Girl on the Run by Jane Costello

beach balls. Nothing against blondes, of course,’ she adds. ‘Or beach balls.’
    ‘I thought it was going well with . . . whatsisname?’
    ‘Richard,’ she replies. ‘It was. Then he dumped me.’
    ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Sorry, Priya.’
    ‘Do you think it’s the pink?’ she asks, twirling a finger round a strand of hair.
    I shrug. ‘I like the pink. It’s you. Don’t go all conventional, Priya, whatever you do.’
    ‘It’d please my mum.’ Then she reconsiders. ‘Actually, I think the shock would kill her.’
    Priya’s parents were forced to accept that she was unlikely to follow in the footsteps of her brother Adnan, who enthusiastically went through with the marriage that’d been planned for him since childhood.
    As well as refusing to even discuss the matter, Priya instead followed a fellow sixth-former called Simon all the way to Liverpool John Moores University – and was promptly dumped in favour of the Deputy Manageress of their local greengrocer’s. She dropped out of the course and hasn’t eaten a kiwi since.
    ‘It’s my round. Anyone else fancy tequila shots?’ Heidi is swaying as she reaches into her bag for her purse and only then do I realise how drunk she is. Priya gives me a meaningful look.
    ‘I’ll get these, Heidi,’ I touch her arm. ‘How about a soft drink first? It’ll keep us going longer.’
    She looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. ‘I’m not having bloody soft drinks, Abby Rogers!’ she grins.
    Heidi never swears. Priya looks worried.
    ‘Well, weren’t you keen on doing karaoke?’ I suggest, looking for a diversion. ‘Let’s head over and I’ll get a round when we’re there.’
    We prise Matt from his followers and head to the karaoke bar. I have no idea what it’s called; indeed, it may not even have a name, and I certainly know that I’d never find it when sober. It’s tucked down a flight of stairs between an insurance broker’s and a newsagent. Once you’ve negotiated some stairs as steep as the galley steps of a World War Two battleship, you enter a labyrinth of rooms and are attended by a gaggle of insanely cheerful waiters, who make up for the car-crash decor and highly variable quality of noise.
    Matt and Priya put down their names for ‘I Got You Babe’, a duet I’ve seen them perform at least six times, with spectacularly little improvement.
    We find a booth and settle down as three twenty-something blokes, wearing the crumpled remnants of work clothes, launch into a competent ‘Sweet Caroline’.
    ‘Are you going back to your running club?’ asks Matt.
    ‘Not you too,’ I complain, slugging my wine. ‘Is this a conspiracy? The answer is no. Not least because I wouldn’t survive it.’
    ‘You need something to motivate you,’ continues Priya, as if she hasn’t heard me. ‘My friend got really fit and trained for a triathlon the year before she was getting married. She’d never have got into her wedding dress otherwise.’
    ‘Unfortunately, the likelihood of that being a motivation in the near future is zero,’ I point out. ‘I haven’t had a date since last year. I’m too busy. God, that sounds feeble.’
    Sadly, it’s also true. So true, in fact, that I’m starting to feel desperate to change matters. Or perhaps it’s meeting Doctor Dishy that’s prompted that. If only there was a way to see him without the pain and humiliation of the running club.
    ‘That was just an example,’ continues Priya. ‘It could be anything. Do you have any landmark birthdays coming up?’
    ‘I’ll be twenty-nine at the end of September.’
    ‘There you go!’ says Matt.
    ‘Twenty-nine isn’t a landmark,’ I tut. ‘And I don’t feel remotely motivated to exercise by that or anything else.’
    ‘How about running to raise money?’ says Priya. ‘For charity or something.’
    ‘You could raise money for multiple sclerosis research,’ Heidi says decisively. It’s the first time she’s spoken in five minutes and a silence falls on