The Other Side of the Story (34 page)

19

Thursday morning

Brent and Tyler, the two agents from CAA, arrived and lit up reception with a bright sunshiny glow. Brent was blond and Tyler dark-haired, and both of them were buff, tan and oozing easy West Coast charm from every perfect pore. They wore box-fresh chinos and polo shirts and even though they were jet-lagged, their eyes sparkled. They had suspiciously beautiful skin.

Jim Sweetman introduced Jojo as the woman who 'discovered'
Love and the Veil
.

'We've got a lot to thank you for,' Brent cooed super-appreciatively.

'Yeah, we would not be here were it not for you.'

'And we cannot wait to read your other authors. We've heard am
-ayyyyzzz-
ing stuff about them.'

'Truly am
-ayyyyzzz-
ing.'

Jojo had to laugh. 'Right back atcha, boys.'

On the way back to her office, she bumped into Mark. 'Check out the Ken dolls from CAA,' she muttered out of the side of her mouth. 'Makes the rest of us look like
Night of the Living Dead
.'

Mark cut his eyes to them. 'Christ! They're the only things in colour in a black and white world.'

'Like the yellow brick road at the start of
Wizard of Oz
?'

'Or the child in the red coat in
Schindler's List
. OK, I'm off to schmooze.'

'Careful. They'll be all over you like a cheap suit.'

'More like a rash,' Mark said quietly to her, when they met in the boardroom ten minutes later at a major meet-and-greet session.

Jojo watched all the agents file in. Here came Dan Swann who never seemed to take his mossy green hat off any more — looking to be promoted to a fully fledged Eccentric, Jojo decided. He sat beside her and stared, mesmerized, at the suntanned pair. 'They're like men,' he said faintly. 'Only shinier.'

Then came Jocelyn Forsyth, marching about in his pinstriped suit, being deb'ly, deb'ly Brrritish, calling Brent 'my de-ah fellow' and Tyler 'de-ah, de-ah boy'.

Next came Lobelia French and Aurora Hall who, like always, looked right through her, then the Hon Tarquin Wentworth who shot her a glance of unabashed hatred. Not pleasant, but hey, could she help it if she worked harder and generated more money than they did?

But there was one person they despised even more than her and here he was now - Richie Gant who looked more unsavoury by the day. For a second all four were as one in their contempt of him.

Olga Fisher sat on the other side of her and looked at Brent and Tyler. 'Marvellous skin, haven't they?'

'I wonder what they use?'

'La Mer. I asked them. I have a video on warthogs for you. Not the prettiest of creatures, but interesting. I'll drop it in to that boy.'

'Manoj. He's permanent now. Louisa isn't coming back.'

'If I were mother to that little angel, I don't think I'd return to work either.'

'You wouldn't?' But they called her a ballbreaker. 'No. Authors are as demanding as children but not quite so rewarding. Would you return to work?'

'Of course!'

'You say that now.'

'For sure I would —'

But Mark was calling the meeting to order and Jojo had to shut up.

The meeting wound up at noon and then came the moment of truth: Jojo was having lunch at the Caprice with Jim and the CAA boys but she was way anxious that Jim would spring Richie Gant on them at the last minute. But he didn't and as she said to Jim in the taxi on the way back to work, 'I had the
best
time.' Brent and Tyler were so enthusiastic they made it sound as if movie rights for all her books had already been sold and were currently being cast. They'd encouraged her to let her imagination run wild and tell them who she thought should play each of her author's characters, even which directors she'd prefer. 'I know they're a little over the top,' she sighed happily to Jim. 'But I really feel my books will go to the head of the queue.' She'd had three glasses of champagne and felt a song coming on. 'Top of the HEAP!'

Well?' Manoj asked. 'Swanning back in at ten to four. I hope it was good.'

'Mucho bonding. Mucho, mucho bonding. They loved me up so much, it was as good as sex. Hey, better than sex.'

'Are you going out to spend money?'

'You betcha. Late night shopping and all. How lucky is that?'

Friday morning, first thing

There was an email from Claire Colton at Southern Cross, saying thanks but no thanks for Gemma Hogan's book. She said what Tania Teal had said and what Jojo thought — it was fun but not special enough.

OK, Jojo thought, taking it on the chin. Who's next? B&B Calder. Thing was, though, she was starting to run out of publishers; they'd all taken over each other so that now there were only six big ones left in London. Several imprints existed within the umbrella of each house but if one editor rejects the manuscript, you can't just readdress it to another editor in a different part of the house; with each publisher you only got one chance so you had to choose your editor very carefully. Who at B&B Calder should she approach? Not Franz 'Editor of the Year' Wilder, that was for damn sure! She could already hear his bitchy laughter when he read a few pages of
Runaway Dad
.

Someone fresh and on the way up would suit this book. Then she got her girl: Harriet J. Evans, young and hot, starting to make her mark with a couple of statement purchases. Why hadn't she thought of her before now? She picked up the phone.

