Claire shrieked with excitement, leapt up and straddled him, showering him with kisses. ‘Thank you, Pete, oh thank you, you won’t regret this.’
Saying things in the heat of the moment when the woman that you’re mad crazy about is naked next to you is one thing, but in the cold light of day a week later it was quite another. So, when Claire presented him with printouts less than five minutes after he arrived at her flat the next time they met up, he was caught totally off guard.
‘What are these?’ he asked her, glancing down at the pages.
‘Jobs. For you.’
‘What kind of jobs?’
‘Senior manager jobs that can be done remotely. There’s more out there than you’d think. More and more companies are becoming flexible in their hiring.’
He scanned the listings. Some of them weren’t suitable but there were one or two that looked pretty interesting. He hadn’t looked for a new job for years and this was actually quite fun. He began to feel himself getting excited. He still thought the whole France idea was a bust but even so, a new job could be just the thing. The beginning of a whole new start and a new chapter in his life, whatever happened.
‘Thanks, Claire – really, thank you. These look great,’ he said, giving her a kiss. She beamed.
‘Promise me you’ll give them a good look over and apply to any that sound good?’
‘Absolutely.’ And he meant it. That evening on the way home he read the job descriptions in detail and got increasingly excited as he realised that not only did one or two of the companies sound really interesting, but that he fit most of the criteria. They were well-paid jobs too, more than he was earning now. By the time he got home he’d decided to apply for two of them. But just before he got in, he folded up the papers and stuffed them into his pocket. Best not discuss this with Kate, he thought, it could lead to too many questions.
‘How was your evening?’ Kate asked as he slumped down on the sofa and took his shoes off.
‘Oh, you know, same old. Entertaining clients, convincing them to give us their business. How are things here?’
‘Oh, you know, same old,’ she replied. ‘I had a couple of landscape gardeners round to give us a quote for the garden. We really need to sort it out.’
‘Sure, sure,’ Pete replied, feeling distracted, his mind on the job listings he’d seen. He was wondering how much work his CV needed when he noticed that Kate was watching him.
‘Are you okay, Pete?’ she asked. ‘You look like you’ve got something on your mind.’
‘Oh, just work, don’t mind me. Actually, I think I’ll go to bed. Early start tomorrow.’ With that he stood up and headed to the kitchen to get a glass of water. On the way upstairs he glanced back into the living room and saw that Kate was still watching TV, some trashy soap that he hated. ‘Night, Kate,’ he said. She glanced up at him and gave him a small smile. ‘Night, Pete.’
The next day, in the office, he opened his CV. He hadn’t looked at it in years and it needed a lot of work. Instead of preparing for a client meeting, which is what he should have been doing, he spent an hour and a half polishing his CV and making himself sound suitably impressive. Finally, when he was done, he rushed into the meeting, totally unprepared and not even caring.
That evening, Kate was out at the cinema with Erin and after he’d put the girls to bed, he started writing covering letters. By the time she came home, weepy from the tear-jerker she’d been to see, he’d applied to both roles. He quickly closed the laptop.
‘What are you up to?’ she asked.
‘Just a bit of work, can’t switch off, you know me,’ he said.
She nodded and walked into the kitchen. ‘Cuppa?’ she called. ‘Please,’ he replied. She made the teas and came back in. ‘I’m going to take mine up to bed,’ she told him as she padded up the stairs.
‘I’ll be up in a few minutes.’ Opening his laptop he checked his emails and saw a couple of automatic replies that his application had been received. Feeling excited, he closed it and went to bed.
A couple of weeks went by and he didn’t hear anything. He’d almost forgotten about it all until one morning, as he was sipping his coffee and checking his emails, one arrived in his inbox inviting him to an interview. After scanning the message he quickly pulled out his phone and messaged Claire.
Need to speak to you!
She immediately replied.
Pret in five minutes?
By the time he got there, she’d ordered two coffees to go. It was risky, meeting up in public like this but he had to talk to her and didn’t want to send the news in a message. He told her about the interview and her eyes lit up with pleasure.
‘That’s amazing, well done, Pete! Want to do some interview prep one night this week?’
He doubted much interview prep would get done but he grinned at her. ‘Sure, how about Thursday?’
‘Perfect,’ she replied. They quickly parted ways and he traipsed back to his office. Now that he’d actually got an interview he started to panic. He’d kind of done it all on a bit of a whim but now shit was getting real. Did he actually want to leave his job? Did Claire think this meant he was going to France? Slow down, he told himself, one step at a time, it’s only an interview, no need to freak out. No one needs to know.
By the time he got home that evening he had convinced himself that it was nothing to stress about. He was just having a chat with another company, to see what his options were, but it didn’t have to mean anything.
Dear Mr Garland,
As per our conversation on
