I thought so. Thirsty?
Me: I am, yeah.
Jacki: [gesturing to a barman] Here, it’s coming over now. [taking two drinks from the waiter]
Me: [smelling it] Oh … lovely. Thank you. What is it? [lifting it to my mouth]
Jacki: It’s called a Belladonna.
Me: [wetting my lips with it] Mmm, what’s in it?
Jacki: Gin and rum. And apricot liqueur.
Me: [still holding the glass to my lips] MmmMMMm.
Jacki: And a double whisky.
Me: [putting glass down] Alright, enough. [wiping mouth] Oh, that is good though. How long have you known?
Jacki: I had an email from Polka Dot telling me they were looking for my replacement editor and would let me know as soon as they could.
Me: What?
Jacki: Which is exactly how I felt. Why the hell didn’t you tell me, Kiki?
Me: Well, partly because I only found out really recently –
Jacki: So you didn’t know last time I saw you?
Me: Um.
Jacki: Was this a pity silence? Was I so sad that you couldn’t even tell me you were pregnant?
Me: No, of course not!
Jacki: So what was it, then?
Me: It wasn’t pity, it was just tact. You were sad, because of course you would be, because your husband …
Jacki: He’s not my husband.
Me: I’m sorry, Jacks. You know what I mean. Of course you would be sad, and we were talking about that, and I didn’t think it was appropriate to say, ‘Hey, guess what! I’m having a baby!’
Jacki: [quiet] OK. Alright, Keeks. What a pair we are, hey?
So Jacki drank both the Belladonnas, and I drank some amazing ginger and apple things, and we stayed there for a while. I told her about the scan, and how my family and Polka Dot were taking it.
Me: Hey, Jacks, do you want to be godmother to this baby? Well, not godmother godmother. Non- godmother. What do you say?
Jacki: Did you just think of that?
Me: Nope.
Jacki: Kiki?
Me: Please? It’s all so medical I could do with a little laughter and colour in the mix. As long as the colour isn’t flesh pink or wound red.
Jacki: Oh, you do know how to sell it, Kiki. Can I think about it?
We kissed and said goodbye, and I headed home to collapse on the sofa and tell Thom the good news.
Thom: Jacki Jones Jacki?
Me: Yes.
Thom: As the baby’s godmother?
Me: Non-godmother. I’m not dunking my baby for anybody.
Thom: Jacki Jacki Jones?
Me: Yes, Thom.
Thom: [thinking] Sure, that sounds nice.
December 7th
Thom woke me up this morning.
Thom: Uh, Kiki?
Me: Unnnnn. What?
Thom: What was the last thing you got in the advent calendar?
Me: Nnnnidunno. Mm. Maybe … oh, a lip balm. Why? What did you get today?
Thom: Look.
I finally opened my eyes to see what it was. Thom was holding up a slightly chewed stumpy pencil, the kind of thing Dad always keeps behind his ear at college. I felt baffled, then I realised that Susie had finally excelled herself.
Me: Oh my God … it was Susie!
Thom: How do you work that out?
Me: When she was over the other night, she had me rooting around for ages, trying to find a top she’d lent me. That bloody crafty wolf.
I roared with laughter, and we agreed that Susie deserved to be congratulated on her effective sabotage. I also determined to swap one of her parcels for her own little surprise before she got our congratulations. I was pretty amazed neither of us had had this brainwave before, to be honest. But if she wants to play mean, we can play mean.
At work today, I asked Carol about the email Jacki had got.
Carol: Jesus. Well, I assume that means Tony is checking his emails. I only told him last week, but he’s clearly back to meddling, wherever he is. Was Jacki OK?
Me: Yes, thanks Carol, she was, but I think if she’d been slightly more nervous this could have tipped her over the edge. Why would he do that?
Carol: It’s a refrain I’ve been singing for the fifteen years I’ve been here, Kiki, and I’m no closer to finding a satisfactory answer. It was an ignorant, trouble-making thing to do and I’ve not got the slightest clue how he thought it could benefit anyone. But let me know if you get any hassle from your other authors.
Lovely Carol. How rotten to be second-in-command to someone with such a deadly combination of laziness and cluelessness. Tony can be relied upon to get involved in something just long enough to muck it up, then he’ll get bored and require someone else to do the actual work. Going on leave seems such a distant future event, like having the baby: something I know I’ll have to deal with eventually, but nothing I need to think about anytime soon. But this talk of cover has made me realise that within six months, the office won’t have me in it anymore, and I won’t be in meetings, and I won’t have books to work on, and someone else will be doing all of my jobs.
I feel incredibly strange about all of that.
The Christmas cards have started arriving in the office, from authors and agents. The very first one was from Clifton Black, Polka Dot’s military fiction specialist – and by specialist, I mean ‘someone who’s spent his career trying to convince us he has previously served in the army, while writing books like Bullets and Bravery and Serving Under Fire with an entirely straight face’ – who I may have accidentally sexted slightly before our wedding. It could happen to anyone. Since then, he doesn’t come into the office anymore, a fact which, if we’d known earlier, any one of us would have been willing to send all manner of inappropriate texts to him. But he sent a lovely card, albeit one which omitted my name entirely. God bless us, every one.
TO DO:
Come
