Asking for a Friend Read online

  Praise for Andi Osho

  ‘A mistressclass in combining humour and lovely characters, all wrapped up with a cracking story’

  Jo Brand

  ‘Witty, joyful and a truly uplifting celebration of friendship’

  Beth O’Leary, bestselling author of The Flatshare

  ‘As soon as I started reading I couldn’t put it down. The humour and attention to detail slides off the page. This is both realistic and inspirational. Andi Osho is a genius’

  Jocelyn Jee Esien

  ‘A massively entertaining tale of wingwomen recharging each other’s love lives. Funny, spiky and fab!’

  Beth Morrey, bestselling author of Saving Missy

  ‘A debut novel that I’ll return to again and again. An absolute triumph and I loved every word’

  Susan Calman

  ‘This brilliant warm book had me laughing from the first page and I couldn’t put Asking For a Friend down’

  Lucy Vine, bestselling author of Hot Mess

  ‘An ultimately feel-good story about female friendships full of heart and humour. So relatable, I loved it!’

  Angela Griffin

  ‘I LOVED it. Funny, sparky and written with so much heart’

  Daisy Buchanan, author of Insatiable

  ‘A loving tribute to female friendship bursting with funny lines and loveable characters’

  Lucy Porter

  ‘A fresh, funny, relatable page-turner from the ever brilliant Andi Osho – for anyone who’s ever navigated the dating world and needed the sisterhood’

  Deborah Frances White, The Guilty Feminist

  ‘A delightful read, a beautiful paean to female friendship – genuinely funny and full of heart’

  Roisin Conaty

  ‘As hilarious as Andi’s stand-up while feeling like a lively night out with brilliant friends’

  Sara Pascoe

  ‘From the first page, you can guarantee laughter. This book is hilarious, warm and an absolute page-turner. I loved it!’

  Angie Le Mar

  ‘A hilarious, laugh-a-minute, laugh-out-loud, relentless romp through dating, women and friendship. Brilliantly vivid and relatable characters. Brilliantly written, fun and joyous!’

  Shazia Mirza

  ‘Wise, witty and warm. Everything Andi Osho touches turns to gold’

  Richard Osman, bestselling author of The Thursday Murder Club

  ANDI OSHO is an award-winning stand-up comedian, actor, writer, filmmaker and lover of shoes. Her acting credits include Shazam!, Lights Out, Curfew, Death in Paradise, Eastenders, Holby and Kiri. As a stand-up, Andi wrote, performed and toured two sell-out Edinburgh shows, played at the O2 in London and has appeared on The Late, Late Show, Mock The Week, Never mind the Buzzcocks, BBC1’s Live at the Apollo and more. Basically, she’s done a bunch of stuff. Asking For a Friend is her debut novel.

  Stay in touch with Andi on Twitter @andiosho and on Instagram and Facebook @theandioshow

  Copyright

  An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2021

  Copyright © Andi Osho 2021

  Andi Osho asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Ebook Edition © January 2021 ISBN: 9780008245818

  Version 2020-12-26

  Note to Readers

  This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

  Change of font size and line height

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  Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008245795

  To my fabulous female friends.

