Greg egan foundations.., p.1
The Break-Up Agency, page 1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2022 by Sheila McClure
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781662505331
ISBN-10: 1662505337
Cover design by The Brewster Project
For Chantal. You are wondrous for surviving
Beige Tony, The Boyfraud, Sleazy Jet, GI James, Surf’s-up Sam, The Dog Stalker and Phil McCavity – none of them deserved you.
But someone does, and I can’t wait until they find you.
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chapter One
Today
It was, to be fair, a perfect night to dump someone. An exquisite bouquet of misery. Pouring rain. A bitterly cold wind. A restaurant soon-to-be-single Dave couldn’t bear. Oh look! There was even a leak in the ceiling. Tremendous. Ellie called the waiter over and ordered some salt and pepper squid. If she’d timed things right (and she usually did), the dish would arrive shortly after Dave did. Dave hated salt and pepper squid. And Ellie hated unnecessary emotional pain. Which was why they would end things tonight.
After the waiter left, Ellie pulled a few strands of hair free from either side of her topknot so that they lightly covered her ears, then shared a complicit smile with the woman sitting at the table opposite her. She was offered a half-smile in return, but no lasting eye contact as she too was tweaking her hair. Unnecessary, of course – it was perfect as it was – but Ellie wasn’t surprised. The fidgets were inevitable when sitting on your own in a restaurant. Worse if you were waiting to smash someone’s heart into bits. Never mind. They’d both leave with smiles on their faces. She was sure of it.
The waiter reappeared to replace the red plastic mop bucket that sat beneath the leak with an empty metal one. A surprisingly loud plopping sound pulled Ellie to attention. Not. Ideal. Then again, if this was an ideal world, Ellie wouldn’t be preparing to crack poor, unsuspecting Dave’s heart in two.
She’d tape it back together again. Obviously. But first came the pain.
A rush of gratitude that she’d done this a few times swept through her. A year ago she’d have been vainly attempting to wring her hands free of the shakes or running to the loo with the dry heaves. These days, when it came to nipping things in the bud, she was far more disciplined. Able to curb her more visceral responses to the privacy of her flat. A bit of a weep. A cuddle with her dog. But right now? She had to be clear-eyed with only one goal in sight: singledom. Even now, it was still a revelation. What the world looked like without rose-tinted glasses. Her solitary concession of gratitude to Sebastian was that he’d enabled her to see the world, very, very clearly. Discovering that he hadn’t loved her after all had torn something open in her. Rather than bleeding out and dying of a broken heart as she thought she might, the wound had unearthed a character trait she hadn’t known she’d possessed. Resilience. She hadn’t realised it straight away, of course. Didn’t witness it in a heavenly ray of sunshine or a message burnt into her morning toast. No. It had come later. The initial wounds from the demise of her long-term relationship had cut so deep her body had gone into shock. She’d been unable to feel the pain. The second bombshell had been that she’d wanted to feel it. So she’d dug as deep into her pulped emotional foundation as she could, then shapeshifted the anguish into something positive and proactive. Empowering.
All of which meant, these days, she could break up with someone with the same emotional ease with which she selected a loaf of bread. It was her superpower.
Present the relationship and its fault lines clearly, then – fwiiip! Pull the plug. It rarely took long for the penny to drop, was far more effective than faffing about with I’m not really in the right place platitudes, and actively took the sting out of an I’m just not that into you ending. Whoever said you had to be cruel to be kind was full of it.
She glanced at her phone when a text pinged in. Dave. He’d emerged from the Underground. Good. They were a two-minute-and-ten-second walk from the tube station. More likely ninety seconds in the rain. Dave had long legs. She set the timer on her phone and gave the woman across from her – aka her client Cassie Booth – a quick this is it smile before thumbing through her notes one last time.
Next, a moment of stillness before the storm. She closed her eyes, slowed her breath, and conjured up an image of Dave. Her heart softened. He’d chosen his profile picture well. Smiley, lanky, and with a full mop of curly brown hair in adorable need of a comb. He looked kind. Almost to a fault. Well, in this case, definitely to a fault, but that was by the by. She could see why Cassie had swiped right. He was good-looking in the kind of way that you wouldn’t necessarily want to rip his clothes off and have wanton sex but you might fancy undoing a button or two if he gave you his umbrella in a sudden downpour.
Generous too. As much as his teacher’s salary and London prices would allow. But Ellie would’ve been the first to remind people that generosity didn’t mean opening up your wallet. It meant opening up your heart. For weeks now, Dave’s heart had been open like the front doors of Selfridges on sales day. Tonight, it was her job to ensure that the remains of his soft-hearted wares were left unpillaged. Refortified would be even better. And luckily for Dave, that was the plan. Over the next few minutes he’d experience a swift ripping off of the Band-Aid. The quick, deft press of a hand to dull the pain would come later. Her own experiences in pain management had taught her that it wasn’t yet a perfect system. She’d get there eventually, but, like any novice superhero, she was still navigating the best way to recover from throwing herself in front of the rejection bullets and absorbing the pain herself so the rejectee didn’t have to. If she could, Ellie would gladly rip her own heart from her chest and lay it next to Dave’s for comfort while he got used to the fact that his and Cassie’s would no longer beat as one. But some pain, sadly, was inevitable.
That’s what happened when the love mist became a thick, impenetrable fog. To be fair, Dave’s poor brain was being held hostage by an all-consuming love buzz. Life was still sunshine and roses for him. Unicorns and butterfly kisses. His ability to see things clearly was completely disabled by an oxytocin takeover. In contrast, Cassie’s frontal cortex had kicked back into action just over a week ago. At which point, she’d seen some very clear writing on the wall: the party was over. So she’d called Ellie at Softer Landings.
As predicted, timing at precisely ninety seconds, the storm blew in Dave and his dismembered umbrella. Ellie’s heart swooped round her chest and lodged in her throat. Beneath his drenched winter duffel, Dave was dressed head to toe as Thor.
Synthetic, shoulder-length, blond wig. Faux-six pack covered by an all-in-one body suit with detachable red cape. Plastic hammer.
Poor Dave. He didn’t deserve this. Nor, Ellie reminded herself, did he deserve to be in a relationship that was doomed. If she’d known the same thing about herself seven years earlier, who knew where she’d be now? Still doing the break-ups for her sister’s endless stream of suitors – for free – no doubt. Heaven knew how she’d come up with so many ways to make them think another path would be the route best to take. Attention to detail, she supposed. Everyone had a dream. And on an island as small as Jersey it wasn’t difficult to tap into it, tweak a few things and then, hey presto! Suddenly the world was seen through a brand-new filter and Aurora was free to run off and break someone else’s heart.
Anyhoodle. That was then and this was London. She crammed her personal feelings back into their Ziploc bag, pinched it shut and got to work. She tapped a finger to her ear, made eye contact with Cassie and whispered, ‘Ready?’
‘Maybe?’ Cassie winced, her back stiffening against the breeze as Dave, still at the door, shook the raindrops off his inside-out umbrella.
This wasn’t meddling, she reminded herself through the loud buzz of nerves that always kicked in about now. It was helping. Because of her, Dave would regain weeks, if not months, of his life that would otherwise be lost to a relationship that could crush his belief that he was a man worthy of someone’s love. And just like that her focus snapped to twenty-twenty.
‘Alright, team,’ Ellie whispered. ‘Operation Adios Dave is live.’
Fifteen seconds later
Dave spied Cassie, smiled as if he’d just been washed in sunshine, then wove his way through the restaurant to her table. Ellie was in her element. A director creating a highly choreographed break-up designed to hurt no more than a tumble into a pit full of fluffy marshmallows.
It took precision. Focus. And every ounce of empathy she possessed. For both parties, obviously, but mostly for Dave.
As directed, her colleague Simon swept through the front door of the sparsely populated restaurant with classic Scene Stealing 101 panache and bellowed, ‘Darling! Soz about the time. It’s horrendous out there.’ Though he was headed straight for Ellie, arms outstretched and smile cranked up to full dazzle, she caught his energy briefly divert to Cassie and Dave, who were going through the awful weather, isn’t it phase of sorting out his coat, figuring out where to put his wind-mangled brolly and getting him settled at their table. Cassie, Ellie noted, had yet to comment on the Thor ensemble.
‘Oooh! What’s this?’ Simon narrowly avoided tripping over the bucket collecting awkwardly timed raindrops. ‘The newest accoutrement for Swimming Pool Barbie?’
Ellie gave an appreciative smirk but said nothing. Cassie was nervous-tugging on the sleeves of her jumper, which created a rustling noise against the miniature microphone pinned inside the cuff. It made hearing Dave’s side of their conversation just that little bit trickier. Nevertheless, Simon’s breezy arrival had done precisely what it was meant to: take the immediate edge off Cassie’s nerves while getting Dave in place, which, after a bit of a wrestling match with the zipper of his saturated duffel, finally happened.
From her table, Ellie could see both Dave and Cassie’s faces. Simon, who claimed to have been cruelly overlooked by an MI5 recruiter when he was at St Andrews, had a sixth sense for knowing exactly how to angle his chair so that Ellie could keep a continuous eye on the clients throughout the break-up experience while looking as if she was utterly engaged in conversation with him. He leant in for a left-then-right cheek kiss, using the proximity to whisper the news that Thea was ready and waiting under the awning of a nearby newsagent’s but had forgotten an umbrella so wanted things to move along sharpish. The Princess Leia costume wasn’t much of a buffer against the elements.
‘Not a problem,’ Ellie murmured. And then more brightly. ‘Shall we order?’
