Page 7 of The Girlfriend

L AURA SAT IN THE LARGE RECEPTION AREA AT ITV TOWERS, GRATEFUL for the air-conditioning.

She’d come a long way since she’d worked there in her early twenties as a script editor in the drama department.

It was the same time Howard had swept her off her feet and she’d given it all up when Rose, then Daniel had arrived.

It was only when Daniel reached his teens that she suddenly found she had time on her hands and so had tentatively tested the commissioning waters with an idea for a new drama she had.

Some of her old contemporaries were now running the drama departments at the channels and after a few “remember me?” e-mails (the industry was incestuously small), she got those first important meetings, then sold the idea.

Seven years later and she had a small but thriving company and was, she thought, respected in the industry.

Admittedly, the BAFTA win had been some years ago now, but everyone knew how arbitrary and how fashion-dependent these things were.

At the moment, a comedienne who’d also branched out in drama was at the top of everyone’s wish list and every proposal with her name on it got green-lit, and, it was hoped, would go on to win prizes.

In two years’ time, it would be someone else.

She checked her iPhone for messages. Daniel had not come home Saturday night as she’d suspected; as Sunday had stretched on, she’d become ever more aware of his continuing absence.

She’d made him lunch, but had to put it in the fridge, and then she’d sort of drifted around the house, waiting for him to return, looking forward to seeing him, and getting more and more restless the later he became.

By five o’clock, it suddenly occurred to her that he might not come back that night either, and she laughed at herself and at the sensation she had of being stood up.

She gave herself a stern talking-to, and went to bed, having not seen either of her immediate family all day, as Howard had gone to golf.

Her name was called and she stood as the PA to the Commissioning Editor of Drama came to take her up in the elevator to the eighth floor, where she sat in a small meeting room with Hercule Poirot on the window.

“Laura!” cried Alison as if she was welcoming a long-lost friend. They kissed each other on both cheeks. Alison always spoke in inflated tones of optimism and energy, and Laura generally found it best to respond in kind.

“How’ve you been?” gushed Alison, taking a seat on one of the plastic chairs. Laura sat opposite.

“Good!”

“Well, we’re thrilled with ep one.” Alison also littered her sentences with extravagant adjectives: superb, extraordinary, fantastic, were also to be found often, prowling around like ninjas waiting to attack in a showy display of power.

Laura took an inner sigh of relief, but it was a bittersweet pill.

She’d done the last-minute changes to the final scene as Alison had “suggested,” after having her argument that the lovers wouldn’t have left without saying good-bye to the jilted best friend swept aside in Alison’s trademark passive-aggressive way.

“I don’t know, I just don’t believe it, do you?

” she had said, and Laura had thought, Yes, I do, as did you, presumably, when you read the script six months ago.

She tried to persuade Alison otherwise, but had hit a brick wall.

Laura knew that if she wanted a second series, or any other commission with ITV in the near future, she’d have to not be “difficult” and do as she was being asked.

The director, naturally upset at the last-minute major change to his work, was comforted with the promise of two episodes on the hoped-for next series.

“The ending really works for me now. I saw it this morning and I was . . .” Alison clutched her bosom in theatrical agony.

The young PA silently brought in two cups of tea and left them on the glass table before leaving again.

Laura said “thank you,” while Alison pulled a face that threatened to break into tears.

“I’m glad it works for you.” She knew, as did everyone in the business, that Alison needed a hit badly.

Her recent run of new dramas had failed to make the expected viewing figures; and when this happened, people got fidgety.

Nobody in TV liked to be around failure, and the finger of blame was already starting to seek out a victim.

Alison had a particular talent for dodging its trajectory, but even she was arming herself with reinforcements.

Her ego, being what it was, thought that she had just saved a good drama and turned it into a mind-blowing drama.

“I’ve spoken to Sean and he wants to know what else Cavendish Pictures might be able to do for us.”

There was her reward, and this time the relief was sweeter.

Times had been hard for the independent-production industry the last couple of years and Laura needed a new commission.

Sean was the Head of Drama and had the power to green-light.

The fact he wanted to work with her again was very good news indeed.

“Do you have anything you wanted to chat to us about?”

Laura thought about her ideas slate. There were a couple of new ones that she had already earmarked to pitch to ITV. “Yes.”

“Fantastic! Can you send over some treatments?”

“Of course.”

“And we’d like to set a meet, just the three of us.”

“Great.” Laura pulled out her iPhone as Alison did the same. Tap, tap, stroke.

