United States of Love. Sue Fortin
‘Absolutely. He seems nice enough, I’m certain we can work together well.’ She wasn’t sure if Jamie was convinced.
‘I can always assign you to someone else, it’s just that Tex thought someone with local knowledge would be ideal.’
‘What, he asked for me?’
‘Pretty much. I told him I was interviewing you today and that’s when he suggested it.’ Jamie looked evenly at her. ‘I must admit, I have my reservations. You know he can be very charming.’
Anna felt the flutter in her stomach turn into a knot. Jamie was warning her Tex was a charmer. A ladies’ man. She looked directly at Jamie. ‘I’m sure he can be, but don’t worry, I never mix business with pleasure.’
A timely knock at the door brought the conversation to a halt. Yvonne poked her head in the room and smiled when she saw Anna.
‘Hi! How are you?’ she enquired.
‘I'm fine thanks. You?’
‘Great, thanks.’ Waving some papers in her hand, Yvonne looked over at her husband. ‘Thought you might need these. Time sheets, expenses forms, personnel form.’
‘Excellent! What would I do without you? Actually, while you're here perhaps you can go through them with Anna. You're much better at that sort of thing than me.’ Jamie gave Yvonne his best angelic smile and fluttered his eyes at her.
‘Quit with the puppy dog eyes, Dixon,’ joked Yvonne, then coming into the office, beckoned Anna. ‘Come on, you're with the Queen of Forms now. Let's sit over there on the sofa and go through them.’
‘Thank you, darling.’ Jamie grinned at his wife.
Anna dutifully followed Yvonne over to the black cube sofa and began going through the various personnel questions with her.
‘Okay, that's all done,’ announced Yvonne after fifteen minutes. ‘All explained and filled out as necessary.’ She put the form Anna had just completed into a wire tray marked ‘filing’ on Jamie’s desk.
‘Thanks ever so much for this,’ said Anna as she was leaving. Funny how it now seemed to be a double-edged sword. And one she didn’t want to get cut by.
‘So there you have it. I am now going to be working for a relocation company and my first job is in Arundel. How ideal is that?’ Anna said to Mark and Luke as the three of them sat at the table, having finished their evening meal. ‘Thought it was about time I did something different. A new challenge.’ She crossed her fingers under the table at the lie, well, manipulation of the truth.
‘Well done, Mum.’
‘All I've got to do now is finish translating that document,’ said Anna, eyeing the green folder on the bookshelf. ‘I'm not going to put all my eggs in one basket. I'm still going to keep the translating work going.’
‘Perhaps I should do something like this Jamie's doing,’ mused Mark as he broke off a piece of garlic bread. ‘Sounds like he's doing all right. A nice house in Surrey that must be worth a bob or two. Working from home, just organising people. He must be raking it in.’
‘You're doing okay though, aren't you?’ asked Anna. Somewhere in the back of her mind alarm bells were ringing.
‘Oh yeah, everything's fine,’ responded Mark, then changed the subject swiftly. ‘Thought I'd visit my parents tomorrow.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Anna trying to keep up with the turn in conversation. ‘What about Luke?’ Mark looked blankly at her. ‘You were going to take him with you but he's got school tomorrow.’
‘I can have the day off,’ interjected Luke. ‘Well, that's if Dad doesn't mind me going with him.’ Luke looked at his dad expectantly.
‘Of course you can, son. Not a problem at all,’ said Mark.
‘But, Luke, I don't know if that's a good idea,’ began Anna.
‘Come on, Mum, it's only one day,’ argued Luke. ‘How is one day going to hurt? It's hardly likely to affect my future career prospects, is it?’
Anna looked at Mark for some moral support, but he just shrugged and said, ‘Don't look at me. I don't want to be brought into your row.’
‘Mum! Why are you being so difficult and starting an argument?’ said Luke grumpily. ‘You always do it. Anyway, I'm going with Dad tomorrow and that's that.’ To show that as far as he was concerned the matter was now closed, Luke clattered his cutlery down onto his plate and stood up. ‘Don't spoil everything.’ With that, he stormed off to his room, stomping on every stair as he went.
‘Luke!’
‘Just leave it, Anna,’ said Mark frowning, agitatedly tapping the table with his fingers. ‘It's only one sodding day.’
The following morning Anna saw Mark and Luke off. Well, just Luke really. She hated any bad feeling between her and her son and always liked to wipe the slate clean at the beginning of each day. She had rung Luke's school earlier that morning, excusing him on the pretence of illness. Thank goodness she could leave a message on the answerphone, it was much easier to lie to a machine than a real person.
‘Give my regards to your grandparents,’ said Anna, as Luke followed Mark out the door.
Luke gave his mum a smile and brief hug. ‘Yeah, sure. See you later.’
Closing the door behind them, she turned and looked menacingly at the laptop and the electronics folder containing the document that she was translating.
‘Right, here I come,’ she said, marching purposefully over to the offending items.
Often the thought of the work was worse than the actual act, and quite soon, she was working steadily through the text. The morning was productive but the afternoon proved less so. Not only was she feeling tired after yesterday's travelling and interview, but the phone seemed to be on a personal mission to disrupt her concentration as many times as possible. Four times it rang within an hour and each was a complete waste of time. Fed up with so many interruptions by people trying to sell her something, the last one being from an estate agent wanting to make an appointment – Anna rudely slammed the phone down on him – she pulled the phone out of the wall to make sure no one disturbed her again.
She did, however, receive a text message on her mobile.
Hey! Looking forward to seeing you next week at work. Maybe we could get some lunch? Tex.
She looked thoughtfully at her phone while wrestling with conflicting feelings. She was happy she had a job and she was happy that Tex had messaged her, but on the other hand, she was disappointed that the job involved working with him. Much as she liked Tex, now he was going to be a client she couldn't afford to get involved. Beautiful eyes and an orgasmic voice or not. In the end, she didn’t reply. It would be easier if she explained face to face.
‘That's really great, sis,’ said Nathan after Anna had finished telling him about her new job. ‘A bit sudden though. I didn't know you were looking for a change.’
‘I wasn't really. It just came up. A great opportunity,’ said Anna, holding her mobile to her ear as she looked out between the Venetian blinds at her living room window. She watched the Saturday evening shoppers and workers rush by, her road a convenient shortcut to the car park on the north side of the city walls. ‘Anyway, I was just ringing to see how Zoe is. We were supposed to be going out tonight.’ Anna wandered over to the sofa and began fluffing the cushions.
‘I'll pass you over.’ There was a slight pause and a rustling sound while the phone exchanged hands, then Anna heard her sister-in-law.
‘Hi, Anna, I'm