Miracle at the Museum of Broken Hearts by Talli Roland Page A

at Peter’s break-neck pace to the clinic. It’s only eight-thirty and we open at nine, but sometimes the women are pacing around out front just waiting for us. They stare daggers at me like it’s my fault we’re late, even though they’re the ones who can’t tell time.
    What makes it worse is that Peter actually apologises, then tells me to get them coffee, tea, Ex-Lax, and any other mushy food they consume. When we first opened, we actually had biscuits in the waiting room – until Mrs Rhinod, a recovering gastric-band patient, binged and had to be rushed to hospital. Now we have yoghurt.
    For once, though, I don’t mind being rushed – I’m dying to check my inbox. I flick on the computer, nervously tapping my nails on the desk as it boots up. Please please please , I chant, clicking on Outlook and holding my breath. This could be it. The pot of gold at the end of my pitch rainbow.
    But . . . I let out my breath. There’s nothing. Nothing . Not even spam. Disappointment floods into me, and I slump onto the stool. I was so sure this was the pitch that would launch me straight to my dream job.
    Maybe everyone’s right, I sigh, clicking open the patient schedule. Maybe I should give up, focus on a real career. Join the pasty-faced zombies I see every morning on the street lurching toward the Tube.
    I give my head a little shake to clear the depressing thought.
    “ Dream it, live it,” I whisper, repeating my mother’s favourite mantra. Whenever I was faced with anything I doubted, Mom would smile, throw back her braids, and repeat those words over and over.
    Dream it, live it. I’m not going to give up. All I need is just one foot in the door. If Leza doesn’t respond by the end of the day, there’s always Metro. I try to push down the hard knot of disappointment, heart sinking even more as I spot that the first patient today is none other than the hideous Madame Lucien (or Madame Lucifer, as I like to call her). I’m so not in the mood for her antics. If there’s a speck of dust that dares settle on a nearby surface, she sputters like she’s going to throw up a lung, rolling her eyes back into her head in a most unattractive way. Peter had to tell her to stop hacking so much or her recent ear-pinning might come loose.
    But the funniest thing is, she refuses to acknowledge my existence – even to pay!
    She swans in, gets Botoxed to the eyeballs, then walks out without even looking at me. The first time it happened, I chased her into the street, banging on the dark windows of her car. She rolled down the window and – eyes firmly fixed on a spot over my shoulder – told me to take up ‘the matter’ with her assistant. My jaw nearly hit the ground. Back in Harris, we call that stealing .
    Still, she can provide a bit of entertainment. I try my best sometimes to hunt down a mega dust-bunny, strategically place it just peeping out from under the sofa, then await the explosion. And I always ask her to pay – loudly, exaggerating my accent – even though she totally blanks me each time.
    What can I say? It’s the little things that get me through the day.
    After Madame Lucien, I’ll have a bit of a breather, perfect for reading my favourite websites: Gawker , Heat , The Daily Planet , and, of course, Metro . If I’m feeling more upmarket I might hit Hello! and maybe click onto the Guardian and The New York Times so I can feel my university degree wasn’t in vain.
    The door opens and in sweeps Madame Lucien, wearing her ridiculously large dark glasses. She walks right by me and sinks into a chair at the far end of the waiting room. Of course she can’t breathe the same air as me.
    “ Hello, Madame Lucien!” I say, smiling like I’ve just devoured a whole packet of Jaffa Cakes. The bigger the Botox Bitch, the sweeter I try to be. It’s my passive-aggressive way of showing they won’t break me.
    Madame Lucien lifts her head a fraction of an inch and gives it a little shake, like she’s not quite