Tuesday & Max

25

WHERE DID YOU GO?

I CAN'T WAIT MORE HOURS

I'VE BEEN THERE SO LONG

LONGING FOR YOU TO PLEASE, BE AN ADULT

The next day, Tuesday endures her lessons, eats lunch alone (it's easy to avoid Max on Thursdays as they don't have Media) and dutifully hangs out with Jack's friends in the afternoon.

She spends most of her time with Daliyah, who's become almost as much her friend as she is Jack's thanks to their shared workplace. She's pissed because her doctor dad has, as usual, been phoning her to let her know how much of everybody's time she's wasting on her Performing Arts degree. Tuesday hums sympathetically in all the right places during her ranting.

Afterward, freezing from the train ride and walk home, she lets herself in to the flat. She takes a long time hanging up her coat and taking off her shoes, stretching in the small hallway as her body soaks up the warmth. Since she can't smell food cooking, she wonders if Julia will fancy a takeaway tonight, and pads through into the sitting room.

"Hello?"

Julia is curled on the sofa wearing mismatched, old pyjamas and her makeup is all wrong, her cheeks tracked where the salt of her tears has sliced through them, leaving sooty mascara smears in their wake. Her fringe, usually obsessively combed down, is sticking up all over the place.

"Well, congrats," she says, tone sardonic. "You called it."

"Called what?"

"It's over. It's done. Me and Richard."

Tuesday sits and, between hiccups, Julia paints a scene of misery.

They were at the Italian restaurant for their planned date night. It was perfect. Candles, red wine, flowers on the table. Their starters were delicious; she had bruschetta, he a portion of meatballs. They were waiting for their mains to arrive when he took her hand and said, "So, I need to tell you something."

Business trip. Paris. Staying with the ex. No big deal, you know. On good terms. Friendly. Amicable. Guest room, of course. Taking Louis with me, he misses her so. Convenient, having her there.

"Richard's ex is French?" Tuesday cuts in.

Julia's hand is shaking when she shoves her phone into Tuesday's face, the Instagram account of a slim, dark-haired forty-something woman on the screen. She's pretty, dressed in shades of cream, camel and black in every picture. Classy. The opposite of Julia in her bright prints and big skirts. Her account name is "TheCamilleHenry".

"I bet everything she owns is Chanel," Tuesday says. It was meant, somehow, to be an insult; instead it just sort of reinforces her perfection.

"Too good to be true," Julia mutters under her breath. "Just too good to be true, all of it, I knew it."

"But... they're divorced, right?"

"Yeah," Julia says between gaspy breaths. "In principle..."

"Can you be divorced 'in principle'?" Tuesdays interrupts sceptically.

"I just mean, you know. When you've had feelings for someone, they never really leave, do they?"

I beg to differ, runs through Tuesday's mind immediately, leaving guilt in its wake.