Positively Yours (25 page)

‘
There is so much to get,' said Beth, exhausted. ‘It's overwhelming.'

William put down a dirty-nappy disposal-unit, and looked at his only daughter.

‘If you were able to work out how to get all As in your Leaving Cert, get a First in Commerce, and handle millions of euros' worth of client money in work, I think you'll be equal to deciding which car seat, Moses basket and cot to buy.'

Beth went a little red; she had been put in her place. And her dad was right, it wasn't rocket science, even if baby apparatus was alien to her. She looked at the rack of Babygros and realized she should try to enjoy choosing her baby's bed and clothes.

‘OK,' she said, more enthusiastically. ‘Let's have a look at the buggies. It's a little early to buy one yet, but I hear they take weeks to order in, anyway.'

Just as Beth was trying to practise folding a very complicated-looking buggy, she felt a tap on her shoulder.

‘So this is where you spend all your hard-earned cash.'

Beth looked up. It was Eoin McSweeney, one of the traders in Burlington. Beth couldn't stand him. He was the kind of guy who gave stockbrokers a bad name. He spent his evenings in the various bars in Dawson Street boasting about how much profit he had made, and how important he was to all the big-named clients he had. He blew money on expensive champagne and overpriced fast cars. Last year he had hit the jackpot by marrying the daughter of one of Ireland's wealthiest property developers. He never stopped talking about his trophy wife, her pad in Marbella and how much she liked to party. Although Beth suspected Eoin's party days were going to be curtailed, now that his wife, Astrid, was pregnant and due in two months' time.

Beth studied Astrid. Even though she had a large bump, she didn't seem to have gained a pound. Beth was instantly jealous: some people made pregnancy look so easy.

‘You're not going to buy that buggy, are you?' she asked Beth accusingly.

Beth stared at the navy buggy. It looked the same as all the other ones. How could Astrid even tell the difference?

‘I'm not sure, yet,' she said, placing it back on the stand.

‘Well, everyone knows that brand is too basic. What you need is what we got, the Bugster. It's the most expensive, of course, but only the best for our baby!'

Beth gazed at Eoin, who was smiling at her smugly. Suddenly William reappeared at Beth's side.

‘The assistant said she could show us the car seats now, if we want to go over and look. There's a lot to choose from, and we will need two, of course. One for your car and one for mine.'

Eoin looked at William and smiled. Suddenly Astrid's phone rang.

‘We need to go,' she said to Eoin as she began to walk off.

‘I'll see you in the office on Monday,' Eoin said to Beth, casting another glance at William. Beth's dad was too busy feeling the weight of the buggies to be interested in Eoin.

Beth said goodbye to her work colleague, and made her way over to the car seats.

On Monday morning Beth arrived in work early and knuckled down to a report she needed to finish for a 9 a.m. meeting with an important client. Just before the meeting she headed into Tom's office; as he was her boss, she had reports she needed to give him. He needed to make sure all his SPMs were meeting their targets. As she approached his door Caroline, Tom's personal assistant, greeted Beth with her usual cross face. Beth ignored her, and was just making her way into Tom's huge office when she caught Caroline eyeing her ever-growing bump.

‘Well, I hear the father is an older man. A much older man.'

Beth stopped dead in her tracks. Had Tom told someone? She couldn't believe he would have done that without talking to her first. She was lost for words.

‘I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. You always were a little too serious for the young guys in here. It must have been hard being the only female SPM in the office. But at least now you've got your older man. Good for you,' said Caroline smugly, as she walked off, clipping her expensive shoes along the ground. She was one of those girls who loved the sound of her own high heels. You would think she was CEO of the company, and not just some assistant. She was a complete cow. Beth felt like hitting her over the head with her stupid travel cappuccino cup.

