I Heart Christmas (20 page)

‘What else would it be?’ I enquired with innocence and a raised eyebrow. I really was good at lying. I ought to try to get more use out of it.

‘Nothing. I just talked to Dr Laura this afternoon, is all.’ She flicked her eyes over at Lou, as if to check it was OK to ask in front of her. Unfortunately I didn’t have a code to tell her that it was not. ‘I thought maybe she called you with, I don’t know, news?’

‘Why have you been to the doctor’s?’ Louisa flew into a panic immediately. Which was why I hadn’t said anything in the first place. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘Nothing is wrong with us,’ Jenny replied, placing a calming hand on Louisa’s shoulder and bringing her back down to earth. ‘I went in to get checked out because I’m going to have a baby—’

‘You’re having a baby?’ Louisa’s voice was very, very, very high pitched. I was fairly certain there were some dolphins off the coast of Scotland complaining that she was a being a bit squeaky. Without another word, she snatched the beer bottle out of Jenny’s hand and slapped me on the arm.

‘What did I do?’ I yelped, rubbing my injury.

‘You let her drink pregnant,’ she screeched. ‘I can’t believe either of you would be so reckless—’

‘Lou, chill,’ Jenny interrupted and took her beer back, taking a sip before explaining. Because she was Jenny. ‘I’m not pregnant. I meant I’m going to be trying for a baby soon and I dragged Angie along with me. She took the same tests. I was just kinda thinking maybe you got news.’

‘Does that make more sense?’ I asked Louisa with a sweet smile.

She shook her head. ‘Not really. What do you mean you’re trying for a baby?’

I settled back on my barstool. Here we go, I thought. Louisa wouldn’t put up with Jenny’s nonsense. She’d be back onto a Pomeranian in fifteen minutes or less.

‘I know it might not make total sense to everyone,’ Jenny explained, giving me the evil eye. ‘But I just can’t think about anything else.’

‘Oh, I understand completely,’ Lou agreed quickly, wiping the invisible smile right off my face. ‘When it hits, you’re buggered. Have you spoken to Craig about it?’

‘Actually, yeah,’ Jenny replied, clearly relieved. ‘And I think he gets it. We agreed that we should take a break while we work stuff out but, you know, even if I decide to do this with a guy who isn’t going to be actively involved, I don’t think he’s my baby daddy.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’re taking it seriously,’ Louisa rested a hand on Jenny’s arm in sisterly support. I felt like a complete shit, albeit a complete shit who was living in a parallel universe. Of all people, I would have expected Louisa to be on my side of the Jenny–baby fence. Lou was the first one to call me when a girl we went to school with, who now worked down the post office, got pregnant without a man on the scene. She was a whole two days ahead of my mum on that one, which was a record. Unmarried mothers were hardly front-page news in New York but Louisa was a big believer in the family unit. Or she had been. I hadn’t considered the fact that we were dealing with a new Louisa now. This wasn’t the happily ever after Lou I’d always known and loved. This was the freshly scorned ‘even if he swears his undying love, he’ll only cheat on you with some slag who texts him the golf scores while you’re at his cousin’s christening’ Louisa.

‘So you didn’t hear from her?’ Jenny asked, turning the attention back to me. ‘No news?’

‘Why would I get weird news?’ I laughed, hoping it would cover the bumps in my voice. I wasn’t doing this here, I just wasn’t. ‘I think she called earlier and left a message. I haven’t had time to check my messages, what with all the meetings and the babysitting and slutting up to hang out with you two.’

‘That does take some time,’ Jenny said with a half-serious smile. ‘Well, OK then. You call her back tomorrow, though, right?’

‘Of course,’ I breezed. Again, that one wasn’t entirely a lie – I would call her tomorrow. At some point. ‘But you spoke to her? You’re all good?’

‘I’m all good to go,’ she nodded, before taking a chug of beer. So maternal. ‘I have, like, wonder womb. Millions of eggs, superb thick lining. It’s like a fetal memory foam mattress in there. She says I shouldn’t have any problems as soon as I want to try.’

‘And I’m asking as an absolutely delighted and supportive friend,’ I said, holding my beer bottle away from my face in case of sudden attacks. ‘But you’re still sure you’re going to try soon?’

‘Let’s not talk about it tonight?’ Jenny compromised and I nodded in acceptance. That was becoming our group catchphrase. Regardless, I was pleased Jenny was healthy. Maybe knowing she was ready to get pregnant at any time would take the pressure off her to do it right away, but at the same time, it made my heart ache a little bit more. Here was Lou, already a mother to a wonderful little girl, and Jenny, who was apparently going to be able to pop out a baby at the drop of a hat. Or more like the drop of her knickers. And then there was me.

