by Shari Low
Huge tears splatted on the table as Josie nodded. I hugged her again, then, despite her lifelong hatred of public displays of affection, I kissed Ginger too.
‘I can never thank you enough, honey. If you hadn’t taken a header off that balcony I might never have found my husband.’
‘Glad to help. And if it doesn’t work this time around I’ll have another go. Maybe a car crash next time. Or a mountaineering accident.’
I gave her another squeeze to show that I appreciated her devotion then headed off to the loo. I expected to see Lizzy at the mirrors but she wasn’t there. Strange. Must have passed her on the way.
It was only when I heard a loud sniff coming from one of the cubicles that I realised I could be wrong.
‘Lizzy? Lizzy, is that you?’
‘Mfffwauh.’
‘Lizzy, what’s wrong? What one are you in?’
I was on my knees now, searching under the doors for a pair of bright-pink leather boots. I spotted them at the end cubicle and now that I’d inspected it at close quarters, I made a mental note to congratulate the management on the spotlessness of the toilet floor.
‘Lizzy, open the door. It’s me.’
After a few seconds delay, she unbolted the lock and, as I pushed open the flash, brown marble-effect Formica, it was hard not to gasp at the sight before me.
Lizzy. Cheeks blotchy. Mascara all down her face. Clutching a white pregnancy testing stick.
‘Oh shit. Are you . . . Did you . . . I mean, have you . . . ?’
I seemed to have adopted the speech patterns taught at the Red Jones School of Romantic Revelations.
‘I can’t do it,’ she sobbed.
‘But why?’
‘Because I can’t be pregnant. I just can’t.’
Crouching down on my knees I put my arms around her and hugged her tightly. The management should also be congratulated on the generous size of the cubicles.
‘Come on, Liz, it can’t be that bad,’ I said softly, finding it difficult to process this situation. The only time I’d ever seen Lizzy like this was in the case of sad movies and severe PMT. She was our optimistic one, our chipper little bundle of fun who took everything in her stride and lived a life that oozed positive karma and monk-like Zen.
‘It is. It’s really, really bad. Oh, Lou I’m sorry, I didn’t mean you to find out any of this until you were back home. No one knows. Just me. And, oh fuck, Lou, I don’t know what I’m going to do.’
The hairs on the back of my head were standing straight up now as a wave of fear descended. What the hell had happened?
‘Lizzy, whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. It’ll be OK.’
‘It won’t be,’ she wailed. I heard the footsteps of someone walk into the toilet, hear Lizzy’s pained cry, then turn and beat a hasty retreat.
‘It will. Whatever it is, we’ll fix it and get through it. Having another baby wouldn’t the worst thing to happen, would it?’
She nodded, tears gushing down her face now. ‘Adam has left.’
‘It’ll all be OK,’ I murmured, stroking her hair, ‘and we’ll. . . What? Adam has what?’
‘Left.’
‘Fuck! Why? Why would he do that? He loves you and the kids, he would never . . .’
Two huge, big, helpless eyes stared at me, waiting for me to get to the next bit where I inevitably say . . .
‘He has met someone else?’
The tears had stopped now and in their place was a numb, soulless expression. I couldn’t believe this. He’d sworn there wasn’t another woman. Adam had lied to her? No way. He was so much better than that. I’d known him for a decade and I’d never have guessed for a minute that he was capable of such a treacherous betrayal.
‘Lizzy, it has to be just a stupid one-off. A drunken mistake. Do you know who it is? Is it someone local?’ I asked, thinking this was the kind of information that had to be handled with extreme care. If Josie or Ginger knew the culprit they’d be up at her door within ten minutes of landing back in the country.
Another nod.
‘Who is she?’
I braced myself. After fourteen years of working in a Weirbank salon, there were very few people in the town that I hadn’t encountered. If I didn’t know her then I would know someone who did. Fury started to build. How could he do this on his own doorstep? The cheating, lying bastard, I’d . . .
‘Alex Dunns.’
Alex Dunns. Alex Dunns. It was familiar. Hang on, yes, I knew an Alex Dunns but it couldn’t be the right one because . . .
‘And he didn’t lie before. He hasn’t gone off with another woman. Alex Dunns is a guy.’
Noooooo. Bloody hell! Broken hearts. Disasters. Post-natal depression. Near death experiences. We’d been through just about everything in our lives, but I definitely hadn’t yet reached the page in the Friendship Crisis Rule Book that dealt with this one.
‘He’s gay?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’ve known this since . . . ?’
‘Last week. I know, I’m so fucking stupid. I always read these magazine articles that say women know deep down but I didn’t, Lou, I really didn’t. Sex hasn’t been like it used to be for the last couple of years but I thought it was just, you know, the kids, and the pregnancies and the stress and work and maybe I nagged him too much, put too much pressure on him.’
She’d switched from zombie to hyper now. I pulled her close before she worked herself into complete hysterics again.
‘Shhhh, hon, shhh. This isn’t your fault. It’s not your fault.’
Alex Dunns. He was a solicitor at the law firm on the High Street. Came in once a month or so for a cut and blow dry. Lovely. Cute. Funny. Openly gay. Worked out. Always great for a chat and didn’t mind the juniors ogling his pecs.
Alex Dunns and Adam. A couple. I’d never have called this one. Never. Suddenly another niggling thought manifested itself and I pulled back from my friend and looked down at her lap, suddenly realising the enormity of part two of this debacle.
‘Oh crap. No. No. No. You can’t be.’ I realised that this wasn’t what someone in ‘supportive friend mode’ should say, so quickly added, ‘But if you are, we’ll deal with it, Lizzy. All of us. You’ll never have to cope with any of this on your own. Have you done the test yet?’
She nodded. A cold wave of fear consumed me.
‘I haven’t looked. I can’t. I just can’t.’
Neither could I. It was just too terrifying. The prospect of what she was going to have to deal with was bad enough, but to do it while pregnant with his child would be unbearable.
With a strength that I was completely fabricating for the sake of my friend, I slowly prised the stick from her fingers and turned it over. Beads of sweat popped from my pores as she refused to look down, staring instead at my face, waiting for the reaction that would tell her what she needed to know.
‘Lizzy, it’s . . .’ My voice wobbled, then cracked altogether as I stuttered, ‘Negative.’
‘Negative?’ she whispered. ‘You’re sure?’
I nodded and showed her the stick. One blue line. Definitely. Not even a hint of a second one.
Shattered heart? Positive. Pregnancy? Negative.
Both of us slumped with relief. ‘Lou, I’m really sorry,’ she stammered.
‘Why? Are you crazy? I’m sorry. I had no idea there was anything wrong.’
‘Neither did I. He only told me last weekend. But I never meant to put a downer on your wedding with all this stuff. I’m so sorry,’ she repeated. ‘I’m a shit friend.’
I grabbed a piece of toilet roll and used it to wipe away the tears and the worst of the mascara from her face. ‘Lizzy, you’re going through the worst time of your life, the most painful thing ever and yet you still came here. I love you for that and I promise you’re the best friend I could ever have.’
She welled up again forcing me to head off the tears at the pass.
‘But don’t tell Ginger that because she thinks I love he
r more. Just let her believe that. Look I know it’s easy to say, Liz, but we really will get through this. I promise.’
As if some force of determination had overtaken her, Lizzy pulled herself up and then yanked me up too, before giving me one last squeeze.
‘OK, here’s the deal. I don’t want anyone else to know about this yet.’
‘Lizzy, that’s nuts. We’re your friends, we want to support you.’
A hand came up and shushed me.
‘Stop. Lou, I feel bad enough that I’ve landed all this on you on the day before your wedding. Don’t make me feel even more guilty, which is exactly what will happen if my problems make me the focus of the trip. I need a laugh, I need some joy and I need to let my hair down and have a bloody great time while I’m here because God knows what I’m going back to. So please . . . Forget everything that just happened and let’s just make this the special, beautiful occasion that it’s meant to be.’
‘But . . .’
