I should have slept like a log on Saturday night but instead I spent hours staring up at my new ceiling while Alex snored quietly beside me. Every time I felt sleep washing over me, I’d get a sudden jolt, a tension in my shoulders. My arms and legs felt tight, like I wanted to shake them, like I wanted to run, so I knew something was wrong. I never wanted to run. I still had nightmares about a personal trainer I’d hired for a week when I started at Gloss. On a normal day, moving house might have been enough to put me under for a month and the stress of getting stuck in an apartment ceiling would, I imagined, be pretty exhausting. But when I piled everything up on top of each other, threw in the row with Alex, the apocalyptic battle with Jenny and Louisa, my mum’s transatlantic rage and the assorted work dramaramas, it really was all too much.
I rolled over and reached for my phone, hiding under the covers to avoid waking Alex. There was still no word from Jenny or Louisa but I knew if I could just get something out of one of them, I’d feel better. Even if it was ‘fuck off’ it would be better than this complete shut-out. It was still early in Jenny Land, barely even eleven, but Alex had passed out at ten thirty with half a slice of pizza in his lap and I was sure Jenny and Lou would still be awake, probably out somewhere, probably with James. I couldn’t pretend it didn’t sting that my three friends were getting along so well without me but I also couldn’t pretend I was blameless. Maybe I had got too wrapped up in my own problems. I had kind of assumed Jenny and Lou would sort themselves out – after all, they were so much better at that sort of thing than me. Arguing with Alex, on the rare occasions it happened, made me want to call Jenny, buy ice cream and watch four hours of America’s Next Top Model on her living room floor. Arguing with Jenny made me want to cut off a leg. Arguing with Jenny and Louisa made me want to cut off a leg and beat myself to death with the soggy end. It just wasn’t right.
Louisa would be mad but I knew she would forgive me eventually. We were practically blood and, aside from that, I knew she was physically incapable of holding a grudge. Jenny on the other hand thrived on grudges. It had been ages since we’d had a blow-up and I had no idea how long it might go on for, especially if she really was serious about this whole baby thing. I opened my text messages and scrolled back, tapping the ‘load more’ button again and again. I was very happy no one ever saw our conversations. ‘Why am I sat in my underwear eating cheese slices on a Sunday morning?’ ‘I just sent a sext to our dry cleaner by accident. He’s into it – what do I do?’ ‘How many Harry Potter movies is too many Harry Potter movies for an American woman over thirty in one afternoon?’
Yes, she was insane but I loved her. I was a bit mad we couldn’t go to that dry cleaner anymore but still. I really didn’t know what I would do without her.
‘I’m sorry. Can you call me?’
It was a very simple text but for some reason, despite my alleged profession, it took me nearly twenty minutes to get it right. As soon as I pressed send, I felt better. At least well enough to get out of bed, eat half a slice of cold pizza and have a wee. And that was enough.
‘Bagel delivery.’ Alex appeared from behind a pile of boxes bigger than him and threw a small paper parcel into my lap. ‘Have you actually unpacked a single box?’
I nodded, stuffing the bagel into my mouth and promising myself that I would go to yoga on Monday. I pointed towards the bedroom and chewed.
‘Shoes,’ I said from behind my hand. ‘Shoes and handbags.’
‘I’m glad the important stuff got figured out,’ he replied. ‘And now books?’
‘I can’t settle until all the stuff is on the shelves,’ I explained. ‘I’ll feel better.’
‘OK.’ He held up his hands and began to walk away. ‘Whatever works for you. I’ll be in the bedroom putting away my one bag of clothes.’
‘That’s not something to be proud of,’ I shouted after him, wrapping up the rest of the bagel and looking over at my phone for what had to be the hundredth time that morning. Jenny still hadn’t replied and I hadn’t heard a thing from Louisa. It was horrible.
‘Hey.’ Alex reappeared above my boxes, a sympathetic smile on his face. ‘Until you get this Jenny thing figured out, you’re totally useless to me. Go see her.’
‘But we have so much stuff to do.’ I pointed weakly at the bookshelves.
‘I’m translating that into, “I’m a total pussy and I’m scared that she’s still mad at me.” Am I right?’ he asked.
‘Maybe,’ I sulked. ‘I text her. She hasn’t replied.’
