She laughed. ‘I love it when you talk dirty but I’ll need to check my diary. I’m a busy girl now, don’t you know.’
‘Well, don’t take too long, or the women of Wimbledon Common will be forming an orderly queue later.’
Gracie mock-swiped his face.
‘The other night was lovely.’ Gracie blushed.
‘I do my best, girl.’ He kissed her on the forehead. ‘Good luck today, I know it will be great. Give me a shout when you’re done, maybe we can grab a drink.’
With that he headed out into the sunshine, jumped on his quad bike and shot off.
Gracie flew around making last-minute checks to ensure everything was perfect. She had created flyers to promote the party side of the venue, plus a smaller, more discreet flyer to promote Miscarriage Matters. She dotted them around on the picnic tables. There were clipboards and application forms on the side tables, in case anyone wanted to book an event today with a twenty per cent discount.
By midday, everything was ready. The smell of cooking from the BBQ, combined with the music and the sunshine, threw a distinct party vibe on the breeze.
Gracie poured two glasses of Prosecco and handed one to Kate.
‘Ready?’
‘As we’ll ever be.’
They raised their glasses. ‘Cheers to us.’
Despite a lot of the Wimbledon women being extremely wealthy, as Kate had guessed, the offer of a free glass of fizz at lunchtime would still draw them in.
‘The rich are usually the tightest, you wait and see,’ she had said to Gracie.
Gracie had replied, ‘We are here to help anyone, from whatever circumstance, so it doesn’t matter how much free fizz is quaffed.’
And quaff a lot of them did. By one o’clock the fizz had run out and Mac was sweating furiously from putting his fortieth chicken skewer on the BBQ. Gracie reckoned there were nearly seventy people milling around. She and Kate were absolutely delighted.
She had already taken a booking for a tenth birthday party in two weeks’ time, and a yoga instructor wanted a weekly hour-long slot on a Tuesday morning. A few Miscarriage Matters flyers had also been taken from the piles on the edge of each table, so that was a start at least.
It wasn’t until three o’clock that the crowd started to dwindle. People had made the most of the sunshine, sitting at the tables, chatting and enjoying the ambience. Noms was chuffed, as she had sold eight handbags and Kate’s make-up friend had almost sold out of her revolutionary new ‘magic’ wrinkle cream.
Gracie had started to take the parasols down to store inside when a young girl, who Gracie guessed could be no more than eighteen, approached her. She had mousey shoulder-length hair, small rimless glasses and wore a flowing maxi dress with a big sunflower print.
‘Excuse me.’ Her voice was very quiet.
‘Can I help?’ Gracie replied kindly.
‘Your club about the miscarriages?’
‘Yes. You can talk to me about that.’ Gracie stopped what she was doing. ‘Here. Take a seat.’ She patted the seat next to her.
‘Well, I’m not sure this is appropriate at all, but I just wanted to talk to somebody really.’
‘Go on.’ Gracie could see the girl was overflowing with emotion.
‘The thing is – and you may hate me for saying this – I really want to have a miscarriage.’
Gracie took in a big gulp of warm summer air.
‘So you’re pregnant, obviously? How many months?’
‘Not even a month, well, I guess about a month. I’ve just missed my period and done a test. I can’t have a baby. It’s the wrong time. I go to university in September, it will just mess my life up. My parents will kill me. And I know what you’re thinking.’
‘Hey, no judgement here.’ Gracie had seen the girl having a glass of fizz earlier. ‘I’m listening. What’s your name, by the way?’
