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‘You’re getting married?’

‘Good morning, Angela,’ Mary replied without looking up from her computer when I raced into her office and slammed the door the following morning. The door-slamming was accidental but it did add to the dramatic effect.

‘You’re getting married to Bob?’

Mary took a deep breath, pushed her glasses up her nose and looked up at me with all the patience she could muster. Which with Mary was never that much.

‘Delia told you?’ she asked, carefully rolling up the sleeves of her crisp white shirt. Everything about Mary was crisp – her steel-grey bob, her Manhattan-born-and-bred accent, even her eyeliner. ‘I told her I wanted to tell you myself.’

‘Delia didn’t tell me,’ I said, taking an unoffered seat. I felt like such a shambles in front of Mary. She was almost the same age as my mother but always a thousand times more put together than me. I’d left the house in the same old Madewell pencil skirt I’d worn the day before and a neon pink and white striped T-shirt. Somewhere in the bottom of my trusty old Marc Jacobs handbag there was a bright blue Paul & Joe jumper that absolutely failed to bring the entire outfit together. My spring–summer hand-me-downs from Jenny were on the brighter side this season. ‘I got an invitation. To the wedding. Your wedding, to Bob. Bobbity Bob Bob Spencer Bob.’

‘I don’t think we’ll be using his full name in the vows.’ Mary pulled a face and immediately began clicking through screens on her Mac. ‘They went out already? That’s a week early. Honestly, you just can’t hire the right people these days.’

‘Oh no, what a nightmare.’ I rapped on the desk for her attention and repeated myself. ‘Mary, you’re getting married to Bob Spencer?’

‘Well, if I weren’t, the invitations would be kind of an elaborate joke, wouldn’t they?’ Mary took off her glasses and I could swear I almost saw her smile. ‘Yes, Angela, I’m getting married to Bob.’

She paused and waited for me to speak but I didn’t have anything. No words. Not even swear words. Which was odd for me. After a quiet sigh, she picked up her phone and punched in an extension number.

‘Delia, could you come down? Angela appears to have become mute.’ I watched, still silent, and this time there was definitely a smile on her face. ‘Yeah, I checked, she’s still breathing.’

‘I knew something was going on.’ My voice found itself before I managed to exercise any control over its volume. ‘I mean, not in the sense that I had any sort of actual idea but I knew you were up to something. So that’s why you’ve been having all these secret meetings with Delia.’

‘Kind of,’ Mary replied.

‘Kind of?’ Brilliant. I loved it when Mary was vague. That was my favourite. ‘What do you mean, kind of?’

‘My getting married isn’t the only change on the horizon, Angela,’ she replied. ‘Delia and I wanted to have everything ironed out before we presented you with the new plan. So there wouldn’t be any reason for you to panic.’

‘New plan?’ I panicked. ‘What’s going on? Is Gloss closing? Have I been fired?’

It had to be all the pens I’d ‘borrowed’. I couldn’t help it, I was a stationery klepto. I feverishly tried to work out how many had found their way into the bottom of my handbag so I could replace them but there was no use, I’d literally had hundreds away.

‘You haven’t been fired,’ Mary said with a sigh. ‘You always jump to the worst possible conclusion. Why on earth would you be getting fired?’

Don’t say the pens, don’t say the pens, don’t say the pens …

‘I’ve nicked loads of pens.’

‘I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.’ She pressed her lips into a thin line and shook her head, just as the office door opened and Delia appeared. ‘Thank Christ, you’re just in time.’

‘Have I missed anything?’ Delia asked before leaning down to kiss me quickly on the cheek. She smelled like angels would smell if they happened to have spent a spare half hour in Bergdorf with a Black Amex.

‘Angela just confessed that she is heading up an international stationery smuggling cartel,’ Mary replied. ‘But apart from that, no.’

‘So nothing then,’ Delia said, smoothing down her perfect pencil skirt and slipping into the big comfy chair. ‘Right. Where do we start?’

‘Mary’s getting married to Bob.’ I was shouting again. ‘Your granddad, Bob.’

‘Yeah.’ Delia looked at Mary, then looked at me. ‘I know about that one.’

