Break-Up Club: A smart, funny novel about love and friendship. Lorelei Mathias

hoped her smile covered the fact that inside, her heart was having minor palpitations. ‘I wouldn’t have said cheesy. Transparent, maybe…’

      Her phone began to ring in her pocket. She looked down to see a flashing thumbnail of a girl with jet black hair and red lips holding a microphone.

      ‘Oh sorry. This is my flatmate, I’d better…’

      ‘Sure. Let me know about that coffee another time.’ Luke smiled as she turned to walk away.

      Those teeth have almost certainly been bleached in a Hollywood salon, Holly decided before answering the call.

      ‘Hey hon, you OK?’

      ‘Holly! Oh my giddy fuck! The world has just ended.’

      Holly sighed. The world was always ending in Bella’s world.

      ‘What’s wrong? Have you and Daniel had another flatmates squabble? Have you thrown the laundry rack at him again?’

      ‘It’s so much worse than that,’ she said, breaking into sobs.

      Putting her hand over the receiver to drown out Bella’s crying, Holly headed down the corridor. She rounded the corner to her office and closed the door behind her. ‘OK. Sshhhhh. Deep breaths. What’s happened?’

      But all Holly could hear now was broken speech, not unlike a child’s hyperventilating playground tears.

      ‘My beautiful Sammy! He’s shitting well dumped me!’

      Through the phone, Bella began to rant, oscillating from desolate to indignant with every breath. One moment it was all ‘How-dare-HE-dump-ME!’, the next it was ‘He’s the love of my life, my soulmate!’

      ‘Oh, hon,’ Holly said, ‘I’m so sorry. Where are you?’

      ‘Guildhell.’

      Ever since her first term at The Guildhall – a prestigious Drama School that worked its students very hard – Bella and her course-mates had referred to it as The Guildhell School of Music and Trauma.

      ‘Do you want me to come and meet you after work?’

      ‘Can’t-You-Meet-Me-NOW?’ she wailed. ‘Yes. Sorry, can I just have a chai latte extra hot please, takeaway. Thanks. Can I pay by card? Oh sorry, where’s the nearest…? OK never mind. Sorry… sorry… Hol, I’m back. Oh no, hold on, Daniel’s ringing. Sorry Hol, wait one second.’

      Holly cleared her throat. Before long. Bella returned to the phone line with renewed focus. ‘Sorry Hol. That was just Daniel wanting me to buy loo roll again. The man’s obsessed! I mean – can you honestly believe he thinks he’s exempt from buying bog roll just because he poos at work?! I mean, who thinks like that?!’ Bella giggled despite her trauma.

      ‘He’s probably expecting one of his lady callers.’

      ‘Yes, that figures. But anyway! Can we do a movie and Prosecco tonight please?’

      ‘I really should be working late on fixing this new episode. I’m still two minutes and twenty-three seconds over length.’ She looked at Chardonnay’s tangerine face, frozen mid-pout, and thought for a moment. ‘But of course, B. I’ll pick up some pizzas on the way home.’

      ‘Christ, no. Shan’t be no solids passing my lips for at least a month now.’

      ‘Oh, right. More for me then.’

      ‘Actually, maybe pick up some chocolate brownie Ben & Jerry’s? I can probably digest that. At a push.’

      ‘Done. See you later for some Sex and the City therapy. Love you.’ Holly had an unrivalled talent for prescribing the exact most fitting episode for when her friends were going through a personal crisis of any sort. Despite being almost a decade old, many of the show’s scenarios were still so on the nail that viewings became like a workshop session.

      What would it be this week? Definitely not the ‘he broke up with me on a Post-it’ one, she decided as she hung up the phone.

      She grabbed the cup of black coffee that was now only partially warm, and headed down the hall towards the gargantuan corner office. She knocked on the door.

      ‘Enter.’

      Once Holly had recovered from being momentarily blinded by the light from Jeremy’s floor-to-ceiling windows, she handed him his coffee. He took the cup without looking up from his screen, which was quite clearly displaying an inter-marital dating site. A dialogue box was open, in which Jeremy was filling out his physical characteristics with a generous dollop of artistic license. Holly stared at the back of his head, where a bald spot was forming like a threadbare patch on an old rug. She waited for him to stop typing, minimise his screen and turn to face her. When that didn’t happen, she began to talk in that garbled way she did around people she thought didn’t like her.

      ‘So um, thanks for your comments on the edit, I’ll remember that when I’m cutting this week’s show. Note to self, Toto, we’re not in Drama anymore!’ she attempted humour, but Jeremy was too busy writing about what a good sense of humour he had to hear her.

      She tried again. ‘So, what was the “little niggle” you had to tell me about?’

      ‘Oh, yes. Well, the headline is that it looks like Prowl’s going to be axed after this series. I know you were signed up for two series but, should it be axed, I simply can’t justify keeping two full-time editors on.’

      Holly’s mouth fell open. ‘Oh. If only I’d known that when I left my old job.’

      ‘This is telly, Holly. It’s about as secure as a two-man tent from Lidl in a torrential hurricane.’

      ‘Quite. Is there anything I can do to help my chances?’

      ‘Well, I’m not sure when, but at some point I’m going to have to make a call between you and Pascal…’

      Holly’s heart sank. Pascal, the gay (strictly in the modern sense of the word) editor from Romford who cycled in every day at the crack of dawn, was as much a part of the furniture as the Coke-stained sofa in the green room. Incidentally, that sofa had shown Holly a much warmer welcome than Pascal ever had – she could count the number of times he had acknowledged her existence on one finger.

      ‘…So I’m going to need to see you both really adding value. Whether that’s getting a first pass done sooner, or coming to me with proposals for the channel that can replace the Prowl slot. Or just bringing me more coffee. Ultimately, though, it will mean you putting in a lot more of your evenings, and some weekends.’

      ‘I’m guessing you won’t be paying us any extra for all the overtime?’

      ‘I know it’s unusual, but we’re a small outfit and we have to do what we can. Of course, if you don’t like it…’

      ‘No! I can definitely try and help come up with some new show ideas.’

      ‘Great! Just email them through, any time of day, it doesn’t matter.’

      ‘Actually, there is this one thing I thought of yesterday, that I guess could be a documentary. I was on the Tube, listening to the old-fashioned voice that calls out all the stops, and I got to thinking how she must have been a real person once… and how there are probably a few disembodied voices like hers who may have since passed away, and how strange it must be for their loved ones to hear their voices when they’ve gone? Maybe they take the trains and buses more than normal – more than they need to – as a way of seeking comfort in the vocal leftovers of their lost loves? Maybe we could find if there are any real-life examples… perhaps interview them?’

      ‘What are you calling it, Britain’s TFL Widows?’

      ‘Mmm, I was thinking Mind the Gap.’

      Jeremy spat out his coffee. ‘Sorry, did my email say Frappuccino?’

      ‘No?’