‘Never have I needed this more than I do today,’ I said, chucking back half my cocktail-in-a-teacup in one go. ‘Honestly, the day I’ve had.’
‘Um, OK?’ the waitress raised an eyebrow, clearly out of fucks to give and it was only ten past seven in the evening. ‘Can I get you anything else?’
‘Three more of these, please.’ I pointed at my half-empty cup. ‘For my friends. Who are on their way. Not for me.’
‘Girl, no judgement,’ she replied. ‘You do you.’
‘Still not entirely sure what that means,’ I admitted quietly as she disappeared down the dark narrow bar. ‘But I’ll try.’
Even though I was twenty minutes late to The Dead Rabbit, I was still the first to arrive. It was a while since we’d been there and it was nice to sink into a comfy corner seat in the dimly lit upstairs bar. In days gone by, Jenny had been a big fan due to its proximity to Wall Street, Wall Street bankers and Wall Street bankers’ wallets, but since she had settled down with Mason we hardly ever ventured this far south in Manhattan. Even though they didn’t live together officially, she spent almost every night at his Gramercy apartment, and her room in our old Murray Hill two-bedroom was little more than a glorified wardrobe.
Sipping the rest of my cocktail at a more dignified pace, I thought back to my Mason conversation that morning. Even though I was so excited for him to propose to my bestie, I knew keeping the secret was going to kill me. In general, people didn’t tell me things they didn’t want other people to know – case in point, Delia’s taking over Spencer Media and reorganizing the entire business on the sly. I had a hard time keeping schtum: whether it was due to excitement, extreme tiredness or straight-up idiocy, I was not a safe space for secrets. But this time, I was 100 per cent going to hold my water. For two months. Two long months. Emptying the rest of my drink, I pushed the teacup away and stared off into the distance.
He probably shouldn’t have told me.
‘Hey, sorry we’re late.’
Jenny and Erin blew into the bar in a cloud of perfect hair and expensive perfume. I surreptitiously stuck my nose into my own armpit to make sure my Dove was keeping up its twenty-four-hour freshness claim before Jenny hurled herself at me for a hug.
I pasted a bright smile on my face and clamped my lips together.
Don’t tell Jenny about the proposal, don’t tell Jenny about the proposal, don’t tell Jenny about the proposal.
‘Are you OK?’ Jenny asked.
Don’t tell Jenny about the proposal.
‘Maso— mais oui,’ I replied with a flourish to back up my sweet French save. ‘Yes. Absolutely. Why wouldn’t I be?’
She didn’t look entirely convinced but she didn’t ask any follow-up questions either. That went down as a win in my book.
‘We had a meeting across town and I thought it would never end,’ Erin said, explaining away their lateness and almost taking my eye out with her razor-sharp blonde bob. ‘Traffic is a bitch tonight.’
‘You could have taken the subway,’ I suggested. ‘No traffic down there.’
Erin and Jenny looked at each other and exploded into laughter.
‘And that’s why you’re the funny one,’ Erin smiled, shrugging off her oversized Burberry pea coat and dumping her Hermès Birkin on top of my MJ satchel on the spare chair. My bag slid to the floor sadly, ashamed to be in the presence of something so superior. Jenny grabbed it from the ground and passed the offending article back with a disapproving frown.
‘You’re still using this?’ she asked, pulling a lip gloss out of her own studded leather Alexander Wang duffel. ‘Angie, you must have like a thousand bags now, you have to let that thing go.’
‘You’re confusing my bag collection with yours,’ I told her, stroking the soft, supple brown leather. ‘Anyway, I love this bag. I think it gets better with age.’
‘It doesn’t, you should ditch it,’ Erin assured me. ‘Nothing does really. Red wine and George Clooney are literally the only exceptions to that rule.’
‘We’ll end up burying you with that thing,’ Jenny sighed as I cradled my bag in my arms to shield it from Erin’s cruel but worryingly accurate statements. ‘Sometimes I think all my work with you was for nothing.’
‘Give me a break,’ I begged as the waitress reappeared with our cocktails, ‘I’ve had a shitty day and my brain isn’t up to it.’
‘Same here,’ Erin said, clinking her teacup against mine. ‘I’ve been up since three – TJ has some kind of bug and I spent half the night stripping beds and cleaning up baby puke. And you know if he has it, Arianna’ll have it by tomorrow.’
‘To the glamour of motherhood,’ I said, clinking her back. ‘Cici announced she’s been my assistant for long enough and wants a “bigger role” at Gloss. Also, they’re completely restructuring the company and everyone is on the chopping block, which I probably should have mentioned first, so ha-ha, I win. Worst day in forever.’
Jenny peeled off her tight black sweater to reveal a low-cut black T-shirt and every man in the bar turned and looked.
