easiest child, and—well, I’m rambling, so I’d better cut this short, but we’d be happy to have you on board. Looking forward to hearing back from you.”
There was a click, and the message ended.
For a minute I couldn’t move. I just stood there, the phone in my hand, gaping at the screen. And then a huge rush of exhilaration raced through me, and I found I was dancing, hopping in circles, punching the air and grinning like a lunatic.
“Bloody hell, what’s got into you?” a smoke-roughened voice said over my shoulder, and I turned, still grinning, to see Janine leaning against the door, a cigarette in one hand, lighter in the other.
“What’s got into me?” I said, hugging myself, full of a glee I couldn’t even try to suppress. “I’ll tell you what’s got into me, Janine. I’ve got a new job.”
“Well . . .” Janine’s expression as she flicked open the lighter was a little sour. “You needn’t look so triumphant about it.”
“Oh, come on, you’re as fed up with Val as I am. She’s screwing us all, and you know it. Ten percent she put up fees last year, and us assistants are barely getting minimum wage. She can’t keep blaming the recession forever.”
“You’re just pissed off that I got made head of the baby room,” Janine said. She took a drag of her cigarette, and then offered me the packet. I was trying to give up to improve my asthma (well, officially I had given up) but her words had hit home, and so I took one and lit it slowly, more as a way of giving myself time to rearrange my expression than because I actually wanted to smoke. I had been pissed off that she’d got promoted, when honestly I thought I had the better shot. I’d applied thinking I was a shoo-in—and the shock when the position had gone to Janine had been like a punch to the gut. But as Val had said at the time, there were two candidates and only one job. There was nothing she could do about that. Still, it had rankled, particularly when Janine had begun throwing her weight around and issuing orders in that grating drawl.
“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” I said, handing the lighter back with a sweet smile and exhaling the smoke. “Onwards and upwards, eh?” The slightly patronizing smile she gave made me add, a little maliciously, “Very much upwards, in fact.”
“What do you mean?” Janine said. She narrowed her eyes. “Are we talking more than thirty K?”
I made a rising movement with my hand, and her eyes widened.
“Forty? Fifty grand?”
“And it’s residential,” I said smugly, watching her jaw drop. She shook her head.
“You’re having me on.”
“I’m not.” Suddenly I didn’t need the cigarette anymore. I took a final drag, then dropped it to join the mush of dead butts in the yard and ground it out under my heel. “Thanks for the fag. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to phone up and accept a job.”
I dialed Sandra’s number, listening as it rang, and then clicked through to voice mail. In a way I was relieved, I didn’t want to get grilled about my start date in front of Janine. If she knew it was a make-or-break condition, she might well tell Val, who could deliberately make life difficult for me.
“Oh, hi, Sandra,” I said, when the beep had sounded. “Thanks so much for your message, I’m thrilled, and I’d be delighted to accept. I need to sort a few things out this end but I’ll email you about the start date. I’m sure it won’t be a problem. And . . . well, thanks, I guess! I’ll be in touch. Let me know if there’s anything you need from me to get the ball rolling.”
And then I hung up.
I handed in my notice to Val that same day. She tried to act pleased for me, but in truth, she looked mostly pissed off, particularly when I informed her that the amount of leave I had stacked up meant that I would be finishing on the sixteenth of June, rather than the first of July, as she had assumed. She tried to tell me that I needed to work my notice and take the leave as pay, but when I more or less invited her to see me in court, she caved.
The next few days passed in a whirl of activity and practicalities. Sandra did all her payroll remotely through a