‘Because she’s probably still really mad at you,’ he said. He was such a perceptive man. ‘But she’s not going to get less pissed off while you guys aren’t speaking to each other. You know Jenny, she’s just gonna stew. It’s a Band-Aid situation, Angela, you gotta rip this one right off.’
‘I know,’ I admitted. Maybe cutting off my own leg would be easier than apologising. It wasn’t like I used it that often. ‘But we really do have so much left to do. I’ve got to work tomorrow and then Mum and Dad get here on Tuesday—’
‘And it will be a ton easier for me to do it alone than having you moping in a corner, pretending to stack books.’ He stepped over one of the smaller boxes and pulled me up to my feet. ‘You have a big day at work tomorrow, right? So don’t let this get in the way. Go see her.’
‘Have you got any protective padding?’ I asked, resting my head against his chest and giving Alex a huge hug. ‘You know the stuff they put on when they’re training police dogs?’
‘You’ll be fine,’ he promised. ‘And when you get back, the cable will be working.’
‘Really?’ I looked up with sparkling eyes. Yes, Angela, there was a Santa Claus.
‘Really really,’ he said, kissing me once and then breaking the hug. ‘Now go before I get other ideas.’
‘I’d say save those ideas for later.’ I reached up on my tiptoes to kiss him once more before slapping him on the arse and handing him my bagel. ‘But if the telly’s going to be on, you might struggle.’
It took a lot longer on the subway to get to Jenny’s place from our new apartment but I was glad of the unplanned procrastination. I had run over a dozen different apologies, a few potential bribes and considered leaving the country. By the time I got to Lexington Avenue, I had settled on a straight-up ‘I’m sorry’, combined with the leftover peanut butter M&Ms in my handbag, and then accepting whatever torrent of abuse followed. It wasn’t possible that either of them could make me feel worse than I already did anyway.
There didn’t seem a lot of point in ringing the buzzer – she wasn’t answering my texts, she was hardly likely to buzz me up – so I used my key, climbed the stairs and steeled myself. But even having spent an entirely sleepless night and a forty-five-minute train ride readying myself for this, I could not possibly have been prepared for what I walked in on. The apartment was a disaster. When I’d arrived on Saturday, I’d been a little bit sad at the lack of Christmas decorations. There was the little white fake tree with its pink baubles that Jenny put up every year but aside from that, she really hadn’t gone big on the festivities. Apparently that had all changed at some point in the last twenty-four hours. As had the apartment’s residents. Everywhere I looked there were people I either vaguely recognised or had never seen before in my life draped over the sofa, crashed out on the floor or, in one instance, puking in the kitchen sink. Nice. Every available surface was covered in red plastic cups and glitter. There was tinsel hanging from the light fixtures and someone had gone really heavy on a neon pink reindeer motif. Not my taste in seasonal décor but at least she was trying.
‘Jenny?’ I called out, picking my way through the stirring bodies on the floor. ‘Lou?’
Someone on the sofa groaned but it wasn’t anyone I knew. A couple of girls wrapped around each other on the armchair by the window looked like a couple of girls from Jenny’s office but since they were wearing elf costumes instead of office-appropriate ensembles, it was really hard to tell. I sighed. No good ever came from waking up in an elf costume. Clearly there had been something of a shindig here and I wasn’t quite sure how that married up with Grace taking a nap when I left. Abandoning my search of the living room after tripping over an empty bottle of Jägermeister, I stopped trying to be quite so careful and marched through the bodies and into my old bedroom. Instead of finding my childhood best friend and her lovely toddler, I found an unconscious James Jacobs and a blow-up Father Christmas, both, thankfully, fully dressed.
‘I should have known you’d be behind this,’ I said, tapping his face gently. James groaned, snored and rolled over. Apparently a gentle tap wasn’t going to be enough.
‘Ow! Fucking hell.’
But a decent slap was.
‘Where is Louisa?’ I demanded, all sense of contrition forgotten. ‘And Grace?’
‘Not here.’ He held out a hand to shield his eyes from the non-existent sun in the darkened room and smacked his lips together a couple of times. ‘God, I taste like a rat’s arse.’
‘I don’t want to know how you know that.’ I took a cue from his blatant hangover and pulled up the blinds. Dear God, that room was disgusting. ‘Where did they go?’
