overdue.
Instead, Tommy Seer, who should have looked ridiculous in his Eighties Pop Star ensemble, turned on his heel and sauntered out of Jenna’s office as if he were some kind of great big jungle cat, all rolling gait and confidence. With nary a backward glance her way, to top off the indignity of it all.
Jenna didn’t believe he’d really left, for good, until several moments had passed and she was still gazing expectantly at the door.
She shifted in her seat, and tapped her fingers against the blotter on her desk. So far, this dream had involved work, inappropriate touching from Ken Dollimore, bullying from Duncan Paradis, and only the strangest andleast-satisfying Tommy Seer interactions imaginable – and this from someone who had imagined just about every Tommy Seer interaction there was, more than once.
And worst of all, there was still no freaking kissing.
6
The only thing worse than an extended dream about Tommy Seer in which a) he found her annoying, b) was kind of mean about it, and c) there was no kissing, was, Jenna discovered, being trapped in the back of a smelly New York taxi with Duncan Paradis.
Jenna wasn’t even sure how it had happened.
One moment she’d been sitting at her desk – or Jennifer Jenkins’s desk, whoever
she
was, and Jenna didn’t quite want to think about that – staring at the place where Tommy Seer had been standing as if the force of her will could make him reappear. The next moment Ken’s door had been tossed open, Ken and Duncan Paradis had come strolling out wreathed in fake bonhomie and cigar smoke, and Jenna had found herself summarily dispatched into Duncan Paradis’s keeping.
‘Just for a few days,’ Ken said, waving away Jenna’s high-pitched protest with a languid wave of his hand. ‘What a great experience for you, to have this kind of exposure tosuch a big band. Someday, who knows, you can write a book about it, ha ha ha.’
When Duncan turned his back and headed for the door, Ken made a telephone with his right hand and mouthed the words: CALL ME TOMORROW. Then he shooed Jenna out of the office.
Cut to Jenna in the back of a retro chequered taxicab, scrunched in the furthest corner to avoid even a casual brush against Duncan’s pant leg, surrounded by the pervasive smell of long-saturated body odour, with a strange woman’s purse perched on her knees. It had been second nature to reach down into the desk drawer and pull out the bag sitting there – so much so that Jenna had been halfway down the hall in Duncan’s wake before she’d realized that the purse was not hers. Given that it was big, poufy, and neon baby blue, Jenna really ought to have noticed. Instead, she’d been so flustered by the triple punch of Tommy Seer, Duncan Paradis, and Ken Dollimore’s willingness to throw her to the lions that she’d run off with another woman’s bag. Something women tended not to take lightly, no matter how ugly the bag in question. Just one more thing to blame Duncan Paradis for, she thought sourly.
Not that the mighty Duncan Paradis was paying Jenna the slightest bit of attention. He was far too busy barking orders into a gigantic cellphone that looked as if it required two hands to lift. It was bigger, Jenna thought, than the portable house phone she used in her apartment. It was the size of a book, or one of the small dogs starlets totedabout. She was more worried than he seemed to be that it might adhere to his ruthlessly slicked-back hair. Nor could she imagine that the reception was all that great, with the huge antenna sticking out of the top, so long it almost brushed the ceiling of the cab.
Trying to ignore him, Jenna returned her attention to the bright blue bag in front of her. Worrying her lower lip with her teeth, she cracked open the top and peered inside. There was a comb the size of a dinner plate, a selection of mascaras and other cosmetics, a sheaf of papers, the usual pocketbook detritus including a collection of gum wrappers –
Instead, Tommy Seer, who should have looked ridiculous in his Eighties Pop Star ensemble, turned on his heel and sauntered out of Jenna’s office as if he were some kind of great big jungle cat, all rolling gait and confidence. With nary a backward glance her way, to top off the indignity of it all.
Jenna didn’t believe he’d really left, for good, until several moments had passed and she was still gazing expectantly at the door.
She shifted in her seat, and tapped her fingers against the blotter on her desk. So far, this dream had involved work, inappropriate touching from Ken Dollimore, bullying from Duncan Paradis, and only the strangest andleast-satisfying Tommy Seer interactions imaginable – and this from someone who had imagined just about every Tommy Seer interaction there was, more than once.
And worst of all, there was still no freaking kissing.
6
The only thing worse than an extended dream about Tommy Seer in which a) he found her annoying, b) was kind of mean about it, and c) there was no kissing, was, Jenna discovered, being trapped in the back of a smelly New York taxi with Duncan Paradis.
Jenna wasn’t even sure how it had happened.
One moment she’d been sitting at her desk – or Jennifer Jenkins’s desk, whoever
she
was, and Jenna didn’t quite want to think about that – staring at the place where Tommy Seer had been standing as if the force of her will could make him reappear. The next moment Ken’s door had been tossed open, Ken and Duncan Paradis had come strolling out wreathed in fake bonhomie and cigar smoke, and Jenna had found herself summarily dispatched into Duncan Paradis’s keeping.
‘Just for a few days,’ Ken said, waving away Jenna’s high-pitched protest with a languid wave of his hand. ‘What a great experience for you, to have this kind of exposure tosuch a big band. Someday, who knows, you can write a book about it, ha ha ha.’
When Duncan turned his back and headed for the door, Ken made a telephone with his right hand and mouthed the words: CALL ME TOMORROW. Then he shooed Jenna out of the office.
Cut to Jenna in the back of a retro chequered taxicab, scrunched in the furthest corner to avoid even a casual brush against Duncan’s pant leg, surrounded by the pervasive smell of long-saturated body odour, with a strange woman’s purse perched on her knees. It had been second nature to reach down into the desk drawer and pull out the bag sitting there – so much so that Jenna had been halfway down the hall in Duncan’s wake before she’d realized that the purse was not hers. Given that it was big, poufy, and neon baby blue, Jenna really ought to have noticed. Instead, she’d been so flustered by the triple punch of Tommy Seer, Duncan Paradis, and Ken Dollimore’s willingness to throw her to the lions that she’d run off with another woman’s bag. Something women tended not to take lightly, no matter how ugly the bag in question. Just one more thing to blame Duncan Paradis for, she thought sourly.
Not that the mighty Duncan Paradis was paying Jenna the slightest bit of attention. He was far too busy barking orders into a gigantic cellphone that looked as if it required two hands to lift. It was bigger, Jenna thought, than the portable house phone she used in her apartment. It was the size of a book, or one of the small dogs starlets totedabout. She was more worried than he seemed to be that it might adhere to his ruthlessly slicked-back hair. Nor could she imagine that the reception was all that great, with the huge antenna sticking out of the top, so long it almost brushed the ceiling of the cab.
Trying to ignore him, Jenna returned her attention to the bright blue bag in front of her. Worrying her lower lip with her teeth, she cracked open the top and peered inside. There was a comb the size of a dinner plate, a selection of mascaras and other cosmetics, a sheaf of papers, the usual pocketbook detritus including a collection of gum wrappers –
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