It’s the day of the E Bay party.  Supplies have been provided by my writer friend. There is a pineapple (neither of us like pineapple but my friend was told that poverty demands pineapple!  She was told by a woman who was a red head, she totally believes it and insists we eat it!) She brings other gifts, a bottle of cava, and an avocado.  I provide bread, home made, and some prawns, cut price prawns.  My writer friend is worrying that we are living dangerously because who knows with cut price prawns?   I tell her sell by dates are passé in the age of austerity!   

We lay out our picnic on the floor in my bedroom.  I leave her to cut the pineapple.  She doesn’t cut it.  It sits there, all spiky, like my debts.

I am busy emptying my wardrobe.  Who needs a Chloe scarf, Miu Miu boots, or that rashly purchased, but divinely cut, Chloe silk skirt.  It’ll all have to go, along with the Marc Jacobs handbag, the second hand Marc Jacobs cardigan coat, and the wonderful Marc Jacobs dress that I saved up to buy with cash. 

I get the camera, we photograph everything – on hangers or flat surfaces.  Modelling is out of the question!  I put the lot on E Bay.

“With a bit of luck you should get £500”  my friend says.  I notice she isn’t wearing a flower in her hair.  I mention it, in passing.  She says she is into hats now.    

I am wondering what I can sell next.  No one wants my writing talents.  I am in the waste bin.
 
“Have a prawn, and a very large glass of cava” my friend says.

“Are you having a prawn I ask her?”

“I am sticking to cava” she says.  

The phone rings.  Oh God, please God, don’t let it be Barry or anyone else asking for money.

It’s my ex.  He needs to come over, things are really bad, I need to understand and I need to help him.  After all he is the father of my daughter.

“If you want to borrow money” I snap, “You are out of luck!  I have just put my wardrobe on E Bay!”

“Not the earrings, not the earrings I bought you for our anniversary?”

The earrings?   The diamond earrings I got three weeks before he told me he was leaving me.  I’d forgotten all about them.  If I put them on the web site, maybe I could get the Marc Jacobs dress back. 

I ask him how much they are worth. 

Or rather how much they cost him.   He’s hurt. 

How can I think of selling the earrings? 

I can scarcely believe what I am hearing.  I would like to remind him that he was chasing after the gymaholic anorexic at the time of their purchase.  I can’t see the point of worrying about selling them, unless of course they were stolen, or worse fake.   He is indignant.  Of course they aren’t fake!   They cost at least £750.

I tell him he can come over next Tuesday, not that I can give him much comfort on the money front.  He knows I am not working.   He asks if I will be cooking.  He’s missing my food!   Oh, and would it be all right if he bought the baby.  The daughter loves his baby.    Yes, and yes, I say.   All I want to do is get off the phone, put those earrings on E Bay, and get my beautiful dress back!