OMG Baby!

A
n imprint of StoryFire Ltd
.

23 Sussex Road, Ickenham, UB10 8PN

United Kingdom

www.bookouture.com

Copyright © Emma Garcia 2014

Emma Garcia has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.

T
his book is
a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

‘
I
am not pregnant
,’ I say this and duck behind the laptop screen and scroll down the list again. For a start, my period is reliably random, but I know it will be coming any day because my boobs hurt. I’m not sick – just had a double-shot coffee. I love fatty food . . . ‘God, what a relief,’ I sigh aloud, and then burst into tears. Now, where can I get a rollmop herring in this airport?

I wipe my eyes and shut down the search. ‘No symptoms,’ I whisper. Then do a double fist pump and begin to pack away the computer. Just then a knowing voice starts up in my head, sounding something like an angel from a film.

‘
YOU! Yes you, Vivienne Summers are with child
,’ it booms, ‘
and you know you are
.’

I sit bolt upright. Let’s just remain calm and think back over the last two months. It is true that for most July I had a lot of sex with a guy named Max. It’s also true that I didn’t actually personally put a condom on him, but I think I definitely
saw
one, on the floor. The fact is, at the time I was a broken-hearted husk of a person and didn’t care what happened to me so long as I stopped feeling bad, and although I didn’t know it at the time, I was distracted by falling in love with Max. I threw myself into the hands of Fate. Irresponsible, careless, I know. But, God, it was good.

Anyhoo . . .

Now I’m about to board a flight to Spain. I’m on the way to see Max again and I can’t deal with a pregnancy situation. I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to have a lovely little baby one day, one of those good, fat, smiley ones, and sooner rather than later, what with the ‘fertility cliff at thirty-five’ thing looming, but I’m only thirty-two. I don’t have a secure job, or any job. I have none of the trappings of adulthood: don’t own a home, have no concrete relationship and am not at all sensible. I can barely meet the needs of my foster cat. I’m not even that healthy: I only eat fruit when there’s nothing else, and I drink too much. Recently I’ve been drinking a lot. If I’m pregnant, I could have pickled the baby. It could be a misshapen thing with teeth and hair in the wrong places. I imagine doctors telling me it can’t survive and me stoically arguing and feeding the twisted ball with a teat pipette and dressing it up with a jaunty little hat with something like ‘Cool guy’ written on; people on the street saying, ‘Oh, a baby!’ then recoiling from the pram, hands clutching at their throats, gasping, ‘What’s
wrong
with that baby?’

Oh my God. I get up and jerkily walk around the airport in a panic. I march into the duty-free shop and try some eyeshadow testers to distract myself. I contemplate getting one of those big bricks of cigarettes, even though I don’t smoke, just to have them, just to rebel.

‘
Not those!
’ the angel voice hisses.

I examine my tummy. OK, so it’s bloated, but that’ll be that water retention. A lot of people get it – ankles like balloons, some of them. I stand frozen by a mountain of Marlboro Reds.

Look, the thing to remember is, I’ll be back in London next week, because I am to be best woman at my friend Lucy’s wedding, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to ensnare Max and drag him home with me. If there is anything to deal with (which there isn’t), I’ll deal with it then. Good. Sorted.

‘
Get chocolate now
,’ says the voice, and I feel a powerful lust for Toblerone.

A
quick search
while our plane taxis into Girona. Very reassuring. We experienced a lot of turbulence on the flight and I ate a family-sized Toblerone. Anyone would be nauseous after that.

‘
That and being pregnant—
’

‘Nerves,’ I interrupt the voice aloud, and the woman jammed up next to me turns and smiles. ‘I’m meeting someone,’ I tell her. ‘Max Kelly. I love him. You probably know about my public search for him using Facebook? I was on the radio? The “Où est Max?” T-shirts that were sold in Top Shop? That was me,’ I say, making my voice higher at the end of each question. Her eyebrows raise to say, ‘Oh,’ while her eyes say, ‘You are unsavoury.’ I turn away from her and gaze out of the window, my thoughts freewheeling. The airport is flanked with green. I’d pictured brown desert. I’m about to see him again. The horizon trembles in the heat. My heart clatters in my ears. He’s here. I think of us: laughing until we cry, telling stories, holding hands, his face the last time. I never want him to look at me that way again, and he won’t, because this time I won’t betray him by turning up to his art exhibition with another man. This time I’ll make him happy instead and bring him back to London.

The small airport smells of coffee and pastries. There’s a lot of jostling for position at the baggage reclaim, followed by the embarrassment of having to pick up Nana’s 1980s suitcases, and a snaking back on itself queue at passport control. I spot a woman checking out my new cool man sandals, which are a lot like Jesus might have worn. I see she wants them. She’s pointing them out to her friend. Hold on – why are they laughing? And then my heart throbs painfully because I’m through, out into a tangle of people, searching all of the faces for Max. Just a guy; he’s just a guy, just a guy; he’s just a guy, I repeat to myself with the slap of my sandals
.

Then I see him and I have to try and control the burning rush of blood. I have to contain an outburst of joy. He’s taller; he seems huge. His dark brown hair’s all long and messy and sun kissed; he’s grown a beard. His skin is a dirty nut brown, his big feet in blue flip-flops. He wears jeans, unevenly cut off round the knee, showing hairy legs, and a faded orange T-shirt, slightly tight across the shoulders. He smiles, a flash of white teeth. Suddenly my whole body goes weak. I’m gawky, shy, awkward and almost pretend I’ve forgotten something and run off to the left. I don’t know how to be so I just stand there as he begins to walk over. I look at my feet, to the side, then back at him. I don’t know what to do with my face or my hands; I swing my hands against my legs. And now he’s standing in front of me.

‘Hello,’ he says casually.

I feel my bottom lip tremble.

‘I’m here.’ is all I can say.

‘You are. That’s good.’

I can’t say more for the ball of emotion in my throat. He reaches out to stroke my arm.

‘Glad you could come,’ he says softly.

I swallow and nod and study his chest, thinking of grabbing him by the back of the neck and saying, ‘I love you,’ repeatedly into his hair, but chickening out.

He pulls me in and squeezes and a huge sob escapes me. ‘Hey . . . don’t cry!’ he half laughs. ‘What, do I look that bad?’

‘The beard’s a bit of a shock, that’s all,’ I manage to pull myself together.

He laughs good-naturedly and takes a step back to look me over.

‘You look good. I like your sandals, very practical,’ he says.

‘Thanks.’

So we stand looking at each other, and he’s even hotter than my memory allowed. His eyes are beautiful – full of affection and amusement. I’m not good when faced with beauty so I give him a punch on the shoulder.

‘That’s for disappearing.’

He presses his lips together, nodding, shoves both hands in his pockets and bends his face near to mine. I smell tobacco and mint on his breath. I look at his mouth, and when he kisses me, the beard feels soft and not at all how I thought a beard would feel. The kiss is long and slow, and I have to break off because of my weak knees.

‘I did miss you actually,’ I tell him.

‘I really missed you,’ he says.

‘Buy me a drink?’

‘Sure.’

We don’t move. We’re just looking at each other and grinning like goons. The arrivals hall is almost empty.

Max looks back over to my forlorn trolley. ‘That all yours?’

‘My capsule wardrobe. I hope you haven’t come on the bike.’

‘Borrowed a van.’

He puts an arm round my shoulders and we stroll out into the afternoon sunshine, each pulling a faux-leather suitcase.

In the far corner of the car park is a battered Citroën van. Inside, it is completely covered with a fine white powder. Max wipes my seat a bit with his hand. I put on the seat belt, releasing more clouds of white dust, as he battles with the engine. It coughs and dies a few times before it catches and we eventually trundle away. I watch his bare foot pumping the accelerator at a junction to keep the straining engine going. Something metal is banging and rolling about in the back.

‘Well, this is nice,’ I shout above the din.

‘Ha! Only the best for you, my darlin’!’ He winds down the window and shouts, ‘She’s here! She flew to Spain to have sex! With me!’

‘How do you know I’m going to have sex with you?’

‘Well, are you or aren’t you?’ He brakes abruptly and gives me a flash of his pirate smile and, God, I can’t wait.

‘Where the hell did you get this van?’

‘Ah, it belongs to a mate of mine. He’s a sculptor. I think all this stuff is plaster dust. His tools are in the back.’

‘Not cocaine, then?’

‘Actually, it is! I decided to pick you up in a fucking coke van! I’m Scarface!’ he shouts, and we laugh. ‘Hey, Viv, you’re here!’ He grins as he accelerates onto a dual carriageway. Then he turns and winks. I feel it like a strike on the chest.

On the long straight road he drives with one hand on the wheel and the other on my leg. The touch of his fingers on my bare skin is driving me crazy. I wonder if we could pull over and do it in the back of the van, plaster dust or no.

I make myself look away. The pure bright sunshine washes the roadside sprawl of boatyards, pottery shops and fruit warehouses. Fields roll away to the left, laden vines like thrusting hands. We’re driving through a bowl of green, serrated mountains piled on all sides like jagged dog’s teeth and the huge wide, billowing blue sky stretching over us. The kind of sky that makes your insides fly out and shout, ‘Yahoo!’

