Everything You Have by Kate Ruby

Author:Kate Ruby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2024-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

SASHA

The two halves of my life had started to feel like a pair of jigsaw puzzle pieces that refused to fit together, however hard I squashed one against the other. It was the week after that horrific Maple meeting, the pressure on to come up with a whole new campaign and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The team were anxious and irritable, the stakes too high and the disappointment too big to birth creative brilliance. And meanwhile, a whole other potential birth was consuming my every waking moment.

Steve and I were fully committed to the treatment now. We’d finally agreed on a donor, having combed through profile after profile in the clinic’s database. The mother was a similar height and build to me, with blonde hair and blue eyes just like mine. Unlike me, though, her eggs didn’t fall into the geriatric category. I already felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude to her for having felt moved to help a woman like me for nothing more than a nominal fee. Steve had ‘made his contribution’ – the doctors loved their discreet euphemisms for a teenage boy’s favourite sport – and four embryos had been created in the lab. Before long I would be starting the brutal hormone injections that would run up to the implantation.

On this particular day, I was juggling a pitch on a new account – a US eyewear company who wanted to get into the UK luxury market – with an urgent update on Maple’s economy class branding from the visual team. Jenna had somehow scheduled things so I only had ten minutes between them to scoff a Pret sandwich, my afternoon appointment with Dr Rindell meaning I’d have to leave straight after the internal meeting.

It was yet another reminder that we were out of sync. It was like the Maple pitch – or rather Fred Williamson – was a deadly pesticide, poisoning anything in its path. I needed to restore health. Over my brief lunch break I pulled Jenna into a meeting room, trying to stay authoritative while spraying crumbs from my cheese and ham baguette.

‘The diary just doesn’t work today.’ I paused, confounded by the blank mask that looked back at me from across the oak table. Who had body-snatched my loyal and witty wingwoman? ‘I know it sounds weird, but the trick to being a good assistant is thinking as if you’re your boss.’

‘Okay.’

I couldn’t help but exhale with frustration. Was this all because I’d given her the mildest dressing down of all time after her disastrous performance last week? My twenty-something self would have been savaged and left for dead by Martin and Bridget, but instead I’d used phrases like ‘better synergy’ and ‘staying connected’. I’d hoped she wasn’t a textbook snowflake like Scarlett, who’d recently put her menstrual cycle into Anna’s calendar via some cute little moon emojis so that Anna would have due warning of when she might need a ‘duvet day’. Maybe I’d been wrong about that.

‘Jenna, if this is about last week, I had a responsibility to give you honest feedback.

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