Читать книгу Something Like Happy - Sasha Greene - Страница 8

Nick lay on his bed that evening thinking about things. He was starting to wonder about the wisdom of taking a bedsit in the centre of town. He had originally done it because then he wouldn’t have to spend any time commuting, especially because they occasionally shifted a working day to match the hours in the US and he would get home really late. But he missed green fields and trees. The constant hum of the traffic was getting him down. Maybe if he took a flat somewhere out of the city like Lenzie or Milngavie? The commute wasn’t huge, just half an hour each way. And he could spend the time usefully doing something. Reading. Or watching something on his phone. Or something like that.

But then, the real problem was his job. Well, it wasn’t really the job. In fact, he liked it more than he had expected to like an office job. He loved the feeling of solving problems and being master of the web. Of fighting the dark forces of evil with only a few lines of computer code. But the real problem was his colleagues, but mainly his boss. Well, actually, all of them. It was all rolled into a massive knotty problem that he had no idea how to solve.

He supposed he should just try to find another outdoor job, but it was hard. He’d been watching websites for months, and the job he’d interviewed for a couple of weeks back – organising outdoor activities for kids – had been the only one he’d seen for ages that was even remotely close to what he wanted to do, even though the owner of the company hadn’t seemed much better than the boss he had now. And having them offer him the job, and then a few days later call them to say they’d changed their minds? That had been a major blow.

If they don’t want you, you don’t want them. He recited the mantra that his dad had taught him to help him stand up to the bullies at school. The trouble was, it wasn’t always true. A job working outdoors with a tosser for a boss was better than the job he had now, where he was stuck in an office and still had a tosser for a boss. And so his thoughts continued circling, his chest growing tight as he felt more and more trapped in his head.

If he stayed in the same type of work that he was doing now then he would probably have to go down to London to find another job, and the thought of that scared him even more than carrying on in his current job. Besides, he didn’t like the thought of running away. Even though the blokes in his office all seemed the same, odds were that some of them were as frustrated as he was. If he could only find a way to sort things out …

‘New Year, new start.’ Nick jumped as one of his colleagues threw a backpack onto a nearby desk. Nick normally had the office to himself until at least nine. He liked to come in early, before eight if possible. It gave him at least an hour before the office banter started up and he got distracted by people asking him for things. But it seemed that someone had decided to start the new year with a new resolution.

‘Yeah.’ Nick tried to be enthusiastic, but to be honest he was missing the mountains. And being back home. And there wasn’t even any snow in Glasgow to make things look pretty. ‘How was your holiday?’

‘Oh, you know, the usual. Too much food, too much drink. Family rows. Glad to be back really. How was yours?’

Nick thought of the ten days he had spent at home. The wild waves whipped up in the sea lochs. The perfect sheen of the snow on the hills. The deer spread out on the mountain sides like chocolate sprinkles on a white iced cake.

He suddenly realised the other man was waiting for a reply. ‘Oh. Great. It was great.’

Too great, he thought, as he returned his eyes to the screen and back to what he was working on. He had come up with some really good ideas over the holiday for a particularly knotty problem the whole office had been trying to solve. Maybe if he spoke to his boss about it then it might make him more likely to get a good bonus come April. Then he could buy that new amazing winter jacket he had been wanting for ages. If he was really lucky it would be in the summer sales … Then he sobered. Maybe he could just send his parents on holiday. They hadn’t been abroad for years.

It wasn’t long before the office filled up, loud and noisy with people exchanging their holiday stories. Nick wondered some days how ten people managed to make so much noise. Still, they weren’t bad people. They had bought him cake on his birthday. And taken him out for dinner and drinks when he first started. It was just that he struggled to fit in to their casual talk about cars, and golf, and women. And he felt like everyone knew it.

It was no use trying to concentrate on work until everyone had settled down. Time for a cup of tea. He rounded the corner into the breakout area, only to find three of the guys in there, clustered around the noticeboard. One of them took something and pinned it up with satisfaction. ‘There we go. How about that.’ They stood back to admire the view.

Nick looked at the notice board and frowned. Up at the top was a calendar. But not just any calendar. It was some kind of trade calendar, from God knew what kind of company, because January’s picture showed a scantily clad woman bent in a supposedly enticing position over a car bonnet.

