LITMIR.BIZ

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Hovis at those ducks, with and without my nana. After a slow and steady lap of the pond, I found a bench somewhere in between the two poles, my confused ensemble not really fitting in with either crew. The kids had clearly clocked me as too old to hang out with them and too uncool to buy them more bargain vodka, and the grandparents did not want their precious children talking to a lady dressed as a stripper on her way to work in a call centre. I didn’t care. I didn’t really feel anything. My brain was so full of so much, I couldn’t do anything but sit on the bench, try to ignore the splinters in the backs of my thighs and make occasional squeaking noises. I wondered if there was some terrifying astrological event I didn’t know about, if all Capricorns were going through something equally traumatic, but it just wasn’t possible. Kate Middleton was a Capricorn – there would have been something on the news if her life was turning as all-encompassingly shitty as mine. There would have been a tweet.

      Stretching out my fingers, I stared at the backs of my hands as though I had a laptop in front of me and tried to switch into work mode. I was best in work mode. If I were still an employed, functioning member of society and my shambles of a life was a campaign, how would I pitch it?

      The biggest problem was the sheer number of problems. I didn’t have a job, I hated my flatmate, my mum hated me, I was in love with my best friend, my best friend was not in love with me, and on top of everything else, even when you peeled away those key issues, I had absolutely no life. Not a single quirky characteristic that could be spun into an adorable side project. As a brand, I was less desirable than Skoda; even I would struggle to spin me. But it wasn’t impossible – I needed rebranding. All the successful companies struggled at some point. Even Apple nearly went bankrupt once. And if someone could make Old Spice cool again, I could certainly save myself.

      But what was the Tess Brookes brand?

      This was why I’d never had an online dating profile – it was too hard to describe yourself. I was loyal, conscientious, creative and logical. I could always see the solution to a problem; I always knew how to make a client happy. Unless the client was me, apparently. Visually, I didn’t have a signature look unless you counted bad hair and massive boobs. (Hopefully no one did.) There was no one thing that would make someone sit back and go, ‘Oh, that’s so Tess.’ I didn’t have a favourite band, a favourite book; I dipped in and out of whatever was on the TV when I turned it on. I could describe every single demographic out there, I could tell you what made someone buy Coke over Pepsi and then switch back again, but I couldn’t tell you whether or not I preferred polka dots over stripes. I knew too much about everyone else and nothing at all about myself. How could I convince someone to buy me when there was nothing to buy?

      ‘There you are.’

      I looked up to see Charlie striding along the edge of the pond, a frown on his face. His pretty, pretty face.

      ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’

      ‘To be fair, I didn’t get that far.’ I glanced around. I wasn’t more than five minutes away from the pub. I was sad, but I was also very lazy. ‘You missed an awesome scene.’

      ‘I know, I heard. I was in the gents.’ He sat down beside me, took off his jumper and draped it round my shoulders. ‘But afterwards you missed Amy grabbing hold of the baby and singing “Circle of Life”, so I think we’re square.’

      ‘Jesus, I’ve only been out here half an hour,’ I laughed, trying not to be upset that I’d missed what sounded like an incredible Lion King homage. I did love a Disney movie. There! That was something I knew about myself. I was a twenty-eight-year-old unemployed single woman who loved animated movies made for children. If we were at work, I’d be trying to sell me some cat food and a lovely cardigan about now. Maybe I should just change my name and run away – that would be a pretty decent rebrand.

      ‘Well, I was worried about you,’ he said, nudging me with his shoulder. ‘Been a shit week, Brookes. How are you still sober?’

      ‘Didn’t bring any booze.’ I waved my empty hands at him. ‘Schoolboy error.’

      ‘Thankfully’ – Charlie produced a half-bottle of vodka from behind his back – ‘I am not a schoolboy.’

      ‘Oh, you clever man,’ I said, gratefully accepting the bottle and taking a deep drink. I had never been a very good drinker. I loved a drink, but drinks did not love me. The two mugs of wine I’d enjoyed on Monday, post-sacking, were the first alcoholic drinks I’d had in a month, but while we were rebranding, I had to consider all my options. Maybe the new Tess would be a drinker. Maybe she’d learn how to make elaborate cocktails and have her friends over for parties. Maybe she’d be a whisky drinker and keep a decanter on her desk like Don Draper. Or maybe she’d do a shot of cheap supermarket vodka by the duck pond and retch in her own mouth.

      ‘Keep it down.’ Charlie rubbed my back and took the bottle from me. ‘Keep it down.’

      ‘Oh, bugger me, that’s disgusting,’ I coughed, feeling the burn in the back of my throat. Maybe if I was going to be a drinker, I shouldn’t start with four-quid cava and vodka that cost less than a Tube ticket. ‘Thank you.’

      ‘You’re very welcome.’ Charlie took a shot without wincing and passed the bottle back. The sun was already setting across the pond, and the bad side was getting considerably more traffic than the good. ‘So, what are we going to do with you?’

      ‘I have no idea,’ I replied, turning to give him my best attempt at a smile. ‘I was just trying to work that out myself.’

      ‘Well, if you were a client and I was trying to sort you out, I’d start with what you wanted out of your campaign,’ he reasoned while I took a second shot. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him rubbing the centre of his left eyebrow. That meant he was thinking. Rubbing his chin meant he was confused. Nodding and scratching the back of his neck meant he was listening but not really paying attention. There wasn’t a thing about this man I didn’t know. ‘What do you want?’

      This was why we were soulmates. He was trying to solve my problems in exactly the same way I was trying to solve my problems.

      ‘My job,’ I replied.

      ‘You can’t have your job.’ He slapped my bare thigh and I had to remember to be offended and not turned on. ‘As account manager, it’s my role to give you honest feedback and tell you what is and isn’t possible. Your old job, off the table. What else do you want?’

      ‘I really do just want my job,’ I said, clutching the warm bottle between my knees. ‘If I had my job back, I could just put everything back how it was and carry on. That would be perfect.’

      ‘If this week has taught us nothing else, it’s that things were not perfect for you,’ Charlie said. He turned on the bench until his knee was pressing against mine. ‘People lose their jobs every day, Tess. They don’t take to their beds for four days and fall apart. They turn to their friends, they go on holiday, they – I don’t fucking know – read the great novels or something. Write a great novel. Start a blog. Tell me what makes you happy, aside from work.’

      I tried to think about something other than his knee on mine.

      ‘You?’ I said as quietly as humanly possible.

      ‘Me?’

      ‘You and Amy?’ I wanted to slap myself.

      Charlie nodded for a moment and took the bottle back from me without words. The ducks on the pond, full of stale bread, started to make their way over to the rushes looking for their beds.

      ‘I think the problem is, you’re so used to being in your head and solving the problem that you don’t know how to present it back to the client. That’s my job,’ Charlie took hold of my hand. His were almost as soft as mine, but so much bigger. I turned, flushed with vodka, proximity and my ridiculous outfit, and looked into his big brown eyes. He was adorable. ‘So here’s what I see. You are a beautiful, clever, funny woman. You work too hard, you take on too much, and you’re far too concerned with other people’s expectations. You worry too much about

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