Page 36 of The Last Kiss

She eyes me. “We can, for now.”

I sigh deeply. “Thank you. How were things on Friday afternoon?”

She flashes me small and even white teeth beneath cherry lips. “Well, the building is still standing. Alan and Reece didn’t punch each other during the final print release, and we started the print run at three this morning as we do every week.” She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Proving that we can manage without you, so you should probably take that long overdue holiday I’ve been suggesting.” I wave my hand at her, but she carries on. “For two years.”

“I don’t need a holiday.” I smile brightly, ignoring the fact stamped on the back of my brain that I’d soon be on a permanent vacation to the other side.

“Everyone needs a holiday. Sunshine, cocktails, sex.” Her smile turns sly. I think she might be describing her own weekend.

Then I remember mine and a faint heat warms my face.

“I’ve got to go back to see Dr Francis one afternoon. Is that okay?”

She pounces like a cat on a mouse. “So soon? But you only go every six months.”

I nod, face free of any thoughts I have locked away, any truth that might want to print on my skin. “Yes, but he needs to talk about my medication, and it took longer than my allocated appointment time last week.”

“Darling, Julia, I don’t care how many times you need to go to the hospital. You could go every day if you needed to. I just want to know you are okay. I couldn’t cope without you, you know that. How would I deal with all those men?” She says men like it’s a dirty word. Which to her, these guys probably are.

Satire Weekly is staffed by a motley crew and let there be no denying it.

Shame we are going to fold soon, because sadly while the world has moved on, Satire Weekly is still firmly languishing in the Industrial age.

“It’s just as well I’m not going anywhere,” I lie barefaced.

“Good, good. Now, I’ve got lunch today, darling, with that investor.” Her eyes glint and I try not to scrunch my face. Rebecca knows a lot of old money. They have different ways of discussing things than the rest of us. “I probably won’t be back. Can you make sure the building is secure?”

My face falls. I can see it in the reflection of the window.

“Don’t worry, darling, I’ll make sure they all know they have to leave on time tonight.”

I offer a tight smile. “Sure, not a problem at all. I don’t have anything else to do anyway.”

She stands up, pushing her chair back to the other side of her ornate desk. “I thought so. I’ll bring coffees and pastries tomorrow as a treat.”

Getting up, I smooth down my shirt over my trousers, noticing Rebecca flick a glance at my lack of skirt. She shakes her head but doesn’t say anything.

“Anything else? I’m going to go and check the print room?”

“No, no, that’s all.”

My hand is on the door as she calls me back. “Darling, better check the print run. I’m not sure if I might have made a teeny bit of a whoopsie on Friday.”

A deep and painful groan lodges itself in my throat. “Sure.”

Without another word, I launch from her door, heading straight through the office half-filled with the editorial team, to the stairs to the underbelly of the building.

“Jules, where you going?” Flynn, one of the ad managers, calls after me.

“She’s fucked up the print run again,” I shout back over my shoulder, not stopping to see if he’s heard me or not.

Two hours later I trudge back up the stairs, using a wet wipe to rub dust from my hands. We are the only newspaper to still have our print room on the premises—which I think says it all about the number of copies we sell.

Today though we’d be two thousand copies short of what we should have been, because someone, and I’m not casting blame here, but someone—Rebecca—managed to delete a cell in my spreadsheet which means our American copies haven’t printed.

Not a car crash in itself, but the plates have already been changed. One way we make money is to loan out our printing capacity to other small prints.

So, Satire Weekly was palleted and shrink wrapped by the time I got down there, while Chicken Monthly was whizzing through the printer.