‘Mason emailed me about the restructure,’ she said as she crossed her toned legs. If you got up and went running every morning like Jenny did, you could have legs like that, said the little voice in my head. I drowned it with another sip of my cocktail. ‘You’re overreacting. They haven’t announced any closures yet.’
‘The fact you added a “yet” on the end doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence,’ I told her. ‘It’s just unsettling.’
‘Not as unsettling as that demon spawn twin, Cici,’ Jenny corrected. ‘Surely you’ve put up with her for long enough? It’s time for her to disappear.’
‘The worst part is, she’s not actually wrong,’ I admitted, washing away the words with a mouthful of gin. ‘Most assistants move up after a couple of years and she’s been with me for three. As much as it pains me to admit it, she’s good at her job, even if her people skills are still, you know, a bit rough.’
Never had there been such an understatement.
‘I only wish she wanted to move to another magazine, I know the rest of the team would like to see the back of her.’
Erin stretched her arms above her head until her shoulders clicked. ‘I don’t know how you sit in an office with that woman every day. I’d rather have an underfed hyena outside my office. Do you keep a loaded gun in your desk?’
‘She is an underfed hyena,’ Jenny replied for me. ‘If not worse. Remember that time she threw out all the shoes under your desk?’
‘She thought I wanted to donate them to the homeless,’ I said weakly. ‘She said she was trying to help.’
Jenny blinked in disbelief. ‘Really, Angie? She thought you wanted to donate Chanel ballet pumps to the homeless?’
My stomach clenched tightly with the pain of loss and I took a sip to their memory. The worst part was, I was still paying off that credit card bill.
‘I read about the restructure – we sent Delia congratulatory flowers, of course. You don’t really think they’re going to close any magazines, do you?’ Erin asked, nervously clicking her fingernails. Erin owned a PR agency, the PR agency worked with the magazines, the more magazines closed, the more difficult her life became.
‘Gloss is doing fairly well,’ I said, repeating the same story I’d told a thousand times over already that day and hoped I’d start to believe it soon. ‘I’m sure we’ll be fine.’
Panicking would get me nowhere, I reminded myself. Listing all the magazines that had closed over the last three years would not help, I reminded myself. Imagining myself sat on the floor outside a Burger King with a sign that says ‘will work for nuggets’ was entirely unproductive.
‘So, I had a shit day, Angie had a shit day …’ Erin looked at Jenny. ‘Anything to add, Lopez?’
‘I’m breaking up with Mason,’ she replied casually, holding up her cup for a toast. ‘So yeah, cheers.’
I stared at her across the table. Now my deodorant really had some work to do.
‘What?’ Confusion crumpled Erin’s delicate features. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘No,’ Jenny replied simply. ‘I’ve been thinking about it and he really isn’t leaving me with much of a choice. So, I’m going to end it.’
‘Is today National Everyone Make Dramatic Statements Day?’ I asked, putting my cocktail down so I could fully and soberly concentrate on my best friend. ‘Because if it is, I missed a memo. What do you mean you’re breaking up with Mason?’
Jenny rolled her eyes as though we were the ones being irrational.
‘We’ve been dating for almost three years,’ she replied, all calm and rational and entirely unlike herself. ‘He knows I want to get married, we’ve talked about getting married but nothing has happened. I told him back in the spring that I wanted to get engaged this summer, and if he didn’t propose, I was going to have to end it. He hasn’t proposed. How long am I supposed to wait?’
‘You told him he had to propose or you’d dump him?’
I just wanted to be clear before I began screeching louder than an exceptionally miffed dolphin.
‘Yes.’
Exceptionally miffed dolphin noises are go.
‘That’s not very romantic, is it?’ I asked, my mind and my words racing. ‘You can’t break up with Mason because he hasn’t met your deadline, what happened to an old-fashioned courtship? What happened to waiting?’
How could I tell her she couldn’t finish with him because he hadn’t proposed, because he had just told me he was planning to propose, without telling her he had just told me he was planning to propose? Just thinking about it gave me a headache.
‘No, she has a point,’ Erin said, resting her hand on top of Jenny’s and giving it a reassuring squeeze. ‘This is New York, you’ve got to put your cards on the table right away. Some guys are happy to date forever and never seal the deal. I told Thomas I wanted to be engaged within six months of things getting serious, that’s how it is here, Angela. You were lucky to catch Alex when his light was on. Most of them need an ultimatum.’
I opened my mouth to argue but all that came out was a squeak.
‘You have to play the game,’ Jenny agreed. ‘It’s not easy out there.’
‘Especially when you’re over thirty,’ Erin added.
Everyone looked down at the table and took a drink.
‘I’m going to tell him tomorrow,’ Jenny said, nodding to herself. ‘I really don’t think he’ll be surprised. We’ve been seeing less and less of each other lately; maybe it’s better to kill it before it goes sour. Maybe this is what he wants and he daren’t admit it.’