‘I might be ready for a hair of the dog,’ I said, finishing my Diet Coke and smiling at the girls. ‘Who wants what?’

‘I’m all right actually,’ Louisa said, her English rose complexion blushing a delicate shade of green. New York was starting to catch up with her. ‘I hope your friend is on soon, I’m going to be asleep before I know it.’

‘Get me the same?’ Jenny raised her beer bottle and pulled Louisa in for a supportive half-hug but instead of cheering her, it just seemed to make her retch a little bit. Fantastic, I was almost certainly going to be holding her hair back to puke in a bin on the way home and she hadn’t even had a drink. Sneaky, delayed jet lag hangovers.

The bar was dark and crowded but I managed to shuffle my elbows in between a girl with a half-shaved head and a man wearing a reindeer jumper and a kilt. Oh, Williamsburg. Actually there was a lot of seasonally themed knitwear. Part of me was delighted to see the season of goodwill being embraced so readily and part of me wanted to punch out every hipster that thought it was funny to take the piss out of the most wonderful time of the year. Damn them and their irony. Leaning into the bar, I wiggled my elbows outwards until I was safely squeezed in and waited to make eye contact with the bartender. And waited. And waited. It was difficult to be patient at a bar when you were still sober. At least the pounding music meant I didn’t actually have to bother thinking my own thoughts. It was a huge relief.

‘Well, hello there.’

A gentle poke in the shoulder was followed by a weird half-hug from behind. And no one wanted anything weird from behind. Ever. I craned my neck to try to identify my snuggly assailant only to a) discover it was Jesse and b) turn Jesse’s appropriate air kiss into an entirely inappropriate lip-on-lip mega smooch.

‘Well, that’s a nicer hello than I expected,’ he said with a laugh, smoothly brushing off my burning shame. ‘You made it.’

‘I made it,’ I confirmed, rubbing his accidental kiss from my lips, dying a little inside. ‘I’m not having a lot of luck with the bar, though. I think they can tell I have a full-time job and don’t play keyboards for anyone. They won’t sell me a PBR.’

‘Here, let me.’ He placed his hands on my waist and pulled me away from the bar, switching our places. If I hadn’t already snogged the man, I’d have felt a bit awkward. Instead I just watched as he waved a couple of reddish-coloured tickets at the bartender and pointed to a backlit fridge. Seconds later, he turned around with two cans of PBR and a pair of full-to-spilling shot glasses, one resting on the top of each can. ‘Whiskey, OK?’

‘More than,’ I said, taking the can and the shot graciously. ‘Only I was supposed to get one for my friend, Jenny.’ That and the fact that I hated whiskey, but turning down a free drink would be rude. And stupid.

‘So, how about we shoot the whiskey and then I give you both the beers? I shouldn’t drink before a show anyway,’ he suggested. ‘We got a deal?’

I didn’t drink whiskey. Whiskey made me very sick. But here in the land of the cool kids, without Alex acting as my hipster beard, I felt something like peer pressure for the first time in a very long time.

‘Deal,’ I replied, picking up the whiskey, touching plastic cup to plastic cup and knocking it back in a oner. That was the easy part. Keeping it down was another matter entirely. Jesus Christ, it was disgusting. Maybe this was the whiskey that had necessitated the invention of a pickleback. The only thing that could possibly wash away the foul taste in my mouth was a shot glass full of brine.

‘Oh man.’ Jesse tossed his shot glass into a nearby bin and laughed, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing the inky black stamp that marked him out as over twenty-one. ‘That was pretty gross. Sorry.’

‘Oh, don’t be.’ I squeezed my eyes together one last time and waited to see if the shot was going to stay down. It seemed like I was going to be lucky. ‘It wasn’t that bad. I love whiskey. I’ve had worse.’

Three lies in one sentence. What was wrong with me? Jesse had changed since we left the office and while there wasn’t an epic difference in his outfit, his smart trousers had turned into jeans and he’d switched the striped shirt for a worn-out plaid alternative. Basically, he’d turned the preppy dial down just enough to play up his hipster hotness. His dark-rimmed glasses looked more edgy than office and his hair seemed ever so slightly more mussed up than usual. I imagined he paid a lot of money to make such a simple haircut so very versatile. Alex had maintained that he cut his own hair for months after we met, until I finally got him to admit he went to some ridiculously fancy Soho stylist but had, on occasion, been known to trim his own fringe when on tour. One day I would get him to admit that he’d had a manicure for our wedding but that felt more like a deathbed confession.

