This is a great day. The greatest. The day that will make all other days hang their heads in shame. Because today, I, Lizzie Bennet, will be getting a big, fat, juicy promotion!
I throw back my curtains with the enthusiasm of Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music belting out Doe a Deer and happily take in the blue sky and picturesque view. Well, OK, I wouldn't actually go that far. I share a tiny flat in Shoreditch with my sister Jane and the only view we have is of dull grey pavement. Not exactly rolling green hills or golden sandy beaches. But, this fact will not dim my new positivity and excitement. I am sick of complaining about work and money and men. So, I have decided that as of today I am taking a different attitude to life, throwing the old Lizzie away and introducing the new and improved 'every cloud has a silver lining' Lizzie, who apparently uses corny sayings to make a situation seem better. A half glass full kind of girl.
In fact, I might even make a list. A list of 'Lizzie Improvements'; a set of guidelines by which to live my new, fabulous life. Let's see...
I will stop complaining to Jane (and anyone who will listen to be honest) about how annoying Alexa is.
Alexa Albright (I know, her name's hilarious, it sounds like something from a Spiderman comic!) works with me at the Daily Telegraph writing features for the fashion and celebrity section and constantly brags about going to all these posh new club openings and knowing all these famous designers- one of them is apparently a huge deal. His work is in museums like the V and A and he's met the Queen and stuff. I googled him. She always looks so smug when she tells me all about her fabulous, chic life and I have to sit there pretending I know whatever it is she's talking about and do a sneaky google every so often so I can answer all of her stupid, tricky, well aimed questions. I mean, who seriously wants to talk about fashion all day anyway? Except maybe The Fashion Police on E! and that's only because they're paid to.
Alexa just loves making me look like an inferior little idiot. Like the other day, my editor Phil brought up the subject of Anne Hathaway in the staff meeting, and, I'm not going to lie, to try and look better than Alexa I started saying all sagely about how she must have been terribly unhappy stuck in a marriage with Shakespeare- he just left her with the kids in their house in Stratford upon Avon while he lived it up in London- when Alexa cut in looking like the cat who got the cream, saying that they were talking about Anne Hathaway the movie star, not some dead woman. Phil nearly had an embolism he laughed so hard and naturally I ended up looking like a complete durr brain who'd gotten all her facts wrong again and the natural order of the world-whereby Alexa is right and I am wrong- was once again restored.
And another thing; how is it fair that she is stunning and a bitch? If I was that gorgeous I would use my looks for good, like Natalie Portman. Plus Alexa's legs alone are about the same height as me. Puny, pathetic five foot three me. Every day she practically glides into the office with her Armani suits and Gucci jewellery, I just want to hack her stupid stick legs off. Let her feel how it is to be one of the little people- both literally and metaphorically speaking. But I swear, no one else gets it. They're all bloody hypnotised by her swishy golden hair, worship the very ground her spindly three inch heels walk on, hang on to her every perfectly enunciated word. And Phil's the worst, he thinks the sun shines out of her arse. Plus he knows her dad too, who's some loaded hot shot in the business world, so they always talk about him together. That's how Alexa got the job, actually. Though she'll never admit it. My friend Charlotte from HR told me all about it, but I won't get into that. I mean I am a professional after all.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, my first Lizzie Improvement will be to stop complaining about Alexa. It's unhealthy to dislike a person this much; so behind all of the superficial layers of perfectly applied MAC makeup, Alexa might be a lovely person...
...On the other hand, everyone's allowed one little fault aren't they? And Jane always says my Alexa stories are hilarious. So really, I'd be depriving her of my comedic abilities by not slagging off Alexa and that wouldn't be fair to Jane at all would it? Maybe I'll just pick a different thing to improve on. Like... I will wash the dishes as soon as I have used them! Perfect! That way there will never be any clutter in the sink and I won't have to try and cram all the dirty dishes into the oven everytime someone comes round because the cupboards are all full and the oven's the only free space we have on account of never having used it for cooking once.
See? I'm already changing. I will start the transformation of the new Lizzie effective immediately. I'm just like Daniel in the Karate Kid! Changing from caterpillar to butterfly! Maybe I could take a karate class as well! Actually... I haven't really got time to do last night's washing up before work. The transformation will begin tonight!
