene felt another flash of irritation. “Look, I’ve enjoyed our chat but I don’t really believe in all of this.” She gathered up her belongings. “So if there isn’t anything else I’ll be off.”

“So what about the Psychic Granny slot? What are your thoughts on it from what you’ve seen so far?”

“Oh! That.” Helene banged her forehead with the palm of her hand. She had almost forgotten why she was there. She looked at Grandma Rosa appraisingly. She was certainly chatty enough. And charismatic in an eccentric sort of way. And people did love having their fortunes told – Helene had enjoyed her visit overall, even though she didn’t believe a word of it. On the other hand, Grandma Rosa was
old
. And Helene hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d explained about the station’s constant battle for younger listeners.

“It’s not only about attracting the young,” Rosa said, as if she’d read Helene’s mind. “There’s grey power to consider.”

“Gay power?” Helene was mystified.

“
Grey
power! Seniors with money. The grey euro is the one to watch.” Rosa produced a magazine with a silver-haired couple on the cover, dressed in matching grey tracksuits, sprinting along a white beach and holding hands. “Here, read about it for yourself. People are living longer and the over sixties are an important consumer group.”

Helene took the magazine and leafed through it. If what Grandma Rosa was saying was true, then she might be able to turn this grey power to her advantage. It could, in fact, be her unique selling point in the contest. She could suggest that Atlantic direct some of the focus away from the overcrowded youth market and make a foray into this grey power consumer group. That could be her pitch for It’s My Show.

“Maybe we could try Psychic Granny on a pilot basis,” she said slowly. If she could get Rosa in on a trial basis, she could monitor what sort of listeners she was pulling in.

“That’s fantastic!” Rosa reached over and pulled an A4 pad and a biro from a drawer. “So when do you want me to start?”

Helene tapped the cover of the seniors’ magazine. “I’ll have to do some research before I commit to anything. And it would be a short weekly slot – say about fifteen minutes – rather than a whole show. And I’ll have to run it by my boss, especially the way things are at work at the moment. But, if I can swing it, I’d expect you to be ready to start straight away.”

“The sooner the better!” Rosa could hardly contain her excitement.

“Fine.” Helene stood up. “I’ll be in touch so!” Her mood had improved enormously. Richard had sounded like his old self on the phone and he wanted to meet her as soon as possible to talk about plans for her birthday party. Of course, there was still contentious stuff they needed to sort out. Richard had to understand that Helene wasn’t going to pull out of competing for It’s My Show, not now that she was so excited by the prospect of winning. And he needed to be more – what was the word?
Present
– that was it. He needed to be more present in the relationship. But she felt confident now that she could make him understand that.

Her hand unconsciously went to the base of her throat. Funny, the Psychic Granny must have done
something
, because Helene felt as if her throat chakra was clearer already. As she turned the key in the ignition of her car, she could sense a whole new era opening up ahead of her – one where her new talent for self-expression was going to massively improve every area of her life!

Tess hid behind a giant palm in the lobby of a very plush hotel. She was waiting for Jack McCabe to arrive so she could pitch her elevator speech at him. Her script was crumpled in her sweaty hand in case she forgot what she wanted to say, even though Chris Conroy had made her go over it so many times in the last week she was more likely to forget her own name first. Now all she had to do was to find a way to waylay Jack. She wiped away a bead of perspiration from her forehead. She couldn’t quite believe she was doing this. When Chris had described it he had made it sound so
normal.

“Everyone does this sort of thing, Tess. You need to learn to fight for your career,” he’d pointed out when Tess had voiced her misgivings.

But of course it wasn’t normal. It was, at best, eccentric and quite possibly insane. Tess felt like a stalker and probably looked like one too, if the suspicious glances of the hotel security man were anything to go by. She looked away nervously and scanned the area. Apart from an elderly gentleman dozing on one of the armchairs and a young couple drinking cocktails, the lobby was empty.

She had arrived an hour ago, after Chris had discovered that Jack McCabe was scheduled to show up here for a meeting, apparently connected with his plans for Atlantic 1 FM. Tess didn’t know where Chris got his information, only that he had a lot of it. She had been staying at his apartment in Dublin for the last two nights, cramming for this moment.

It was all a bit bizarre, if she was honest. It had been Chris’s idea that she stay over. At first, she had presumed this was a pretext to re-kindle their relationship but, so far, the visit had been entirely chaste. Between getting a makeover, writing and rehearsing various scripts, there hadn’t been time for much else. Except – and this part was important apparently – visualising a positive outcome.

“You have to imagine yourself as
powerful
. Like a cinema version of yourself, you know? Cinema Tess,” he’d said to her this morning, tilting her chin so he could look deep into her eyes. “At the moment, you just don’t see how great you are. You keep on saying that your agony aunt slot was a disaster. Yet Jack wanted you back. What’s that telling you, Tess?”

She had opened her mouth to speak, but had closed it again as Chris answered himself. “It’s telling you that you misjudged the whole situation because of your low self-esteem, that’s what. And the only way to get over that is to put yourself into situations that are outside your comfort zone. It’s like when I’m going into a war zone. At first I feel terrified but then the adrenaline kicks in, and when I’ve accomplished what I set out to do, I feel fantastic.”

Tess looked around the luxurious lobby of the five-star hotel, with its glittering chandeliers, plush yellow sofas and piped tinkling music and felt guilty for making such a fuss about today that Chris felt obliged to compare it to being in a war zone
.
But in a way, she felt as if she
was
in her own personal battlefield. The idea of waylaying Jack to ask for her job back was so way out of her comfort zone that she felt like she was about to jump off a cliff.

