The Last Word. A. Michael L.
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whether to have a bacon sandwich or a full fry-up.
It wasn’t until Sunday evening, after Chandy left to go home and Rhi had finally stopped blaming Claudia for being so ridiculous that they’d all had to drink so much, that Tabby had time to worry about her meeting with Harry. But really, all she could do was set out an outfit that was most certainly different to the last one he’d seen her in, set her alarm, and crawl into bed, hoping that he looked an absolute mess tomorrow.
Of course, Harry did not look anything other than fantastic. In fact, Tabby realised she was probably never going to see Harry Shulman without getting a dull twitch in her stomach at the sight of him, that wouldn’t abate until he opened his mouth and said something vile.
King of Smart Casual Harry had decided they would meet at JuJu, the latest ‘Pan-Asian haute cuisine monstrosity’ as Chandra had dubbed it. Tabby felt a little too nervous to point out that a Bella Italia lunch deal was more her style. Rhi had offered the best advice of all and told her to approach it like she would a story: it was research.
Sitting in a glass building at a glass table where the atmosphere was chilled to freezing point and the waiters all looked at her like she’d drunkenly wandered in from a barn dance, she felt so awkward, sipping San Pellegrino and trying to decipher the menu, that seeing Harry approach felt a little like being rescued.
‘Sorry I’m late, darling, have you ordered?’ His smile was so boyish and seemingly sincere that Tabby felt unable to feel irritated, even though strangers being unnecessarily affectionate pissed her off usually.
As soon as he sat down, the waitress appeared, simpering and smiling as Harry called her ‘sweetheart’, before rushing off to fetch his vodka tonic. Tabby refrained from rolling her eyes, but only just. And then he turned that smile back to her, and she suddenly pitied the poor waitress, who had actually held up with far more grace under Harry’s scrutiny that she did. She could feel herself blushing, and clicked her fingers to try and get a grip, angry with herself. She was a grown woman. This was a professional meeting.
It wasn’t like Harry was oblivious to the effect he had, the carefully chosen white shirt, the undone collar, the rolled-up sleeves. His glasses resting in the shirt pocket to suggest that, yes, he did have flaws, yes, he was vulnerable. His hair had clearly been coiffed to within an inch of its life in order to get it looking that natural. Tabby wondered if Harry had written any hair care articles, he was clearly an expert.
‘So, how are you, Tabby? Good weekend?’
Tabby thought back to the five a.m. trip back on the night bus, and how she’d narrowly avoided throwing up in a rubbish bin on the side of the road. ‘I’d call it a success. You?’
‘Oh, absolutely a success.’
How did he get his eyes to twinkle like that? And his voice had lowered to a deliciously dirty level. Her lips quirked up, and then she shook it off, trying to get back to professionalism. If there was anything she’d learnt since her journalistic fall from grace all those years ago, it was not to trust your editor. And while Harry was cute, he was also an arsehole. An arsehole who was there to make money from her. So there was no point playing nice.
‘So, what did you want to discuss?’ she said abruptly, sitting up straight.
‘Ah, straight to business, I get it. Sure you don’t want to order first?’ Harry said lightly. And, of course, the waitress reappeared, and she had no idea what to order, running her finger down and picking the first thing, pointing it out instead of trying to pronounce it.
‘Are you sure you want that?’ Harry questioned, and she bristled.
‘I’m quite capable of making my own decisions, thank you.’
He just bit back a smile, threw his hands up in defeat, and ordered his food, pronouncing everything perfectly, the bastard. The waitress gave Tabby a pointed look, as if to say, ‘See, this is what a normal person does.’
Harry then spent the next forty-five minutes roughly outlining where he thought her blogs should go, what he thought she was capable of covering accurately, and generally taking the one thing Tabby did well and making it sound cheap. That was in between endless flirting with the waitress, phone calls, text messages and an offer of a drink from a woman sitting alone at the bar. What the hell kind of a woman sends over a drink when the guy is sitting having lunch with another woman? The depressing conclusion was that Harry was so clearly out of her league that it couldn’t even enter the realms of possibility that they were on a date.
‘I’m not saying it’s immature, per se,’ Harry babbled on, carefully spearing a piece of salmon while Tabby stared morosely at her order – a house salad. All those fancy words for a fucking house salad. ‘It’s just that we have a different level of readership, we don’t just want some crazy young woman ranting about higher education, or using the layers of a Jaffa Cake as an analogy for the class system. We need something more – ’
‘Pretentious?’ Tabby interjected cheerily. ‘Because the way it sounds, Harry, is that you hired me for what I do and now you want me to do something else. Which negates the point of hiring me completely.’
‘Look, I understand you’ve been freelance for a while, darling, so you’re not used to how this works –’
‘Have you at least looked at my CV? You know I’ve worked for major papers before, right?’
‘Yes, years ago, before no one wanted to hire you any more,’ he said it gently, but he was making a point.
And it hurt. She closed her eyes and counted to ten. Think of the money, think of being able to tell your mother you don’t need a cheque this month. Think about being able to buy a new power outfit instead of sewing up the seams of the cherry print again. Breathe. Remember he is just a silly boy and you are a wise woman of the world. Remember that you have friends and fondant fancies and Benefit lipstick. There are rainy days and wood fires and pancakes on Sunday mornings. Life will be OK. Life will be OK with money. Harry is the route to money. Tabby took a deep breath. Deal with Harry and you can have a Prada purse. Put up with Harry and you can have nice things and independence and guilt-free spending sprees. OK. Tabby nodded and opened her eyes to see Harry staring at his salmon, biting his lip, looking a little embarrassed. Probably because she was being a mad cow again.
‘So,’ she said in a measured voice, and he lifted his head, expression free from his usual smirk. ‘I will try to curb my mental woman ways so that we can work together. What would you suggest my first article is on?’
She sat quietly as Harry threw out a few barely there ideas, nodded and looked impressed, sipped a black coffee and made notes in her little green leather notebook. Not that Harry could see they just said, ‘Pretentious twat, pretentious twat, pretentious twat,’ over and over again. It was pretty similar to school, she thought, easy enough to fake interest. He was smiling and chatting away, and she enjoyed ignoring his words, looking at his terribly blue eyes and wondering why it was always the pretty ones who spoke to you like you were an idiot. Perhaps this was how everyone else ended up in relationships. Just smiling and nodding and pretending you were listening to the other person while really you were just appreciating their eyes and the curve of their lips and how razor-sharp their cheekbones were.
‘Thanks, Tabby, I really appreciate you taking my suggestions on board,’ Harry said as he settled up the bill. ‘I’ll see you in a couple of days.’ He kissed both her cheeks and squeezed her shoulder.
‘See you then, darling!’ she twittered with not an ounce of sarcasm.
She left the restaurant feeling hollow, hobbling out onto Regents Street in stupid heels. Tabby decided there was only one course of action: get a drink, work out what she was going to do with the rest of her life, and then go home and cry about it. There should also be cake. She had fallen pray to the Dark Lord of Capitalism, swayed by pretty cheekbones and the idea of new shoes. Harry Shulman was clearly the devil. And she was a silly, silly woman.
She