an interview with Mark Ruffalo. Maybe if I listened to it as I fell asleep, I could trick my brain into dreaming he was my boyfriend.
Because that was the behaviour of a perfectly happy, single thirty-one-year-old.
Wasn’t it?
‘It’s shit, Annie,’ Miranda growled, blinking into the bright morning sunshine. ‘I feel like I just got told off by my dad for spending all my pocket money.’
We’d been to see the bank manager. It had not gone well.
‘Can we just go back to the office and talk about it there?’ I asked. Yesterday’s beautiful weather had turned into a sweltering, sticky day and all the things I loved about London in the summertime had been washed away by the sea of sweaty bodies pressed against me on the Northern Line. ‘I can’t be angry and outside at the same time, Mir, it’s making me feel stabby.’
There were many difficult factors in running a real business but far and away the hardest part was money. There was never enough. Every single month we had to find rent, we had to find wages and for some reason, clients kept expecting us to do things for them before they paid us. It made literally no sense. I didn’t walk into Topshop, pick up a frock and flash the girl on the till a peace sign with a vague promise to get her the money within thirty days. Also, no one ever paid within thirty days. Ever.
Even though I was insanely proud of owning our own business there were other downsides too. I couldn’t call in sick and take to my (non-existent) settee with a Terry’s Chocolate Orange and watch an entire season of RuPaul’s Drag Race when I was having a particularly bad day. Like today, for example.
Miranda and I started Content because we were out of other options. After spending the best part of ten years in miserable marketing and advertising jobs, me withering away at a giant agency, nursing a sense of integrity that just wasn’t welcome, in a dark corner – literally a dark corner, I couldn’t even see a window from where they’d shoved me – and Miranda bouncing between every company in London, we decided it was time to become masters of our own destiny. And so we pooled our meagre resources and decided to live the dream.
With hindsight, I did sometimes wonder if we mightn’t have been better off just going to Disneyland for a fortnight then getting jobs at McDonalds when we came home but, you know what they say, you live and learn.
‘I’m so pissed off,’ Mir said, rolling up the sleeves of her oversized white shirt only for them to flap back down by her sides like an angry penguin. ‘He talked to us like we were children.’
‘He wasn’t angry, he was just disappointed,’ I agreed, wiping a film of city sweat from my forehead. ‘But not nearly as disappointed as Brian’s going to be when he finds out we can’t pay him at the end of the month.’
‘We’ll work it out, we always do,’ she muttered before automatically checking her phone. ‘All we need is breathing room. Maybe we could get another company credit card? Or we could sell something.’
I looked at her while she angrily swiped at her screen.
‘Like what? A kidney?’
‘Not helping,’ she replied.
‘You’re right,’ I said, unable to stop myself from bending down and picking up the Starbucks cup and depositing it in the closest bin. ‘We need our kidneys. We drink too much.’
‘Didn’t we start our company because we didn’t want to spend the rest of our careers listening to sanctimonious old men telling us what to do?’ Mir was still lost in rantland while I melted into an Annie-shaped puddle on the side of the road. ‘I want to march back in there and show him just how badly I have overextended myself.’
‘We don’t give up and we don’t give in,’ I reminded her, blocking her path. I was fairly certain she wouldn’t really walk into Barclay’s and deck the business manager but there really was no telling with Miranda Johansson. ‘That’s our motto, isn’t it?’
She frowned and shook her head.
‘I thought it was “Yes, I will have another”?’
‘We can’t afford the first one, let alone another,’ I said. ‘Come on, let’s go back.’
‘Fine,’ she sighed, opening up a rideshare app on her phone. ‘We can work this out without the bank. I believe in us.’
‘I believe I’d rather not be bankrupt by Christmas,’ I told her, covering her screen with my hand. ‘We should get the tube back.’
Mir threw her head back and howled out loud, attracting the attention of more than a few confused onlookers. ‘But it’s so hot,’ she whined. ‘And the station is miles away.’
‘Mir.’
I hated it when she made me sound like my mother.
‘Fine,’ she said, grudgingly cancelling the car. ‘I’ll just sweat through my shirt and look like a skank all day.’
‘That’s my girl,’ I replied, patting her on her sweaty back. ‘One day we’ll have drivers at our beck and call, hot and cold running drivers, ready to ferry us here, there and everywhere.’
‘Hot, cold, moderate, I don’t care,’ Miranda said, rolling up her sleeves once more and putting her best foot forward. ‘I just want to actually make some money for a change.’
It was always nice to have a dream.
‘Morning.’
Just what I needed. I looked up from my important tea-making activities to see Martin and Charlie flanking either side of the office kitchen. Rather than reply, I offered a tight smile and kept my eyes on the kettle hoping it was politely rude enough to send them on their way. On the walk back to work, I’d made a deal with myself. If I managed to call in at least one invoice and made it through the entire day without brutally murdering the first person to mention Matthew’s proposal, I was ordering Domino’s for dinner.
‘How are you feeling this morning?’ Martin asked in a sympathetic tone of voice I assumed he usually reserved for his grandmother’s best friend.
‘Amazing,’ I replied without looking at him. ‘Thank you for asking.’
Keep your eyes on the prize, I told myself. There’s pizza at stake, don’t murder them.
If only they hadn’t approached me in the kitchen with all its bright and shiny sharp things.
‘Everyone’s been talking about last night,’ Martin said while Charlie hovered at his elbow, monitoring my expression. ‘Must have been weird for you?’
‘You don’t really expect to turn on the game and see your ex getting engaged in 4K HD, do you?’ I replied. Deep, calm breaths. Think of the garlic dipping sauce. ‘Seems like more of a Facebook thing.’
‘Seems like you’re well out of it to me,’ Charlie said, passing me the milk from the fridge. ‘What a cock.’
