I go to the kitchen. I need to breathe. Make a cup of mint tea. Calm down. But as I round a corner, I hear Flick’s voice. She’s in a boardroom but the door is ajar.
‘I get it,’ says Flick into the phone and I see the back of her head lean up against the glass wall. ‘But it’s not Scarlett’s fault your guys feel awkward. It’s not her fault the video is out there in the first place, Dom. Jesus!’
I am like a child playing musical statues. Stopped where I first heard her. Unable to move.
Dom is a client on a soft drink brand. I won his business and we’ve worked together for four years now, a good working relationship that’s crossed over to a semi-friendship over time. We use meetings as an excuse for brunch and a Bloody Mary; I know the names of his kids and ask about his wife’s start-up. When I was on maternity leave, he kept in touch a bit, a few likes on Instagram, the odd message to see how it was going. He’d been one of the people I was looking forward to catching up with most.
‘Okay okay, yes, I do get that,’ says Flick, gentler, head still back against the wall. A sigh. ‘I know it’s not coming from you. Yes, I know you do. We all care about her. She’s one of my closest friends, Dom, but trust me I still get it – this is awkward all round. There’s not exactly a precedent here.’
Dom and his team have been sent the video. Or heard about it at least.
Flick bows her head forward now.
‘Okay,’ she says with a sigh. ‘Maybe we can do that. Temporarily. I’ll speak to Sanjeeta. See if she can work on the account. Subtlety is going to be key here though, Dom, to not make Scarlett feel any worse than she does. I can spin it as needing Scarlett elsewhere now she’s back but please let’s exercise some discretion from your end too.’
And as if things aren’t bad enough, now I’m a work pariah, making things awkward for my boss, my clients. Junior members of staff covering for me. Things being spun so I don’t realise the truth. It’s difficult to remember a time I have felt so pathetic.
I turn back and return to my desk.
There, my breath gets shallower, rasping, audible. Something tightens in my throat, and moves down to my chest. It sits in my stomach too, in a way that makes me feel like I need sugar. Or perhaps vodka and a couple of lines of coke.
It’s how I’ve been known to deal with this feeling, when it’s happened in the past.
It happened in the past, often. But I thought my panic attacks didn’t get me any more.
It turns out instead that they were there all the time, dormant under the surface like fleas.
Now I look around and the perspective of the room is wrong.
I go to the toilet and run straight into Joshua, a senior guy from a sportswear client that I had secured last year. Must be here for a meeting.
‘Scarlett!’ he says, taking hold of my arms as I slam into him. I shudder, remembering how he does this every time anyway, touches without warning, creepy, handsy. I leave meetings with him feeling uneasy. He tries to flirt, with no encouragement. Now, I have handed him an easy win by charging into his body.
I look up.
And I know, in that second.
Him too.
Word has spread, and all of my clients – or enough of them at least – know about the video.
Joshua smiles.
‘I’m so sorry, darling,’ he says. ‘About the video.’
He still holds on to my elbows.
I am frozen to the spot.
‘I shouldn’t have said anything,’ he says. ‘I didn’t expect to see you. You caught me on the hop. But I’m …’
And I run then and I don’t care who sees me fleeing my workplace like a crime scene as long as I don’t have to finish this conversation, or any of them.
I stop only to grab my bag and when I get outside I gasp the air like I’m being resuscitated.
An hour later I walk through the door of my house and see Ed, who is working from home, at the table in the kitchen. He turns in surprise. He’s barefoot and bare-legged in shorts. His eyes are heavy.
‘The whole industry knows, Ed,’ I say. ‘Not just New Social. But my clients. They sent it to my clients.’
He throws his head back, desperate.
We sit in silence for a minute.
Hug me, I think. Hug me, hug me, hug me.
Ed has seen me in the aftermath of panic attacks the odd time. He knows that’s what this is. He knows that I don’t want to talk. He knows that what slows my brain down is touch, a hug. But lately, I rarely get one.
‘Ed, I don’t think I can go back to work,’ I say eventually.
My job is central to my self-worth. Walking into that office, sitting in those brainstorms is 101 of being me. Plus, I think, there is always the chance this is heading towards blackmail. To the threat I’m most scared of. And if it does, I’ll need money of my own; money that’s not Ed’s so that I can try desperately to keep a lid on it.
But work is one of the areas of forest that this fire has burnt through most determinedly. Can I put a mask on and charge back into that burning building?
I sigh, deeper.
No.
I can’t get past that level of humiliation.
My clients.
That dickhead Joshua and his team, watching me on their away days.
I am not going back to work
