2cool2btrue (9 page)

“She’s
so clumsy.”

“Yes, didn’t you see her? You would have thought a waitress could at least keep a bunch of glasses on a tray. Poor woman, it must be her first night or something.”

I open my mouth but nothing comes out.

“So, nice party,” she says.

“Thanks.” She is wearing a maroon velvet dress, long-sleeved but backless, and her hair is up. There is a chunky, hippy chain around her neck. She does look pretty good, actually. I remember Lauren once telling me that in many ways it doesn’t matter what you wear, as long as you wear it with confidence and feel comfortable in it. Nora seems to feel pretty pleased about her outfit.

Despite this I decide to plunge straight in. “I saw the article.”

“Oh, yeah, Monday’s piece. Did you like it?”

“No, frankly, I didn’t.”

She looks surprised. “Really, why not? Did I get something wrong?”

“Yeah, most of it.”

“Oh, my God, no. I hate getting things wrong. Which bits?”

“The whole thing. It was so tacky. It made me look like a complete smarmy, arrogant tit. How did you find those pictures?”

“Oh, the picture desk does all that kind of thing. I liked the one of you in the white shirt, though. What was that for?”

“Oh, just a fashion shoot I did ages ago.”

“‘Oh, just a fashion shoot,’ he says. So cool.” She laughs.

“It was just a job. But it was the article as well: ‘the blond, six-foot hunk is self-effacing.’”

“Well, you are.”

“And what about ‘They employed me because I’ve got the right look—classy, cool.’” It’s not difficult to show her how painful those words are for me.

“Well, you did say that, in a manner of speaking. Over lunch.”

“What?”

“Anyway, I’m really sorry if you didn’t like the piece. My editor loved it and I thought it was very positive really. Just what Piers wanted.”

“Piers told you to write that?”

“He didn’t tell me exactly what to write, obviously, but he did give me the spin beforehand, told me all about the site, and then I pitched the story to my editor and she said to write it like that. I couldn’t
not
do it.”

“It was all Piers’s idea, all that stuff?”

“Yup. Well, most of it.”

“And you just wrote what you were told.”

“Charlie,” she says, suddenly serious. “I’ve got to keep my boss happy. That’s the way it goes. You want to please Guy and Piers, I want to please my editor. If I don’t she’ll fire me—it’s as simple as that.”

I think about it for a moment. I’ve really only had to please Penny and Karyn in the past, by going to castings and turning up at jobs on time properly shaven and with my hair washed, but talking to my friends who have worked for companies, I think I know what she means about pleasing the jerk in the glass-surrounded office.

I look at her for a moment, trying to decide what it must be like to be Nora Benthall. To be very bright, but still have to please your boss by writing clichéd guff that is only marginally connected to reality; to be so amazingly clumsy (is that why I’m standing some distance away from her?) and to have a dress sense which somehow doesn’t correspond with what you see in the shops, with what your friends wear or what appears in any magazine but that you are perfectly confident about and comfortable with.

“So where were you when I rang?” I ask. “Why were you ‘sort of’ out?”

She grimaces. “I was keeping a low profile.”

“From me?”

“Oh, no, like I said, I tried to ring you but 2cool isn’t in the phone book yet and I only had Piers’s mobile. He said he’d get you to call me but obviously he didn’t pass on the message.”

“Obviously not.” Thanks, Piers. I make a mental note to ask him about that when I see him. “So you were just avoiding someone else you’d libelled?”

“No, no,” she says, holding her glass in both hands and looking away while she begins her story. “It’s really embarrassing, actually. I’d just done something really stupid.”

“Something else?”

“Something else?”

“I mean in addition to that article.”

“Oh, not that again.”

“So what was it you did that was really stupid?”