‘Just like a dude,’ Erin agreed, clinking her cup to Jenny’s. ‘Ghost away and hope they break up with you.’
‘But Mason isn’t ghosting you,’ I protested. ‘You love him and I know he loves you.’
‘And sometimes winning means knowing when to lose,’ Jenny replied with a sad smile. ‘I do love him, but I want to get married, Angie, I want kids. And I’m not getting any younger. If he’s not going to give me those things, I’ll find them somewhere else.’
I looked over at Erin for support but she looked away. Yes, she was happily married now but after two divorces, a failed engagement, and two difficult pregnancies that only came about after inordinately expensive help from the magical Dr Laura, Erin wasn’t the first person to look to when you wanted someone to support your Happily Ever After rationale.
‘But what if you gave him one more chance.’ I was getting desperate. Jenny wasn’t terribly good at sticking to her resolutions, she was forever making huge statements and hardly ever saw them through but there was a resignation in her voice that I did not like the sound of. ‘I mean, when you tell him, he might propose. Maybe he’s just waiting for the right time.’
‘If he proposes after I tell him I’m breaking up with him, it’s gonna feel like he’s only doing it because I’m forcing him into a corner,’ she argued. ‘I gave him six months to decide whether or not he wanted to be in this for the long haul. I can’t keep waiting around or I’ll wake up one day and realize I’m forty. No offence, Erin.’
‘None taken,’ Erin replied. ‘I’m in my forties, that’s a thing. I might look amazing but it’s still a thing.’
‘Which self-help book are you reading right now?’ I demanded, turning my back on Erin. She was not helping in the slightest. ‘Is this Oprah? Did Oprah tell you to do this?’
‘I’m not reading any self-help books,’ Jenny mumbled into her drink as I waited for the inevitable follow-up. ‘I got it from a podcast.’
‘And podcasts are very wise but they’re not right about everything,’ I said firmly. ‘I really think you need to give it more consideration, one more week.’
‘Angie, it’s November already,’ Jenny stressed. ‘I told him six months ago. What exactly am I waiting for? My ovaries to shrivel up and fall out my vahine?’
‘They can do that,’ Erin confirmed over the rim of her teacup. ‘I’ve read about it.’
‘No, they can’t,’ I said, pressing a hand against my stomach. There was that sick feeling again. ‘You’re both being ridiculous. This is why people complain about the American education system, you know.’
‘I appreciate where you’re coming from, Ange, but I’m not asking for opinions.’ Jenny tossed her head, slapping the man at the next table in the face with her enormous hair. ‘I’m just letting you know.’
Bugger. Bugger bugger bugger bugger. I tapped my fingertips against my thigh as she studiously ignored me. The conversation was officially over.
‘So,’ Erin blew out a deep breath as I stared across the table at my best friend. ‘Did anyone else catch Dancing with the Stars last night?’
Three cocktails later, I rattled through my front door, dropping my satchel on the floor and peeling off my coat as I ran for the bathroom. I’d been desperate for a wee for the last three subway stops and sitting on the train outside the 9th Street station for fifteen minutes while the MTA got someone’s phone off the tracks had not helped in the slightest.
Making it to the bathroom without breaking my neck was almost as impressive as making it through my day without self-medicating. For the first two weeks of Alex’s trip, I’d done such a good job of taking care of the apartment. I put dirty clothes in the wash bin and I put clean clothes back in the wardrobe. I put dirty dishes in the dishwasher and I put clean ones back in the cupboard. I ate proper meals at proper meal times, slept in my bed, and limited myself to two episodes of This Is Us per evening. But that was a long time ago. Now the place looked like a crime scene. Empty cups and takeaway cartons gathered in tiny huddles at either end of the settee and empty crisp packets had been carefully smoothed out and stacked up on the coffee table next to all of Alex’s letters and postcards. And, if you looked very carefully, you could actually follow the trails of socks, shoes, jeans, several bras and the odd pair of pants all the way around the apartment and see where I’d been. David Attenborough would have had a field day.
I leaned back against the toilet cistern and stared wistfully at the beautiful roll-top bath that had won my heart when we first moved in. If only the day could be saved by a soak in the tub.
‘Couldn’t hurt to try,’ I reasoned, waddling across the room with my jeans still around my ankles and turning on the taps. I missed Alex, but part of me loved living alone, even if I was reverting to some kind of wild, pantsless animal.
Leaving the rest of my clothes in a puddle by the side of the bath, I grabbed Alex’s robe from the back of the door and toddled into the kitchen, looking for something to eat. Food was not love and it could not solve my problems, but it was delicious, and we hadn’t really eaten a proper dinner so snacks felt justified. I’d emailed Mason on the way home, asking if we could meet tomorrow after work to discuss DumpGate, or rather so I could convince him to bring Operation Proposal forward and head any dumpings off at the gate. There was no need to tell him exactly what Jenny had said; all I needed to do was encourage him to put a ring on her fourth finger before she flipped him off with the middle one. Naturally, I’d suggested we conduct this conversation at Tiffany.