'Email it to me,' Harriet said.

Then she went to show Manoj the fabulous pocketbook she'd bought the previous night. She was demonstrating the secret section where cigarettes could be hidden when Richie Gant passed by Manoj's desk. She felt him before she saw him — a vague feeling of revulsion crawled up the skin of her back. And there he was, with his hair too gelled, his suit too cheap, his neck too spotty.

He paused, cast a scornful eye over her and then, to her surprise, laughed right into her face.

'Laughing at jokes only you can hear?' Then she added kindly, 'You poor fuck.'

But he laughed again and the breath caught in her chest. She watched him amble down the corridor, still chuckling to himself. 'Something's going on,' she said to an alarmed-looking Manoj. 'Find out.'

After loitering for fifteen minutes by the photocopier, Manoj reported back. 'Last night they all went out.'

'Who?'

'Brent, Tyler, Jim and Richie.'

'So why didn't they ask me?'

'They went to a lap-dancing club.'

'So why didn't they ask me?'

'Could've been embarrassing.'

'I wouldn't have been embarrassed.'

'But
they
might have been. Duh.'

A lap-dancing club! Richie Gant, the
little fuck
. He'd done it again: lunch in the Caprice was nothing compared to a night boozing and bonding over naked women. She was burning up, feeling horribly patronized that Brent and Tyler had taken her for lunch when they had a proper good time — the
real
one — planned for later. All the time they'd been simply humouring her.

She wasn't naive, she knew this stuff happened, but she'd thought publishing had a little more class. She remembered how happy she'd been in the taxi and cringed. Jim Sweetman should have told her that they were going out with Richie Gant later, but Jim was the chicken-shit kind of guy who believed that the messenger got shot. He only passed on good news.

Men
, she thought, in contempt. Useless fucks with a brain and a penis but not enough blood to run both simultaneously. Then her anger came to rest on the women who took their clothes off to enable men to bond and take business away from other women. How can men respect working women when they can pay other women to take their clothes off? How can they help but think of all women as toys?

She'd never before felt that as a professional woman she had anything other than Access All Areas. Well, she'd been wrong. She was a great agent, but she could never forge relationships by buying dances for dickbrains. Men could, though, giving them the advantage. The unfairness hit her like a slap in the face. Men and their dicks ran the world — and for a moment she felt the full weight of the imbalance. She was raging and, unusually for her, depressed.

She'd been blue anyway: it was Mark's birthday and she wanted to spend it with him. Instead, some time in the afternoon, Cassie was coming by to whisk him away for a night in a mellow-walled hotel with four-poster beds, seven-course dinners and a Romanesque pool (she'd looked it up on the net)

.

20

Friday afternoon

The day didn't get any better. Right after lunch, Harriet J. Evans rang.

'Well?'

'Sorry. No.'

'But you didn't have time to read it!'

'I read enough. Actually I enjoyed it, it made me laugh, but there's just too many others like it. Sorry, Jojo.'

Next!

Paul Whitington at Thor. He was a man, but he was good with commercial fiction — unlike a lot of male editors, he didn't think a sense of humour was something to be ashamed of.

Jojo rang him, bigged up
Runaway Dad
like it was the book of the year and Paul promised to read it over the weekend.

'Manoj! Send a bike!'

Eamonn Farrell, author and piss-head, was her three-thirty. He showed up at five to four, smelling of tobacco, fast food and Paco Rabanne, laced with a suggestion of urine. This was because he was a genius. As one of Jojo's star authors, second only to Nathan Frey, she had to kiss him. It doesn't happen often but sometimes I hate my job, she thought dolefully.

He sat in front of her in clothes that looked like they'd been tied to the back of a car and dragged around town for a couple of hours — another sign of his genius — and complained for a solid forty-five minutes about every other male author on the planet. Then abruptly he stood up and said, 'Right, I'm off to get pissed.'

'I'll walk you to the lift.'

On the way they passed Jim. 'Jojo, will you be long?'

D'ya have a good time last night paying women to take their clothes off
? She pushed down her anger.

'No, coming right back.'

'Come and see me.'

'Who's he?' Eamonn asked. 'Jim Sweetman, the film rights bloke? The one who sold Nathan Frey's pile of shite to Hollywood? What's he doing about mine?'

'Your pile of shite? We're working on it.'

'Wha-?'

'Lift's here.' She hustled him and his smelliness in. 'Take care, Eamonn. Missing you already.'

The doors slid shut, taking an astonished Eamonn Farrell away from her. The relief! Her usual author's bedside manner had deserted her today. With a lighter heart she turned to go back — and at the far end of the corridor she saw Mark with a blonde woman. An author? An editor? Every nerve-ending prickled when she realized that it was Cassie.

