Things I Want My Daughters to Know_ A Novel - Elizabeth Noble [160]
Now that she knew about Jennifer, she convinced herself she might have guessed. She was, not rounder, but softer at the edges, somehow. The color in her cheeks was clearly natural. And, now that she really scrutinized, her boobs were enormous. Already. Blimey. That was going to play havoc with her sister’s penchant for Jackie O shift dresses. Cee Cee—the unwilling bridesmaid, dressed the part but not planning to walk the aisle—had taken up proprietary residence between Jennifer and Stephen, thrilled with the baby news, and desperate, as she had pronounced last night, for a brother or sister of her own.
“Whoa, Nellie,” her dad had laughed. “Don’t scare the horses.”
“Am I ‘the horses’ in this scenario?” she had spluttered in mock incredulity.
“Damn right you are. It’s taken me long enough to get you here. Don’t want you thinking about babies now. You’ll bolt.”
“I won’t, you know,” she had muttered into his mouth, kissing him in front of Cee Cee, and everyone else. “Think she might be onto something, as a matter of fact….”
Still, with Cee Cee holding court between them, Stephen had his arm along the back of the pew, resting gently on Jennifer’s shoulder.
Jennifer had sounded tentative, alone with her in the bedroom. “I don’t know,” she had confessed. “It’s all a bit of a shock.”
“But you’re happy?”
“I don’t think I realized how happy until I saw his face when he first knew,” she answered. “It was like I’d forgotten how good it felt to see him happy, to make him happy, you know?”
“I know, more than you know,” Lisa had laughed.
“So, we’re all grown-up, then, are we? Finally mature. Finally sussed?”
“Mum would be proud of us!”
“She was, anyway.”
“I know. Now she’d be proud and relieved.”
“Anyway, I wouldn’t say all grown-up. Or all sussed, for that matter. Like I said, I’m bloody terrified.”
“Proves you’re alive, or something like that, doesn’t it?”
“Something like that. Maybe we’re supposed to be terrified.”
“Maybe we’re supposed to take risks.”
“Yeah.”
Lisa had put her hand on Jennifer’s tummy then.
“It’s way too soon to feel anything.”
“Who’s the expert, all of a sudden?”
“Stephen’s bought a book.” She rolled her eyes affectionately. “He read it out loud to me. We’ll feel the baby move in a couple of months.” She hesitated. “If everything’s all right.”
“Everything’s going to be all right.”
Lisa wondered if anyone else remembered “Be Thou My Vision” from Mum’s funeral a year earlier. Mark made himself concentrate on keeping time with the notes. He needed, very badly, to keep himself in this moment, in this place, at this ceremony. Of course he recognized the song. He just couldn’t think about it now.
Amanda was sat with Ed, tucked into the crook of his arm. Alarming hairstyle aside, Ed had that rare gift of just being able to fit in, straightaway. Last night had been the first time he’d met most of them. A pretty intimidating crowd, on a fairly high-pressure occasion. With jet lag. But it had felt a bit like he’d always been there. He was easy company. Lisa had watched him, standing between Stephen and Andy, drinking beer from a bottle and chatting easily, talking iPods with Hannah, stacking plates in the dishwasher after dinner; his eyes followed Amanda wherever she went in the room, just like he was going to follow her, once the wedding was over, wherever she decided to go next. Until September. In September he was going back to college, and he’d confessed to Lisa, he intended to make her stay put with him.
And Hannah was behind her. The bridesmaid, again. Dressed, this time, to please herself. She’d confessed to Jennifer, the previous night, how much she had hated the primrose yellow Thai silk dress she’d worn for her wedding a few years earlier.
“But you looked so beautiful, Hannah! Everyone said so.”
“I felt like a dork.”
“You did not. You spent the