Daydreamer

Lucy

“What the—?” I jumped in my seat as everything went dark, then blinked when my head popped out of a jumper. Felix was towering over me with a grumpy expression as he pulled one arm then another through the sleeves of the massive jumper he’d just dumped over my head. I must have zoned out again as I hadn’t heard his approach. The jumper smelt of him – clean, masculine with a hint of his expensive aftershave, and the warmth from it enveloped me immediately. I was in my new uniform, as I thought of it: thin tights, silk shirt, small, tailored jacket and matching skirt. And I was bloody freezing. I’d contemplated sitting in my puffa again but, however fashion backwards I might be, I did have insight into how weird that would make me look. Plus Will had called me a “deranged hobo” when I wore it yesterday, so I’d thought better of it.

Felix’s jumper wouldn’t be much better, to be honest. As I stood, the damn thing reached nearly to my knees, and I had to bunch the sleeves up to a ridiculous degree to even find my hands.

“Why are you going around shoving jumpers on unsuspecting women?”

“You were shivering,” Felix said in an accusatory tone, as if my shivering in his office was a personal insult to him. “You do know it’s twenty-three degrees in here now? I asked them to yank up the thermostat. Pete from accounting is about to pass out with heatstroke. I’ve had to come up with another solution. It’s not raining today, so even if Will did send you out, which he better not have done, I can’t understand how you’ve got this cold.”

I bit my lip. “Oh dear. Don’t boil everyone alive, Felix. Honestly, I’d be fine if I was in my old stuff. It’s just these fancy outfits are so flimsy.”

Felix huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Why didn’t you say anything when I asked you to change your clothes? Your mum would kill me if I let you freeze to death in my office.”

I narrowed my eyes at Felix and put my hands on my hips (unfortunately, the effect was slightly ruined by the bloody sleeves falling down over my hands again and dangling almost to my knees). “Felix I’m twenty-seven years old, not a child that you’re looking after for my mother.”

Felix totally ignored me as he looked over his shoulder at Tabitha who was at her desk a few feet away.

“Tabitha, the stuff you got for Lucy. It’s not warm enough. She needs to get some⁠—”

“Woah, woah, woah!” I said, jumping forward to block Felix’s view of an increasingly angry Tabitha. I stepped closer to him and tried to lower my voice so that Tabitha wouldn’t hear me. “I can sort the clothing sitch, Felix. You’re making me look like a right numpty.”

His eyebrows went up, and he gave me a doubtful look. “Lucy, no offence, but I’m not sure that⁠—”

“I’ll sort it,” another voice clipped from the doorway.

I peered around Felix to see Victoria behind him with Lottie in her wake. Felix turned to them and put his hands on his hips.

“Vicky, I⁠—”

“I heard you two from my office,” Victoria said. “And I already know about Lucy’s inability to regulate her temperature. I’ve done some research.”

Felix’s hand went up to the back of his neck. “Vicky, we’ve got one of our most important investors coming in the afternoon. You don’t have time to go out and⁠—”

“Go out?” Victoria asked, her perfect nose wrinkling in disgust. “To shop in public? Are you insane? We can order it all. Can’t we, Lottie?”

Lottie was smiling at me as she walked forward to draw up next to Victoria. “Sure we can. And if anyone has to go out in public, heaven forbid, I think I can handle it. Come on, Luce.” Lottie dropped Victoria’s arm, moved to me and started pushing me in the direction of Vicky’s office. I glanced back at Felix. He still had his hands on his hips, but his head was tilted to the side as if struggling to work out the dynamic between Victoria and me. Granted, we didn’t exactly have a lot in common. I was as confused as him.

I almost gasped when we made it into Victoria’s office.

“Crikey, I thought Felix had a big one.”

“That’s what she said,” Lottie said without missing a beat, surprising a startled laugh from me.

Victoria frowned for a moment before her expression cleared. “Oh yes, I remember. You taught me this one last week: if someone comments on the size of something, or says that it won’t fit – anything of that nature – then you can follow up with the ‘that’s what she said’ line. And it’s funny because people think you’re referring to man’s pe⁠—”

“Okay!” Lottie cut her off. “Thanks, hun. But I think Lucy gets it.”

“Hmm,” Victoria hummed. “So what were you referring to, Lucy, if not Felix’s penis?”

Lottie snorted a laugh.

“His office,” I replied quickly, feeling my cheeks heat. “His big office. Yours smashes his though.”

