The Wrong Girl (23 page)

Lily took a deep breath and tried not to let panic tumble in. Sophie, one of her assistant producers, had failed to advise Takeo, Melbourne's three-hat Japanese superstar and star of the show, that he would have to use the knives provided by the show's sponsor, and would not be able to use his own, and now he was threatening to pull out. Lily understood that Japanese chefs, in fact all chefs, were incredibly particular about their knives, but she also knew Takeo was sponsored by a rival knife brand, and this was far more likely the reason.

And they started shooting next week. And they needed him.
Bad
.

‘I'm just asking you to help me understand, Sophie. This was one of the key points all the chefs needed to be told. How is it that he didn't know until now?'

Sophie, reminiscent of a gleaming panther with her long black straight hair, heavy black eyeliner and black leather motorbike jacket, looked at Lily as though she had just asked her if she was a boy or girl. Discussions with her were always arduous, but when she was indignant they quickly escalated to infuriating. Sophie refused to take any responsibility for anything, ever. Lily had even heard her tell one of the other producers the cyclist she'd knocked over in her car recently ran into
her
.

‘I mean, he
has
all the notes, I definitely emailed them to his assistant, and it says it on them,' she said, the incredulity ringing in her words.

‘That's fine, Sophie, everyone got the notes, I know that. The fact is that each participating chef needed to be told very clearly about our sponsors for this very reason, and Takeo, who is one of
your
chefs, was not. And hence, I draw a conclusion that perhaps you failed to tell him.'

‘But he
knew
! I swear to God, if he and his manager read that document properly, he had to know about the knives.' Sophie spoke to Lily as though she were a small, naughty child who could not understand why she wasn't allowed cookies right before dinner. Lily tried not to put it down to her being twenty-two and grossly over-entitled, because Mackenzie was the same age and had been a dream. Also, now that Lily had reached a position of management, she needed to learn how to
manage
people, not just be pissed off with them and walk away calling them fuckstick under her breath.

‘Okay. What's done is done. Now we need to fix it. Fast. Call his people, and very delicately apologise for not making this clear, and ask if there's anyway we can make it work.'

‘His assistant already said he can't do it now.'

‘Yes, but the amazing thing about being a producer, Sophie, even an assistant one, is that we never take no for an answer, and we always find a way. That's our job. That's what Evan needs, that's what the show needs, that's what the network needs: for us to make sure, no matter what, we get the talent and the content required.'

Sophie crossed her arms and looked to the right, her foot tapping almost imperceptibly on the ground in either fury or outrage or even inrage; who knew, she seemed to have a whole archive of rages ready to fire.

‘Fine, but I don't like our chances. I don't even know why we are bothering with Takeo; he is like, the most precious person I have ever dealt with in my
life.'
And she clip-clopped off to her desk, swishing her mane as she went, a million reasons as to why she was better than this undoubtedly swirling through her mind.

Lily shook her head. She wondered if she had ever been like that. She had certainly
felt
like that back when Eliza was casually claiming credit for all of her ideas. Suddenly Lily wondered if she was at risk of being an Eliza, and that was why Sophie was being such a pain in the arse. She thought about how she spoke to her, and tried to help her, and assured herself that she wasn't a terrible senior producer. But still, it was worth keeping an eye on.

Back at her desk, which was tucked away in the corner of an open-plan office that buzzed and hummed with people, laughter and far too many YouTube clips, Lily sighed and opened up her shiny new Apple laptop. She'd had to run off and buy one after work on her first day after discovering they weren't provided – you were assumed and expected to have your own. No clunky, chunky desktop dinosaurs on Evan's watch.
Everyone
had Macs, so she'd copied, pretending she'd always intended to pick up her new one that evening as her old one had exploded over the weekend.

As always, when she left her desk for more than half an hour, a stream of bold names had snuck into her inbox, most of them Evan's. He was incredibly hands-on but thankfully in a funny exciting genius way, not an overbearing, interruptive way. She saw his most recent email – the copy in the subject line as was often his stream-of-conscious thinking – asking them to all work Saturday. Amazingly, Lily didn't mind one bit. She felt so much more invested in this show, so much more passionate than she had been at
The Daily
.

Double-clicking her way through the emails at lightning pace, Lily suddenly saw the name Jack Winters pop up. Everything went completely still for a moment. All noise faded away.

Both unsure of and unwilling to heed the protocol regarding aloofness when it came to response times and general keenness, Lily hit reply and started thumping out a response as fast as she could. Oh, she'd
missed
him! She'd missed him so much. And the joy she felt seeing his name in her inbox again and reading what he'd written was stark and irrefutable proof of just how much. She missed him as a workmate and she missed him as a friend, but she also missed him as the guy who made her take in a sharp little hit of air every time he entered the room.

