Channelling Lizzie Bennet (and Bridget Jones)

The accident was definitely not Lucy’s fault. For one thing, the bad-tempered man in front of her hadn’t been looking where he was going; and for another, it was his coffee and not hers that she was now wearing on the front of the pristine white blouse she had selected for the early morning staff meeting.

“Can’t you look where you’re going?” Mr Grumpy obviously thought it was her fault, not his. No apology. No “I’m sorry - can I pay for you to have that dry cleaned?”

“It was your fault!” she replied spiritedly.

“I hardly think so. I was just leaving with a coffee; you, on the other hand, were so busy texting“ – he imbued the two syllables with the sort of disgust Lucy usually reserved for something she’d stepped in by mistake – “that you walked straight into me.”

“For your information,” she drew herself up to her full five feet two inches and glared angrily at his chest, “I was not texting: I was checking the time. I’ve got an important meeting at 8.30 and I wanted to see if I had time to grab a skinny latte on my way into work. Now, thanks to you, my outfit is ruined and I’ll be late for my meeting because I’ll have to go home and change my top.”

“I suppose it didn’t occur to you to get up earlier to ensure you were punctual?” he enquired, his voice dripping sarcasm. “Or to comb the breakfast debris out of your hair – unless you’re in the habit of going to work disguised as a bird table?”

Lucy groaned inwardly as she glanced down and saw that her shoulder-length curls were liberally sprinkled with toast crumbs. Still, it could be worse. She’d once gone to work with jam in her hair; and since everyone at work had been too polite to mention it, she’d walked around all day oblivious to the red, sticky streaks.

She checked her phone again. No, she wouldn’t have time to go home. She’d have to improvise somehow – maybe take her blouse off and wear the suit jacket buttoned up.

“Three pounds fifty.”

“Pardon?”

“You owe me three fifty for the espresso you spilled,” Professor Rude began, but Lucy didn’t have time to waste telling him exactly what he could do with that suggestion. Turning her back on him, she hurried to her car, hoping that, for once, the traffic would be kind.

The traffic was not kind. Still, at least it was a chance to catch up with her audiobook. Lucy had last read Pride and Prejudice years ago at university when studying for her English degree. (It wasn’t on the syllabus, but she’d seen the film version and thought she should read the book and compare the two.) She was only a few chapters in this second time around, but Lizzie Bennett was already her hero – especially when she came out with the feisty comments Lucy often dreamed of making herself. Lizzie wouldn’t have let Rude Espresso Guy have the last word; then again, even Mr Darcy seemed positively pleasant compared to his coffee shop counterpart.

She was finally there. Rushing into the ground floor ladies’ loo, Lucy pulled off her unbuttoned jacket and sorrowfully inspected her ruined blouse. There was no hope of salvaging it now. She removed it with a sigh and put the jacket back on, realising as she struggled with the buttons that she must have gained weight since buying it. The buttons fastened – but only just. Still, her chest was covered and that was the main thing. Now, if she could just reapply her lipstick and shake away the toast crumbs…

8.36 already. Damn! She’d be late after all.

Once she reached the fourth-floor conference room, Lucy tried to slip in unobtrusively. Unfortunately, the only empty seat was at the other end of the room. She began edging her way towards it, then froze. What was Mr Sarcastic doing here?

“For the benefit of the young lady who has just entered the room…” The voice was as supercilious now as it had been earlier when reprimanding her for texting. “…I was just emphasising how highly I value punctuality.”

She could feel her cheeks burning.

“This is Lucy,” Will broke in. “She’s one of our best copywriters.”

“I hadn’t realised it was a part-time post,” came the sardonic reply. “Or perhaps you work flexi-time, Ms…”

“Bennett,” Lucy muttered. “Lucy Bennett.”

“To bring you up to speed, Ms Bennett, I’m Richard Clarkson, the new CEO of Albany Advertising. And I expect all my staff to be on time for important meetings.”