Jane is already in the kitchen when I'm finally ready and dressed for work wearing the Whistles suit mum and dad got me for my last birthday. It's really gorgeous; this pale grey colour with little pockets and white stitching and these silver shiny buttons. I couldn't afford it even with its price tag on EBay, but that's why it's so beautiful. I feel professional and confident and expensive wearing it. My best suit for the best day of my career!
"Why are you all dressed up?" Jane asks looking up from her steaming Kit Kat mug and I feel my face break into a huge smile.
"The promotion!" I squeal, hopping from one foot to the other like some sort of munchkin on acid, "It's finally happening! Soon I'll be writing about current affairs and war zones and court cases! Not about some designer who has announced his collaboration with Lady Gaga!"
She looks confused. Not exactly the response I was going for. "Who's collaborating with Lady Gaga?"
"That's not the point." I huff, "The point is I'm getting promoted!"
Jane seems to have had a delayed reaction because her eyes light up and she suddenly slams down the Kit Kat mug with a massive grin on her face. Tea flies all over the table like a mini tsunami.
"Lizzie no!"
"Yes!"
"NO!"
"YES!"
"I can't believe it!"
"I know!" Our voices are about thirty decibels higher than the average human being. Jane jumps from her chair and we both start squealing and doing this weird jumping hug thing, kind of like what Greek people do at weddings. My cheeks hurt from smiling so hard and I swear I have a glow, an actual glow. I am literally emanating success from my very pores! This must be how Alan Sugar feels every day of his life.
I pull out a chair as Jane puts on the kettle, her high ponytail bobbing as she moves.
"So," she says, tapping the toe of her ballet flat on the floor, "Tell me exactly what happened! When did Phil tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
She spoons some sugar and a tea bag into my Disney Jungle Book mug. "That you were finally going to get to write about what you want!"
I grin and raise my eyebrows conspiratorially, "Well he hasn't said anything 'officially', but yesterday he brought me into his office and said he had something to tell me... Something I would be very, very pleased about!"
Jane sets my mug down on the table, "And it's definitely a promotion?"
I laugh incredulously, "What else could it be? I've been on at him about it for months!"
"God Lizzie, you're right! You're finally getting to do what you've always wanted and I'm putting a downer on it!" Jane lifts her mug for a toast."To your promotion!"
"Yes!" I shout, punching my fist into the air dramatically "And to the new and improved me!"
I am literally desperate to get into work. I'm sitting on the tube and I cannot keep still. A few people have given me weird looks now...I guess my constant smiling doesn't help either. They must be thinking I'm mentally unstable or a psycho. Like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. God that film is terrifying! Chilling in fact. Some may even say scarring.
Me and Jane rented it out last week; she'd never seen it before because she'd always been to scared to watch it. Even when she was like eighteen, which is a bit strange, but Janey has always hated watching people get hurt; even the fictional ones. Anyway, so I suggested we watch it, acting all nonchalant and blasé saying, "It's nothing like the horrors these days, it'll make Harry Potter look like the scariest thing you've ever seen." Except when I put it on and Linda Blair's head was spinning round and she was walking down the stairs like a spider with all that blood coming out of her mouth and stabbing herself in her 'nether regions' with the crucifix, I realised that it was a lot more scary than I had originally bargained on. We were both screaming so loud and got ourselves worked up into such a state that we ended up sleeping on the sofa together because we were too scared to sleep alone. Honestly, I don't know how I managed to forget all the scary bits. Maybe I did that thing that people do when they have really traumatic experiences. Just block the terrible, trauma inducing bits out.
Now, because of this awful experience, The Exorcist DVD is currently residing underneath the sofa cushions because we are both too scared to get it out. Even the DVD cover scares me. And because it's been under the sofa for so long we're going to have to pay the shop for not bringing it back within three days! Which in my opinion is too short a time anyway; what if my great aunt died and I was the only living relative, thus the person who had to sort out her funeral and burial? I wouldn't have time to watch my film within the set three days, would I? I'd be too busy picking out flower arrangements and buying finger food for the buffet! I'd be a devastated. grieving wreck and conned out of £3.50 by the local Blockbuster!
