.

hadn’t expected that. Not for a second. She didn’t know what to say. Instinctively she wanted to shout But it’s mine!, but his words had her stumbling. He thought she was clueless.

      ‘Think about it, Tiffanie,’ she noted she wasn’t Tiff anymore, ‘you could expand your bookkeeping business, you could keep the days here obviously – that’s two bites of the cherry given I’d have to pay you for that too – and then you could spend Blackie’s money and the rent on other things; shoes or whatever you women spend money on nowadays.’

      Tiff bit her cheek at the reference to Blackie’s money. She supposed every penny she ever spent hereon, anywhere, would be seen as Blackie’s money.

      ‘And no offence,’ he continued, though from experience Tiff knew any sentence beginning with ‘no offence’ was about to cause exactly that, ‘but you can hardly call yourself a poster girl for fitness.’ Tiff instantly looked down at herself. So fitness wasn’t her thing, but she wasn’t massively out of shape. Okay, maybe she was puffed scaling the stairs, but she could still recognise her sixteen-year-old self in the mirror. They might just not have shared clothes for a while.

      ‘Nobody joins gyms run by chubbies. Just saying.’ He said it with a shrug, and his face wasn’t twisted in the malicious sneer such a sentence should be accompanied by. It was his honest opinion. Embarrassed, she wanted to exit the room immediately.

      ‘You really don’t want me to do this, do you?’ she stammered.

      ‘It’s not a matter of want. I don’t think you can. I don’t want Blackie’s hard work and sacrifice wasted, when I can do the job.’

      His words plunged her right in the chest, but not like a sharp implement, rather something wide, blunt and far more devastating.

      ‘You think about it,’ he said, ‘but for the sake of getting on I’ll expect an answer by Friday.’ Tiff could only stare at him speechless. Ron took this as assent. ‘And Tiff,’ he said, more kindly now, like she was a sad child, ‘in the interests of health, safety and corporate image, best stay out of the gym, eh?’

       Chapter 9

      She desperately needed some fresh air. Some non-Ron air. Speeding down the stairs she hoped he wouldn’t spot her – or her chubby form – slinking out of the building in search of somewhere to hide.

      Indoors or out, she’d always seek out a sunspot. Gavin once said she was catlike when she did that. It’d made her feel desirably feline.

      The sun was shining on the side of the building, where Blackie had banished the smokers, refusing to allow their anonymously donated bench to sit at the front of the building. What kind of health message would that send? he’d demanded, before having an ‘In memory of those who smoked here’ plaque screwed to it.

      Dropping onto the seat, Tiff rested her head on the wall behind to stare at the sky. Really this should be simple. Blackie had given her a shot at something. Things were already established in one respect; there was a client base to build on and money coming in. But every time she thought about the plans she’d nagged Blackie with, the task seemed huge. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to touch them with a shitty stick. And maybe Gavin was right about her not being ambitious. She had ideas, but maybe she didn’t have the drive to see them through.

      Was that what Ron was seeing? She’d wanted him onside. Whilst she hadn’t expected to inherit any of this, she hadn’t considered him having his eyes on it. Although maybe he didn’t harbour those ambitions at all – he seemed to think taking it on was his moral duty. He really had no faith in her. That hurt. A lot. Tiff had always given a hundred per cent to her work. She’d assumed Ron had a decent impression of her, when instead it turned out he thought her clumsy, incompetent and fat.

      She’d never considered the nature of hurt and how it could lie in layers. She was so hurt by Gavin’s decision it took her breath away. She had similar pain from ten years before when Mike walked away. It rested in her now like an old wound; prone to playing up in dank weather. Together the two sat heavily in her heart, making it difficult to engage with her normal self. This latest hurt of Ron’s rather changed that. It cast itself on the established layers, churning them up. It made her feel impotent while desperate to escape, rather like those dreams where she ran in terror through immobilising mud. And like those dreams, it was so very lonely.

      She closed her eyes to quell their prickling and inflated her cheeks to deflect the tears. Ron’s words were unfair. She hadn’t done a single thing but he’d already decided she couldn’t do it. And aside from the stinging hurt, what had her wanting to curl up in a ball was simply: what if he was right?

      Since she was a teen, Tiff had worked hard at the things she knew; the numbers and pleasing Gavin. Having precious little self-confidence otherwise, focusing on those things allowed her to curb her self-doubts. Not now though – they all came hurtling back. What had Blackie been thinking giving her the club?