It was on the tip of Lucy’s tongue to argue that it was his fault she was late, but instead she sat and seethed through forty agonising minutes of spreadsheets and statistics until they reached Any Other Business.

“So, if anyone has anything else to discuss…” Richard began.

“I do!” Krystal’s voice was breathy with anticipation.

Lucy didn’t know Krystal per se – the secretaries didn’t fraternise with the copywriters – but she knew of her by reputation. Krystal’s cubicle was festooned with rainbows and dreamcatchers, and her joss sticks had set off the fire alarm on several occasions.

“As you know,” Krystal began importantly, “I’ve recently been elected as Albany’s Wellbeing Officer, and one of the changes I thought we could all make is Chair Yoga.”

The silence that met this suggestion was deafening.

“If every twenty minutes,” Krystal went on, “we could all stop what we’re doing, close our eyes and perform a few simple stretches, I’m sure we’d all feel much better – and our creativity would increase. If I could just demonstrate…”

To Lucy’s surprise, everyone in the room – including Richard I Never Apologise For Anything Clarkson – seemed willing to join in with Krystal as she led them through a seated routine of bends, twists and stretches. Even more surprisingly, she found herself starting to feel more relaxed.

“Now, normally at this point, I’d tell you all to close your eyes,” Krystal cooed, “But I thought since this is the first time, it would help if you kept them open so you can see what I’m doing. Let’s just finish by releasing all those muscles in the back that feel tense from hunching over a laptop all day. Breathing in while we stretch up, and release; arms stretched wide behind your back and breathing out…”

To her horror, as Lucy flung her arms behind her, the buttons that had been straining to hold her jacket together suddenly popped open, treating the whole room to a view of her bra.

“What, you flashed your boobs at everyone in the conference room?” Katrina could hardly contain her mirth.

“It gets worse,” Lucy told her. “The new boss hauled me into his office for a semi-official warning about not being late and not using my assets to draw attention to myself.”

His words still stung. If you could kindly remember, Ms Bennett, that we are no longer in the 1970s. It might have been okay then to use sex to sell products, but it’s definitely not the way forward in the 21st century.

“He sounds horrendous!” Katrina said with sympathy.

“Mmmm.” Lucy was non-committal. Much as she detested Mr Richard Bloody Clarkson, she couldn’t help drawing a parallel between him and Mr Darcy. They were both rich, both good-looking, and both incredibly ill-mannered.

“RC,” she muttered to herself. Mr RC. Mr Darcy. And she was Lucy Bennett. It was as if she was fated to fall in love with him.

“How’s the office Romeo?” Katrina asked next, referring to Will. (Lucy often spent their weekly sessions in the wine bar moaning about her co-worker’s tendency to be a little too friendly.)

Lucy grimaced. “Will’s a nice guy but he’s just so flirty all the time.” Was he her Willoughby? “He might be the sort of guy who sleeps with you on the first date and then doesn’t ring you afterwards.”

“A bit like Daniel Cleaver, then?” When Lucy looked blank, Katrina continued, “You know, Bridget Jones. Colin Firth was the lawyer she ended up with – Mark Darcy – the one who was really rude and grumpy, like your boss; and Hugh Grant was the sexy guy who kept flirting with her at work.”

Mr Darcy again. This was all too much of a coincidence to be just a coincidence.

“Wasn’t Bridget Jones based on Pride and Prejudice?” she asked, keeping her voice as casual as she could.

Katrina looked thoughtful. “Maybe. I never made the connection before. Mark Darcy. Mr Darcy. I can’t believe I didn’t see it.”

Later that night, Lucy lay in bed, unable to sleep as her mind replayed not only the conversation with Katrina but every interaction that had taken place between herself and Richard Clarkson. Her life was definitely imitating art, but was she Lizzie Bennett or Bridget Jones?

