‘Lucy, are you busy? Can you photocopy some scripts for me?’ Linda, the production secretary, calls across the room. I want to tell her that photocopying tends to be the runner’s job and remind her I’m a junior researcher now, but Coleson is nowhere to be seen and I don’t want to appear precious when there’s so much to be done.
Having photocopied, stapled, and distributed the latest scripts to everyone on the team, I’m about to ask the producer if there’s any research I can help with, when Gethin asks me to do a tea round. This time, Coleson is sitting right there, twiddling his thumbs.
‘Maybe Coleson could do it?’ I ask lightly, trying to sound amenable.
‘If you supervise,’ Gethin says, without looking up from his computer. Coleson once made Gethin tea in the microwave and evidently has not been forgiven. He’s not had the best start, poor guy. It didn’t help that Melanie called him ‘Coleslaw’ in a meeting and no one corrected her. Now everyone’s confused about what his name is and will only ask him to do something if he’s looking directly at them.
‘Thanks for showing me the ropes,’ Coleson says, standing uncomfortably close to me in the kitchen. ‘I feel like I’m not doing a great job.’
He bites his lip, scuffing his shoe against the kitchen floor, and I feel a pang of sympathy. I remember what it was like to be the new kid.
‘Coleson, I’m going to lend you my book,’ I say, handing him the small leather notebook my parents gave me for Christmas. ‘In here, I write down everything I might ever need to know – how everyone takes their coffee, that Melanie likes scripts presented with a chunky split pin but Gethin likes his stapled. Everything important anyone tells you, you write down, then you never have to be told twice. You can borrow mine until you get your own.’
‘Wow, thanks, Lucy,’ Coleson says, flicking through my notes then reading, ‘There are no traffic jams on the extra mile.’
‘Melanie said that in a meeting once.’
By the time I get back to the room, Melanie’s meeting is over, and I’m greeted by a sight that makes me want to throw my head back and howl. THERE ARE NO CROISSANTS LEFT. Not one. I don’t understand how this happened. There were only three people in that meeting, and there were six croissants on that plate. Did someone get here before me?
That’s when I see it.
The abomination.
Two and a half croissants, languishing in the wastepaper bin. In the bin! Who would do that? Who would only eat half of one of those delicious, flaky, expensive pastries? Who would throw away perfectly good croissants? Especially when there are people in the world waiting for those croissants, counting on those croissants.
‘Lucy?’ Melanie’s voice buzzes somewhere in my periphery.
‘Sorry?’
‘I said I’d like you to be the runner in the studio gallery today.’ I turn to see Melanie standing at the meeting-room door furnishing me a benevolent smile.
‘Thanks, Mel, um . . . you remember you promoted me though? I’d hoped going forward, I might have the chance to take on a more creative role. I—’
‘Teach Coleslaw to be as good a runner as you, then we’ll see about expanding your responsibilities.’
‘It’s just—’ I pinch my mouth closed as one of Melanie’s perfectly shaped eyebrows rises to silence me.
‘Ambition is like perfume, Lucy. A little goes a long way.’
And just like that, my optimism about today, about ever escaping the bottom rung, vanishes.
Chapter 3
‘I ate a croissant out of a bin today.’ Zoya, Faye, Roisin and I sit in the Blue Posts on Newman Street later that evening. I’ve been putting a brave face on it all day, but now, among my closest friends, I can be honest about my mortification.
‘Oh Lucy, why?’ Faye asks, leaning across the bench to put an arm around me.
‘Because I didn’t have breakfast and I was hungry. I only had to pick off a few pencil shavings.’ I hang my head in shame. ‘Do you think I’ll get lead poisoning?’
‘They don’t make pencils out of lead any more. You can eat as many pencils as you like,’ says Roisin.
‘Well, Bin Muncher, we’re still proud of you, of your promotion,’ says Zoya, reaching out to clink her glass with mine.
The four of us have been there to support each other through everything: exams, break-ups, Faye’s parents separating, Roisin losing her mum. We’ve celebrated each other getting driving licences, degrees, first jobs, first loves, first flats. But now, four years out of university, I never seem to have as much to celebrate as the others. Roisin is killing it at one of the big law firms, and she and her boyfriend Paul are talking about moving in together. Faye is a chiropractor, working in a thriving practice in Hampstead, and she’s already a homeowner. As for Zoya, well, she’s about to move out of our gross flat share and get a place of her own.
‘I don’t know,’ I say, slumping back into the pub’s worn leather seat. ‘Everyone’s still treating me like the runner. Maybe I’m deluding myself that I’m getting anywhere at all.’
‘TV is one of the most competitive industries there is,’ says Faye, rubbing my back, ‘and you’re working on The Howard Stourton Show, for goodness sake. Eighteen-year-old you would be pinching herself.’
‘You’re right, she would,’ I say, twirling the stem of my wine glass. Faye always thinks of the perfect thing to say.
‘Maybe you need to be bolder with this Melanie woman,’ says Roisin. ‘When I started at my law firm, people always left it to me to pour tea and coffee in meetings. Even if there were several other junior associates in the room, everyone turned to me as the woman. I ended up talking to one of the partners about it. I said I thought it made the firm look misogynist and old-fashioned if junior female lawyers were always left holding the teapot. You know what he did? He made it firm policy that if there was tea to pour, it would always be the most senior person in the room who poured it.’
‘Wow. Go, Roisin,’ says Zoya. ‘Modern-day Emmeline Pankhurst right there.’
Roisin kicks her under the table.
‘Ow! I was being serious!’ Zoya laughs.
‘You tell this Melanie, “I’m not being your tea bitch any more. Find some other sucker,” ’ says Roisin, jabbing a finger at my chest.
The very idea of saying this to Melanie makes me choke on my wine and Faye pats me on the back until I regain my composure.
‘Unfortunately, I think “tea bitch” is in my job description,’ I say. ‘I can handle it. It would just be nice to know it’s all going to be worth it, that it will work out eventually.’
‘This coming from the person who reads the last chapter of a book first, because she needs to know how it ends,’ says Zoya, putting her arm around me.
‘I did that once.’
‘And you ruined it for yourself, didn’t you?’ Zoya says, tutting.
‘I did.’
‘I hate the thought of you going hungry, Luce. If you can’t afford to eat, I can give you money for breakfast,’ says Faye.
‘I will buy you a bed of croissants,’ says Zoya, ‘and a duvet of jam.’