by Sue Margolis
“Yeah, like Jack McFarland’s a bit gay.”
Ruby began sorting through the mail while Chanel unlocked the front door. “Look, I know it’s short notice,” Chanel said, “but would it be all right if I took a couple of hours off later on? It’s just that I phoned this new Harley Street specialist just before I left this morning and by some miracle ’e’s got a cancellation at twelve. If me and Craig don’t take it, we’ll ’ave to wait until November for another appointment.”
Ruby said of course she could have the time off. “Like you have to ask,” she smiled.
“Great. Ta. I’ll make up the time. Promise.”
“Don’t be silly,” Ruby said, throwing some junk mail into the bin. “You work hard enough as it is.”
The door had been open less than a minute when Fi walked in. She looked frazzled and exhausted. “Hi, Chanel,” Fi said, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
As they pulled away from their embrace, Chanel stood back to take a look at Fi. “Gawd, when did you last get a decent night’s sleep, 1485?”
“Something like that,” Fi said.
By now Ruby had joined them. “Hi, sweetie,” she said to Fi. “What brings you here? And who’s in charge back at the ranch?”
“Saul, but I can’t stop. I’m on my way to Waitrose and have to get back for Connor’s next feed. I just stopped in to say I’m really sorry about—”
“You know, Cancers need to watch their immune system,” Chanel broke in, shaking a warning finger at Fi. “If you don’t get enough sleep, you’re going to get seriously run down.”
“Tell that to Connor when he wakes five times in the night. By the way, he adores the crib mobile you got him. Thanks again, it was such a lovely thought.”
“My pleasure,” Chanel said, waving a hand in front of her. “Now come over here and sit down.” She led Fi to one of the chairs they kept next to the counter for heavily pregnant women.
Fi and Chanel had real soft spots for each other. Before Connor was born, Fi would sometimes help out at the shop during sale time and she and Chanel had hit it off straight away. Chanel loved mothering people, and Fi, having received precious little by way of affection from Bridget, rather enjoyed it. Plus, Chanel made her laugh.
“Right, don’t know about you two,” Chanel said, “but I’m feeling a bit precaffeinated. I’m off to do a coffee run.” She took her purse out of her bag and turned to Fi: “You look like you could do with a cup.”
Fi protested that she needed to get to Waitrose and didn’t have time for coffee, but Chanel managed to tempt her with the promise of a chocolate éclair.
After Chanel had gone, Fi turned to Ruby: “Look, I just had to come in and say sorry about Duncan,” she said. “Soph rang. Last night must have been miserable.”
“I admit I was a bit cross at the time—particularly when he said I was boring, but I’m starting to see the funny side.”
“He said you were boring? Cheek. I don’t think you’re at all boring. OK, you do have a tendency to go on about your mum. Then there was the time that bloke nearly ran you off the motorway. You bored on about that for weeks. And when you’re ill you’re pretty boring…”
“Yeah, yeah, but basically you don’t think I’m boring, right?”
“Absolutely. Look, last night was all my fault and if I were you, I’d be furious with me. All I can say in my defense is that I had no idea what Duncan was like until Soph rang me last night. She was in such a state. She’d suddenly realized how wrong it was to set you up with him without telling you what he was like. She told me all about him—the made-up language, the obsession with health, everything. Apparently he’s a lovely bloke when you get to know him, but he’s just a bit eccentric and not very at ease socially.”
“You don’t say,” Ruby said, examining the giant vase of white lilies on the counter and breaking off a damaged leaf.
“She told me that both his parents are physics professors. He was one of those hothouse child prodigies and the experience left him a bit peculiar. I’ll find you somebody else. Promise. My friend Kate’s got a mate who knows this conductor.”
“Orchestra or bus?” Ruby asked, only half joking.
Fi blinked. “Now you come to mention it, she didn’t say.”
“Look,” Ruby said, “when I told you I didn’t want to go on any more blind dates, I really did mean it. I love it that you care about me and want me to find somebody, but let’s just give the blind dates a rest for a bit, eh?”
Fi looked disappointed. “OK, perhaps you’re right,” she said.
Ruby decided to change the subject. “So, is Saul the new Captain Bird’s Eye?”
“Not exactly. They said he was too Semitic looking and didn’t his agent know they were looking for somebody to advertise fish suppers and not the Last Supper.”
“Ouch—seems a bit hard.”
“I know, but he’s got another couple of auditions lined up, so he’s not too down…. How did things go at St. Luke’s?”
Ruby explained about bumping into Sam Epstien again.
“Epstien,” Fi repeated, brow knitted. “That’s funny, Saul has Epstiens in his family. And I’m sure there’s an American branch. This Sam didn’t happen to say if he was a Teaneck, New Jersey, Epstien, did he?”
“No, we didn’t actually get round to that,” Ruby said with gentle sarcasm.
“Shame. I mean, they could be related…. On a second thought, scrub that. I’m almost certain Saul’s lot are Ep-steins to rhyme with ‘wines’—rather than Ep-steens. Two of them came to the wedding. Elderly couple. Lovely people. Now, what are their first names? Hang on, it’s coming. I’ll get there in a tick. Saul did tell me.…Bert? No, not Bert…. Buddy, that’s it. Buddy and Irene. Big in kosher pickles, apparently.”
“Really?” Ruby said with a soft laugh. “Well, I’m glad we’ve cleared that up.”
“Oh, God, I’ve been wittering again. Sorry. It’s lack of sleep…. So, you’ve got a Jewish doctor after you. Talk about fulfilling every Jewish mother’s fantasy. Saul’s sister married a Jewish doctor. Saul’s mum always says it was the only thing that cured her postnatal depression. So, have you told Ronnie about Dr. Epstien?”
“There’s nothing to tell. We chatted and he said he would give me a call. That was it.”
“God, you’ll have to get something special to wear for your first date. Why don’t I come shopping with you?”
“Fi, I don’t even know if there’s going to be a date.” She told Fi what she’d told Chanel—that confessing she’d lied about her vaginal stamp and then having to tell him the true story would be just too embarrassing.
“Oh, come on, Ruby….” It was Chanel back with the coffee. “You know you want to go out with him. Allowing your vagina to come between the two of you is stupid.” Chanel wrinkled her brow. “I think that may ’ave come out wrong,” she said, “but you know what I mean.” She handed out cups of coffee and gave Fi a bag containing the promised éclair.
“All right, maybe I do,” Ruby said, easing off the plastic lid on her coffee cup, “but even if I can get over the embarrassment issue, he’s still a gynecologist.”
“Tell me about it,” Fi giggled. “I can’t remember the last time I was this jealous. You know…” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “sleeping with a gynecologist is my ultimate sexual fantasy.” She bit into the éclair, causing whipped cream to ooze from its sides.
“Blimey, you kept that quiet,” Ruby said.
“What do you want me to do, go round broadcasting to the world that I like to have sex with my legs in stirrups?”
“You serious?” Chanel said, grinning.
Fi nodded. “Absolutely.” She took another bite of éclair. “Saul found the stirrups on eBay. Some doctor was upgrading his equipment and didn’t need them anymore.”
Ruby was shaking her head, eyes wide with surprise. Not in a million years would she have guessed Fi was this sexually liberated. She wasn’t the type. She wore Sebagos. She recycled. S
he worked for her local branch of the National Childbirth Trust as a breast pump agent. This was the woman who had been utterly scandalized to discover Ruby and Matt had done it in one of the changing rooms in French Connection. And two years ago, when Ruby had presented her with a Rampant Rabbit vibrator for her birthday, she’d thought it was a paper towel holder.
“This feels so weird,” Ruby said. “All these years you think you know somebody and then you discover you don’t. How come you never told me? I told you about me and Matt doing it in French Connection.”
“I know, but this is far more kinky. Plus I knew how you felt about the whole gynecologist thing.”
“Of course,” Chanel chipped in, “the gynecologist fantasy is all about wanting to be dominated. It’s not something me and Craig ’ave ever got into. He’s a Cancer, and Cancers tend to be a bit conservative in the bedroom department, but I can see ’ow it would be pretty mind-blowing to act out.”
“Too right,” Fi said with a rich earthy laugh, which was so unlike her. “So, can you imagine what it would be to have real sex with a gynecologist?”
