I smile at her, gratefully. I suppose she does seem it. ‘One must always be gracious in defeat,’ she says in a dramatic voice. ‘Though one should never consider defeat as an option in the first place.’ I laugh again. I have no idea who this woman is, but she’s definitely different, and engaging.
‘Come on,’ – she links my arm in hers – ‘let’s go and celebrate your new job at that fancy new rooftop bar in town. It’s a beautiful evening and we must toast your good news and commiserate mine by getting suitably smashed out of our skulls.’ She gives me a conspiratorial sideways glance. ‘Unless you have other plans of course.’
Some hours later, I find myself sitting in a fancy giant deckchair on a rooftop makeshift beach bar that boasts the most incredible view of the city I’ve ever seen. I’m on my third Porn Star Martini, the DJ’s playing some uplifting house music andthere’s impossibly cool people everywhere, drinking, dancing, and generally being gorgeous.
‘Wow, it looks so stunning from up here,’ I say, staring out towards the city below, ‘—all the lights! It’s like it’s covered in magic glitter.’ I turn to her. ‘Thanks for bringing me here, I never even knew this place existed!’
‘Ah well, stick with me, kiddo, this place turns into a club after 10 p.m.’ Her eyes twinkle, mischievously, like the very lights below.
‘You said you’d recently moved to the area?’ I ask, hoping to find out a little more about her.
‘Yes, my fiancé, Ari – I moved in with him not too long ago, at the new apartments over at Pengally Court. Do you know the ones I mean?’
I do. They’re in a great location, close to the city but surrounded by lush green, well-kept grounds, a private little oasis, tucked away in among the throng. Only rich people can afford to live in them.
‘Wow, lucky you!’
She gives me a strange look.
‘Yeah,lucky me.’ Though the way she says it makes me think that she doesn’t quite believe it. ‘Ari’s got a very well-paid job, basically, he’s loaded,’ she explains. ‘Though honestly, I swear I didn’t know this when we met. He kept it quiet for a while, you know, to test me, see if I was a gold digger or whatever, which I’m not by the way,’ she adds from the corner of her mouth, comedically. ‘I’d never dig for anything, not with these nails!’ I laugh along with her. ‘Anyway, I suppose what I’m saying is that I don’t actuallyneedto get a job. Ari is in favour of me adopting the more traditional role of stay-at-home wife, but I want something to do with myself all day while he’s off out making money. I get bored and lonely, and we all know what the devil says about idle hands…’
‘Of course, I understand,’ I say, though I don’t, not really. Everyone I know has no choice but to work to pay the bills and survive.
‘Who does Ari work for, what does he do?’
‘Rogan Hanley, you know, the big financiers in London? Equities or something… They have an office here in Leeds, so he goes between the two.’
‘Wow,’ I say again, ‘you hit the big time with him then. When’s the wedding?’
‘Next year, in Dubai.’
‘In Dubai. Wow.’ It’s the third time I’ve said ‘wow’ in quick succession. She probably thinks I’m a dick.
‘Tell me aboutyourfamily.’ She changes the subject as she signals to the waiter for two more cocktails. ‘Do they live in Leeds? Are you guys close?’
I knew this question was coming – it always does eventually – but I have to get over it. I won’t ever make friends with anyone ever again unless I do. My therapist says, ‘Just tell the truth, Erin. If it scares people off then they’re not your tribe. What is meant for you will not go by you.’
‘I don’t have any family,’ I say, sipping on my drink simultaneously, as though a mouthful of Porn Star Martini would make it any less true. ‘Both my parents died and I have no brothers or sisters.’
She turns to me slowly then with a strange look on her face.
‘Well, darling,you do now!’
TWENTY-ONE
We’re both drunk by the time we fall out of an Uber and into my apartment, gone 3 a.m.
‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ I say, giggling as she hops on one foot, trying to remove her Louboutins at the door.
‘Na-ah!’ She wags a finger. ‘We take our shoesoff, and we place thembehind the door, that’s the rule. Ari alwaysinsistsupon it!’
I help support her, though I’m not exactly the steadiest myself.
‘Well, you’re in my apartment now, I don’t care if you keep them on or off.’
She places them neatly together by the front door – though it takes a couple of attempts – as I go into the small lounge and ask Alexa to play ‘something fun’.
‘I want a grand tour!’ She instructs me, loudly, drunkenly, as she begins to pad, barefoot, through my apartment. Brazenly opening the door to my bedroom, she throws herself face down onto my bed. I giggle again, go back to the kitchen and look for the bottle of cheap Prosecco that I know is buried somewhere behind the out-of-date ready meals in my fridge. ‘SummerNights’, the song from the musicalGrease, is playing and I start singing along to it.
