‘That’s very cool.’ I’d met enough celebrities through ShayKi not to be starstruck by this, but I had learned to value creativity – especially when people found a way to earn a living from it.
‘I mean, it’s not quite brought fame and fortune, but I don’t have to rely on my ex for anything, and I’m saving nicely for a house deposit. I also get to attend some very fun Comic-Con events.’
We chatted a bit more about her job, the boys, some tips about how to manage as a single mum. I grilled her about the Christmas carol concert, and to my relief she was clear that it was an amateur production that nobody took too seriously.
‘Honestly, I think most people come for the bloopers. No one will care how well made the costumes are. It won’t really matter whether we can tell what they are, because usually the storyline makes no sense anyway.’
A couple of minutes later we turned off into a long driveway, just inside the Nottingham city boundary.
‘This is it. Don’t be intimidated. When we met Li, she lived in a dingy bedsit above a kebab shop.’
I wasn’t intimidated. Li’s home was stunning, but it was startlingly similar to where I’d been living for the past eight years. The house was a modern design made up of blocky shapes and lots of glass, all on one floor. Li welcomed us into a wide hallway, with light oak floors and gleaming white walls.
She led us into a kitchen about the same size as my entire cottage, one half of which contained a seating area with sofas, a fireplace and what appeared to be a lot of Not Coffee Mums.
‘Surprise!’ everyone chorused.
I turned to Rina, assuming the surprise was on her. She was beaming at me, green eyes expectant.
‘Smile,’ she said, without moving her lips. ‘Pretend you’re happy about this, even if you hate surprise parties and people so much that you moved to a hovel in the middle of the forest to avoid them.’
‘Happy about what?’ I replied, forcing an anxious smile. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Welcome to your baby shower!’ Li cried, giving me a tight hug. ‘We guessed you hadn’t had one before Bob was born, seeing as you had absolutely no baby things, and New Life Coffee Mums always throw each other a shower. It’s one of our rules.’
‘Besides,’ Sofia added, nudging Li out of the way so she could hug me next, ‘even if you have had one, no one’s going to complain about two baby showers, are they?’
‘I can’t believe this,’ I said, genuinely flabbergasted as I looked around. Rosie was there of course, but also Patty and Yara. I spotted two pairs of antler horns bobbing on top of ginger heads, and Cheris and Carolyn gave me an enthusiastic double thumbs up. There were a couple of women who’d also been at the carol-concert lunch, and maybe three more who I was pretty sure I’d never seen before.
All the coffee mums’ children were there, as well as a few older ones.
I noticed then the huge vases of pastel-coloured flowers, the white and gold banner over one of the bi-fold doors spelling out ‘welcome baby Bob’, confetti-filled balloons and paper pompoms, napkins and a tower of white cupcakes with gold B’s on them, as well as a table in the corner containing a pile of wrapped presents.
While still taking this in, I was ushered over to a giant white armchair, and someone swapped Bob for a pink mocktail in a martini glass, pinning a badge on my chest saying, ‘New Mummy’.
I glanced at Rina, giving her a nod of thanks for the heads-up about not arriving looking as wrecked as I felt.
‘Okay?’ Sofia asked discreetly, perching on the arm of my chair. ‘Is this too much? We’d deduced from your coat and boots that pre-pregnancy you were used to a bit of sophistication, so Li’s level of hosting seemed ideal.’
I tried to unhunch my shoulders, not sure whether to be touched that these near strangers had bothered to spot the clues to my other life, or feel creeped out by their brazen nosiness.
Was it okay? Was I okay?
‘It is a lot,’ I said quietly once everyone else had gone back to their conversations, and I was sure only Sofia could hear. ‘I’ve spent so much time by myself lately, and I’m still readjusting to doing things outside my cottage. Have you ever noticed how loud people are? They ask questions and notice things like an expensive coat. You have to manage your facial expressions and eat with your mouth closed.
‘On the flip side, your deductions were right. I didn’t have a baby shower, but I’ve been to plenty of them in the past few years, some unnervingly similar to this. It’s like a weird flashback to my old life, and it might take a few minutes for my brain to place itself, if that makes sense.’
‘Totally. How about I sit here and act as security guard? If you start to get overwhelmed, send me the secret signal and I’ll spring into action.’
‘Is there a coffee mum secret signal? Because I haven’t been through the full initiation ceremony yet.’
Sofia gave me a conspiring glance, eyes narrowed. ‘This is even more secret than the coffee mums. If you… um… ask me where I got my necklace from, I’ll shoo away whoever’s bothering you.’
‘What if you’re the one bothering me?’ I asked, attempting a joke. Even that felt clunky, as though I’d forgotten how they worked.
‘Oh, tell me straight out to go and talk to someone else if I start getting annoying. I’ve got five kids and work for a church, I’m pretty much impenetrable when it comes to being insulted.’ She sat up straighter as someone approached the chair. ‘First, though, can I introduce you to my biggest sister, Emma? She lives not far from you, on the other side of Hatherstone.’
I ended up chatting to Emma for longer than I’d have expected. She also lived by herself, and enjoyed the solitude of the forest, having moved out from the city a few years earlier.