‘Did Alex make it?’ Jesse asked, leaning into my ear so he didn’t have to shout quite so loud. ‘I’d love to say hi.’

It was weird hearing him say Alex’s name. I guess we never really chatted about boyfriends and girlfriends at work. Or husbands and wives. I didn’t even know what his girlfriend was called. Or whether or not he had one. Or several. Several was most likely.

‘He couldn’t make it,’ I said, pulling a regretful face. I hated that I felt the need to exaggerate every gesture when I was in a loud bar, it was such a sign of my age. ‘We’re moving on Saturday.’

‘Yeah, you’ve mentioned it,’ he laughed. ‘Park Slope, I hear.’

‘About a thousand times?’

‘A thousand and one?’

Jesse’s tight smile brought out a pair of dimples under his stubble that I’d never noticed before. He really was very good-looking. I wondered for a moment if he might be gay. Wondered-slash-wished. This would feel less weird if he was a big old gay. And then I could set him up with James! But sadly, my gaydar picked up more activity when Alex wore his red skinnies and sang Taylor Swift songs in the shower. Jesse was definitely hetro.

‘I think I’m just trying to convince myself it’s really happening,’ I confessed, the disgusting aftertaste of the whiskey fading away into a pleasant burn that made the ugly jumper party around us faintly more tolerable. ‘I can’t believe we’re moving to Park Slope. I can’t believe we’re leaving Williamsburg. I can’t believe it’s going to take me an extra fifteen minutes to get to work in the mornings.’

‘I hear the F train is way more reliable than the L train,’ Jesse offered. ‘But yeah, that’s got to be weird. It’s, like, where grown-ups live.’

‘I know,’ I said, wide-eyed with agreement. ‘And I’m not one! They’re going to kick me out as soon as they realise we haven’t got a blender or a bread machine.’

‘I’ll get you a stroller as a housewarming present,’ he said. ‘Then you can park it outside and they’ll leave you alone.’

I opened my mouth, fully intending to laugh, but instead some sort of dying seal impression escaped. Jesse’s eyebrows shot up underneath his shaggy hair.

‘Stroller!’ I shouted in a voice so high it made Louisa’s scandalised reaction to Jenny’s baby news sound like she was being voiced by Brian Blessed. ‘Ha! Stroller!’

‘OK, so, anyway, I gotta get backstage.’ Jesse handed me the second can of PBR and began to back away. So, we had found our limit. ‘Uh, I’ll see you after? Or at work tomorrow?’

With a resigned nod and overenthusiastic smile, I held up the two beers and thanked him again before scuttling back through the ironic Santa hats and Ramones Christmas covers to find Jenny propping Louisa up against a rusty-looking iron railing, eyes all glittery, hands held out for her drink.

‘Who was that guy?’ Jenny asked, peering over my head into the crowd, trying to get a look at my runaway editor. ‘He was super cute. Did he buy you drinks? Did you tell him you were married? Did you tell him I’m not married?’

‘That’s Jesse,’ I explained, slightly more concerned with Louisa’s clammy-looking face than Jenny’s insta-crush. ‘He is super cute, he is the one playing tonight so he had drinks tickets, and he knows I’m married, but I didn’t get a chance to alert him to your relationship status, I’m sorry.’

‘Ange, I’m really sorry but I think I’m going to have to go home quite soon,’ Lou bleated, slipping backwards down the railings until she was crouched in a tiny ball, elbows resting on her knees, sweaty hair resting on her face. ‘I think I might be a bit sick.’

‘What did she eat at dinner that we didn’t?’ I asked Jenny, crouching down beside my bestie, rubbing her back and pretending I couldn’t hear her gipping. ‘Oh man, she’s not good.’

‘I ate everything.’ Jenny held out her hand to take my still unopened beer. Lou was clearly going to be a two-handed situation. ‘I always eat everything.’

‘True. She’s probably still hungover from last night. She’s not used to drinking like you.’ I didn’t mean to sound like her mother but sometimes …

Cue the dead-eyed stare.

‘She’s not used to drinking like us,’ I corrected myself and then shook my head. ‘No, really, you. She’s not used to drinking like you. Even I can’t keep up with you anymore.’

‘It’s delayed jet lag,’ Louisa mumbled, coming directly to her new friend’s defence. ‘I’m just tired, that’s all.’

I nodded, agreeing to make her feel better, but being tired didn’t usually make me throw up on my shoes, my friend’s shoes and the shoes of one or two strangers who were stood nearby but didn’t seem to notice. Thankfully.