Page 2 of Third Time’s a Charm

Unable to sit still, I rustle around in my handbag to find a brush and some hair combs. Perhaps I can use the travel time to wrangle my hair.

At the last set of lights before the offices of Cellar Road International, I swipe on a coat of lip gloss and assess my hair in the rear-view mirror. Solid three out of ten. And there we have it. Another three.

I’m sure there are people out there—psychopaths and sociopaths mostly—for whom three is a perfectly acceptable number.

But for me, three has always signalled monumentally bad luck.

It started when I was three years old and I accidentally peed on the shoes of a very proper English boy. I don’t remember, of course. But my mother trots the story out to humiliate me at every opportunity. It’s a sharp knife she wields, although she claims it’s just a joke. Maybe it would be funny if our relationship hadn’t been broken by the loss of my brother, which I try not to think about.

But I digress.

Ever since, anything relating to three, and even a multiple thereof, has been unlucky.

So, of course, it follows that the biggest presentation of my career, the biggest risk I’ve ever taken, is scheduled for the third of March. The only way it could possibly be worse would be for the meeting to be at 3 pm. Of course, then I wouldn’t be late, so there’d be an upside.

Finally, the cab pulls to a stop and I tumble out onto the pavement, snagging my third pair of tights as I do; the tickling sensation on my upper thigh indicating a ladder has run all the way up my leg.

“Fuck!” I won’t have time to change them. Maybe I can whip them off during the lift journey to the thirty-ninth floor. Because even my pale, freckled legs are better than laddered tights. And yes, you read that right. Thirty-ninth floor.

I’d kill for a coffee from the cute cart in the foyer—where they even give you a delicious little shortbread biscuit, my rumbling stomach reminds me—but I’m already late. And the way this morning has gone, that would be begging the fates to upend the cup on my shirt, so I resist.

While I wait for the lift, I check my messages. There’s just one, from my friend Lilavati.

Lil: You’ve got this, Louie. See you tonight to celebrate.

Huh. Let’s hope she’s right. But it already doesn’t look good.

I jab at the lift button, unable to resist, even though I know it won’t make the lift arrive any faster.

Think positive, Louise. Maybe someone else is late too. The managing director is notoriously slack about meeting times. He’s probably not even in the office yet.

For the second time this morning, luck is with me and the lift is empty. I drop my handbag and satchel to the floor, reach under my skirt and drag the offending tights down my legs. They’re pooled around my feet and I’m just about to step out of my shoes and take them off when the lift doors open and Vivian, the managing director’s executive assistant, steps into the lift.

One perfectly groomed eyebrow arches as she takes in the scene, then checks the delicate gold and diamond watch on her wrist.

“Should you not be in the middle of a presentation, Louise?”

The noise that comes out of me could in no way be described as intelligible, but she seems to get it.

Without another word, she hits the stop button and looks pointedly at my feet.

The tights are off and bundled into the bottom of my handbag as fast as I can move.

By the time the elevator glides to a stop and I stumble out on the unluckiest floor ever invented, you’d never even know I’d been wearing tights.

“Oh, by the way, the meeting’s been moved to conference room three,” my saviour-slash-harbinger of doom says before the doors slide closed and she continues on her way.

It takes everything in me not to reach out, press the down button and resign via email. Because at this point, failure feels inevitable. But I’m not a quitter. This is my chance. I’ve seen the figures. I have to shoot my shot now because things can’t go on the way they are. My idea, whilst a little out there, could help save the company. And give me my dream job at the same time.

No pressure.

I wrench the heavy glass door open. The atmosphere in the meeting room is frosty. No prizes for guessing it’s because I’m now nine minutes late.

My boss, Robert, and the managing director, John Mackelden, are sitting at the long table, and there’s a guy I don’t recognise, dressed in a sharp suit, standing at the window. His back is to me, a mobile to his ear. The irritation in his broad shoulders is clear even from a distance.

Well, fuck. There’s three of them. Because why wouldn’t there be?

I practically fall into the room and stumble to the head of the table, pulling my laptop out of my satchel as I go.