Actually, come to think of it, the new and improved Lizzie wouldn't be making excuses for herself. The new and improved Lizzie would get the Exorcist DVD out from underneath the sofa and stop acting like such a twelve year old girl! The new and improved Lizzie would be able to watch horror films without even batting an eyelid! The new and improved Lizzie wouldn't google 'chants to drive away evil spirits'! That last one was only hypothetical by the way... I wouldn't actually do that... It's decided then! I will take The Exorcist back to the rental shop tonight, fantastic!
Oh and I must pick a restaurant for me and Jane to go to tonight, to celebrate my great career move! Maybe that Chinese place on the corner that is so sinfully good and greasy that it must be getting closed down by the food inspection board sometime soon. I can't even think about what goes into those noodles; I don't want to actually, apparently you eat six pubic hairs a year from take -out food, so there's one for the imagination. I saw it on a program about the dirtiest restaurants in England or something. Picture that everytime you get a Magic Wok menu through your letter box.
I get off the tube at Victoria and walk to the Victoria Plaza, the Telegraph's main headquarters on Buckingham Palace Road. I feel all jittery, and my heart is thudding with nerves and excitement. This must be how Alan Sugar feels when he closes a multi million pound deal. Or fires someone on the Apprentice. Although, to be honest, I would get that feeling more firing someone on the Apprentice, because you know that millions of people will see you do that on television. No one will see you sign a piece of paper on television. But that's just me; I don't really understand the whole "business world" anyway. Too boring. Just a bunch of suits arguing about 'the bottom line'. I mean, at least argue about something interesting, like whether David Cameron is a complete dick or not. That's a topic that's bound to spark some healthy debate.
I reach my desk having managed to successfully suppress my almost manic smile and decide to go about focusing on mundane tasks like sneak reading NME under the table. I am in the middle of debating whether David Bowie in the eighties was really as shit as NME insists, when Alexa literally sashays up to my desk, looking down at me with her signature expression of disdain and indifference that she has completely mastered.
"Phillip would like to see you in his office," she says in a bored tone. I swear Alexa is the only person on the planet that actually calls him Phillip, I bet even his wife doesn't. He's just not a Phillip, he's a Phil. Phil!
"Great," I smile through gritted teeth with a look that screams 'I am a cool collected career woman' and breeze past her towards Phil's office.
"Oh, and Lizzie," she calls smugly, as I turn back with another confident yet demure smile, "You have a hole in your tights."
OK, I am currently in a cubicle in the ladies examining the humungous whopping hole in the back of my black tights. Stupid Alexa! Stupid Pretty Polly tights! Who knew you could get a hole in a pair of seventy derniers anyway? Aren't they supposed to be hole-proof or something at that thickness? This is just perfect. Just great! I can't wear these stupid tights now, I only wore them so I didn't have to shave my legs this morning, and now I'll be walking round the office like some sort of cave woman. What if Phil's so repulsed that he doesn't give me a promotion? What if he gives it to Alexa? Alexa, who is no doubt completely hairless and owns one of those Epilator things that cost a hundred and twenty quid and actually yank out your hairs by the roots. I've never actually used one, but Jane has, and she said she had to take a paracetamol the pain was so bad! I bet Alexa thrives on the pain though, she probably doesn't even feel it, like Arnold Swarzeneger in the Terminator.
I open the cubicle door and ball up the tights in my fist. I am never buying from Pretty Polly again! In fact Topshop do some nice black tights. Ha, Pretty Polly, I am taking my business elsewhere! I throw the balled up tights into the bin with an air of defiance, just like Vivienne Leigh in Gone with the Wind and look up into the mirror. On the up side the suit does look fantastic and I am still sporting the Alan Sugar like glow, despite the whole tights fiasco. If I can just go into Phil's office and act like the poised professional I know I can be, then everything will definitely be alright. I fix my reflection with one final confident stare.
"You're fired!" I shout on impulse in my best Alan Sugar voice and then walk straight out of the room.
When I knock on the door to Phil's office I have overlooked the tights as a slight setback and am sporting a shit eating grin while mentally picking out the colour of my new Mac book. I mean I'll definitely be able to afford it after I'm writing all the big, serious stories! Orange would be cool. Or is it best to go for silver or black? A classic colour that will always look stylish, yet businesslike. I can picture myself now, typing furiously on my sleek black laptop, the epitome of high powered journalist. I'd be just like Kate Adie! Uncovering secret underground drug operations and reporting from war zones, using my great tenacity and investigative techniques to get to the bottom of even the most complicated and dangerous of situations.
