At 11.15 a.m. Suzie plonked herself on the wooden changing room bench next to Dawn.
‘You look terrible,’ said Dawn, looking up from tying her laces.
‘Thanks.’ Don’t give anything away. She glanced at herself in the floor-length mirrors: matching top, bag and bright neon and black Sweaty Betty leggings – and her look was finished off with huge, haunting mahogany circles under her eyes.
Suzie pulled her shoulders back and smiled tightly. ‘Client do. Big bash at Canary Wharf – you know?’ She didn’t expand on her obsession with a clearly fertile client, and anyway, how would Dawn know what it was like? She was happily cocooned in a world as cosy and warm as a pair of Ugg boots. Life for Dawn revolved around two kids, glitter reward stickers and walks in wellies to the woods. Dawn would never do something like this. Dawn would never dream of chatting up a good-looking stranger, of lacing her arms over someone else’s shoulders to make very sure her cleavage was on maximum display to her admirer, as she smiled at them, would she?
Imagine if I’d gone home with him! Suzie shuddered. No, Dawn’s moral compass was entirely intact. And I wouldn’t want her any other way – she’s just the complete opposite of me, that’s all – has been since uni. In fact, she doesn’t even know how many calories are in half a Pret egg sandwich – can you imagine?
‘You all right?’ Dawn looked at her.
No, she certainly wouldn’t have been so brazen. Ms Moral Conscience was at it again. Suzie sighed as she flung open the doors from the changing room.
As they entered the dance studio, Suzie spotted a new girl. She looked a bit shabby in tight grey tracksuit bottoms. And she seemed to be wet. Which fitness catalogue had she used? Not Running Mile, like her, the glossy catalogue that came through her letterbox each month, more like Run for Your Life in that outfit!
Stop it, Suzie.
Hadn’t she seen her in here somewhere? Yes, in the café, but on the other side of the counter, doing the dishes? So, she was a cleaner here?
‘Now, ladies, let’s move it, shall we?’ shouted the instructor.
Suzie felt exhausted, and still a little dizzy, but she took a deep breath. Shoulders back. Attagirl. As she shook her hips and mamboed right, then leapt to the left, her mind started wandering. What on earth had got into her last night? As the music changed to a Latin number, a moment of sheer self-loathing caught her unawares and then, oblivious to the lady to her left, she just stopped dancing as the enormity of her feelings overwhelmed her.
Suddenly, the lady to the left crashed right into her doing a grapevine and Suzie promptly fell over with a loud thud in front of the entire Zumba class.
*
Dawn approached her with two steaming cups of decaf skinny latte in the café – and an ice pack under her arm. ‘You silly moo.’ She smiled as she placed it on Suzie’s cheek. ‘What made you fall over?’ She squeezed her shoulder affectionately as she sat down.
Suzie smiled, rolled her eyes and looked out to purple hues of lavender in the gym gardens beyond the glass doors. The September sun was doing its best to sprinkle light on the late-flowering roses swaying in the breeze. She held the ice to her shoulder and winced.
‘Got lost in thought…’ She shrugged unconvincingly.
It wasn’t going to work on Dawn. ‘What’s wrong, sweetheart?’
She looked up at her and burst into tears. ‘I was just a bit stupid last night.’ Suzie let the tears fall. She wasn’t going to mention the park. That was what other people did. The sort of people you warn your children about. She wasn’t one of those, was she?
‘Is it the stupid kind of thing that I think it is?’ Dawn’s eyebrows were practically up by her hairline.
Suzie shook her head. ‘No. I just, I don’t know, was flirting madly with this guy – this clearly fertile guy, Dawn, and I, you know—’ She sniffed.
Dawn frowned. Her look said more than any reprimand would do. Then she reached over and put her hand over hers. ‘Look, it’s easy to get a bit carried away at these client bashes – not that I’d know! But, Suze… um…’
‘Nothing happened,’ Suzie said quickly. ‘I just wanted to – well, I remember thinking in the bar that he had kids, Dawn, so I…’
‘Wanted to sleep with him?’
