The Good Part(3)

‘No, don’t worry. I’ll do it later.’

‘What the hell is that smell?’ Zoya asks, grimacing and holding her nose.

‘Julian and Betty are batch-cooking bone broth. There’s a pile of bones in the bath.’ Zoya makes a suitably horrified face. ‘Of all the flat shares in all the towns in all the world, why did we have to walk into this one?’

‘Because it was the only one within budget that had two rooms available,’ says Zoya.

‘Emily’s got another random guy here.’

‘Hide your cash. I’m pretty sure the last guy she had over stole a twenty from my wallet and a pair of knickers from my drawer.’

‘Lucky I have nothing to steal then,’ I say. ‘Unless he wants a dying spider plant.’

‘I don’t know where she finds these sketchy men.’

Zoya turns down her music and sits at her dressing table to straighten her hair. Standing behind her in the mirror, I’m reminded how terrible my own hair looks – mousy brown and asymmetrical, the result of an online tutorial on how to cut your own hair. Maybe I didn’t have the right scissors. Maybe I didn’t have the right hair.

‘Look at this,’ I say, tugging at the shorter side.

‘It’s not that bad,’ says Zoya. ‘Come on, I’ll put it up for you.’ She stands up and motions for me to sit down, then sets to work, pinning it into a stylish messy bun. ‘You’ve got to look smart for your first day in the new job.’

‘Yes,’ I say, touched that she’s remembered today’s the day. ‘Finally, I’m going to get to do more than print scripts and clean up after everyone.’

‘I’m so proud of you, Luce,’ she says. ‘My best friend, the big-shot TV researcher.’

‘Junior researcher,’ I correct her, feeling myself flush at the compliment. ‘And I didn’t get a pay rise, just a new title, but I will have more responsibilities now. Hopefully I’ll be able to pitch ideas, maybe even brief the guests.’

‘You’ve worked your little butt off,’ Zoya says, picking up a sparkly hairband and laying it on my head like a crown. ‘You’ll be Queen of TV in no time. Which reminds me’ – Zoya reaches to pull a card out of a drawer and hands it to me. On the front is a sketch she’s drawn. It’s of me wearing a crown, holding a TV, surrounded by books and badgers. It says ‘Congratulations!’ in perfect calligraphy across the top.

‘This is amazing,’ I say, laughing. ‘A Zoya Khan original. This might be worth a fortune one day.’

‘It’s to put on your desk at work, to remind yourself where you’re headed.’

‘I love it. What’s with all the books and badgers?’

‘You like books and you like badgers,’ she says with a shrug.

I reach up to squeeze her hand, and mouth ‘thank you’ in the mirror.

Zoya has always been a stalwart supporter of my stuttering TV career. My parents were open-minded when I got my first job in production, but eighteen months later, when I was still a runner on minimum wage, they started to question what I was doing with my life. All my friends were moving up their respective career ladders, making good use of their degrees, while I was still languishing on the bottom rung, making coffee.

On the dressing table is a framed photo of our group of friends from school: me, Zoya, Faye and Roisin. The four of us talked about living together when we first moved to London, but then Faye’s parents bought her a studio flat, and Roisin, as a trainee lawyer, had a far bigger budget than Zoya and me.

‘How perfect would it be if we could swap Emily and Julian for Faye and Roisin,’ I say quietly, meeting Zoya’s eye in the mirror.

‘Roisin wouldn’t be able to handle the lack of en suites,’ Zoya says, laughing. ‘And Faye would probably make it her mission to tackle Stinkley’s antisocial behaviour with reflexology and herbal tea.’

‘Maybe we should set them up,’ I say, and we both burst out laughing.

Zoya’s room used to look like mine, posters Blu-Tacked to the walls and a clothes rail held together with duct tape. But now, looking around, I realise something has changed. Her room looks like the ‘after’ photo in an Instagram makeover reel. She has procured several lamps, a blue velvet armchair, scatter cushions, matching bed linen, framed art on the wall, and the biggest source of my envy – a dark, wooden bookcase that’s not even IKEA. So this is what a decent salary looks like.

‘You’ve made it so nice in here,’ I tell her, trying not to sound jealous.

‘Thanks, you can come and sit in my reading chair whenever you like.’

Zoya used to be a penniless creative like me, but then a few months ago, she dropped out of art school and got herself a job as an estate agent. It seems a shame because she’s an incredible artist, but then again, that bookcase is a work of art.

Squeezing my shoulder, she says, ‘There, done,’ as she puts the final pin in my hair.

‘Thank you. I don’t know how you do that.’

In the corridor, I hear a door open. ‘Bathroom’s free,’ Em yells as her door closes. I dash back into the hall, only to see Betty sneaking in there before me.

‘Sorry, just need to grab my bones,’ she yells, and I turn back to Zoya and make a murderous expression. Surprisingly she doesn’t laugh, but only says, ‘Luce, I need to talk to you about something. Walk to the tube with me?’