The One Before the One (7 page)

‘Meet Aaron. Aaron is twenty-eight and at the top of his game.’

Rule number 1 of the perfect sales pitch: HUMANIZE. Especially when pitching to Darryl Schumacher. Darryl can’t resist the human touch. It makes him believe (wrongly, so wrongly), that he possesses it too.

‘Aaron is a successful insurance broker. He works in a swanky high-rise in the heart of Manchester.’

(Cue picture of a swanky office block in Melbourne. Shona couldn’t find one in Manchester.)

‘He owns a wharf apartment in the city’s hip Canalside district, drives an Audi convertible, drinks Staropramen, Budvar, shops in Ted Baker, Diesel, Reiss.’

Darryl fingers the length of his tie. Must get myself down to that Reiss, you can see him thinking, see what all the fuss is about.

‘Image to Aaron is everything and that’s because IMPRESS …’

The word flashes fuscia pink on my laptop. Darryl’s piggy eyes widen.

‘… is Aaron’s middle name. By day, he needs to impress clients. By night …’

Darryl taps his chewed biro on his notepad. ‘The laydeez …’

‘Quite,’ I say, suppressing the desire to be sick.

I take a deep breath, turn my eyes to the screen.

‘Aaron is talking to people twenty-four-seven. The last thing he needs is to feel unconfident. But he is also a fast-living guy in his twenties. He works hard, plays hard, does everything to the max.’

Darryl loosens his shirt. ‘To the max …’ According to what scale, exactly, I can hear him thinking.

‘He likes a double espresso to kick-start his morning, more than a few Marlboro Lights to relax him post-work. His post-lunch café crème cigar is as much a part of his image as his Armani cufflinks. In short …’

Rule number 2 of the perfect sales pitch: Introduce humour. Especially when pitching to Darryl. Darryl likes to think he’s a very humorous man.

‘… without help, Aaron’s breath’s going to smell like a camel’s bottom.’

The picture of the camel’s gigantic arse flashes up. For some reason, Shona had no problem sourcing that one.

‘Hahahahahah!’ Darryl throws his head back and guffaws. ‘Love it!’ A roll of neck fat spills over his shirt like a piecrust. ‘I can always trust you to provide the laughs, Miss Steele. A girl with a sense of humour. Rare in this game, very, rare indeed.’

I shudder inside. Darryl carries on laughing. Then coughing, like he might cough up a blackened lung right there on the beige, static carpet.

‘So,’ I almost have to shout over the hacking, ‘this is where Mini Minty Me comes in.’ I pick up the tiny silver bottle from the table and hand it to Darryl.

‘It’s got all the benefits of the Minty Me mouthwash: kills 99.9 per cent of oral bacteria, prevents tartar, reduces plaque,
but it comes in a slick little atomizer that Aaron can slip into his pocket along with his wallet. A mouthwash-cum-breath freshener, all in the size of a lighter. Revolutionary, Darryl, I’m sure you’ll agree.’ I flash my best QVC channel smile.

Darryl is nodding, rubbing the stubble on his top lip, which is pale ginger and for some reason reminds me of my old guinea pig, Graham. Me having been the sort of child to call a guinea pig Graham.

He holds the bottle up to the light. Paws it with his sausage fingers.

‘Is he single?’ he says.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You don’t say if Aaron is single.’

‘No, he is not single!’ I am not sure I like where this is going.

Darryl cocks his head to one side. ‘Oh?’

‘I mean, yes! Yes, of course he’s single. Single, but looking for The One.’

‘Ah, likely story. Good looking mover and shaker like Aaron? Come on …’ Darryl’s red-rimmed piggy eyes are looking straight at my chest. ‘Okay, how many women has he slept with this year?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Fifteen? Twenty?’

‘No! No way.’

‘Ten, twelve?’ urges Darryl.

‘Definitely not that many.’

‘How many then?’

‘Three.’

‘What? An Alpha Romeo like Aaron?

‘Okay, six maybe. Oh God,
I
don’t bloody well know. He’s not
real,
I made him up!’

Darryl laughs again. I feel my cheeks burn.

‘Anyway, Darryl, Mr Schumacher,’ I say, closing my eyes.

Don’t blow it now. You’re almost there, this sale is so in the bag …

‘Back to the product, a great product, which all your competitors without exception will be stocking come mid-August. I’d say there’s an opportunity of 1.2 million pounds here for Langley’s with a margin of 35 per cent, which is higher than your average category margin.’

‘I’m sold.’ Schumacher slams shut his notepad and folds his porky little arms.

‘Oh!’
That was easy.
‘That’s great. Really great.’

