Page 95 of The Fallback

‘No,’ Nadia said firmly, ‘just assure me it wasnothinglike the contents of those emails.’

Rosie’s mind wandered back to the night before. No, it had been nothing like that. Despite everything that had happened since, she felt her cheeks blush at the memory.

‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter because it’s not going to happen again,’ she said as firmly as she could with a massively wobbly lower lip.

‘Oh, Rosie. Are you OK?’

‘No, not really.’ Rosie’s voice joined in the collective wobbling. ‘I just found out from one of his colleagues that he’s put in a transfer at work and he’s moving to New York.’

‘Wow. That’s…a lot. And he didn’t tell you this?’

‘No,’ Rosie’s voice sounded reedy and thin. ‘Not before or after we slept together. Who does that, Nadia? I mean if it had been a random one-night stand then fine. But this is Mitch. There’s nothing random about us. I can’t believe he wouldn’t tell me.’ Rosie was now fully sobbing. ‘I’ve lost Mitch and I’m scared I’m going to lose my job, Nadia.’

‘OK, Rosie, you need to calm down,’ Nadia now had her best I-can-fix-anything voice on, which immediately slowed Rosie’s racing heart down. ‘Yes, Rachel is going to be cross about this when she finds out but I don’t think she can actually fire you for it.’

‘You don’t think so?’ asked Rosie weakly, in-between hiccupping sobs.

‘No’ insisted Nadia. ‘You didn’t write those emails, it’s not your fault that she sent them to you. Yes it’s unfortunate that you forwarded them on…’

‘Unfortunate is one way of putting it,’ Rosie said bleakly.

‘We can just pretend you never opened the attachment. Didn’t know what was in it but just presumed it was the press release in another format. Yes that’s it!’ Nadia sounded remarkably pleased with herself.

‘Nadia I don’t think that’s going to work,’ Rosie said slowly. ‘Yeah, OK, technically she can’t fire me. But think about how miserable she can make my life here.’

There was a silence on the other end of the line.

‘I actually quite like working here,’ Rosie continued in a small voice. ‘I like working with you. I like working for Rachel when I’m not terrified of her.’

‘Aren’t we all terrified of her, like all the time?’ asked Nadia.

‘Yes, but I respect her. Iwantto keep working here. I don’t want to fuck up my career, I’ve done enough damage to my personal life.’

There was another long pause.

‘Leave it with me,’ Nadia said eventually. ‘I don’t know if I can help with Mitch but I’ll do my best on the work front.’

‘Thank you, Nadia. You're amazing, I hope you know that. Will you let me know if you get the sense that Rachel knows about it already?’ Rosie begged. ‘You know, if she seems really tetchy or cross…’

‘Isn’t that how she normally seems?’ Nadia queried.

Rosie smiled despite herself. ‘True.’

‘Where are you now?’ Nadia asked. ‘Are you coming in?’

‘No!’ exclaimed Rosie. ‘I can’t. What if she knows?’

‘Rosie, you can’t hide from this, and if shecan’tfire you over the email shecanprobably justify firing you for not coming into work.’

‘I can’t face it, Nadia. Work, Mitch, it’s all just such a mess.’

Nadia sighed. ‘OK, take today. We can pretend you’re not feeling well. But that’s all I’m giving you, one day, maybe two tops,’ she said firmly. ‘Promise me you’ll call me if you need anything? And I’ll ring you later OK?’

* * *

It was Chris who answered the front door. ‘Hi!’ he said enthusiastically and then immediately looked confused. ‘Er, were we…’ He tailed off.

Poor Chris was obviously silently panicked that he had forgotten his sister was coming over, and what with both his wife and mother in the kitchen behind him he was about to get something horribly wrong. Rosie didn’t have the resources to reassure him right now.

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