of the noticeboard did not look as certain as I sounded. Possibly because she had no idea who Beezer Go-Go was.
‘He’s going to want first-class flights and I’m sure there’ll be a fee,’ Ted said, audibly exhaling with stress. ‘He’s only getting two companion flights though.’
‘Only two,’ I clucked, pressing my fingers into the skin around my eyes and lifting it up and back. Did I always look this tired or had I aged considerably in the last forty-eight hours?
‘And they’re business, not first-class,’ he warned. ‘I can be flexible with the budget for this episode if he’ll do it, what Snazz wants …’
‘Snazz gets,’ I finished for him, wondering where all this money was coming from. My salary was reasonable but it was not in any way, shape or form generous. It was days like this that I was furious I’d wasted all the time reading books and learning when I could have been playing computer games and practising talking shit into my phone camera for hours on end.
‘I’m kind of in the middle of something,’ I said, glancing over my shoulder to see my mum hanging by the doorway of the event space while a man in a rugby shirt climbed on top of an orange plastic chair to poke a fluorescent light with a snooker cue. ‘Can we pick this up tomorrow?’
Ted tutted and muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t quite make out but sounded a lot like my twenty-six-year-old boss was suggesting that I, his thirty-two-year-old employee, was an entitled little millennial.
‘Fine, tomorrow,’ he replied and immediately ended the call.
‘And I don’t know if you’re thinking about a band or a DJ but we’ve got connections with both,’ the man in the rugby shirt said as I walked back into the events space. ‘My friend Keith does a brilliant disco, gets everyone boogying on the dance floor, does Keith. But if you’re looking for live music, we had a Welsh turn on at the Valentine’s dance, fantastic fella. His band performs modern covers in the style of Elvis, they’re called The Wonder of Huw.’
‘Ros,’ Mum said, speaking in the voice of a strangled cat. ‘Didn’t you say you wanted to do the music?’
‘Yes,’ I said as smoothly as possible, agreeing enthusiastically with this imaginary conversation my mother and I had definitely, absolutely had. ‘I am very particular about music, very much wanted to be in charge of that, so no need to bother Huw.’
The rugby shirt looked me up and down and shrugged. Clearly he considered this my loss. ‘Shall we have a look in the kitchen?’ he suggested.
‘I promised I’d FaceTime Jo,’ I said, looking past him into a stainless-steel miseryland. ‘Show her the venue.’
‘That’s nice,’ Mum said. She ran a fingertip along the windowsill and her shoulders sank. ‘Don’t let her go without us saying hello.’
‘So she’ll answer the phone to you, will she?’ Dad chuntered as he followed on into the kitchen. ‘Tell her we need to have a conversation about her last phone bill. There’s a cap on her data usage for a reason, she’s supposed to be in Cambridge to work.’
I returned to the lobby, smiling briefly at an older gentleman on his way into the changing rooms as I found my sister’s contact info.
‘What?’
Jo appeared on the screen in front of me, bored before we’d started.
‘I’m at the tennis club where Mum and Dad want to have the wedding,’ I said, flipping the camera to show her the lobby. ‘It’s a bit sad.’
‘It’s murder–suicide depressing,’ she replied.
Jo’s face truly was perfection, like a Disney princess come to life, little pointed chin, bright blue eyes and long, glossy brown hair she had pulled back in the perfect messy bun, one it would take me an hour to achieve.
‘What do you want?’ Jo asked, driving the heel of her hand into her eyes. Her dark circles only served to emphasize her fragile prettiness. Who looked better when they were tired? My genius sister.
‘I thought you’d want to be involved,’ I replied, flipping the camera back to selfie mode and rubbing at my own dark circles. ‘Since you’re not here.’
‘Don’t try to guilt-trip me because it won’t work.’ She shoved a pencil into her bun and pouted. ‘I’ve only got two months until the semester starts, I haven’t got time, Ros. I’ve said I’ll show up but honestly, I don’t know why you or Mum and Dad expect me to be happy about their celebrating the fact they’re spent more than