The Cinderella Reflex (26 page)

Tess was still trying to figure out how to approach Andrea. “I’m a bit busy at the moment,” she said absent-mindedly. “Why don’t you go along for the first session yourself?”

Sara spoke into the phone again before replacing the receiver and raising her eyebrows at Tess. “The coaching schedule is non-negotiable apparently. She wants you for the first session.”

“For heaven’s sake!” Tess snatched up her notebook and marched up the corridor to the small office Paulina had commandeered for the day. It just wasn’t good enough that she could order people to her at a moment’s notice, she thought crossly. She had absolutely no preparation done for this meeting. In fact, she wasn’t even sure what a coaching session
was.
She knocked on the door sharply.

“Come!” Paulina commanded.

Tess pushed open the door, not bothering to hide her displeasure at being summoned so abruptly.

“Tough start to the day?” Paulina smiled, showing tiny, even white teeth.

“It’s been fine so far,” Tess said shortly.

“It must be difficult having to deal with Ollie again, though?” Paulina pressed.

Tess shrugged. “I can handle him.”

“Well, I can’t get him to listen to my ideas, at all,” Paulina said plaintively. “He seems to be on the defensive all the time.”

Tess hid a smile. It was gratifying to see how the ultra-capable Paulina Fox felt flummoxed by Ollie – it made Tess feel less inadequate. But she wasn’t here to exchange stories about Ollie. She looked at Paulina levelly. “So. This coaching – can we get on with it?”

“Ah yes – the coaching,” Paulina scribbled something on the A4 pad in front of her before looking up. “What do you need to know to help you to win the contest?”

“Well, we’ve already put in our submissions so is all of this not a bit late?”

“The submissions were only one part of the process.” Paulina leaned forward in her chair. “We shall be carefully monitoring people between now and the relaunch day next week.”

Tess wracked her brain. “So what is it exactly you’re looking for in the winner?”

Paulina sighed heavily as if she’d just been asked for the third secret of Fatima.

“Everybody is asking that,” she said. “But it’s sort of intangible, you know?”

“Right,” Tess said uncertainly.

“What I
can
tell you,” Paulina said, “is that we want the winner to portray a certain image. For instance, if we choose a female presenter then we’ll be looking for a woman who is sexy, but with a girl next-door approachability at the same time. Do you know what I mean?”

Tess very much doubted if even Paulina knew what she meant. “Not really,” she admitted.

Paulina narrowed her eyes. “Look, each contestant will need something different to get them up to the standard we’re looking for.
You
for instance,” she looked Tess up and down appraisingly, “you should consult a stylist.”

“Really?” Tess looked down with surprise at her outfit. She had given up dressing down for work since she’d met Chris again and had chosen today’s outfit with care – dark suede jacket, tailored grey dress, much higher heels than she was accustomed to.

“I’m not saying there is anything particularly
wrong
with your image,” Paulina clarified. “But I have worked with the stylist Mai Mooney extensively in the past and she will know instinctively know what we’re looking for. I know Andrea McAdams has already been to see her twice. I can give you Mai’s address if you like,” Paulina began to rummage through a brown leather wallet for a business card.

Tess watched her with rising indignation, remembering Mr Cheung and his astronomical haircare prices. How many more bloody makeovers was she going to have to endure for this job? Then her heart skipped a beat as her mind played catch-up on what Paulina had just said.

Andrea had seen Mai Mooney twice already? So how come she hadn’t told her? She and Andrea told each other everything. Or used to, Tess thought uncomfortably, as the image of Joe and his female companion flashed into her mind.

Of course, she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion about that night. Maybe that’s what she was doing again now. Andrea probably hadn’t had a chance to tell her. Tess had been busy avoiding her after all. And she had a lot going on with the children and the pressures at work. Seeing a stylist was probably just another task on her to-do list.

“Tess?”

Tess snapped back to the present. Paulina had evidently asked her a question and was expecting an answer. She forced herself to focus and for the next twenty minutes tried to concentrate on the conversation. But Paulina remained as irritatingly vague as ever and at the end of her allotted time Tess felt the whole thing had been a waste of time.