‘I don’t know, I’m not their keeper.’ James tried to push his hair back off his face but his fingers got stuck in something sticky. Gross. ‘Jenny was pissed off after you left. We decided to have some drinks, then she called some people and Louisa took off with the baby. She wasn’t in the mood for it.’
‘Lou or the nineteen-month-old baby?’ I asked. ‘I can’t imagine why Grace wasn’t up for shots. You seriously don’t know where she went?’
I pulled out my phone and immediately dialled Lou. And to think that I thought I felt awful before I arrived.
‘Well, wherever she is, she isn’t picking up,’ I told the shell of a man on the bed before me. ‘She’d better be OK.’
‘Funny how she didn’t come and stay with you, isn’t it?’ he muttered into his pillow, earning a second slap for his troubles. ‘Ange, I’ve got a massive hangover and, honestly, unless you’re going to make me a cup of tea and get me a sausage sarnie, you need to piss off before I kill you.’
‘Excellent parenting skills you’re showing here,’ I said, trying Louisa’s mobile again. ‘You two are going to be brilliant.’
I heard James making some sort of sobbing sound when I slammed his door, the boom echoing through the apartment and seemingly reviving some of the hangers-on in the living room. But they weren’t the only ones I managed to wake.
‘Who is making all that noise?’ Jenny opened her bedroom door and clung to the door frame, looking as though she might collapse at any second. Her hair was everywhere and a tight little red jersey dress was riding up her arse to reveal a pair of black knickers. At least she was wearing some – that was progress in a way. ‘Angie?’
‘Jenny, where’s Louisa?’ I asked, kicking a man old enough to know better, sprawled out on the floor in front of me as he grabbed at my ankle. ‘What went on last night?’
‘We had a party. Chill.’ She scrunched up her face and turned away as though she’d seen something upsetting. I couldn’t wait until I got her in front of a mirror. ‘Uh, she said she needed to do something … I guess she didn’t come back.’
‘Can’t think why,’ I replied.
‘This didn’t happen until way later,’ she said, as though it was a perfectly rational excuse. ‘Why are you here? Didn’t you say everything you needed to say yesterday?’
‘I actually came to apologise.’ I was trying very hard not to sound completely sanctimonious but it was difficult to stand there and say, I’m sorry Jenny, I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful mother, when there were six strangers in her living room, dry-heaving. ‘But now I’m a bit worried about Louisa.’
‘Who’s worried about me?’ The front door opened and I heard the telltale squeaky wheels of a pushchair behind me. ‘Oh my God, what happened?’
‘I had a party,’ Jenny replied weakly.
‘Jenny had a party,’ I confirmed, crossing my arms and then immediately dropping them back by my sides. I was still on thin ice until I’d got all my apologies out. ‘Where were you? I’ve been trying to call you.’
‘My battery died.’ She held up a dead iPhone while Grace clambered out of her pushchair, delighted at the chaos in front of her. ‘I went to stay at a hotel, give Jenny and James a bit of peace.’
I watched as Grace began poking the blond man in the back of the head repeatedly, probably waiting a moment too long before scooping her up in my arms.
‘Anala,’ she said happily, immediately resuming poking.
Like all martyrs, I endured. ‘Why didn’t you call me?’ I asked, bouncing Gracie awkwardly on my hip and ignoring the stirring drunks on the floor. ‘You could have stayed with us.’
‘Didn’t much feel like popping over after our chat in the afternoon,’ she replied, instinctively tearing off a length of kitchen roll and mopping up an upset bottle of Bud.
‘I came to apologise,’ I said. ‘I was bang out of order yesterday. You’ll do whatever you need to do in your own time and I will never, ever say shit about it, ever again.’
I paused, looked around the room and then back at the half-human version of Jenny in the corner.
‘And Jenny should totally have a baby, right away.’
‘Oh, fuck you,’ she groaned, turning towards the bathroom. ‘I’m gonna puke.’
‘I felt so bad disappearing off to a hotel last night but she was in such a bad mood,’ Lou whispered while I continued to dodge Grace’s barrage of tiny, sharp attacks. ‘And Grace was fussing, I couldn’t get her to rest, so I just thought, you know, a night of quiet might help.’
