My Magazine Ch. 11

David resumed the meeting looking rather displeased.

"I must say I was disappointed with you lot. Jenni obviously has become something of a fire ball; I guess it's symptomatic of an inflated ego."

"Ron - you only spoke once and just when I thought you were backing me, you backed right off. That's not good, Ron.

"Sharon - you shocked me. I have always been confident of your support and dedication at being a team player. Yet as soon as Jenni wiggles those long eye-lashes of hers at you, off you fly to her like a moth to a candle."

"But ..."

"No, Sharon. Please let me finish.

"Charles, as a fully-fledged lawyer who was admitted to the bar, special qualification in mediation if I remember correctly, and have been to several conferences at our expenses on business law, you sat there and let little Jenni savage you. You who are what, six feet tall?"

"Six one, actually, but ..."

"Tut, I would have preferred you hitting back at Jenni, rather than me.

"Well, this is been a valuable lesson to us all. I've bought Jenni back into the fold for the company to prosper from her and her magazine and to benefit from this new drive of hers. The downside appears to be that we may be the unwilling victims of this aggression of hers if we annoy her or stand in her way. Well, I can live with that and it may well help to sharpen up you lot. Now, what have you to say for yourselves? Make it snappy, as I have loads of work awaiting me."

Ron suggested ladies first, so Sharon accepted.

"David - it's just that she's so inspirational. Just look what she's done. When we folded her magazine, she was virtually dead on the water at her age. Virtually unemployable and we turned away from her. Now look at her - one the most powerful woman in media today. You have my support David as you are my employer, but expect sometimes that I shall sidle with Jenni if she'd standing up against you and I believe she's right."

"Ron?"

"As you know, she's an old pal from way back. I'll back her to the hilt as far as I can but always my first loyalty will be to the company rather than any one person. Not even you David are bigger than the company."

"You sound as if you have been coached by my father Ron."

"Charles?"

"She's difficult David; very difficult. But now that I have seen her in action I know what to expect and will adjust tactics accordingly. I'm comfortable."

"Well then, let's all pull together to ensure we emerge as a strong team. As dad would say, it never hurts to have one maverick on board, but only one."

After Jennie signed her terms of employment detailing her job responsibilities in Charles' office early that same evening he confessed that he'd buckled under her assault and that David was displeased with him.

She told him not to worry, that nobody wins every confrontation.

"It's just that I'd considered my tactics in going against you to get you out of the hair of my editorial people Charles. You just never gave me a thought. It's simply a tactical victory to me - one to nil. It may be your turn for a win if there is a next time."

She went home to an empty apartment, for the first time in several weeks, as Rhonda had decided she needed some male company and had gone for dinner in the city with two girlfriends and then they would go clubbing to see what eventuated.

Jenni had imagined that she'd like a return to being alone in her sanctuary. But it was not like that - Rhonda was missing. She thought that the last time she'd experienced such a strong feeling of loneliness was during her fling with Bruce - a Canadian journalist visiting on a newspaper reporter work experience exchange. That was almost two years ago; he was a young married man, and was a little homesick. They had met at Press Club. She took him home for late dinner and the next day he moved out of his flat and into hers - a stay that lasted for three glorious weeks.

She sniffed as she did the chores that Rhonda had insisted in doing for her. She folded their clothes off the drying rack and put on a new load of washing. Tying up the green rubbish bag she put in out on to the kerbside and cleared the letter box of bills and an invitation to hear the Rev. B. Summers talk at the nearby church hall on Thursday at 7:30 about his recent visit to Aboriginal settlements in the Northern Territory of Australia. Oh dear, yawned Jenni.

She then wiped the fridge and finding a piece of leftover roast several days old took that out to the green rubbish bag on the street. Old Mr Savage in the house opposite was attending to shrubs behind his front fence, although it was news time on television.

"I've had a tiring day," he called. "We have been bottling fruit."

"What a lovely homely thing to do," Jenni said.

"Huh? You try peeling skins and being told you're doing it the wrong way and not packing the bottles right."

