Читать книгу Match Me If You Can - Michele Gorman - Страница 12

James didn’t fool her. He might be doodling in his notebook but he’d also hang on every word their boss said. He just thought that pretending disinterest made him look cool.

Rachel, on the other hand, was leaning so far forward that she was practically lying across the table. Missed a trick there. She should have had her nose in her book when Ed came in. But then nobody ever accused her of being cool.

‘So what’s up?’ James asked, as if he and Ed were old pals.

‘Thanks for coming,’ Ed said, ignoring James’s bonhomie. Rachel allowed herself the tiniest smile. Not that his snub meant she’d get promoted to the favourite instead.

‘I wanted to touch base about the Zigler pitch,’ Ed continued. ‘At the risk of repeating myself, you did an excellent job and the client loved your ideas. It’s not always easy for young architects to read a meeting correctly, to know just where to pitch your message, but you did it.’

Young architects? Ed was welcome to think of her as a fresh-faced hotshot. She smoothed down her dress – navy polka dots today. Sometimes her style did work in her favour. Though he didn’t need to make it sound like he was their grandfather, tutoring them at his wizened old knee and fishing Werther’s Originals from his cardigan pockets. She knew for a fact that he’d only just turned forty. His wife had sent an enormous cake to the office a few months ago and embarrassed the hell out of him. There was no arguing with his experience though. He’d been with the company since he graduated, working his way up to partner. The higher he climbed, the more hair he lost. These days his shiny scalp was reflecting a lot more than his success.

When Ed’s eyebrows knitted together in concern, Rachel realised she’d been beaming idiotically. Composing herself, she said, ‘Thanks, Ed. We worked really hard on it. And thanks for giving us a chance.’

Way to go, she thought. Pitch your message about two notches above kiss-arse.

Ed directed his next comments to James. ‘I thought your use of that mood board was excellent. It lifted your idea from a drawing to a concept. Inspired.’

That wasn’t James’s idea. It was hers. Well, technically she’d nicked it from Sarah. She was always putting mood boards together for her cards. She shredded magazines faster than a hamster when she got a new idea. Even if the housemates were still reading them.

‘And the presentation was slick,’ Ed continued as James doodled. ‘You used just the right amount of animation to keep their interest. Too much just makes everyone dizzy and lowers the perceived quality of your message.’

Why did he keep looking at James? He’d never been able to work the 3-D program properly. Those animations were hers.

‘Actually, Ed, the mood board was my idea,’ she said.

Ed’s smile creased the laugh lines near his pale blue eyes and made his face look less narrow than usual. Without the smile he looked like a youngish Richard E Grant.

‘Rachel, there’s no “I” in team.’

She felt her face go crimson. She shouldn’t have said anything. Now she just looked petty, while James confidently doodled. If only she could rewind the conversation and take it back. But she couldn’t make Ed unhear her.

Actually, sod that. She didn’t want to take it back. She wanted credit where it was due in the first place. Then she wouldn’t have to stick up for herself. Because that’s all she was doing. She wouldn’t get anywhere if her boss thought James did all the work while she sat in the meeting looking pretty.

Ed kept talking to James while she stewed. Then he complimented the pastries they’d ordered for the meeting. This time he looked straight at Rachel.

That figured. James got credit for all the important work. She got pastries. What did that make her – Julia Child to his Mies van der Rohe?

No, she wasn’t even Julia. She was Mr Kipling handing out pre-packaged cakes.

‘This is ridiculous!’ she said. ‘There may not be an “I” in team, Ed, but if you change your perspective a bit, you’ll see that there is a “me”. You seem to have forgotten that.’

Ed stared at her.

James stared at her.

She wanted to crawl under the table and forget the meeting ever happened.

‘Rachel, is everything all right? I’m sensing there might be an issue here and, honestly, I need to know that nothing’s going to derail you. You and James will be working closely together on this project. Is there a problem?’

She was so incensed at Ed that she hardly heard what he’d just said.

‘We’ve got a shot at the design?’ James asked, finally stilling his pen.

‘You’ve got it. Congratulations. Sorry it’s taken so long, but I guess they’ve got a lot on. They just got back to me yesterday. They want to see your preliminary design on the,’ he consulted his notebook, ‘the twenty-first of next month, so you’ve got five weeks.’

Well not really, thought Rachel, since the office would shut down for Christmas in a few weeks. Ho Ho Panic Ho.

‘It’s all yours,’ Ed said. ‘Well, both of yours. So I need to know if there’s going to be any issue with working together. Rachel?’

‘What? No, no, of course not. That’s awesome, Ed, thanks!’ She couldn’t wait to call her mum.

‘James, what about you? All okay?’

He nodded. ‘Absolutely fine, Ed. Oh, and by the way, it really was Rachel who came up with the mood board, not me. And she’s a whizz at using the software and all the details that made the clients feel comfortable. If I wasn’t so literal – You want me to design? Okay, I design,’ he added in a simpleton’s voice, ‘I’d be good at all the touchy-feely stuff like she is.’

The unimportant stuff, he meant. By implication, the actual designs were his. That was bullshit.

‘Well as long as you deliver one great design next month, I don’t care how you divide up the work.’

Surely, Rachel thought, he meant one design each. ‘Ed, we’re each submitting our own ideas, aren’t we?’

There was that ‘me’ again. Maybe she did sound like she wasn’t a team player.

He shook his head. ‘No, you’ll submit one concept. You’re working together on this. Okay?’

‘Sure, fine,’ Rachel said. She felt anything but fine.

* * *

As soon as Ed left the conference room, James stuck his hand up for a high-five.

So he definitely wasn’t expecting Rachel to punch him in the arm.

‘Ow, Jesus, what was that for?’

‘I’m good at the touchy-feely stuff? James, you made me sound like your assistant.’

He looked stunned. ‘I did not, Rach. What are you talking about? It wasn’t fair that Ed was giving me credit for work you did. I was just setting the record straight. I was defending you.’

That was exactly the faux-chivalry crap he used to pull when they were seeing each other. He’d always known how to play a room. And the last thing Rachel needed was him wading in with his ‘help’ when it came to her job.

‘I don’t need defending, James. I can stand up for myself. I’m here because I’m a good architect, just like you, not some charity case who needs your protection.’

She felt so humiliated. The damage was done in Ed’s eyes. No matter what she said, now he’d think she was just trying to grab some credit. She didn’t want to have to fight for it. She shouldn’t have to.

All the happiness she’d felt at the beginning of the meeting was wiped away. Now she didn’t want to ring her mum. ‘You made me look like an idiot.’

‘I … what?’ He shook his head. ‘I’m really sorry you think that. You don’t look like an idiot and I really didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I’m not trying to protect you. I know you don’t need it. I just wanted to set the record straight with Ed, that’s all.’

The fight went out of her. ‘Can we please just get on with our jobs?’

He shrugged. ‘Are we good, Rach?’

‘Yes, we’re good.’

‘You’re sure? This isn’t one of those times when you say we’re good when you’re really still mad?’

She smiled. ‘So you do sometimes pay attention. No, I’m not mad. I might have overreacted.’ He’d never been malicious. Clueless and exasperating, yes, but not malicious.

‘Well, I am sorry. Do you want to go through some ideas now? I’ve been working on a few things, just some rough thoughts.’

‘I’ve got time. My office?’ she asked.

‘Or mine. Whatever.’

‘Okay, I’ll just run to the loo. See you in five minutes in my office then?’

She caught his smirk as she turned toward the loos.

Fine, she was being petty. She still had some power to win back.

She’d composed herself by the time James approached her desk with his pad.

‘I see you’ve been sketching too,’ he said, trying to get a look at the drawings already on her desk.

‘Just a few ideas,’ she said, covering the pages as he sat down.

‘I guess if we’re working together now we should probably stop seeing each other as competitors.’

‘I don’t think we’re competitors.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘Do you?’

He shook his head. ‘Nuh uh, we’re a team. Just like Ed said. So let me see what you’ve got.’

‘Let me see yours first.’

If they were feral dogs they’d be circling each other with menace. Grudgingly, they traded books.

Suspicion hadn’t always been the cornerstone of their relationship. There had been a time when she’d trusted him with, well, if not her life then at least her naked sleeping person. For much of that year they were as close as two people could be. How could they not be? They were great friends nearly from day one in the office together. And they’d made good lovers nearly from night one in bed together. Rachel felt like she’d hit the lottery – a boyfriend that she could kiss at work. Bonus.

But the relationship kept mucking up the rest of it, so of course it wasn’t that easy. If it had been, they’d be swapping notebooks over breakfast instead of treating it like a hostage situation.

Rachel scanned his drawings to get a feel for the overall look. It was that first glance that set the tone for the client’s impression. You only got one chance to make it.

Then she studied them more closely. She knew he was doing the same thing to her designs. She didn’t dare look up until she was finished.

‘They’re pretty different from mine,’ she finally said.

‘That’s an understatement. We couldn’t be farther apart if we were drawing from different briefs.’

Rachel studied his sketches again. ‘It goes this way up, right?’ James’s building barely had any solid walls. It looked like a pair of glassed-in Brutalist car parks. ‘Well I am surprised by your interpretation,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘It’s all about bringing the outside inside.’ He looked very pleased with himself.

‘It’s not what the brief asked for,’ she pointed out.

‘Yes, it was. It said that we should work with materials that are consistent with the surroundings.’

‘Meaning what? Working with air? The sky? The fluffy white clouds? We’re not designing a house in the Caribbean. It’s a London office. We have to be practical.’

‘The brief didn’t say to be practical. It said it has to be functional. This is functional.’

‘Oh really. How are they supposed to get from one building to another? Swing over on a rope?’

‘You’re one to talk about practical. Were you trying to design a giant doorstop? Yours looks like the cheese grater fell over.’

Rachel had drawn an elegant building that tapered from the pavement on one end to twenty-one floors high at the other.

‘And what’s this supposed to be?’ he continued.

‘It’s an aluminium membrane encasing the external lifts. The brief said to be fun.’

‘That means interesting paint, not a water slide down the outside of the building,’ he said.

‘Clearly we’ve got different interpretations of the brief.’

‘Clearly. Maybe we should let Ed decide.’

‘No way, James. He’s given us this chance to design for one of the firm’s best clients. We’ve only got a little over a month to do it. How would it look if we can’t even agree on the basics? We’ve got to figure this out for ourselves.’

‘Flip a coin?’

‘Not funny.’

That was the trouble with working with your ex, thought Rachel. All the things you’d normally not have to deal with any more – the arguments, annoying habits and, in their case, competitiveness – were still there. And without any sex to compensate.

The idea of going out with James might have been fantastic way back when, but the reality gave Rachel the kind of aversion therapy that people paid good money for. She hoped his RecycLove assessment had space for essays.

No, she conceded as he took back his drawings. That wasn’t really fair. He hadn’t always been a horrendous boyfriend. For every time he’d made her want to throttle him there were probably three when they’d enjoyed themselves. In meteorological terms, he was generally fine with outbreaks of blustery showers. But she’d still got soaked, and that put her off him in a matter of … okay, fine, it took months.