Who wasn't exactly as she'd remembered her. Taller and slimmer, wearing jeans, a white shirt and a - WHAT? Oh my GOD! It couldn't be. But she looked again — it was! — and her brain squeezed with the unlikeliness of it.
She's wearing my jacket
. She's in her forties, what in the hell is she doing with a leather jacket from Whistles? A style item that'll be toast in three months' time. Something that
I've
balked about buying and I'm only thirty-three.

Mark saw her, his face lit up with alarm and they exchanged a stare that flashed the length of the hallway. Jojo would have spun on her heel and sprinted to the lift except it might have looked a little obvious; she
had
to walk towards them. The corridor was like a runway and there was no escape, no side-doors to pop into and the twenty feet took a long time to cover. Cassie was walking faster than Mark, her voice was loud and she sounded like she was telling him off for something. 'You silly man,' she was saying, then she laughed.

When she reached them, Jojo ducked her head, mumbled, 'Hi,' and slid past but then she heard Cassie say, 'Hello.'

Fuuckkk
. 'Hi.'

Both Mark and Jojo attempted to keep moving but Cassie was going nowhere so Mark had to introduce them, which he did with all the enthusiasm of a man en route to the electric chair. 'This is Jojo Harvey. One of our agents.'

'Jojo Harvey.' Cassie took Jojo's hand in both of hers, looked her in the face and said, 'My God, you gorgeous creature.' Her eyes were blue, proper Scandinavian blue and although they were lined, she was very attractive. 'And I'm Cassie, Mark's long-suffering wife.'

Fuuckkk
. But Cassie twinkled and Jojo understood that she was joking.

'I've been meaning to write to you, Jojo.'

Fuuckkk
. 'You have?'

'You have so many good authors. Aren't you clever?'
How does she know about my authors
?

'I loved
Mimi's Remedies
,' Cassie exclaimed. 'It was brilliant, a wee gem.' Exactly what Jojo thought.
Fuuckkk
. 'And I hope you don't mind, but I asked Mark to steal a copy of Miranda England's latest from your office. She's great, isn't she? Pure escapism.' Exactly what Jojo thought.
Fuuckkk
.

'You read a lot.' She sounded robotic but hey, she was in shock. She'd expected broad-in-the-butt chambray skirts with elasticated waists, flat feet in wide loafers and a deathly dull woman with a fondness for tea and gardening.

'I love books,' Cassie sparkled with glee, 'and the only thing better than a book is a
free
book.' Exactly what Jojo thought.
Fuuckkk.

'Hand. Y. For. You,' she said, in her Dalek monotone, 'Know. Ing. Some. One. In. Pub. Lish. Ing.'

Cassie smiled affectionately at Mark, 'He has his uses.' Then she giggled. Giggled! Like she'd thought of other uses for Mark. She tugged him by the tie, 'Come along, birthday boy.'

As Mark was led away he gave Jojo a beseeching look; he was the colour of freshly poured cement.

'Nice to meet you, Jojo,' Cassie called. She waved her free Miranda England. 'And thanks for this.'

Jojo watched them get into the lift and was suddenly desperate to yell, 'Mark, please don't sleep with her.'

In fact, when was the last time Mark had slept with Cassie? Something she'd never cared about. Jealousy of Mark's wife had never before figured. She'd resented the time that his family drained him of, but this was the first occasion she'd thought of Cassie as a rival. Until now, she had actually felt sorry for her. Sorry and guilty.

He talks to her, he tells her about work. She reads, she's smart. She has great taste in jackets. And men. Fuuckkk. I'm going outside, I need a cigarette.

She got her cigarettes and lighter and on the way to the lift, as she passed Jim Sweetman's office, he shouted, 'Jojo Harvey, in here!'

She pushed his door with her foot, letting it bang against a cabinet and leant heavily against the jamb.

'That Eamonn Farrell smells like a bin lorry!' Then Jim noticed her strange mood. 'Oh-oh. You met Cassie?'

'She was wearing my jacket. I'm going downstairs for a cigarette. I'll come see you in a few.'

The lift smelt of Eamonn. Out in the street she inhaled her first welcome lungful of nicotine and sank against the wall when, with a jolt, she saw Mark and Cassie in a car on the other side of the road. They hadn't left yet. Instinctively she stepped back into the doorway in case they saw her. Mark was in the passenger seat and Cassie was driving. She had a cigarette clamped between her lips and was reversing out of a tight space, her eyes narrowed against the smoke.
She smokes! My kinda woman
!

At a sharp angle she shot out onto the road and almost collided with another car. The driver, an elderly man, beeped her angrily but Cassie took the cigarette out of her mouth and blew him a kiss; Jojo could see her laughing. Then they drove away.

Holy fuck.

She ground her cigarette under her foot, smoked another one then another, then went upstairs to Jim.

'Whatever you want to talk to me about, can we do it over a drink?'

'When? Now?'

'It's past five. Come on.'

'Where? The Coach and Horses?'

'Anywhere they sell strong liquor.'