Page 34 of So Thrilled For You

Oh my God, my mother. Why? She’s so overstimulated she’s like a bottle of coke someone’s chucked a pack of refreshers into and then shaken up for extra measure.

‘Girls! Girls! Oh, it’s so marvellous to have you all here. Do you like this smell?’ She shoves the diffuser under Steffi’s nostrils. ‘Isn’t it lovely? Oh Lauren! He’s gorgeous. Hello, little guy. What’s his name again? Woody? Like the woodpecker?’

‘Mum!’

‘Is it Australian or something? Like your husband? So handsome, isn’t he? Nicki showed me pictures from the wedding. Are you girls hungry? Thirsty? Tea? Coffee? Pink lemonade? Juice? Herbal tea? Are you breastfeeding darling? God, I remember gagging for more than a coffee a day. I fed Nicki til she was eighteen months, didn’t I?’

‘I can’t say I remember,’ I reply.

‘Well I did. Eighteen months. Right. Drinks. Drinks. What can I get you all? Oh, everyone’s coming soon. Isn’t it exciting? Hasn’t Charlotte done an amazing job?’

She explodes around the kitchen like a pong ball, with Charlotte scuttling after her as she’s taking glasses off their display trays in her haste to get us the drinks we didn’t say yes to. My body ripples with irritation that’s laced with guilt, which is pretty much how I always feel around my mother. Annoyed, and then angry at myself for being annoyed. We’ve had moments of such closeness since I got pregnant. We’vecompared food cravings and levels of morning sickness. I’ve had so many questions for her about her pregnancy with me. Every answer feels like a precious pearl I want to clutch onto and remember. As I rub my kicking bump each morning, it dawns on me how I was carried in my mother’s stomach, just like this. I must’ve kicked her and woken her, and told her through weird placenta telepathy, that it was imperative to eat raw strawberry jelly for two weeks straight. My fingerprints are relics from everything she did for the nine months we shared a body. I’ve never felt closer to her. But, as she insists on taking Woody, without even letting Lauren object (‘No. Sit down. Drink up. I’ve got him. Enjoy a cup of tea for five minutes just for yourself’)I find her just as annoying as always. Why can’t she just relax with us? Why does she act like every chair is a bed of nails?

Charlotte downs her glass of water and scutters about, doing her ‘final touches’. Steffi has gone to the toilet again. ‘Shouldn’t have had that giant iced coffee on the train.’ That’s three times she’s been since she got here. She’s either sick, or something else is going on and she’s trying to hide it from me. Honestly, why do I bother with her when she insists on being so secretive? She’s probably sending bitchy messages to her other cool London ‘child-free friends’ who liked that horrible opinion article she posted. She’ll have plenty of ammo, with all of Charlotte’s sugar sweet decorations. I wish I could stand up on a chair, at some point today, and say, ‘None of this was my choice or taste, please everyone realise that,’ without upsetting Charlotte. I’m already worried today’s hugely triggering for her and want to hide my bulging stomach with my hands in case it’s upsetting her.When I found out I was pregnant, I even turned into Charlotte when figuring out how to tell her. I googled ‘how to tell a friend who has fertility issues you’re pregnant’. The general consensus was to do it a) privately, b) via message, not by phone or in person so they have time to privately digest their own pain before replying, and c) to do all of this, obviously, before you post the ‘We’re pregnant’announcement online. I didn’t need to worry about C, as I’d rather die than post a black and white scan of my uterus on socials. But I followed the other advice, worried sick it would affect her, especially as it was only a few months after Lauren got pregnant. And yet, after all that, Charlotte replied within two minutes with seven lines of heart eyes and fireworks emojis. I check the clock. Almost start time. I stand in front of the air-con for a moment, watching Lauren lean against the counter and sip her tea as Mum starts a manic game of Peek-A-Boo with Woody on the kitchen floor. Maybe I can squeeze in a micro-nap before everyone arrives? I lower myself onto the sofa and I close my eyes, hearing Lauren and Mum’s voices drift over my head.

‘So, how are you finding it all?’ Mum asks. ‘Motherhood?’ followed by, ‘Where’s Woody? Where is he? Oh, there he is! Peekaboo!’