‘And you didn’t tell me?’

How to go from shouting to squealing in two easy steps by Angela Clark.

‘OK, I’m taking this over.’ Mary clapped her hands together and leaned across her desk. ‘Angela. We have a lot of good news to share. And a lot of it concerns you.’

‘Now I know I’m not going to like what you have to say,’ I replied, smoothing down my unironed pencil skirt and wishing I’d worn something more appropriate for running away. ‘Spill it.’

‘Delia has been promoted,’ she said simply. ‘As of January first, she will be VP of business development and acquisitions for all of Spencer Media.’

‘Oh my God, that’s amazing!’ I turned to stare at my friend with wide eyes. ‘I’m so proud of you. You’re literally superwoman. This is incredible.’

‘Thanks, Angela,’ Delia said, blushing a pretty pale pink. ‘It’s kind of amazing.’

‘It’s totally amazing.’ I could feel myself tearing up and tried to fight back the stinging in my eyes. Mary would not appreciate blubbing in her office. ‘Mary’s getting married, you’re getting a promotion …’

‘Watch it, Clark,’ Mary warned.

‘Watching it,’ I replied with a sniff.

‘But it does mean I won’t be around quite so much at Gloss,’ Delia said, placing her hand on my knee and looking at me with big, earnest blue eyes. ‘We’re the reason I’m getting this job. I told Grandpa there was no way I’d sign off on us completely, but there will be a new publisher. I’ll be executive publisher.’

Now was not the time to freak out, I told myself, pasting on a smile and patting Delia’s hand in a way that I hoped was reassuring and not threatening. I wasn’t sure, though. Delia was an amazing businesswoman, this was only ever a matter of time. I knew this was coming, I just wasn’t actually ready for it.

‘And the new publisher will be brilliant,’ I told her. And myself. ‘Don’t you worry about me and Mary. We’ll muddle through.’

‘OK.’ Delia gave an awkward laugh and turned towards Mary. ‘Your turn?’

‘I’m not going to dick around here, Clark,’ Mary said, as casually as humanly possible. I felt my heart rate soar and my face blanch. Thank God I was already so incredibly pale. ‘When Bob and I get married, I’m taking a three-month sabbatical.’

‘But you and Bob are getting married on New Year’s Eve.’ I felt my bottom lip start to quiver. ‘That’s in three weeks.’

‘Plenty of time to get you where we need you,’ she replied with a half-smile.

‘Where do you need me?’ I could hear my voice getting weaker and weaker. They couldn’t actually send me to prison for nicking some pens, surely?

‘We want you to hold down the fort while Mary’s away,’ Delia explained. ‘We want you to be the interim editor of Gloss.’

Ridiculous wasn’t a good enough word for it. We needed to make up a new one – this was supercalifragifuckedup. I took back everything I’d ever said about Delia being a good businesswoman. Clearly she’d gone completely insane. Power made some people mad.

‘Angela?’ she said, reaching out for my hand. ‘You’ve gone quite pale.’

‘OK, one thing at a time,’ I said, clearing my throat and pointing at Delia. ‘You’re leaving?’

‘Not leaving, I just won’t be around for the day-to-day,’ she clarified. ‘But you’ll have a new publisher who you can help hire to support you.’

‘So you’re leaving,’ I corrected her. She sighed and nodded. I turned and pointed across the desk. ‘And you’re leaving?’

‘I’m going on sabbatical,’ Mary confirmed. ‘For three months.’

‘And when you’ve both left,’ I said, taking a deep breath, ‘you want me to be the editor of the magazine?’

‘Yes,’ Delia said, beaming.

‘Interim editor,’ Mary qualified, not beaming.

And that was the part I was having most trouble with.

Absolutely, I’d been a writer of sorts for years and I’d been working as a journalist since I’d moved to New York three and a half years ago, but this was sudden. This wasn’t something that happened. I’d be a laughing stock. Other than Delia’s savvy publishing, one of the reasons Gloss had done so well was because people loved Mary. She was an institution in the industry, she was respected. I was a random English girl who came to meetings with toothpaste down her jumper. And occasionally Ready brek.

