Anna was tempted to let the morning drift past her but instead she had a long shower and then got ready to go out. When she’d first arrived in New York, she’d bought a map and just walked around the city for hours. The apartment she shared was in Brooklyn, and she liked to walk across the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan, to really take in this insanely busy island that she’d once known only from films and was now starting to really feel a part of. The map, worn and tatty from being folded and refolded, rarely came out of her bag now. She made her way to McNally Jackson, her favourite bookshop, and browsed for half an hour. She saw one of the books she’d worked on recently and felt the rush she always did when she spotted them out in the world.
It was a warm day with a slight breeze, and Anna bought a sandwich from a deli and ate it wandering around, window-shopping in the tiny boutiques she was too scared to step inside. It was the kind of day she loved, just mooching around with no destination in mind. She imagined being able to go back in time to her teenage years, to tell herself that this was what her life would be like, that she would be living in New York, working with books, carefree. But she wasn’t sure quite what her teenage self would make of it all. She’d be impressed by the New York thing, for sure, but she’d probably ask why Anna was single andchildless. Back then, it had all seemed much more straightforward.
When it was almost time to meet Lee, she walked back across to the Lower East Side, to the bar they liked there with its mismatched sofas and 90s posters that always reminded her of a sixth-form common room. Lee was there already, halfway through a muddy orange cocktail that had been served in a tumbler.
‘So, what’s up?’ he asked as soon as she’d ordered a drink and sat down next to him on a low, creaky sofa.
‘I feel wobbly,’ Anna said.
‘Wobbly how? Like, sick? Or shitty and you don’t know why? Or about to burst into tears?’
Anna gave it some thought. ‘It should have been my anniversary today. Five years. And I called Nia to talk about it and she told me she’s having a baby. And I want to be happy about it, and I am, but not as happy as I should be. I feel like she’s leaving me behind or something. There, I said it. I’m the worst friend in the world.’
‘Nia, with a baby?’ Lee asked, and just that asking made Anna feel a bit better.
Nia had come over for a visit in the run up to Christmas and made it her mission to ask the staff of almost every Manhattan bar and restaurant their names, still looking for Anna’s mysterious ‘J’ man. Anna, Nia and Lee had gone ice skating at the Rockefeller Center, although Lee had said he would die if anyone he knew saw him. Afterwards, they’d had cocktails (served by a Brad) on empty stomachs and three drinks in, Lee and Nia had declared themselves lifelong friends. They even thought they might just have met once, back in Lee’s London days, although they didn’t know how.
‘Exactly!’ Anna said, a little too loudly. ‘That’s exactly what Ithought, and then I felt horrible about it. Do you know that when we were fifteen we did that flour experiment, you know, the one where you have to look after a bag of flour for a week?’
‘Er, no,’ Lee said. ‘That must be a weird British thing. Is it to prepare you for having a baby?’
‘Yes. Anyway, on the very first day, Nia wanted to go to the park because this boy she liked was playing football there, and she tried to convince me to just leave the flour babies in my bedroom. I ended up staying in and looking after both of them while she went to the park with our friend Rachel.’
‘Did anything happen, with the football boy?’ Lee asked.
‘Oh, probably. But the point is, she left her baby to die, because she couldn’t be bothered to look after it for one day.’
A woman at the next table looked over with a horrified expression and Anna realised how loudly she was speaking. When the woman looked away, Anna started to laugh, and it set Lee off, and for a couple of minutes, the two of them were uncontrollable, brushing away tears and clutching one another’s hands. The woman from the next table didn’t look over again. She probably thought they were genuine psychopaths.
When Lee had gathered himself, he spoke. ‘I don’t think that’s going to happen with her actual baby.’
‘I know that,’ Anna said, suddenly serious. ‘But I just wasn’t prepared for her taking this step. I think part of the reason I didn’t want to take it was because I was so sure she wouldn’t.’
Lee had heard all about Edward, and Anna’s reluctance to have a family.
‘I don’t believe that,’ he said. ‘If you’d really wanted to have a baby with Edward, you would have done it regardless of what Nia was doing. Just like she’s doing now. She hasn’t consulted you; she’s just doing what feels right for her. That’s how it should be.’
Over the years, Nia had consulted Anna about all sorts of things. Whether she should lose her virginity to Dean O’Leary or hold out on the off-chance that Luke Shears would change the habit of a lifetime and show an interest in her. How she should word her break-up text to Alex London after she found out he was cheating on her with Lucy Mason. What she should say her greatest weakness was in job interviews. But not this. Anna wondered whether the baby had been planned. It couldn’t have been, she decided. Nia had only been seeing this Jamie guy for about four months. No one talked seriously about having a baby at that point.
‘I guess it’s nice that you’ll be back before the baby’s born,’ Lee said.
Anna realised she hadn’t told him her news.
‘David’s asked me to stay for a while,’ she said.
‘How long is a while?’
‘I’m not sure. I mean, it’s permanent, so as long as it’s working out, I suppose.’
‘Do you think he fancies you?’ Lee asked.
David was the subject of much office gossip. Anna still couldn’t believe he was an actual living, breathing man. He looked like he’d been cut out of a catalogue and stuck to the wall of the office. Sometimes, she found herself staring at his lips in meetings.
Anna gave Lee a sharp look. She was pretty sure he was joking, but she hoped it wasn’t what people thought.
‘No, I think he thinks I’m good at my job.’
There had been the occasional look, between her and David. She had allowed herself to wonder, sometimes. But no. He was her boss. And besides, she didn’t want to have been asked to stay for any reason other than her work.
