Page 73 of The Man Who Didn't Call
‘Eighty-seven!’ called the lady at the counter, and Javier sprang up, shouting, in a voice hoarse with relief, ‘Sí! Sí!’
Jenni seldom acknowledged her husband’s limited emotional capacity, but today, just for me, she allowed herself a quick eye roll. Then she fixed me with one of her looks and asked me what I was going to do about Eddie.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing I can do, Jenni. You know it. I know it. Even Javier knows it.’
Javier silently placed a seafood basket between us, handing Jenni a Sprite and me a Mountain Dew. Then, letting out a quiet but perfectly audible sigh of relief, he turned to his own pile of shrimp tacos, pale-battered calamari and cheesy chilli fries, knowing it would be some time before he might be expected to contribute.
‘He really leftnodoors open? Not even a glimmer of hope?’
‘Not so much as a dust mote,’ I said. ‘Look, Jenni, I’m going to say this one last time. Imagine it was your sister, Nancy. Imagine that a man drove lovely Nancy into a tree. Would you contemplate a relationship with him? Would youreally?’
Jenni put down her cutlery, defeated.
‘Ninety-four!’ yelled the woman at the counter.
I speared a scallop.
Then:Should I be eating this?I wondered suddenly. I was sure I’d seen pregnant friends avoiding shellfish. I looked at the meal in front of me. Seafood, shellfish and a large glass of Mountain Dew. Wasn’t caffeine banned, too?
Yet again, the tectonic plates of my life shifted underneath me.I am nine weeks pregnant.
‘Here,’ Jenni said heavily. ‘Take some scallops before I eat it all, Sarah. I’m sensing another binge coming on.’
I declined.
‘But youlovescallops.’
‘I know . . . I’m not feeling the love today, though.’
‘Seriously? Well, at least have some of this blue-cheese dip for your fries. I think it’s actually real cheese. It’s good.’
‘Oh, I’m fine with ketchup. You have it.’
Jenni laughed. ‘Sarah Mackey, you detest ketchup. No scallops, no blue cheese – anyone’d think you were pregnant. Look, please don’t try to starve yourself, honey. It won’t help anything, and besides, life is totally miserable without food.’
I laughed, a little too loudly. Picked up a scallop to prove that I was fine, and certainly not pregnant, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make myself eat the stupid thing. I had a baby the size of a strawberry growing in me, a baby I’d neither planned nor asked for, but still I couldn’t eat the scallop. The edge of a frown crossed Jenni’s face.
‘Best to just ignore me,’ I said, in a voice stiff with forced jollity. Javier glanced up. ‘I’ve got a funny appetite today.’
‘That’d be the ultimate irony, wouldn’t it?’ Jenni said. ‘You being pregnant.’
‘Ha! Can you imagine?’
Jenni went back to her food, but after a few seconds she looked at me again. ‘I mean, you’re not, are you?’
‘Of course I’m . . .’
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t lie to her. So I shut my mouth.
Jenni lowered her fork to the table. ‘Sarah? You’re not pregnant, are you?’
My face burned. I looked down, around, anywhere but at Jenni.
‘That’s not why you . . . That’s not why you’ve been ill? The doctor . . . ?’
Javier stared at me.Don’t you dare, his face said.Don’t you dare.
Jenni watched me, and her eyes began to swim with tears. ‘Why aren’t you saying anything? Why aren’t you answering me?’