‘You’ll have a new deputy. We can talk about whether we promote internally or look for an external hire.’ Delia had clearly practised her argument before coming to me. She really was very clever. ‘And we’re going to hire you an assistant to help out with your schedule and manage the office but you can do this, Angela. I’ve talked to Grandpa about it and so has Mary and he’s willing to take a chance.’

Mew. I quickly translated that into the truth. Bob Spencer thought promoting me to editor, even temporarily, was as good an idea as I did. Unfortunately for Bob, I was just about contrary enough for that to convince me to give it a go.

‘Gloss is your baby, don’t turn this down.’ Delia grabbed hold of my wrists and shook her blonde ponytail at me. She really was so much stronger than she needed to be. ‘If you think about it and you really don’t want to do it, we can find someone else. It won’t be hard to fill the position. But with me and Mary out of the picture, if you and the new editor don’t get along, who knows what would happen.’

Awesome. So if I took the job I didn’t have a clue how to do, there was every chance I’d run my magazine into the ground, and if I didn’t, there was every chance a new editor would kick me out. And this new, hypothetical editor didn’t even know about the pens.

‘Do I have any time to think about it?’ I asked both of them. I really wanted Delia to let go of my wrists so I could bite my nails but she wasn’t going to. Probably for the best. ‘Just a day would be … I just need until tomorrow morning.’

‘I told Grandpa I’d let him know at the end of the week,’ Delia said, a small smile breaking on her face. ‘But I knew you wouldn’t need that long. Anna Wintour, eat your heart out.’

‘I’ve heard she doesn’t have one of her own, that’s why she has to eat other people’s,’ I said in a weak voice. ‘Will I have to start wearing a suit?’

‘Maybe not a suit but you will have to look into getting an iron,’ Mary answered quickly. ‘Really, they’re not that expensive.’

‘You realise, if I agree to this,’ I said, flexing my wrists as Delia let go to give herself a little clap, ‘I’m going to be an emotional wreck. And I’m probably going to have to start self-medicating and drinking at lunch and keeping pills in my desk and everything?’

‘Oh, Angela.’ Delia jumped up and pulled me to my feet for a hug. ‘You’re a real journalist now.’

‘Yeah, a hardened artery away from a Pulitzer,’ Mary added. ‘Delia, you want to leave us to it? So we can discuss the finer details?’

I stared at Delia, begging her to say no and insist we all immediately leave the office and fly to Vegas to celebrate, but instead she broke our hug and nodded as sombrely as possible, which was not sombrely at all, and headed for the door.

‘You’re going to ace this,’ she said with a wink. ‘In three months you’ll be begging Mary to take another trip. Trust me.’

‘Of course,’ I nodded, waving her away with a smile on my face and waiting for the door to close behind her. ‘For fuck’s sake, Mary, what are you thinking? Please don’t leave the magazine.’

‘I assume you mean, please don’t leave me?’ She gave me her most teacherly look and frowned.

‘Yes,’ I replied, pulling my chair closer to her desk. ‘Of course that’s what I mean.’

‘It’s time, Angela,’ she shrugged. ‘Bob is taking a step back from the business. I’ve been at this desk or one just like it for more than thirty-five years. I want to actually see the world rather than write about it. Preferably while I still have control of my bladder. I think we’re leaving things in very capable hands.’

‘Yeah, Delia’s,’ I said, torn between wanting to give her a big hug and wanting to cling to her leg and beg her not to go.

‘And yours,’ Mary said. ‘As weird as it feels saying this, I’m not worried about Gloss or you. You’re smart, you’re driven and you care more about this magazine than anyone. Plus, you’ve been working for me for nearly four years. If you haven’t picked up what you need in that time, you never will.’

I suddenly regretted dedicating so much time to beating my high score on Candy Crush Saga during all those editorial meetings.

‘You’ll be fine,’ she went on. ‘And I’m only ever as far away as the end of the phone. Or more likely an email – I might be overseas. Bob is talking about chartering a boat.’

A sudden vision of silver fox Bob and his blushing bride giving it the full Titanic on the front of some mega-yacht popped into my head. I’m flying, Bob! And try as I might, it would not go away.