‘I’ll order 600 units to be in all of the 57 stores by August.’

And there it is. The kick. The high. The fizzy little bubbles of achievement that start in my belly and rise to my face, which is beaming now. It’s the reason I do this job. The reason I get up at 6 a.m. some days, work weekends, work all hours God sends. Because this feeling, it’s gold. Sales is the crack cocaine of the corporate life if you ask me. Although, on reflection, even I am concerned that getting this euphoric about mouthwash may not be altogether healthy.

I shake Schumacher’s hand. He has a handshake like salami: damp, limp and fatty.

‘Thank you, Darryl.’ He carries on shaking. ‘I’ll get the paperwork to you for tomorrow. Of course, it won’t all be done and dusted before the contract’s signed and it’s all, you know …’

‘Bona fide,’ says Darryl, flashing a set of tartar-covered teeth.

‘Exactly,’ I say, hoping he doesn’t see me wipe my hand on my skirt. ‘Well, I’m looking forward to working together,’ I lie.

‘Yep, we’re onto a winner, Caroline. Awesome,’ he says, eyes boring holes in my shirt. ‘Now, I’ve got some mail to fire off, so I’ll see myself out.’

‘Great, speak soon,’ I say, making towards the door.

As I close it, I see him breathing into his hand, covering his nose and sniffing it.

‘Yes! Get
in.
Schumacher
in
the bag!’

It’s only when I stop punching the air that I see that Shona and Toby are looking at me.

Toby bursts out laughing.

‘Fuck me, you really do get excited about selling mouth-wash, don’t you?’

I feel suddenly ridiculous.

‘Shut up you, you’re just jealous.’

‘I can’t believe you can even be in the same room as that man,’ says Shona. ‘Look at him …’ She watches him through the glass. ‘Letching at us all with his little piggy eyes.’

‘He’s all right,’ I say. ‘Schumacher and I, we have, a personal understanding.’

‘Uh. Grim!’ Shona shakes her head, grimly.

‘Man, your face though,’ laughs Toby.

‘Yeah. Ab-sol-utely-fucking-hilarious,’ agrees Shona.

‘Were you spying on us?’

‘Course we were!’

‘Well don’t! Especially when I’m in with Schumacher. He kept making irrelevant sexual references and then there was the picture of the camel’s arse. GOD knows why I thought that was a good idea. The last person I want to be sharing a joke with – especially a joke about an arse – is Schumacher. He kept laughing, like a braying donkey. And then, you know how I get the dark, twisted thoughts that just pop into my head and then I can’t get rid of them?’

‘Sure do,’ says Toby, raising an eyebrow.

‘Well, I kept thinking of Darryl and a camel.’

‘Oh Jesus
.’

‘Yes. I know, I am sick, sick in the head. Then I kept thinking he was going to make a move on me.’

Toby’s snorting with laughter now, Shona’s got her head on the desk and one eye open.

‘Your face was like this …’ Toby says, assuming a grimace, somewhere between shocked and offended: flared nostrils, wide eyes.

‘You looked like a cross between someone who had poo smeared on their top lip,’ adds Shona, thinking hard, ‘and a hamster in rigor mortis.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Hey, but I got the sale though and that is all that matters.’ I raise my hand for a high five. Toby slaps it, somewhat reluctantly. ‘Six hundred units to be in every store by next month!’

‘What?’ He wasn’t expecting that. ‘You spawny cow. If you win that award, I’ll kill you.’

I feel a guilty little thrill of competition. So it’s not just Rachel who wins awards, actually, thank you very much.

I look at Shona.

‘It will be an award tainted with dubious morality, which is unfortunate,’ she says.

‘God, people! It’s breath freshener I’m selling, not children!’

‘But well done,’ Shona adds. ‘Because I know how much it means to you. It’s just, don’t think that just because Schumacher is now officially on board, that I will ever engage in any conversation with that prick that isn’t ab-sol-utely fucking necessary, okay?’

‘Loud and clear, Shona. Loud and clear.’

‘Well done, Caroline.’ Janine has a new super-short fringe that makes her look even more like a German lesbian than she did before. ‘You officially kicked ass.’

‘Thanks,’ I say, dumbly. I always feel like a disappointment whenever I’m in Cross’s office.

But it feels great all the same. Sealing the deal. Who would think selling breath freshener could make your heart race? But I think that’s it. The simplicity of it, the lack of anything major at stake. I doubt, for example, if I’d feel this way if I worked for a charity, or as a teacher where real hearts and minds were on the table. The fact we could all quite happily survive well into our nineties without breath freshener allows me to put a hundred per cent of me in without feeling there’s going to be any emotional fall out. And that’s great, because sometimes it feels like work is the only place in my life where I feel safe to operate; like it’s the only room in the
Titanic,
not yet sinking.

