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That reminds me. I should let Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen know that I am in charge now and I will no longer put up with any of her unprofessional working practices. I march through to reception suddenly remembering a bee that I had in my bonnet yesterday but was too tired to do anything about. Oh yes, I need to teach her how to operate the three buttons on the telephone that even a cat could master in less time than it has taken her.

Me in actual charge. Compared to two hundred people across ten regional offices, this should not be as daunting as it feels.

Deep breaths.

Deep breaths.

I can do this.

I see Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen scuttling back to the reception desk. The window overlooking the street is wide open, and the place smells of smoke. She’s been hanging out of the window, above our entrance, I should add, for all the clients and potential customers to see, smoking a cigarette and speaking to her mother on the phone. She knows this is strictly forbidden. She knows that we are to uphold the highest of professional standards at all times. I’ve even heard Nidi mention it to her more than once. I fly straight to the window to see, in the rush to pretend she’s been doing nothing of the sort, she has left her Hola! magazine on the windowsill. I quickly grab it and whizz round accusingly.

‘Did that ICF man ring to book an appointment while I was talking to Nidi?’

‘Sí.’

‘And?’

Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen sulkily eyes the magazine rolled up in my hand. ‘I say him you busy.’

‘Busy? You mean fully booked?’ I must check to see if she is up to something out of spite.

‘Busy. Gone for intimate cleansing vaginal steam. I tell him it was urgent. He says he will call back when you have finished steam cleaning yourself.’

How am I supposed to work like this? How?

Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen and I take a beat to eyeball each other. Her with her smoky breath and me with my stale wine fumes. All that’s left of this godforsaken business.

‘Everything okay?’ Nidi interrupts, coming into reception.

I plaster on a smile. ‘Fine!’ It comes out sounding the opposite.

‘Devin’s picking me up in half an hour and then we’re off to the airport. Thank you both so much. I know I’m leaving my business in good hands.’

18

Right, no time to fester. We’ve waved Nidi off amid a blaze of instructions for me and Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen. It was a little overwhelming, so Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen is having some back-to-back ciggies out of the window, and I have gone to my office to pretend I haven’t noticed. I need to know exactly what Ryan Reynolds ate for breakfast this morning, then I need to crack on with finding out if Oliver is indeed from the ICF and whether I have a leg to stand on or not.

I told Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen that I am borrowing the appointments book for a little while and asked her to research any good online life coaching seminars in Spain that I can attend, especially if they are free, particularly to do with developing micro business, and anything at all on business singles events and how to run them. I asked her to think about increasing traffic to the website and the possibility of how we could attract more clients.

Nidi has faith in me to keep this business going while she’s away, and I am determined to do just that.

I fear that because I was so vague and inept on the radio, we could have a whole manner of oddbods turning up. People who are single and looking for a romantic partner, people who are self-employed and looking for a business partner, people who are self-employed and are looking for a romantic partner who also owns their own business, or people who work for a business but just happen to be fucking single! And we are asking them to attend an event for no discernible reason that I can think of.

There’s a knock on my door ten minutes later. Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen has a question. ‘What you ask me to do?’

Oh my God. I spent twenty minutes explaining it all super slowly. I’ll have to explain it all over again.

‘What’s trending?’ I ask her. ‘Is it increasing workplace productivity, people wanting career changes or better relationships? Dealing with stress? Pandemic weight gain? General malaise about work-life balance? Plastics? Cost of living crisis? Global warming?’

Oh dear. It appears this is too much for her to take in. She continues to stare at me open-mouthed. ‘You know, SEO? It’s basic stuff, Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen.’

‘Sí, sí.’ She nods, still looking at me like I just threatened to eat her Labradoodle. She’s out of her comfort zone. I’ve noticed that when she’s put in situations where she is required to do what she is employed to do, she abruptly loses all command of the English language. As Nidi was firing important to do things at me, she suggested I take time to life coach Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen to help her achieve the goal of doing something useful at work, and for valuable learning experience for me. But regretfully, with her sulky face and sullen, downturned mouth, I haven’t got the patience to even think about it.

‘Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen,’ I say, looking her right in the eye. ‘You do know what it is that we do, don’t you? You were listening when I explained it to Juniper, the radio presenter, yesterday?’

Her wide-eyed blank stare is all the answer that I need.

Oh My Fucking God. Did she not even listen to a word I said during that crappy interview?