  Contents

  Cover

  Praise

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Note to Readers

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Jemima

  Chapter 2: Meagan

  Chapter 3: Simi

  Chapter 4: Jemima

  Chapter 5: Simi

  Chapter 6: Meagan

  Chapter 7: Jemima

  Chapter 8: Meagan

  Chapter 9: Jemima

  Chapter 10: Simi

  Chapter 11: Jemima

  Chapter 12: Meagan

  Chapter 13: Jemima

  Chapter 14: Simi

  Chapter 15: Meagan

  Chapter 16: Jemima

  Chapter 17: Simi

  Chapter 18: Jemima

  Chapter 19: Simi

  Chapter 20: Meagan

  Chapter 21: Jemima

  Chapter 22: Meagan

  Chapter 23: Simi

  Chapter 24: Jemima

  Chapter 25: Meagan

  Chapter 26: Jemima

  Chapter 27: Simi

  Chapter 28: Meagan

  Chapter 29: Jemima

  Chapter 30: Meagan

  Chapter 31: Simi

  Chapter 32: Jemima

  Chapter 33: Meagan

  Chapter 34: Simi

  Chapter 35: Jemima

  Chapter 36: Meagan

  Chapter 37: Simi

  Chapter 38: Jemima

  Chapter 39: Meagan

  Chapter 40: Simi

  Chapter 41: Jemima

  Chapter 42: Meagan

  Chapter 43: Simi

  Chapter 44: Jemima

  Chapter 45: Meagan

  Chapter 46: Simi

  Chapter 47: Jemima

  Chapter 48: Simi

  Chapter 49: Meagan

  Chapter 50: Jemima

  Epilogue: The girls

  Acknowledgements

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Jemima

  Jemima had been staring at the same text for a good five minutes. ‘It’s me’, it read. Two innocent words that made her palms sweat like a politician turning in their expenses. Though her phone said the texter was UNKNOWN, they weren’t. That number had been seared into her memory from all the other ‘It’s me’s that had pinged, uninvited, into her inbox over the last two years. Just then, the three dots of doom began their ‘incoming text’ cancan.

  Guess what?

  Urgh. Jemima hated guessing because she hated surprises. Even fortune cookies gave her palpitations. Furthermore, this wasn’t any old ‘guess what?’ from any old number. This SMS projectile was from Miles, the ex that wouldn’t go away. Double urgh.

  He was constantly showing up on her phone, even if it was just random ‘LOL’s on her Facebook posts. She’d deleted his name from her phone contacts ages ago. Perhaps it was time he got the chop on social media too, Jemima grizzled as she watched a stewardess move through the cabin serving pre-flight drinks.

  ‘Pro
secco?’ said the stewardess, proffering her tray with a playful wink.

  ‘Cheers,’ Jemima said as she took a glass.

  However, staring at Miles’s text, she could have done with the whole bottle. Jemima necked her drink in one. Its cheap plonk bubbles immediately effervesced in her throat, threatening to shoot out of a nostril. She spluttered, glancing around the half-full airplane cabin as she tried to choke to death discreetly. Though her dad was American, she was as British as binge drinking and sarcasm so drawing attention to herself, even when dying, felt inappropriate. Finally, satisfied she’d been largely ignored by the boarding passengers, she slumped back in her premium economy seat, fingers tight around her phone. Why did Miles always do this? They’d broken up two years ago! She’d bought a new boiler, started dyeing her hair Deep Mahogany to hide her roots and had had twenty-six periods since then. Yet every time it felt like she was getting her life back on track, up he’d pop like a bad game of Ex-boyfriend Whack-a-Mole. She deleted the text. Whack.

  Things were good, Jemima reassured herself, despite this pebble in her shoe. Finally, at the age of 42, life felt like it had some order again. Work was on track – sort of. She was doing okay financially… well, kind of. For a clean sweep, all she had to do was muster the courage to bat her niggly ex away once and for all and she’d be good. As she thought, half-heartedly, about how she might do that, another message from Miles whooshed into her inbox, this time with an accompanying photo. ‘Great. Now with added attachments,’ she groaned.

  Number 62 is finally off the market!

