“Everyone left London. And my best friend is in Margate.”
“Really?” Samira says, unscrewing the cap on the lovely dusty pink.
“Yes. Charlie,” I say. “We used to do our nails together. I had a pretend spa that I would set up and there was a whole role-play thing we did together where I was the salon owner and she was the worn-out executive.”
“Okay, so you were very close, then,” she says, her perfectly manicured and powdered eyebrows raised in amusement.
“Yes, people sometimes thought we were in a relationship,” I say with a self-deprecating chortle. This was a well-worn line I used to say proudly, but now that she has moved on and we are on the other side of thirty it sounds incredibly juvenile. I feel sad—and almost embarrassed—at the memory of us in our little Hackney Wick flat, with towels around our heads and cut-out slices of cucumber on our eyes and expensive Korean sheet masks.
Samira’s eyes are fixed on mine as I pause to push away the tears that have been threatening since I left Charlie’s house on Saturday. “She’s married now,” I say quietly.
“Is this the whole of May?” Lynn says, interrupting us. She’s been counting out receipts that I’ve already counted out in the petty cash tin. I nod at her.
“Did you process those last two annual memberships I gave you?”
“I did,” I say.
“We need more,” she says, reaching up and patting her head. She looks at her fingers and then upward to the old stucco ceiling as another huge drop of water falls on her head. We all see it at the same time, and Ryan scrambles out of his armchair and rushes to the back of the office.
“Leak!” shouts Samira, and she yanks on my hand to let me know we’re not moving.
Ryan returns with three big red plastic buckets and slides one onto Lynn’s desk.
“We’re really running out of time to save this place,” Lynn says, as she tries to dry up the desk while thick drops of water fall from the ceiling into the bucket, in a loud and slightly depressingplonk. “Christ, all these receipts are soaked.”
“Don’t worry, Lynn, I’ve already logged them all. It’s not the end of the world. None of it makes any dent in the bottom line.”
“It has to,” she mutters, her brows furrowed in distress.
“Nothing is going to change here without investment,” I say. “Nothing.”
“Well, the meeting next week will hopefully give us some sense of where they’re at,” says Lynn, and I nod. “Gerry is always promising. He needs to deliver.”
My phone starts to vibrate, and I glance over at it, my nails still wet.
“Can you grab it?” I ask Samira, twinkling my gorgeous nails her way. “Just check who it is?”
“It’s saysMother,” she says.
“Oh God,” I say, shaking my head. Samira frowns at this but puts my phone back on my desk.
“Are you seeing anyone?” she asks, in full beauty-therapist mode now.
“Well, sort of...” I begin, wondering if I can divulge the details to Samira.
“Mara’s got a boyfriend in Europe,” says Lynn, snatching the decision away.
“He’s not quite my boyfriend,” I say, correcting her. “It’s only a new thing.”
“European?” Samira says, her eyes shooting up. “Isthatwhy you went to Budapest?”
“No. I met him on my holiday.” I glare at Lynn, who is trying to dry out all the receipts from the petty cash tin.
“Isn’t this fun, all of us here together?” says Lynn. “I’ll miss it when we’re all cast aside, unemployed. Samira takes a job fixing vending machines, Mara marries a cousin, and Ryan begins a life of light crime.”
“Hello, operator, I’d like to report a murder?” says Ryan into his finger phone.
“Call the burns unit,” says Samira.