I bump into Toby as I’m coming out of the loo. He’s got an important meeting at Tesco’s HQ today and is wearing his best grey, sharp suit. He looks devastatingly, ridiculously handsome, like he should be in an advert for Lynx.

‘There you are,’ he hisses. ‘Been looking for you. So come on, what happened?’

‘About what?’

I know perfectly well about what, but I just want to keep him this close for as long as possible. I just want to sniff him.

‘My pants, silly,’ he lisps and I melt. ‘Did she see the pants?’

‘No, no. Pants all safe in the kitchen drawer.’

‘You’re so clever, CS.’

‘I know. Multi-talented, me. Can seal deals, hide pants …’

He leans right into my ear.

‘Give amazing head,’ he whispers, so despite my resolve to be an insouciant,
femme fatale
at all times, I turn purple.

‘Unfortunately, Lexi and I had a row once you’d left,’ I say, desperate to change the subject. Toby never seems to mind discussing overt sexual matters in the office, which I find absurdly flattering, whilst intensely embarrassing all at the same time.

‘Shit, really? Did you bollock her for coming home pissed?’

‘Yes, I did, actually. I’m not having that. I don’t know whether it’s going to work, her being here for the summer, you know. I have my life to live too.’

He tidies a strand of hair behind my ear.

‘The book club to run.’

‘Well, yes, and that,’ I say, trying not to smile.

He edges in closer. ‘Due to the pants fiasco, I think we may have no choice but to upgrade the book club to an epic bonkbuster in a London boutique hotel, what do you think?’

Here’s your chance. Calm, aloof. You are woman-in-control. A woman able to ‘compartmentalize’ things.

I draw back and fold my arms.

‘We’ll see, shall we?’ I say, before tidying his lapel.

Then I stride off, all heels, skirt and swinging hips. That was good, Steele, that was very, very good.

‘Caroline,’ he calls after me three seconds later.

‘What?’

‘You’ve got bog roll on the bottom of your shoe.’

It’s still boiling hot when I leave the office. The Edgware Road is being re-laid and the air is thick with the smell of tarmac. I weave through the rush-hour crowds, towards the tube, past the Arabic hardware stores and halal cafés where white-robed men sit smoking pipes and playing cards, smiling to myself about the conversation with Toby and thinking that soon, very soon, I’m going to get to wake up next to him. And then it’s onwards from there.

I see the note as soon as I get in. It’s propped up on the kitchen table next to a vase. The hand is that typical teenage sort: fat, squidgy, with circles for the dots of Is. I try to refrain from taking a pen and correcting the mistakes. (Especially the ‘your’ when it should be ‘you’re’.)

The ‘sorry if I spoilt it at the end’ brings a slight lump to my throat but, to be honest, the overwhelming feeling at reading the note is relief. She’s sorted out her problems – obviously the reason she was here in the first place – and now she’s good to go. Maybe the little break I facilitated was all she needed.

It does cross my mind it’s a little strange that she didn’t
just text or call to tell me but you know what teenagers are like. Dramatic. She probably didn’t want to water down the drama of me finding her exit note.

I go into the kitchen and experience a sudden feeling of calm, having the place back to myself again. I absentmindedly line up the tea, coffee and sugar holders the way I like them, and decide to de-Lexi the kitchen of the stray Rice Krispies, some of which found their way into the kettle, and the splatters of red on the tiles from her daily fruit-smoothie making. Before I know it, I’m at it with the toothbrush inside the taps. Lost to the call of the kitchen. Bliss!

I sit down with a large glass of wine about seven. Fortified by my cleaning stint, I think about going on Facebook, where I like to torture myself by looking at photos of Toby and Rachel together. I keep hoping over-exposure will eventually mean immunity and also there’s the one of her with a double chin that always makes me feel better. I’ve also noticed she wears quite badly cut jeans. (Stop it, stop it, stop it!)

Then it occurs to me, maybe I should give Dad a quick call just to check that he’s picking Lexi up from the train station. It would be shoddy form if I didn’t even check. Dad picks up. He sounds muffled and yet somehow ecstatic. High. High on Motivational Speaking.

‘Hi, Dad. It’s Caroline.’

‘Hel-lo, Caro!’ He says it all sing-songy and OTT like he’s cooing a baby. ‘How’s my favourite girl?’

‘Oh fine. Yeah, fine.’

