‘No, Rose,’ Lola replied, firmer and more resolute now. ‘There are some fathers they need to be kept away from.’
*
The office felt busier than usual when Rose returned to work. This often happened when an important event was coming up: eager freelancers and interns would fill the Firehouse halls, clipboards in tow, keen to impress the bosses in the hope they’d be hired full time. They almost never were unless they were related to an editor or publisher.
Rose had not spoken to Clara since she’d texted to say she’d be at the launch. But Fraser had emailed Minnie to confirm her attendance. So she had obviously done something right.
‘Good work, Rose,’ she had said when the email came through.
And though Rose wasn’t entirely sure what work she had done, unless you counted getting drunk and taking drugs with a VIP guest, she accepted the praise and bought herself the expensive hummus and a bouquet of red roses on the way home that day.
Lola had always filled the flat with them when she was growing up. ‘Roses for my Rose,’ she would chirp on Saturday afternoons, lining the kitchen with jugs of whatever bunch she’d picked up on the way home from her shift at the gift shop.
Rose was still glowing from her professional success when she walked into the team meeting the next morning.
‘Now that we know Clara is coming, we need to refine the guest list and we need to confirm our performer,’ Minnie said as everyone settled around the table.
‘I’ve been working on Milo Jax,’ Annabelle chimed.
‘What?’ Rose had managed to momentarily erase this information from her brain. ‘To the launch, you mean?’
‘Yes! I told you, remember?’ Annabelle replied with a knowing smile.
‘Yes, sorry.’ She’d completely forgotten about screaming in poor Annabelle’s face.
‘Don’t worry, I’m overseeing it all,’ added Oliver.
‘We got close to confirming it the other day but it’s proving difficult to organise transport,’ added Annabelle.
‘I see, I see,’ tutted Minnie.
‘He’s in London right now,’ said Rose, without thinking. ‘I mean, he was, last week.’
‘How do you know that?’ asked Oliver.
‘I must have seen a pap picture in one of the tabloids. I don’t know.’
He scoffed. ‘Sure.’
‘As you guys seem to be close, Rose, I would really appreciate your help on this one,’ said Annabelle.
‘Yes, why don’t you help Annabelle, Rose?’ said Oliver, smiling.
‘We are not close,’ Rose said firmly. ‘Of course, Annabelle. What do you need?’
‘Joss Bell has been ignoring my last few emails. Would you mind just following up for me? I can loop you in with my thread so far.’
‘Okay, no problem.’
‘I could just do it—’ said Oliver.
‘No,’ snapped Minnie. ‘She hasn’t been replying to you either. Let them handle this please.’
Oliver let out an irritable sigh.
‘Brilliant! Thank you.’ Annabelle practically leapt out of her seat, quickly tousling her fingers through her hair and flipping it all onto one side like a posh jack-in-the-box.
Talk turned to the seafood buffet. There would be calamari, of course. Prawn cocktail, because it photographed well and the pink would match the decor.
‘Are we sure about the seafood thing?’ asked Oliver. ‘I mean, I don’t eat it because I’m allergic but even so I’m sure there will be other people who are allergic. And also … it’s a fashion show. Do we really want it to be so … fishy?’
‘I have pushed back on the sodding seafood reception every goddamn day,’ sighed Liz, her head in her hands.
‘As have I,’ said Minnie, smiling. ‘Jasper is convinced it’s time to reinvent the prawn cocktail. What was it he called it?’ She turned to Liz.
‘The kitten heel of the canapé world.’
‘Right, yes, that was it.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Oliver, rolling his eyes.
‘Clara will take some good photos of it, won’t she?’ added Annabelle.
‘Yes,’ Rose replied. ‘She can make anything look good.’
‘Right, let’s discuss our high-risk aversion strategies,’ said Minnie.
This was always a highlight of pre-event planning meetings. The team would go through all the various things that could go wrong before, during and after the event, each one more absurd than the next. Then they would come up with tactics on how to avoid and deal with them. For StandFirst’s launch, the risks were heightened because it wasn’t just a cocktail reception, it was also a fashion show. That meant there would be more people involved and therefore more high-risk scenarios. Minnie read through the standard list, which included key people not showing up, key people being disorderly (drunk or on drugs), and key people making impossible demands they could not fulfil.