“He’s rather busy until next month, so shall we say the eighteenth of July? ”

“Here?”

“We’ll take you to lunch.”

“Lovely! Look forward to it.”

That settled, Alison pushed her phone aside.

All the news had been delivered and the meeting came to a natural close.

More kisses and an exchange of “fantastic working with you” and Laura made her way back onto the street.

She glanced at her watch—almost three o’clock.

She decided not to trek all the way back to her Covent Garden office.

It was too hot—the heat wave had been in the news this morning and it was 90 degrees in London.

The afternoons were always the worst, when the dust and the fumes seemed to envelop you and stick to your skin.

Instead she called her PA to say she’d be working from home for the rest of the day. Hailing a black cab, she jumped in.

* * *

Once they hit Kensington, the traffic was as usual snarled with the school run and her driver took a short cut down Gloucester Road.

Laura had been running through her mind all the projects she could pitch to Alison and Sean and had been unaware of her route until now.

She looked out the window and, seeing where she was, sat up in her seat.

There it was, on the corner of Old Brompton Road, blue-and-brown signage.

It came closer and closer to them; and then just a few yards before they got there, she called through the glass.

“You can drop me off here, thanks.”

She paid and waited for the cab to drive off and then made her way along the pavement to Highsmith and Brown.

Laura stood, not quite in front of the windows, and looked in at an angle, pretending to check the photos of exclusive properties displayed in front, but really trying to see the personnel in the office behind.

A combination of the reflections on the window, her position, and the fact she was still wearing her sunglasses made it difficult to see anything.

In the end, she gave up, lifted her glasses onto her head, moved to the right, and stared in.

They were all busy, which gave her more opportunity to try to work out which one Cherry was, but then she didn’t have to, as it was obvious. She was stunning .

Cropped, lustrous dark brown hair that showed off her beautifully structured face.

And a body that would make men weep. Laura watched for a moment, taken aback by how beautiful she was.

No wonder Daniel was smitten. She was pleased for him, but .

. . No “but.” She could see how someone could be so besotted.

She smiled. She was pleased. Cherry attended to a customer and Laura saw her face light up, youthful, determined; the sheer force of life in her was intimidating.

Laura quickly looked away. She suddenly felt embarrassed at having been spying and smiled a foolish smile to herself.

She walked on, but the image of Cherry came with her.

Laura turned down a residential street, leaving the bustle behind.

As she passed the stuccoed white houses, gleaming in the sun, flanked by evenly spaced trees with their generous shade, she found herself wondering what Cherry was like.

What were twenty-four-year-old girls like these days?

What would Rose have been like if she’d lived?

Then she knew what she wanted to do. She set her shoulders determinedly back and made her way home.

* * *

“Why don’t you invite her for supper?”

“What?”

Laura had come back to her house to find Daniel home, but sleeping.

Now they were all seated around the large table for dinner, and the three of them seemed to tip it back down and keep it afloat.

Neither she nor Howard had mentioned Saturday night’s little scene, but enough time had passed for it to have drifted away from them. Neither brought it up.

“Your mother’s dying to know more about her.”

Laura ignored him. She noticed he didn’t ever read the paper when Daniel was home.

“We want to meet her! Don’t we, Howard?”

“Sure,” deadpanned Howard.

Daniel laughed. “Already? I’ve not even been seeing her a week.”

“It’s not me putting the pressure on,” said Howard.

Laura resisted the urge to huff. “Howard, if you want to see your son this summer, I would recommend a little more enthusiasm. He’s already blown us off once, remember.”

“Am I in trouble over that?” asked Daniel.

“Terrible trouble,” said Laura. “And I have a feeling you might be seeing a lot more of Cherry this summer, and so before you both disappear into some”—she sighed wistfully—“blissful bubble, it would be nice to meet her.”

Daniel nodded. “You make a good point.”

“Call her now.”

“Now? What’s the rush?”

“I need to be able to plan. Why don’t we say Thursday? Six-thirty?”

Laura wasn’t entirely sure why she was pushing it so much.

She knew she was unlikely to see Daniel as much as she’d hoped over the summer.

As much as she’d been looking forward to it, she was accepting of the circumstances.

Grown sons have their own agendas. But something made her want to get to know Cherry before they disappeared.

Daniel was on the phone. He covered the mouthpiece. “She can’t do Thursday. . . .”

Laura thought quickly. “Friday, then?”

This was passed down the line and seemed to hit success. “Call you again later,” Daniel said softly, then hung up.

“She’d love to come.”

Laura smiled. She was surprised by how much she was looking forward to it.