Josie Silver

Sarah props herself up on her elbows and stares at me, her long red waves the worse for wear and her mascara end-of-the-night smudged

With a rusty scalpel

n years gone by someone had obviously gone to the trouble of restoring them before the current landlord hid them beneath that patterned monstrosity.

Sarah jokingly refers to us as the prozzie and the princess. In truth, she’s not got an ounce of slut in her and I’m nowhere near ladylike enough for a princess. Like I said, we meet in the middle and we make each other laugh. She’s Thelma to my Louise, hence the reason I’m disconcerted that she’s suddenly fallen hook, line, and sinker for a guy I haven’t even met or vetted for suitability

Sarah’s sandwiches are the stuff of Delancey Street myth and legend. She’s taught me her holy breakfast trinity of bacon, beetroot, and mushrooms, and it took us the best part of two years to settle on our signature dish, the DS special, named after our flat.

You’ll be in great demand

You’re turning out to be a dangerous woman to be around, Laurie.
What the bloody hell are these words coming out of my mouth? It sounds like a cheap pick-up line in a cheesy made-for-TV movie, when all I was trying to do was say we’re friends. You stupid Jackass; I berate myself using the nickname I carried through school like a badge of honor. My school reports were littered with variations of the same comment, though more politely put: “If only Jack applied as much effort to his studies as he does to acting the fool, he’d go a long way

Let me tell you about my sixth birthday party. Imagine a small child who got buried in the ball pit and then got so scared that his dad had to navigate the jungle of slides and scramble nets to find him. I was three foot under the balls and crying so much that I threw up. They had to clear the place

Piercing, acute longing, bittersweet, as if something has been missing from her for too long. She sighs heavily as she turns to lean her back against the sofa beside me, pulling her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. When she speaks again her voice is low and measured, like someone giving a rehearsed speech at a loved one’s funeral.

Jack, over here,” she says, calling me to her side to look at something she’s just unearthed from the back of a shelf. I gaze over her shoulder to see what she’s holding, and I thank my lucky stars I haven’t bought the turquoise pendant already. The golden clamshell powder compact lying in Laurie’s hand is so very Sarah that it would be wrong for any other woman in the world to own it. Art deco, I’d say, from my extensive viewing of Antiques Roadshow, sizable enough to comfortably fill Laurie’s palm, with an enameled mermaid inlaid into the lid. There’s something of Sarah about the auburn waves cascading over her shoulder and the pronounced, coquette dip of her waist. Laurie hands it over to me with a sparkle-eyed grin