‘It’s . . . it’s a lot sometimes. Isn’t it?’ Lauren replies. ‘Oh, he loves you, Jane.’

‘Peek. A. Boo! Where’s Woody? . . . Oh, my love. Welcome to the best kept secret in the world . . . just how hard parenting is . . . Peek a boo.’ There’s a delighted belly chuckle from Woody.

‘Itisquite hard, isn’t it?’

‘The thing is, everyone tries to tell you beforehand, but nobody listens because nobody listens to mothers, do they? Then, when it happens to you, you’re all like‘why did nobody tell me how hard it is?’ Then you realise, youweretold, over and over, but you weren’t listening. You were too busy tutting at some poor woman who’s struggling to get her buggy off the bus. Woody? Where’s he gone? Oh! There he is!’

There’s a quiet gulp of Lauren drinking her tea. I’ve not heard Mum talk like this. Not even heard this tone of voice from her before. Lauren’s never told me it’s hard apart from the odd funny message, but I’ve hardly seen her properly since Woody was born, to be fair.

‘I don’t want to become one of those women who vanishes when they become a mother,’ I remember her telling me when she was pregnant. And yet, Lauren has turned down every invite since Woody came along. ‘Sorry I’m too exhausted. Sorry he won’t sleep. Sorry he won’t wean. Sorry I don’t have enough time to get into and out of town within his wake window.’

I keep my eyes closed but this nap won’t come. I’m worried. Will this happen to me too? I’ve already got quite a boring, traditional life . . . will this make it worse? Motherhood can’t be that hard, can it? I honestly don’t think having a baby can be as hard as pregnancy. At least when the baby is here, I’ll get my body back. I’ll get more sleep once I’m not hunched around an animated fleshy beachball that kicks me in the ribs all night. When the baby is here, I won’t have gurgling heartburn anymore. I’ll be able to have a hot bath, drink more than one coffee, do a shot of tequila, not worry they’re stillborn every time they don’t kick for an hour. I won’t belike Lauren, I forbid it. And I’m sure Lauren’s doing better than she looks anyway. I mean, Woody seems gorgeous.

I close my eyes and tune out my mother’s voice, allowing my body to rest before everyone comes.

Before Phoebe comes.

Phoebe.

As I doze off, her face comes into focus. Cat-eyes, a smile that’s almost a smirk, a nose that looks hand-painted with freckles.

Meeting Phoebe was like when I tried salted caramel for the first time, activating taste buds I didn’t know existed.

‘Come on. Do a shot,’ her voice says in my head, dragging the past back. The two of us were in a speakeasy in Shoreditch, perched on stools at the packed bar. Everyone around me looked like they’d only completed puberty the week before.

‘It’s Tuesday,’ I’d protested.

‘I’m aware it’s Tuesday. And so?’ She winked as she slurped up the last of her cocktail through an unnecessarily thin straw, whereas I still had half my drink left.

‘So . . . it’s a work night and I’m not a student anymore. Hangovers morphed from amusingly uncomfortable to downrightI-question-everything-in-my-lifeovernight when I turned 25.’ I pushed my drink away. ‘Not that anyone in here knows the meaning of the wordstwenty-five. Do they all have a young person’s railcard? I bet they fucking do.’ Phoebe cackled and pushed my drink back. ‘Plus,’ I sighed, knowing it was useless. ‘I don’t want to be sweating tequila during our pitch to Femme tomorrow morning.’

Phoebe just gestured to the bartender and a tray of shots arrived. Not just two shots. A whole tray. Where had everyoneelse gone? How had we got here from the old man’s pub around the corner of the office? I didn’t remember the journey. What was the time? I blearily checked my phone and groaned. How was it half eleven? Two missed calls from Matt.

Matt:

Umm, where are you wifey? You said you were leaving work drinks two hours ago?

‘Phoebe, it’s half eleven.’ I tried reasoning with her. I’d explained it was Tuesday. I’d reminded her it was almost midnight. Surely that was all she needed to know.

But she plucked a shot off the tray and handed it over with such authority that I took it. ‘I’m aware of the time, Nicki.’

---