Page 20 of Hit For Six (Balls and Banter #1)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lola
Lola returned to the office, eking out her morning walk to no avail.
She should have been skipping to work knowing that Julian was away, but she felt as if somebody had put her in one of those centrifugal force machines you got in a science lab.
Nothing looked the same anymore from any vantage point.
And even when she managed to snatch a second of normality, everything turned one-eighty degrees on her.
She would just have to find a way to breeze in as usual and pretend nothing soul-destroying or weird had happened on their team building Friday.
And that she hadn’t just made another giant mistake by desperately taking on a second job where, once again, she’d been reduced to a laughing stock.
Oh, and that she hadn’t turned down the man of her dreams last night after a kiss which may not have quite lasted the two and a half minutes of Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman’s legendary smooch, but whose intensity could have rivaled it.
Yes, move along, people. Nothing to see here.
Which musical theatre protagonists could she attempt to channel this time? It was a toss up between the no-nonsense Mary Poppins and go-getter Elle Woods from Legally Blonde.
‘Cup of tea, Lola?’
Stingy Suzy jumped on her the moment she arrived. Lola had to do a triple take. Suzy had never played waitress in the office! Something felt seriously afoot.
‘Th-that would be nice, erm… thank you?’
Lola couldn’t help the soprano pitch of her words as she questioned the random kindness, which surely had to mean something other than its face value.
‘Lola, can I have a word?’ asked Harry, before she’d even reached her desk and dumped her bag, let alone taken a sip of her brew.
Not waiting for an answer, he summoned her straight to his office, his face pure consternation.
Oh, now Lola got it. The tea was the sweetener to soften a blow.
And it could only be a biggie. Harry saw Lola into his room with a view (his vista of Bath’s rooftops and the cathedral beyond the river was stunning) and carefully closed the frosted glass door behind them.
She swept her gaze across to his desk but she couldn’t see her P45.
Gingerly, she walked forward, taking a seat opposite her boss.
She wrung her hands in her lap. She should never have let out so many complacent vibes over the weekend about what little she had going on here.
It was a job, income, security. She should be grateful.
She had so much more than so many people in the world. And now she was about to lose the lot.
‘I want you to take over some of the accounts that Julian was handling. Tarjetas y Tartas and a couple of others in the Netherlands and China.’
Lola looked from left to right as if somebody might care to enlighten her. Apparently not. She let out a gasp that she’d only intended to be small, but it sounded more like she was hyperventilating.
‘Lola? I thought you’d be pleased?’
‘But those were my accounts.’
She knew she sounded confrontational but despite her very recent thoughts, she needed to look Harry in the eye on this matter as he explained himself.
She hadn’t imagined that she’d ever recover her customers, and now was her chance to labour a point that she’d been scared to make when the theft had occurred.
Because Julian had stolen from her. Plain and simple.
Regardless of the fact that most companies would play the intellectual property card.
Lola had built two of these accounts from scratch and boosted the other via graft, vision and intuition. Then along had come the magpie.
‘Yes, I’m well aware of that.’ Harry sighed and shook his head. ‘I’m well aware of many things and I owe you the humblest of apologies.’
Oh. So Maxine had stayed true to her word and reported Julian. That was something. A very big something to come out of yesterday’s disastrous evening.
‘Why now?’ Lola wanted Harry to feel her pain. She maintained fierce eye contact. Just until he answered. It wasn’t often that she felt this brave and she was owed an explanation. ‘I don’t understand what’s changed so suddenly?’
‘Strictly between you and I,’ Harry began talking at speed, as if he couldn’t wait to rid himself of the bitter taste in his mouth. ‘And because I can’t afford to ruffle any feathers… It’s come to my attention that Julian’s transfer wasn’t all it seemed.’
‘Go on.’ But Harry remained momentarily tight-lipped. ‘You have my word that I won’t mention this to any of my colleagues,’ Lola reassured him, softening her voice.
Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes as if he was trying to make a decision.
‘It turns out that Julian was transferred to this office under the duress of stress.’ Harry made quotation marks in the air as he said the last word.
‘Our performance had been subpar for the second half of the financial year, as you know. I wouldn’t have stood a chance if I’d protested, but even from the outset, I had a hunch as to the root cause of him being palmed off on us, and, well, let’s just say that a bizarre chain of events over the past few days have sadly proved me right. ’
Lola remained silent. She didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. And on the prior subject of birds, she didn’t want to count her chickens until they had hatched.
‘Julian’s stress was one-hundred percent self-inflicted. Sexist jokes in his former workplace, making his female colleagues feel uncomfortable, belittling his female clients behind their backs… And so on and so forth. I think you, more than most people, will get the gist.’
Lola nodded more than a little uncomfortably.
But there was no point spelling anything out.
They’d already done that together in the highly cringeworthy presence of the stadium’s security team.
She needed to move on already. Otherwise the other kind of form filling she’d done this weekend had been in vain.
Blimey, though. If Maxine had put in her complaint on top of these revelations, it was no wonder Harry had let Julian go.
But despite his apology, it all felt too little too late.
Harry should never have undermined Lola.
That in itself was Julianesque. And if her boss had been sucker punched into treating Lola badly once, it could happen again.
‘I’ve cancelled his flight back from New York and explained the situation to the manager at his hotel, who probably won’t want such a sordid guest on their hands,’ said Harry without the slightest remorse.
‘Julian won’t be getting a reference either.
We gave him a chance here when nobody else would have or should have and he’s blown it.
I don’t think he’ll be hanging around in Bath for long when he does make his way back.
It’s too small a place for his kind of behaviour. ’
Nevermind the number six. In the end, Lola hadn’t needed to do even one thing. for Julian to screw his life up in less than three days; the scales of justice straining to balance.
‘Oh, and there’s a twenty percent pay rise with your name on it…
if you’d like it. I also think we need to start getting you out there to the international trade fairs.
It’s not right that I’m the one greeting, wining and dining your customers then landing you with the Herculean task of the follow ups, negotiation and sale. You deserve some perks.’
Okay, now the scales were positively tipping in her favour.
All of this was lovely but despite meeting her gaze earlier in the conversation, Harry couldn’t quite look Lola in the eye when he made this announcement.
The guilt was too much. Lola would take the pay rise and do great things with it.
But she’d long built a routine around nothing more jetset than an occasional UK trade fair and Harry couldn’t expect her to overhaul her lifestyle just because he was suddenly feeling generous.
As a cat mum, there was no way she was willing or able to leave Squiffy alone for vast periods of time.
Harry extended a hand across the table and gave Lola a limp shake. Who needed words?
And so the extraordinary day had continued.
Or maybe the exact E word Lola was looking for was eerie .
It also couldn’t have felt more like everyone was in on the act.
Even Bobby nipped to the bakery at lunchtime and brought in a massive box of éclairs .
If Lola didn’t know any different, she’d say that the whole company was trying to buy her silence.