so, do we like each other or not? // JENLISA

Chapter 22

Lisa sat slumped over her desk, her head resting on her hand. She had been flicking a pen up the ramp of her notepad and then watching it roll back down again for the past 30 minutes, and she could tell that someone from the comms desk was going to come over and strangle her if she didn't stop soon.

She'd been in a funk ever since Saturday, when she'd left Jennie on the sourest note possible. The difference this week, though, was that Jennie was no longer giving her the silent treatment – she had called Lisa on Sunday morning, and Lisa had simply stared down at her vibrating cell phone like she was waiting for it to crack in two and start screaming at her. She knew it was her job to answer those calls, and she knew Jennie would be furious when she didn't, but she also knew that if she was forced to go to an exhibition opening on two hours' notice while pretending that nothing at all had happened the day before, her head would explode. So instead she had just refused to pick up.

Now it was Monday and there were three texts waiting on her home screen. All of them were increasingly snappish, but Lisa hadn't managed to talk herself into opening them yet. She was beginning to wonder if this is what it would always be like with Jennie: deliriously happy one minute, then screaming at each other about a contract the next.

She sighed and flicked the pen up too high. It toppled off the edge of her desk and onto the floor.

"Shit," she muttered, looking around for someone who was already on their feet and might be willing to pick it up for her. She groaned when she realised that the only person who was nearby, and who was storming towards her at that very second, was Cherin.

Lisa snapped her body into an upright position, but her boss had already noticed her despondent slumping. "Lisa. What the hell is the matter with you today?"

It was a different kind of berating to her normal high-pitched shrieks. In comparison, she almost sounded concerned.

"Nothing," Lisa said. "Just a bit distracted."

"Well, stop it," was Ingrid's helpful suggestion. "I need you to actually answer the phone if you want to keep your job. And when do you plan on finishing those minutes I asked for?"

"I'm working on them," Lisa said, but it was a pathetic response and if Cherin had leaned over her desk, she would have seen that Lisa’s computer screen was completely blank.

"Work on them faster," she snapped. But then she bent down and picked the pen up off the floor, placing it back on Lisa’s notepad.

Lisa blinked down at it, but by the time she'd looked up again, Cherin was gone.

She decided then that she had to snap out of this – not because Cherin had asked her to, but because her job had already fallen by the wayside in her drive to become the best fake girlfriend in the world, and she really would get fired soon if she wasn't careful. So she pushed the pen and notepad to one side and finally opened up Microsoft Word, hoping that if she typed fast enough she might be able to convince her boss that she'd started on the task when it had first been given to her several hours ago.

She'd been working on it for 30 minutes when she heard footsteps approaching her desk once more. Groaning, she started tapping her keyboard slightly harder.

Cherin stopped in front of her desk and said nothing, which was even more irritating than being yelled at. Without looking up, Lisa snapped, "I'm doing the minutes."