  Jemima bristled as she peered at the picture of the ‘fixer-upper’ property at the end of her street. With its overgrown front garden, faded green door and grubby windows it looked more like a crime scene than a potential investment. But what really bothered Jemima about this photo was, it was another reminder how close Miles still lived to her. When they’d been together, living on adjacent streets had been cute. Friends were always telling her how they had ‘the best of both worlds’. But when their relationship had imploded, ‘the best of both worlds’ became hell on earth. A wave of anger rippled through her. She’d really loved him. More than anything she was angry at herself for letting him in, for forgiving the missed birthdays, broken promises and tired old let-downs. She’d excused his self-centeredness as ambition and his narcissism as self-care throughout their three-and-a-half-year relationship. His weekly threading appointment alone should have rung alarm bells. The day after, his eyebrows were so impeccable, he looked like a cruise ship magician. Jemima wished she’d listened to her girlfriends, Simi and Meagan, but she’d been in love. She couldn’t hear them, that is until who Miles was became a noise she could no longer ignore. And so they’d broken up, a street apart. At the time, Jemima had desperately wanted to move apartments but just couldn’t afford to, so instead had concocted strategies to avoid bumping into him – including an extra half-mile walk to a different tube station. Jemima shuddered at the chronically recent memory of diving into Number 62’s overgrown shrubbery when she’d seen Miles approaching from the other end of the street. She was pulling privet twigs from her hair all the way to the tube and even now, wasn’t entirely sure it was Miles. That was nearly seven weeks ago and was, for Jemima, the last straw… well, twig. She needed to get away. For years, Rebecca, an old work colleague, had been inviting Jemima to visit her in Los Angeles. That afternoon, privet leaves still entangled in her neat bob, Jemima had finally accepted the invitation. Within a week, she had booked her flight, packed a bag and was gone – one of the few benefits of being a self-employed writer. If she needed to, she could escape at a moment’s notice.

  ‘So, business or pleasure?’

  Jemima looked up to see the prosecco stewardess casually leaning on the seat in front.

  ‘Err… bit of both. Did a bit of work, a lot of drinking mimosas. I didn’t expect to like LA so much and now I keep thinking about…’ Jemima trailed off.

  ‘Hun, I get it,’ said the stewardess as she cooed a friendly welcome to a train of passengers shuffling down the aisle, ‘Seen that face a million times. Looking for a fresh start?’

  Jemima shrugged. It was a thought that surfaced whenever things got tough. Extracting herself from troublesome situations had become her go-to solution and something of a speciality. Dad dies suddenly? Run away to university. Fall out with your boss? Become a struggling writer. Even in Brownies, the ceaseless pressure to acquire a sleeve full of badges had led her to quit and join the Sea Cadets. Of course all this only ever gave her temporary respite, like the moment between jumping out of a frying pan and into the bowels of a raging volcano. The reality was, university had been a nightmare, she’d almost lost her flat trying to make it as a writer and the Sea Cadets had only taught her one thing: she was a first class landlubber. But having relied on her vanishing skills for much of her forty-two years, Jemima didn’t know any other way even if she did leave other people’s misery in her wake. She ran her fingers through her hair, holding it in a tight bun as she overheated.

  ‘Fresh starts are good but… all that glitters is not gold. My cousin Bradley moved to Culver City and ended up joining the Latter Day Saints. Now he’s a missionary in Vanuatu. He’s had malaria four times,’ said the prosecco stewardess, taking a wistful sip from one of the glasses on her tray, ‘Anyhoo, I’m Susan. Yell if you need anything!’

  Jemima watched Susan head to the galley kitchen, bemused.

  She thought she’d got lucky finding a cheap flight home at late notice but she was beginning to see the cost – tangy prosecco and slightly bonkers cabin crew predisposed to over-sharing. In need of a distraction, she closed her eyes, transporting herself back to the sea views from Rebecca’s Santa Monica apartment. Just picturing those vast beaches made her feel better. From the moment she’d stumbled out of LAX airport into that LA sunshine, she’d felt a calm descend. Her father, a Philadelphia man, had always held a deep mistrust of Los Angelenos, in part, on account of ‘their teeth being too white’.

  When Jemima had first arrived, she’d wondered if, aside from her ebony skin and long legs, she’d also inherited her dad’s mistrust. But though there were some dazzling dental displays and a few too many fairy lights everywhere for her liking, she’d felt an unmistakable sense of belonging. When she introduced herself as an author, even if the person hadn’t heard of her literary debut, Beverly Blake Investigates, they were so thrilled she was living her dream that she began to wonder why she wasn’t that enthused on her own behalf. And after a week in LA, her shoulders dropped and tension ebbed away. Far from being the devil’s playground for people with brilliant-white teeth, LA was a chilled-out city filled with artists and possibility. She loved it. And of course there was no Miles which made even an average city great. By that criterion even Milton Keynes was superb.