Nick sucked in a breath. His mother would have been horrified, and not just because she was a devoted Catholic. He found himself speaking before he thought about the consequences. ‘You can’t put that up there, for goodness sake.’

Andy, the one who had pinned it up, turned towards him. ‘Oh yeah? Why not?’

Nick just shook his head in bewilderment. ‘How can you even ask that? That’s totally inappropriate for an office environment. What kind of image do you think it gives our company? How do you think women will feel when they look at it?’

Andy folded his arms. ‘Tell me, when do we ever get any visitors to this office? And there aren’t even any women here.’

‘What about Sadie?’ Nick couldn’t believe his ears.

‘Her? She’s just part-time admin. She doesn’t count.’ Andy clearly didn’t even see her as a member of staff. Which made Nick angry. Before he knew what he was doing, he had grabbed the calendar off the wall and torn all the pages in half.

He dumped them in the bin, trembling, part with rage and part with fear. ‘There you go. That’s the only good thing that your calendar is good for.’

Andy grabbed Nick and raised his fist under his nose. ‘That was my calendar, you little shit!’

‘Gents! Please!’ Their boss had pushed himself through the group of people watching at the doorway. ‘What is going on here?’

‘He put up a calendar with naked women on it.’ Nick was still angrily defiant.

‘And he ripped it in half and threw it in the bin.’ Andy crossed his arms again.

The big boss sighed. ‘Andy. Nick is right, unfortunately. A naked calendar is not appropriate for the office.’

Nick didn’t like the word unfortunately, but since he was being backed up then he supposed he couldn’t complain.

But the man wasn’t finished yet. ‘But you, Nick. Ripping up other people’s property is not an appropriate way to resolve a conflict.’ He gave a theatrical sigh. ‘Since you’re so junior, I’ll overlook it this time.’

The man turned on his heel. ‘Everyone, back to work! Work doesn’t do by itself, you know.’

Andy gave Nick a dirty look and walked off back to his desk. Nick took a deep breath. He almost wished he hadn’t said anything in the first place, but as he passed Sadie’s desk, he looked at her and saw her mouthing ‘thank you’ at him. His heart lifted. Maybe he had done the right thing?

It was a week later when Nick finally felt ready to go to his boss with his ideas. This was a real gamechanger. It could make them a lot of money. He’d prepared a presentation to show to him, with details of the potential market and everything. He’d grab him right after their weekly team meeting and ask for some of his time. He could barely contain his excitement when he got in that morning.

‘Right, everybody,’ the boss said as they sat down in the conference room, around the white-topped table. ‘We’ll go through the regular business soon, but meanwhile Andy has some exciting new ideas to share with us.’

Andy stood up to the usual claps and hoots of approval, and Nick sat back, curious to know what was coming next. But as the slides displayed on the screen, he felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was his presentation. OK, changed a little bit, but his charts were there. And his ideas. All of his precious ideas.

Nick barely registered the rest of the meeting, so caught up was his mind on how Andy had stolen his work. How had the man done it? And then he suddenly remembered. He had stored all his work on his personal folder on the shared drive. And none of it was password protected. Anyone could have looked at his stuff.

As the others were filing out, he grabbed Andy by the arm. ‘I can’t believe you did that.’

‘Did what?’ Andy looked at him innocently.

They were the only two left in the meeting room. Nick kept his voice low. ‘That was my presentation. With my ideas.’

Andy looked him and folded his arms. ‘Prove it.’

Nick looked at him. ‘I have a copy of it in my folder on the shared drive! You stole it from there!’

Andy shrugged. ‘Like I said.’

Nick made his way back to his desk, his hands shaking. He clicked into his personal folder. And then blinked. The entire folder where he had stored the presentation, and all the research that had gone into it, was gone. Just deleted. He clicked around for a couple of minutes, thinking maybe he’d been mistaken, that he had maybe stored it somewhere else, but when he looked up and caught sight of Andy smirking at him from the other side of the office then he knew. This was revenge for the calendar.

Nick got up and marched straight into his boss’s office. ‘Excuse me. Can I have a word?’

The man leaned back in his chair with a friendly smile. ‘Sure. What can I do for you?’

