to outdo each other, and when one of the authors had talked about books being the new drug of choice she’d wanted to laugh out loud. She had tried reading one of his novels and it had been in blank verse with no punctuation and no one had names, they were all called Red-Haired Man, Brown-Eyed Man, and Blonde Woman, and of course Blonde Woman had taken her clothes off several times in an allegedly necessary-for-the-plot but basically super-sleazy way and everyone said it was art, unlike the MyHeart books which were of course beneath anyone’s notice there, even though Elle thought the sex scenes were considerably better written. Of course, if she’d said any of this to anyone at Filthy’s they’d have looked at her as if she’d just said she thought Hitler was a tad misunderstood.
Rhodes looked impressed; he was impressed by Libby overall, Elle could tell. She said, ‘Are you sure, Libs? It’s in Clerkenwell, and it’s nine thirty.’
‘It’s fine.’ Libby picked up her coat. ‘I really want to go, and I know you hate that kind of thing. It’s not that far for me to get back from once I’m there. I’ll see you tomorrow, thanks for the lovely pasta soup. Rhodes, great to meet you.’
‘Great to—’ Rhodes began, standing up, but Libby had gone, waving a slim hand in farewell.
‘She’s cool,’ he said, staring down the corridor at the front door.
Elle put her palms down on the table and wearily pushed herself up. ‘The pizza place is just next door. I’ll order you something, shall I?’
Rhodes turned back. ‘Thanks, Ellie. I mean – Elle. That’d be great.’ He cleared his throat, brought his thick black eyebrows together. ‘Sorry. This was nice too – you know.’
She took a breath and smiled at him. ‘Like a … starter, maybe.’
‘That’s it.’ Rhodes smiled back at his sister. Pulling the pizza menu off the fridge, Elle said, ‘So, Rhodes – are you seeing anyone? Sorry to be nosy. I kind of thought maybe you might be, from something you said.’
Rhodes’s head flipped up. ‘I am. That’s weird, how did you know?’
‘I read about two romance novels a week at the moment,’ Elle said. ‘Call it intuition based on experience.’
‘We both have our own skill set, then,’ Rhodes said, and Elle wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. ‘Well, yeah. She’s called Melissa, and I’ve been asking her out on dates for a while, but her boyfriend was this mega-rich WASP and I thought I stood no chance, but she dumped him over the summer, so yeah – I moved in there. Took her for cocktails at the Plaza, played up my British accent, told her all about my idyllic upbringing in the English countryside and – goal.’
‘That’s great – I’m happy for you,’ Elle said, after a pause. ‘How do you know her?’
‘She’s an analyst at Bloomberg too, assessing global risk,’ Rhodes said. Elle nodded as if she knew what that was. ‘She went to Brown, so she’s super well-connected, but she’s fun too. I want her to visit England with me but …’
He trailed off, and they stared at each other, as though he knew Elle could see the collapse of the shiny artificial world he’d created, of a charming English cottage with a mum who bakes biscuits and has apple cheeks, and a super-involved dad amicably divorced from her and with two great new kids and a lovely new wife. ‘Yes,’ people would say, in this fantasy world. ‘The Bees managed it so well. They’re just one big happy family.’
Elle couldn’t say anything back to that. She just nodded.
They went next door to wait for the pizza in the cramped takeaway place with the minicab drivers and the hoodie boys on their pushbikes, and the glassy-eyed skinny blondes, then they came back upstairs and ate the pizza and Rhodes said it wasn’t too bad, not as good as New York pizza but good for London. They watched the news together on the sofa, the hordes at the palace, the Spice Girls in black at some awards ceremony, the funeral set for Saturday, five more days of revelling in this unaccustomed, unBritish grief. ‘It won’t always feel this sad,’ Rhodes said, when Elle gave a small sniff, and she was touched. ‘Promise, Ellie.’
He helped her make up the sofa bed, and then they carried on talking, and Elle asked him about Manhattan, and he told her about the steam rising from the subway, the place he’d been for breakfast only last weekend which was where the orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally had been filmed. About how when he’d taken Melissa for their first date, they’d walked up 5th Avenue afterwards and a tramp outside Central Park had shouted, ‘Marry her, you should marry her!’
‘That’s what it’s like all the time, there,’ he said. He asked some more about her job, how Karen was, whether autumn was a busy time in publishing, how long she saw herself staying at Bluebird. But he didn’t ask about Mum, or Dad, once, and Elle didn’t mention them.
‘WELL, I THINK it looks really nice,’ Sam said doubtfully, as Elle stared in the tiny mirror of the Ladies’ bathroom.
‘I hate it,’ Elle said dramatically. ‘I don’t know why I had it done. I look like a brassy whore,’ she said, running a strand of hair through her fingers. ‘My hair was fine before. Now it’s insane. Look at it.’
‘It’s great, I promise,’ said Libby, applying some lip gloss. ‘It’s the crappy Bluebird sales conference, not the Oscars.’
There was a sharp rap at the door. ‘Hurry up, please,’ came Posy’s voice. Elle, Libby and Sam hurried sideways out of the cramped room. Posy was waiting for them, resplendent in a floral bias-cut Jigsaw dress. She was wearing blue eyeshadow and mascara and her hair was up. Elle stared; she’d never seen Posy dressed up before. Posy tapped her foot. ‘The authors will be arriving soon,’ she said, in the tones of one announcing the Apocalypse. ‘Let’s go.’
Elle had never heard of a sales conference before she’d gone to work at Bluebird. It was basically the chance for an almighty piss-up, as far as she could tell. There was a presentation, some flashy music on in the background, and then dinner with authors and the reps from all round the country, at a Georgian townhouse in Soho.
The marketing department was in charge for the weeks before the sales conference, and exciting-looking things started arriving for the event: Post-it notes in the shape of hearts and 1998/99 diaries with Victoria Bishop’s new title printed on them – Diary of a Well-Worn Heart – and torches with ‘Be Afraid of the Dark’ for Oona King’s new thriller. Elle thought it was amazing, what they could produce; there was still so much about the whole business that, even after nearly a year, filled her with a kind of wonder that she was here at all. She knew it was tragic to look forward to a work event this much, but she couldn’t help it. Besides, after ten months of working there, she loved nights out with her Bluebird colleagues. Everyone got the same jokes, there was always someone to talk to and something to gossip about: whether Jeremy and Lucy the publicity director were having an affair, what Rory had allegedly said to Felicity during their latest row, how much of a bitch Victoria Bishop really was, and so on.
For this anticipated event Elle had even bought a new dress – dove grey chiffon with beading from Oasis – and the previous night, flushed with excitement and an all-consuming urge to be bold and embrace life, she had walked into a hairdresser’s at the top of Tottenham Court Road and apparently blacked out in an episode of lunacy, because when she came to she saw she’d asked them to cut all her hair off into a crop, which wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t been teamed with a dye job the colour of a field of rapeseed. And it was then that she remembered too late that the urge to be bold and embrace life usually had catastrophic results. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said sadly, grabbing her coat and turning off her computer, catching sight of the yellow hair in the black screen.
Someone lightly touched her shoulder. ‘What’s up?’
Elle turned quickly. ‘Hello, Rory.’ She put her bag over