‘I heard she only took one week for her maternity leave.’
‘I heard she had no pain relief during labour.’
‘She did a climb up Kilimanjaro a month later.’
‘I heard her husband is very good-looking.’
‘Their kitchen is huge – I saw a picture on Facebook.’
‘She has lots of dinner parties and I heard that Piers Morgan came to one.’
‘Well maybe we’ll get Aesop in the toilets again.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
On the train, I stared out the window. I felt like you do at the end of a hangover. The feeling you get at roughly 3 p.m. My head was back on my body but my head was aching. I felt flat. I looked down at my phone and saw an email labelled URGENT.
Re: FISH FINGER INNOVATION OPPORTUNITY
Hey Rebecca,
I have some great news on a new fish finger proposition that the client wants to research next month. It’s an exciting challenge. It fits perfectly with the goals and objectives we drew up with Darren at your last appraisal.
Hope you’re feeling better already.
Phoebe.
P.S. What happened about that brief? Was it a false alarm?
Better already? I’d only just left the office! There was nothing about the email that made me feel better. I had ZERO interest in fish fingers. Who did? Well Phoebe was different. She could fake an interest in anything. This was why she was successful. She had the stamina of an ox. She never woke up with the sheets imprinted into her face. She never laughed and weed herself because her pelvic floor was shot to buggery. Okay, she wore terrible clothes and had no style but I was clutching at straws. All you saw when you looked at her was confidence and strategic prowess. She was dynamic. This was the word she constantly waved under my nose – the word she bandied about as if it was some sort of magic formula, but what did it actually mean? How could I be more dynamic if my head was flying off all over the place and everyone was talking like a surfer dude? I was sorely tempted to send her an email telling her to FUCK OFF. Wasn’t this a benefit of getting older? Saying exactly what you thought and not mincing your words? This was what I loved about Mum. The older she got, the less she cared about anyone and the more sweary she became. I wished I could channel some of her now so I could overpower Phoebe.
I typed a reply.
AWESOME! I LOVE FISH FINGERS. Sorry, the brief was a false alarm but will definitely chase again next week. They said they needed to spend more time working out the objectives.
Rebecca x
She was also the kind of person who got off a transatlantic flight, and went straight to a meeting, then got straight back on the plane (perhaps turning her knickers inside out in the airplane toilet), slicked on a bit of lip gloss, readying herself to cook a delicious three course meal for her dinner guests when she got home. So it was true that she’d only had a week off for her maternity leave, and I’d also heard another rumour she’d come back with the umbilical cord still dangling out the bottom of her tights (she’d been dynamic right from the get go then). She lost her baby weight the next week by only eating nuts and drinking water. Her baby boy started talking when he was five months old. His first words were ‘Yaki Soba’ (his favourite dish from Wagamama). She did a successful pitch to an online retailer on her first day back in the office. She never drew penises on her notebooks (as far as I knew), and she was constantly giving me advice on how to be more productive.
‘Rebecca – you need to get up an hour earlier and work on your emails.’
‘Why don’t you use the commute time to ATTACK some of your top objectives? You can actually use your phone to record your TO DO LIST and you need never forget anything important again.’
‘Have you tried that new productivity app called RELENTLESS? It means you can fill in every single moment of the day with tasks?’
Both Phoebe and Darren were cut from the same cloth. Phoebe was the CEO and Darren the Managing Director but Phoebe liked to monitor me at close range. There had been a time, when I’d been doing better, and she’d been more hands off. So, the fact that she was so in my face was not good news. I sometimes thought they would have had amazing children together, who never had to sleep (waste of time), never got ill (illness was for wimps) and worked 24/7. The only difference was that Darren tried to pretend he was a nice person and Phoebe didn’t bother with that at all.
I didn’t like to fill in every available moment with work. It was bad enough that no one had dead time, that no one stared or observed anything because they were constantly on their phones. I still cried now and then when I left Bella at nursery and was then too teary to check emails on the way in. Unlike Phoebe, I had still looked pregnant eighteen months after the birth. My pelvic floor was a giant plastic bag flapping about, and I peed without warning. Each time I wrote a business proposal, I usually lost the project. I kept thinking how pointless this stuff was. Who cared about the positioning strategy for some ear buds? Or an innovation path for an Asian suppository brand? I felt like I had no insights to offer unless they involved my daughter and her sleeping habits. I watched colleagues’ eyes glaze over as I talked about her. I wasn’t dynamic it was true. Clients liked me because I was kind. I made them feel good by laughing at their jokes and asking about their family.
Some people are top strategists and others are … nice.
As I made my way out of the station, walking to the bus stop for the second stage of my journey, I still wasn’t feeling right. There was an uneasy sensation working its way through my body. The email from Phoebe had only made it worse. The month before I’d just finished a project for a frozen yoghurt product. I had found it all so demoralizing. There were people dying in wars and famines, and I was contemplating whether this product should be called ‘Milky Joy,’ or ‘Full of Milkyness.’ Then whether it should have a cartoon dog or a koala as its mouthpiece. I knew this was where I was going wrong. I had to talk myself into it. I had to try and emulate Phoebe.
Then I remembered Dad and quickly left him a message. ‘Dad, can you please pick up? Mum is worried about you. She says you’re spending all your time in the shed and haven’t come out in a while now. Ring me back or send me a text just so I know all is okay.’
Back home I couldn’t wait to see Bella but she was grumpy and tired, kept flailing about and kicking off about the fact that her pasta had tomato sauce ON TOP rather than ON THE SIDE and I’d mixed the broccoli in too. On the positive side, her head just had a small bruise on the side so the fall obviously hadn’t been serious. Nevertheless I lost my temper and ended up shouting at her. Eventually things calmed down, I put her to bed, and spent some time stroking her hair. These were my favourite moments in the day.
‘Mummy, is it nursery day tomorrow?’
‘Yes it is darling.’
‘I don’t want to go.’
She sat up and flung her arms around me, planting tiny kisses on the side of my head.
‘I know. But listen, just two more days and we’ll be together again. We can do lots of fun things.’
I put her back into bed, and pulled the duvet up which she immediately kicked off again. I often came in in the night and found her lying on top of the covers, her tiny feet freezing cold.
‘I don’t like the grown-ups at nursery, they’re horrible.’
‘But you never want to leave when I pick you up.’
‘They said I was a baby because I cried this morning.’