‘You can’t fuck this up, Angela.’ Mary snapped her fingers in front of my distressed-looking face. ‘This magazine is idiot proof. I’m not going to sit here and puff up your ego by telling you how amazing you are, desperately trying to convince you that you can do a job you know perfectly well that you’re capable of.’

‘I am capable,’ I repeated. Only I wasn’t sure of what.

‘Exactly,’ Mary agreed. ‘This magazine might have been your idea but I’ve been the editor since launch. It’s my baby. There’s no way I’d sit back and watch someone run it into the ground for fun.’

It was the closest thing to a compliment she’d ever given me.

‘Any other concerns?’ she asked, turning her attention back to her computer.

‘So, you and Bob, eh?’ I said, standing and making a clucking noise. ‘That old devil.’

‘Go get a coffee and try not to speak to anyone until you’re properly caffeinated.’ She raised a hand to wave me away. ‘And don’t slam the door on the way out or I’ll fire you before you can take over.’

I assumed she was joking but that didn’t stop me closing the door extra quietly, just in case.

By the end of the day, I was ready to jack it all in, let Alex knock me up seventeen times, move to a farm in the middle of nowhere and be milked like a cow until the end of my days. Even though I hadn’t technically accepted the job, it seemed the entire office already knew what was going on and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself. There were cover lines to come up with, future features to approve, freelancers to look at and now apparently I needed to attend lots of exciting circulation meetings and schedule all sorts of thrilling executive appointments that almost all involved Excel spreadsheets. I hated Excel spreadsheets. Someone in finance had emailed me about something called a pivot table three times and I’d already come out in a rash. On the upside, I now had hot and cold running coffee, morning, noon and night, hand-delivered by writers who had barely acknowledged my existence before today, and someone from an entirely different magazine who was looking to make a move to ‘the most exciting publication in the company’ brought me a bagel. Power, it turned out, was delicious but exhausting. I was fairly certain, if it weren’t for the three and a half venti Starbucks I’d put away, I’d have passed out at my desk by five p.m.

My brain was buzzing with numbers and pictures and Taylor Swift’s love life and I desperately needed to hear the voice of someone normal. Reaching for my phone, I dialled the only number I knew would help me make sense of such a ridiculous twenty-four hours.

‘You’ve reached Louisa. I’m not around to take your call right now but leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.’

With an audible sob, I replaced the handset and cursed the Atlantic Ocean. I couldn’t really complain when Lou wasn’t able to take my calls – she had an actual baby to keep her busy and, to her credit, she had never been one of those mothers who made it sound easy. I’d known Louisa my whole life and no one had ever been better suited to motherhood – her mum used to joke that she would have changed her own nappies if she’d been able – but even she couldn’t paint parenthood as a walk in the park. Lou was obsessed with baby Grace. Since the second she had popped out of her vajay-jay, she had been her everything. Lou had left her job when she got pregnant and now it even felt like her husband, Tim, barely got a look-in. The last time we had spoken, she didn’t even know what had happened in the last season of True Blood. It was that serious. But she was pragmatic and honest and she always knew just what to say to make me feel better. When she answered her phone.

‘Hey, only me,’ I told the beep. ‘Just feel like we haven’t talked in ages. Give me a call when you can. Love you.’

The second I hung up, the phone rang again.

‘Louisa?’ I was almost too excited.

‘Angela?’ a confused voice, not Louisa, replied. ‘It’s me. I’m waiting in the lobby?’

‘Jenny?’

Of course. I suddenly remembered, the doctor’s appointment.

‘I’m sorry. I’ll be right down.’

There was no rest for the wicked, or for friends of Jenny Lopez.

Although she was wearing her ‘take me seriously’ shoes and most resolute face, I could tell Jenny was nervous. She talked about her plans for Jenny Junior all the way up Madison but I couldn’t quite tell whether she was trying to convince me or herself that it was a good idea. I listened quietly, making encouraging noises often enough to sound supportive but not regularly enough to sound thoroughly enthused. Because I wasn’t. I heard my phone chiming inside my Marc Jacobs satchel just as we arrived but since Jenny had turned absolutely ashen, I decided to let it ring through to the answer phone.