  By the end of her second week, Jemima had forgotten about crouching in pissy hedges and was instead noticing things like house prices and parking, details holidaymakers pay little mind to but people considering relocating did. She’d gasped at the thought. Could LA be more than just a getaway retreat? Her friend Rebecca was certainly surviving, in fact she was thriving. And Jemima wouldn’t have to wait for a job offer as Rebecca had. Because of her dual citizenship, she could move whenever she wanted, it was just a case of… what? Nothing. It was clear Miles wasn’t going anywhere but maybe she could. If she organised a short-term let of her place, she could be settled in LA by spring.

  Of course, while her besties Meagan and Simi were on board with an LA vacay, getting them behind her emigrating would take a lot more convincing. They wouldn’t let her go without a fight and why would they? They’d been best friends for over a decade and were so entangled in each other’s worlds, it was hard to know where one began and the other ended. Jemima smiled to herself as she remembered the first time they met, a stand-up comedy course she had signed up for to help her writing. Quickly she learned stand-up was not her bag and the best thing hadn’t been learning The Rule of
Three but finding, in Meagan and Simi, two great mates. At the time, Jemima remembered thinking, it shouldn’t have worked. There was her, a social hermit, aspiring actress Simi and 19-year-old gum-popping go-getter Meagan – an unlikely combination. But as they wrote Puns and Pull Back and Reveals, it became apparent they were laughing at each other’s material a lot more than anyone else – like, a lot more. Jemima chuckled as she recalled the first cracks appearing in Meagan’s steely exterior. She was a tough cookie who turned out to also be a funny and fiercely loyal firebrand. Then there was Simi who had a heart of gold that saw the best in everyone. Jemima couldn’t resist. On day one, the girls had shared a secret wink noticing almost everyone else on their course was a twenty-something lad in skinny jeans with an arsenal of jokes about their own penis. In those three months, Jemima learned thirty-eight euphemisms for masturbation but while new synonyms were handy, by far, her biggest take away had been her bond with Simi and Meagan in whom she found her left and her right arm. It was the girls who would piece her back together again after she and Miles broke up. Jemima who’d loan Simi thousands to support her acting, almost financially crippling herself. Simi and Jemima who’d comfort Meagan after her parents’ divorce. The girls with whom Jemima would celebrate her first book deal, and she and Meagan who’d listen to Simi analyse her procession of boyfriends who all went from being maybe The One, to definitely The One, to why wasn’t he The One? Poor Simi, Jemima sighed. She so wanted to be in love but every attempt ended in utter heartbreak and this weekend, it had happened again. To say Simi rushed into relationships was an understatement. Just days after getting together with city-working, cycling fanatic Oscar, Jemima had caught Simi practising her married name signature. A fortnight after, she and Meagan moved Simi into his Chiswick flat and now, just twelve months on, it was over. Jemima scrolled through her texts to Meagan’s last message:

  They’ve split up. Get home now.

  And with just six words Jemima had cut short her LA trip and was heading back to London to be with her broken-hearted friend. Consoling Simi was a two-woman job and Jemima needed to get to her before Meagan started suggesting things like getting under someone to get over Oscar. Right now, Simi would barely be capable of getting out of bed, let alone into someone else’s. Jemima sat back and exhaled, noticing how shallow her breathing had become. She hated seeing her friend in pain and would cross a hundred time zones to take it away but Simi’s break-ups – and there had been many – always brought back everything she had gone through with Miles. The girls sometimes teased her about her compartmentalised life. From her chronically tidy flat to the meticulously organised apps on her phone, Jemima had everything in its place. Even her love life had its own special spot, a forgotten, dusty corner at the back of her mind. But it was what she needed for a peaceful life. Not letting anyone in again was not weakness; it was Jemima’s defence against suffering as Simi was now or how she had with Miles. Jemima suddenly flashed back to hiding from Miles in that stinky privet hedge and her breathing shortened again. All at once, life didn’t feel compartmentalised but like a maze and she was a lab rat scurrying back and forth trying to escape. Jemima clamped hold of her arm rests, searching the cabin for the exits, only calming once she’d spotted the glowing green sign behind her. The grip of panic, as always, had been swift. The impulse to bolt painfully familiar, her one and only answer – always.