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Please,” she pleaded.
     
    “Calm down,” Georgia laughed. “This is good news, not bad news. You’re going to get the job.”
     
    “I don’t want the job, I want my pride.”
     
    “Ok, I’ll see what I can do,” her friend reassured. “But let’s put that aside just for a couple of minutes and discuss what’s really important. Tell me about Jonah.”
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    If a psychologist were to analyse Claire’s habit for mentally ‘putting things in a box’ to deal with later, they would probably give this trait some psychobabble label like denial .  Being brutally honest with herself, she’d put most of the baggage of her divorce into a box to never open again. Yesterday she’d refused to think about Jonah until after the screen test. And right now she refused to worry about foolish videos going viral. Not properly dealing with things had become her coping mechanism ever since the horror of what they’d done nearly fourteen years ago.
     
    In keeping with her philosophy of denial, now was most definitely not the time for thinking about any of these matters because now the most important job in hand was to get the house ready. She’d invited Jonah round for dinner and not only did she need to decide what to cook, she needed to make the place more presentable. Not because she believed that Jonah would actually care about the mess, but for her own self-esteem. She wanted to feel proud of whom she was and where she lived and the sealed cardboard boxes scattered around her home like carelessly discarded pieces of Lego, were eyesores. Everything from every single cupboard, from clothes to crockery to toiletries, had been packed away whilst the property had been fumigated and she’d scarcely unpacked a tenth of it yet. Still wearing her pyjamas, she started in the kitchen, attacking the gaffer tape seal to one container with a penknife before slowly, bit by bit, putting plates back on shelves and returning tumblers to the glass display cabinet where they belonged.
     
    Recipes wafted through her head as she robotically sorted through each room replacing objects to their rightful spot. One of her passions used to be experimenting with food but, since Miriam’s arrival, she’d prioritised spending quality time with her daughter over making complicated dishes. It turned out that Miriam didn’t have the most sophisticated of palettes anyway and it had been a case of the simpler the better.
     
    She knew she would have fun creating something a bit fancier for tonight, and yet she didn’t want it to appear as if she was trying too hard either, or to slave over a stove in front of her guest. Whatever she served would ideally be prepared ahead of time. Creamy fish pie……pasta……roast chicken……….slow-cooked lamb in the oven………..barbecue?
     
    For the second year in a row, Britain was in the grip of a rare and uplifting heat-wave. Indeed, according to the pest exterminator, moths had become endemic in the South East as a direct result of last summers’ high temperatures. Forecasts had regularly boasted that it was hotter in London than in Rome, Barcelona and even Mumbai. The weather had been so reliably good that, last year, Claire had invested in a proper gas barbecue, rendering the ridiculous little disposable aluminium ones that she’d previously used redundant. It wasn’t cheap, but it was worth every penny. It was the first summer that she and Miriam had been without Anthony. The pleasure of eating freshly barbecued food in the garden had taken some of the sting out of the pain and given mother and daughter fresh new memories.
     
    With the boxes all unpacked, Claire took a shower before dressing in a pair of high-cut fraying denim shorts with a black vest t-shirt and heading out to the shops. She smiled as she allowed herself to remember the night before. “When can I see you again,” Jonah had asked as