Kate unlocked and shimmied inside, and James was all rubbing himself up against her back in the process, and Kate was like: “Phoebe, can you see if my wallet’s on the stockroom table?” And I was like: “Check yourself,” but Kate was like: “I can’t, because I’m kissing James.” And then she went and kissed James, and I was just like: gross.

So I walked through the shop, and into the stockroom, and suddenly all these people shouted, actually shouted:

“SURPRISE!!!!!!”

And I swear I screamed and fell to the floor.

Kate was laughing and clapping, someone switched on the lights and opened the back door, and then everyone was singing “Happy Birthday.”

Everyone was there.

In the stockroom.

Singing.

Polly, Tristan, Emma, Miriam Patel, Alex, his parents, Bill, and even Pat.

I think I must have said “fuck” about a thousand times, but no one was outraged, they just laughed at me.

My eyes kept bouncing back to Emma, and my heartbeat was all over the place, but that could have been the shock of the surprise. She smiled at me, but I knew straightaway that something was off. Missing. Broken.

My brain was like: What have you done, Phoebe? But there was so much going on that I couldn’t process that question properly, and so I was left just looking at Emma, and looking at Emma, and looking at Emma.

Kate must have arranged the whole thing on Saturday when I was recovering from that awful meltdown and was literally lying unconscious on the sofa.

The table was set all Halloween-like with skull cups and ghost plates and a string of skull fairy lights along the middle, and skull and rat candles.

People must have brought chairs, and there was food, and presents, and everything.

It’s still so strange to think that everyone had made such an effort for me.

I’m also still surprised that Kate had any love left after I almost kicked down the wall that separates the hallway from the kitchen in my blind rage.

I hugged her for like five minutes, until she was like: “Okay, get off me now and say hello to your guests.”

I felt like a celebrity, walking down a line of well-wishers, shaking hands and hugging people.

Turns out Miriam Patel came minus one, because she’s jumped onto the suffragettes bandwagon, and therefore no longer believes in the “plus one.” She sat next to Alex, and they were talking all afternoon. He even let her pick a French Fancy off of his plate, and he normally really isn’t into people interfering with his snacks. I think the whole Emmeline Pankhurst thing actually suits Miriam. That way she can still talk and talk and talk, but without talking actual crap and sounding like the idiot she isn’t.