Cupcake Couture (30 page)

Heidi was sitting beside Roxy on the sofa, which was surrounded by what could only be described as a herd of adoring men. Some played the nonchalant card, while others strained to catch Roxy’s eye, a pheromone explosion occurring in the atmosphere around her. I wondered what colours my parents would see in the auras. I imagined most would be the colour of red silk and animal prints.

‘Chloe, Roxy tells me you had a good day at your parents’ house,’ said Heidi, leaping up to hug me when I approached.

The giant peacock feathers on her hair slides tickled my cheek. We huddled together, them on the sofa and me on a squashy leather armchair while I told them about the day. Roxy flicked her wrist towards the barman. It wasn’t sofa service, unless you were Roxy and going out with one of the city’s favourite footballers.

‘So they’re adopting a twenty year-old, sexy artist boy from Sri Lanka, they’ve started baking curry bread and they had a naked shop keeper in their front room,’ Roxy said at the end of my story.

I nodded while studying the drink menu.

‘Uh huh, that pretty much sums it up.’

‘Ah well,’ Roxy shrugged, ‘just an average day at the Bakers. If you’d have told me they were doing Sudoku and watching
Eggheads
then I’d be worried.’

We all laughed. The barman approached and asked for our drink order. His eyes gazed longingly at Roxy while she pressed one finger to her peachy lips and flitted her eyes up and down the list of drinks. If I had taken so long to decide, any barman would have buggered off to the next customer, but the young man with a
boyish face and a Newcastle United football shield tattoo just visible on his left wrist, looked like he would stand there all night if Roxy took that long to decide what she wanted to drink.

‘We’ll have a pitcher of mojito,’ she said.

She closed the menu and held it out. The barman nodded.

‘Your boyfriend’s class,’ he said, which was not a phrase many women would hear from another man, I had to admit.

‘Thanks,’ she shrugged, ‘in that case we’ll have two pitchers of mojito,
free
.’

The barman nodded again and fanned himself with the menu.

‘No you will not, pet,’ Heidi tutted, taking the menu back. ‘You’ll have a mocktail and that is as crazy as you’ll be getting.’

Roxy’s jaw dropped open.

‘What? Fuck off, I am not drinking a
mock
tail.’

‘Correction,’ said Heidi with surprising directness, ‘you are
not drinking
.’

I sniggered as the barman’s head flicked from one to the other on the sofa as if he were watching a ping-pong game. Roxy’s herd of adoring male fans behind leaned closer to listen in.

‘We’ll have mojitos,’ Heidi said to the barman, ‘she’ll have a mocktail.’

‘I will not!’

‘Which one do you want, Miss? The virgin colada,’ he said, his cheeks turning red at the word virgin, ‘or the bloody shame?’

‘Bloody shame,’ Roxy tutted, ‘aye that just about sums it up.’

‘It’s like a bloody Mary only without the vodka.’

‘What’s the point in that?’ Roxy tutted. ‘I may as well sit here and drink a tin of bloody tomatoes.’

‘The point is,’ said Heidi slowly, as if talking to one of her patients, ‘you have a baby to think about now and that baby does not want to be born a binge drinker.’

The barman’s mouth dropped open wide enough for Thierry to kick a ball into. Some of her admirers stood still and stared while a few turned and stomped away. One started dialling on his mobile and another looked like he might burst into tears.

‘You’re carrying Thierry Agnes’ baby,’ the barman gasped. He stretched out his hand towards Roxy’s stubbornly flat stomach. ‘In there?’

‘Aye well that’s usually how it works,’ Roxy growled. ‘Thanks, Heidi, man. I’d say the cat is well and truly out of the fucking bag and streaking down the street.’

It was Heidi’s turn to blush.

‘I’m sorry, Roxy, sometimes I forget you’re a celebrity around here.’

She reached out to touch Roxy’s arm but Roxy snatched it away. Heidi looked like she also might cry. I jumped in before things went even further downhill. This was supposed to be a night of celebration after all.

‘Heidi was just being kind, Roxy.’ I smiled at the barman. ‘We’ll all have one white wine spritzer each to begin with.’

He continued to stare at Roxy’s stomach as if she were carrying the Messiah. I shooed him in the same way Roxy had shooed me to the toilets.

‘Spritzers man, go, before she dies of thirst and Thierry blames you.’

He was back at the bar before I could say “plonker”.

Roxy crossed her arms over her stomach and frowned. Heidi clasped her hands to her cheeks. I yanked my chair closer to talk to them over the hubbub of the increasingly busy bar and the music.

