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.’
They mean well, the voice in my brain whispered, let them live and you can have garlic bread as well.
‘The only thing that’s getting to me is having to talk about it, to be honest,’ I said as I aggressively dunked my teabag. ‘It’s really not a big deal.’
‘My mate Will just got dumped. I could set you up with him if you’d like?’ Martin offered helpfully. ‘I‘ll give him your number.’
They’re only trying to help, do not disembowel them with a Nespresso pod.
‘Recently dumped Will sounds lovely,’ I said with as much grace as I could muster. ‘But just because my ex got engaged, it doesn’t mean I’m desperate for a boyfriend.’
The two of them exchanged a glance and I knew what they were thinking.
It was the same thing I was thinking, lying in bed, wide awake at three o’clock that morning and scrolling through Bumble, Tinder, Happn, Hinge, Huggle and god help me, even Farmers Only. As soon as you ended a relationship you were in a game of snakes and ladders with your ex, there was always someone keeping score and, right now, Matthew was winning. Any points I’d earned from technically doing the dumping had been wiped off the board by his proposing to his supposed soulmate twelve months after we called it quits.
‘I’m dying of thirst, Higgins. Where’s my tea?’ Miranda strolled into the kitchen, having traded her oversized shirt for a cropped neon yellow T-shirt. She was the best, all faux leather trousers and fuck-you attitude. It was something I needed more of. The attitude, not the trousers. I got thrush from just looking at them.
‘Martin offered to set me up with his friend,’ I told her, handing over her My Little Pony mug. It didn’t really go with the rest of her look but when it came to a cup of tea, Mir would have drunk it out of a lightly rinsed bedpan if it was the only option. ‘Because I’m a sad and lonely spinster.’
‘Are you joking?’ she asked, looking astounded. ‘Have you seen this woman? Annie’s amazing. Any man alive would jump at the chance to go out with her. She’s funny, she’s clever, she’s generous, she doesn’t mess about and have you seen those getaway sticks? Annie, pull up your jeans, show them your legs.’
‘Get off,’ I muttered, slapping Miranda’s hands away from my knees. ‘Can I go back to my desk now please?’
‘Obviously, Annie is amazing,’ Charlie spoke extra loudly to make sure we knew he really meant it. ‘And if it’s all right for me to say so, you have got a cracking pair of legs there, Higgins.’
’It isn’t,’ I assured him. ‘But thank you.’
‘You’re looking at the empress of social media,’ Miranda was really on a roll. ‘She’s a kingmaker, best in the world at what she does. The fact you even get to stand in the same room as this woman is mindblowing to me. She’s the Meryl Streep of socials. In fact, I’m fairly certain you should bow whenever you see her.’
‘Yeah, yeah, she turns in a good tweet,’ Martin said, looking at the door and clearly wondering how his morning had taken such a wrong turn. ‘We’re all very impressed.’
‘What did you just say?’ Miranda slammed her cup down on the table, hot tea spilling eveywhere. ‘She turns in a good tweet?’
I winced as I sipped my tea. What an idiot.
Martin paused and looked at Charlie. Charlie shook his head. Martin did not take the hint.
‘That’s what you do, isn’t it?’ he replied. ‘Twitter?’
‘Do you even know what we do?’ Miranda asked. ‘Do either of you have any clue?’
Martin shook his head. Charlie apparently knew better than to react. Mir sighed sadly and gave me the look. I shrugged apologetically and leaned back against the counter to watch the show. This wasn’t the first time we’d had to explain our actual jobs and I very much doubted it would be the last.
‘OK, so, Charlie, say you’re trying to think of a clever tagline to go on your thirty-second advert for a chicken cooking sauce?’ Mir began, gesticulating wildly as she went. ‘And you’re dead excited because the advert is going on in the middle of Coronation Street.’
He nodded.
‘You’re wasting your time,’ she said, clapping her hands right in front of his face. ‘No one watches the adverts any more. They’re all on their phone, interacting with content we created instead.’
‘There are twenty million Instagram accounts in the UK,’ I said, picking up where she left off. ‘Our influencers alone have more than a hundred million followers between them. You couldn’t even dream of getting close to that many people with an advert these days.’
‘I know social media is important, but you don’t really think what you do is more powerful than what I do?’ Charlie said, his hackles somewhat raised. ‘I’m sure you’re very good at arsing about on the internet, but we all know real advertising, real marketing is still what matters most. Everyone knows social media is the paid-for opinions of kids.’
‘Arsing about on the internet?’ I repeated, almost sure he must be joking. ‘Paid-for opinions of kids? Is that really what you think we do?’
Charlie picked up a pink wafer biscuit and bit into it while responding to me with a very, very brave shrug.