‘It’s just a doctor’s appointment, nothing to worry about,’ I reminded her, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze.

‘I know,’ she said with absolutely zero conviction. ‘I just want to ask some questions.’

She stopped outside the building and looked up at the skyscraper.

‘Can we get drinks afterwards?’ she asked.

‘We can,’ I agreed.

‘Because I won’t be able to drink once I’m pregnant, right?’ her voice shook a little, even as she laughed. ‘Better make the most of me while you can.’

‘Let’s go in.’ I pulled her through the fancy gold and glass doors and smiled at the doorman. If she was this nervous going in to ask questions, maybe Alex was right, maybe this phase would be over before New Year’s. ‘We’ll be late for the doctor.’

The doctor in question was in fact Erin’s gynaecologist and former college roommate, Dr Laura, and her surgery looked more like a spa than any office I’d ever had the pleasure of visiting on the NHS. There were orchids where there should have been browning rubber plants, copies of Vogue and W instead of a 1996 Take a Break summer special and I couldn’t see a single broken Etch A Sketch anywhere. I kept waiting for someone to offer me a manicure.

‘Jenny?’ Dr Laura Morgan opened a frosted-glass door into the plush waiting room almost as soon as we had sat down. ‘And Angela! Wonderful. Come this way, ladies.’

Obviously, I’d heard that doctors in America were loaded and I’d met Laura a couple of times before, at Erin’s wedding and then at assorted baby-related events, but I hadn’t realised quite how, well, glossy she would be at work. Her hair was tied back in a perfect shiny black ponytail and underneath her slim-fitting white coat, she was wearing a gorgeous white silk shirt and camel-coloured skinny trousers. As a general rule, I hated women who looked good in trousers, primarily because I didn’t, and she looked amazing. The nude patent Louboutins didn’t hurt either. I had a minor sulk about my Topshop ankle boots and then reminded myself that I had owned Louboutins once upon a time, and I would again. Just as soon as I considered myself enough of a grown-up not to fuck them up the first time I wore them. Besides, as I reminded myself every time Delia pranced into the office wearing them, there were other shoes in this world. Just none that were quite so pretty.

‘So, Erin said you wanted to see me.’ Laura waved us into her cushy office, all pale greys, fresh whites and soft pinks, and called out to her assistant for coffee. Her assistant was dressed head to toe in flowered scrubs, topped off with a your-last-minute-appointment-is-keeping-me-here-after-hours scowl. I noted that the designer shoes weren’t uniform for everyone. Poor cow. ‘Or at least she said Jenny wanted to see me. What can I do for you?’

‘I want to have a baby,’ Jenny declared, leaning forward in her overstuffed armchair, confidence back ten-fold. ‘And I just want to make sure everything’s in working order.’

‘That’s exciting news,’ Laura replied, glancing at my worried expression and then back at Jenny’s wild-eyed mania. ‘I just want to check, I’m not going crazy, am I? You two aren’t a couple?’

‘Jesus Christ, us?’ Jenny looked at me in horror. ‘Shit, can you imagine?’

‘I think what she’s trying to say is no,’ I translated. ‘I’m here for moral support.’

‘And her husband wants to put a baby in her too,’ Jenny added. ‘But she’s all “la la la, I don’t need a baby right now”, right, Angie?’

‘Shall we deal with one crisis at a time?’ I asked, giving Jenny my best ‘behave yourself’ glare. She ignored it, as usual. ‘We don’t need to worry about me.’

‘Well, I’m not worried about either of you.’ Laura tapped her pen against her desk and remained impressively calm. ‘You both look pretty healthy, you’re not an age risk, I can’t really see any issues. But I’m super happy to do a physical, get some blood work done. There are a couple of tests I can run to make sure your hormone levels are where we’d want them and then after that it’s really all down to you and the baby daddy. Or daddies in this case.’

‘That sounds great,’ Jenny breathed out, her shoulders slumping inside her black blazer. ‘I mean, I don’t technically have a baby daddy right now but I want to know that everything’s working as it should be.’

‘Uh, that’s OK.’ Laura looked slightly puzzled for half a second and then went back to tapping her pen. ‘But this is something you’re looking into imminently?’

