Dark Avenging Angel by Catherine Cavendish Read Free Book Online Page A

display and classified advertising. I had been trained purely in classified—the advertisements that appeared toward the back of the newspaper. Display covered the generally much larger advertisements appearing among the news and sports sections. This was a world of a totally different set of field-sales representatives with whom, in my previous job, classified had competed. I knew nothing of the technicalities of display and had told Stuart so in the interview.
    “Oh, don’t worry about that, Jane. You’ll soon pick it up.”
    His confidence and flashing, white smile had reassured me then.
    Now, on my first day, the same smile did nothing to raise my spirits as he told me what he’d done.
    “A couple of the sales reps thought your job should have been theirs, so you may have some problems with them. Rick and Steve have been with the paper for a few years and they’re both a bit old-fashioned. They weren’t happy when I told them I’d decided to appoint someone from outside, and they were even less happy when they knew it was a woman.” He laughed.
    I squirmed in my seat. Great. Now I’d have a couple of chauvinists with chips on their shoulders. But worse was to follow.
    “If I’d also told them you had no experience in display advertising, they’d probably have gone ballistic. So I told them you had.”
    “Pardon?”
    “I told them you’d worked in display.”
    My head began to pound. “But I haven’t. I don’t drive yet, so I couldn’t possibly have been a rep.”
    “I know. I told them you were learning to drive and had been office based. You are learning, aren’t you? There’s a company car waiting for you when you pass your test.”
    I nodded. I needed to get myself an instructor. Three lessons in Leeds hadn’t endeared me to life behind the wheel, but the idea of driving a brand-new car appealed to me, along with the independence it would give me.
    “I want you to back me up on this, Jane.”
    I stared at him. No boss had ever expected me to lie for them before. I registered the wall clock behind him. Nine fifteen. I’d been here fifteen minutes and already I was embroiled in a stupid, senseless lie, just to make his life easier. What the hell had I come to? A pang of homesickness for Leeds and the chaotic but familiar Chronicle stabbed me. But Stuart had already moved on.
    “I’ll take you round to meet everyone in a few minutes. Just before we do, though, you’ll have seen already that this is a relatively small office. The administration manager is another Jane. Jane Marshall. That’s going to be confusing.”
    “What is?”
    “You both have the same name.”
    So what? Atthe Yorkshire Chronicle , there had frequently been three or even four Janes. No one, to the best of my knowledge, got confused. Why would they?
    “Jane has been with us ten years now, so I can hardly ask her to change her name, can I? It wouldn’t be fair, so I’d like you to change yours. I thought Fizz might be appropriate.”
    By now, I began to think I’d wandered into a badly scripted farce. “Sorry?”
    “Fizz. You know. Bubbly, lively, effervescent. Gives out all the right signals.”
    I continued to stare at him as a voice screamed inside my head to get out of there.
    “Are you serious?”
    The smile vanished, and for the first time, I saw the other side of Stuart Campbell. “Most definitely. I can’t have two Janes in my department and that’s it. If you don’t like Fizz, then come back to me by nine o’clock tomorrow with another name. But you must change it. Understand?”
    I kept telling myself it was my first day. I had to tread carefully. I’d left Leeds now. If I didn’t make this work, I’d have to go back home to my parents. Besides, what would my father say? He’d never wanted me to go into advertising in the first place.
    At least, now, he’d stopped going on about it. Probably because I was earning almost as much as he was. And I’d got a job that was listed in a national