I tutted. "It could be a man. You know I only care about talent."
"Excuse me," said someone behind Sandra. Sandra stepped aside and the new character came into the little room. She was lean, in her very early twenties, a few inches taller than Sandra, and was wearing a plain white blouse under a dark blue jacket. Smart and professional, but nothing like the supermodel Sandra had been picturing. This woman could have been one of the up-and-coming captains of industry who were up in the sponsor's boxes. Her accent was slightly German. She held a bottle of wine so that I could see the label. "Is this the one?"
"Yes, perfect," I said, but my smile turned to a frown. "Did you bring a corkscrew?"
"You didn't tell me I would need to bring a corkscrew."
"I don't tell you to breathe or give me disdainful looks but you manage all the same."
She reached into a pocket and pulled out a Swiss army knife. She flipped out the corkscrew attachment, plunged it into the top of the bottle, and wrenched out the cork. "Happy now?"
I made a show of peering at the table. "Would you pour me a glass?"
She realised her mistake and inhaled, but instead of apologising, she said, "You seem the sort who would drink from the bottle." She put it down on the table. "Yes, fine. I will fetch a glass. I love fetch quests."
"Hang on," said Sandra, who had been watching in a state of amazement. "This is your PA? You're his assistant? What... What's your name?"
The woman glared at me for a second. "Briggy."
"Briggy!" said Sandra. "That will be confusing." At the end of my first season in the football industry, I had been attacked outside the stadium. As a result, we had employed an army veteran I had nicknamed 'the Brig'. He had started as my bodyguard but once he had found my assailant, he had moved into other roles. Sandra said, "And what's your background?"
"I have a Master's in Risk Management," said Briggy.
"What! So you're smarter than Max. You're not who I would have expected him to hire."
Briggy gave me another glance. "Something tells me everyone he hires is smarter than him."
I laughed again but Sandra actually gasped. "Hey! Don't talk about him like that!"
"It's okay, Sandra," I said. "Briggy's trying to get fired."
"Fired? She just started."
"She thinks this assignment is a punishment. She doesn't like England, doesn't like rain, and certainly doesn't like football. She has realised that we're going to be spending most of our time at football stadiums. It's fine, Sandra, honestly." I looked at Briggy. "I will need that glass, though."
"Who's it for?" said Sandra. She knew I wouldn't drink after a match in which I'd played unless I was incredibly depressed.
"TJ. I would ask you to join us but you've got the lurgy, so..."
Sandra wouldn't have wanted to sit and discuss the match with the renowned playboy. She caught Briggy by the arm as the latter tried to pass. "Max might think it's funny that his PA is rude to him but I don't. Correct your attitude or this entire city will correct it for you, one slap at a time." They shot daggers at each other until Sandra let go and strode off.
Briggy glared at her back until she was out of sight. The German turned towards me and her lips turned up at the edges. "Maybe this gig won't be so bad."
***
There was a knock at the door. I partially closed the laptop, but stopped when I saw it was TJ. "Come in, bro. Take a seat."
TJ's first name was Timo but his surname was unpronounceable so we used his initials. His natural good looks were augmented by two auras. First, he was a really good football player. He didn't play in matches any more, but he ran Crawley's training sessions and kept in shape. Second, he was a football manager.
My fiancée, Emma, had pretty good taste in men, I reckoned. She liked faces with a bit of character, didn't mind a scar, loved a twinkly eye and a cheeky grin. She wouldn't look twice at a dour Scottish man if he was at the next table in a restaurant, but put the same man in the same suit and stand him in the technical area of a football pitch and she would just melt. That effect was a curse of its own, though. Being a football manager made you more attractive, but it ate you alive, turned you into a husk.
"You're looking great," I said, because sometimes it's better to be polite than honest. Briggy came back and put a wine glass on the table. She looked from TJ to me to the door. "You should stay," I said, as I poured. "You need to learn what I do. You don't need to become an expert in football but you do need to know enough to appreciate how cool what I do is." She closed the door, unfolded the crappy third chair, and sat. "TJ, this is Briggy. She's my new PA and she's great. Her agency think she's a prodigy and that's why I picked her. How can being someone's first pick be a punishment? It can't. She's smart and she'll work it out soon enough."