Page 9 of One Day at a Time

The ghost of Debbie the Only Fans model had just re-entered the room and Sheena gave it, and Cassandra, a silent round of applause.

Meanwhile, Jeremy’s face reminded her of a tomato in a microwave, one that was getting redder and swelling and could blow, splattering the sides and causing a mess that would require cleaning spray and a pair of Marigolds. It was almost mesmerising to watch.

‘Aaargh, fuck this,’ he said, and with that, he got up and stormed out, leaving Cassandra looking… strangely… decidedly unbothered.

For a moment, the calm reaction actually concerned Sheena more than if the poor woman had burst into tears. Perhaps she’d just been suppressing her reactions to her husband’s behaviour for so long that she was now living her whole life in a state of numb acceptance.

‘Cassandra, can you tell me how you feel about what just happened?’ Sheena asked.

‘I’m leaving him.’

Sheena had to mentally rewind to check that she’d heard that right and, even then, she sought confirmation. ‘You’re leaving him?’

‘Yes. I’ve met someone else. His name’s Fabio. He’s my tennis coach…’

At which point, Sheena, who had been taking a sip of water at that moment, began choking and came close to requiring resuscitation as she realised that her earlier musings had predicted theboyfriend and the occupation. Maybe she wasn’t so crap at this relationship therapy stuff after all.

‘Are you horrified?’ Cassandra asked, when it became clear that Sheena had recovered the ability to breathe and wouldn’t require medical attention.

‘You know what, Cassandra. I’m bloody not. Does Fabio feel the same way about you?’

‘He does. He’s in love with me.’

Sheena could see the attraction. Cassandra came off as meek and perhaps a little dull when she was in Jeremy’s shadow, but she was actually a striking woman, who was smart, organised, cultured and had successfully juggled the demands of a family and supporting that twat of a husband’s business. She was the catch in the relationship, and Sheena was thrilled that she’d finally realised it.

‘This is entirely unprofessional of me to say, and if you’re writing a review of my service on Trustpilot, please don’t quote me, but good on you. He’s a dickhead that doesn’t deserve you. You’ve put up with that nonsense for all these years, and you deserve a medal. And a Fabio.’

Casandra broke into the first wide, genuine smile that Sheena had seen on her since she’d started coming here six months ago. ‘Thank you. I’d better go. I need to pack and then I’ll tell him I’m leaving him as soon as I get home. You know, it’s not actually a retreat in Morocco. Fabio and I are going to Paris and I’m going to love every second of it.’

‘I truly hope you do, Cassandra. And you know where I am if you need me. I also provide mediation for separations and divorces. I’m like a one-stop shop of optimism and dysfunction.’

That made Cassandra chuckle, as she picked up her little Dior, and went off to change her whole life.

Sheena had a shit-ton of paperwork to do, but suddenly shecouldn’t face it. The Sinclairs were her last clients of the day, so instead of settling down with the earth-shaking excitement of client reports and a VAT return, she got up, grabbed her bag and her jacket and locked the office door on the way out.

She’d brought the car into work today, so she took the lift down to the underground car park and climbed into the Volvo – the safe, steady car that Gregor had insisted they buy after reading four thousand reviews and watching endless hours of comparison videos on YouTube. Sheena would have been happy to buy a sports car and spend the rest of that research time in an Airbnb by the beach somewhere, drinking in cosy bars and making love until dawn. Just thinking that brought Cassandra back into her head. Sheena couldn’t know for sure, but she would bet her redundant sexy bras that Fabio couldn’t quote the torque, horsepower and miles per gallon of a Volvo Estate.

As soon as she’d cleared the signal void of the underground car park, she hit the call button on her most-used WhatsApp group chat, creatively titled Forty-Two Long. The name of the group had been changed a couple of years ago, when they were all forty-two, because Sheena was having a saggy boob/strapless bra crisis and mused mournfully that Forty-Two Long was now her bra size.

Chanel joined the call on the second ring, but Martha took much longer. ‘Don’t tell me,’ Sheena sighed, when she finally logged on. ‘You were arse deep in the ironing basket and had to search the whole house for your phone.’

Martha was probably bending the truth when she said, ‘It’s spooky how you know these things,’ but it made her smile, so Sheena took the win and ploughed right in with her opening statement.

‘Cassandra is leaving her husband.’

‘I’m going to need a tad more context,’ Chanel said, whileMartha went for, ‘Is Cassandra one of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills?’

Sheena stopped at a set of traffic lights to let a group of early-evening revellers cross in front of her, all of them singing and one of them wearing that ubiquitous Glasgow emblem of a traffic cone on his head. Sheena guessed their night probably wasn’t going to end well, given that it wasn’t even 7p.m. yet, but she admired their enthusiasm.

‘No, Cassandra is my client. The one that’s married to the smug wealthy twat that was shagging the Only Fans model. And yes, I’m breaking all sorts of confidentiality rules again, so I hope no one is hacking these calls.’

‘The mousy one?’ Chanel had obviously been paying attention during previous conversations.

‘Yes! Only she’s not that mousy, because she’s going off to Paris with a tennis coach called Fabio.’

‘Good for her,’ Martha piped in, over the sound of a food mixer in the background. Or maybe it was the washing machine. It was hard to tell.

Sheena was crawling along the 20 mph zone on St Vincent Street now, heading for the West End. ‘That’s what I said, but I’m such a hypocrite. I gave her a whole spiel about how I admired her courage, and yet she’s doing the very thing I haven’t been brave enough to do, because the one time I came close to having the conversation, I bottled it.’