Do You Remember the First Time?

and, without pausing, started to nod and stutter and automatically waved his security pass at the door.
    ‘Are you new?’ he asked finally.
    ‘Work experience,’ I said. ‘I’m hoping to shake up the whole place.’
    ‘OK …’ He looked worried, as if a teenager might be able to do his job better than he could. Which was true, and not just this teenager either.
    ‘I’ll call Margo later, set up a meeting,’ I said, worryingly.
    ‘Um, yes, very busy, but …’
    I peeled off to the left. The door to Mr Dean’s office was open.
    ‘It’s just so disrespectful,’ he was saying to his long-suffering PA, shaking down his jacket. ‘I just don’t understand it.’
    I knocked on the door. ‘I’m sorry … Mr Dean?’
    ‘Yes?’ he said abruptly, trying to hide what he was doing.
    ‘I’m Rachel – John’s new work-experience person in Mergers and Acquisitions.’
    ‘Yes?’
    I looked at the ground. ‘I’m really sorry, sir. I don’t quite know … he sent me up to tell you …’
    ‘Yes? What?’
    ‘That someone’s tipped paint on your car, sir.’
    ‘WHAT!?’
    Dean grabbed his soaking wet jacket and tried to put it on. The material twisted and grabbed onto his neck, and he was a ridiculous sight, trying to force himself into something that clearly wouldn’t go.
    ‘Shit, bugger. What the hell is happening to the world?’ he grumbled, face red and sweaty with exertion. As he struggled, I could smell some familiar BO from his damp shirt. His PA was trying to hide her giggles.
    ‘Sorry,’ I said, leaving, as he half tripped, half ran out of the office. Now the coast was clear.
    My desk was almost exactly the same as I’d left it. No, it was tidier, that was for sure. Instead of a model of Bart Simpson looking annoyed, there was a model of Calvin and Hobbes looking annoyed. The picture of Tashy and Max and me and Olly, on holiday in Italy, had gone, of course, replaced by one of two couples who looked remarkably similar.
    My doppelgänger was looking at her computer screen but, with the skill of long practice, I could tell she wasn’t working. Her hand clicked at her mouse occasionally. Every so often she’d click on something, lean back and look at the screen. That must be her latest spreadsheet. She was probably doing what I’d used to do at work: know what had to be done, but be staring at it in incomprehensibility that she actually had to, good salary or no good salary.
    She let out a quiet sigh. I didn’t have long until Dean came back. I walked up to her desk and stood in front of her.
    ‘Hello?’ she said, not unpleasantly, very quickly switching applications, I noticed. ‘Can I help you?’
    I looked straight at her. ‘You wouldn’t believe me,’ I said, ‘if I told you who I really was.’
    She looked to the side. Fair enough, I did sound completely dopey, and not in a good way.
    ‘I’m a ghost of the future. I’m here to tell you you hate your job and you should go and do something else.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘But I knew you wouldn’t believe that.’
    ‘I don’t hate my—’
    ‘And I’d think very seriously about that boyfriend of yours.’
    ‘I’m sorry, I think … who are you?’
    The politeness of the English when confronted with insanity had emboldened me. ‘I told you,’ I said cheerfully. ‘A warning from your future. Or past, I’m not sure.’
    Her brow lowered.
    ‘Yes, and I’m Johnny Vegas. Can you excuse me, please?’ She turned back to her work. I didn’t move. ‘Or I’ll have to call security.’
    ‘I knew you wouldn’t believe me,’ I said. ‘So I thought the best thing I could do would be to give you a day off.’ And I picked up my specially secreted bottle of Tippex and poured it into the vents on her computer.
    ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she screeched, standing up suddenly.
    But I was away. I’d never done anything even slightly bad before, and the pounding feeling of adrenalin was kicking me into gears I didn’t know I had. At the door, I could see Dean steaming up the stairs looking furious. I couldn’t go out that way – it would have to be the fire exit. And on that note …
    I hit the glass window as hard as I could. Ow! This was why they had tiny hammers, damn it!
    The woman was encroaching on me now, pointing me out to the secretaries, who were shaking their heads. Dean was behind me, his face puce with fury. I found the hammer and banged as hard as I could against the glass.
    ‘DDDDDRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR