“Probably as a bonus. Not even Lucifer himself could get one over on Sophie.”
Except now Jennifer was frowning again. One of those complicated frowns where it was hard to know what she was frowning at and hard to know if she knew either. “Sorry, I’m probably coming across as bitter and resentful.”
“We’reallresentful of Sophie,” replied Oliver, even though he definitely wasn’t because he didn’t have a resentful bone in his body. “She is, after all, a completely terrible human being whom we nevertheless love dearly.”
“And besides”—gently, Peter nudged his shoulder against Jennifer’s—“we can always spend our twilight years LARPing with Brian and Amanda.”
“You’re going to do what with them?” I asked. “No judgement, but is that one of those straight people things like swinging? Or swing-dancing?”
“I’ve never quite worked it out either,” admitted Jennifer. “I think it’s camping in fancy dress.”
“Well, if we’d gone with them this weekend,” said Peter, clearly glad they hadn’t, “we’d have found out.”
Jennifer’s expression turned wry again. “We may have to one day. I’m beginning to realise that all those times Brian and Amanda said they hated kids, they genuinely meant it, and so if we ever want to see them again, we might need to do something in a child-free environment.”
“Brian and Amanda have never invited us to go LARPing,” said Oliver, with a touch of dismay.
“Oliver,” I pointed out, “they’ve met me. Would you invite me to go LARPing? I still haven’t figured out what it is, and I know I’d be the literal worst at it.”
Oliver’s jaw was stubbornly set. “It’s still polite to invite people.”
“I suspect”—Jennifer had a gleam in her eye that was the offline version of trollface—“the main reason you haven’t been invited to go magic camping is Brian and Amanda aren’t sure what side you’re on.”
“What?” I asked. “Like orcs versus elves or something?”
“Like kids versus no kids.”
I reminded myself that Jennifer was going through a hard time right now and also that she and Oliver went way back, so she’d paid her needling dues many times over. On the other hand: red alert, panic stations, what the fuck, not ready to think about this right now. “Uhhhh,” I said.
Oliver, of course, handled it with aplomb. A massive plomb. A plomb so big it was faintly impractical. “As with many, many other choices in life”—he also had his lawyer voice on—“I think it’s rather important not to see children in terms of sides at all.”
“That means kids,” declared Peter.
“Uhhhh,” I said. “Uhhhh.”
Thankfully, Oliver was still amply supplied with plombs. “I think you’ll find, as with many, many other choices in life, I mean exactly what I said.”
“I’m sorry.” Jennifer’s shoulders slumped. “We shouldn’t be taking this out on you. I know it’s against your extremely admirableethics to bitch about people behind their backs, but this is so typical of Brian and Amanda.”
It was the wrong moment to feel slightly smug that Oliver would sometimes compromise his admirable bitching ethics when we were alone. But I felt smug about it anyway.
Peter sighed. “It’s like they were rooting for us to have problems so we could be on their team. And now we do and we’re sad and they’ve pounced.”
“I suspect”—Oliver had replacedlawyer voicewithvery good friendvoice—“that they’re trying to support you in their own way.”
“Well, their way sucks,” retorted Jennifer, with a childishness I deeply respected. “I know they’re mostly saying, ‘You don’t have to want this,’ and that could be a helpful thing to say to some people in some contexts. But the thing is, Idowant it and I’m not ready to give up on wanting it. It’s just, right now, I… I don’t know.”
“Jenbee…” Peter had his arm around her in that helpless way you do when someone you love is hurting from something you can’t control. “This isn’t all on you. There’s always other options, of which living in a tent with Brian and Amanda is way, way down the list.”
The slump had progressed from Jennifer’s shoulders to a whole body situation. “I know, I know. There’s surrogacy or adoption or…or…kidnapping.”
“We could probably grab one of these,” suggested Peter, nodding subtly at the pack of young partygoers. “Nobody’d notice until at least four, and by then we’d be in zone six and they’d never be able to find us.”
Oliver flicked up a wry brow, and for once, I didn’t begrudge him flicking it at someone else. “That’s true. Ben and Sophie’s friends don’t leave Kensington if they can possibly help it.”
“We don’t even live near a Waitrose anymore,” added Jennifer. “They’d be fucked.”
Rubbing his hands with faux excitement, Peter started eyeing up the kids in what I want to make very clear was a satirical way. “All right. Which do we get?”
