Two Feet Apart
(A shared office on Rivington Street. Their desks are two feet apart.)
Hyacinth: Weird question. Do you have my number?
Barnaby: Your phone number? No. Why, are you leaving?
Hyacinth: And I don’t have yours. Three years, and I’ve never messaged you once.
Hyacinth: But I know being a pilot was your whole dream at nineteen. I know you failed the maths three times.
Barnaby: Twice. We don’t mention the third one.
Hyacinth: Nobody outside this building knows that about you.
Barnaby: And I know you reply to my emails in four seconds, and that you fall asleep on the bus home.
Hyacinth: So are we friends, or colleagues who talk a lot?
Barnaby: What’s the difference?
Hyacinth: Friends message on Sundays. We’re only friends when we’re working.
Barnaby: My oldest friend’s in Dublin. We talk twice a year and it takes ten minutes to get going.
Barnaby: You and me, we never say hello. We just carry on from yesterday.
Hyacinth: So what are we, then?
Barnaby: Friends. With an address instead of a phone number.
(Barnaby writes eleven numbers on a yellow note and slides it across.)
Hyacinth: I’m not going to use this.
Barnaby: I know.
(She sticks it on the side of her monitor anyway.)