"Surely you'll be able to wing it," John said, as I was positioning myself in front of my laptop. "You're always telling me how idiotic those two are. I have every faith in you." He kissed me on the top of my head and closed the kitchen door quietly behind him.
He was probably right. I could just give them a few snippets that made it look like I was involved in some pretty in-depth, ongoing research. It might buy me some time to get the job done properly.
Olivia: Hi Daisy. Ooh, you look lovely. Is that your natural hair colour at the top? I've always liked you in that blue shirt too. I've admired it for years.
Me: Thanks Olivia. Is Antonio joining us this morning?
Olivia: I don't think so. He said he's feeling aaawful.
Me: Oh. Sorry to hear that. I'll text him later to see how he's doing. So it's just us two then?
Yes!!! This could be a lot easier than I thought.
Olivia: Actually ….. oh ….. here she comes (another square popped up with a long, complicated username, which I didn't recognise). Hi Victoria!
Shit!
Victoria: Morning ladies. I've been meaning to join your meetings for weeks but …….. ah, I'm not going to go to the bother of making up an excuse. I'm here now and I have every faith that you'll make it worth my while. Olivia has nagged the living shit out of me to go ahead with a spring launch so I'm assuming that you have pretty impressive plans.
Olivia: Of course, Victoria. Daisy?
Daisy: Pardon?
Olivia: The plans.
Bollocks!
Me: Oh yes, of course. The plans. Well ……as you know, I've been taking care of the research side of things. What does today's woman really want in a high-end, luminating serum and I have to say that the findings are pretty fascinating.
Victoria: Ah, yes …. the findings. I was hoping that you'd have forwarded me a copy of your report, ahead of this meeting.
Me: Oh. Didn't you receive it? I emailed it late last night. Could you have missed it in what I'm sure must be an inbox packed with all sorts of important documents?
Victoria: Not really. We're in Lockdown, Daisy. Yours is the only branch still pushing forward with their projects right now.
Lucky us!
Olivia: Isn't it great? Victoria will be able to focus her full attention on us. All that expertise!
Victoria: Quit blowing smoke up my ass, Olivia. Let's hear what Daisy's got for us, in the absence of the written report.
My arse was sweating.
Me: Well ..…er..... I based my findings on a detailed questionnaire which was widely circulated and a series of in-depth interviews.
Victoria: Yeah yeah. But what did you find?
Me: It very quickly became clear that the current ….. situation was having an impact on women's attitudes to skincare in general. For example …….nine out of ten women …….
Think Daisy. Think.
Me: ……. said that ….. that......
Victoria: Goddamnit!
Me: I'm so sorry Victoria, I …...what's that beeping noise? Where's it coming from?
Victoria: My kid's just set fire to his eggs. Gotta go.
Victoria has a kid???
Olivia: You have a kid? Oh she's gone.
Me: Oh what a shame!
Olivia: Yeah. Sorry, Daisy. You must be soooo disappointed.
Me: I really am.
Olivia: Do you want to run through things with me now, Daisy?
Me: Well ...... I .....
Olivia: Wait. Hold on. Someone's trying to reach me on my phone.
Me: But I have so much to tell you. I've done loads of research, Olivia.
Don't push it, Daisy. There's an art to bullshitting.
Olivia: Sorry, Daisy. It looks urgent. It's my masseur.
Me: Masseur?
Olivia: Yeah. The guy who gives me massages.
Daisy: I know what a masseur is, Olivia, but why.....
Olivia: Oh …… he wants to bring my appointment forward and is asking if he can come over now. Sorry, Daisy. I'm gonna have to cut this short. Let's sort something out for next week, yeah? I totally get that you're probably disappointed but the tension in my neck is just aaawful!
Daisy: I can't believe you're ……. oh! Gone!
It would seem that no one had an attention span of more than five minutes these days, if today's conference call and yesterday's Houseparty were anything to go by. It left me wondering about how everyone could possibly be so bloody busy right now. Still, I couldn't deny that it had certainly benefitted me on this occasion.
"I've put our last bottle of Prosecco in to chill, ready for this evening," I told John, as the family started filtering back into the kitchen on the hunt for biscuits.
"Can I presume that the meeting went well, then? What's the occasion?"
"Well, let's just say I dodged a bullet. Also, it's Friday ……. isn't it?"
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