Free Marshmallows for Breakfast by Dorothy Koomson Page B

work. I wanted to walk out at the end of the day and not worry about it until I walked into the office the next morning.
    “Fine,” the woman said. “Do it for six months, If something better comes along I'll let you leave with a week's notice, no questions asked.” Erm…
    “The pay is better than temping, plus you get benefits. And bonuses if you get us more clients.” She was talking in a language and using words that didn't interest me. I wanted less commitment, not more of it. I wanted to be free, not shackle myself.
    The black phone on the desk beside us started ringing and automatically my hand reached for it. “Don't touch that phone unless you mean it,” the woman warned. Don't tell me I can have something if you're going to snatch it away, her look said. I can't handle it.
    It was the look on her face. The desperation. The desolation. Years later, I realized it was something else as well. It was the quiet torment buried in her clear blue eyes—I'd seen it several times before when I'd looked more than fleetingly in the mirror.
    She raised her eyebrows questioningly at me and I picked up the receiver, effectively sealing my fate. Without even telling the woman my name, or finding out what her name was, I'd got myself a job. While I was on the phone I heard the woman tell the others the position had recently been filled—the candidate in question demonstrated an impressive amount of initiative.
    Something better hadn't come along. Not in six and a bit years. Not until I decided I needed to move to Australia.

    Gabrielle was always the first in.
    In all the years I'd worked with her, no matter how hard I tried, nor how early I arrived at the other office we'd worked in, every morning she'd be there, behind her desk, cup of coffee half drunk, croissant crumbs on a grease-soaked paper bag, typing away. I was yet to disprove the theory that she actually slept in the office.
    She'd once told me that she was a compulsive early starter. In the way some people are always late, she couldn't help herself being early. I must have just caught her arriving because she was in the process of uncapping her cup of coffee.
    “Blimey,” she said, her hands paused on the top of the white plastic lid, while her eyes went to the clock on the wall above the candidate waiting area. “Thought it was just me who couldn't stay in bed in the mornings.”
    “I'm trying to catch you out,” I joked. “And I wanted to make up for yesterday.”
    “Emergency all sorted?” she asked as she watched me shed my coat and unwrap my multicolored scarf.
    “As far as it can be,” I said. I didn't want to tell her everything, but I had to talk to someone, had to share my concerns. “My landlord's two kids were worried because they couldn't wake up their dad. And they were so scared that I couldn't leave them on their own. Not even when we knew he was OK.”
    “Where's the mother?”
    “America, apparently. Although she might be back, I don't know. Not at home, basically, which is why the kids came to get me.”
    “Is he hot?”
    “Who?”
    “The flaky father.”
    I shrugged. “I don't know, I guess. Haven't really thoughtabout it. So much has happened since I met him and we aren't exactly on the best of terms. That taints how you see someone.”
    “I'll take that as a yes.”
    “Take it how you want, sweetheart. I'm more worried about his children.”
    “What, he's abusing them?” Gabrielle asked, concerned.
    “No. No.” The two crescent shapes carved out in the bottles of alcohol flashed through my mind. “Nothing like that. He's being, like you said, flaky. They're going through a divorce, he's struggling. I'm just being a bit dramatic. It's fine.”
    The words sounded hollow in my ears. It wasn't fine. It was far from fine. But if I said it enough times, I might just start to believe it.
    Knowing when to leave well enough alone, Gabrielle listened to my too-many reassurances and then smartly changed the subject. “So, how