Page 47 of One Day at a Time

Val fell silent and let her lead the conversation, as Maddie went on, ‘No, it’s the opposite. We call and FaceTime all the time – I just need to make sure that I keep the phone focused above the shoulders. I think I just haven’t come to terms with the fact that I’m about to derail his life. It hasn’t felt like the right time yet.’

Last night had been the perfect example of that. She’d been lying on the sofa when Dylan had FaceTimed her, after he’d just finished a soundcheck in a bar in Georgia, and she had angled the phone so that he could only see her face.

When she’d answered, he’d taken the phone outside, jumped up on the back of his pickup truck and lay back, basking in the afternoon sun. He had a deep tan now, a couple of days of facial hair growth, and he’d adopted a standard uniform of a black T-shirt and jeans, boots, a belt with a buckle the size of a bar of soap and the compulsory accessory for a man in his line of work.

‘Like the hat there, cowboy,’ she’d said. It was different from the one he’d been carrying on the day he’d walked away from her at Glasgow Airport. This one was black leather and decidedly Tim McGraw-esque. She wouldn’t say it, because their relationship took the form of mutual teasing, but he looked pretty good in it.

‘Thank you. I still can’t ride a horse to save my life, so I feel like a bit of a fraud, but I’m going with it.’

‘You could always start with a donkey and work your way up.’

That had made him laugh. ‘You know, you could take the piss out of me in person if you used that plane ticket that I sent you.’

It had been a month since he’d told her that he’d bought hera ticket to come to Nashville, and it had dropped into her inbox that night. Thank goodness it had been a refundable fare, because she’d immediately cancelled it. He’d been so disappointed, but she’d used several excuses as to why she couldn’t go over. She’d said that Jessie was on holiday, and she had to cover the salon. Then Val had the flu so Maddie felt she should stay and take care of her. Val had been a reluctant conspirator on that one, but had let out a few groans from the couch whenever he called. Lately, she’d been using the excuse that it was too close to Christmas, so her appointment book was filling up and the salon was too busy to leave. Which wasn’t exactly a lie. That, and her need to build up as much cash as possible were the reasons that she intended to work right up until as close as possible to her delivery date.

‘I know, and it’s not that I don’t want to – it’s just bad timing right now because we’re so busy.’

‘I get that. I do. But don’t be surprised if I record a song called, “I Tried To Bribe My Friend With A Plane Ticket But She Knocked Me Back”. It has a ring to it.’

Maddie had opened a tube of barbeque Pringles and popped one in her mouth. ‘If that’s a hit, I want commission.’

‘Have you thought about what you’re going to do next yet? Before I left, you said you were still thinking about going back to Edinburgh.’

His question had taken her by surprise, and she’d got a bit flustered and fluffed the answer.

‘I’m not sure. I think I’m waiting for the dream job to come along and find me.’

‘I thought you said owning your own salon was your dream job?’

‘It is.’ The conversation with her mum at the cemetery a couple of months ago had popped back into her mind. ‘I mean,now that I’ve accepted that I’m not going to be an astronaut. I watchedApollo Thirteenabout a dozen times when it came out and it had a profound effect on me. I wanted to be an astronaut until I was about twelve. The plan to have my own salon came after that, and it was the dream for a long time, right up until my mum got sick. It just kind of got lost in everything that happened.’

‘You need to get back to that, then. Start to look into it. Work out a plan. There’s nothing stopping you now.’

Nothing stopping her. Except, perhaps, the rotund stomach that was, at that moment, coming in handy because it created a valley below her boobs that was the perfect size for hosting a tube of barbeque Pringles. The stomach that no matter how many times she tried, she still couldn’t tell him about.

Now, in the cold light of day, she really hoped that Sharon wasn’t going to judge her or they would need another box of those tissues.

She was more than a little surprised when the midwife gave her a kind smile. ‘You’ll tell him when the time is right and that’s okay, Maddie.’

‘It is?’

Val had been more or less saying the same thing to her for months, but somehow it hit different when it came from an objective professional.

‘Look, I probably shouldn’t say this, because I’m supposed to be neutral in all relationship matters, but there’s no right or wrong. And I shouldn’t say this either, but I’m in the same boat as you. I haven’t shared my pregnancy with the father of my child either.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Maddie saw Val’s eyebrows shoot up and her friend almost fell off her chair at that little nugget of information. Maddie knew that the only thing stopping her fromturning back into Census Val was that she was clenching her jaw so tightly she was in danger of snapping her back teeth.

‘You do what’s right for you and the baby,’ Sharon went on. ‘Just try to trust your own judgement. You’ll be doing a lot of that when you’re a mum.’

Maddie felt the tears falling again, but this time it was gratitude. And maybe a little bit of fear. This baby was going to be relying on her. She just hoped that by not telling Dylan, she wasn’t messing its life up before it even began.

24

ORLA

‘Here she is – fresh from yet another meeting with her new best friend. Urgh, it’s like a betrayal. I can’t believe you’d just dump us for someone new,’ Yvie teased, as Orla came into Carlo’s Café and slid into the booth that Yvie and Emmy had already claimed. They’d arranged the meet-up after Yvie and Emmy came off day shift, so it was already past six o’clock and dark outside. And yes, Orla had indeed spent the afternoon with Maddie, and they’d gone to a little baby boutique in the West End.

It had been their second meet-up, after the day of the baby shower three weeks ago, and just like the first time, Orla had enjoyed every minute of it. It helped that they were around the same age, and they were both at the same stage in their pregnancies, so it was a chance to talk about baby stuff with someone sharing the same experiences. Her enjoyment came from more than that, though. Being with Maddie allowed her to share the joys of impending motherhood with someone who didn’t know about Kyle or his affair. It was the only time in all of this that she could forget what had happened and enjoy the moment without feeling that it had been tainted.