Page 16 of Finding Jacob
“Start on you?How old are you, Nathan?” I did have to laugh. The one thing I loved about him was his ability to make me smile. “What am I going to do?” I slumped back into my chair.
“You’ll manage perfectly fine. We’ll have a baby seat put in the car, a crèche, and a nanny here, and you can carry on as normal.”
I stared at him and wondered if that’s what people saw when they looked at me. A career woman who wouldn’t allow a child to interfere with that.
I left the office an hour later and walked to the restaurant I was meeting my friends in. My mind wasn’t on where I was going, I guessed muscle memory got me there. My brain was a mass of confusion but the one thing that was pushing through it all was excitement. Now it had been officially confirmed, I was, indeed, terrified, but also a bubble of happiness occasionally burst in my chest. Or I had indigestion from the coffee.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” I heard. Dory was the first from her chair to greet me.
“Sit, I think we’re going to need to when I tell you this.”
I sat and placed my bag under the table. All eyes were focussed on me, waiting for my news. I took in a deep breath.
“I’m pregnant.”
Silence.
Squeals.
“Oh my God, how amazing,” Penny said, smiling broadly.
Dory looked pensive, sad even, and Julie covered her mouth with her hands.
“Is it…?” Dory started.
“Yes.”
“Whose?” Julie asked.
“The guy in New York, Jacob.”
“Does he know?” Dory asked.
I shook my head. “Sarah only confirmed it this morning. I will tell him once I’ve got my head around this.”
“You still haven’t heard a word from him?” Julie asked.
I shook my head. “Nathan said he was annoyed I’d never messaged him.”
“Anna, you’re a grown woman, why on earth haven’t you texted him again?” Julie asked, ever the sensible and oldest one of us all.
“Because I’m embarrassed still,” I replied honestly, shrugging my shoulders.
“Oh, that’s just silly,” she said, reaching forward to take my hand. “Anna, call him. This isn’t you at all. You’re all over the place because of this bloody wedding that you don’t even have to go to. Although, turning up pregnant will be a super coup,” she added.
“I had thought of that,” I replied, laughing. “Yes, I’m being stupid, I know that. I need to kick my own arse and stop being such a fucking princess.”
We all order mocktails and various salads and toasted my predicament.
“Can we be godmothers?” Dory asked.
“I’m not thinking that far ahead.”
Just being with my girlfriends settled my mind. Julie, ever the sensible one, discussed birth plans and who was going to be with me. Again, I told her I hadn’t thought that far ahead at all. She was the only mother among us, her daughter, a teen now, was shortly off to university. Julie had birthed her when she was extremely young, and no one knew the father. I suspected Julie did, but whatever circumstances she found herself pregnant in, it wasn’t up for discussion. She was the owner of a successful chain of hairdressers and beauty salons, often travelling around the world to give lectures on beauty care and developing her own range of products.
“It won’t be easy, but you’ll manage,” she said as we paid the bill and gathered our bags.
“I’m guessing that.”