"Come in!" Phil barks from his desk, cutting into my thoughts. One last shot of nerves hit me as I open the door and stride purposefully across the room to the chair in front of his desk. Poised and professional I tell myself.
"You wanted to see me?" I ask, straightening my jacket in a very bussinessy way.
"Yes." He pauses now to look at me. Phil always does this you see. To everyone. It's kind of become his trademark. He just stops talking for about thirty seconds simply to shamelessly scrutinise whoever it is he's talking to. I've always thought it was to psyche you out so I flash him a confident smile to show I am not intimidated. Not in the least... well, OK, maybe a little bit, but right now I am a poised and serious journalist, so he doesn't need to know that.
The truth is Phil is a very scary man. He seems completely normal at first, just like Norman Bates in Psycho, with the receding hairline, the v neck jumpers, the framed photograph of his two daughters that takes prime position on his desk, the 3 series silver BMW. A perfectly normal guy who should maybe invest in some form of hair re-growth treatment. But that's all a diversion, you see. A diversion from the reality; the scary, Hulk esque side of Phil. It doesn't come out all that often, but when it does; clear the area. Suddenly, the switch just flips and he turns into some kind of crazed monster, stomping around the office in a whirlwind of expletives and flying biros. Last year he got so angry and punched his desk so hard that he fractured his hand in two places and left a dent in the varnished cherry wood! I would have been hysterical; not only for my poor, fractured hand, but that desk was limited edition and nineteen hundred quid from the Conran Shop! And let's not forget the coffee incident either. All I can say there, is thank god it was only lukewarm and that Paul from Accountings shirt was just from Next...
I had a dream about Phil the other day actually. No, not that kind of dream, what do you take me for! He took me to this really posh Italian restaurant; the kind with gilded chairs and plush cream carpets and waiters who don't use note pads to take your order. We were seated in this cosy little alcove and then Phil bought the most expensive wine on the list and told me all about the time he met Shakira (something the real Phil has never done by the way.) Anyway, we were half way through the main course when he asked me about the article I was writing that I was rather late turning in. I thought we were having a lovely time so just made some hardy ha joke about it all. I looked up from my seared duck and suddenly, Phil had lunged across the table at me with his steak knife, screaming something about by- lines, and pulling my teeth out. And then I woke up, thank god! It was terrifying. Then again, it's my own fault really; Jane and I had just watched The Last King of Scotland.
"Lizzie," he says, leaning forward in his chair with an impatient glare that forces me violently from my day dream. Wait-what did he just say, I missed it all. Oh god, he just offered me the promotion didn't he? And I wasn't even listening; I'll have to make up what he said to me. Oh well, he doesn't have much of a way with words I can make it much more inspirational.
"I'll do it!" I exclaim with an air of modesty, yet fierce determination. I feel like Hilary Clinton. An intelligent, empowered woman taking on the world, one...something...at a time. If only she hadn't lost to Obama.
"Good, you'll definitely enjoy it," Phil grins. Too right I'll enjoy it. No more stupid articles on Cheryl Cole's newest tattoo or the comeback of the pencil skirt! No more Alexa breathing down my neck about whether I actually even know who John Galliano is. I feel liberated, free and I can finally cancel my subscription to Glamour magazine!
"So, I'll give you two press passes so you can bring someone along. I know you mentioned about how much you loved to read Tatler so this is your perfect event!"
Wait-what? What the hell is Phil talking about? A press pass? Tatler? I said I loved reading Tatler because Alexa did! He's not bloody giving me a promotion; he's making me cover a Tatler party! My eyes are filling with tears, my glow has evaporated and my grin is now more of a grimace. Why did I get my hopes up like that, why did I have to assume that I was getting promoted! My face is hot with embarrassment and I so badly want the floor to open up and swallow me.
"Are you excited?" Phil asks, and I silently thank his complete inability to register an emotional breakdown.
"Yes!" I shout, plastering on a smile that cannot possibly look genuine and slam my hand down onto the table for extra excitement points.
OK, ow. Why the hell does my hand hurt so much?