Suzie hung her head. ‘Kind of,’ she mumbled. ‘I was drunk. Yesterday, I, I—’ She stopped herself. Mustn’t mention the toddler.
‘I keep thinking about it, about what might have happened… how, if I’d slept with him Dawn – I know, I know, but if I had, you know, maybe I’d be pregnant. He had kids, he—’ She looked over at Dawn for reassurance but saw her mouth open.
‘Oh, don’t be so judgemental – you’ve no idea and—’ She felt her throat tighten.
Dawn placed a hand on her arm and smiled. ‘I know, sweetheart, I don’t have any idea, it’s just—’
‘It’s all because we got an email from the IVF clinic,’ Suzie said sniffing, feeling Dawn squeeze her arm.
‘Go on.’
‘It’s our last frozen embryo, Dawn. It’s coming up to a year now. After Rex and I had that huge argument, they explained that they could keep our last frozen embryo for another year as we were undecided, but then we needed to make a decision. And if we both can’t agree, they destroy it. Destroy it! Imagine… Could you do that?’
‘What, sweetheart?’
‘Leave your last frozen embryo? I mean, just leave it, let it go to waste, let them get rid of it, after all, after all, you know – what we’ve been through. It could be a tiny—’
‘Suzie!’ Dawn said it like a schoolmistress, and it made Suzie jolt. ‘You and Rex swore you’d never do it again.’
‘He said he’d never go through it again… I just don’t know any more, especially now the deadline’s approaching…’ Suzie picked up her cup, then dropped it; it clattered noisily onto the saucer. Suddenly a wave of nausea swept over her. It was a stupid, stupid idea coming to the gym.
As much of a friend as Dawn was, she’d never, ever understand what she had been through. But her dear old uni friend had been so supportive in so many ways. It was one of the reasons Rex and Suzie had decided to move to Chesterbrook, because Dawn and Eric were down this way.
Suzie tried to take another sip of coffee and reflected on how Dawn had gone to all those Zumba classes, which she had hated when they’d both first joined the local gym. Dawn had admitted to Suzie that she’d only really gone for the company, for the coffee, to do something outside the house; that she’d kind of missed having a soulmate before Suzie had moved to the area, and after a good friend of hers, Lucy, had died, Dawn said she’d felt empty, but she’d cheerily gone along with it; smiled at Suzie and said she’d try something new.
Dawn had even gone on a stupid fertility diet with her, after her third round of IVF, all green juice and spinach omelettes – she was sure Dawn had cheated, but at least when they were together and round for a ‘coffee’ (green tea) Dawn had kept up the show.
Dawn interrupted her thoughts. ‘I said, I think you do need to go through the IVF again, my girl, especially after last night. The deadline approaching… and all those feelings – they haven’t gone away, have they?’ she said gently. ‘If it was me – and I know it isn’t – but if it was, for what it’s worth, I wouldn’t be able to stop until I had used that last embryo.’
Exactly. Suzie sat for a while letting the statement sink in, enjoying the comfort of what Dawn was saying. Her eyes fell on a woman feeding a baby on the other side of the café. She was smiling at the chubby cherub in the pram, spooning thick green mush into his mouth. The woman laughed as he gurgled and banged his hands on the sides of the stroller.
Just then, the woman’s phone went and she glanced at it on the table. She touched the screen quickly and then went back to the baby and blew a raspberry at him as he squealed and his eyes crinkled up in delight. Suddenly, another woman rushed in, slightly out of breath, wearing gym gear and carrying a water bottle. The woman who had been feeding the baby said loudly: ‘Look, Evie, here comes Mummy!’
Wasn’t she the mummy?
Suzie watched them intently and listened to their conversation, to how the nanny – as she appeared to be – smiled and cared for the baby, tidied up and let the mother take over. Her eyes flicked to Dawn, to the baby and back to the mother. She watched the shafts of sunlight lighting up the dust motes as they danced above the wooden floorboards in the café while thousands of thoughts percolated in her brain. And the one that had been going around and around lately, not only started to seed itself there, it was positively growing roots.
She felt a new sense that what she was planning was right.