It was Cassie’s first cue. The easiest. All she needed to do was ask Dave how his day had been. Through a series of trial-and-error break-ups in both her personal (thank you, Aurora) and professional capacities, Ellie had learnt that the how was your day, dear manoeuvre was the most efficient way to gauge how the tone of a break-up should proceed. If Dave had had a rotten day, it was best to dive right in with a rueful, ‘I’m afraid I’m about to make it worse.’ If this was the case, Ellie would cancel the squid. No additional squirts of lemon juice in the wound required.
If Dave had had a good day and presumed it was only going to get better, experience dictated it was best to ease into the bad news. Not for long, of course, but the squid would definitely give the downward spiral a twist in the right direction.
Ellie nodded encouragingly as Cassie asked him how his day had been. An excellent sta— No! No, no, no! Instead of listening to Dave’s answer – he’d had a GREAT day, couldn’t WAIT to see her – Cassie was craning round towards Ellie for her next line. A classic school nativity mistake.
Eye contact with anyone but Dave could instantly expose the fact that she’d hired Ellie and her team at Softer Landings to help end things. She had, but the entire point of hiring them was for the dumpee to leave the Softer Landings experience oblivious to the fact that it had been a set-up. (A snip at £109.99 plus expenses. Packages may vary depending upon the nature of the break-up. Terms and conditions apply.) Instead of returning the imploring look, Ellie signalled to the waiter hovering at the kitchen door. He lurched into action and, as requested, slid the slate of artfully piled salt and pepper squid on to the table between Cassie and Dave.
The effect was instantaneous.
Dave lurched back with a weird guttural noise, then painstakingly forced himself to scooch back in, regroup, and apologise through some astonishingly fulsome gagging sounds. Gosh. He really did hate squid.
‘Sorry,’ he finally managed. ‘It’s the – urp . . . I told you I have a thing about that smell, right?’
He had. Which was why Cassie had listed it in the Things Your Future Ex Hates section of their information sheet. Apparently, Dave’s prankster brother had been inspired by a string of drying squid during a long-ago family trip to Corsica and had pelted his younger brother with them until he’d given up the ‘good’ snorkelling mask for his brother’s ‘inferior’ one. Ellie felt Dave’s pain. Her little sister also had that myopic ability to zero in on what she wanted and grab it, regardless of anyone else’s feelings. Sebastian had been the only thing she’d never touched.
‘Do you think we should’ve brought an epi pen?’ Simon asked, more repulsed by the noises than concerned about Dave’s imminent demise.
‘Not allergic,’ Ellie said in a way that made it clear to Simon that he should know by now she always did her homework. ‘PTSD. Bad holiday.’
‘Erp,’ blurped Dave. ‘Sorry. Corsica.’
‘Should’ve gone to Sardinia,’ Simon sniffed. ‘Much better seafood.’
Dave patted his plastic Thor tummy and grimaced. ‘I’m a sensitive little bear sometimes. Uumph. Sorry.’
Cassie impaled a squid ring with her fork then aeroplaned it towards him. ‘Are you sure? These look really good.’
‘No!’ he screeched. ‘I mean, please, you go ahead. They’re all yours. Enjoy.’ Urp. ‘Sorry.’ His reaction was much more painful to witness than Ellie had thought it would be. She made a silent note to herself not to do food aversions any more. Dave gave his throat a scratch and blew out a weird snort, then rubbed his hands together as if it had suddenly gone really, really cold inside. ‘So! Are you looking forward to tonight?’ He looked around the table and then under it. ‘Where’s your costume?’
Ellie sat up straight. Here we go, Cassie. It’s break-up time.
‘Yeah . . . ummm—’ Cassie gave the squid a squeeze of lemon juice as Ellie cued her with her next line.
‘I wanted to talk to you about that.’
‘I wanted to talk to you about that,’ Cassie echoed, then speared another forkful of squid, dunked it in the garlic sauce and ate it in a oner.
‘Well done. Just stick to the script and this’ll be over in no time.’
‘Ahhh, Comic Con.’ Dave sighed, a genuine smile blooming on his sweet, about-to-be-single face. ‘What do you want to know? I’ve been going pretty much every year since I was born. My dad and I—’
‘I know,’ Cassie cut him off, clearly having heard the story multiple times. ‘He brought you in a baby carrier dressed as an Ewok.’ Cassie said Ewok the way a carnivore might say vegan.
Dave finished the story anyway, and with a hint of cruelty that reinforced Ellie’s commitment to giving Dave the very best of break-ups, Cassie began waving a piece of squid in front of Dave’s increasingly pale face. The waiter appeared at their table and pointedly began listing the specials.
‘Dial it back, Cassie,’ Ellie whispered as the waiter talked the not-so-happy couple through a winter squash risotto, a beef cheek stew and a twice-grilled pork chop. ‘We want him to leave feeling happy to be him, not ashamed.’
Cassie put down her fork, unfolded her serviette, covered her mouth with it and whispered, ‘This is painful.’
‘I know, but you hired me to make it less so. For both of you. Trust in the process.’
Cassie shot her a look. Ellie gave her an encouraging smile then signalled that she really should be paying attention to Dave now that the waiter had gone.