She needed to find some way of establishing herself as a serious candidate, she thought, as she left the office. She needed to prove to Jack McCabe that she was more than the flitter head who had walked out of studio during her debut on-air slot and then trapped him in a lift to persuade him to give it back to her again.

She had heard nothing from him since the night in the restaurant. Not even an email to welcome her back. But then what had she expected? Jack had been upfront about his interest in her from the start – she was a temporary solution to an annoying problem, namely to keep Ollie Andrews sweet while Jack and Paulina got on with the task of relaunching Atlantic 1 FM. Any spark of attraction had clearly been in Tess’s own imagination, even if it felt at the time that there was enough electricity between them to power up a small city.

“Tess!” She turned to see Jack coming down the corridor. “I was just coming to see you, to welcome you back. So,” he stopped, pushed one hand through his hair, “how have you been getting on?”

Tess thought of the useless coaching session she had just sat through with Paulina, of Ollie and his constant hectoring of everything she said and did, and of her on-going misery because of the misunderstanding between herself and Andrea.

“Fine.” Her voice came out in a high-pitched squeak.

“Why do I find that hard to believe?” He sounded amused and Tess flushed with annoyance.

“It’s not funny,” she said shortly. To her horror, she felt her eyes filling with tears. “It’s hard trying to fit back in,” she confessed. “And I’m not at all sure that I’ve done the right thing in coming back.”

“It’s that bad? Look, let me buy you lunch and we can talk it through, see if there’s any way we can improve things. I feel a bit guilty because I’m only getting around to checking in with you now. It’s been crazy trying to get everything done in time for the relaunch night.”

She hesitated. The thought of spending her lunch break with a friendly face was almost too tempting to turn down. But what would Andrea have to say if she found out she was having lunch with the boss? Not to mention Ollie and Helene. “I’m sorry but I really have a lot of work I need to be getting on with,” she said reluctantly.

“Coffee then. Please?” He was hard to resist. “I like to iron out difficulties as they occur – it’s not good to leave them to fester.”

“Coffee would be nice,” she conceded.

She made sure they only went as far as the local greasy spoon, Zelda’s, so that if anyone spotted them, they would think the meeting was work-related. And she kept up a professional stance the whole time they were there. She told him how Helene had fainted and how Ollie was on tenterhooks because of the uncertainty at work.

“We all are,” she said solemnly.

“I know. It’s a pity, but it will all settle down eventually and then things will be much better than they were before,” he promised.

And the thing was she believed him. He was so full of energy and optimism it was hard not to be affected by it.

As she made her way back to the office, Tess felt buoyed up by their meeting.

She stopped at the traffic lights and as she waited for them to turn green she felt a sharp tap on her shoulder. She swirled around to face Paulina Fox.

“So what have you been whining to Jack about this time?” Paulina narrowed her eyes. “You’re not still trying to get your agony aunt slot back I hope?”

Tess looked at the other woman in astonishment. “With all due respect, I don’t see what that has to do with you.”

“Everything that happens with Jack concerns me,” Paulina snapped. “And your Little Miss Scatterbrain act doesn’t fool me for one minute. I haven’t quite worked out yet just what game you’re playing, Tess Morgan. Just because Jack doesn’t see through you doesn’t mean that I don’t.”

Tess took a small, involuntary step backwards. Maybe Helene had been bad-mouthing her to Paulina? But the other woman’s animosity felt more personal than that.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tess said finally. “But I need to get back to work. And you’re barring my way.”

Paulina blinked, but didn’t move for several seconds.

Then abruptly, she turned without saying another word and walked off. Tess stared after her, her good mood already vanished. By the time she got back to work, she was still feeling shaky from the bizarre encounter. She stepped into the Ladies’ to gather her wits and saw Andrea was there. She was touching up her make-up, peering into a small compact mirror, pressing her lips together to set her lipstick.

“Hi!” Tess looked at her cautiously. This was her chance to break the ice. “I’ve just bumped into Paulina Fox. She is seriously strange. I went to the so-called coaching session with her earlier and it turned out to be a complete waste of time!” Tess turned on the cold tap and bent to splash water on her face.

