Once the couple had moved on, Cooper came over to give me a kiss. ‘Hi.’
‘Everything going okay?’
‘Yeah, great. I can conclusively state that the awareness of ME has been raised to a statistically significant degree during the past two hours. By my calculations, by the end of the day we’ll have raised awareness by ten point four to the power of awesome.’
‘Excellent. I’m very impressed.’ We smiled at each other.
‘Do you want to get some lunch?’ he asked, glancing back towards Bridget. ‘You’ll be all right on your own for a bit, won’t you?’
Bridget didn’t look too sure.
‘Bridget, are you okay?’ I asked her, stepping up to the stall so that she could reply without Cooper hearing.
‘Yes!’ She jerked her head back, as if startled by the utterly preposterous question. ‘I’m fine! Having a lovely day. Talking to people about my research, and other science. It’s, like, one of my favourite things to do!’
It would have been easier to believe her had she not directed her reply at a clump of grass about three feet to the right of me.
‘Well, feel free to take a break whenever.’
‘I will! Don’t worry about me! I’m fine!’ She shook her head at the clump, as if, honestly, there was any reason to think anything to the contrary.
I looked at Cooper. He shrugged.
‘Right, well, I really need to get back. I promised not to leave Sofia and Orla for long. But we can grab a bite to eat together later?’
Cooper smiled. ‘Later, then. It’s a date.’
I left them to it, my concern about Bridget swiftly dispersing once I entered the barn and found a drama unfolding that no checklist, however long, detailed or perfectly colour-coded with stickers, could have foreseen.
Greg was standing in the middle of the barn, holding a bunch of flowers. Annie was behind the cake display, Orla and Sofia either side of her.
‘Come on, now, honey. Please, you have to talk to me.’
‘What, here?’ Annie scanned the tables, packed with people who all seemed to have suddenly lost their appetite.
‘I don’t care where! But I can’t stand this. I can’t go another day fighting with you.’ He stopped, wiping his face with his free hand as he spoke more slowly. ‘I’m not interested in fighting you, Annie. Will you please tell me what’s going on, what it is that you want?’
‘Okay. Fine. How about I tell you what I don’t want? I don’t want to be another one of those mums at your little league games. The ones who throw themselves at you. Whipping up batches of homemade granola for the school bake sale. Spending their days hand-sewing Halloween costumes in between slagging each other off at committee meetings. I love my job, I’m proud of my business. I don’t want to end up being the ex-beautician styling her boring, middle-aged friend’s hair in the kitchen. Laughing about how I was once a cutting-edge therapist charging two-hundred dollars for the latest treatment and now I swap manicures for babysitting. I’m not ready for the rich housewife life. I don’t think I ever will be.
‘And I don’t want my kids to be raised by a nanny, either. If I have a child, I want to be the one dropping them off at the school gate, turning up for the dance recital. To be around in the holidays, not packing them off to day care or band camp or whatever it is working parents do in New York.’
‘So what about working part-time? Why not work half the week, close the shop the other half? It’s not like we need the money.’
‘The business will make a loss if I’m not open full-time. And that’s not a business, it’s a hobby. That’s even worse than not working at all.’
Greg nodded. ‘Okay, I understand.’
‘Do you?’ Annie snorted, tossing her hair, unshed tears glinting under the fairy lights. ‘Do you understand that I might be ready at some point to become a mother? Living with Orla these past few weeks has shown me that I’m actually not that bad at it. I like snuggles and stories and I don’t even hate wiping snotty noses.’
‘I watched you face-painting those kids today. You were a natural.’
‘Maybe so, but living with Orla’s also shown me that it’s unbelievably hard work. It takes everything you’ve got. Physically, emotionally, mentally. I’m not prepared to do that by myself. I won’t be a single mum in practice, even if in theory we’re parenting together.’
‘Honey, if we have kids I’ll do my bit. I’m not afraid to change a diaper or do the night feeds. I dream of doing all that.’
‘How the hell are you supposed to do all that when you’re in Baltimore, Singapore, Toronto, yet another late night at the office? Kids go to bed at, like, seven o’clock. They eat dinner at five. You’ll be a weekend dad. That’s not fair. On them, or me. And over the years I‘ll grow more and more resentful and angry and I’ll learn to stop caring whether this time you’ll make it to parents’ evening or their birthday, because I can only take so many years of disappointment, and so can they. I’ll learn to do it without you. To live without you. And I’m more terrified of that than anything else.’
‘That’s not going to happen! I won’t do that to our kids!’
