Spinning Out

by Christine Darcas

Genres: General Fiction; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Ginny and Barb might be mother and daughter, but as far as Ginny is concerned they are very different. At thirty-three, Ginny needs a break ? from work, men and her mother. A three-month stay in Australia with her best friend is the perfect escape. But meeting Lachlan and having to choose between career and love, New York and Melbourne, wasn't what she expected. Her mother and best friend have their opinions about what she should do, but Ginny is determined to make her own way. SPINNING OUT is a moving and insightful novel about realising that life never goes to plan.

Release date: July 1, 2010

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Print pages: 325

Sample

 

Therese Deluca removed her reading glasses and arched her long neck over her shoulder. ‘Everyone leave the auditorium!’ she commanded.

She paused and turned further in her seat with the grace of a willow branch bending in the breeze. ‘Mrs Kerr, please join me here.’ In the recessed darkness, the red velvet chair where my mother was sitting flipped back in place with a thud. Then Miss Deluca nodded towards me on the stage. ‘And you, Virginia.’

My mother, Barbara, strode down the aisle to the trestle table where Miss Deluca, flanked by Valeriya Kuznetsov and Jonathon Broome, was sitting. Valeriya, a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet for eight years, glanced the length of my mother’s physique. Although nerves buzzed in my ears and prickled across my chest, I still felt the sting of her scrutinising flicker. I had seen this before; the instructor who surreptitiously studied my mother’s body for the possibility of more height and slimming length in my development. But Mom’s stout build offered little reassurance. Anyway, at seventeen, I wasn’t likely to change much.

I inhaled deeply, forcing my breathing to calm. Nerves always winded me. Standing in third position, my right leg poised in front of my left, I squeezed my thighs more tightly together. Shoulders back and settled, pelvis in, ribs pointing downward, spine erect – everything to hold my vertical line. Anything to make me look longer.

During my entire audition, my balance had never wavered. I had nailed every chaîné turn, every grand jeté, every pirouette and rond de jambe. Technically, I was strong. Technique and performance were my advantages, the elements I had spent days, months and years honing.

They will recognise that. The quality of the dancing will matter more than anything. But standing here, summoned forth like this, was disconcerting. Either a dancer was accepted into the City Ballet School or rejected. I dared to cling to hope.

Therese Deluca laced her fingers together, looked up at me and simply said, ‘I dread dancers like you.’

Beside me, my mother stiffened.

Miss Deluca spoke quickly and firmly. ‘I always hope that someone else will have discouraged you before you get to me. But no. The tenacious ones, the ones with the real talent and passion, hold on. The ones who could be so brilliant if only –’ She raised her arms, opened her hands and gestured in near supplication to my body. ‘Virginia, I wish someone had told you before now . . . that it’s very, very unlikely that you would ever be accepted into any truly reputable ballet company in this country. You could, of course, dance for a lesser company. But . . . that prospect makes you inappropriate for our school.’

For the first time that day, my spine weakened and my balance deserted me. I broke out of third position to stand as I would anywhere else but in a dance studio. Not as Virginia the Ballerina. Not even as Virginia the Dancer. Just Virginia. Just Ginny.

I was crumbling. Surely they saw that in the quickening of my breath. Jonathon Broome spread his muscular hand on the table in front of me. The mahogany skin of his forearms rippled with dancer’s muscle. He smiled gently.

‘We were hoping we could convince you to attend the contemporary side of the school. You would be one of my pupils.’

His words cluttered my brain. Then his meaning stabbed through, and I swallowed back a sob. ‘You mean . . . quit ballet?’

‘I’d never tell anyone to quit dancing,’ he said, straightening. ‘What I’m saying is that the contemporary path is the one open to you at our school. I’m doing some cutting edge choreography,’ he added. ‘You know, experimenting.’

I attempted to smile, but a tear escaped down my cheek when I blinked. Jonathon’s face closed and he settled back in his seat. Miss Deluca leaned forward.

‘You’re at a critical crossroads, Virginia. You could come to a school like ours and pursue contemporary dance. But to do that, you would be sacrificing the development of practical skills that would come with a strong college education. Skills that could open a world of other opportunities for you.’

I didn’t know what to say. Suddenly, all I wanted was to get out of there. To gather my failure and humiliation, and flee before I disintegrated into tears.

‘Why does it matter?’

