Page 12 of The Fallback

‘You can’t be serious?’ she finally said. ‘This has got to be one of your jokes, right?’

Rosie looked frantically into Mitch’s blue eyes searching for the glint that suggested he was about to start laughing and tell her that he was taking the mickey. But all she saw was a disconcertingly steely look, which suggested he was not only deadly serious about the proposition, he was not going to be easily dissuaded.

She took a deep breath. ‘Mitch,’ she started in what she hoped was her best calm and measured tone, the tone she used when dealing with hysterical PhD students who thought they were about to fail. Or with her nephews when they were having a very public meltdown and people were beginning to stare. Because it had not escaped Rosie’s notice that a few of their fellow restaurant customers were beginning to take an interest in their conversation, no doubt drawn in by Mitch’s excited tone, and her previous coughing fit.

‘Mitch,’ she continued, ‘OK, let’s just say, for arguments sake, that you’re serious.’

Mitch nodded his head eagerly.

‘Let’s just take a step back and discuss this…this…’ She was tempted to say ‘madness’ but settled instead for ‘proposal’ as a less inflammatory term. Rosie searched Mitch’s face for signs that her reaction was starting to have a dampening effect on his enthusiasm. There were none.

‘Right. So, if I can get this straight,’ here she lowered her voice, not wanting to give their neighbours the satisfaction of being able to repeat this story to all their friends later on, ‘what you’re proposing is that if neither of us can find someone to bring to the Christmas party we should have a…a… we should have a baby together?’

Even as she said it, she was again struck by a crazy desire to laugh, by the ludicrousness of what she had just said. Mitch continued to nod enthusiastically.

‘A child? An actual child? Together?’ She stared at him.

‘Yes!’ he exclaimed. ‘But I also think we need to set some boundaries,’ he said seriously, sitting up a little straighter as if it was now time to get down to business.

‘Oh, phew,’ said Rosie caustically, leaning heavily back in her chair. ‘Yes, I really think we might need someboundariesif we’re going to have an actual real-life baby together!’ Her voice rose at the end, sending a frisson of tittering through their fellow customers.

‘No, what I mean is…’ continued Mitch, seemingly completely oblivious to the wagging ears at the nearby tables. ‘What I mean is, we can’t just bringanybodyto the party. It has to be someone we’re reallyseriousabout. Someone that we’re actually thinking of spendingthe rest of our lives with.’

‘OK, so let’s just think about this,’ Rosie said, sarcasm dripping from her voice. ‘Is there some kind of metric by which we measure whether we’re serious enough about this person?’ She waved her arms around, refusing to indulge Mitch’s use of ‘The One’ anymore. ‘This person that we’re bringing to the party? I mean how am I to know, or you to know, whether I am indeed serious enough about this as yet unknown person to avoid what might come next?’

Mitch pulled a face at her. ‘You’re always so analytical,’ he berated her. ‘This is love, true love,The One, we’re talking about. We will know, there will be no hiding it!’ he exclaimed in triumph.

If the stakes weren’t quite so high, Rosie would have laughed about the innocent enthusiasm Mitch was showing in his belief of true love. As it was, she just felt sick.

‘Right,’ she said slowly. ‘So if wedobring someone to the party then we’re off the hook?’

Mitch looked blankly at her, ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean,’ she hissed, ‘that the pact is fulfilled and we can forget about having children together.’

Mitch looked wounded. ‘But I thought that was one of the best bits?’ he said sorrowfully. Rosie looked at him incredulously. ‘I mean, we know and love each other, we both want kids and we could share the parenting. I thought it would be brilliant!’ His voice tapered off as he saw the look on Rosie’s face.

He watched her for a while. ’Rosie,’ he said seriously, ‘I can’t actually think of anyone I’d rather have a child with.’ The sincere tone he used did something rather funny to her insides. For a moment she allowed herself to indulge in an alternative reality, where Mitch was declaring his true feelings for her, and not just proposing that she become the vessel through which he could play out his fantasies of fatherhood.

‘At least at the moment,’ he continued, ‘until I meet someone else. But you’re always welcome to be my fallback if it all goes wrong.’ He grinned innocently at her, completely unaware of the impact of his words.

She honestly didn’t know what to say. Both parts of the pact sounded awful to her. First, having to wade back into the mire of online dating, but this time with an added agenda and a deadline in play, and then, if she didn’t meet someone, having to navigate this unholy mess of Mitch’s creation and his plan of them sharing a baby.

Anything she said right now was going to be the wrong thing. She couldn’t risk having this conversation with Mitch. She didn’t feel strong enough to tell him just why this whole plan was a disaster from start to finish. If Mitch really hadn’t understood why she felt how she did about dating, then this was a bigger conversation than she ever wanted to have with him. And as for the part about parenthood, the whole thing just sounded disastrous.

‘Mitch, I think I need some time to think about this. Actually,’ she said, looking at her watch, ‘I should get going. I’ve got a lot on at work at the moment.’ She thought fleetingly of her failed experiment and how much she would prefer to be in the lab right now sorting that mess out than here sorting out this mess with Mitch.

‘OK, sure,’ he nodded. ‘That’s understandable. But you’ll think about it?’ He looked across the table at her with those eyes and she felt incapable of doing anything other than nodding back in agreement.

ChapterFour

‘He suggestedwhat?!’ Jasmine looked up from the carrots she was aggressively chopping and stared at Rosie.

‘I know!’ laughed Rosie. ‘Completely crazy right!’

In all honesty Rosie didn’t feel like laughing at all but she was hoping that sharing the details with her sister-in-law would lessen the burden. Perhaps Jasmine could persuade Rosie that Mitchmusthave been joking and that would be the end of it. But the look on Jasmine’s face suggested she found this anything but funny.

Rosie was sat at the huge marble island in the beautifully designed kitchen of her brother Chris and his wife Jasmine. It was Saturday afternoon and Jasmine had rudely removed Rosie from the snug cocoon she had been in, enjoying watching TV with her nephews to ‘help with the dinner.’

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