Daisy made sure that she was fashionably late, glancing around the rammed gastro-pub as she arrived. Across the exposed kitchen bar, Nora looked up from her menu, meeting Daisy’s eye contact and waving her over. Already there was a bottle of white wine ordered, opened and empty, four equal glasses poured out. Cleo and Bea were there already too, smiling expectantly. Sarah hadn’t been able to make it over from where she was staying with her mom – December train fares were extortionate apparently (and, of course, Sarah currently had no income) – although Daisy did have to wonder if the negative RSVP had more to do with Sarah’s unwillingness to be sat around a table with the woman who’d once boned her husband and kept it secret for two years… who knew.
Daisy nervously smoothed her dress over her stomach as she made her way across to her friends. She wasn’t showing yet and probably wouldn’t for a fair while, but still, it had become somewhat of a nervous habit over the past few weeks. She might not have a bump, per say, but already her jeggings and work chinos were feeling uncomfortably tight, forcing her into dresses. At least the festive season prevented her from looking suspiciously formal.
After a round of greetings – Daisy realised that this was the first time she was seeing her friends since they’d returned from Nora’s hen weekend (she’d been a little distracted, after all…) – Daisy settled down into the chair left for her, concealing her smirk as Cleo pushed the fourth glass of wine towards her encouragingly.
“So, come on!” Bea demanded, characteristically unbothered with preamble. “What’s the big news?”
“Did you get that promotion?” Nora asked, all excitement.
“Oh, no. It’s not that.” Daisy felt a little pang – she doubted the board would be considering her for that new managerial role once she informed them that she would be going on maternity leave in half a year’s time. She rallied. “It’s more exciting than that!”
Bea and Nora exchanged a glance. “Are you… seeing someone new?” Nora tried again, after a moment.
“Or, seeing someone again?” Bea bluntly clarified their drift. Oh. So they thought she’d gotten back together with Darren. Oh, the irony.
“Not really,” Daisy smiled. “But you’re getting warmer.”
Her three friends swapped baffled looks.
“So… this isn’t anything to do with Darren?” Cleo asked, after a moment.
Daisy sighed. “Well, actually, yes. It does have something to do with Darren I suppose. And that’s why I need your help.”
“He’s not bothering you, is he?” Bea’s brows had snapped together threateningly.
Daisy laughed again. “Oh, god, let me just tell you what’s going on, before I get the poor guy in even more trouble.” Where to begin? “Well, do you remember when I had that bad norovirus thing?” It took only that for ever-quick Cleo to join the dots; she pressed her lips together like she was stopping herself from reacting. “And I’d just felt so shitty for weeks and weeks. And when we got back from Paris I thought, this is ridiculous, I’m going to ring the doctor. And when I was making the appointment, the receptionist was clicking through the booking calendar and said, super casual like, “you don’t think you could be pregnant, do you?”
The twin expressions of worry that Nora and Bea had been sporting melted away, as they realised what the truth of the matter was; Nora put her hands up to her mouth and pressed her fists against her wide smile.
“And I immediately went, oh no, no – but then I thought, actually, when was the last time I got my period?” Daisy continued, smiling. She was laughing about it now, but she’d remember that moment as one of the most defining – and horrifying – moments of her life. “And so, I bought a test. And then another one. And another one.” She laughed. “And after three positive results, it finally started to sink in.”
Nora could take no more; she leapt to her feet and threw her arms around the still sitting Daisy, squealing into her ear. “Oh my god, oh my god!”
“Wait, wait, wait! I’ve got pictures.” Daisy fumbled in her bag for her scan pictures and spread them out across the table top. Her eyes felt hot and prickly with tears. She’d already told her mom and older sister over Skype, of course, but this was the first time she’d been able to feel the excitement, the hugs, the joy that news of her child’s existence brought to the world. She crossed her arms in her lap, picturing that little bean, somewhere deep behind her pelvic bone, sensing its mother’s heart racing and blood rushing and wondering what on earth was going on out there.
“What did Darren say?” Cleo asked, after a few minutes of passing the little square scan pictures around and indiscriminate cooing. “Is he excited? Horrified? Both? Somewhere in between?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t told him yet. I don’t suppose any of you guys have kept his phone number actually, have you?”
The girls exchanged a look as they shook their heads.
“I might have his email address still saved,” Nora offered.
Daisy laughed sharply. “Well, I suppose that’s marginally better than sending him a Facebook message.”
“Marginally, yes,” Cleo agreed, wide-eyed.
“Oh god, can you imagine? ‘Dear Darren, how are you? Please see attached. File name, 12-week-scan-dot-jpeg. Can we discuss. Best, Daisy Frankel.’”
“Best?” Bea snorted. “You’re currently incubating his sperm into a person. You can stretch to “kind regards,” I think.”
“I need to get his number,” Daisy groaned. “You don’t think Harry has it do you, or Cole?”
“I don’t think so hun,” Nora said, apologetically. “They weren’t exactly bezzie mates or anything, were they?”
“I’ll have to Facebook him and ask him to call me. At least I didn’t get around to de-friending him. Having to send him a Friend Request first would just have been the pits.” Daisy eyed up the obviously untouched fourth glass of wine, feeling that despite her continued low-level nausea she quite possibly had never wanted a drink more in her life than she did in that moment, imagining her soon-to-be-had call with her ex-boyfriend turned unexpected baby-daddy.
“Okay, well just make sure that it’s actually Darren who’s calling you from an unknown number before you go blurting anything out,” Bea advised wisely, as she picked up her own glass. “You don’t need to be telling some telemarketer from an Indian call centre that you’ve gotten yourself up the duff.”