‘Yes.’

On cue, Laura’s assistant opened the door with three cups, a coffee pot, a jug of boiling water and assorted teabags, cream and sugar options. I was so far away from home. The best I’d ever got at my doctor’s at home was a paper cup of tap water when I needed to do a urine test and couldn’t go. Somehow I was certain it was all Margaret Thatcher’s fault.

‘I see a lot of single women in their thirties who just want to check things out and, you know, there are a lot of options these days,’ Laura said, taking a cup and pouring herself a stiff black coffee, into which she emptied three packets of Splenda. ‘I can always refer you to a therapist if you want to talk through your feelings. Before you start any kind of process.’

Clever Dr Laura. I gave her a small, thankful smile as I made myself a cup of Earl Grey. Send Jenny to a psychiatrist who would take one look at her before forcibly applying a chastity belt and throwing the key into the East River.

‘Maybe.’ Jenny ignored the drinks and started drumming her fingers against her folded arms. ‘Can we do the blood and hormone tests now?’

‘Sure we can.’ Laura took a calm sip from her cup before setting it down and pressing a button on her phone. ‘I’ll have Theresa set everything up in the next room. We can do both of you at once.’

‘Both of us?’ I immediately poured boiling water all over the floor. ‘I’m fine. Really.’

‘I want you to,’ Jenny said, turning on me in a heartbeat. ‘And it can’t hurt to know everything’s OK, surely?’

‘What’s to know?’ I whispered with a smile. It was hard to be startled, pissed off and still polite to a doctor all at the same time. But you had to be polite to doctors, my mum said. ‘I don’t need this. I’m not doing it.’

I was prepared to do a lot of things for my friends, including and not limited to doctor’s visits on a Friday night, holding back their hair while they vomited into my lap and even watching multiple Saw movies, but this was something else. She was literally asking me to bleed for her. And it wasn’t even because she needed the blood.

‘Obviously, this is all between us.’ Laura stood up and rearranged her white coat. ‘Just a friendly favour to you guys. It doesn’t need to go on your records, it’s just a fun thing to try.’

‘How is getting a needle jabbed in my arm a fun thing?’ I asked both of them. ‘Ever? Unless you’re a smackhead?’

‘That … that’s a joke, right?’ Laura suddenly looked very concerned. ‘Because that kind of thing definitely affects these tests.’

‘I’m not a smackhead,’ I groaned. ‘I just don’t think I need these tests.’

‘Do it for me,’ Jenny pleaded, gripping my hand in hers and practically dragging me out of the lovely, calming office and following Laura into an altogether less artfully lit room full of medieval-looking medical equipment. And there it was. The chair. With the stirrups. I felt my vagina seize up in protest.

‘I’m just going to take a little blood,’ Laura said over the not at all reassuring sound of snapping rubber gloves. ‘And then we’ll do a urine test. You don’t need my help with that. The results will be back in a couple of weeks and they’ll show us generally how you’re looking, what your hormone levels are like and how many eggs we’re dealing with.’

While eager beaver Lopez shrugged off her blazer and rolled up her sleeve, I took a moment to think about my eggs. I couldn’t say I’d given them the time of day before, unless I was cursing one of them for chaining me to the sofa with a hot-water bottle and an entire jar of Nutella while it took its own sweet time to mosey on out of my cramping uterus. But people talked about bad eggs all the time. What if I only had bad eggs? Sure, they had half a chance, they were going to be fertilised with Alex’s super sperm, but there was still every possibility they’d get my dad’s indigestion and my mum’s asthma and my fallen arches. High heels hurt me. I didn’t wish that on my future child. But what if that was all that was left? Asthmatic, gassy babies who couldn’t walk in anything over a three-inch heel. That took modelling and prostitution off the table for future career choices. What if my next period was the last decent egg? My last chance at birthing a professional footballer or Nobel peace prize winner or X-Factor semi-finalist?

‘Angela, your turn.’

Jenny was carefully prodding a tiny round plaster on the inside of her elbow as Laura advanced on me with a length of rubber tubing and a hypodermic needle.

‘You ready?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I replied.

And, dear God, was that the truth.