At my mother’s voice, I snapped around to stare at her. Please, Mom, no. But she said it again. ‘Why does it matter if she’s not built perfectly?’ She looked pointedly from Miss Deluca to Jonathon then Valeriya. ‘Hasn’t the world progressed past this kind of . . . superficiality? Virginia’s a joy to watch. She always has been. At nine, she danced Clara in the Nutcracker at –’

‘The Lincoln Center,’ interrupted Miss Deluca. She put her reading glasses back on and glared over the rims at Mom. ‘Do you have any idea how many Claras I’ve seen at ballet auditions? They’re all over the country. All over the world!’ Strands of her famously long grey hair fell on her cheek and she pressed them over her shoulder with long, delicate fingers. ‘I understand, Mrs Kerr, how disappointing this sort of thing can be on a parent as well – the hours, the money. Of course, Virginia couldn’t have gotten this far without you.’

‘This isn’t right.’ My mother’s voice was low, belligerent.

‘It’s okay, Mom.’ I moved in front of her, took her hand and attempted to smile for the panel. ‘Thank you for your time. We’ll go now.’

But Mom wouldn’t budge.

‘How can this be?’ Mom planted herself in front of them and I realised with horror that she was on the verge of tears. ‘How can you shatter someone’s dreams and dismiss their talent because of some skewed notion of a perfect female form? It’s just wrong!’

Valeriya inhaled deeply. Her blonde hair was slicked back into an impeccable bun. Everything about her – her neck, shoulders, torso – seemed woven from long, heavenly sinews. Once again, she scanned my mother’s unkempt braid, her handmade dangling earrings and the frumpy, bohemian wrap of her skirt.

‘Mrs Kerr,’ declared Valeriya, ‘for more than a hundred years audiences have filled great halls all over the world to see the ballet we nurture. It may not be fair, but it is the reality.’ Therese Deluca’s hand snapped out and closed over Valeriya’s wrist, but this didn’t stop the younger ballerina. ‘Perhaps if you had presented this reality to your daughter, instead of some skewed notion of women’s liberation, we all would have been spared this episode today.’

Mom’s face reddened. For a moment she seemed dazed. I moved away, yanking her behind me. Therese Deluca murmured a ‘good luck’, perhaps Jonathon said something too. Leaving is the only part of that audition that I couldn’t remember.

But my memory of the rest was as sharp as broken glass.

 

‘Pick up, Mom. Come on . . . Okay, listen. I can’t have lunch today. Things are a little crazy at the office, so it would be best if we just rescheduled. Okay? Mom? I’ll call you later. I prom –’ BEEP.

•

Panic. As I walked down the hall to my office, I could practically smell it. Nobody was working. Across the floor of cubicles, account executives and their assistants huddled in whispers. One group, spying my approach, halted their murmuring and returned to their desks.

An office door opened and laughter streamed out as Carol emerged, papers in hand, her head tilting over her shoulder with a teasing smirk aimed at Howard. His gaze twitched the length of her elegant back before he dropped his head and resumed his work. As she pulled the door shut, her glance met mine, and she turned away.

So today was the day. Standing in the middle of the agency’s bullpen of cubicles, I attempted a wry smile. Something, anything, to show them – to show me – hope that we would all get past this. That everything would turn out just fine.

‘So it’s happening?’ I asked.

Emily, one of the account executives, pressed her lips together and nodded. By the end of the day, she probably wouldn’t have a job. Chances were that I wouldn’t either, and everyone there knew it.

‘Hey kids!’ Simon strode across the floor. In his faded jeans, long-sleeve, front-buttoned T-shirt and black high-top sneakers, he was easy nonchalance next to our corporate wardrobes. In an instant, he was on my heels. ‘In your office, Ginny. Now. Now. Now!’ He paused long enough to loom over Emily. She looked up at him, her expression all fragile anxiety.

‘Why aren’t you working?’ he asked her. ‘Have you been fired?’ He pressed his fingers to his mouth. ‘Oops, I mean, have you been laid off? Or, am I supposed to say made redundant?’ He spoke from one employee to the next like a clown working a children’s party, stirring them to giggles. ‘What is the politically correct way to ask someone if their boss has pulled the fucking rug out from under their life?’

He grabbed my arm, making a show of dragging me into my office. ‘Would all of you excuse me for a moment? I need to have wild sex with Ginny. I’ll come back and check on you later. Oh, and we’re still on for drinks at Leo’s after work!’