‘And if you don’t I’ll definitely tell your future sister-in-law that you love me the most,’ she added with a smile.
‘Ouch, that’s evil.’
‘It is. OK, I’m going to fix my make-up and go back out there like nothing’s happened. I’ll say I’ve been in here so long because we got chatting to . . . to . . . Cyndi Lauper. That’s so random they’re bound to believe it. By the way, cool bra – your knockers look sensational.’
With another kiss she was gone, and I suddenly remembered my reason for coming in here in the first place. I locked the door, plonked down on the seat and tried my best to get my resting heart rate back down to normal. Poor Lizzy. She so didn’t deserve this. And the kids. There was going to be a whole lot of hurt all round.
I’d been in contemplation of developments for a few moments when something on the floor caught my eye. A white box. Lizzy must have left it here when she did the test. As I picked it up I realised that it wasn’t empty. What a waste. Why did these companies put these things in packs of two? Were all pregnancy tests like that? I’d never had reason to use one so I had no idea. Weren’t these things pretty reliable? Maybe Lizzy should have used this second one to make sure the result was correct, but then, the test she did couldn’t have been more definite. Nope she definitely wasn’t pregnant. Thanks to the gods of fertility for cutting her some slack there.
I flicked the stick around my fingers. Maybe I’d need one soon though. Or maybe it would be an idea to ask the man I was marrying tomorrow how he felt about children. How the hell had we managed to miss that? Shouldn’t that be one of those things that you absolutely knew about someone before you actually committed to them for the rest of your life?
A niggle of something started to tug at my consciousness and at first I thought it was a token flicker of cold feet, but that was ridiculous. Red was who I was meant to be with. Although I did have a sudden vision of sitting in that Armenian pizza restaurant for the second time, on first-name terms with the staff and them bringing me over a coffee exactly the way I like it without even having to ask. Maybe I could make it an annual pilgrimage: come to New York every year, plan a wedding, bail out, hit the pizza joint.
The very thought set my stomach rumbling and I realised that I needed food. I really, really needed food. What was wrong with me? Since I’d got here all I’d done was eat and sleep and – wow, another wave of nausea. Perhaps I should have taken it a bit easier on those lunch-time cocktails.
My mind suddenly replayed something that Lizzy said and I glanced downwards. I could see where she was coming from, but that was easy to explain. My boobs always swelled when my period was due and it must be due around now. That was probably why I was ravenous too. Definitely. Without a doubt. It was hard to tell because my periods were never regular. I put it down to a haphazard diet, stress and a mild case of polycystic ovaries that had been diagnosed when I was a teenager. I was lucky. The only symptom I had was infrequent periods – sometimes they came six weeks apart, sometimes five, sometimes four. This time it was . . . no idea.
No. I couldn’t be. I was on the Pill and I’d taken it religiously. I never missed it. Well, almost never and if I did then I doubled up the next day. I couldn’t be pregnant. I just couldn’t. And to prove it I should just open the cellophane and pee on this stick. It would be over in minutes and I’d know I was being ridiculous, then I could go back out there with my favourite people on earth and get on with savouring every minute of this weekend.
One pee later, I passed the time by praying. Dear Lady of the Immaculate Contraception, please make this test negative.
Twenty seconds passed and I gave up trying to hold out for the full minute and peeked. One blue line. Thank you, Lady of the Immaculate Contraception, you’re a wonderful woman.
I was just about to toss it in the bin, when I realised that a shadow of moisture had now crossed over from the first window to the second one. Hang on, what was that? I thought it was done, but it was still moving, like a dark cloud crossing from one little plastic square to another, leaving behind a grey gloom and a . . . blue line. Another blue line was forming in the second window.
The Lady of the Immaculate Contraception seriously needed to rethink her job description.
I was pregnant. My future husband had probably arrived and he was sitting out there right now with absolutely no idea that he was going to be a dad. What if he didn’t want a family? What if he was one of those blokes that preferred to be without the responsibility of a child?
