Best of Friends (22 page)

Oblivious to being watched, Abby glared at her husband, any thoughts of reconciliation forgotten.

“What’s your problem?” demanded Tom, pouring another drink.

“You’ve ignored me since we got here,” Abby hissed. “It’s very obvious. Why don’t you take out an advert in the local paper saying we’ve had an argument and be done with it? People will talk, and now that I’m well known, they’ll talk even more.”

“Oh, you and your precious career,” he said snidely. “We’re among friends, people who knew you before you were famous. They don’t give a damn if we have a row.”

“Well,
I
give a damn. I don’t want our private life made public.”

“Is that right?” Tom shoved the white wine back in the fridge. “Well, why do you talk about your private life when you do bloody interviews, then?”

“That’s below the belt,” Abby cried. “I don’t talk about you or Jess. I do my best to protect you. I have to do some interviews: it’s my job.”

“Spare me.” Tom was scathing.

“What’s wrong with you these days?” demanded Abby loudly, totally forgetting there was a chance of them being overheard. “You’re in a foul temper all the time and you never talk to me anymore, not talk properly anyhow, only to moan.”

“Moan? You’re accusing me of moaning?” Tom sounded incredulous. “You’re the one who never shuts up moaning about getting wrinkles or how you’ve got cellulite and how all the TV stars are younger and doesn’t anyone realise the pressure you’re under—”

“Stop it! Everyone’s staring at you.” It was Jess, speaking in a strangely high-pitched voice.

Both Tom and Abby were startled into silence and they looked around to see that many of the partygoers were indeed glancing in their direction, then turning away in embarrassment.

Abby felt scarlet spots of humiliation burn her cheeks.

“You never think of anyone else,” said Jess, “just yourselves. How do you think I feel when you fight all the time?” And she fled.

“Cheer up, folks. We all have the odd argument.” It was Steve, determined to defuse the row. He put an arm round Abby and another round Tom, drawing them close to each other. “Either you’ve had too much of my punch or you haven’t had enough.”

“We should go.” Abby was upset, both at the row and at having had it witnessed by poor Jess, not to mention everyone at the party.

“Don’t go,” said Steve. “It’s only half nine. If you go now, you’ll feel miserable all evening and mortified that people saw you having a tiff. Stay and relax.”

He understood how she felt better than Tom, Abby thought sadly.

“We’ll stay,” said Tom. “Won’t we?”

Abby almost couldn’t look at him but she did, and he appeared as upset as she was, which was something. He reached out and patted her hand. Still angry with him, she wondered if he’d touched her for Steve’s benefit, because it couldn’t possibly be for hers.

Forcing a smile, she agreed. “Yes, we’ll stay. Why storm out over a stupid argument?”

“Great.” Steve beamed.

Sally came in, her sweet face anxious. “Are you all right?” she asked. Steve moved out of the way, letting his wife slip in between the Bartons. They were so in tune with each other, Abby realised with a pang. Steve knew that Sally was the comforter and they didn’t need to communicate with words to decide that she could handle things better than he. Abby asked herself, had she and Tom ever had that silent affinity?

“We’re fine,” Abby said brightly. “I’ll just check on Jess first.”

“She went upstairs. Shall I run up and see if she’s OK?” asked Sally delicately.

Abby felt a rush of shame. Sally had seen how upset Jess was and clearly thought it would be better if she, and not Abby, talked to her. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Upstairs, Jess crept into the boys’ room, drawn by the comforting soft yellow glow from Daniel’s beloved nightlight. He’d had it since he was a baby and had refused to grow out of it, Sally said. The pretty light sat on a small white bookcase that was filled with the children’s books. Soothed by the light and by the rhythmic breathing of the sleeping children, Jess settled herself on one of the tiny beanbag seats beside the bookcase and picked up the fairy tale she’d been reading to them earlier. Why did people tell children fairy tales? When she was a kid, Mum and Dad had read books to her in which everything worked out in the end. But real life wasn’t like that. It often didn’t work out. Ugly ducklings who wore braces and glasses didn’t grow up into swans, and Cinderellas didn’t have the prince fall in love with them.

A soft knock on the half-open door made her jump.

“Jess,” whispered Sally, “are you in there?” Sally’s dark head appeared round the door. “You OK?”