“Do you sometimes feel like your life’s a novel?” she asked Mandy from Accounts as they browsed the sandwiches in the nearby Marks and Spencer’s the following day.

“I don’t really read much,” Mandy confessed.

“I bet I know what kind of novel your life would be, Lucy,” broke in Will’s voice behind them. Grabbing the last hoisin duck wrap, he continued, “A bodice ripper!”

If Will was supposed to represent the distraction the heroine experiences before she realises she’s in love with the hero, then he wasn’t doing a very good job of it, Lucy thought crossly. Instead of charming her with his words, he was effectively pushing her away.

“It’s not a romcom: it’s a disaster movie,” she muttered to no one in particular. Then, as the thought struck her, she addressed Will. “And you don’t even belong in Pride and Prejudice: that was Wickham, not Willoughby. Willoughby’s in Sense and Sensibility.”

Same plot; different titles.

“I have no idea what you’re on about,” Will complained.

She shot him a withering look. “Jane Austen. Although you probably don’t read anything more challenging than Batman comics.”

“Aren’t Jane Austen novels like Bridgerton without the sexy stuff?”

He seemed genuinely interested, but Lucy didn’t have time to waste on minor characters. Swiping her card at the self-service till, she paid for her egg salad and retreated to the park.

As her week continued, Richard Clarkson became grumpier and grumpier and Lucy’s life became more and more embarrassing. She’d thought nothing could top the boob-flashing incident on Monday, but on Tuesday, her heel wedged itself in a grating just as she was returning to work after lunch, and she was forced to leave it where it was and attempt a half-hobble, half-hop to the car park where she’d left her Nissan Micra so she could collect her spare pair of ‘driving shoes’. On Wednesday, she and Will presented their ad campaign proposal to a prospective client. At least, Will presented the campaign; Lucy presented the client with a view of her underwear.

“Twice in one week!” Katrina gasped when Lucy rang her that evening to tell her the sordid tale. Then, “At least it was just a client and not the whole workforce you flashed this time.”

This was small comfort to Lucy who’d been mortified to discover her skirt tucked into her knickers once the presentation was over. What was worse, they were the Minnie Mouse knickers Katrina had given her as a jokey present one Christmas – knickers she only ever wore if she’d run out of clean underwear. She vowed then never to put off doing laundry ever again.

“Richard Clarkson was there too,” she said in a small voice. Could he fire her for something like that? The client hadn’t terminated the contract, but he hadn’t liked Will and Lucy’s ideas enough to sign on the dotted line either.

“Didn’t he or Will let you know what was going on?”

Lucy winced. Will had tried to signal to her, but she’d assumed he was telling her to speed up a little. In reply, she’d tapped her watch to show him they had loads of time. And when Richard had asked her icily if she needed to adjust anything, she’d thought he was referring to the font size on the power point.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I won’t be going to Zumba tomorrow because Will and I are going to be working late. We’ve got to put together a better ad campaign for the insurance company I inadvertently traumatised today.”

“Are you sure ‘working late’ isn’t a euphemism for something else?” Katrina teased.

“I told you before, Will’s just a work colleague.” And besides, Mr RC was her destiny.

“So,” Will chewed the end of his pencil and looked at Lucy thoughtfully, “they weren’t impressed with that idea of yours to have jungle animals buying car insurance…”

It hadn’t been one of her best ideas. Lucy was currently too preoccupied with juggling her conflicting feelings for Richard Clarkson to concentrate fully on the ad campaign for IWL.

“What does IWL stand for?” she asked, wondering if that would inspire her.

“I want lemons,” Will said with a grin.

“Seriously.”

“You mean you didn’t Google them?” He sounded incredulous.

She shook her head guiltily.

“Irish Widows League – although they’re always known by their initials. Probably so people don’t get them confused with Scottish Widows.”

Why was he babbling? Will was normally so confident.

“Irish Widows,” she repeated. An idea was sure to emerge soon.

