Babyville (31 page)

“And?”

“And I just felt uncomfortable about it. I wanted to let you know.”

“Oh for heaven's sake. I thought you were going to tell me something terrible. Why would you feel uncomfortable about it? I met her once, ages ago, and she's lovely. I can totally see why you'd be friends with her.”

Sam breathes a sigh of relief. “I just didn't want you to feel usurped or anything.”

“Usurped? Just how friendly are you? I hope she's not your New Best Friend?”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Sam says, figuring she's said enough for one day. “She's just someone I meet for the occasional coffee. That's all.”

“Well, that's okay, then.”

It's
not necessary to tell Julia the whole truth. Unnecessary to tell her that Maeve has, in fact, become Sam's confidante, soulmate, sister. That Maeve has, unbeknown to her, helped drag Sam out of her well of self-pity.

The four of them—Maeve, Poppy, Sam, and George—have become inseparable. They have braved One O'Clock Clubs, Gymboree, Tumble Tots, and Baby Gyms, and have started to find other women just like them.

For Maeve's birthday Sam took a secret snap of Poppy, and presented Maeve with a delicate and beautiful drawing of her little girl, beautifully encased in a simple wooden frame Sam had hand-painted with tiny butterflies and bows.

Maeve had shown it to everyone, and Sam had started doing them for other people, initially for fun, for something to do while George was asleep, but Maeve had berated her for not being more businesslike, and had sat Sam down and worked out a price.

Fifty-five pounds!

Sam had gasped at the expense. No one would ever pay that, she had said, but she was wrong, and the commissions were coming in thick and fast.

“I told you you'd never have to go back to an office again,” Maeve said, when Sam moaned that she was swamped with pictures of babies. But Sam was loving it, and was making money, and was able to work from the kitchen table while George crawled around at her feet.

 “Happy
birthday, darling.” Chris kisses Sam on the lips as Maeve and Mark cheer.

“Happy birthday!” they echo, clinking champagne glasses and leaning over the table to kiss Sam on the cheek. They have dressed up and gone out. Properly out. Not local pizza and pasta, but the Belvedere in Holland Park. A restaurant for special occasions. A restaurant in which to feel special.

And indeed they do feel special. Sam in her knee-length chiffon skirt and 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.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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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

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