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?’