‘Did it?’
‘Didn’t bloody get it, did I?’ she said with a yawn. I noticed the dark circles had returned. ‘Madam would not sleep for love nor money. Honestly, I thought I was doing this on my own back at home but I don’t think I realised how much it helps just to have another human being in the house.’
‘Right.’ I resisted the urge to jump up and down shouting CALL TIM! and instead gave her a very understanding nod.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she yawned. ‘I’m going to call him as soon as I’ve charged my phone.’
‘Nothing to do with me,’ I replied, opening my eyes and my mouth as far as they would go at the baby to try and avoid inappropriate smiling. At least she thought I was funny. ‘Do whatever you need to do. I’ll be here.’
‘At the minute it looks like I need to clean up,’ Lou replied.
Even though this was as far removed from her mess as it was possible to be, I knew she was itching to get the rubber gloves out and put everything in a bin bag. Possibly some of the partygoers too.
‘Hey, cute baby.’ One of the girls on the armchair opened her eyes and pointed towards me and Gracie. I looked at my goddaughter who rolled her eyes and shook her head.
‘You are very wise,’ I told her. She nodded.
‘Right, everybody out,’ Louisa shouted. I was always impressed at the volume she was able to muster up when she was pissed off. ‘Party’s over. You all need to go home or at least get out of this one.’
Louisa began walking around the room, shaking people who really didn’t want to be shaken and filling up a giant black sack as she went. Of course she already knew where Jenny kept them. The girls on the armchair rose first, seemingly brought back to life by the fear of having to help clear up. They were followed by the girl and her gay who had been crashing on the sofa and a very sorry-looking redhead who looked more and more likely to vom with every step. Christmas parties really were the best. I attempted to help by giving the blond man on the floor another kick, picking up his trainers and tossing them out the door.
‘They’re my shoes,’ he protested, still flat on his back. ‘I need them.’
‘You’d better go and get them then,’ I replied while Grace blew raspberries. ‘Merry Christmas.’
‘Merry Christmas,’ he muttered as he crawled out on all fours. ‘Can you ask James to call me?’
‘Nope,’ I replied, slamming the door shut after him.
‘Can you please quit banging doors.’ Jenny tiptoed back into the living room as though putting a full foot down on the floor might make too much noise for her poor head. Her curls were tethered to the top of her head and her face had been scrubbed clean. I knew she’d hate to hear me say it but I always thought this was when she looked her most beautiful. Her make-up was always flawless and her hair should probably be considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World but without all the make-up, all the drama, she was just so incredibly pretty. ‘Where did everyone go?’
‘AWAY!’ Grace shouted, leaping onto the sofa and bouncing up and down. I looked at Lou, who looked at Jenny, who shrugged. After what Grace had just walked in on, it did seem a bit pointless to tell her no now.
‘Don’t touch anything, Gracie,’ Louisa warned before scooping up the Jägermeister bottle. ‘I don’t want you to get hepatitis.’
‘No one here has …’ Jenny began to defend her friends but her words seemed to fade away. ‘Yeah, don’t let her touch anything.’
An hour later, with Grace completely unconscious in her pushchair, the four alleged adults in our party were squished into a booth at Scotty’s Diner. Jenny and James propped each other up as they mainlined cup after cup of coffee while Louisa and I bartered with each other on the menu.
‘Well, if you get fries, we can share,’ she suggested, sipping her tea in a far more ladylike fashion than our environment required.
‘Or what if I get a side of steamed veggies?’ I asked. ‘Or a side salad. And you get the fries?’
‘I do believe I lost a few brain cells last night so you’ll forgive me for asking,’ James cut in, pressing his fingers into his temples. ‘Are we just pretending yesterday didn’t happen then?’
‘Oh, can we?’ Louisa perked up immeasurably. ‘Can we do that?’
‘Sure, let’s all bottle shit up until we have a stroke,’ Jenny said, pouring more sugar into her cup. ‘That’s super healthy.’
‘I came over to apologise.’ I snatched the sugar out of her hand and placed it out of her reach, ignoring her death stare. White sugar made Jenny crazy. Crazier. ‘And I’m still sorry, I shouldn’t have kicked off.’
‘No, you shouldn’t,’ she replied, stirring her coffee. ‘I can’t believe you sometimes. You’re, like, completely incapable of seeing anything from anyone else’s position. You don’t want a baby, so I shouldn’t want a baby. You can’t handle a baby, so you think I can’t handle a baby.’
‘It’s not that I don’t think you can handle a baby,’ I said, trying to remain calm and measured and not just burst into tears. Yay, confrontation on a Sunday morning! ‘It’s more that I was worried that you hadn’t really thought about how having a baby would completely change your life.’
She dropped her spoon and let it clatter on the table, much to James’s dismay. ‘Are you serious? Do you think I’m dumb?’
‘A baby is for life, not just for Christmas?’ I offered.
‘I think that’s dogs, Ange,’ Lou whispered in my ear.
‘I know a baby is forever,’ Jenny said. ‘That’s why I want to do it now, before I get any older. How hard has this been for Erin? I don’t want to have to wreck my entire body by busting out a million kids when I’m forty. I want to be able to actually enjoy them.’
‘I totally get that,’ I replied, nodding. ‘It just seems like you’re going about it in a really difficult way. But yeah, you’re right, I’m not ready for kids so the idea of having to have one on my own, doing it as a single parent scares me absolutely shitless.’
‘I wouldn’t be on my own.’ She pointed at the desperately hungover thirty-something man who was currently groaning face first on the table beside her. He wrapped his arms over his head and sobbed.
‘Oh dear.’ Lou frowned and pretended to busy herself with her handbag.
‘You don’t think you want to wait a little while and see if you meet the man of your dreams before you get knocked up?’ I knew I was risking a slap but I had to ask.
‘Ooh, I think that happened in a film!’ Louisa’s head popped up, looking for confirmation. ‘In fact, I think it had Jennifer Lopez in it, you know, the other one.’
‘We don’t discuss her and we will not discuss that movie,’ Jenny declared. ‘Not all of us are as lucky as you, Angie. Not all of us will meet our soulmate.’
I opened my mouth but there weren’t actually any words waiting to come out.
‘Ever,’ Jenny added softly.
‘Oh, Jenny, don’t.’ Louisa reached across the table and squeezed Jenny’s hand. She was much braver than me. ‘That’s a silly thing to say.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ she said with a sad smile. ‘It’s a realistic thing to say. I’m not stupid, I’m cute, I’m successful, I’m freaking awesome in bed—’
‘All good to know,’ James mumbled from inside his protective arm shield.
‘But I’m still single.’ She gave James a look before turning back to the smug marrieds across the table. Well, that was me feeling adequately horrible. ‘Do you know how many awesome single women there are in New York City? So many. And so many are younger than me, hotter than me and prepared to settle for less than I am. So this seems like a good solution to my problem.’
She turned to look at James again.
‘Maybe it doesn’t look that great right now but really, when you think about the bigger picture …’
‘I know I can’t go back in time and take back what I said,’ I began, briefly wondering whether or not it would be possible to talk to the BBC about me becoming the new Dr Who, although they probably already had someone in mind. ‘But I can say new stuff and then we can just ignore all that horrible stuff, yeah?’
‘You have such a great command of the English language,’ Jenny said, resting her chin on her hand and staring at me. ‘It’s no wonder you’re a writer.’
‘I think we all said some things we didn’t mean,’ Louisa added, playing the peacekeeper as always. ‘And as much as I hate it, you were sort of right about me. I did need to call Tim.’
‘Did?’
‘I called him last night,’ she nodded. ‘Hence the dead phone battery.’
‘And?’
‘He says he’s not having an affair.’ I felt relief coming off her in waves, even if she didn’t seem ready to admit that she believed him. ‘And he wants me to come home.’
‘The asshole didn’t even realise you were out of the country for nearly a week! Let him sweat.’ Jenny fanned herself with her giant, laminated menu. ‘Is it hot in here?’
‘No,’ I told her, turning back to Lou. ‘What did you say?’
‘What else could I say?’ she asked. ‘I’ve got to go home sooner or later. Gracie needs her dad and, quite frankly, I need him too. I know I’ve had you two and Erin helped out so much but it’s just too hard to be out here on my own with her. I never thought I’d say this a week ago but I miss my life. I just want everything back how it was.’