And then I remembered.
When Louisa and Grace had come to visit for my birthday, they’d brought one of those massive slabs of Galaxy you can only get at the airport and, after eating half of it the second they left, then throwing it right back up two hours later, I’d made Alex break it up into little bars, wrap them in freezer bags, and hide them from me. I was almost certain there was still one left, wedged in between the ceiling and the top of the kitchen cabinets. For the first time in my life, my lack of restraint was about to pay off.
‘I should take up parkour,’ I muttered, hurling myself onto the kitchen top and wobbling upright. The belt of Alex’s dressing gown swung around my knees as I felt along the top of the cabinets, hoping against hope that the chocolate would still be there. And only the chocolate. The last thing I needed was another nasty surprise, especially something cockroach-shaped.
Or washing-machine shaped.
Just as my fingertips hit Galaxy pay dirt, a deafening crash thundered through my ceiling, blowing up a world of dust and dirt. Coughing, blinking, and clinging to my kitchen cupboards – and the chocolate bar – for dear life, I waited for the literal dust to settle, my heart pounding in my chest. There, not six feet away from me, was a washing machine, sat right in the middle of my kitchen. And while we did need a new washing machine, I really would have preferred it if one hadn’t just crashed through my ceiling from the apartment above.
‘Angela?’
I looked up through the smoky hole to see Lorraine and Vi, the couple who lived upstairs, staring down at me with their hands covering their faces.
‘Are you standing on the kitchen counter?’ Vi asked, peeking through her fingers.
‘Did your washing machine just come through my kitchen ceiling?’ I replied, gripping the Galaxy more tightly than ever before.
‘Um, sorry about that,’ Lorraine pushed her clear acrylic glasses frames back up her nose as she spoke. ‘Are you OK?’
I rubbed a layer of dirt and dust from my face and looked at the hand holding on to the chocolate bar. I was shaking.
‘Absolutely fine,’ I assured them. Stiff upper lip and all that. ‘Are you both all right?’
‘That was really intense,’ Vi gripped Lorraine’s arm tightly. ‘I came in to see what the noise was and there it was in the middle of the kitchen and I’m thinking, what is the washing machine doing in the middle of the kitchen? And then boom! Jesus, what if it had exploded? What if I’d fallen through the ceiling too?’
‘Yeah, I was quite surprised as well,’ I replied. ‘And, you know, right underneath it.’
‘Should we call someone? Do you need to go to the hospital? Is it going to blow up?’ Lorraine suggested, looking at Vi for confirmation. Vi looked at me and I looked back. Lawyers, both of them. Degrees from Harvard. And as much good in a crisis as a pair of chocolate teapots.
‘I think I’m all right and it’s pretty late.’ And I’ve had four cocktails, I added silently. ‘No one died. Maybe we can sort it out in the morning?’
‘Yeah,’ she agreed with a sigh of relief. ‘That sounds good. We’re like, sorry?’
I was still stood there, frozen on the kitchen counter and not entirely sure if I was going to be able to get down. I wasn’t quite sure what the proper etiquette was for when someone’s washing machine fell through your kitchen ceiling but I was fairly certain it should include at least one cup of tea.
‘Angela?’ Vi said.
Ahh, here’s the offer of tea. I smiled graciously at the redhead above.
‘Your robe is kind of open.’ She waved her hand awkwardly up and down her body. ‘Just, so you know.’
‘OK, thanks,’ I said, yanking it shut and tying the belt in a tight knot under my boobs.
Both women slowly backed away from the gaping hole, leaving me perched on my dusty kitchen top, chocolate bar in one hand, cupboard handle in the other. I stared at the washing machine embedded in the floor, surrounded by broken tiles, rubble and shards of shiny wet floorboards with soapy water slowly leaking out around the somehow still intact glass door. Even though my kitchen had been destroyed, and even though I clearly could have been killed, all I could think about was what was in the washing machine and did the girls need it for the morning?
Very, very, very slowly, I clambered down from the kitchen top, careful not to stand on anything stabby, and tiptoed back into the bathroom, checking my heart rate on my Fitbit as I went.
‘Would you look at that, it’s up,’ I noted as I turned off the taps. Instead of fighting with my hastily tied belt knot, I yanked Alex’s robe over my head and tossed it on top of my day clothes before stepping into the hot water, opening the freezer bag and pulling out the bar of milk chocolate. I sank into the bath and let my hair soak around my shoulders before chomping down on the Galaxy. There was no time to break off individual squares, this was an emergency.
‘Still,’ I said to absolutely no one. ‘At least tomorrow has to be better than today.’