as she draws breath. “You owe it to Mum. You owe it to me.”
Nicole is silent for a while, her eyes narrowing. I stare at her, unblinking, realizing that this is probably the first time I’ve ever asserted myself against her.
“Fine,” she says finally, huffing loudly. “Only I’m not lugging stock about. My yoga teacher says I shouldn’t be lifting heavy items. My arms are exceptionally slender.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” I say, lifting my eyes skyward. “And now, welcome to the coffee machine, your new best friend.”
Shooting me a resentful look, Nicole walks over to the coffee machine and stares at it dubiously. “It’s so complicated,” she says at last.
“Yes,” I agree. “And?”
Nicole prods at the display and jumps as it lights up. Then she turns to frown suspiciously at me.
“You’ve changed, Fixie,” she says.
“Yeah.” I nod matter-of-factly. “Yeah, I have.”
“How’s your new boyfriend?” she asks, light dawning on her face, as though this might explain everything.
“He’s not,” I say succinctly. “We broke up.”
“Oh.” Nicole’s face crumples a little in sympathy. “Shit. That didn’t last long.”
“No. Well.” I shrug.
We look at each other silently and I feel like we have more in common right now than I can ever remember. We met guys and we fell in love and everything seemed to work out. Until it didn’t.
My eyes are starting to shimmer. My throat is thick. I fiercely blink my tears away, but Nicole notices. She peers at me expressionlessly—then suddenly holds out her arms. For a moment I don’t even know what she means…then I realize and my ears turn warm and I go to her, feeling almost self-conscious.
Her arms wrap around me and my eyes leak hot tears onto her shoulder and I exhale as though I’ve been holding my breath for a long time. It must be years since my big sister hugged me. She smells of some Nicole-ish perfume, and her earrings make gentle clinky sounds as she pats my back.
“Make me a coffee,” she says wheedlingly as we draw apart. “Go on.”
“No!” I can’t help erupting with outraged laughter, tears still edging my voice. “I’m not doing it! You’re going to learn!”
It takes over half an hour to teach her. God, she’s frustrating. Her brain just slides away when it sees something it doesn’t like. But at last she’s clutching a latte and looking proudly down at it.
“See?” I say. “And next you can learn how to dehumidify the toaster.”
“Dehumidify the toaster?” echoes Nicole, looking aghast, and I bite my lip, giggling. I’m about to tell her I invented “dehumidify the toaster” to freak her out, when my phone beeps with a text.
Hi. Jake’s in a real mood. What happened? Can you talk now? Leila xxx
All at once my mind is wrenched away from the coffee machine, away from Nicole, away from easy problems like how to clean the milk frother…back to Jake. I see his cold, furious eyes this morning, and my stomach flips with nerves.
Swiftly I type a reply to Leila:
I’ll call in 5 xxx
I send the text, then stare at the screen, feeling daunted. I know what I think should happen. And I want to make it happen. But I can’t do it alone.
“Nicole,” I say at last. “There’s something else.”
“Yeah?” She’s peering at the coffee machine again. “Wait, it does a macchiato?”
“There’s something else I need your help with. Something big.” I wait until she turns, then add, “It’s to do with Jake.”
* * *
—
It takes us two days to arrange everything. About half of that is spent explaining it all to Nicole, who starts off by saying, “Honestly, Fixie. Do you have to interfere in everything?”
But then she talks to Leila and sees the TV wrenched off Jake’s wall. Then we have a meeting with Bob in the back room at the shop and he shows us the withdrawals Jake has been making from the company—and even Nicole looks jolted out of her usual bubble.
“But what does he spend it on?” she says, leafing through the printouts that Bob has made for us. “It can’t all have gone on the scam,” she adds with a wince—I’ve already filled her in on that.
“You know.” I shrug. “Jake stuff. Networking. If you asked him, he’d say he was entertaining clients or softening up prospects or something. But you can’t soften up prospects forever. You have to land the deal.”
“And how come Mum let him take out that first loan, anyway?” Nicole lifts her eyes to