‘So when are you going?’ I rocked the pushchair back and forth, trying not to look so upset. Of course she had to go home. Sniff.
‘Yeah, that’s a bit of a problem.’ She let out a tiny laugh and tapped a fingernail against the side of her teacup. ‘I looked at flights back home and they are extortionate over the next couple of days.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘Something about a Christmas rush, would you believe?’ she sighed. ‘So it looks like I have properly cocked up and might have to stay for Christmas. If you’ll have me?’
‘Of course I will,’ I said immediately. ‘Is Tim OK with it?’
‘Tim is not OK with it,’ she replied. ‘But we both messed up here. It’s actually really cheap if I fly on Christmas Day but I just can’t bring myself to put Grace on a plane to eat turkey off a plastic tray.’
I felt myself shudder and instinctively pulled the pushchair closer towards me.
‘That cannot happen.’ I was quite insistent. ‘We’ll sort it out. I’ll ask if we can get corporate rates at work or something, I know some people have done that.’
‘Doesn’t Tim work for a bank or something?’ Jenny, never one to understand the value of money, looked confused. ‘Aren’t you, like, loaded?’
‘Working for a bank doesn’t mean you’re loaded,’ Louisa explained awkwardly. Talking about money at the breakfast table was not something she was brought up to do. It was terribly gauche. ‘And we’ve mortgaged ourselves up the arse with the house. And, you know, I might have done some light credit card damage while I’ve been here. To three different credit cards. My mum’s going to go mental.’
‘You know you’re welcome to stay.’ I couldn’t imagine how much she was regretting spending five hundred dollars on leather shorts at that exact moment. ‘We’ll sort the spare room out.’
‘And Sadie won’t be back, you can still stay with me,’ Jenny added. ‘No more parties, I promise.’
‘Hmm, no impromptu parties once you’re on the baby train,’ Louisa replied, flicking her eyebrows skywards. ‘You’ll be too tired for them anyway.’
‘I’m too tired to live,’ she said, slumping onto James’s shoulder. ‘It’s good, though, right? Get all of this out of my system?’
‘I think I’m about to get everything I drank last night out of my system,’ James muttered. ‘I need more coffee.’
He was staring at his cutlery so hard I was worried he was trying to bend his spoon.
‘You all right there, Uri?’ I asked.
‘The trick is to realise that there is no spoon,’ Louisa added.
‘You really are going to make the best parents,’ I said. ‘This is going to be brilliant.’
‘I’m not about to take her in the back and knock her up after brunch,’ he replied. ‘There’s a lot to sort out.’
‘There’s a lot to sort out,’ Jenny echoed with a confident nod. But I could already see a glimmer of doubt in her eyes. I just wasn’t sure whether it was in the entire plan or her most recent choice of baby daddy. ‘I’m too tired to fight, that doesn’t mean I’m not still pissed with you.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I was a dick. A baby isn’t the same as a handbag.’
‘A Birkin isn’t a handbag,’ she gasped, pressing her hands to her heart. ‘How many times do I have to tell you?’
‘You’re not helping your case here, Jen.’ Louisa frantically swiped a hand in front of her throat, signalling for Jenny to quit while she was ahead. ‘As someone who has already destroyed her own vagina squeezing one of the little monsters into this world, I would have to say, you probably really need to want it more than you want a handbag. Or a Birkin. Or anything.’
‘Yeah, whatever.’ Jenny winced as the short order cook bellowed out an order behind us. ‘Just don’t be an asshole, Clark.’
‘I’m just trying to be supportive,’ I said, smiling at the waiter as he sloped over. ‘I can’t wait to hold your hand through all the antenatal classes. I’m totally going to tell people we’re a couple.’
‘No one would believe you, I’m way too hot for you,’ she said, kicking me under the table. And with a bruised ankle and a warm heart, I knew I was forgiven. ‘But I’ll think about it. You do buy the good coffee.’
‘Only the best for my love,’ I replied, kicking her back.
‘What’ll it be, gang?’ The ancient Italian waiter parked himself and his dodgy hip in front of our table and pulled an order pad out of his apron.
‘Hey, Scotty.’ Jenny gave him a tired smile.
‘I’m not Scotty,’ he replied gruffly. ‘How many times?’
‘Oh, Scotty,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘So many, many more.’