yet.’
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
‘Well, they called me today and asked if I would go and work for them. As senior staff writer.’
‘Are you shitting me?’ Mary’s face went from red to white to purple in what seemed like a heartbeat. ‘They tried to poach my fucking writer?’
‘She said it wouldn’t be like poaching …’
‘What else is it exactly? When was this? Why didn’t you tell me?’ Angry Mary was very, very scary.
‘It was just now, literally, like an hour ago,’ I explained hurriedly. ‘Right before this meeting. I didn’t think I should call to talk about it when we were meeting now.’
‘Right. I suppose I should appreciate your coming to tell me face to face, even if those sly London bitches couldn’t be respectful enough to tell me,’ she shook her head. ‘Congratulations Angela, it’s a great opportunity for you and I think you’ll be very good at it. I’m just fucking furious to have found you and then to lose you.’
‘But I haven’t accepted yet, I have until Monday,’ I bleated, jumping up off the leather chair and leaving half my thighs behind. Ouch. ‘I’m not sure I really want to go back to London, or work for Sara.’
Especially work for Sara, I added silently, she’s clearly nuts.
Mary stared over her desk, not speaking. I didn’t know whether or not that was a good thing.
‘Are you serious?’ she said eventually.
‘About?’
‘About not going home and taking up this huge opportunity to risk it all to write a blog in a city that you’ve lived in for three weeks?’
‘Well, when you put it like that, I know it sounds a bit silly.’ I sat back down, trying to pull my Velvet T-shirt dress underneath me.
‘Don’t you want to go back home to London?’ Mary asked.
‘Does it matter what I want?’ I bit my lip hard. ‘I’ve got to go, haven’t I? Everyone keeps telling me.’ Everyone but Alex, I reminded myself unhelpfully.
‘Well, you’re not a US national, so it wouldn’t necessarily be easy,’ Mary stood up and walked back around her desk. She bent down in front of me, forcing me to look at her. I was so embarrassed. ‘But if you wanted to stay, you would always have a job with me.’
‘Really?’ I blinked back a tiny tear before it could make a real break for it.
‘Angela, I’ve been reading your diary for three weeks now, and it’s quite clear that you really don’t know what you want,’ Mary knelt on the floor, one hand on my knee. ‘That’s why people are relating to your blog, they want to be there when you work it out. I don’t know if that’s going to be here in New York, or back in London, but I do know you don’t have for ever to work it out any more.’
‘I know,’ I said, taking a deep breath and wiping my eyes. I really had to pull myself together.
‘You know I’m pissed about the UK team,’ she said, ‘but if you’re planning on going home, you should go now. This really is an amazing opportunity. If you stay here, who knows? The blog isn’t going to pay as much as a staff job, but it will pay. We can help you apply for a visa, but I can’t tell you what will happen after that.’
I stared at the pavement all the way back to the apartment, only just aware of people and cars and any other potential obstructions. Fumbling my keys into the lock, I rolled straight over the back of the sofa and stared at the ceiling. I had just worked out I was happy, I had just worked out it was definitely Alex, not Tyler, and now this. Jenny would say it was life testing my decisions. My mum would tell me it was fate bringing me home. I would say, enough, have we got any more Ring Dings. And since I was the only person in the room, I went with my option.
Tyler arrived on the dot of seven to find me on my doorstep, juggling brown paper grocery bags, my handbag and my keys. I’d completely forgotten he was coming over in my wallowing, and by the time it hit me, during the Thanksgiving episode of Friends, I had just enough time to run to the food halls in Grand Central station and pick up pasta, sauce and an enormous chocolate cheesecake. I had been planning to pass it all off as my own work, but I’d spent so long internally debating the merits of cheesecake over tarte tartin, I had run out of time.
‘So this is my romantic dinner?’ he smiled, taking the bags from me.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I grimaced, tussling with the door. ‘I had that meeting with my editor, and it was all a bit, eurgh, just a bit much. I was going to cook properly, honest.’
‘Another meeting?’ Tyler followed me through the door and up the stairs. ‘You must have almost as many meetings as me.’
‘Yeah, it’s a long story,’ I said, turning up the next staircase. ‘I dare say you’ll get the pleasure of it over dinner.’
Walking into the apartment together made me realize what a state it was compared to Tyler’s luxury pad. I desperately tried to kick some of the piles of crap under the settee and distract Tyler with the wine he had brought, but I couldn’t find a bottle opener in the kitchen. Naturally, in the apartment of two singlish girls, it was in the living room. I was relieved that Tyler was in a much better mood than when I had bailed on him earlier in the week, but I couldn’t help but feel that wouldn’t last long once I broached the ‘dumping him’ portion of the evening.
We cooked together (I boiled the pasta, he microwaved the sauce) then we sat down at the coffee table, cross-legged on the floor. For a while, we chatted about nothing, Tyler wolfing down his dinner, me pushing it around my plate. I wasn’t really in the mood for the pasta or the conversation, but I was hoping he would leave before we hit the cheesecake. It had me, Jenny and a weepy bottle of wine written all over it.
‘So what was so bad about this meeting today?’ Tyler asked, topping up my drink.
‘I can’t hand on heart say it was bad,’ I said, grinding more black pepper on my uneaten pasta. ‘I’ve been offered a full-time job.’
‘Really?’ he asked, emptying his plate and starting work on mine.
‘Really,’ I nodded. ‘Staff writer on the magazine. On The Look. Only thing is, it’s in London.’
‘But that’s fantastic,’ he said, leaning over for a quick one-armed hug. ‘It’s a real writing job like you wanted. I told you this blog thing would be your big break.’
‘But it’s in London,’ I repeated, watching him pick up his fork and start eating again. ‘I’d have to leave almost right away.’
‘You were always going to have to leave, weren’t you?’ Tyler helped himself to my untouched food. ‘Isn’t it amazing that you have this to go back to?’
‘Well, the web editor said if I stayed then she would always have work for me.’ I couldn’t stop staring at him. He hadn’t even flinched at the idea of me leaving. ‘So I could stay.’
‘But surely you’re not going to,’ he looked up, mid-mouthful. ‘I mean, the webby
