year.’
‘Oh.’
We both take a moment, and another Jaffa cake.
‘So why aren’t you going to Australia? I mean, Australia’s nice. You could have Christmas on the beach!’
‘I don’t want to be a gooseberry, or kiwi, and she needs to be on her own with him. So, I said I was going to see Mr Brain-freeze Will Armstrong. I kind of jumped in without thinking about it, so she wouldn’t feel bad.’
‘Aw, that’s so nice.’
‘Look out world, Saint Sarah is coming.’
‘Well,’ there’s a heavy undertone of doubt, ‘you did want to go, I suppose. But, not on your own, not at Christmas.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘I know! I can come!’
‘You’ve got Jake and your family. And I’ll be fine, Sam.’
‘But, on your own?’
‘I’ll meet people, you know I’m good at that. And I am working, remember?’
She stares at me. ‘But for actual Christmas?’ I nod. ‘And you deffo can’t take Callum?’
‘Nope, I dumped him last night.’
‘Ah, so that’s why your hair’s blue.’ She knows me well.
‘It might have a bearing.’
She raises an eyebrow and ploughs on. ‘But you can’t spend Christmas all on your own.’
‘Well, I won’t be completely alone. Mr Armstrong hasn’t frightened off all his guests – yet.’
‘You know what I mean. You’re not going with Lynn, or anybody?’
I shake my head, not wanting to voice the fact that there isn’t an ‘anybody’, and instead grab another Jaffa cake. I need sugar.
‘Well that explains why she rang and told me she was shutting up shop for two weeks over Christmas, then.’ She gets up and puts the kettle on. ‘Paid leave!’ She smiles. ‘How generous is that?’
So, Sam gets paid leave and I get a fully inclusive break in a snowbound, rundown holiday resort with the Anti-Christmas.
And he’s already decided I’m an idiot.
‘There’s more.’
‘More?’
I hand her the slip of paper and watch the emotions flicker across her open features. If it was me, there’d be a hell of a lot of conflict going on there. Fear, doubt, envy, disbelief. Sam just grins.
‘Bloody hell, Sare, this means you’ve got a five-year plan! That is so—’
‘Not me?’ Sam know what I’m like. She knows I always like an escape route. That I can’t even commit to a hair colour, let alone a man or a job.
‘So amazing! It’s brilliant.’
‘It is? Sorry, I mean it is.’ I try and sound positive.
‘You love working here, and you’ll be able to look at new places, and redecorate.’ I raise an eyebrow; she’s getting carried away. ‘And tell Will Armstrong where to get off. It’s ace!’
‘I’ve never thought about even a five-day plan before. Five years is a bit . . . well, a bit somebody else, not me.’
‘You don’t have to think of it like that, though, do you? I mean, you were never going to just up and bugger off and leave Lynn and me in the lurch, were you?’
She has a point. ‘Well, no, but—’
‘This is just kind of giving you more power!’
I stop my self-indulgent worrying and give her a big hug. ‘Oh Sam, where would I be without you?’
‘Buggered, which means you can’t sack me!’
‘I’d never sack you.’
Her eyes are twinkling. ‘But you are going to sort Will Armstrong out?’
I take a deep breath, disentangle myself and turn back to my computer. ‘Yep, my first priority as,’ I pause; it seems a bit out-there to say it, ‘a company director.’
I click a button on the keyboard, my fingers crossed under the desk.
Booking confirmed.
‘All done, an all-inclusive break at the Shooting Star Mountain Resort. Watch out, Will, here I come.’
Bugger, what have I done?
Do not believe any magazine article or blog that tells you packing for a week in the Canadian Rockies is easy. That is bollocks. They have never done it. Or they have servants who do it for them.
I am totally exhausted. Winter holidays in minus thirty degrees are not the same as summer scorchio ones in Spain. If they tell you that all you have to do is roll your clothes up and they will fit miraculously into one small bag (which works on my normal trips), it is a lie. It is as much of a lie as somebody telling you that if you go back and face your past it will help you make a better future.
I am a travel-light-with-a-rucksack type of girl; I do not have stuff. Well, I didn’t until now. The sheer volume of stuff (and totally scary amount of money I have spent) is enough to give a person like me a panic attack. The only way I have managed to cope with this has been by repeatedly telling myself that it is an investment; in the business, in my future.
My normal backpack has room for flip-flops, shorts, skinny vests and bikinis, but I am now officially a lug-the-massive-suitcase type of traveller. Even on a good day, seeing my bed strewn with the type of clothes I would never normally be seen dead in, apart from the gorgeous leopard-skin base layer, would be a nightmare.
And today is not a good day.
I stare at the enormous pile of colourful clothes, and my stomach feels all hollow and empty.
Sam told me, with the authority of a girl who went on school ski-ing trips, that I needed ‘Jeans, base layers, ear warmers, hat, gloves, mittens, snow-boots, socks, neck warmer, sunscreen, chapstick and moisturiser,’ she’d taken a deep breath, ‘minimum.’ So that is what we bought. The minimum. Which is rather a lot.
My main find had been what looked like leopard skin print pyjamas (but turned out to be a base layer), although they nearly didn’t make the grade. I had gone shopping, fully intending to project a businesslike image that would show Will Armstrong just who he was dealing with. Then I remembered the real ‘me’. I am not the type of person who dresses to impress a jerk who is out to ruin my business. Sod convention. I am not padded-ski-slope-princess, I am blue-haired leopard! And I think my inner big cat needs to be unleashed if I am to survive.
Sam had rolled her eyes. ‘I suppose it is one way of getting Will Armstrong onside.’ Which was worrying. I do not want him to think I am even more unprofessional than he already does. He will think rude flippant emails, and seductive base layers are all I have to offer. He will think I am no threat whatsoever. He will destroy our business as well as his own.
Leopard-skin sexiness was what Callum would have loved. But I’m not going with Callum for a cosy Christmas, I’m going on my own. I’m on a mission. Then it hit me, all I needed was a serious top layer. He will not be peeling away my layers, so it’s only the top bits that count, surely?
Unless I have a crashing fall on the slopes, and have to be unpeeled by medics, while Mr Armstrong stands on the sidelines, tutting and saying, ‘Why should I listen to a girl like that? She knows nothing’. Oh to hell with businesslike; I need to do this