Simon cheerfully waved to them as he closed my office door. I set my morning coffee – fresh and hot from the corner deli – on my desk. He perched on the edge and helped himself to a gulp.

I snatched it from his hand. ‘You don’t need any more caffeine.’

He inhaled deeply and rolled his shoulders as if trying to unload his hyperactivity. ‘You’re right,’ he said, and grabbed it back.

‘How bad is it?’

‘As bad as we imagined.’ He leaned over and pressed his hand to my cheek, his skin reassuringly warm after the cold outside. ‘Are you really that bummed, Gin? You knew the day of reckoning was near.’

But as much as I had prepared for it, even rehearsed the meeting with Howard in my head, the reality of it – its imminent delivery – still knocked me so hard that I felt winded. I pulled away to hang up my coat and wipe off snowflakes that threatened to sop the wool. The moist chill wet my fingertips. It was snowing hard outside. If I was fired within the next hour or two, chances were it would still be snowing then.

Behind me, Simon wrapped his arms around my waist. He brushed a kiss over my ear, then leaned his cheek against my hair. I let myself settle back into him, to soak up, just for that moment, his unwavering confidence. ‘Gin,’ he said gently, ‘you’re gonna be fine.’

But I didn’t feel fine. I thought I would, but I didn’t. Suddenly, I felt exhausted, like someone had strapped an eighty-pound weight on my back and forced me to carry it for months. All the research and crack-of-dawn flights and late nights that turned into sleepless ones. How many campaign presentations had I prepared and given, sprinting to meet insane deadlines? And the coddling. Coddling clients who couldn’t make up their minds what they wanted, then coddling the creatives who literally had to go back to the drawing board because the client said the work ‘just didn’t feel right’.

Seven years of it, after university, business school and smaller stints in the industry that were stepping stones to advance to where I was now. But all the stressful, gruelling times were worth the thrill of seeing a campaign I had managed from its infancy, a concept I had nurtured like a gardener tending a precious flower, burst onto television screens, magazines and radio airwaves across the country. Like a narcotic, it delivered an exhilarating high that I rode for days.

And now, in a meeting that would probably last no longer than ten minutes, it would all be over.

The shock of Simon’s kiss on my neck jolted me. I wheeled around and pushed a finger into his chest. ‘Simon, you know better.’

He raised his hands innocently as I strode past him to my desk.

‘Anyway,’ he said brightly, ‘I think today’s cloud may have a silver lining.’

His eyes were twinkling with boyish mischief. I knew this look, the signal for Simon’s particular brand of mania. He’d had this same look when he’d dropped his pants in front of a grouchy old lady in a hotel elevator during one of our business trips to Tampa.

I glared up at him. ‘What are you doing?’

‘What do you mean?’ He barely hid a smile as he crushed my coffee cup and basketball-lobbed it into my trash basket.

‘You’re up to something.’

He shrugged. ‘Our buddy Howard fired Joel last night. Of course Joel was here late playing on his computer. Howard must have figured that was a good time to tell him – if Joel had one of his meltdowns, no one would witness it.’

Fired Joel. With Simon, Joel was the creative backbone of this agency. But Joel was . . . different. In Joel’s presence, Howard almost squirmed like he’d been forced into a room with something distasteful.

‘Even Howard wouldn’t be that short-sighted.’

‘Joel doesn’t fit Howard’s mould. Neither do you.’ Simon picked up a sheet of sales figures for the Midwest. Several moments passed as he quietly folded it into a paper aeroplane. ‘You know that Carol is staying, right?’ He didn’t look at me as he asked this.

‘I expected that.’ And I had. Yet, now that I knew it for a fact, insult and disappointment still ploughed across my gut.

‘Come on,’ coaxed Simon. ‘Jealousy doesn’t become you.’

‘Well Simon, I’m not really sure how I’m meant to be gracious when she gets to keep her job and I don’t.’

Sitting back, I buttoned the jacket of my grey pantsuit. With my white satin shirt, the outfit set off the dark brown of my hair and my blue eyes. Black pumps – two-inch heels – gave me some height without killing my feet after a long day. But I wasn’t sleek like Carol. Carol was a lady in the Grace Kelly sense of the word: cool, sharp, glamorous.

‘Howard is changing the corporate culture. He’s the boss and that’s what he gets to do.’ Simon pushed up his sleeves, revealing the long, wiry muscle of a man whose frenetic nature was his sole and sufficient source of exercise. ‘I’m proud of Joel. He really held it together. As part of his severance package, he got Howard to agree to pay for a new Mac plus the latest and greatest design software. And that, dear Ginny, is good news.’