Before she could analyse her tone and exact word choice to the point of crippling indecision, she hit send. She was a friend, she was just being a friend, and a friend wouldn't overthink it, she told herself as she calmly checked that it had been sent, so that he wouldn't not get her response and think she was rude, and also, so she wouldn't miss out on this magical coffee date come Friday.

She propped her elbows on the desk and leaned her chin into the palms of her hand for a moment, smiling widely, her pulse still racing. He'd emailed and he wanted to see her. Even if it was just nothingy work chat, she was going to see him, and that was all that counted, really.

Friday morning presented Lily with a spectacular vacuum of sartorial choices. She had bought a few new clothes for the job, but it was a workplace that approved of flats – practically demanded them – so she was back into her habit of ballet flats and jeans. She'd kept the blazers though, and under the tutelage of one of the other senior producers, Katie, who was fast becoming a good friend, she was now experimenting a little more with necklaces and bright little jumpers with collared shirts underneath. Casual but polished, and most crucially, comfortable for the long hours. It wasn't
sexy
, though, not that she wanted to look ‘sexy' per se for Jack, but she wanted to look a bit cuter than he was used to.

She settled on a little cherry-red sweater that always earned her compliments with a white shirt underneath, and black jeans that stopped just above the ankle. Her hair was growing so quickly, it was down to her collarbones, but it softened the look a bit, she decided. A bit of eye make-up, some tinted lip balm and she was good to go. Remember, Lily, she warned herself. This is not a date. This is just a catch up with a friend.

Her phone buzzed with a text. It was Simone. Lily blinked with the coincidence and creepiness of the timing. Was it a sign that she was doing the wrong thing?
Was
she doing the wrong thing catching up with Jack? No, surely not . . .

Lily could only shake her head in amazement. Crazy timing. Too much. Too, too much. She punched out a reply quickly.

Lily wondered if it was deceptive to not tell her she was catching up with Jack, but then pushed the thought out of her mind
because they were just friends.

A response buzzed quickly.

Lily sighed. Michael. God knew how
that
would turn out. Perhaps they had some kind of ‘past life' connection, which was generally what Simone put anything inexplicable down to.

Later that day, Lily was checking Google maps to make sure she had the right address. She was where Jack had told her to meet, but all she could see was a florist, a gift shop, a Japanese restaurant and a place being renovated that was boarded up with building signs. Surely that couldn't be it?

She went back into her emails to check the address once more, before hearing a familiar voice call from her left.

‘Woodward! Over here!' She looked up and there stood Jack. He was wearing a dark-blue hoodie with a zip, black jeans, Converse and an enormous grin.

Smiling like a doofus, Lily walked towards where he was standing, next to what appeared to be pretty much a construction site. She stood awkwardly in front of him, clutching her phone with a steel grip of nerves. They were not kiss-hello types, she'd already told herself, just be cool.

‘This is the cafe? Jesus, they've really taken the deconstructed trend a bit too far, haven't they?'

Jack laughed, throwing his head back, the spicy, smoky scent of his cologne hitting Lily; something she'd completely taken for granted when they had worked together, but now she drank it in as if she were an airport sniffer dog looking for gear.

‘Come in, I'll explain.' And he beckoned her to walk into the work zone, his hand gently resting on her elbow as he guided her. She ignored the sensation of her arm tingling at his touch.

‘You should wear red more often, Woodward, it really suits you.' Lily blushed furiously, which thankfully he couldn't see.

The first thing she saw was a small courtyard at the back, which was separated from inside with huge warehouse-style steel-beam windows. Two men were outside working away on the pavers.

‘Wow,
cool
spot,' Lily said, taking it in. They stood on wide, dark, imperfect floorboards, and the walls were covered in beautiful dark green and blue ceramic tiles. A black bar stretched the entire left wall, with an old, rusty mirror as its backdrop, making the relatively small place look twice as big.

‘It's getting there,' he said, walking past the lone table and chairs to the back end of the bar.

‘What kind of coffee would you like? We just have a little Nespresso thing at the moment. The real one is being shipped over from Milan. It was meant to be here last week.'

‘How
fancy
. Anything with milk is great, thanks.' Lily was taking it all in, the dark bronze pressed-metal ceiling, the vertical gardens in the courtyard . . . everything was so cool, and so well done. What
was
this place? And why did Jack say ‘we'?