Jess nodded.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Jess shook her head. If she talked to anyone, she’d cry. And Sally would think she was just a stupid kid. Jess admired Sally so much. She was a grown-up and a mother and she worked and got stressed, but she was still fun. She and Steve laughed and joked with each other. Just as families should be, Jess thought, like her own family had been about a gazillion years ago. Before they’d moved to Dunmore.

“Call me if you need me,” Sally said, and closed the door gently.

Mum wouldn’t have said that, Jess thought bitterly. Mum wanted to know what she was thinking and was everything all right all the time. She never knew how to back off, which was why Jess had to clam up or she’d never be able to have a private thought. Sally knew better. For a guilty millisecond, Jess wished that Sally Richardson was her mum, or even an older sister or something. Then, she’d have someone to talk to.

Larry wasn’t hopeless, Lizzie decided. He was definitely good-looking, tall enough to peer down her blouse but gentlemanly enough not to. And he was at least her age so nobody could accuse her of cradle-snatching.

Imagine how a confident person would act, Abby had advised. Recklessly, Lizzie did her best.

“I can’t believe we’ve never met before,” she said when they’d gone through the whole shaking hands and saying hello rigmarole.

“Nor me,” he said, again playing the gentleman. He had kind eyes, but his appearance was slightly marred by his tendency to stoop. The dreaded sciatica, Lizzie supposed.

“Lizzie!” She swirled round to find herself facing Mr. Graham, the lawyer with the office next door to the surgery. Mr. Pushy with Halitosis. “Fancy seeing you here tonight.”

He kissed her on the cheek, a wet kiss that made her squirm and, somehow, he managed to squeeze her bum at the same time.

Lizzie’s flesh crawled but she was programmed to be polite. “Hello,” she said. “Er … Larry meet Mr.—”

“Ben Graham,” said the lawyer smoothly. “I live two houses down. Lizzie and I work next door to each other.”

He made it sound so cosy, Lizzie realised with horror. Larry obvi-ously thought so too.

“Nice to meet you, Lizzie, Ben,” Larry said, backing away.

Lizzie was stuck with Ben Graham, and his breath hadn’t im-proved much.

“So, I’ve finally got you to myself,” he leered. There was no other word to describe it. Even his eyes gleamed wetly, Lizzie noticed with a shudder. It wasn’t that he was a bad-looking man but he was so smugly sure of his attraction that he just made you want to back off. He was sleazy, Lizzie decided, and no matter how desperate she was, she’d never be that desperate.

“Larry wouldn’t be your type,” he added confidently. “Bit of a drip.” He leaned closer. “No stamina.” He leered down her blouse. “Tiger,” he said softly. “I like that.”

Lizzie’s stomach plummeted. “I was talking to the cat that day,” she stammered, “not you.”

“Oh, I see,” Ben said, still grinning as though he saw nothing of the sort.

He was so close to her that Lizzie took a step back and encountered the wall. Undeterred by this, Ben moved with her. He wasn’t tall but he was still tall enough to keep his eyes fixed down her blouse.

“Great outfit,” he said, leaning one hand against the wall so he could get a better view.

Automatically, Lizzie’s hand went up to try to pull the edges of the neckline together.

“Spoilsport,” Ben said.

It took a lot to rile Lizzie, but this did it. “Does the concept of personal space mean anything to you?” she asked hotly.

Ben’s confident expression faltered. “Personal space … ?” he said.

“Personal space,” repeated Lizzie. “I don’t want you staring down my blouse. It’s rude. And I don’t want you standing so close to me that I can feel your breath.” She said nothing about the quality of his breath. No matter how horrible she was, she couldn’t be that nasty to him.

“Nobody’s complained before,” Ben said smugly, still not moving away. He reached out and touched her shoulder, with all the finesse of someone following a “how to be sexy to women” manual written for and by fifteen-year-old boys.

As his oily fingers made contact with Lizzie’s skin, she reacted in-stinctively, pushing him away from her.

“I said I don’t want you standing on top of me!” she shrieked.

Startled by her actions, Ben stumbled and bashed into a small table behind him, sending a selection of glasses crashing noisily to the ground. Horrified, Lizzie stared at the chaos, then pushed past him and rushed into the cool of the garden.

Outside, the moon and stars were so bright that the garden was bathed in light, and even when she’d passed the candle-lit tables, Lizzie could easily find her way along the lawn and down to the little seat under the laurel tree. She’d hoped to be able to lick her wounds in peace but there were definite sounds of someone else there. Was someone being sick into the bushes?