Simon was completely abuzz now. I loved him and hated him like this; when his body seemed charged with energy. ‘I’m not following.’

‘But you will. In just a little while, you’ll be free of all this shit!’ His arm swept over the pages of sales figures and market research results for Wagner Olsen littered across my desk. ‘Let me guess – ultra thin sanitary pads with wings. Wow, pretty cutting-edge stuff. Personally, I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of women having wings down there. Just imagine –’

‘Simon,’ I snapped, ‘I’m really not interested –’

My desk phone rang. Howard already? I stared at it, breathed away panic as I recognised ‘reception’, and pressed speaker. ‘Good morning, Annabelle.’

‘Mornin’ Virginia.’ Annabelle’s deep voice oozed through the receiver. She had to be in her fifties, an elegant African-American woman with extraordinary posture. Sitting erect behind the downstairs desk, she firmly culled all forms of humanity who dared enter the office building.

‘Your mother is on her way up,’ she announced.

I glanced at my watch and raked my fingers through my hair, thinking fast. I’d left her a message. Shit. Shit! Even if she didn’t get it, she wasn’t supposed to be here for hours. Next to me, Simon’s eyes were wide.

‘I’m out of here,’ he whispered.

But it was too late. At the familiar knock, Simon flicked open the doorknob, stood back and stuffed his hands in his pockets in resignation.

I hurried around my desk and pecked a kiss on my mother’s cheek, but not before she registered Simon’s presence. In that instant, her face winced from an easy smile to a wary glare for him, then me. She turned her back to Simon and yanked off her black woollen gloves.

I barrelled onward. ‘Mom, I left a message for you at home this morning. Unfortunately I can’t make lunch today.’

‘Did you?’ she replied breezily, ‘I didn’t listen to my messages this morning. It was important to get up and out. On a day like today, it would be too tempting to make a cup of tea and stay in bed with a good book otherwise.’

‘Honestly, you have to get a cell phone. Then I could have stopped you from coming all the way in here for nothing. And, you know,’ I said, meaning it, ‘it would actually be okay if you hung out in bed with a book and a cup of tea every once in a while.’

At the idea of such indulgence, my mother shook her head. Her hair was thick, the grey enriched by natural streaks of pure white. As usual, she wore it in a single braid down her back. Her coat was more of a black woollen wrap over a maroon turtleneck and long aubergine skirt.

‘It’s not even lunchtime,’ I added, glancing at Simon. He was watching her back, his face tight.

‘I know that, but since I pass by here on my way to the MoMA, I thought I’d stop in.’ She grinned, suddenly all excitement. ‘I have five days to myself this week. Our new manager is renovating the shop, so he’s given us a week off with pay.’

‘Hello, Barbara,’ Simon offered.

At the sound of his voice, Mom startled and swung around to face him. She took in his easy casualness, settling her gaze on his black high-top sneakers before looking him straight in the eye.

‘Hello, Simon,’ she said edgily. ‘You look like you have some time on your hands this morning. Aren’t you busy? You always seem to be so very, very busy.’

Simon’s jaw shifted. ‘Actually, no. A good chunk of this company is being laid off today. I was thinking of waiting it out right here. You know, knitting in front of the guillotine.’

Impulsive bastard. As my mother wheeled back to gape at me, I opened the door wide and glared at him.

‘What?’ Simon blinked from my mother, back to me, with feigned, wide-eyed innocence. ‘You want me to leave?’

‘Maybe you could save this,’ I hissed.

He sauntered into the doorway, then stopped. ‘Leo’s tonight at five for drinks, Ginny. To celebrate.’ He winked at my mother. ‘Always a pleasure, Barb.’

Her smile for him was glib sweetness as I pushed the door closed behind him.

‘Prick,’ she murmured.

I came around my desk, dropped into my chair and stared at her for a long moment. ‘Why don’t you just wave a red flag in front of a bull?’

‘There’s no reason why I have to be nice to him.’ She plonked down and crossed her legs. Her boots were sensibly low-heeled and leather with a sole of thick tread. She must have had them for at least fifteen years.

‘Actually, there is. It’s unpleasant for me when you behave that way.’

‘Oh Ginny, you know he’s a shit. I know he’s a shit. Why do you tolerate him?’

‘Because I work with him, and he’s brilliant at what he does.’

But I won’t be working with him for much longer. I tossed a pen on my desk where it rolled over test market results for panty liners designed for G-strings. Two months ago, their manufacturer, Wagner Olsen, was acquired by one of the world’s largest consumer products companies – a multinational that apparently required more tampons, sanitary pads, pregnancy tests and women’s hygienic powder in its arsenal of global offerings. But that company didn’t use our agency, nor did it care to hire us. Now, all the jobs that had depended on Wagner Olsen were being cut.

I was the Group Account Director for Wagner Olsen; they were my baby. Mine would be the most senior head on the chopping block today.

‘What’s this about layoffs?’ Mom asked. ‘This isn’t about that takeover, is it?’

‘I’ll deal with it,’ I said, attempting to wave her off.

She sat very still, watching me until silence filled the room the way it always did when she focused only on my demeanour. It was as though she could quiet the world to summon the clarity to read me. I had learned long ago not to bother telling her lies. She always saw right through them.

‘Are they keeping that other woman?’

‘Carol? Yes.’

She snorted an exhale and I spoke quickly. ‘I have no recourse, Mom. If Howard wants to keep her instead of me, I can’t prove it’s unethical.’

‘If it weren’t for you, Wagner Olsen wouldn’t have become a client in the first place.’

‘And now Howard can just argue that if I had done my job better, they would have kept us.’

‘That’s bullshit.’

I breathed deeply and closed my eyes. ‘Mom, please –’

My phone buzzed. I swung around to look at it. Howard.

‘It’s him, Mom. It’s time.’

My mother nodded, then stood and slipped her worn leather handbag over her shoulder. But as I moved to open the door for her, she blocked me, cupped my chin and gently kissed my forehead. Startled, I jerked away and blush flooded her cheeks.

‘Call later?’ She smiled almost shyly then. Despite her fifty-plus years, she still had a certain impishness when she smiled.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Of course.’

‘You’ll be fine.’

I had heard these words from her before. As usual, they felt spoken to reassure her more than me.

•

I strode into the office as if nothing was amiss. Howard had worked hard on squelching the rumours, telling me straight to my face two weeks earlier that my job was secure. He loved double-breasted suits – the ‘creative’ executive’s corporate dress of choice. Today, he wore a pinstripe with a white shirt and black tie striped with silver. Despite it being March in New York, he was tanned except for the white ovals around his eyes that were the suspicious shape of solarium goggles. He gestured to the seat on the other side of the desk.

‘Virginia, good to see you.’ He tugged at the thighs of his trousers, sat down and then crossed his legs. ‘I take it you’re well?’

I summoned a smile. ‘Very well. Thank you.’

He leaned forward and folded his hands on the desk. ‘You know I have to let people go, right? I mean, if it were up to me, I’d keep everybody. But now that we’ve lost the Wagner Olsen account,’ he paused, ‘your major account, we really have no choice but to make cuts.’

I nodded, waiting.

‘Virginia, I’m letting you go. Six months’ pay and benefits. And, of course, I’m happy to give you a recommendation.’

Silence.

‘Nothing personal,’ he added, shifting in his chair. ‘It’s just business.’

I couldn’t help it – I gasped a laugh. ‘It’s always personal.’

He blinked. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Well, think about it. Say you’re in a situation where you have to choose between two equally qualified people. Inevitably, you choose the one who appeals to you more. Their qualifications are the same, so it’s certainly not an objective decision. You just prefer to have one person around more than the other. That seems pretty personal to me.’

Howard stiffened and glanced towards the door.

‘I’ve worked here for seven years,’ I continued. ‘Industry award-winning work, by the way. I think that a full year’s pay with all benefits would be more appropriate.’

His eyes narrowed. I was pushing hard; I knew it. I was a workhorse. I made things happen, put in the extra hours and made concessions to keep everyone happy. He didn’t expect me to fight.

‘I don’t think we can do that,’ he said.

I crossed my legs and leaned forward. ‘There are other people at my level with less experience who are keeping their jobs.’

His smile flattened into a hard seam. He would never give me a decent recommendation now. But he wouldn’t have given me one anyway. I already knew that. He was telling people that he thought I was just ‘okay’, code for ‘mediocre’ without lowering himself to bad-mouthing a colleague. No, this bridge was already burning.

‘You mean Carol?’ Howard shook his head. ‘Wagner Olsen wasn’t her client.’

