Eve White: Literary Agent

from THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MAN IN THE WORLD

Jo 1992 Jo stared at the name on the piece of paper. Josephine Roberts, mature student. “My mother might have something to say about that,” she told Penny with a grin, underlining the statement with her finger. “She and Great Aunt Grace are always telling me how immature I am - not married, not sure what I want to do, not shackled in any way and almost thirty.” Penny peeked over her shoulder at the letter. “Well, just look how mature you’re being now. Going back to university.” “I’m not going back exactly,” said Jo. “I never went in the first place.” Penny turned to her computer. “So now’s your chance to prove yourself. When do you start?” When indeed, thought Jo, staring out of the window. Not that there was much to see, five stories up in a London office block. The outlook was as grimy and uninspiring as her future had been. But maybe … she put the letter back in her bag and tried to focus on the marketing records in front of her … maybe now was her time. Penny could be right. She was old enough now to have a bit of perspective on her life; old enough, finally, to succumb to some therapy and realise a whole bunch of things about her family life and upbringing and to make something of herself. She switched quietly to a word document, entitled simply ‘Jo’. Her journal. The therapist had recommended that she keep one, and even though she knew that the time she ought to be scribbling in it was first thing in the morning or last thing at night, and really, REALLY (as Craig her therapist would tell her with a mock-stern smile) she should be doing it in her own disgraceful handwriting – well, she was usually far too involved at either end of the day in a drunken haze or hangover, or the guy she’d brought home, to manage that. No. This was best. At the office, because it was only a temporary job anyway, not her life’s work, and because it felt like some distant benefactor was paying for her enlightenment as if she were some Dickensian orphan. Mr Dun or Mr Bradstreet would, she was sure, be delighted to further her development and education. Weren’t they always going on about that kind of garbage in the management team’s Friday morning communiqués with the proletariat? Staff, she reminded herself with a shake. Communism was dead, and she no longer had to attach herself to that cause. She’d have to find a new one soon. Or would she?