“I was sending this email to my friend Gemma saying, ‘I’m going to the Ladies, meet you there.’ You know, it was for a girlie chat. Thing is we both quite fancy this guy in the office. I’m sure he’s gay but never mind. Anyway, unfortunately, her last name is Allworthy. That’s not the unfortunate bit, after all it’s quite a nice name, isn’t it? Don’t you think? Allworthy.”

“Lovely,” I say, wondering where the hell this story is going.

“No, the unfortunate bit is that instead of clicking on ‘Allworthy, Gemma’ in the ‘Send To’ box, I clicked on ‘All Staff.’”

She pauses.

“So all the staff at the newspaper got an email from you inviting them to meet you in the loo?”

“Basically, yes.”

I consider it for a moment. Then I realise that actually it’s probably the funniest thing I’ve heard all night, all week, and I find myself almost crying with laughter. When I look back at her, wiping my eyes, she has a “What can you do?” expression on her face.

“So did anyone turn up?” I ask her, not too seriously.

“Well, I’m told that quite a few people did. Even the boys from the mail room were sticking their noses round the door out of interest. I think they thought drugs were involved. Apparently the fashion editor went, but she doesn’t have a lot to do at the moment because there aren’t any shows on, as you know. Who else? A couple of people from the newsdesk popped in. Actually it was quite sweet—the editor’s secretary emailed me back to say that he couldn’t come because he had a lunch booked with the foreign secretary.”

“Has he no sense of priorities?” I demand.

“He’ll never get anywhere in journalism with that attitude,” says Nora.

Just then the music pauses and there is a kind of fanfare from the rather spookily placed minispeakers around us. “Ladies and gentlemen,” says a voice.
“This
is 2cool2btrue dot com.”

Suddenly the video wall is alive. To the sound of some chilled-out instrumental beat which rises and turns into a dance anthem, we see some of the images I saw in the office but which are now enhanced. They seem to appear out of nowhere and disappear by blending into each other, drawing us in and spinning us round. I almost feel like I’m losing my balance at one point.

You can tell how impressed people are with the graphics and the breathtaking special effects by the fact that after the show there is a stunned silence before the applause begins.

Guy then appears and says, as if he means it, “Wow.”

There is a ripple of laughter from the audience and then he begins to speak without notes about the importance of labels and branding in the third millennium, singling out, sometimes admiringly and sometimes teasingly but always charmingly, representatives amongst the audience from
Vogue,
Dunhill, Tanner Krolle, Rolls-Royce, Salvatore Ferragamo and Cartier amongst others. Then he moves on to his theory that what they have done for clothes, accessories, cars, electronics, and watches, 2cool will now do for the Internet. He is self-deprecating about his knowledge of Internet technology, and even more so when he talks about dotcom startups—and closedowns—to the further amusement of the audience, but then he talks about why 2cool will be different.

I look around me as he speaks. There are certainly some very clever people here and many of them look intrigued, heads to one side, brows furrowed, eyes narrowed, shrewdly. Not necessarily wowed—they’re obviously too cool, too blasé for that—but they certainly seem interested by this rather serious, intense young man with pale skin and piercing eyes, his dark hair receding into a widow’s peak, and his slight stoop. He looks more like a political speechwriter or a City economist than an entrepreneur, let alone a style guru. Perhaps that is why his audience is so gripped—he is not one of them, but he certainly has a certain nervy, edgy charisma.

Beside me is Nora. Eyes fixed in an intense, shrewd gaze that I have not seen before. She seems to be weighing up every word and analysing it, somehow thinking beyond it. I ought to ask her if she’s going to write this up as an article. Is that what she’s thinking? She looks away from Guy for a moment and sees me watching her. We smile at each other uncertainly.

Embarrassing. Never mind, I could just be checking her reaction along with everyone else’s like any good marketing man.

But I’m wondering why she is called Nora. Funny name, Nora. Kind of name your great aunt is called. She sure is a strange girl. Inviting the entire office to meet her in the loo! Is she really that daft? I can’t tell. Anyway, why should I care that she fancies some bloke in the office?