Nick closed the door, then sat down in the chair across the desk. ‘It’s hard to say this, really. But I need to tell you that those ideas, the ones that Andy showed us this morning, they were mine. I came up with them. He took them off me without me knowing.’

His boss was silent for what seemed like a long while, and then he finally spoke. ‘Nick. I know you’re very new to the team. And all this may seem very new to you, being fresh out of university. But I have to say that we’re a team. We work together. There’s no point putting someone down just to make yourself look better.’ He leaned his arms on the desk, looking very stern. ‘And I have to tell you that accusing someone of stealing your ideas is a very serious accusation.’

He waited a while longer, while Nick shifted in his chair, feeling the blood rise to his face. If even his boss didn’t believe him, what was he going to do?

Then the older man sighed suddenly and leaned back in his chair. ‘Look, Nick. Whatever issues you and Andy have, you need to sort them out. He’s a longstanding valued member of this team. The clients trust him. I trust him. And if you can’t make this work between you, then maybe you should think about finding another job.’

He held up a hand as Nick started to speak. ‘I’m not saying that in a bad way, Nick. I really like your work so far, and I think you have a long and promising career ahead of you. It’s just that if you want to get on in this world, you need to learn how to fit in. And become a team player.’ He smiled at Nick brightly. ‘Now. Is there anything else?’

Nick shook his head, feeling his shoulders slump. ‘No. I understand.’

Nick’s stomach growled, bringing him back to the present. It was after the presentation fiasco that things had really turned toxic in the office. The subtle bullying. The not-so-subtle comments. It had got to the point where he felt physically sick every time he walked through the office door. That’s why he had started applying for new jobs. And had been so elated when he thought he was finally getting away, only to have his dreams dumped in the bin.

He checked his watch. Way past dinner time. At least he felt hungry. That was an improvement, although he still didn’t feel like cooking. He jumped up, almost banging his head on the cupboard in his haste. Screw the cooking. He would go and get sushi from that new Japanese place that had just opened around the corner. A reward for completing task two of the happy list. He couldn’t wait to find out what was number three.

After dinner he went to sleep and dreamed that Jade smashed her way into his office and punched both Andy and his boss in the face, while Archie ran amok in his wheelchair singing army songs at the top of his voice and running over everyone’s toes.

When Nick woke the next day, he realised it was the first time he had slept well in as long as he could remember. He could walk up to the Necropolis again, he thought. Start the happy list over again. And then he would call his mum, he hadn’t spoken to her for ages.

Jade eased herself slowly down into the weird half-standing position that the teacher called ‘chair pose’. It was a few weeks since she had bothered to come to the yoga class, and she could already feel her thighs complaining at the unaccustomed treatment. She mentally promised them a hot bath when she got home and sneaked a quick look backwards to where Nick was. He caught her looking and gave her a wink. Jade smiled inwardly, glad to know that he wasn’t taking it too seriously. She couldn’t believe how cool and collected he looked, while her legs were complaining about her five-week break. She sneaked a look at him again, making sure he didn’t catch her. Yes, she had to admit that those navy-blue shorts showed off his assets pretty well.

Still, this class was probably the best one she had found so far. A mix of yoga and meditation for beginners, with a teacher who was both incredibly practical and didn’t do any of the mystical crap. He was about the furthest thing from a hippie guru that she had ever seen. Short-haired and clad in lycra shorts that she had admired from behind on numerous occasions, he bounced about in front of the class with enthusiasm, and freely admitted his own difficulties in clearing his mind during the meditation exercises. Yes, thought Jade as she twisted herself into another position, hand reaching towards the ceiling, this was about as close to exercise as she was ever going to get. She really should come more often though. She hated to admit it, but she did feel better when she was coming regularly.

Nick sat with his legs crossed and eyes closed as they went into the meditation sequence. He had to admit the yoga had felt really good, but he was a bit sceptical about the meditation. Weren’t you supposed to empty your mind? And how on earth were you supposed to do that?

‘Right,’ the instructor said, ‘you’re probably all wondering now, what the hell do you do next?’

There were laughs around the room, and Nick couldn’t help joining in.

‘I want you to focus on your breathing. Just count to yourself as it goes in and out. You’re bound to start thinking about something, but just look at those thoughts and say to them “Yeah, whatever.”’

