‘Does this happen?’ She’d never heard Diane sound uncomfortable, not once in the twelve years they’d known her. She sounded like she would rather cut off her arm than have this conversation.

‘Not that I know of,’ she said.

‘Yeah.’ There was a noise in the background like standing up. ‘We can’t talk about this,’ Diane said. ‘You need to talk to someone else about this. I can’t help you with this.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Sure. Okay. I understand. Thanks.’

‘Have a good day,’ Diane said, and the phone clicked before she could say goodbye.

She looked at the phone. It wasn’t Diane’s fault. Diane wasn’t perfect. If anyone looked at the situation for too long, it ruined their lives – no one wanted that. Not even the handful of women who couldn’t ignore it. She needed to call Heidi, but she didn’t. Maybe she needed to call Dell. Maybe Kitty and Erin were in the phonebook. She looked at the phone. She needed to either go to work or stay at home and work. She couldn’t afford the flat if she didn’t do both jobs. She looked around the flat. But maybe she didn’t need such a big flat now. Maybe she could flat with someone else. Her spine ran cold. So, she tried again, just to feel the discomfort, like she was picking a scab – maybe she needed to move in with someone else.

The phones started to ring. It was Heidi.

‘Hello?’ She sounded like she was asking a question.

‘Greta?’ Heidi said.

‘Is it?’ she said.

‘Hey, do you still have that pizza stone?’

‘Yep.’ She had to sit down.

‘I’m thinking of making pizza, can I borrow it?’

‘How’s Dell?’

‘Can I pick it up today? I wanted to use it tonight,’ Heidi said.

‘I’m not sure anyone will be here,’ she said.

‘Is the key in the same place?’

‘How’s Dell?’ she said.

‘Oh. Um. Scheming? Dishonest? A thief?’ said Heidi. Another phone was ringing. ‘Gotta go. I’ll pop round about one. Thanks.’

She needed a shower. She walked to the bedroom and found some clothes and put some toast in the toaster and turned the shower on. If she didn’t log in to the moderation job, that was the same as calling in sick. That was how she figured it worked. She didn’t have a manager as such. She could mop it all up tonight when she got home from the call centre. Or they would realise sooner that she wasn’t there and put someone else on her work. Surely that was how it worked. It would be easier to phone in sick for the call centre job, but she needed to get out of the house. She was running late. She’d been up all night and now she was running late.