‘Look, Roxy, there’s no harm done and Heidi does have a point. You can’t go drowning it in alcohol. I don’t think the womb is meant to be one part amniotic fluid, two parts vodka.’

Roxy blinked her long, stuck-on lashes several times while Heidi held her breath.

‘Aye,’ she mumbled eventually, ‘alreet.’

I glanced at Heidi and we both smiled.

‘Are you having this baby because you feel you have to or because you love Thierry?’ I asked.

‘Because I like the stupid fucker quite a lot,’ Roxy shrugged.

We both reached out for one of Roxy’s hands and clasped them tight. She did not resist. Roxy had never been one for deep emotional discussions and public displays of affection. For her, this moment was a huge step forward. Calling Thierry the “stupid fucker” she
liked quite a lot
whose baby she wanted was equivalent to Juliet dramatically swallowing the poison for her beloved Romeo. Love was not a regularly used word in her vocabulary. I squeezed her hand again.

‘You’ll be a fantastic mum, I know it. That is one lucky child in there having you to stand up for it.’

‘Doesn’t have a choice does it, like?’

Roxy allowed herself a tight smile.

‘And I bet you’ll be skinny right to the end,’ added Heidi.

Roxy’s teeth broke through to widen her smile.

‘You bet I will, man. I am going to take yummy fucking mummy to a whole new level!’

The barman arrived at that moment with our spritzers. We clinked them together and sipped our drinks. Only weeks before, we might well have downed them and racked up a second round. It may have taken thirty-six years but were we finally grown-up, responsible women?

The kitchen stopped serving roast dinners on a Sunday at five o’clock and it was already gone seven but, Roxy having suddenly decided she was ravenous and only a roast dinner would do, the barman had scurried off to make it happen. It was as if, with the news of her pregnancy no longer a hushed secret, Roxy’s baby had asserted its presence, knocked on her womb and shouted – ‘Oi, you’re eating for two now and I am f*+@ing starving!’ (I hoped it wasn’t swearing yet but if its mother was anything to go by, I wouldn’t have bet on it.)

Our plates were piled high with great British comfort food – thick slabs of moist beef, crispy roast potatoes, carrots and sweet parsnips swimming in thick, rich gravy alongside cauliflower smothered in cheese sauce and puffy Yorkshire puddings the size of beanbags. In sympathy with Roxy’s alcohol free diet, we drank orange juice followed by the infamous mocktails. Sunday nights in Newcastle were notoriously busy with people determined to increase their weekend binge-drinking quota before the weekend ran out. I, in contrast, had always favoured an early night on a Sunday to help me start off the working week fresh and motivated, but judging by the state of the two women I had seen in the toilets, who were now wearing cocktail umbrellas behind their ears and were draped drunkenly over two equally intoxicated men, I had been the exception rather than the rule.

‘You know, it’s actually nice to not have to get up for work on a Monday morning,’ I said.

Roxy punched me lightly on the arm

‘That’s my girl. You’re coming around to my way of thinking, pet.’

‘It’s alright for you two,’ said Heidi, waving her Yorkshire at us on her fork, ‘I’ve got my first appointment with a patient at seven thirty tomorrow.’

‘Oh yeah, who’s that?’ Roxy sniggered. ‘Does his name begin with H and end in urley? It’s the ‘urley worm that catches the bird.’

We exploded in fits of giggles while Heidi huffed and puffed, clearly flustered. She looked over both shoulders.

‘Hurley is not my patient,’ she whispered, ‘and he never was. Let’s just be clear about that.’

We looked at her intense expression and suppressed our laughter.

‘So, Heidi,’ I said, ‘are you planning to see him again after yesterday?’

Heidi looked down at her plate and slowly moved the Yorkshire around the sea of gravy. I slapped my hand to my mouth.

‘You already did see him didn’t you?’

‘No way!’ Roxy whooped. ‘Did you do the dirty with the cripple? I’ve always wondered how that would work.’

Heidi slapped Roxy’s arm.

‘Don’t call him that, it’s nasty and no of course I didn’t “do it”. We went for a lovely lunch at Lui’s and we ate and laughed and read the papers and had nice conversation and…’

Roxy and I waited for what was to come after the ‘and’ but Heidi just smiled and popped almost an entire Yorkshire pudding in her mouth.

‘And what?’ I said.

‘Howay man, spill the beans,’ said Roxy.

We pushed our plates to one side and leaned towards her on our elbows. Heidi chewed as slowly as a contended cow chewing on the cud.

‘Come on, Heidi, don’t keep us hanging on. Are you an item?’

She looked at me and raised her eyebrows. I felt my stomach tighten, which could have been due to the enormous plate of food I had just deposited in it, but which I suspected was due to the fact that I felt as if Heidi had beaten me to it. She had nabbed a Doyle brother, which would make the other Doyle brothers off-limits. Anything else would feel almost incestuous.

Heidi swallowed her giant mouthful, wiped gravy from her lips and beamed at us.

‘O.M.G. you’ve got a B.F.!’ I cooed in a fake American accent.

‘L.O.L.! Now Chloe’s the only one in the frigid club,’ Roxy laughed.

‘R.O.F.L.’ I scowled.

‘What does that mean?’ Heidi frowned.

‘Roll on floor laughing.’

‘R.O.F.L.copter,’ Roxy snorted.

‘I’m losing track of this conversation,’ said Heidi.

‘Me too. Tell us all about him, Heidi and don’t leave out any details.’

‘Apart from the ones about how it all works down there,’ Roxy sniffed, ‘I’ve just eaten.’

Heidi explained how Hurley had texted her first thing that morning while she lay in my bed with her wellies on nursing a hangover and wondering where I had gone. While she talked, I quickly sneaked a peek at my mobile just to make sure she was the only one of us who had received a text from a Doyle brother in my bed that morning.

She was.

Heidi was in the throes of telling us how funny and sweet and romantic and thoughtful and interesting and handsome and yeah, yeah, whatever… Hurley had been all day when a man approached our table wearing a black leather thigh-length coat that had seen better days, scruffy suede shoes and chinos. His face was partially hidden by a navy flat cap with an oversized peak but I could see a square, unshaven jaw and pale skin. He carried a notebook and a chewed Bic biro.

‘Excuse me, can I just ask, you’re Thierry Agnes’ WAG aren’t you?’

Roxy’s back stiffened and she swivelled around to look up at him.

‘If you think that’s a polite way of introducing yourself, man then you can just shove that cheap pen up your arse right now.’

He tapped the pen agitatedly against the notebook. Behind him stood one of the men whom I recognised as one of Roxy’s earlier suitors who had been making calls on his mobile phone. He now carried a camera.

‘It’s Roxy,’ he said to the first man.

‘Right and who the fuck are you two? Tweddledum and Tweedledee? If you don’t mind, I’m having dinner with my mates and we’re in the middle of a private conversation.’

Roxy swivelled her legs back around and stamped her clogs hard under the table. The man with the notebook flinched.

‘Carry on, Heidi, did you snog him or not?’

Heidi’s mouth opened and closed.

‘It won’t take long,’ said the man. ‘I just wanted a quote.’

Roxy made quotation marks in the air with her fingers and said – ‘Fuck off.’

The man scribbled in his notebook.

‘F u c…’ Roxy spelled out.

‘I’m a local journalist and what I’d like to know is when the baby’s due.’

Roxy’s mouth snapped shut and she gripped her knife and fork. I had a fleeting moment of fear that she might turn around and stab the man who was bothering her but suddenly, she glanced down at her stomach and let out a sigh. Heidi and I said nothing as she lowered her cutlery, ran her tongue along her lips and brushed her hands through her long tresses. She then reached down into her enormous bag and somehow retrieved a lipstick without requiring GPS. We all waited while she smoothed it expertly over her perfect pout. The journalist shuffled his worn shoes on the shiny wooden floor while he waited. Roxy then looked up at us through her thick eyelashes. She was always a woman in control.

‘Sorry girls, this will just take a minute.’

Roxy swivelled her legs back around to face the man and lifted her chin. His eyeline dropped to her shimmery cleavage.

‘Well I suppose the story’s out and you’re first past the post,’ she said sweetly, ‘but baby’s are expensive so what
I’d
like to know is how much you’re offering for the scoop.’

Roxy turned in her toes, angled her hip (which did jut out like a bull bar despite her bun in the oven), placed her hand on it and smiled coyly at the photographer through her spritzed hair. It was her usual, practiced paparazzi pose and she looked every inch the celebrity. The one difference today was that Roxy’s other hand came to rest on her stomach just below her belly button.

‘Smile for the nice man, baby,’ she called down to her miniscule bump, before parting her lips to reveal her usual white-toothed smile, her eyes twinkling.