Having just been fired from her job at a public relations firm, Cassandra “Cassie” Dankworth pauses to consider where stories begin, as well as other things in her life that have recently ended, including her membership of two different book clubs, a flatshare, and her last relationship, earlier that morning.

When her attention returns to the present moment, her boss, Barry Fawcett, tells her she’s being fired due to what her client, Jack, owner of the men’s skincare brand SharkSkin, has described as her “relentlessly grating behavior” (12), despite her protests that likability is not in her contract. Cassie reflects on the fact that she could have begun the story in several different places, including earlier that morning, at the beginning of her now-over relationship with Will, or when her parents died in a car accident 10 years earlier.

A colleague, Sophie, expresses upset at her impending departure, but Cassie can’t decipher whether this is real or affected. She packs her possessions and moves to leave the office, despite her boss’s protests that he’d expected her to work for the duration of her notice period. She declines, receiving and replying to a text message from a flatmate about a mess she left in the kitchen.