Ruby stood drinking her coffee, her eyes starting to glaze over. Try as she might to fend them off, she was having thoughts about being ravaged by Sam Epstien. Worse still, in her fantasy Sam was wearing his blue scrubs and she was lying on a gynecologist’s table.
Chanel seemed to pick up on her faraway look. “’Aving second thoughts about Dr. Epstien, then?”
The question jolted Ruby from her reverie. “No, not at all,” she said, aware of how defensive she sounded.
“Yeah, right,” Chanel came back, a trace of a smirk on her face.
“OK, what if I am?” Ruby said, feeling her cheeks burning. “Since when was changing your mind indictable?”
Chanel and Fi exchanged amused looks.
“Of course,” Fi said, “the domination issue aside, the other reason for wanting to sleep with a gynecologist is that they really know their way around women’s bits. How can they not be totally amazing in the sack?”
Ruby said she couldn’t imagine old Double Barrel being good in the sack.
“You’d be surprised,” Chanel said. “I bet ’e knows exactly ’ow to show Mrs. Double Barrel a good time.”
Ruby grimaced at the thought.
AFTER FI HAD gone, customers began to trickle in. While Chanel looked after them, Ruby sat at the computer in the stockroom, dealing with a pile of e-mail orders. The door was open and she could hear Chanel talking to people in the shop. She was being perfectly pleasant, Ruby thought, but she seemed less chatty than usual. She was clearly getting worked up about the appointment with this new doctor.
When it was time for Chanel to go, Ruby wished her good luck and gave her a hug. “I’ll keep everything crossed.”
“Thanks,” Chanel said, smiling, “but I’ve got this really strong feeling everything’s going to be OK and that this new bloke is going to give us some fresh ’ope. I know it sounds weird, bearing in mind what the last doctor told us, but I can’t ’elp thinking it.”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Ruby smiled, giving her another squeeze.
Things started to quiet down in the shop and Ruby decided to pop into the kitchen and make a cup of tea. While the kettle boiled she grabbed a packet of potato chips. She’d go out for a sandwich later when Chanel got back. She was tearing open the packet when she became aware that her trouser waistband felt tight. She looked down and ran her hand over her stomach. It was bloated and straining against her trousers. Wheat always did this to her. Last night in the restaurant, the first course had taken ages to arrive. How many bread sticks had she eaten as she sat there listening to Duncan droning on? Six? Eight? Maybe more. Still, so long as she kept to protein and green veg for lunch and dinner, she’d be back to normal by tomorrow. She put the chips back in the cupboard and opened the minifridge. Inside was a raspberry yogurt, which was only three days out of date.
As she drank her tea, she pottered around the shop, tidying shelves, checking the displays and praying that this new doctor really would be able to offer Chanel and Craig some hope. As she thought about how lucky they were to get this cancellation with the fertility specialist, she remembered her Grandma Esther’s attitude toward making medical appointments. If Esther phoned for an appointment and the doctor had a vacancy, she would immediately hang up. The way she saw it, all the best doctors were booked up for weeks and one with a vacancy was highly suspect. Ruby smiled to herself as she remembered her grandmother and her pals bragging about the length of time they’d had to wait for their checkups and operations.
It was nearly one before the next customer appeared. Even though she was wearing no makeup and her long blonde hair was hanging flat and unstyled, the woman—who was about six months pregnant—was instantly recognizable. Ruby could barely believe her luck. She wouldn’t have to write that letter after all. Claudia Planchette, her lips forming an unnaturally plump crescent, was standing in front of her waiting to be served.
It had taken a while, but Ruby was finally used to Hollywood superstars coming into the shop. When they first began to appear she got flustered and tongue-tied. This was because she found it impossible to believe that it was actually Gwyneth Paltrow or Kate Winslet standing in front of her wanting advice on the best make of breast pump or maternity bra.
These days, she managed to be relaxed and friendly with celebrity customers, but not fawning. Unlike Stella. If she happened to be in the shop when a famous person came in, she would greet them as if she had just applied a fresh coat of unction.
“Hello,” came Claudia’s actressy American voice. “I wonder if you can help me. I’m looking for a maternity bathing suit?” Her statement ended with a question mark. She had the most beautiful eyes, Ruby thought. They were like a pair of almond-shaped emeralds.
