Miranda's Big Mistake - Jill Mansell [151]
`There's an offer I can't refuse,' she told Miranda. `You've appealed to my sense of adventure. Okay, deal.'
`You won't regret it.' Praying fervently that she wouldn't, Miranda stood up and reached for the comb and scissors. `Anyway, how could you tell I was a trainee?'
`Recognised you from the TV. Last time I was over here I caught you on that programme giving your sandwiches to the homeless guy.' Utterly relaxed, Magdalena sat back and watched in the mirror as Miranda worked diligently away. `Fenn Lomax salon… girl with blue and green hair… call it spooky intuition if you like, but I just put two and two together. Okay if I ask you a question now?'
`Go ahead.' Having clipped up the back sections of Magdalena' s glossy tortoiseshell-blonde hair, Miranda held her tongue between her teeth and began to cut.
`What was the emergency?'
Miranda glanced up.
`You mean with Fenn?'
`I'm a curious person.' Magdalena apologised. `It drives me mad not knowing stuff. Back home I'm a member of Nosy Parkers Anonymous.'
`My pregnant flatmate rang up,' said Miranda. `To tell me that she was in labour in a phone box a few miles away. I wasn't here, so Fenn went off to pick her up and take her to the hospital. Before the baby pops out, fingers crossed.'
`Or legs,' said Magdalena. `So he's the father?'
`God, no.' Miranda grinned. `Nothing like that. Fenn's just… helping out.'
Magdalena looked dubious.
`Are you sure?'
`Of course I'm sure!'
`I mean, I don't want to sound big-headed here, but to race off without even stopping to let me know… abandoning me in order to help out some unimportant friend-of-an-employee… doesn't that sound the tiniest bit weird to you?'
`Well, now you put it like that.' Miranda frowned, then shook her head. `But it isn't what you're thinking. Fenn isn't the father and they absolutely definitely aren't having an affair.'
Magdalena was by this time truly engrossed.
`So who is the father?'
`Ah. Now it starts to get complicated,' said Miranda. `My ex-fiancй.'
It was one of those dilemmas, Chloe realised, where you can't make up your mind how you feel.
On the one hand, she had never been so glad to see anyone in her life.
On the other, she couldn't help wishing Fenn didn't have to see her like this, with her wet trousers sticking attractively to her legs and her shoes making squelching noises with every step. Not to mention the fact that she appeared to be walking like John Wayne.
Elegant or what?
`Nearly there,' said Fenn, both arms supporting her as he
helped her towards the double-parked black Lotus. `What can I sit on? I don't want to mess up the seat.' He shot her a sidelong look of exasperation.
`I don't give a stuff about that. Who do you think I am?'
Puffing a bit but managing a smile, Chloe said, `I don't know. Maybe Bruce?'
But to reassure herself, she took off her thick coat and arranged it over the passenger seat before climbing into the car.
Oh dear, what with her and her stomach there was barely room for Fenn as well.
`When my sister was desperate to go into labour, she ate a chicken vindaloo,' Fenn said companionably as they pulled out into the stream of traffic. `According to her, it shocks the body into action.'
`I had lunch with Greg,' Chloe told him. `Better than a curry any day.' She wiped perspiration from her upper lip and sank back into the seat with a sigh of relief. `This is so kind of you. You should have let me call an ambulance.
I hope you didn't rush off leaving some poor woman's head in the sink.'
Chloe was joking. Praying that - unlike her New York hairdresser - Magdalena Rosetti wasn't the litigating kind, Fenn said, `We were pretty quiet.'
`I still can't believe this is happening. I'm actually going to have a baby.' Chloe clutched her stomach as another contraction began to take hold.
`Did it upset you, seeing Greg?'