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camisole top, a pair of perfect diamond studs in her ear—a birthday present from Chris—and Maeve in a tight, tailored dark pink suit, her red hair drawn back in a glamorous chignon.
Sam sips her champagne and smiles. “Thirty-four. A whole year since my last birthday. Feels more like ten.”
“I'm not surprised. Look at what's happened in that year,” Chris says.
“Georgenius!” Sam and Chris say at the same time, their voices filled with love and affection.
“Amazing.” Sam shakes her head. “Amazing how your life can change so much in a year.”
“Just think,” Chris says. “This time last year you were—what—eight months pregnant? The size of a small whale—”
“Fuck off.” She hits him, only able to smile because she has now lost all her pregnancy weight and, much to her delight (but not Chris's), has even smaller breasts than when she started.
“Okay, okay. The size of a small dolphin?”
“Better.” She grins.
“The size of a small dolphin, swigging Gaviscon like it was champagne . . .”
“Touché.” She raises her glass.
“. . . with no idea whether the baby was going to be a boy or girl.”
“Life Before George.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “I can't believe we ever had a life before George. What a year.”
“I know the feeling.” Maeve smiles as Mark puts his arm round her and kisses her on the temple. “Life Before Children. A distant dream.”
“But I wouldn't change it for the world. Wouldn't change my life for anything.”
“Not even Chris?” Mark says, with a grin.
“Especially not Chris.” She smiles, turning and planting a huge kiss on his lips as he grins. “I love you,” she whispers in his ear, pulling away.
“I love you too,” he whispers back.
“Bugger.” Sam reaches down and rummages in her bag as her mobile phone rings and other diners look at her disapprovingly. She has to keep it on, she wants to explain, because she has a baby at home, and needs to be contactable at all times in case of emergencies, but of course she can't tell the restaurant, and of course she can't find the phone.
“Shit.” She tips the bag upside down and empties the contents onto the floor, reaching down and flipping open the mobile, too quickly to see whether her home number flashes up.
“Hello?” She holds her breath for a second, praying it's not the baby-sitter, praying nothing's wrong.
“Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday dear Sa-am, Happy birthday to you. I'm so sorry I didn't call you earlier,” Julia trills. “I was out shooting all morning. How are you? Have I disturbed you? Are you in some desperately swish restaurant about to be lynched for having a mobile switched on?”
“No,” Sam laughs. “Well, yes. Ish. Hang on a sec, I'll go outside.” She scrapes back her chair, shrugs an apology to the table, and walks quickly outside.
It's a beautiful spring night. Only April but it's warm, and the tulips and daffodils are out in the park, summer almost there.
“Can you believe it?” Julia laughs down the phone. “Can you believe how much has happened since last year?”
“I know. We were just talking about it.”
“I'm so sorry I'm not there with you, and I have got you a present that I meant to post last week but I didn't so I'm posting it this afternoon, but there's something else, another kind of present. Well, not actually a present but something I have to ask you.” Uncharacteristically, Julia sounds nervous.
“I can't promise I'll say yes, but you can ask anything you want.”
“Okay.” Julia takes a deep breath. “Will you be godmother?”
“What?”
“Will you be godmother?” she says again, the bubbles of excitement rising up in her voice.
“You mean . . . you're not . . . are you saying . . . ?” Sam doesn't want to say it, because surely she's misunderstanding, surely it's not possible.
“I am! I'm pregnant! Can you believe it!”
“Jack?”
“Of course Jack!”
“But how?”
“I have absolutely no idea. I thought I'd picked up some terrible stomach bug because I kept throwing up, and eventually I went to see the doctor and when he said he thought I might be pregnant I told him that was ridiculous, not to mention impossible.”
“I don't understand.”
“Neither do I, and neither does the doctor. Apparently, though, this often happens. The stress of wanting to conceive can stop conception happening, and he says he's seen loads of women like me, who conceive as soon as they stop thinking about it.”
“So how many weeks?”
“Six. I'm not supposed to tell anyone until twelve, but if I can't tell my best friend, who can I tell?”
“Oh my God!” Sam starts to shriek. “This is the best birthday present I've ever had in my life.”
“So will you?” Julia laughs.
“Will I what?”
“Will you be godmother?”
“Of course I'll be godmother!” she shouts as the tears come. “I'll be the best godmother the world has ever seen!”
Also by Jane Green
Straight Talking
Jemima J
Mr. Maybe
Bookends
Spellbound
BABYVILLE.
Copyright © 2003 by Jane Green.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Green, Jane, 1968–
Babyville: a novel / Jane Green.
p. cm.
1. Parenthood—Fiction. 2. Childlessness—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6057.R3443 B3 2003
823'.914—dc21 2002028368
eISBN: 978-0-7679-1225-9
v3.0