OK, full disclosure: This is a lie. I’m totally getting nervous. How could I not? This is Alex Astalis. He’s huge! As I now realize, having googled him for two solid hours last night.
I can’t believe I thought he was some random guy. I can’t believe I thought he might be an intern. This is the trouble with meeting people in real life: They don’t come with profiles attached. Or maybe it’s a good thing. If I’d known he was so important, I never would have messed around on stilts with him.
Anyway, time to go. I pull my hair behind my ears, then forward. Then back again. Argh, I don’t know. At least my bangs look OK. I hadn’t realized how high-maintenance bangs were before I got them. They’re so bloody needy. If I don’t smooth mine down with hair straighteners every day, they pop up all morning, like, Hi! We’re your bangs! We thought we’d spend all day at a forty-five-degree angle; that OK by you?
Anyway. It really is time to go.
I stand up so self-consciously that I’m sure everyone will turn from their screens and say, And where are you going? But of course they don’t. No one even notices as I leave.
The pop-up Christmas Cheer place is a bit of a walk from the office, and as I arrive I feel rosy-cheeked and out of breath. Apparently it “pops up” every December but no one knows quite how to describe it. It’s a kind of market-cum-café-cum-fairground, with a “gingerbread house” for children and mulled wine for grown-ups and carols blaring through a sound system.
I see Alex at once, standing by the mulled-wine stand. He’s wearing a slim-fit coat, a purple scarf, and a gray hipster cap and holding two plastic glasses of mulled wine. He grins as soon as he sees me and says, as though we’re mid-conversation, “You see, this is the problem. They have a merry-go-round but no one to go on it.” He gestures at the merry-go-round—and he’s right. There are only a couple of toddlers sitting on horses, both looking fairly terrified. “All the children are in school,” he adds. “Or they’ve gone home for lunch. I’ve been watching them disappear. Mulled wine?” He hands me a glass.
“Thanks!”
We clink the plastic and I feel a little exhilarated swoop inside. This is fun. Whatever “this” is. I mean, I can’t quite work out if it’s business or…not-business….Whatever. It’s fun.
“So. To work.” Alex drains his drink. “And the question is: Can we rebrand this?”
“What?” I echo, puzzled.
“This. This pop-up.”
“What, this?” I look round. “You mean the…fair? Market thing?”
“Exactly.” His eyes gleam. “It doesn’t even know what to call itself. But they want to roll out all over London. Cash in on seasonal cheer. And go large. Bigger venues. Advertising. Tie-ins.”
“Right. Wow.” I look around the stalls and fairy lights with new eyes. “Well, people do love Christmas. And people do love a pop-up.”
“But a pop-up what?” counters Alex. “Is it a gourmet-food destination or is it fun for the kiddies or a craft fair or what?” He brandishes his empty glass at me. “What do we think of the mulled wine?”
“Very good,” I say truthfully.
“Whereas the merry-go-round…” He wrinkles his nose. “A little tragic, no?”
“Maybe they need to focus on the food.” I nod. “Food is a huge deal. Do they need the other stuff?”
“Good question.” Alex starts toward the merry-go-round. “Let’s try it out.”
“What?”
“We can’t assess the merry-go-round unless we go on the merry-go-round,” he says gravely. “After you.” He gestures toward the horses, and I grin back.
“Well, OK!”
I clamber up onto a horse and fumble for my purse, but Alex holds up a hand.
“On me. Or, rather, on the company. This is essential research.” He climbs up onto the horse next to mine and pays the attendant, who is a grumpy-looking guy in a parka. “Now I expect we’ll have to wait for the hordes to join us,” Alex observes, and I can’t help giggling. It’s us and the two toddlers—no one else is even nearby. “In your own time!” Alex cheerfully calls to the guy in the parka, who ignores us.
I can feel my bangs blowing about in the wind and curse them silently. Why can’t they stay put? This is quite bizarre, sitting on a wooden horse, at eye level with a guy who in theory is my boss but doesn’t feel like my boss. Demeter feels like my boss. Even Rosa feels a bit like my boss. But this guy feels like…My stomach squeezes with yearning before I can stop it.
He feels like fun. He feels like cleverness and irreverence and wit and charm, all packaged up in a long, lean frame. He feels like the man I’ve been waiting to meet ever since I moved to London, ever since I wanted to move to London.
I surreptitiously run my eyes over him and a fresh wave of longing overcomes me. That knowing flash in his eye. Those cheekbones. That smile.
“So what’s happening with the products from Asia?” I ask. “The stilts and stuff?”
“Oh, those.” A frown crosses his face. “We’re not taking the project on. We don’t think it’ll work, teaming up with Sidney Smith.”
I feel a tweak of disappointment. I suppose I’d half-imagined working on the project with him. (OK, full disclosure: I’d totally imagined working on the project with him, maybe late into the night, maybe ending up in some passionate clinch on the shiny lacquer table in Park Lane.)
“So, head won over heart.”
“That’s right.”
“Shame,” I venture, and an odd, lopsided smile passes over Alex’s face.
“Heads. Hearts. Same old, same old.”
“Although actually,” I say after a moment’s thought, “maybe it was heart over head. Maybe you don’t want to work with Sidney Smith. So you’ve made out like it was a rational business decision but it was instinct all along.”
I don’t know what’s giving me the confidence to speak out so openly. Maybe it’s the fact we’re both sitting on fairground horses.
“You’re bright, aren’t you?” Alex gives me a sharp look. “I think you’re right. Truth is, we just don’t like those Sidney Smith guys.”
“There you go.”
“Is there a difference between heads and hearts, anyway?” Alex seems fascinated by the topic.
“People talk about ‘head over heart,’ ” I say, thinking aloud. “But they mean ‘one part of their head over another part of their head.’ It’s not really ‘head over heart,’ it’s ‘head over head.’ ”
“Or ‘heart over heart’?” Alex’s eyes glint at me.
There’s a strange little silence between us, and I wonder where on earth I can segue naturally from here. I’m not sure if it’s the way he’s looking at me or the way he said “heart” like that—but either way, my own heart’s feeling a bit fluttery right now.
Then Alex leans over, breaking the mood. “Hey. Your hair’s gone mad.”
Abruptly I forget all about the Asian products, heads, and hearts. My bloody, bloody bangs.
“It always does that,” I say flushing. “It’s awful.”
He laughs. “It’s not awful.”
“It is. I should never have got bangs cut, but—” I stop dead. I can’t exactly say, But I wanted to look like a different person.
“It’s just a bit…the breeze…” He leans over from his wooden horse toward mine. “May I?”
“Sure.” I swallow. “No problem.”
Now he’s gently tweaking my bangs. I’m fairly sure this is against company policy. Bosses aren’t supposed to adjust hair, are they?
His face is only inches away from mine now and my skin tingles under his gaze. His brown eyes are surveying my face in that frank, interested way he has. As they meet mine they seem to have a question in them. Or…do they?