Instead she took a deep breath and stormed into Tom's office, determined to get to the bottom of this. Just as she was about to berate him, she saw they were not alone and that two of the senior partners were also sitting in on the briefing. Beth fumed. How could Tom tell the office about their relationship and impending parenthood without talking to her first? Yes, she'd hated everyone gossiping and wondering who the father was, but she had felt it was better than them all knowing the truth. That news could hurt her career, and she had spent too long building it up for someone like Caroline to go and ruin it all with rumour and innuendo.

Beth found it almost impossible to sit through her two-hour client meeting. The minute it was over she tried to find Tom, but was told he had gone to another conference across town in the Central Bank. Beth then tried to make her way back to her office as quickly as possible, as she felt paranoid about everyone talking about her and Tom. And her fears were confirmed when three different people stopped to enquire about her older man. People are so nosy, she thought, as she texted Tom saying she needed to talk to him urgently.

She tried not to leave the sanctuary of her work station all day. She hid behind her large computer screen, but even within that shelter people kept plaguing her. She actually had an email from one of the desperate single girls who worked in marketing, asking if Beth had always been attracted to older men or whether she'd done it out of desperation? The girl's email was lengthy, and went on to explain that she had dated practically every single thirty-year-old in Dublin, and now felt the more mature man might be able to provide her with what she wanted, which, like Beth, was a child. Beth ignored the email and tried to focus on work. She wished her friend Susan had been in, so she could have found out exactly what everyone was saying, but Susan had taken the day off to go to the final dress-fitting for her wedding, and to meet her caterers and florist. Beth was happy for her friend, but wished desperately that she'd been there to help.

Beth texted Tom again, asking him to call her when he was free. She got no response, and so tried to get back to work. At one stage she ran down to the canteen to get some tea, only to be stared at by the big group of mean girls who worked in HR. She could tell they were delighted to have some gossip about her. Beth decided to get her tea to go and walked as quickly as she could back to her floor.

Just as she reached the top of the stairs she bumped into Graham O'Reilly, a fellow SPM. Beth found him to be one of the nicest men on her floor. He was slightly older than her, and had two kids. Unlike the majority of the young men, who were eager to prove themselves to everyone who worked in Burlington, Graham knew his work was less important than being a father and working to pay for his house and holiday home, and so, while some might think he was a steady Eddy, Beth thought he was more down to earth than the rest. She found him sweet, and enjoyed his company any time they had to travel together.

‘What time is our flight on Friday? I was hoping we would have time to make it into the office before check-in. I have so much work to do, it would be great to get it finished before we have to go away.'

Beth looked at Graham, a little confused. ‘What flight? To where?'

‘To Cheltenham, of course. For another three days of wining, dining and getting money out of our wealthy clients!'

Graham saw Beth still looked perplexed.

‘Tom said to me a few weeks ago that he'd got the go-ahead for a few of us to invite special clients to the races, and that the company had arranged flights, hotels and restaurants. I just presumed you were coming too, seeing as how you came last time.'

Beth was furious; she knew she should be going on this trip. Part of her job was to entertain her clients. She'd helped fly some of Ireland's wealthiest businessmen in helicopters down to the annual summer races in Galway, and to English football games, and even to rugby matches across Europe. She was well used to showing her clients that Burlington appreciated their business, and that the company were willing to spend money giving them a good time. She should have been invited to Cheltenham, but she didn't want Graham to see her disappointment.

‘Well, I haven't talked to Tom about it, but it suits me fine,' she said cheerfully. ‘I'm so busy myself at the moment.'

‘Of course, of course,' said Graham, trying to hide his surprise at Beth's non-involvement with the trip.

‘Anyway,' he said, slowly smiling, ‘I hear you're the talk of the office.'

Beth groaned. She was sick of hearing about her older man.

‘I'm sure you're sick of all the baby chat, but fair play to you for braving Mothercare on a Saturday afternoon! If there's one
thing I've learnt it's to avoid baby shops at the weekends, they are a nightmare. Late night Thursdays are better, or online shopping!'

Beth wasn't listening to his tips, she wanted to find out how he knew she'd been in Mothercare on Saturday.

‘How do you know about my cot-hunting trip?' she asked.

‘Oh, well it was Eoin who was telling us about meeting you and your partner there on Saturday. He's such a gossip, he's worse than the women who work here.'

Finally all the gossiping made sense, it wasn't that they knew about Tom. No, they all thought her dad was the father! Suddenly Beth started laughing. Her poor father had only been trying to help her shop, and now he was the talk of the office.

Graham looked at Beth. ‘What's so funny?'

‘Graham, that wasn't my “partner” Eoin met on Saturday. That was my father!' she laughed again.

Graham was a little surprised, but promised her he would set all the wagging tongues straight.

Beth was so relieved to hear no one knew about Tom, although she was still annoyed that he had ignored her all day.

Once it hit 7 p.m. the office emptied, but Beth stayed on; she had a mountain of work to get through. She was heading back from the bathroom for what seemed like the twentieth time that day – she still couldn't get over how much pressure the bump put on her bladder – when she ran into Tom.

‘Oh, you're still here?' he asked.

‘Yes, well I've got a lot to get through tonight. I've been trying to contact you all day,' she said.

‘Oh yeah, sorry. I've been busy,' he said, not sounding that sorry at all. ‘But let's talk now.' He ushered them both into his office.

Beth sat down opposite Tom. He felt like such a stranger to her, now. It was over three months since she had told him her news, but she still hadn't forgiven him for how he had reacted and treated her. At first she'd thought she wouldn't be able to work in the same building as him, but then she'd realized she had to, and so had decided that when they were at work she would try to forget about their personal situation and view him as her boss and colleague. But today she had needed him, so they could talk about the office rumour, and he had let her down.

‘I left messages for you all day,' she said.

‘I've been busy,' he repeated.

‘Busy or not, you can still have the decency to answer my calls. I'm not asking a lot from you. I'm the one doing everything for this baby, our baby, and when I do need you to spare a few minutes so we can talk you ignore me. That's not fair, Tom.'

He didn't say anything. Neither did Beth. She was so annoyed. She didn't deserve to be treated like this.

‘OK, I'm sorry. What was it you needed to talk about?'

Beth explained the mix-up about everyone thinking her dad was the father of the baby. She knew it was slightly funny, but Tom didn't even smile.

‘Do you honestly think I would suddenly tell everyone now? After all these months? I'm not that stupid.'

Beth looked at him, and once again wondered how she ever could have fallen for such a heartless man.

‘Anyway,' she said, trying to keep her cool, ‘Graham O'Reilly said he's off to the UK for some client entertaining. I should be going on that trip, too, you know that. What's going on?'

Beth could see Tom becoming uncomfortable.

‘It's a little awkward. I didn't know if you would be up for all of that, what with your condition. So I thought it better to
let Graham and a few others go on their own. But don't worry, I didn't tell him why I didn't ask you to go.'

‘My condition?' said Beth, her blood pressure rising. ‘I'm pregnant, not terminally ill.'

Tom could see how annoyed she was.

‘Well, you might not have been up for the flight, and all that entertaining and socializing,' he said meekly.

‘How dare you?' said Beth. ‘This is my career, it's my choice whether I'm “up” for it or not. You made it quite clear you wanted nothing to do with this baby, and if that's your decision then stick with it. Either you're involved with all aspects of this pregnancy, baby and my health, or you aren't. You can't pick and choose.'

‘I'm sorry, it won't happen again. It was a lack of judgement on my behalf,' Tom said, looking at his watch. ‘I know you'd like to talk more, but I'm afraid I've got to be somewhere in a few minutes. I'm already running late, so maybe we could leave this to another time?'

Beth was about to agree, when, for the first time all day, she noticed how smart Tom looked. He was wearing his favourite suit – his hand-made Armani – and seemed to have gotten a haircut. He always looked well, but even for him he was unusually well dressed for an average Monday in the office.

‘Where are you rushing to?' she asked, suddenly guessing what he might say, but hoping she wasn't right.