I tapped out a reply.
Emma
Are you free for a drink?
Three dots immediately appeared.
Rachel
Hell yes! The Crown?
I replied:
Emma
See you there.
As I entered the wine bar, quiet on a Monday night, I hoped Nick wouldn’t see me here. I wasn’t sure how far away he lived and was suddenly aware he might pass by here on his way home. I didn’t want him to think I was lying to him.
I bought two glasses of Pinot Grigio and settled at a table away from the speaker. It only took Rachel fifteen minutes to get there. She gave me a hug then sat, downing half her glass of wine in one go.
‘I needed that,’ she said, wiping her hand across her mouth. ‘The little buggers were doing my head in tonight, thank God you messaged.’
It was still astounding to me that my best friend, who I’d known since we were twelve years old, was a mother. I still remembered her sobbing her heart out when she found her first boyfriend Carl snogging Mandy Johnston at the school disco;I could remember the smell of vomit when Gary McDonald dumped her and she drank her body weight in vodka to drown her sorrows. And I could still picture the pure joy on her face when she’d met Iain, Greg’s best friend, three months after Greg and I had got together. They were smitten, and it felt like the four of us were the luckiest people alive to have found each other. All for one and one for all.
Now, I still saw the pair of them regularly but when it was the three of us it felt odd, like a car trying to drive with three wheels.
And although I knew Rachel tried not to moan about the kids too much around me, aware that Greg and I had tried for a couple of years to have a baby, I loved hearing her talk about these little creatures who were the perfect mix of two of my favourite people in the world.
‘What have they been up to now?’ I said, taking a sip of my wine.
‘Oh, just the usual. Aiden thought it would be funny to do a poo in the bath, and Harry screamed the house down about it. Can’t say I blame him, sitting in a shit soup with his little brother.’ She grinned. ‘Thank God for you and your well-timed messages pleading with me to meet you urgently. I left Iain to mediate.’
‘I mean, it wasn’t urgent…’ I started.
‘It wasveryurgent. At least Iain thinks it was and that’s all that matters.’
I laughed.
‘Anyway, enough of all that nonsense. Tell me what you’ve been up to. You look lovely, have you been somewhere nice?’
I felt a smile spread across my face. ‘Maybe.’
Rachel’s eyebrows shot up beneath her fringe. ‘Oh my,’ she whispered.
‘What?’
‘You look…’ She screwed her face up while she searched for the word she was looking for. ‘Happy.’
‘Do I?’
She leaned closer and squinted at me. ‘I haven’t seen this look on your face for such a long time. Are you… Have you been on adate?’
I felt my face burn and Rachel gasped. ‘Right, tell me everything, Vickers.’ She sat back and crossed her arms.
‘I…’ I started, unsure where to begin. ‘He’s called Nick.’ She waited. ‘We met in the bandstand in the rose garden, after work.’
‘Today?’ She sounded surprised.
