Page 69 of Little Miss Fortune

‘Like a loud thing that plays music.’

‘You’re so old.’ She rolls her eyes and presses something on her phone to record a voice message to someone. ‘Oi, melt, can I borrow your speaker?’

A small red speaker playing ‘Salut, Vera’ by Valeriy Meladze in my hand is not quite as impactful as John Cusack’s boom box at the end of Say Anything, but it does the job of attracting unwanted attention under Sashka’s window.

A few joggers throw some sideway glances at me, a group of lads cheer me on, and a mother with a stroller huffs something about me blocking the pavement when I stand in the street. But the lights in Sashka’s apartment stay unchanged.

Hanako is waiting quite far away from me, too embarrassed to be seen with a weirdo displaying this behaviour. I have given her the amulet and asked her to give me a shout if it jingles.

Maybe I need to do something else. Something that will truly grab attention because of how poorly I do it. I take a deep breath and belt the chorus, in the language that I do not speak.

Hannah gasps and points at the amulet. ‘Holy shit, it just did it by itself!’

The lights in Sashka’s Victorian terrace kitchen go from idly dim to illuminatingly bright, as a shadow in a graphic T-shirt props the window open.

‘Fuko, what are you doing?’ Sashka shouts, sticking her head out into the street.

‘I need to talk to you.’ I wait for the small instrumental interlude to finish before returning to the song, off pitch and off tune and off language.

‘Stop, stop, stop, stop. Why didn’t you just knock like a normal person? How long were you planning to stand there?’

‘We’ve made a playlist!’ Hannah shouts and waves.

‘Hi, Hannah!’

‘Hey!’ She waves.

‘You can stop the music, Fuko, before someone calls the police.’

Hanako presses Pause on her phone, and the music stops.

‘Can I come up?’

Sashka thinks for a minute, sighs, then says, ‘Fine.’

Hanako takes the speaker and lugs it back to the station by herself. I didn’t ask whose speaker we borrowed. Is my sister the type of person to call her significant other melt? I doubt it, somehow.

Sashka isn’t a tidy person, so I am surprised to see the living room in good shape. All the clothes are gone from the drying rack; the paperwork is stashed in folders and rudely shoved in the corner of the room.

‘Tea?’ she asks coldly.

‘No, thank you, I am not planning to stay very long.’

I sit on the couch. Sashka plops herself into the armchair.

She doesn’t look at me, twirling a lock of hair that’s fallen out from her hair clip. I muster all the courage I have, but she starts speaking first. ‘Toby came here yesterday.’

My mouth dries up. Hearing that he was in this house less than twenty-four hours after we had sex... What feeling does it bring to mind? Jealousy? Shame? Regret? Whatever it is, it is delivered to my heart wrapped up in thick layers of pain. His name makes my chest ache as it has never done before.

I look around the room and imagine Sashka frantically tidying her apartment. Toby probably would have texted that he wants to talk but made it a point that he would go to hers.

‘He’s told me everything. About your job and’—she takes a deep breath—‘about you two sleeping together.’

My stomach sinks. I was meant to be the one to tell her. Why the fuck would he do that? He just ruined my chances of fixing our friendship. Pain turns to anger as I see glistening tears coat Sashka’s eyes. My own words come out distant and panicked. ‘I’m sorry. It was such an unimaginable mistake.’

‘I don’t know if it was, Fuko,’ she cuts at me.

‘I don’t know how it happened. I was just drunk.’