Gray Quinn's Baby(6)

And a suspender-belt and stockings were fun …

Having dressed, she slipped on her stiletto heels and immediately felt  different. She walked differently too. She tried a few steps up and down  the bedroom and found herself sashaying like a famous actress in a hot  sixties television programme. She smiled, thinking her actress friend  had been right. The shoes and the clothes were like a costume that put  her right back in the era, and that was fun.                       
       
           



       

It was even more fun when she started on the make-up-pale foundation and  big, smoky eyes outlined so that they appeared even larger. And some  Un-lipstick, as it was called, in Shiver Shiver pink.

She certainly shivered as she tasted it. What would Quinn make of that?

Not that he would ever get a chance to find out, Magenta told herself  firmly. This was all about dressing up and fantasy. Pressing her lips  together, she blotted them in the manner prescribed on the pack and then  applied a second coat.

Not bad.

She was ready.

Ready for pretty much anything, Magenta decided as she checked her appearance one last time in the mirror.

She waited for Tess's call and when it came she travelled to the office  by taxi to find all the lights were out. Just as Tess had promised,  there was no sign of Quinn-exactly what she wanted. Well, it would be,  once she had stifled her disappointment. All that effort put into  grooming for nothing.

At least she could concentrate on work, Magenta told herself firmly.  This was a great opportunity to put the finishing touches to the  campaign. Having set out her papers on the large desk in her office, she  slipped the lock on the door, feeling safer that way in an empty  building. She'd make some coffee later to keep herself awake.

She was halfway through drafting a strap line for a sixties hairpiece  when she had to stop. She could hardly keep her eyes open and just  couldn't get it right: the hair fashion that goes on when you go out …

And drops off when you least expect it to?

Magenta examined the yard-long ponytail made out of synthetic hair and  tossed it aside. Some of the products being used to inject fun into the  campaign were odd, but this was downright ugly. Surely no  self-respecting woman would want to wear a hair-tugger on top of her  head that weighed a ton, looked gross and at a guess took a whole card  of hair grips to hold in place? If you weren't bald when you started  your evening out, you certainly would be by the end of it.

And yet it was a genuine sixties product, Magenta mused, leaning her  cheek against her folded arms as she stared at the unappealing hairpiece  and waiting for inspiration to strike. She'd been so enthusiastic up to  now, seeing only the good, the fun and the innovation of the sixties.  But, realistically, how many other things about that time would have got  right up her nose?



'Magenta … Magenta! Wake up!'

'What's wrong?' Magenta started with alarm as someone grabbed hold of  her arm and shook her awake. Well dressed in sixties style, the girl  looked smart and bright-and totally unfamiliar. Magenta felt like she  had the hangover from hell-and, not having had a drop to drink, that was  a serious concern. 'How long have I been asleep?' Her neck suddenly  didn't seem strong enough to lift her ridiculously heavy head from the  desk.

'Magenta, you have to get out of here now.'

'Why? Is there a fire?'

'Worse-Quinn,' the girl explained with what sounded like panic in her voice. 'He mustn't find you here.'

'Why not?' Magenta stared in bewilderment around her office, which  seemed to have been cleared of all her creature comforts while she'd  been asleep. But it wasn't just the flowers, the coffee machine, the  bottles of water or the family photographs that were missing. 'Hey,  where's my laptop?' she said, shooting up. 'Has there been a robbery?'

'Magenta, I don't know what you're talking about, but I do know you have to get out of here now.'

'All right, all right!' Magenta exclaimed as the girl took her by the  arm and physically dragged her towards the door. 'I'm sure I locked this  door last night.'

'I used my key.' The girl shook a spare set in her face.

'What's the rush? I'll need my mobile phone, and where's my tote, my  handbag, my briefcase?' Magenta demanded, glancing back at the vastly  changed room.

'No more questions,' her new friend hissed frantically, tugging at  Magenta's arm. 'We don't have time. Quinn will be here any minute.'

