Читать книгу Envy - Amanda Robson, Amanda Robson - Страница 30

Back in the changing room, after my spinning class, reaching into my locker, I hear my iPhone buzzing. A new message. An electric current burns through me. Not him. Please not him. I told him I didn’t love him. I warned him if he told Phillip I’d deny it, and Phillip would trust me over him. But as I stepped out of the car eyes shining into mine, he said, ‘I like it when you play hard to get.’

My whole body stiffens when I remember the wolf-like look on his face, his usual veneer of sophistication dissolved away. I take a deep breath. If he causes trouble I’ll just have to deny it. Deny. Deny. Deny. No one can prove that he is right. The phone continues to buzz. I sigh with relief as I reach across and pull it towards me, and press green. The agency.

Mimi wants to see me.

As soon as I arrive, she ushers me in. Mimi is dressed down today. Her hair, although still purple, is not gelled into a Mohican. She has forgotten to put the safety pin in her nose. I sit opposite her wondering why she’s taken it out. Does it get in the way when she makes love, when she kisses? She smiles at me, and the skin around her eyes crinkles.

‘I’ve got a job for you,’ she says.

I open my mouth and close it again.

‘Don’t look so surprised, I do place people sometimes,’ she says.

‘What is it?’ I ask.

She leans back in her chair and folds her arms as her smile widens. ‘An assignment for the local ice-cream company.’

It’s not a national campaign, but it’s a start. Just the start I needed. A reputable local company. My heart soars.

‘What do they have in mind?’ I ask.

‘A photoshoot. Two days at most. You walking in the local woods wearing a floaty dress licking one of their ice creams, soft-focus lens. “Dreamy and creamy”, will be the tag line, “Making you feel as if it’s summer all year.” They’re intending to run an ad on the back page of the Richmond Magazine, and make a film advert for local cinema.’

‘Dreamy and creamy sounds fine to me. I accept.’

‘Don’t you want to know about the money?’

‘Of course I do, just didn’t like to ask.’

‘Four hundred pounds.’

Four hundred pounds. Not a lot but a job. Something beginning to happen at last. This is a big step up. Maybe my career will take off at last. Maybe one day, in the scale of things, my problem with Jonah will seem irrelevant.