Page 11 of The Wedding Forecast

Joel coughs, as if it will cover the noise, and then puts his hands in his pockets and looks down, avoiding any eye contact. Hayley looks at me, horrified, and then at Joel, wild-eyed and panicked.

‘Joel! Is Bianca sick?’

‘Uh.’ He pauses, and we can hear more retching noises. ‘Well, yes, just a little bit.’

‘Oh my god. She’s going to give the whole wedding party gastro!’ Hayley is backing up, towards the door, hand over her mouth and nose, as if she’s about to run.

‘Is she okay? Should you go and see if she’s all right?’ I say.

‘She’s fine,’ he says.

‘She doesn’t sound fine,’ Luke says.

‘She’s just a bit carsick,’ Joel says.

‘You stopped driving quite a while ago,’ I say.

‘Late-onset car sickness. It’s a thing she has. You can’t catch anything, don’t worry.’

We all look at him.

‘Or maybe food poisoning,’ he adds, a desperate note to his voice now. ‘We ate, um, a pie from the petrol station.’

‘You would never eat a pie from the petrol station,’ I say. Shorts or not, there’s no way he could change that much. Joel is the kind of man who checks and double-checks the use-by date of the milk every time he uses it.

‘No, I’m sorry Joel. I can’t accept that. You’re lying. I need to know the truth. Right now,’ Hayley says.

‘That is the truth,’ he says.

‘Anna?’ Hayley looks at me.

‘Yes?’ I say.

‘Is he lying? You would know.’

‘Come on, Hayley. Let’s not do this,’ Joel says.

‘He’s definitely lying,’ I say. I don’t need to look at his face to know. I can tell from his voice.

‘Joel. It’s my wedding. I cannot get sick. Tell me the truth right now.’

‘Okay. Okay.’ Joel licks his lips. He is looking at me, not Hayley. ‘Anna, maybe we should talk first.’

‘Why?’ I say.

‘I just want to talk to you for a second.’

My stomach is tight, tense, twisting. My mind is refusing to follow that sentence to any possible conclusions.

‘Joel, just say it. Whatever it is.’

‘I really think we should talk first.’

‘Just say it.’ I’m angry, because I’m scared.

Don’t let it be. Don’t let him say—

‘Bianca is…umm. Look. This is not how—or when—we wanted to tell everyone. Bianca is…’ He stops. I can see him reaching for courage. ‘Bianca is pregnant. She’s seven weeks pregnant and has really bad morning sickness and that’s why she’s vomiting.’