Happily Ever After Read Online Free PDF

editorial secretary—I wanted to ask if I could still apply? There wasn’t a closing date.”
    There was a silence, and then the voice spoke again, this time even lower, much closer to the speaker. “The job ad? You saw it? You want to apply ? Oh, thank fuck.” She coughed. “I’m so sorry. I mean, thank goodness.”
    “Thank goodness?” Elle was astonished. This wasn’t the reception she was used to. The last job she’d rung up about, an editorial assistant’s job at an independent publisher in Bristol, the man on the line had said, “Sorry, position’s been filled,” and put the phone down, like a scene from a film about the Great Depression.
    “You don’t understand.” The girl on the other end sighed, and Elle realized she was around her age, despite the huskiness of her Lancashire-tinged voice. “No one’s applied,” she said quietly. “Not a soul. I don’t understand it. And Miss Sassoon keeps checking, and we have to have someone in soon, otherwise she’ll go totally mad—it’s been a week, a week, and nothing! Nothing!”
    “Look,” Elle said. “I think I know why.”
    “Why? Why what?” The voice rose sharply again.
    “Well. The ad’s in the holiday homes section,” she said quickly. “It’s a total fluke I saw it.”
    “The what ?”
    “Holiday homes. Between an ad for a nice cottage in Norfolk and a bungalow in the Lizard.”
    There was a terrible silence, pregnant with meaning.
    “Oh… FUCK,” the voice whispered. “FUCK. She is going to kill me. K.I.L.L.L.L. me. How did I—”
    “I don’t think it’s your fault, is it?” Elle said. “It’s the people who do the ads, they put it in wrongly.”
    “She won’t see it like that. Oh, God, oh, Jesus,” the voice said. “What am I going to do? That’s why. Oh, Jesus. She’s going to ask me tomorrow. Oh, Christ.”
    “Listen here—” Elle said, authoritatively. She nodded to herself. Go for it! “Why don’t you get me in for an interview. Eh?”
    There was another silence. “Yes,” the girl said eventually, breathing out with a long whistle. “OK, can you come in tomorrow, first thing? She’s not got anything on then, neither’s he. And if you’re rubbish, I’ll just confess and we can do it again so we’ve got someone by the time Posy comes back from holiday. ’Cause she said she’d leave if she came back and they hadn’t replaced Hannah… Man alive.” There was a loud thudding sound.
    “What was that?” Elle asked, alarmed.
    “I was banging my head on the desk. Look, if you come in, please don’t tell Miss Sassoon. Please.”
    “Of course I won’t,” said Elle. “Who is she, anyway?”
    “You’ve never heard of Felicity Sassoon?”
    “No, never.”
    “And you want to work in publishing?”
    “Yes,” Elle said. “Oh, I really do.”
    “Well, you’ve got to get this job. So I’m going to help you. Hold on.” There was some rustling on the line. “Just checking everyone’s gone, it’s Rory’s birthday, they’ve gone to the pub. Well, Miss Sassoon’s father set up Bluebird, ages ago. It’s er, something like the last of the old publishers in Bedford Square and she’s really into that, so go on about that, I did and it worked a treat. You’ll be working for her son, Rory. And Posy, who’s another editor. Rory does crime and young trendy fiction, Posy does women’s fiction, sagas, some of Felicity’sauthors.” She stopped. “I mean, I presume you actually want to work with books like that, don’t you? You want to get into publishing? They’ll ask you what you’ve read lately, all that stuff, if you know any Bluebird authors. Have you got something to say?”
    Elle took a deep breath. “Well, I loved Captain Corelli and I’m halfway through Bridget Jones, plus I’m a huge fan of Victoria Bishop and my granny had all of Old Tom’s Devon stories, but I also studied English at university and my favorite author is probably Charlotte Brontë.”
    “Oh, they’ll beat that