‘Bloody hell!’ Megan said. ‘He must think you’re not all there.’
‘I know. Needless to say, it didn’t go well. He was hurt, angry, humiliated, and who could blame him?’
‘Sorry, Charlotte, I’d be pretty cross in his shoes too,’ Sam chimed in.
‘Well, I’ve sent an email apology too and tried to explain a little bit more.’
‘You should probably just forget about him now,’ Kate said. ‘Plenty more fish and all that.’
‘I don’t want a fish, Kate, I’ve got a baby to focus on. I’m serious – I don’t need a man, I just feel horrible for leading him on, and want to somehow put it right. There’s a part of me that isn’t ready to lose him as a friend just yet. I don’t know why – I just like talking to him.’
***
‘I got the keys!’ Megan practically skipped into the coffee shop where we’d arranged to meet ridiculously early a few days later. ‘Had to search everywhere for the VIN number and all the documents and pay a fortune for the replacement set, but I got there in the end.’
‘Excellent!’ Kate clapped excitedly. ‘We now just have the small matter of collecting the car and executing our plan. The body shop is all ready to go – benefit of Carl being the landlord of their premises.’
‘We’re not breaking any laws here, are we?’ Megan asked anxiously.
‘He has no legal right to that car – it’s yours,’ Kate said with authority. ‘I’m here to reassure you and make sure everything goes to plan, so stop worrying.’
‘And I am literally just here because I’m homeless, single, and pregnant.’ I sighed.
‘Charlotte!’ Kate scolded me.
‘Okay, I’m here because Mike is a cheating rat and deserves everything he gets.’ I sipped my coffee. ‘Oh, and I really do want to see the outcome of this whole shenanigan. Kate, you really must get a job after this. Idle hands and all that.’
‘How about godmother?’ she said.
‘Not bloody likely, Cruella de Vil!’ I said playfully.
‘That’s enough smart-arsery from you!’
We’d finished our drinks and I drove us to the retail park where Mike worked. His car sat at the far end of the car park, alone like it was goading us. It was just after nine o’clock and Megan had assured us Mike would be working until half-past six. We just had to hope he wasn’t planning on going for a spin any time soon.
‘Now to see if the bloody thing works!’ Megan said, climbing out of my car and swinging the new key fob. ‘It’d better do, since they deactivated the old one!’ She smirked.
‘Ooh, nasty twist! I like it,’ Kate said.
Megan pointed the fob at the car and pressed the button; the car beeped and the lights flashed, indicating it worked. ‘Right, I’ll follow you two,’ she said, sliding in.
Twenty minutes later, we were pulling up outside a small garage on some dodgy back street in Stockport. I sidestepped broken glass on the road as I got out of the car, praying I hadn’t punctured any tyres.
Megan drew a deep breath. ‘Okay, let’s do this!’
We followed her inside and Kate barged to the front as a worker came out. ‘I’m Carl’s wife, Kate. I was told someone could help me with a small paint job today. I think we’ve booked the entire garage . . . Billy’ She glanced at his name badge and smiled in a way I imagined Kim Jong-un might to a relative right before having them assassinated.
The poor bloke nodded quickly. ‘Yes, yes that’s right.’
Megan and I glanced at each other.
‘We have some templates made up from other jobs, so if you want something finishing today, you’d have to choose one of those,’ he said, unable to meet Kate’s eye. Kate turned to us.
‘That’s fine,’ Megan said.
Billy beckoned Megan through and Kate and I sat on some torn chairs of questionable hygienic integrity in the so-called waiting area.
Megan bounced back in about fifteen minutes later. ‘All done.’
Since Sam was working and I was Megan’s only client for the day, we decided to spend the afternoon shopping until a horrified Kate discovered no amount of high-end fashion would look good on me with my expanding frontage.
‘And you can’t drink either! You’ve lost all your attractive qualities as a friend,’ she cried, mock-sulking as we sloped out of a little boutique in Wilmslow.
‘There is another type of shopping we could do.’ I bit my bottom lip, feeling unsure – not about whether Kate would approve – but that feeling happy and looking to the future was something I could willingly grant myself.
I was finding it hard to picture a future without James but picturing a life with a person I already knew I loved more than him, even though I hadn’t met them – a tiny little human who would demand every ounce of my energy was starting to feel real. I caught myself smiling before I realised Kate and Megan were both staring at me with a ‘What?’ expression on their faces.
‘Baby clothes of course!’ I beamed.
Kate groaned and Megan squealed.
‘Oh come on, Kate,’ I said. ‘There’s a gorgeous baby boutique just up the road and I’ve bought nothing at all yet. Please, wear a smile for me – baby clothes are so tiny and cute.’ I pulled the biggest smile I could.
‘Oh, fine! Though I doubt the outfits could be any smaller than the ones those girls were wearing on our last night out and they weren’t at all cute.’ She sighed.
‘Let’s do it!’ Megan squealed.
Minutes later, we were bundling over the threshold of the baby boutique: Footprints.
I gasped. ‘Look at how small this is!’ I held up a teeny white BabyGro with little pastel-coloured stalks on. A swell of love swept through my torso, and my eyes teared up a little.
‘See, there’s more cloth there than on those twenty-somethings.’
‘Kate!’ I gave her a look. ‘Admit it’s cute.’
She regarded it like some strange foreign object, pursed her lips a