I’ve never been very good at humouring Dad’s new persona since it’s so different from the one I grew up with.

‘Where are you, Dad? You sound muffled.’

‘Ah yes. Well. Funny you should say that …’

He does his nervous laugh. Three, short, entirely false ‘Ha!’s, which irritate the hell out of me, but I have to stay calm. I can’t let him think there’s any sort of crisis here.

‘Cass and I were invited to talk in—’ He says something so quickly I don’t catch it, but it sounds like London.

‘What, you’re in London?’

‘No … Atlanta. We’re in Atlanta.’

‘Atlanta?! What the
hell
are you doing in Atlanta?!’

It’s only when I’ve got over the shock that he’s in Atlanta, USA, that I start to put two and two together: if he’s there – where is my sister?

‘It’s not for long.’

‘How long?’

‘Um … thirteen days.’

‘So a fortnight, then?’

‘Well, just short of.’

‘It’s a fortnight, Dad.’

He clears his throat.

‘Right. Everything’s okay there, though, isn’t it? I mean, we told Lex where we were and she sounded fine about it. She
is
fine, isn’t she?’

My mind is already doing overtime: drug dens, cobbled alleys, wheelie bins.

‘Yes, of course she’s absolutely fine.’

‘It was last minute, sweetheart, and we did try to call you, it’s just …’

‘My phone was off.’

‘Yes, your phone was off. And it’s a golden opportunity, we’d be fools not to have taken it. If we crack America …’

Who does he think he is now? Susan Boyle?

‘… then we could be really taking Healing Horizons to a whole new level.’

He goes on, but really, once I know the situation I just want to get off the phone. It’s just me and Lexi now and one half of us is missing. I have a sickening feeling this is all my fault.

* * *

First things first: I try her mobile but it just goes through to the bizarre answermachine message again with Lexi shouting ‘Lexi Stee-yel!’ like she’s at the top of a roller coaster about to go down. But then, I am fast discovering that Lexi lives most of her life as if she
is
at the top of a roller coaster about to go down.

I leave a message. The third.

‘Me again. Look Lex. I know you haven’t gone home coz I just rang Dad and he’s in Atlanta – as you know – so PLEASE call me. I’m sorry about the row last night, I’m not angry with you and you did nothing wrong … Well, except go out and get drunk instead of go to the gym and you wouldn’t tell me who with. This is why I’m panicking now, because I don’t know who you’re with and London’s not like Doncaster. You can’t just—’

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Fuck it. Run out of space. I sit at the kitchen table with the phone in my hand, scratching at the patch of eczema on my hand that seems to be spreading by the day. What would the police do in this situation? Has she even left London? Is an hour of knowing she’s gone enough to report a person missing? I figure I should have a stab at it myself, first. Nothing will be achieved sitting at this kitchen table. I need a list, a P of A. I rip a page from an A4 notepad and begin:

I call Martin.

He’s over in twenty minutes, by which point the images of wheelie bins are getting the better of me and I’m sitting on the sofa, head in hands.

Martin’s standing over me, hands in pockets, his belly popping out from under his maroon GAP T-shirt, making the odd soothing ‘mm-mm’ noise.

‘It’s all my fault,’ I’m saying. ‘I was supposed to be looking after her, I was responsible for her and then we had a row last night but then I was so obsessed with bloody work and To—’

I stop myself just in time.

‘To … tally everything that I forgot she hadn’t called back and then it was too late and now—’

‘I think less self-pity, more action is what’s needed here, Caro, mmm?’

He’s right of course. He always is.

We try Facebook first. All I see on her Wall, however, is a string of dialogue between Lexi and Carly Greenford. So that’s her surname. Carly seems to be mightily pissed off, but then I’d be pissed off if I thought I might be pregnant and my boyfriend had just left me.

In Carly’s profile picture, she has wavy blonde hair and puppy-fat cheeks. She’s cherubically pretty. Then she writes:

Alexis Simone Steele (big fur coat, shades, pout) to Carly Greenford: Move on GF! Ur worth more than him. DGYF! And I, 4 one, luv u meercat. Mwah xxxx

‘DGYF?’ mutters Martin, confused.

‘Damn Girl You’re Fine.’ I know, because Lexi texted it to me, too.

‘Oh right. So CM?’

‘Call me.’

‘Right,’ he says, sounding pleased with himself. ‘It’s not that hard once you get started, is it?’

‘So, Lexi’s been dumped. That’s what’s wrong with her,’ I say, half to myself.

‘Eh? How do you decipher that?’

‘Because Carly says, “he’s dead to you”.’

‘Dead to you?’ Martin pulls his chin back when he’s puzzled, which I’ve begun to think gives him a look of Gordon Brown.

‘Yeah, dead to you, you know.’

Man, we’re going to run into problems if we can’t even de-code teen speak.

‘It means, you’re over him, he doesn’t matter to you. People say it to you when someone dumps you to make you feel better.’

‘Do they? Nobody said—’

‘Ohmigod!’ I cut him short as I read something that sets my heart racing faster than it already is.

‘Fuck!’

I slap my hand to my mouth.

‘What?’ says Martin, alarmed. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I need to hack into Lexi’s email,’ I say, flapping my arms about. ‘You’re an IT man, you know how to hack into someone’s email.’

‘You might not need to,’ says Martin, calmly. Always with the calm. ‘If you know her password.’

‘I don’t! Why the hell would I know her password?’ I snap, and then I feel awful. Poor Martin. He didn’t need to come over tonight. He’s got a girlfriend and here I am snapping at him like
I’m
his girlfriend. I haven’t even
asked
him about his girlfriend! God, I am awful.

I rest my head on his shoulder. ‘Sorry. I really appreciate you coming over. I’m just stressed that’s all.’

‘I know. But we’ll find her, okay? Put your energy into guessing her password.’

I try Carly. No. I try Simone. No. I try meercat, since that seemed to be some sort of in-joke between them, but it’s not that either.

‘Try Caroline,’ says Martin.

‘Are you joking? I must be her most hated person on the planet right now.’

‘Just try it.’

So I do, and it works. And somehow, just that small thing, that surprise indication of my little sister’s feelings for me, means that by the time I’m walking behind Martin towards Battersea Park station tears are streaming down my face.

* * *

It’s possibly typical of a seventeen-year-old that if she was planning to elope to Notting Hill with a man twice her age she should cover her tracks, ludicrously badly. Thank God. Five seconds rooting around her inbox and we know the following things:

Martin and I hardly speak on the way there. Martin knows I can’t do conversation when stressed, so all the way on the tube, he whistles, Martin being one of those people who finds silences awkward even with someone he’s known for thirteen years. Then, we’re pegging it along Bishopsgate, in the heart of the City. It’s 9.15 p.m. and the towering glass office blocks that surround us, sleek as shark fins, are ablaze with the setting sun, the last of the be-suited City workers making their way towards the tube after another long day.

Martin’s running in front of me, his GAP jacket flapping around his sides.

Me, shouting after him: ‘What are we going to do if he’s already slipped the Rohypnol in? I’ll never forgive myself!’

Him: ‘Now you’re just trying to scare yourself. Worst case scenario is she’s drunk, it’ll be okay.’

Me: ‘But she’s seventeen.’

Him: ‘Well, think when you were seventeen/eighteen. You weren’t a complete idiot, were you? You could look after yourself?’

Me: ‘Yes, but I had you by the time I was eighteen.’

Him: ‘True.’

We’re both gasping for breath by the time we get to Shoreditch House. The doorman – a mountain of a bloke with a blond moustache – eyes us suspiciously.

‘Have you seen a … a girl? Skinny … short, dark hair, probably wearing next to nothing, ridiculous tattoo up her right arm?’

He raises his eyebrows at me.

‘Well, you’ve either seen her or you haven’t?’

‘We think she’s with someone,’ Martin cuts in, hands on knees, trying to get his breath back. I know what’s going through his head: I’m screwed if I’m getting into a fight with this guy. ‘Any idea who that might be?’ The man on the door is of that breed of customer care that doesn’t deem eye contact necessary.

‘Some tosser called Tristan.’

Martin nudges me with his elbow.

‘Tristan Banks. Mr Banks is one of our most respected customers.’

‘I’ll bet he is,’ I say. ‘Look, can we just come in and look for her?’

I try to barge past but the man puts his arm out.

‘This is a members only bar, madam. That means, you have to be a member to come in.’ He looks Martin up and down. ‘Besides, I’m afraid your friend is not dressed appropriately.’

I look at Martin in his faded GAP T-shirt that doesn’t stretch over his belly and the crappy beige GAP jacket that he buys in bulk and I feel a stab of pity and love all rolled into one.

‘Look, to be fair, I didn’t know I’d be coming to Shoreditch House when I set off to my …’ he looks at me. ‘My
friend’s
house today,’ says Martin. ‘With all due respect, what I’m wearing, isn’t really my concern. What
is
my concern, is my
friend’s sister who’s only seventeen and in there with a man she doesn’t know and we’re worried about her. Please let us in.’