There was another round of laughter.

Nick sat up straight and tried to concentrate on the in and out of his breath. He fully expected some stressful thoughts to bubble to the surface, but to his surprise the first thing that came into his mind was his mother, cooking the breakfasts for the guests at the big range like she always did every morning. He couldn’t bring himself to greet her in such an offhand way as instructed, so instead sent her a quick hello, and in his mind’s eye she lifted one hand to give him a wave in greeting. She had been over the moon when he had called her last Sunday. He sometimes wondered if she was truly happy where she was. Could that be why she had urged him to get out and do something else with his life?

In … Out … In … Out … With each breath he could feel himself getting more relaxed, and he rolled his shoulders a little, trying to release some of the ever-present tension in them. He could faintly hear the music from the gym next door, and the smell of plastic from the yoga mat that had thankfully looked fairly new and clean when he pulled it from the box in the corner of the room. If he really listened carefully then he could just about make out the sounds of people breathing in and out all around him.

Strangely enough, the next thing that popped into his head was Jade. It was the first time he had seen her with clothes that fit her closely, and he wondered how someone as skinny as her still managed to have such an amazing bum. He’d had plenty of time to admire it from his position just slightly behind her.

He realised he had completely lost his focus on his breathing and started counting again. He was kind of relieved when the instructor called time and they switched back to yoga again.

When the class was finally wrapped up, Jade lay on her mat for a second, feeling happiness and tired muscles in equal measure. Time for a shower, she thought. And then she would take Nick somewhere for lunch. Her stomach agreed with the last thought, and she smiled again.

A shadow fell over her. ‘Having happy thoughts?’ It was Nick.

She opened her eyes, twisting her head up at him. ‘Having thoughts about food.’

He gave her a grin, extending a hand downwards to help her up. ‘Great idea. My thoughts exactly.’

They were just rolling up their mats when one of the women from the class came over to them. Stunningly gorgeous was the only way to describe her. She was one of those people whose chestnut-brown hair looked amazing even when it was tied up in a messy ponytail, and her skin was lightly bronzed as if she had never spent a day in Scotland in her life. Jade didn’t even want to think about her figure, rounded in all the right places and flat in all of the others.

‘Hi. Can I just ask, are you two together?’ Her soft, sexy American accent just completed the picture of perfection.

‘Yes,’ Nick said, at the same time as Jade answered, ‘No.’

At the woman’s puzzled look, Jade rushed to clarify. ‘Oh, we came together, but we’re not together, together. We’re just friends.’

Were she and Nick really friends? She supposed they were, after a fashion. It would have to do. It was less complicated than the real story.

‘Oh, great.’ said the woman. She draped an arm round Nick’s shoulders. ‘Because I think you’re stunning. I just wanted to tell you.’ She gave Jade a wink. ‘How would you feel about going for lunch?’

Nick seemed speechless, and Jade suddenly felt an irrational burst of anger at this person, coming in and interfering in her life and her friendship. As Nick opened his mouth to reply, Jade spoke before she could find out what his answer would be. ‘Sorry, but not today. We’ve got somewhere to be.’

‘Oh.’ The beauty unwound her arm from Nick’s neck, clearly disappointed, and held a card out to Jade. ‘Well, honey, if you change your mind, just call me.’

Jade took the card, frowning slightly, as the woman turned away. She looked at Nick. ‘Did she …?’

Nick nodded, obviously struggling not to laugh. ‘Just hit on you, yes.’

Jade was still trying to comprehend what had happened. ‘So why did she put her arm around you? I thought it was you that she liked.’ She shook her head as Nick grinned.

Jade fingered the card. ‘Who the hell takes business cards into a yoga class?’ She suddenly looked at it in horror. ‘Come to think of it, where the hell did she have it stored?’

Nick suddenly lost his battle with laughter and doubled over, gasping as he tried to catch his breath. Jade joined him, laughing so hard that she just had to sink down onto the floor and sit for a couple of minutes. It was only the door opening with the people for the next class that brought them back to their senses.

Nick grabbed her hand, his large one closing around hers, and pulled her up to a standing position, wiping his eyes with his other hand. ‘Come on, Miss Stunning. We’ve got a lunch to eat.’