What if . . . Hysteria was rising, sending my train of thoughts of in random directions. What if our relationship wasn’t up to this? What if I got pregnant and he didn’t want it and then I’d get fat and grumpy and the next thing I knew he was announcing that he was leaving me for one of those skinny models he had to photograph every day? Or an old girlfriend who valued freedom over fertility? Or . . . Or . . . A gay lawyer called Alex?
A pushed my forehead against the cold laminated surface of the side wall of the cubicle and tried to gain some sense of balance and rationality.
I was pregnant. I was going to have a baby. As if practising for the months to come, my hormonal pendulum swung in the other direction and a gurgle of joy shot from my stomach to my throat and then straight up to my tear ducts. I was pregnant. To a man I loved. And this could only be a good, good thing.
But, like Lizzy, I realised that this wasn’t news that I wanted to share with everyone just yet. This was my secret until it became Red’s too. He should definitely know before anyone else, so somehow I was going to have to pull on some semblance of normality and act like an over-excited bride to be instead of an overexcited mother-to-be. I’d just stick with giddy enthusiasm and hope they all bought it.
‘Lou, are you in there?’
Ginger’s voice shocked me back to the moment.
‘Lou, are you OK?’
‘I’m fine. I’ll be back out in a minute. Think I must have eaten something that’s playing havoc with my stomach.’
Good. Plausible. Well done.
‘Yeah, right,’ she retorted. ‘I know exactly what’s going on.’
Oh fuck. But I didn’t say that out loud.
‘Er, what?’ I replied nervously.
‘I know exactly why you’re in the loo and why your stomach is giving you gip. Go on, admit it.’
Admit it? Admit what? How could she know? I didn’t even bloody know until five minutes ago. Was she psychic?
‘What am I supposed to admit?’ I asked cagily.
She couldn’t know. Her first niece/nephew may be on its way into the world but how could she possibly have sensed that before me?
‘You’re a bag of nerves,’ she replied in her very best triumphant voice, ‘because you were talking to Cyndi Lauper. You’ve always loved her!’
‘You’re right, Ginger. Completely bang on.’ I couldn’t help laughing at the absurdity of it all. ‘It was amazing. I’ve invited her to the wedding tomorrow and she says she’ll try to come.’
Thirty-two
Red groaned as he stretched, then climbed into bed and reached out his hand to me.
‘Get in here, Lou Cairney. This is the last chance I’m going to have to shag a single woman.’
‘You’re like one of the all-time great romantics, do you know that?’ I replied, stuffing the little chocolate that had been left on the pillow into my mouth. Urgh, dark chocolate. I hated dark chocolate. It was the work of Satan. I unwrapped the one that had been left on Red’s side and devoured that too. Satan obviously had a hypnotic effect on pregnant women.
‘I thought you didn’t like dark chocolate?’ Red’s face was a picture of puzzlement.
‘It’s growing on me.’
I ran a brush through my hair and headed towards him, realising that the pillow snack was now stuck somewhere directly above the huge knot in my stomach. I had to tell him. Right now. Before we got married. I had no idea what to say, although I was suddenly thinking that I should sugar-coat it along the lines of, ‘OK, baby, I’m coming. Get ready to shag a single woman . . . who’s also up the duff.’
Perhaps not. In terms of great quotes from life-defining moments, I had a hunch that would never be a classic. Go on, Lou, get this done. Where’s your courage?
I sat on the edge of the bed and resisted the tug of his hand pulling me towards him. Perhaps sex first? Nope, because then he’d be all sleepy and I could be accused of using tawdry manipulation tactics. Plus there was no way I could focus on orgasmic happenings with this going around in my head.
‘Baby, I’ve got something I need to tell you and I don’t want you to freak out.’
His face turned ashen and he slumped back on the pillow.
‘I knew it,’ he said, his voice thick with exasperation. ‘You’ve changed your mind. You’re bailing out again. Bloody hell, Lou, I can’t believe you would . . .’
‘No! I haven’t changed my mind, I promise! I still want to marry you tomorrow and . . . to be honest, I can’t wait. I love you. Just remember that.’