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‘But where do you want me to go?’ This had been Magenta’s office since—well, she could hardly remember; it had been hers for so long now.
‘You work in the typing pool, remember?’ Nancy told her urgently, poking her head out of the door to check the coast was clear.
‘The typing pool? ‘ Magenta laughed. ‘Is this some joke of Qui
Nancy gave her a fu
‘To be more accurate, you used to work in the typing pool,’ she finally replied, nudging Magenta towards the door. ‘The guy who ran the place before hotshot Qui
‘Why didn’t Qui
‘This is your desk now, Magenta,’ Nancy explained. ‘It’s a great improvement to the typing pool, don’t you think?’
‘Do you want to hear what I think? No. I didn’t think so,’ Magenta agreed as Nancy shook her head. ‘I don’t know what’s happening around here, but this isn’t my desk—and Qui
‘But, Magenta, you used to work in the typing pool—you’ve never had your own office,’ Nancy insisted, looking increasingly concerned about Magenta’s state of mind. ‘Don’t you remember anything? ‘
Magenta swept a hand across her eyes as if hoping everything would change back again by the time she opened them again. But, to make things worse, people she didn’t even know were staring at her as if she was the one who was mad.
But how could this have happened? She gazed around and felt her anger rising. Qui
‘It’s their job!’ Nancy said, frowning.
‘But why aren’t they working on the campaign? ‘ Magenta noticed now that many of the women, some of whose faces were adorned with heavy-framed, upswept spectacles, were pretending not to look at her.
‘What campaign?’ Nancy queried, stepping back as a keen teen brushed passed her.
‘Wow, Magenta, you look really choice!’
‘I do? ‘ Magenta spun on her heels as the young man she had never seen before gave her a rather too comprehensive once-over. ‘Why, thank you…?’
‘Jackson,’ Nancy supplied, having cottoned on to the fact that Magenta needed all the help she could get.
‘Jackson.’ Magenta raised a brow. ‘Stop staring at your Auntie Magenta and go find yourself a girlfriend.’
Jackson laughed as if Magenta could always be relied upon to say something fu
Had Qui
So many questions stacked up in her mind, with not a single answer to one of them that made sense.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘LOOK, Magenta, I don’t want to rush you,’ Nancy said in a way that clearly said that was exactly what she wanted to do. ‘But Qui
‘So what?’ Magenta said impatiently. ‘He’s got a damn nerve.’ She was still looking round, trying to take everything in. She could understand Qui
‘The usual?’ Following her glance, Nancy gazed around the office.
‘The usual,’ Magenta repeated grimly. ‘Is it usual to remove the computers?’
‘The what?’
‘Okay, so Qui
And there was a different smell too…
Cigarette smoke?
‘Nancy!’ Magenta exclaimed with increased urgency.
‘Are you all right, Magenta?’ Glancing round, Nancy grabbed a chair and tried to press Magenta into it.
‘I’m fine.’ She was anything but fine. What had happened here? Had Qui
Magenta’s throat dried. This wasn’t some office teambuilding exercise. This was reality. This was reality for Nancy and for all the people here. It was Magenta who was out of sync. She must have fallen down the rabbit hole, like Alice, while she’d been asleep and landed in the sixties. And now the shock of being trapped inside a dream was only exceeded by her dread of meeting Qui
Magenta took a few steadying breaths while Nancy looked on anxiously. Magenta’s heart was pounding uncontrollably, but whatever had happened she would have to manage it.
She looked as much a part of the sixties as everyone else in the office, Magenta reassured herself, with her carefully made-up face, perfect hair and vintage cream wool dress. Though you could have bounced bullets off her underwear, it did outline her shape to the point where her breasts were outrageously prominent. That, believe it or not, was the fashion. It could best be described as ‘sex in your face’. No wonder Jackson had commented; she should have known better than to dress like this, but had done so i
But, on the plus side, she had been researching the era for quite some time, so even locked into this bizarre dream she wasn’t entirely out on a limb. She could even accept and be a little reassured by the fact that the dream seemed to be influenced by her research; there was certainly plenty of raw material here. Although quite how the summer of love, the sexual revolution and the Whisky a Go Go, the first disco in America—which just happened to be Qui
She would have to rely on what she knew if she was going to anticipate and avoid some of the problems, Magenta concluded. She would draw on that knowledge now—and her first action would be to open all the windows and let the smoke out.