Enjoyment factor. Zero out of ten.
By the time he’d sorted through old drumsticks for fan prize packs, he was done with phone watching. He switched it off, shoved it in a drawer and went and sat on his deck with the singular objective of getting comfortably drunk so he wouldn’t care.
He got hammered.
He still cared.
Zero stars.
He played Minecraft and kept dying in survival mode and losing all his inventory.
Horrible job.
If he’d had Mena’s number, he’d be drunk texting like a drunk fool.
Un-fucking-believable.
Do not recommend.
THIRTEEN
Vera’s idea of exercise on a Sunday morning was to find the nearest coffee shop and order something sweet with her macchiato. Mena gave up trying to drag her along the coast walk and they settled in a café with a view of the sea.
Vera’s idea of getting Mena to talk was to assume the worst and make Mena correct her. Mena wasn’t falling for it.
Tucking in to her blueberry hotcakes, Vera said, “You finally got the courage to boff him and he knocked you back.”
Mena sipped her smoothie and came back with. “Tell me about your new designs. Are you showing in Europe next year?”
“I see.” Vera waved a fork at her. “He couldn’t get it up for you and all your fantasies were crushed.”
Mena made a rude noise with her straw and then said, “What are the new season colors going to be?”
“They’re going to be shades of blush.”
Ah victory. Vera loved talking about her showings. Mena poked at a piece of mango at the bottom of her glass that was too big to suck up her straw.
“Blush and smug,” said Vera.
“Smug is not a color.” Although in fashion, the kind Vera designed, it could be one. Fashion-conscious women would be wearing smug in droves in about two years’ time.
“It is when you wear it.”
Oh, blush and smug. Mena pushed her empty glass away defeated. “Do we have to talk about this?” That recalcitrant piece of mango was a bit like her feelings, she couldn’t suck them up and fully digest them.
“There is nothing that interests me more.”
“It’s bad enough I will need to be forever grateful for your care package delivered in the nick of time, talking about what happened is another breach of ethics and privacy.”
Vera stabbed a wandering blueberry and popped it in her mouth. “You are gagging to talk about it.”
“You’re way off about that.” Mena had spent far too long thinking about all the ways the night with Grip was incredible and all the ways it was incredibly thickheaded of her to let it happen. Just because there was a history, no matter how one-sided. Just because they were obviously attracted to each other. Just because she found Grip impossibly brain-on-fire exciting to be near. Did not mean that she hadn’t fucked up and now she had to deal with it. She simply hadn’t worked out how without screwing over her entire career.
“You’ve done nothing but alternate between blushing and looking smug since we got here.”
“It’s a heat rash.”
Vera looked at her over the top edge of her enormous sunglasses. “I knew you’d gone to bone town with him when you thanked me for the makeup enthusiastically instead of sarcastically. Now I want what I deserve, so give it up, Philomena.”
Mena wanted to talk about it. She did. She needed to. Where to start? At the point that it was most fantastic. “He remembers me.”
Vera made a frantic peddling motion with her hands. “Back up.”
“Yes, we spent a night together.”
“Smug. It must’ve been good.”
“It was a disaster because it was amazing.” Mena clenched her hands together in her lap. “He is everything I thought he was fifteen years ago. And everything I hoped he might become. He’s the best lover I’ve ever had. And he remembers me. Well, not me, Philly. Said he regrets not staying in touch, that they clicked. That she’s the reason he didn’t quit the band when it was falling apart.”
Vera made a clucking sound. “Your concept of disaster could do with some finessing.”
Mena’d had zero finesse in this, just a driving need to fall into bed with Grip, as if that could reconcile her past self with her current one.
“I knew what I was doing. I knew this was wrong and I did it anyway. I cruised right past the point of ethical nightmare and straight into the trap of I’m now hopelessly compromised. I have no choice but to resign him as a client.”
“Which means what? You’ll go down on your knees and confess to the mighty Swire and Yallop that you fucked the client and so you can’t be Grip’s adviser anymore and bugger up your promotion.”
That would be the least of it. “I might lose my job.”
Vera took her glasses off and squinted at Mena. “Or?”
“There is no or.” If she lost her job, she’d have to find another one quickly or sell her renovator’s delight terrace.
“There’s always an or. Often there’s a both. Like do I go asymmetric on the hem or split it to the thigh, as well as bring back puce. Can’t you have your cake and eat it too?”
“You mean fuck the client and give him impartial independent financial advice that he pays for without there being any doubt that I’m acting in his and my firm’s best interest? Are you kidding me?”
Vera waved a hand. “I’m not seeing the problem, unless he didn’t have a good time, and you’ve still got moves, it’s like riding a bike, you don’t just forget how to be a sex goddess. Or he doesn’t like your advice, and you’re not going to give him bad advice, are you?”