"Oh dear," Jenni said. "It's tough living in London, isn't it."

"Too damn right," snorted Mr Savage. "I should have been a farmer."

"Henry," called Mrs Savage from the lounge window. "Get your arse into gear and stop gossiping to strange women. They're be announcing the new English football team in less than five minutes."

The strange gossiping woman called Jenni Giles sauntered back into her ground floor apartment, accepting that life was certainly a challenge.

Back inside she looked up a number and called it.

"Hullo, Nick. It's Jenni, Jenni Giles."

"Who?"

"You know the journalist that you used to hump."

"I'm struggling to remember; there have been three journalists."

"Well I would have been the best of them?"

"Are you sure about that?"

"Don't be a clown Nick. You know very well who Jenni Giles is. I noticed in the paper that Adele has left for Scotland as manager of the Southern Countries Junior Women's Golf Team. On Sunday I need a guy to accompany me to Jersey to a social event. You'll drink thirty quid a bottle wine with me, eat really thick juicy steaks and simply be required to be exceedingly nice to the other guests and our hosts, with no fisticuffs and no groping."

Nick laughed and said then there would not be much fun in going.

"But surely intelligent conversation is better than fighting and massaging strange breasts and butts?"

"No way."

"Oh really. Then would you accept intelligent conversation is almost as good?"

"No baby but great food and wine comes pretty close to tops with them."

"Right and then you'll come?"

"What all over you and at the table?"

"Nick! I meant would you accompany me?"

"I was only teasing, pulling your cord so to speak. Yes Jenni I'll help you out by being the guy at your side."

"That's great Nick and if you are a good boy you might get your reward. I'll call you on Saturday as a reminder and what time I'll pick you up."

Nicolas Duckworth was the first guy Jenni had dated in London. He was a friend of Garth's; they had been a university together and Nick ran one of his father's debt collection agencies. Followed his father's example he'd been married and divorced twice by the time he was twenty-eight.

Then he met Adele and they married in a private ceremony on the afternoon of Nick's latest divorce coming through. Jenni and Nick's father and two of Adele's friends were the only others in the wedding party. Adele's parents who lived in Canada were so shocked she was marrying so soon after her divorce that they refused to attend.

Since that time Jenni had occasionally bumped into Nick and the times he was without Adele then sometimes had sex - Nick was a very persuasive person. Occasionally Jenni roped him in as a partner to functions when Adele was away on golf trips or he pretended she was.

On this occasion Jennie had called three married men that sometimes accompanied her to functions but none were free on Sunday. She called Nick about this Sunday function, really as a last resort.

Jenni and Nick didn't regard their promiscuous behaviour as truly adulterous. It was mutually convenient to think of it as bordering on acceptable behaviour between very good friends. But they were so discreet that Adele and her friends remained unaware of Jenni and Nick's little interludes and while Jenni had little reason to conceal Nick's existence from most of her friends she made sure she kept Snowy out of the picture; he and Nick were almost bonded like brothers.

Jenni was single and it would seem logical for her to be partnered by single men. But Jenni was Jenni, having worked out the best solution was to be partnered by married men. They had a life and partners to go home to, not complicating her life. Single men around her age tended to be misfits of some sort - dedicated to work, sport, loneliness, consolidating their belief that they were losers or simply trying to bed anything that wore a skirt and still breathed.

After dragging a commitment from Nick about Sunday on Jersey Island she went to bed with a book, thinking what a simple way to enjoy a good night. When finding her place in the novel, she thought of poor Mr Savage across the road. After watching the football team selection announcement on TV, Mrs Savage, would have stomped her way into the kitchen and then shrieked, "Oh, no!"

Mr Savage would have come shuffling in at a slow canter, wondering if he was in good enough shape to deal with a schoolboy burglar. But there she would be, pointing an accusing finger at a bottle of preserves, yelling, "A piece of fruit is the wrong way up!"

Mr Savage, thought Jenni wriggling down to a more comfortable position, should have been a bachelor farmer and gone to bed with a good book.

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