“I like space,” Victoria said, then shook her head. “No, it’s more than that. I have to have space. And light. I can’t breathe without them.”

“Well, you’re alright here then.” Her office had so much square footage that you could have hosted the entire clientele of The Badger’s Sett and still have had room for more. Two of the walls were completely glass from floor to ceiling. The desk in the centre was huge and L-shaped with two computer stations on either side.

“Right,” Victoria said briskly, pulling out her office chair and sitting down at her computer. “Lottie, bring up the tabs I saved. This shouldn’t take long.”

Wow. Vicky, as I was now to call her, was a genius. A very weird, asocial genius, but a genius nonetheless. I was warm, and I didn’t look like a crazy Eskimo. In fact, I even looked… nice. I was wearing a roll-neck, fitted, thick cashmere dress, fleece-lined tights, and fur-lined boots with only a small heel. Underneath the dress I had on very thin, fine merino wool, lace-trimmed, crazy-comfortable thermals. I didn’t own much smart clothing, but I was definitely a convert. It was like magic. I’d given Vicky an unwelcome hug after changing into the new clothes, such was my excitement. It didn’t go down well. But as I blinked at myself in the full-length mirror, I was glad I’d done it.

And Vicky wasn’t content to stop there. She told Lottie to sort the works for me. It soon became clear that this involved hair and make-up at an upmarket salon. My hair was down and in soft waves around my face. My make-up was perfect. Having pretty much given up on make-up a while ago, this was a huge shock. I didn’t think it was something I’d be able to reproduce. I felt like someone else. Someone glamorous. Someone who belonged in London.

Vicky and Lottie had been to their Very Important Meetings during my transformation. They’d sent me off to the salon after telling Will that I’d be unavailable for the rest of the day. This information had been met with unveiled hostility from Will. Why he was cross that I wouldn’t be on hand was anyone’s guess. I’d already done his work for him with the publicity department, something that he was now getting all the credit for. And for the PA stuff Tabitha was far more capable. Having me around was only ever a hindrance. I suspected that he just didn’t like not having me there to torment. He had probably cooked up some further humiliation for me today and was not pleased to have his plans thwarted. But Vicky was his superior. There was no arguing with her really.

“Yowsers!” Lottie shouted when she found me back at my desk later that day. “Transformation complete, I’d say. Right, you can’t let this go to waste. Come out with us.”

“You’re not going to a party with tiny food, are you?” I asked. “It’s just that didn’t really turn out to be my thing.”

Lottie laughed. “No tiny food in sight, I promise. Just an office outing to the pub. Doesn’t happen too often and Vics doesn’t normally go but she’s agreed tonight.”

“For practice,” put in Vicky and I tilted my head to the side in confusion as I looked at her.

“Practice?”

“Practice for interacting appropriately with other human beings.”

“And for fun, right, hun?” Lottie said, giving Vicky a gentle look.

Vicky blinked. “There is nothing fun about this scenario.”

“Wow,” I said, smiling at Vicky. “We’re as bad as each other.”

“I seriously doubt that,” Vicky said with conviction.

Lottie cleared her throat, bringing my attention back to her. “Hey, listen, you didn’t take the company credit card earlier. Felix’s made it clear that you weren’t to spend your money on the clothes and stuff.”

I frowned at her. “Why wouldn’t I buy my own clothes?”

Lottie glanced down at what I was wearing, then tilted her head to the side. “Well, I guess because it’s kind of a requirement of the company to wear this stuff and, well, no offence, but I know what it costs. That’s crazy money.”

I shrugged. “Felix’s done enough for me. I’m not sponging off the company for clothes.” I didn’t explain that the last person who needed financial funding was me. There was no way I would take that money.

What Lottie, Vicky and Felix didn’t know was that I had decided that I wouldn’t be working for Moretti Harding for much longer. The guilt at being paid to consistently fuck up was too much for me. Okay, so I had offset some of those fuck ups with the work I’d been doing with the publicity team, I knew that, but it didn’t justify staying. I was going to finish the month here and then stop this charade altogether. It was just a case of plucking up the courage to go to HR. Seeing as when I previously tried to quit Felix’s head almost exploded, I was keeping it to myself for the moment. What I needed to do was to stop pining after Felix and start doing what I came to London to do – get out of my shell, meet people, maybe even find a man who was interested in me for God’s sake. Otherwise, what was the bloody point of leaving Little Buckingham at all?