A multitude of thoughts and impressions were slowly percolating through  Magenta's sluggish brain. This was a new girl, possibly someone Quinn  had brought in. She seemed nice, though, confusingly, she seemed to know  Magenta when Magenta was certain they had never met before. 'Did Quinn  get my list?' she said, clinging on to priorities while her brain sorted  itself out.

'What list? You didn't give me a list.'

'No, that's right-I gave it to Tess.'

'Tess?'

This girl didn't know Tess? 'Sorry, uh … '                       
       
           



       

'Nancy,' the girl supplied, looking at her with real concern. 'Magenta, are you sure you're okay?'

'Yes, I'm fine.' This was growing stranger by the minute; if she hadn't  felt so heavy-headed she would have been faster off the mark. 'I gave a  list of the list of things Quinn should implement immediately to one of  the girls in the office.'

Nancy huffed. 'If you had given me a list like that, I would have seriously lost it on purpose.'

'Has Quinn been bullying you?' She forgot her own confusion; bullying in  the office was one thing she wouldn't stand, and Magenta's concerns  soared when Nancy refused to answer almost as if she was frightened of  being overheard. 'Well, no one's going to bully you while I'm  around-especially not Quinn.'

Nancy hummed and started tugging on Magenta's arm again. 'I'm not joking, Magenta, we have to get out of here.'

'But where do you want me to go?' This had been Magenta's office  since-well, she could hardly remember; it had been hers for so long now.

'You work in the typing pool, remember?' Nancy told her urgently, poking her head out of the door to check the coast was clear.

'The typing pool?' Magenta laughed. 'Is this some joke of Quinn's to get us all in the right mood for the sixties campaign?'

Nancy gave her a funny look.

'To be more accurate, you used to work in the typing pool,' she finally  replied, nudging Magenta towards the door. 'The guy who ran the place  before hotshot Quinn arrived from the States took his office manager  with him, so Quinn promoted you.'

'Why didn't Quinn text me? And what's this?' Magenta demanded as Nancy  bundled her towards a mean little desk set to one side of her office  door-a door she now noticed with outrage that already bore the legend,  'Gray Quinn'.

'This is your desk now, Magenta,' Nancy explained. 'It's a great improvement to the typing pool, don't you think?'

'Do you want to hear what I think? No. I didn't think so,' Magenta  agreed as Nancy shook her head. 'I don't know what's happening around  here, but this isn't my desk-and Quinn definitely can't take over my  office.'

'But, Magenta, you used to work in the typing pool-you've never had your  own office,' Nancy insisted, looking increasingly concerned about  Magenta's state of mind. 'Don't you remember anything?'

Magenta swept a hand across her eyes as if hoping everything would  change back again by the time she opened them again. But, to make things  worse, people she didn't even know were staring at her as if she was  the one who was mad.

But how could this have happened? She gazed around and felt her anger  rising. Quinn had to be some sort of monumental chauvinist; men occupied  all the private offices while the women had been relegated to  old-fashioned typewriters-either in the typing pool, where they sat in  rows behind a partition as if they were at school, or at similar desks  to this one outside the office doors. Ready to do their master's  bidding, Magenta presumed angrily. She remembered her father telling her  how it used to be for the majority of female office workers in the  sixties. 'Why are all the girls typing?' she asked Nancy in a heated  whisper.

'It's their job!' Nancy said, frowning.

'But why aren't they working on the campaign?' Magenta noticed now that  many of the women, some of whose faces were adorned with heavy-framed,  upswept spectacles, were pretending not to look at her.

'What campaign?' Nancy queried, stepping back as a keen teen brushed passed her.

'Wow, Magenta, you look really choice!'

'I do?' Magenta spun on her heels as the young man she had never seen  before gave her a rather too comprehensive once-over. 'Why, thank you … ?'

'Jackson,' Nancy supplied, having cottoned on to the fact that Magenta needed all the help she could get.

'Jackson.' Magenta raised a brow. 'Stop staring at your Auntie Magenta and go find yourself a girlfriend.'

Jackson laughed as if Magenta could always be relied upon to say something funny. 'You're a gas, baby.'