Only it didn’t. Three hours later, all she and Will had come up with was a list of crossed out ideas for billboard posters and an almost-finished game of hangman.

“That’s a pretty accurate description of how I feel at the moment,” Lucy said despondently, gesturing at the stick man at the end of the noose. “This week’s been a complete car crash from beginning to end.”

Will stopped doodling on his disposable coffee cup and looked at her. “You know, you might be onto something there. What was it you said the other day in M and S about your life being a disaster movie?”

His eyes shone with excitement and she found herself feeling uplifted too. She thought she knew where he was heading.

“I said my life sometimes feels like a disaster movie,” she said slowly. A pause. “So that’s what our tagline will be. And we’ll show clips of the Titanic sinking, and a building collapsing in flames like The Towering Inferno, and…”

“And then we show the IWL logo and the strapline will be, ‘Don’t let your life be a disaster movie. Buy our insurance and every day will suddenly feel epic’,” Will cut in. “And then we show a montage of a few instantly recognisable film clips, like Ben Hur winning the chariot race, and…”

“And the guy escaping from prison in The Shawshank Redemption, and…”

“And the end of The Lord of the Rings where Aragorn gets crowned king and marries Arwen...” He broke off as Lucy looked at him quizzically. “What? Just because I’m a guy doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a happy ending.”

When he let his defences down, Will was actually quite sweet; and if she hadn’t been waiting for Mr Darcy, she could have found herself falling for him.

“Well done, Will.” Richard seemed quite jovial now that IWL had expressed approval for the new ad campaign.

What about me? Lucy wanted to yell. There were two of us doing that presentation just now.

“It was mostly Lucy’s idea,” Will said. He paused. “I know she comes across as a bit ditzy sometimes, but that’s because she’s a creative genius.” He flashed Lucy a completely non-flirtatious smile.

“I see.” Richard was gathering his papers together. “Well, based on your performance this morning, I was going to offer you a salary rise, but you’ve just convinced me that would be a mistake.” He started to leave, then turned back and addressed Lucy. “The whole staff meeting will be at eight thirty am on Monday. Make sure you’re punctual.” And then he swept out.

“Lucy? Are you okay?”

She wasn’t okay. She was fed up to the back teeth with Mr Condescending Clarkson. But hadn’t Lizzie Bennett felt that way about Mr Darcy? And that had worked out in the end.

“Can I give you a hug?”

Will’s arms around her were oddly comforting. She nestled into him and wondered why her heart was beating so rapidly. This was Will. He was a plot complication, not the happy ending.

“I’m getting fed up waiting for the last chapter,” she said.

“The last chapter of what?”

She did her best to explain it to him. “The final chapter in a Jane Austen novel is when the people who are destined to be together finally get to be together. Lizzie Bennett and Mr Darcy. Emma Woodhouse and Mr Knightley.”

“Fanny Price and Edmund Bertram,” Will interrupted her. “Yes, I’ve read Mansfield Park. I’ve read all the Austens. I’ve got a degree in English Lit and Russian.”

Lucy gazed at him in amazement.

“So, isn’t the last chapter the one where they get to kiss?” he asked next.

She nodded.

“And would you like the last chapter to start now?”

“But Richard isn’t here,” she said foolishly.

“What’s he got to do with it.” He released her suddenly.

“He’s Mr RC – like Mr Darcy. And I’m Lucy Bennett, so I thought…” She suddenly realised how mad she must sound.

“He’s not Mr RC,” Will told her. “He’s HRC – Henry Richard Clarkson. It’s how he signs all his emails.”

Not Mr RC after all.

“Perhaps you’d better kiss me,” she said in a small voice.

And then she forgot all about Richard Clarkson.

“Lucy,” he said about ten minutes later. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you.”

“Go on.” It was a little soon for the L-word, but this was real life and not an Austen novel.

“You’ve got a Dorito in your cleavage,” he murmured.

And she knew it didn’t matter to either of them.