‘So, we’re heading up the coast. Do you see those mountains there?’ He nods towards the horizon, shards of rock trailing wisps of cloud. ‘I live on the other side of them, in Cadaqués. That town there is Roses.’ He points to the variegated flank of a mountain sloping to the coast, studded with white houses like stars.

‘You’ve been here the whole time?’

‘This area around and about.’

‘Where I could never find you?’

‘But I couldn’t shake you off.’ He takes a half-smoked roll-up from the ashtray and lights it, smiling sideways at me.

‘Meanwhile, back in London, I was publicly dissecting my own heart.’

‘I never knew that,’ he says, narrowing his eyes against the cigarette smoke and winding down the window.

I’m no mechanic, but I’d say we’re about to lose our exhaust pipe, going by the terrible thudding and scraping of metal. Max seems oblivious I have to shout to be heard.

‘It’s all very civilised. I kind of pictured you living with goatherds in the mountains.’

‘No goatherds here. That’s Greece you’re thinking of.’

‘I thought you’d be herding something.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you were incommunicado. There is a phone signal here, you know. I have signal.’

‘Ah, but I threw my phone in the river before I left.’

‘Oh, nice one.’ I imagine his phone resting in the murky-green bed of the Thames, next to a severed head.

‘Stupid. Regretted it straight away,’ he says.

‘Well, it was working for ages. I left a million messages.’

‘Technology is a wonder.’

I swallow down a wave of nausea. We’re climbing on a very winding road. Travel sickness is a curse. I’ve never had it before. ‘So why did you even bother to log on?’

He sighs, resting an elbow on the windowsill.

‘Well, there I was walking down by the sea one day and it struck me: you were on my mind all the time.’ He taps the side of his head with his fingertips. ‘It was like you were haunting me. I couldn’t get you out of my head. I kept imagining what you’d think of things and what you’d say, and I thought, Fuck it. Just get in touch with the witch, confirm what an evil piece of work she is and cut her from your heart once and for all.’ He shouts this above the exhaust. He grins.

‘Nice.’

‘Then I turned to walk back into the town to the internet café and – no word of a lie – there’s a woman walking along with a T-shirt on her, and as she turned the corner, a shaft of sunlight hit the T-shirt and I saw across it was written, “Où est Max?” Well, it was a sign. I ran up to her like a wild man and asked her where she got the T-shirt.’

‘You never told me that on the phone.’

‘And she said she’d only tell me after I’d made mad, passionate love to her, which I did –’ he sneaks a glance across at me ‘– for hours. She was insatiable.’

I wrinkle my nose.

‘And when she had to stop, on account of hunger, thirst and a nasty cramp in her hip, we shared a spliff and she told me the whole story about a funny-looking woman searching for her lost love named Max and how romantic it all was, with the Facebook and everything.’

‘Is any part of that true?’

‘No.’ He throws back his head and laughs loudly. ‘I went to the internet café and Googled you.’

We don’t seem to have climbed for long, but the ground falls away at the side of the road now, a steep drop into dark stands of trees. A scent of rosemary and thyme fills the van. The engine whines as Max changes down a gear.

‘Nana got married. I wish you could have seen it.’

‘Yeah . . . Is she OK, the old girl?’

‘She is on a bloody gap year. Travelling round the world for a whole year with Reg. Europe at the moment. Sends silly postcards.’

‘Brilliant.’ He smiles. ‘And what did you do with Dave?’

I think of Dave being shut in his cage at the cattery, the seething hatred in his eyes as I handed over his fish-shaped ‘Top Cat’ bowl.

‘The cat you abandoned? In a cattery. You owe me about three hundred pounds and a silk kimono. Shredding is one of his great talents.’

‘Three hundred quid? How long is he in for?’

‘A week.’

He flinches as if he’s been hit in the face. ‘A week? One week?’

‘It’s a very luxurious cattery, with heated beanbags and caviar extract.’

‘Caviar!’

‘Extract. Probably just the lips and tails of the actual caviar.’

‘And then what?’

‘Then I suppose I’ll pick him up – or we will.’

‘You’re only staying a week.’ He frowns and bites the side of his thumb.

I hang on to the leather strap above the passenger door as we make a turn and suddenly the road snakes left, with a sheer drop to one side. My stomach heaves I concentrate on looking ahead.

‘I thought you’d stay longer.’

‘I would, but Lucy’s getting married.’

‘She’s getting married?’

‘You’re invited. You could escort me.’

‘No way. Not after the last wedding debacle. You’re a liability.’

‘Actually you’ll have to. She’s gone mad. She’s making me do a terrible dance routine involving a pole and lesbian frotting.’

He smirks. ‘What’ll you be wearing?’

‘A tutu.’

He shakes his head and smiles. ‘Well, that’s funny right there,’ he says.