Page 7 of Someone Else's Shoes
‘I haven’t got time. Who was the last person out of here?’
‘We don’t hold those records, madam. It’s all automated. If you hold on I’ll call the manager and he can come over.’
‘Finally! Where is he?’
‘He’s staff training in Pinner.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake. Give me some track shoes. Do you have track shoes here? I just need to get to my car.’
Nisha peers out of the window. ‘Where is my car? Where’s the car?’
She turns away from the desk and punches a number into her phone. No answer. The receptionist pulls out a plastic packet from under the counter. She looks as bored as if she has just had to listen to a two-hour TED talk on the Drying of Paint. She plonks them on the counter. ‘We have flip-flops.’
Nisha looks at the girl, then at the shoes, then at the girl again. The girl’s face is a blank. Finally, she snatches them off the counter and, with a low growl of frustration, wrenches them onto her feet. She hears the muttered ‘Americans!’ as she leaves.
3
‘Never mind, love. Still three to go,’ says Ted, kindly.
They have driven in silence to the next meeting. Sam has spent the past twenty minutes in the van under a cloud of crushing misery, guilt seeping into every cell that once contained what remained of her confidence. What must they have thought of her? She could still feel the disbelieving stares of those men, the barely concealed smirks as she wobbled back into the van. Joel had clapped her on the shoulder and told her Frampton was a wanker and everyone knew he was a late payer anyway so it was probably the best thing all round, but even as he spoke all she could see was the distant curl of Simon’s lip as she had to tell him that she had lost a valuable contract.
In for six, hold for three, out for seven.
Joel pulls up in the car park and switches off the ignition. They sit for a moment, listening to the engine tick down and looking up at the glossy-fronted building. Her stomach is somewhere in the footwell of the van.
‘Would it be really bad to go into this meeting in flip-flops?’ she says, finally.
‘Yes,’ say Ted and Joel, at the same time.
‘But –’
‘Babe.’ Joel leans forward over the steering wheel and turns to face her. ‘You wear those shoes, you’ve got to style it out.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you looked … embarrassed back there. You still look embarrassed. You’ve got to look like you own them.’
‘I don’t own them.’
‘You’ve got to look confident. Like you just threw them on, you know, while you were thinking about all those big-bucks deals you already signed today.’
Ted compresses his mouth into a fleshy line and nods. He nudges her with a ham-like arm. ‘He’s right. Come on, sweetheart. Chin up, tits out, big smile. You can do it.’
Sam reaches for her bag. ‘You wouldn’t say that to Simon.’
Ted shrugs. ‘I would if he was wearing those shoes.’
‘So the lowest we can do on that job is … forty-two thousand. But if you switch the page numbers and change the title page to mono, we could shave eight hundred off that price.’
She is outlining their print strategy when she observes that the managing director is not listening to her. For a minute she feels the flush of embarrassment again, and stammers the rest of her words. ‘So – so how do those figures sound?’
He doesn’t say anything. He rubs a spot on his forehead and makes a noncommittalmmmsound, like she used to when Cat was little and she was listening to her endless babble with only half an ear.
Oh, God, I’m losing him.She looks up from her notes, and realizes the managing director is staring at her foot. Mortified, she almost loses the thread of what she is saying. But then she looks again, registers his glazed expression: it is him who is distracted. ‘And, of course, we could do that on an eight-day turnaround, as discussed,’ she says.
‘Good!’ he exclaims, as if hauled from a daydream. ‘Yes. Good.’
He is still staring at her foot. She watches, then tilts it slightly to the left and extends her ankle. He gazes at it, rapt. She glances across the table and sees Joel and Ted exchange a look.