Dipping her head around the palm Tess furtively scanned the lobby. Still no sign of Jack. She glanced at her watch. He was thirty minutes late.

“Are you okay there?” asked the blonde hotel receptionist.

“I ... er ... have a meeting with a Jack McCabe – could you tell me if he has a room booked?”

“All the hotel’s events are posted there.” She indicated a notice board beside the reception desk and peered at the tiny, gold-coloured letters. “Mr McCabe’s meeting is on the fourth floor. There’s someone else waiting for him in the room if you want to go on up.”

“Thanks.” Tess decided she needed to freshen up before she tackled Jack. She shoved her script into the pocket of her dress and slipped into the Ladies’, an opulent area with huge gilt mirrors, porcelain sinks and white rolled-up hand towels stacked up in wicker baskets.

She hardly recognised her own reflection. When Chris had first suggested she needed a complete makeover to relaunch her career she thought he was joking. Again, she had been so wrong. First up had been a visit to Mr Cheung,
Hairdresser to the Stars,
according to the publicity blurb in the window of the salon. He had told Tess she was a very lucky woman to know Chris Conroy because normally there was a three-month waiting list for an appointment with Mr Cheung. As he chopped and tousled her hair this way and that, Tess wondered idly why Mr Cheung kept referring to himself in the third person. And how come Chris knew him in the first place? It wasn’t as if he had enough hair left to benefit from Mr Cheung’s artistry. She remembered what he’d said when he was persuading her to make the appointment. “He’s expensive, but he’s the best. Look on it as an investment in your career. An investment in Tess.”

And though she still felt slightly ill when she thought of his astronomical fee, Tess had to admit that Mr Cheung had turned out to be no mere mortal of a hairdresser. He had highlighted and lowlighted and blended and cut and snipped at her hair for the best part of three hours and Tess could see now that he had worked a kind of magic.

Today, her hair was a shining halo, the frizz miraculously tamed with ‘a special serum’. Her fake tan was so artfully applied it looked natural. She’d had a French manicure and professionally applied make-up done early this morning. She was wearing a navy and white dress, which screamed ‘business but classy’, according to Chris. Business but classy had come with another alarming price tag that Tess didn’t want to think about right now – the bills were all on her credit card and would have to be repaid eventually. But the entire procedure had transformed her from goofy hippy chick to ... well, someone who looked like a stranger.

If it worked, by the end of this morning, she’d have her agony aunt slot back again. And because she wouldn’t be producing This Morning with Ollie Andrews, she could really concentrate on making it a success, on taking her career to the next level. That’s what Chris had said, and since Chris had a stellar career and Tess had known nothing of office politics over the last ten years, she had to believe he knew what he was talking about.

She pulled the crumpled speech out again and scanned it one last time. Then, feeling as if she were about to sit an important exam that she hadn’t studied properly for, she stuffed the paper into her bag. Showtime, she thought, pushing back her shoulders as she marched back into the lobby. Just in time to see Jack McCabe pushing his way through the revolving door of the hotel.

He was again dressed for business – dark suit, white shirt, and the crocodile briefcase. He was pulling at his tie as he strode through the hotel lobby. Tess took a few tentative steps forward. But she faltered when she realised he wasn’t alone. A tall, blonde woman was trailing along behind him, carrying a pile of folders. Tess recognised her from the photograph in the
Killty Times
– the PR guru.

Her stomach seesawed in a sickening motion. In all the run-throughs with Chris, she had never considered that Jack would not arrive alone, and she felt temporarily paralysed at this unexpected turn of events.

She watched him pushing the button for the elevator, glancing at his watch. He was clearly in a rush to get to his meeting. He’d hardly have the time or the inclination to listen to her, and the presence of the PR woman was making it even more difficult. She considered calling the whole thing off. But the thought of another day at the Chris Conroy career boot camp galvanised her into action. She sprang forward, but she was still several paces away when the lift door slid open and Jack and his blonde companion stepped inside.

“Wait!” Tess shrieked as she saw the woman lean forward to press the button to close the door. She threw herself into the lift and the doors bounced off her shoulders before springing open again.

“
Yeow!
” Tess rubbed her arm ruefully.

“Are you all right?” Jack McCabe looked at her with solemn brown eyes.

“Sure,” Tess smiled nervously.

He looked at her more closely. “Hey – it’s you! You look ... different. Did you get something done with your hair?”

“Just a little trim.” She fingered Mr Cheung’s work self-consciously.

“I almost didn’t recognise you out of your pyjamas!”

The woman’s eyes widened a fraction.

“Paulina,” Jack turned to introduce them, “this is Tess – the woman who did the agony aunt slot.”

“Oh?” Paulina looked Tess up and down. “So you’re the woman who walked out of studio in the middle of Jack’s call?”

Tess noticed the unmistakeable putdown. She gave Jack what she hoped was a winning smile. “What a coincidence we should bump into each other like this.”

“Yes, it is. Are you meeting someone about getting your book published?” He turned to Paulina again. “She’s writing a book about how to deal with difficult people.”

“Seriously?” Paulina raised her eyebrows.

Tess flushed. A glance at the lights winking on the panel above the lift door told her they were passing the second floor already. Her speech came out in a rush.

“Jack, I’ve been thinking about what you said when you came to visit me. And the thing is – well, I’d like to do the Agony Aunt of the Airwaves slot after all. Of course I shouldn’t have walked off like that when we were on-air. I realise that but I also know this. It was an invaluable learning experience for me and will make me an even better agony aunt. And if you give me another chance I think you will find it will be a win-win situation for both of us and—”

The lift shuddered to a halt, and a disembodied female voice interrupted Tess in mid-flow.

“Fourth floor. Doors open.”