Page 7 of (Not So) Mad About You

“For keeping you your job,” he said, staring at her as though she’d gone mad. “Not that it was easy, and not that there aren’t strings attached.”

She kept her voice low and level. “Strings? What sort of strings, exactly?”

“Anger management,” he said with a sniff. “Still, could be worse, you—”

“Anger management?” she spat. “So just to be clear, not only have you gone in there and lied about my mental health status, you’ve also agreed to send me to some sort of course or something without my permission?”

“Do you actually want your job?”

A flicker of acid in her stomach again. “Of course I do.”

“And I didn’t lie, Al.”

“You didn’t lie? About me being hysterical and whatever else you told them?”

Darren turned to her. “I didn’t tell them that you were hysterical. I told them that you were stressed and working too hard and that you had anger problems that hopefully could be sorted out with a bit of help.”

“Anger problems?” She sat up straighter in her chair, unable to believe just what she was hearing. “Anger problems?”

Darren shook his head. “Al, you’ve had five assistants in the last year. They keep quitting because you keep losing your temper with them. The mail guys are afraid to come into your office, and I removed you from the mandatory mentoring program because you turned interns into quivering wrecks. I get that you’re a hard worker and that you have certain opinions, and that you want things done a certain way. I agree that you get results. But I also think that you’ve got a temper, and it’s starting to get out of control.”

Ali opened her mouth and then closed it, then opened it again. “I can’t fight against that, can I?” she said, feeling pressure building up in her chest. “Anything I say makes it look like I have an anger problem, even if I don’t.”

Darren laid a hand on her leg. “Listen, this isn’t a bad thing. You’re keeping your job, you’re keeping your clients. All you have to do is go to some wellness retreat for a couple of weeks and get them to sign you off as having completed an anger management course. It’ll be nice. A bit of rest.”

“Nice? Nice?” She almost choked on the words.

“Fine,” Darren said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “It won’t be nice. But you will be doing it because that’s what thecompany says you have to do to keep the job that you say you want.”

He started typing and Ali leaned over his shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Booking you in,” he said, hitting a random search result from the page he’d brought up. “Here you go, this one will do. Two weeks, certified, the office will pay for it.”

Before she could stop him, he was keying in her information and all she could do was watch, furious, as he signed her up for something that she neither wanted nor needed.

“I won’t go,” she hissed.

Darren shrugged. “Then you’ll need to pack up your desk today, please.”

She glared at him and he simply looked back, phone in hand. “Well, I won’t like it.”

He sighed. “No one’s asking you to, Al. Just go and get it done, please, so that we can all go back to work.”

She wanted to punch him but managed to restrain herself. See? She could control herself. She didn’t need anger management in the slightest.

Chapter Four

Marilyn put the coffee jug on the table and Bea cringed and got up to get a plate to put under it.

“It’s not that we’re trying to kick you out of your room or anything,” Robbie was saying, cutting into a sausage.

“God no,” said Marilyn. “We’d never do that.”

Which was odd because that sounded like exactly what they were doing to Bea.

“It’s just that there’s two of us and one of you and, well, with all Marilyn’s stuff, it might be a bit easier,” continued Robbie. “We could get some of those boxes out of the hallway, for example, and just store them in the bedroom if we’re using it. And then you can use the spare room. You always said you liked the mattress in there anyway.”

“It’s harder than the one on our bed,” Bea said. There was a moment of stillness as everyone recognized her slip-up. “I mean, the big bed. The bed in the other room. My bed.”

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