Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery (42 page)

‘Um, it’s something else.’

‘Good.’

‘So AH says, YOU UP THE DUFF?’

‘Who are you with?’ said Stephen.

Rosie closed her eyes.

‘Nobody. But listen…’

‘An’ SHE says, SO WHAT IF I AM, an I’m like, SLAG…’

‘I’m up the duff,’ said Rosie.

‘Wha’?’ said the girls next door.

‘Mr Lakeman, I need go toilet, please,’ came a small voice from Stephen’s end.

‘What?’ said Stephen, who thought that saying ‘pardon’ was common.

‘Um. Uh.’ Rosie realised she was about to burst into tears.

‘Um, yes,’ said Stephen desperately.

‘Yes?’

‘No, I’m talking to Clover Lumb. I mean, yes?’

‘UH,’ said Rosie. Her hand was shaking as she held up the little stick. ‘Yes. I mean. I think so. No. Definitely. Yes. YES.’

There was a long pause.

‘Oh my goodness,’ said Stephen. ‘Miss Hopkins, you do not mess about.’

Rosie choked, half laughing, half crying.

‘Plus, I was rather under the impression that I’d already sealed the deal.’

‘That’s right, I did it all by myself.’

Stephen let out a short. barking laugh.

‘Oh Lord, I guess it was always going to happen sooner or later.’

‘I did tell you we should get central heating.’

‘This really is quite a lot sooner, though, isn’t it?’

For a moment Rosie forgot all about the horrible toilet, the fact that it was freezing, the obviously earwigging girls next door, the whole new world that had suddenly flung itself open in her face. Despite everything to come, it was, as it so often was, just her and Stephen, in their little bubble, just the two of them, while the rest of the world faded away to white noise.

‘BAD sooner?’

She could hear the warm smile in his voice, and everything around her suddenly became warmer too.

‘Lord, yes. Awful. You can tell my bloody mother.’

‘Well you can tell Lilian.’

They both thought for a second about Rosie’s beloved great-aunt.

‘No, we can tell her together,’ said Stephen eventually. ‘Anyway, order a lemonade in the Red Lion and it’ll be common knowledge all over town in about fifteen seconds.’

 

 

The two girls were pretending to do their make-up at the counter when Rosie emerged from the cubicle, purple in the face. They looked at her shyly.

‘Uh, congratulations,’ said the first one, who had been the loudest. Her normal voice was back. Rosie couldn’t help smiling.

‘You guys are the only people who know,’ she said. ‘Whoa, that’s the weirdest thing.’

She breezed home again, hugging the secret close to her all day, letting it keep her warm in the cold. Stephen called again at lunchtime, reporting that he had done absolutely nothing useful with fractions but in the end had just got the children to practise their number bonds.

‘Are you all right?’ he said. ‘How far gone are you? Do you need to sit down? Are you feeling sick?’

‘No,’ Rosie said, having vanished into the tiny back room of the sweetshop. It was little more than a sink and a kettle, and she never shut the door, but today she did. If Tina thought there was anything odd about that, she didn’t mention it. ‘I feel completely fine. Except, you know… OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!’

At the other end of the phone, Stephen nodded.

‘Also,’ he said cheerfully, ‘your knockers are probably going to get huge.’

Actually, they were feeling a bit swollen, Rosie realised. She’d put it down to post-Christmas over-indulgence, which, she realised, probably also explained a couple of nights when they weren’t as careful as they might have been.

‘Seriously, is that all you’re thinking about?’

‘That is the only thing I can think about that isn’t absolutely terrifying.’

‘Well you didn’t want Mr Dog… Oh my God, how are we going to break it to Mr Dog?’

‘I think your dog…’ Stephen hated the name Mr Dog and thought he should be called something sensible, like Archie or Rex, ‘could do with being reminded once in a while that he’s just an animal. I don’t think it will be bad for him at all.’

‘Hmm,’ said Rosie. ‘Oh Lord. The timing is awful. Goodness, this is all going to be awful.’

There was a pause. Stephen wanted to pull her into his arms and bury his face in her hair. He resisted the urge to run straight out of school and up the road.

‘Oh darling, do you really think that?’ he said instead.

‘No,’ said Rosie. ‘I’m just panicking.’

‘Well it isn’t going to be awful. It’s going to be ours, and it will be wonderful, and full of love. And dental cavities.’

‘Ha,’ said Rosie. Then, quietly, ‘I love you.’

‘I love you too,’ said Stephen. ‘Right, I have to go, there’s some kind of spilled milk catastrophe. Little buggers…’ he paused, ‘with whom I am soon going to have masses of tolerance and patience.’

Rosie smiled and put the phone down, then burst into tears. Come to think about it, she had been very emotional recently, but everyone had put that down to the engagement.

Okay. They would talk about it tonight, but the most important thing was not to tell people. When was it, twelve weeks you could mention it? Right. Well, she couldn’t be more than five or six, not really. She’d have to get online and check it out. But that meant they had lots of time to get used to it and calm down and start to prepare themselves and… Oh, to have Stephen’s baby! If it were a boy, would it be tall and handsome? And a bit moody? And if it was a girl, would his heart turn over? Would he collapse with joy and be madly in love with her and spoil her to bits?

Tina knocked on the door to come and wash up teacups and Rosie tried to pull herself together. Right. She was going to be calm, collected, professional. No one would suspect a thing, not until they’d got everything sorted out. It would be cool.

‘Hey,’ said Tina pleasantly. ‘You okay?’

‘I’M HAVING A BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’