Things I Want My Daughters to Know_ A Novel - Elizabeth Noble [37]
“What a bloody odd thing to say. Bored with you?” He looked puzzled. “Of course not. What a weird way to see it. It’s what people do, Jennifer. They fall in love, they get married, they have babies. We’ve been married. Babies are the next bit.”
There was a knock at the door.
“Shut up a minute, will you?”
Jennifer shut Stephen into the bathroom and, checking how she looked in the mirror, answered the door to room service. She fumbled in Stephen’s jeans pocket for a couple of dollars while the man set up trays at the table near the window, and smiled at him. “Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year, ma’am.”
“Great, I’m starving.”
Stephen had wrapped himself in a towel and came to grab a chip off his plate. Water dripped onto the tablecloth, and Jennifer picked up the hand towel she’d been using to dry her hair and ran it along his arm and shoulder. The touch was proprietary.
He pulled on his jeans and a T-shirt, kissed the top of her head, and sat down to eat in earnest.
“So, what do you think? Of Plan Baby…”
“You’ve sort of sprung it on me….”
“Okay, so I’ve sprung it on you. Tell me your thoughts, O careful, ponderous, nonspontaneous one….” His tone was affectionate, not cruel, but she felt just a little irritated. You couldn’t just spontaneously decide to have a baby. Could you?
“I thought we’d wait a bit more.”
“Why should we? We’re not that young. I’m making good money—you’d take maternity leave, go back when you wanted to…we’d have to tighten our belts a bit, if you didn’t want to or something, but we’d manage—millions do.”
Jennifer felt slightly railroaded. Of course they’d talked about kids. In the abstract, starry-eyed way you did when they were still some way off. And now Stephen had jumped tracks onto the express. She felt almost breathless.
“You are serious, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
“You really want this? It’s not some elaborate sort of foreplay?”
“Elaborate, and not, so far, terribly effective! I think I’d have done better with a couple of compliments and some ear nibbling, don’t you?! Course I want this. I love you.” He made it sound so simple.
That was better. She took a large bite from her burger and made him wait for a response until she’d finished the mouthful.
“I’m on the pill. You can’t get pregnant until you’ve stopped a few months.”
“Party pooper.”
“Realist.”
“If you got pregnant straightaway after that, we could still tell him he was conceived in New York on New Year’s Eve, couldn’t we?”
“Only if you’re planning to raise a kid—sorry, a son, clearly; very ‘my boy Bill’ of you, by the way—who can’t count and never gets past a rudimentary understanding of biology.”
“Okay, wise arse. You don’t half know how to piss on a man’s bonfire. But there’s nothing to stop us practicing, right. Doing it like we mean it…”
She laughed. “No, we can do it like we mean it. I thought we usually did.”
He stood up and went to sit on the bed, patting the mattress beside him.
“Come on, then.”
“You’ll get indigestion.”
“It’ll be worth it.”
“Don’t I even get my midnight champagne?”
“Honey—it’s ten thirty. You know me. You can have your champagne at ten forty. Now get over here….”
So they’d been laughing together, back when it all began. She remembered them laughing such a lot. That’s what had been so wonderful—after John. He’d been so bloody serious about everything, so earnest, and so thoughtful. Stephen was the polar opposite. The sex had been lighthearted and fun and good, although she was right about the indigestion, and he’d needed an antacid before the ball dropped in Times Square. And she was on the pill, so even though she’d agreed, or at least stopped disagreeing in principle, she knew they weren’t really trying for a baby that night. But that was when it had started. It had seemed wonderfully simple. He’d always been able to spin things that way, in those days.
HE’D WAVED HER PACKET OF PILLS AT HER A FEW DAYS LATER, back in England.
“Shall I get rid of these?”
“I suppose you better.”
“More practicing?”
“Get lost—I’ve got laundry to do, and you said you’d go