Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

upset, I realised, I was also quite angry.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ was all I said, my voice trembling a little. I didn’t see much point in explaining. My motives were pretty obvious. I was heading for the door when Olly stepped out in front of me.
    ‘Hang on a sec,’ he said. ‘Could you just wait outside, Cassie? Just for one minute?’
    I went back into the main office. The others stopped munching on their pastries and turned to look at me.
    ‘You are completely insane,’ Melanie said, grinning at me. ‘This is brilliant! I can’t believe you did it. Did you do this all by yourself?’
    ‘I had some help,’ I said.
    ‘What are they going to do?’ Peter asked. ‘Is Rupert throwing a hissy fit?’
    ‘I’ve been sacked,’ I said glumly.
    ‘That’s ridiculous!’ Melanie said, placing her hands on her hips. ‘OK, it was kind of an unorthodox way to go about things, but this place looks great. Plus you can actually find things in the filing system.’ The others nodded enthusiastically.
    ‘Good croissants, by the way,’ Peter said. ‘I think we should make this a Monday morning tradition. We could take it in turns to buy if those tight gits aren’t prepared to shell out …’
    At that moment, Olly opened the office door. Heglared at Peter. I wasn’t sure whether he’d heard the ‘tight gits’ remark, but it looked as though he might have done.
    ‘Would you come back in please, Cassie?’ he asked. I followed him into the office, carrying a latte each for my masters in the hopes that it might appease them.
    ‘You like to do things your own way, don’t you?’ Rupert said, accepting the latte from me. ‘In a way, I rather like that …’
    ‘We wouldn’t like you to take matters into your own hands like this again,’ Olly said, ‘but in this case, we’re going to let it slide …’
    ‘Provided, that is, that this turns out to be a reasonable investment,’ Rupert went on.
    ‘Ah, you see, that’s the beauty of it,’ I said, breathing an enormous inward sigh of relief. ‘This is my gamble. I decided, foolishly perhaps, to take a risk: I thought I would invest in doing an office makeover. If the investors who are coming tomorrow agree to put some money into the business, then I win and Vintage covers the cost – which,’ I said hurriedly, ‘was actually very reasonable. If they decide not to invest, I take the hit.’ Or Ali takes the hit, anyway, at least in the short term.
    ‘Although if the investors sign up tomorrow it will probably have absolutely nothing to do with the way our office looks, Cassie,’ Rupert said.
    ‘True, but at least they won’t be put off from the moment they step into the office,’ I pointed out.
    Rupert harrumphed. Olly started to laugh.
    ‘What’s so funny?’ Rupert asked his brother.
    ‘The look on your face when you got here this morning. It was hilarious.’
    Rupert started to laugh too. ‘For a moment, I thought I was having some sort of episode. It was just such a shock to walk in here expecting to see one thing and finding something completely different.’
    ‘Something better?’ I asked hopefully.
    ‘Much better,’ he agreed. ‘Go on, you go and get on with the post and the invoicing. And put together a statement of what you spent on this place, with the receipts attached.’
    The following day I turned up for work almost more nervous than I had done on Monday. The next round of potential investors were visiting. Unless they gave us the nod, my finances would be taking a major hit. I spent the morning drinking so much coffee that by the time the men in suits were due to arrive I had developed a tremor in my left hand and was having palpitations.
    The men in suits turned out not to be men in suits. Instead there were two preppy thirty-something blokes in jeans and rugby shirts accompanied by a very attractive, slightly older woman in a brightly printed Diane Von Furstenburg wrap dress and sky-high heels. I liked the look of them immediately.
    ‘What a wonderful picture,’ was the first thing the woman said as I showed her into the office. She was looking at Jake’s photo on the opposite wall. ‘Where did you find it?’
    ‘The photographer’s a good friend,’ said Rupert,who had just appeared at my elbow. He winked at me. ‘Would you run out for coffees, Cass?’
    The meeting lasted over an hour. I took this as a good sign – the last one had barely lasted twenty minutes. Eventually, Rupert stuck his head around the door and