Perfect Strangers by Tasmina Perry

Author:Tasmina Perry [Perry, Tasmina]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Fiction, General, Contemporary Women
ISBN: 9780755358489
Publisher: Review
Published: 2012-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

25

It hadn’t been a productive day at the Washington Tribune’s London bureau. Ruth rubbed her eyes and gave her piece one last read before submitting it. Looking radiant in a scarlet Issa dress, Kate held her husband’s hand and waved to the small crowd . . . She smiled ruefully; a story on the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visiting the American Embassy for a tea party wasn’t exactly Watergate, was it? Normally Ruth would have passed something like this on to Jim’s PA Rebecca – she seemed to love these kind of assignments – but as Rebecca had called in sick with a bout of menstrual cramps, Ruth had been forced to bite the bullet. Jim wanted 750 upbeat, smiley words about the royals meeting the ambassador, and Ruth needed to keep him sweet while she worked on the Riverton murder.

Clicking the ‘send’ button on her computer, she pulled out her earplugs, sat back in her chair and took a swig of her coffee. Eww – stone cold. She desperately needed a caffeine hit if she was going to make it to the end of the day; she’d been pulling too many late nights recently.

‘Hey, Chuck,’ she said, waving her paper cup at her colleague across the office. ‘Any chance of doing a coffee run?’

Chuck smiled and held up his own cup.

‘I went ten minutes ago,’ he said. ‘I did ask, but you had your headphones on and I didn’t want to disturb the master at work.’

Dammit. She dropped her coffee cup into the trash bin and looked across to Jim’s office; the lights were off. Chuck was right, Ruth had been ‘in the zone’, bent over her computer writing her royals story for the last hour – she hadn’t even noticed the bureau chief leave.

‘Where’s the boss man got to?’ she asked Chuck.

‘Pub, round of golf, shopping for shoes? Who knows – he never shares his plans with me.’

Ruth laughed. She liked Chuck. He was far too much of a company man to ever question Jim in an editorial meeting, but get him on his own and he could be sarcastic and funny.

‘Maybe he’s gone to help Rebecca with her women’s problems,’ he said with a knowing smile.

‘My money’s on that one,’ said Ruth playfully. Perhaps it wasn’t strictly professional to gossip about your boss behind his back, but it made the working day a little more fun. Jim’s relationship with his PA had been a running joke between the rest of the staff. It was pure speculation, and especially considering they were all hard news journalists, no one had a shred of evidence to back it up, but the two of them did seem particularly pally. Anyway, if it was true, Ruth could certainly have understood it. It was an occupational hazard of being a foreign correspondent that it was difficult to maintain relationships. There was a high turnover of staff and the particular stresses of the job tended to mean you were either absent, overworked or both; not ideal traits in a potential Mr or Miss Right – she knew that from personal experience.

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