Pulling a branch out of the way, she peered into the gloom to see the tall figure of Erin Kennedy hunched over, retching painfully.

“Erin?” asked Lizzie tentatively, not wanting to intrude upon the privacy of this woman she’d only just met. “Are you OK?”

“No,” said Erin, retching again. “I don’t know what’s wrong. I’m so sick and there was a queue for the bathroom.” Clinging to the sticky branch of a pine tree for support, she felt her breath come in short, shallow bursts. Was the nausea receding? Please let it be. She had nothing else to purge from her stomach because she had only eaten one piece of ciabatta slathered with olive tapenade. But as soon as she’d finished it, she had felt her stomach lurch.

The nausea was definitely easing off. She patted her pockets looking for a tissue but, typically, there was none.

“Here.” Lizzie reached out with a crumpled-up party napkin. “It’s all squashed up but it’s clean.”

“Thanks.” Erin wiped her mouth, feeling so weak that she didn’t care that a stranger had just witnessed her puking her guts up in someone else’s garden.

She tried to recall Lizzie’s name. She knew she was a friend of Sally’s, and Erin remembered Sally saying she was very sweet but shy. That blouse was anything but shy, but then, Erin decided that it didn’t look like the sort of thing Lizzie might normally wear, since Lizzie’s hand was always checking the neckline. It was definitely a “something to prove” outfit.

“I’m Lizzie,” the woman volunteered with a smile that was certainly sweet. “Are you all right? Would you like to sit down on the seat? It might make you feel better.”

With Lizzie guiding her, Erin sank down on the rustic wooden bench. Lizzie sat beside her and put an arm round her. It was nice, motherly, and it made Erin feel ridiculously like crying.

“Thank you,” she said, sniffling. “I don’t know why I was sick. I’ve only eaten one canapé and I love tapenade.”

“Could you have food poisoning from something you’ve eaten within the past twenty-four hours?” asked Lizzie, switching into medical receptionist mode.

Erin shook her head. “I had a tuna melt for lunch, and last night we had home-made lasagne.”

Lizzie racked her brains. Gastroenteritis, perhaps? “Did you get sick earlier?”

“No, I’ve felt a bit nauseous all day but I never needed to actually puke before.”

There was one other possibility and Lizzie realised that Erin hadn’t made the mental connection yet. Some women didn’t. Highly intelligent and focused on their careers and the future, they missed the age-old signals from their bodies that had been telling women for millennia that something was happening.

“I don’t mean to sound very personal, Erin,” Lizzie said slowly, “but could you be pregnant?”

Erin’s sharp intake of breath was audible.

“I’m sorry, I’m probably totally wrong, it was just a thought,” babbled Lizzie, fearing she’d said the wrong thing. “I work in the doctor’s surgery and, you know, I was just thinking of all the possibilities and ten to one, you’ve got a bug …”

“I’m on the pill,” gasped Erin.

Lizzie bit her lip. She’d probably intruded too much but she felt strangely protective towards this tall, red-haired girl. “The pill isn’t a hundred percent effective,” she said. “Lots of things can affect its efficiency: if you’re ill with vomiting or diarrhoea, or some antibiotics can affect the body’s absorption of it.” God, she sounded like a medical textbook. “Look, Erin, it’s none of my business but if you could be pregnant, it would affect what medication you can take for, say, your stomach upset.”

She gave Erin one last gentle pat on the shoulder and got up. “Will I send your husband or Sally out to you?”

“Don’t go,” said Erin, grabbing Lizzie’s hand tightly. “Talk to me. I was unwell before we came over to Ireland from Chicago—last-minute nerves, I suppose—and my whole system was messed up. Could that have done it?”

“When was that?” asked Lizzie, sitting down again.

Erin told her and Lizzie did the maths.

She could easily be six to seven weeks pregnant, which was when nausea kicked in.

“Please let me get your husband,” Lizzie said. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel able to cope with this drama, but he was the ideal person to comfort Erin.

“Hold on just a moment. I need to think about this,” Erin said. With the moonlight and the party lights shining on her face, she looked ghostly pale and shocked. “He’s having a nice time. I don’t want to ruin it or have him rush out here at ninety miles an hour because he’s worried about me. I’ll be fine.”