‘Because she didn’t have the experience, or the relationship. And absolutely every person here knows that. And it’s certainly not my fault that Wagner Olsen was taken over, or that their new parent company wants to fold them into the work they’re doing with their other agencies.’

I wasn’t going to budge, and he knew it. He could call Security, but I was calm and quiet. He’d only look like a jerk.

‘So tell me, Howard. What is it that makes Carol the “not personal” choice over me?’

We both knew the answer. I was the workhorse.

She was the thoroughbred.

Howard sighed and reached out his hand. ‘One year’s pay. Full benefits.’ We shook, then he gestured towards the door. ‘Now please leave.’

And I did, with the surprising sensation of unloading an eighty-pound weight on his doorstep.

 

I loved margaritas. The tang. The salt. Maybe it was the tequila that made the tipsy lighter, sweeter, like a tonic that tickled through my veins and feathered across my pelvis.

Leo’s at happy hour that Friday night was abuzz with twenty- and thirty-something executive types. Filled with boozy chat and laughter and generous servings of free hors d’oeuvres, it was a favourite drinking hole for local businesses. Steely Dan jammed on the sound system, always a sentimental choice among the former fraternity boys who wandered in from their banking jobs. Huddled by the bar, they sang the lyrics of ‘Pretzel Logic’ and ‘Barrytown’ into the necks of their beer bottles. Most of our agency was there, buying drinks for those of us who had been fired.

Fired, despite busting our asses.

Careful not to slop my third margarita, I plonked down onto the seat next to Simon. Across from us, Joel had collected the sugar packets from five tables. Slowly and methodically, he aligned one packet over the next like dominoes, creating a railroad of sugar over our table and another he had wedged against it. Some assistant account execs observed his absorption, then dropped their voices in whispered giggles.

‘Joel,’ I ventured, ‘it looks like we’re in the same boat.’

He didn’t look up from his work. In front of me, his shaven head gleamed under the bar lights. ‘Why?’

I shifted in my seat worried, suddenly, that he didn’t understand the magnitude of his situation. I glanced at Simon.

But Simon was grinning. ‘Joel has a new job already,’ he announced. ‘Plus a brand new Mac.’

Joel? A job already? The sting of envy was unexpected and I took a deep swig of my margarita. I couldn’t imagine Joel walking into interviews and wowing management. But, apparently, he had. Now his firing would mean little more to him than stepping off one clear path and on to another, while I was tripping into a wasteland. I sipped again, eyeing him as he compulsively pressed the last packets into a perfect line.

More than any of us, unemployment would have destroyed him. There was no room for resentment there.

I leaned forward and folded my hands on the table, careful not to disrupt his project. ‘That’s great, Joel. Tell me your secret, because I’m thinking I’m in trouble here. And how did you get that Mac out of Howard?’

‘Didn’t,’ said Joel with a shrug. ‘My mom got it. When Howard came and talked to me, I didn’t say a word. I just listened to him and called her right away. Then she called him and he came back into the office and said he’d pay for a new Macintosh, but I had to pack up all my stuff and leave pronto.’

Joel flicked over the first sugar packet. The next fifteen or so flipped and streamed in a rustling flow until one sideswiped the next and the whole thing just stopped. All that work and it ended. Just like that. He angrily shoved the clump of packets into the centre of our table.

At twenty-seven, Joel still lived with his mother. Trapped by love and obligation, she probably had little choice but to spend the rest of her life caring for him like she would a ten-year-old. I imagined her phoning Howard and giving him an earful of threats to sue him for discrimination. Faced with her fury, he had capitulated.

At least I didn’t live with my mother. Despite everything, I didn’t need her to hold me up.

‘What’s your new job?’ I asked.

Finally, Joel made eye contact. ‘Simon and I are forming our own company – a new agency. Digital imaging to the max!’

I swung around and faced Simon. Arms folded, he was watching Joel, the side of his mouth raised in a satisfied smirk.

‘Howard is such a dinosaur,’ Joel declared. Listening to him, I had to smile. He wouldn’t have identified this character trait on his own; he was parroting Simon’s sales pitch to him. ‘He doesn’t understand that digital technology is easier and more cost-efficient. With a computer, scanner, the right software, printer and megapixel camera, two people in a digital shop can do the same amount and quality of work as ten in Howard’s agency.’

‘I see.’ I downed the last of my margarita and ordered anot. . .