Who’s That Girl?: A laugh-out-loud sparky romcom!

A friend called a big-ass glass of wine.

At the arts cinema café bar up the road, Edie got herself a thumping beaker of red and found a relatively quiet corner. She sat alone, back half-turned to the room, free to play with her phone unfettered and do some discreet weeping. She was overdue some self-pity. Edie indulged in leaking-eyes-and-holding-fingers-horizontally-underneath-to-catch-the-water crying. Everyone around her was far too lively-drunk to notice the dark-haired woman dissolving in the corner.

Everything was so fucked in so many ways. Her life wasn’t great. She wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, living her hashtag ‘Best Life’. But it was hers and it worked, sort of. Now what?

She’d talk to her dad tomorrow and say she’d move out to a flat for the next few months. He’d object vehemently. She’d have to insist that she and Meg under the same roof was a recipe for disaster. Her sister hated her, she didn’t know why, and that was that. It just wasn’t tolerable when the world at large hated her too.

Edie had a sudden and overwhelming urge to speak to someone who loved her, and understood her, and confess all. Little chance of Hannah answering at this time on a Saturday night, mind you …

‘Edith!’

‘Hello! You’re there?!’

‘Of course I’m here, this is my phone.’

‘I know, but it’s a Saturday night.’

Edie put a finger in her spare ear to block out multiple other conversations and Tracy Chapman’s ‘Fast Car’.

‘I was just thinking I should call you.’

‘Noel Edmonds’ cosmic ordering,’ Edie said, feeling her chest swell and trying not to wail HELP ME, OBI WAN KENOBE, YOU’RE MY ONLY HOPE.

‘You sound funny, where are you?’

‘I am funny. I’m crying a bit and I’m in a bar. In Nottingham, actually.’

‘Really?! That’s a coincidence. Why are you crying?’

Edie steeled herself. She should’ve done this sooner.

‘Ready for a dreadful story and a big pile of I Told You So? Hang on, why is it a coincidence?’

‘I’m here too. At my parents’. Where are you?’

‘Urrr … Broadwalk? No, wait, Broadway. The cinema.’

‘Can you hang on ten minutes? I can cab it to you.’

Could she hang on ten minutes? Edie wanted to do a lap of the café-bar, face daubed with woad, whooping war cries of joy.

Quarter of an hour later, Hannah appeared in the doorway of the bar, fists bunched in the pockets of her jacket, ponytail whipping from side to side as she scanned for Edie. Hannah wore big eighties-ish secretary spectacles with coloured frames that somehow made her look even more attractive. Edie would’ve looked like a serial killer’s wife.

She waved and did a two-finger point at the two glasses of red in front of her. Hannah was as tall, lithe and handsome of face as she’d ever been – she’d skipped the puppy fat and spots of adolescence entirely. She was born aged thirty-five, in more than one way. The only sign of the years passing was that her delicate Welsh skin had acquired a network of fine lines you could only see up close, like varnish crackling on pottery.

They hugged across the table and Edie said, not completely able to staunch the waterworks: ‘Oh, it is so good to see you. Why are you here? Home, I mean?’

‘Tell you in a minute. You alright? Is your dad OK? Your sister?’

‘They’re fine. It’s me. I’ve been an idiot.’

Edie relayed the wedding carnage. Hannah was quiet, sipping her red wine, brow furrowed. ‘I never liked the sound of this Jack. That’s certainly not changed. To be honest, I thought you were going to tell me his girlfriend caught you showering together or something.’

Edie’s jaw dropped.

‘You don’t think I’m the most despicable woman who ever lived?’ Edie said.

‘I think you fucked up in the heat of a moment but you’d hardly be the first person to do that. Also, he jumped you, right?’

‘Yes but, I kissed him back though,’ Edie said, morose. ‘I kissed someone’s husband, Hannah, on their wedding day. They’d only said vows about forsaking all others a few hours before.’

Hannah sipped her wine and put her head on one side.

‘Hmm. What would not kissing him back have looked like in that situation? I mean, even if you’d stood there, it’d have looked bad. Sounds like he lunged and you were buggered, really. I can’t judge you. My dad always says, only beat yourself up about the harm you did that you meant to do. That’s on you. The harm you did by accident, feel bad but let it go, ultimately it’s not on you. Only way I got through junior med school, was with that in mind.’

Calling Hannah tonight was the best idea Edie had had in a long time.

‘Yes!’ Edie said, feeling a rush, a flood, of gratitude and relief. ‘Who would possibly expect it? If I’d had any time to think it’d have been a “no”.’

‘Toxic arsehole. Please tell me he’s out of your system?’

‘God, yes,’ Edie said, nodding vigorously. ‘I was already well on my way to over him by the wedding.’

She said this, not knowing if it was wholly true. Would she have replied to that first post-honeymoon G-chat? Probably, yes. In a guarded way. She was an addict. Addicts weren’t to be trusted. Addicts lied to everyone, and themselves in particular.

‘If you’re looking for my reputation, however, it’s in the toilet. I had to come off Facebook, I was getting a barrage of abuse,’ Edie said.

‘Well, you know my views on that merry shitshow.’

Hannah was an avowed loather of social media.

‘I’ve got news, too, as it happens,’ Hannah said.

‘Yeah?’

‘Pete and I have split up.’

Edie paused, glass of wine halfway to her mouth.‘What?’ she said dumbly. ‘That sounded like you said you and Pete …?’

‘… have split up.’

‘No?’ Edie said. It was as much a statement as a question. Hannah and Pete couldn’t simply ‘split up’ any more than the Queen and Prince Philip. Together since university, inseparable, finished each other’s sentences, each other’s equal and opposite reaction. This was unthinkable. This was like your parents divorcing.

‘I don’t know where to start,’ Hannah said, and Edie heard the unusual tremor in her voice. ‘We’d been not happy for so long we’d forgotten what happy felt like, so we were numb to it all. I couldn’t bring myself to say the words, I kept losing my nerve. I lay in bed at night thinking, “I’ll do it tomorrow” and then the next day was never the right day to do it. I went away on this training course and shagged someone else so that I’d done something definitive I couldn’t take back.’

‘You had an affair?’ Edie said. This was un-possible.

‘Not sure if it’s an affair if it’s a one-off? I fell off the fidelity wagon with a thud, yes. I knew Pete and I were over and had to push myself to make it real. I haven’t told him. I’m not proud of it, but there it is. It was as if I had to prove to myself we were over, as well as him. I came home two weeks ago and finished it.’ Hannah paused. ‘I was going to call you before now but I needed to get it straight in my head and we had to tell the parents and everything … With Mum having the MS flare up, I wanted to pick my moment …’