“No problem,” Ruby said. “Why don’t you come over to the rack and I’ll show you what we have.”
Ruby led the way. She had just taken delivery of their winter beachwear collection, which included a range of stunning Italian-made maternity swimsuits.
“Hey, these are so cute,” Claudia gushed, picking one up and holding it against her. Ruby watched her posing in front of the mirror, one foot slightly in front of the other. She couldn’t resist flicking her hair and running her tongue over her lips. Force of habit, Ruby assumed. She was clearly in no doubt how high she ranked on the stunometer.
“So, sweetie, when’s your baby due?” Claudia said, still admiring herself in the mirror.
The patronizing “sweetie” remark felt like nothing compared to the question that followed. It stopped Ruby in her tracks. Her eyes shot down toward her stomach. Is that what nine bread sticks had done to her—bloated her so much that she actually looked pregnant?
“Actually, I’m not pregnant,” Ruby said, feeling the flush forming on her cheeks.
“You’re not? Sweetie, I’m so embarrassed. I just assumed…Listen, sweetie, why don’t I give you the number of my personal trainer? I’m sure he could help you strengthen those abs.”
Ruby didn’t know what to make of this last remark. Either the woman was so embarrassed at having suggested Ruby was pregnant that in her distress her apology had come out all wrong, or she was being starry and spiteful. Since Ruby wasn’t one to see the worst in people, she decided that Claudia was doing her best to make amends for the pregnancy remark and that she would give her the benefit of the doubt.
“Here’s his card,” Claudia went on. “His name’s Hilary, but don’t be put off—the man’s a brute.”
“Actually, that won’t be necessary,” Ruby blurted. “You see, I love and accept my body and I am beautiful and vibrant in my uniqueness.”
Claudia was still frowning in puzzlement when her mobile rang. “Pardon me,” Claudia said to Ruby as she reached into her bag. She stabbed “connect.” “Yeah? What?” she snapped. “Look, Marta, I’ve made it clear I do not wish to be disturbed with domestic issues during the day. If Avocado has a
fever, deal with it.” She covered up the phone and turned to Ruby. “I need this like a hole in the head. It’s the sitter. Totally neurotic…Marta! No! Don’t let her be sick on the fauteuil. It’s Louis the friggin’ fifteenth for crying out loud. Do you know how much it cost me to get that thing restored?…Look, can’t you see she’s only doing all this to get attention?…No, I won’t come home. I refuse to be blackmailed by a two-year-old. I have to go. I’m in an important meeting. I’ll call you.”
Claudia’s cold-hearted outburst left Ruby blinking in disbelief. Her mind sprang back to the Hello! article she’d read in the waiting room at St. Luke’s. Every other sentence referred to Claudia as a calm, deeply spiritual person who struggled not to overprotect the child she adored. Ruby was beginning to understand why Claudia had been nominated for two Oscars in the last few years.
Having put her phone back in her bag, Claudia turned back to Ruby. “I have two nannies for that child. On top of their salaries they get free health care, dental, a car and plasma TV in their rooms. You’d think with all that they might be willing to show some initiative, but no. The moment I turn my back, they fall apart.” She began rotating her head in wide circles. “I think all the stress is getting to me,” she said. “I don’t suppose you’d have some Kabbalah Spring—with a little ice and lemon, maybe?”
Although the fridge in the kitchen was stocked with bottled water and organic fruit juice, purely for the relief of flapping celebs, Ruby didn’t have Kabbalah Spring water.
“I can offer you Perrier,” she said.
“Is that all?” Claudia came back, still rotating her neck. “Well, I suppose I can make do.”
“So, I hear you’re having this baby at St. Luke’s,” Ruby said as Claudia alternately sipped Perrier and massaged the back of her neck.
“That’s right, just like last time. The place is a marvel. With Avocado, my husband—actually he’s now ex-husband—brought in scented candles. We played soothing music. In the final stages of labor, the doula actually got him to massage my vulva. I cannot begin to tell you how awesome it was. I had no idea it was possible to have an orgasm during childbirth. We are talking totally Zen experience, here. Avocado came into the world smiling and utterly at peace. I felt I owed that to her.”