Andrea didn’t reply. Tess stood up and pulled off a sheet of scratchy paper towel. She looked at Andrea carefully, remembering what Paulina had said about her consulting the stylist Mai Mooney for advice on her image. Andrea was such a stunner, it was hard to see what Mai Mooney could have offered by way of improvement, but now that she was looking closely, Tess thought maybe Andrea’s appearance
had
changed, albeit in a very subtle way. She looked
glossier
somehow.

“Are you changing your image?” she asked casually.

Andrea closed her mirror compact with a snap. “Not especially. Are you?”

“Well, yes! Trying to anyway.” Tess hesitated. “I have been through two makeovers already, would you believe. But Paulina has just suggested now that I should see a stylist – a Mai Mooney?”

“I wouldn’t bother with what Paulina says. Not when you have the ear of Jack McCabe.”

“I don’t have his ear!” Tess protested.

“Come on! Going out to dinner with him must have been pretty productive!”

“Not really,” Tess wasn’t sure she liked the tone in Andrea’s voice.

“Why not? Didn’t he buy your elevator speech?”

“What is
wrong
with you, Andrea? There was a time when you would have found the elevator speech
hilarious
.”

“Hah, bloody hah!” Andrea turned to the mirror over the sink and began working on her hair, shaking her head to settle it back into shape.

“Oh, get down off the cross, Andrea!” Tess suddenly snapped. “You’re doing stuff to win the contest! Seeing Mai Mooney, for instance. Twice, according to Paulina.”

Andrea looked at her coolly. “I’m ambitious. It’s not against the law. But I’ve always been upfront about it. You, on the other hand, were so good at playing Little Miss Scatty, promising me how you’d help
me
to win, while all the time you were planning your own secret strategy to bag it for yourself.”

“I said I’d help you because I’d been sacked!” Tess exclaimed. “I didn’t think I would be coming back to work here. But ... look, it’s tough out there, Andrea. It’s not as if jobs are growing on trees. And I’ve already explained, my so-called elevator speech was just an attempt to get another shot at the agony aunt gig, like you’ve been advising me to do from day one. Okay, so my method was a bit unorthodox – I got carried away with Chris Conroy’s bizarre methods of career coaching.” She shook her head in disbelief at what Chris had talked her into. “Don’t ask me how.”

“So how did the dinner date come about?” Andrea persisted. She was looking at Tess as if she didn’t know whether she should believe her or not.

“Jack turned me down for the agony aunt slot. Or should I say Paulina turned me down.”

“Paulina was there?” Andrea’s eyes widened.

“In the lift, yes. But not at dinner. Jack wanted me to come back to produce Ollie until the relaunch. I didn’t want to at first. Producing Ollie feels like going around in circles. Unpleasant circles. Anyhow, Jack asked me to dinner to talk about it.” She shrugged. “What can I say? He’s very persuasive.”

Andrea still looked suspicious. “Joe said you and Jack looked very cosy together. It didn’t look very business-like to him.”

“Well, Joe’s dinner didn’t look very business-like either, Andrea!” Tess pointed out. “But clearly it was.
I
jumped to all the wrong conclusions – thinking that just because Joe was having dinner with another woman, he must be having an affair or something. That’s why I’ve been avoiding you, Andrea. Because I didn’t know how to handle it. But Joe wasn’t doing anything wrong at all! So just accept that it’s possible that
you
could be doing the same thing right now. Jumping to the wrong conclusion about myself and Jack.”

Tess stopped, alarm bells ringing far too late.

“What woman?” The blood had drained out of Andrea’s face, leaving it waxy white.

“The woman he was with at the dinner... I thought you said he told you ...”

Andreas’s nostrils flared slightly. “He told me he was having dinner with a former colleague of his. Terry – said he might have a tip-off about a new job. Well, I presumed it was a he – and Joe didn’t say anything to make me think any differently.”

“Well, what does it matter if Terry was a man or a woman?” Tess’s voice was too bright. “It was a business colleague. That’s all that matters, right?”

“Right,” Andrea said grimly. She dropped the compact mirror and lipstick into her handbag and walked away without a backward glance.

Damn, Tess thought, putting her face in her hands. Damn, damn, damn.