Someone Else's Shoes(77)

The print job had gone smoothly and Miriam had been satisfied with every aspect, calling her personally afterward to thank her for her attention to detail. In other times she might have fed this back to her superior, but there was no point with Simon: he would have found something to pick holes in, or asked her why she hadn’t charged more.

“Lovely to see you again,” she says, and holds out her hand for a slightly awkward shake. Miriam is dressed in a rainbow-striped jumper and pencil skirt, with heeled ankle boots. Sam would never have felt she could wear an outfit like that to work, yet on Miriam it just looks authoritatively quirky. She has—slightly guiltily—worn the Chanel jacket, given it is Miriam Price and she needed to feel pulled together, instead of the black trousers and gray jumper that is her usual work uniform.

“I wore my Louboutins in your honor!” says Miriam, angling her foot so that Sam can see. She glances down at Sam’s feet and Sam thinks she detects a faint flicker of disappointment at her plain black pumps. She immediately wishes she’d worn the shoes too.

“They’re gorgeous,” Sam says.

They chat briefly about the weather and their daughters, then compare preferred choices on the menu. Miriam decides on a salad starter and fish, and Sam orders the same salad and a vegetarian tart, which happens to be the cheapest main course. She is slightly worried that she will have to pay for this lunch, as Simon has been clamping down on work lunch claims. She is already calculating what it might come to.

“So tell me about yourself, Sam,” says Miriam, “and how you ended up at Grayside. Oh, no, I should call it Uberprint now, right?” She has this air of confidence when she speaks, like she knows innately that anything she says will be right.

“I’m not sure there’s much to say,” Sam stumbles, and then when Miriam waits, smiling, “I mean, I didn’t intend to work in print. But I got a temporary job as a secretary there when my daughter was small and there was a lovely boss, Henry—he’s retired now—and he seemed to think I was good.” Here she gives a nervous little laugh in case she’s sounding big-headed. “After a couple of years he decided to put me in project management. And we sort of built up my role from there. He—he was a very nice man. A good man.”

“Oh, I met Henry a couple of times,” Miriam says. “I liked him enormously. And what about your family?”

“Husband. A teenage daughter—as you know. And that’s it, really. Just us. Plus a couple of needy parents.”

“Oh, we’re at that age, aren’t we?” Miriam says. “Mine are in a care home in Solihull. I feel like I spend my life on the motorway or trying to pacify fed-up carers.”

“Really? I’m sorry. I mean, I’m sorry if it’s not nice for them. Or you.” Sam backtracks quickly. “But I don’t know, obviously. Maybe it’s a very nice place. I’m sure you’d only put them in a nice place.”

“It’s nice enough. But I don’t think anyone really sets out to end their days in a care home, do they?”

Sam pauses as the waiter puts the water in front of them. “My parents say they’ll die rather than end up in one. Which basically means me doing all their household tasks, cleaning and shopping.”

Miriam nods wryly. There is a shorthand in women this age, Sam realizes. There is none of the sharp elbows of their twenties and thirties, not an ounce of competitiveness. By their late forties and fifties, they’re all survivors, of death, divorce, disease, trauma, of something.

“That’s tough on you,” Miriam begins.

Sam’s phone starts to buzz. “I’m so sorry,” Sam says, cheeks flushing as she reaches into her bag. Miriam waves a hand as if it is of no matter.

Her heart sinks as she sees his name. “Simon?” she says, trying to muster a smile.

“Where are you?” His voice is terse.

“I’m with Miriam Price. It’s in the calendar. I told Genevieve twice.”

“The Dutch job needs to move up four days. They said they’ve emailed you but had no response.”

“What? Hold on.”

She mouths another Excuse me at Miriam and puts him on speaker while she opens her email. There it is, fifteen minutes ago. An email from the Dutch textbook firm asking for the job to be expedited more swiftly.

“Simon—it only came in fifteen minutes ago.”

“And?”

Sam swiftly takes her phone off speaker and holds it to her ear.

“So I hadn’t seen it. I’ll get on to it obviously. As soon as I’m back.”

“You need to be on top of your email, Sam. I’ve told you. We at Uberprint have a reputation for swift responses. This isn’t good enough.”

“I—I’m sure they’d understand that someone might be getting lunch at one fifteen—”

“This isn’t a bloody holiday camp, Sam. I don’t know what it’s going to require for you to take this job seriously. You’ll have to come back. Actually, no, you can’t, can you? Not without looking unprofessional to Miriam Price. And we need that job. I’ll get Franklin on to it.”

“But that’s my project. I brought it in.”

“Irrelevant,” Simon cuts her off. “It’s not enough to just bring jobs in. I need someone who can deliver the whole package. See me when you come back. After your nice lunch.” As he says these words, she knows there are people in his office with him, can picture him rolling his eyes at the phone. He ends the call and she is left, stunned, at the table.