Apparently slightly taken aback and overwhelmed by the enthusiastic reception he generates, Guy mutters some thanks and hands over to Piers before walking off the stage. He’s the least smart, cool thing about the whole evening and yet somehow by far the most intriguing. Piers, by contrast, is confident and relaxed. He introduces himself, makes a few obvious but funny jokes about dotcoms and designer labels and then explains that food is about to be served, but first he would like to express the company’s gratitude to a few people for making tonight such a success.

“I’d especially like to thank Simon and Charlotte from The Communications Game, who have put in so much hard work this evening,” says Piers. “Simon, take a bow, matey, well done.” There is a round of polite applause as people begin to look over to where the food is coming from.

“Fuckin’ ass wipe,” hisses a voice next to me. It’s Heaven.

“And also to Charlotte. Charlotte…where is she?” A spotlight swivels round and falls on a small, timid-looking girl wearing a pink ball dress obviously designed for someone bigger and more outgoing. “Here she is. Well done, Charlotte. You’ve done a splendid job here tonight.” Charlotte beams, some people begin to applaud. “And I know you haven’t been well the last couple of days.” Her smile weakens. “Poor Charlotte.” The smile evaporates altogether. “Chronic diarrhoea,” booms Piers sympathetically. “Sounds like it must have been awful.” Charlotte’s face is frozen in a mixture of horror and a desperate supplication to Piers to just fucking shut up. “Can’t have been much fun but glad you’ve made it tonight.” A couple of people move discreetly but noticeably away from her. “And…er…let’s just hope there’s plenty of Imodium or something in that beautiful handbag she’s carrying,” adds Piers for good measure.

I can’t bring myself to look back at Charlotte but I am sure she is now on her way to the Ladies either to cry her eyes out or to…well, I find myself hoping, like Piers, that the Imodium is working.

I turn to ask Nora what she thinks, as much as anything to explain my staring at her in that very obvious way during the presentation, but she has turned to talk to someone else.

“Hey, you look great this evening,” she says to someone just out of view behind a pillar. I look round to see who it is and recognise her instantly. Instead of appearing flattered, the weather woman looks alarmed by Nora’s compliment and moves away quickly.

After the speeches, I congratulate Zac, who has made no effort in his dress at all tonight—baggy combats and tie-dyed, sleeveless green T-shirt with the words “Eat the Poor” on it. He mutters something and crams some food into his mouth as if he hasn’t eaten for a week. Then I try and find Lauren. She and Peter are also getting some food so I grab a plate and join them.

“What do you think?” I ask casually.

“Pretty bloody amazing,” says Lauren. “That film is incredible—I didn’t know it was possible to do that.”

I smile modestly. I wait for her to kiss me but she just shakes her head in wonderment.

“Very impressive,” says Peter. “Is that PictureMark they’re using?”

“Is it what?”

“For those dissolves in between the stills and the principal sequences—is it PictureMark they’ve used there? I’d heard it can do things like that, even in an off-line edit.”

“It’s PictureMark Super,” I lie blithely, chasing a giant shrimp around my plate and catching it elegantly before I stab it, feeling the fork push its way in and the flesh satisfyingly giving way to the sharp metal. “Do you want to dance, babe?” I suggest. “They’ve imported this guy specially from New York. He’s only here for a few hours, then he’s off to Ibiza. We’re paying him fifty grand for it. Can you believe it?”

“Not yet,” she says. “Peter wants me to meet this woman from…where is she from?”

“Channel Five. They’re looking for new programme talent.”

“I’ll introduce you if you want,” I say. “I’ve just been talking to her. She wants to do a promotion with us.”

“Don’t worry,” says Peter. “We were at Cambridge together. She’s an old, old mate.”

“Sure,” I say and walk off. There must be a way to separate Lauren from him, perhaps with a crow bar, I think as I wander around the room. I suddenly realise that the girls on the soundtrack arranged by the ultracool DJ are groaning: