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‘Hello, Joe,’ Celeste purrs, arm slipping slightly from around her husband’s shoulders.
‘Douglas Battenberg,’ announces Douglas, doing his meet and greet. ‘Great to see another fellow here. Not that I don’t support women of course. The pay gap is very high up on my agenda.’
Is this man ever not canvassing?
Joe, I now realise, has not taken his eyes off me as he says a rather curt hello to Douglas. Is he put out that I’m not fawning all over him as well?
‘Sophie, isn’t it?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’ I nod. It comes out a smidge more spiky than I’d anticipated and his eyebrows shoot skyward.
‘I’m Joe, Sidney’s dad,’ he says, and another mum makes a cooing sound at this. ‘Don’t think we’ve met? I usually only do Thursday pick-up.’
That explains Thirsty Thursdays. This bunch of perverts are thirsty for Joe! I assume Joe’s introducing himself in the hope that he can add me to his list of mum fans. Well, not today, pal!
‘Oh, you two haven’t met?’ Celeste butts in, resting one hand on my arm and the other on Joe’s. I swear he flinches briefly before that charming veneer settles back on his face. Meanwhile I’m so stunned by the physical contact from Mum No. 1 that I feel pinned to the spot. ‘Actually, Susie, I was thinking about you just last night.’
There’s an awkward pause before I realise that she’s talking to me.
‘It’s Sophie,’ I correct.
‘Douglas has been away for the past four nights,’ she explains, talking loudly enough so that everyone can hear. ‘Can you imagine? And it made me think of poor Susie.’
‘Sophie,’ I repeat. Also, not poor?
‘Of course! I thought, I know what it’s like to be a single mum. Douglas works such long hours. We have the nanny to help out but gosh, it’s a struggle, isn’t it? Doing everything on your own. I totally get it, Sophie. I see you.’
I stare, mouth open, unsure what to say but Celeste doesn’t seem to mind this. She turns to Joe and adds: ‘You too, of course. The single dad of our little group! I can totally relate to you guys.’
No, you can’t! You literally have no clue! I’m outraged and teeing up the ways in which I can explain to Celeste that having a nanny and a husband around is the farthest of cries from being a single working parent.
But Joe beats me to it with a shrug.
‘Nah,’ he says. And I wait with bated breath, assuming that Joe – didn’t know he was a solo parent too – is about to explain exactly how difficult it can be. What a relief to find someone in the same boat as me! Maybe, just maybe, if I can get past his cockiness, we could find ourselves some common ground after all?
And then Joe stops my thought process dead with a killer one liner.
‘It’s easy.’
Sorry, what?
I turn to glare at Joe and my initial first impressions harden into stone-cold dislike. What a complete tool. It’s not ‘easy’! It’s relentless.
‘Oh Joe,’ and Celeste smiles at him. ‘Of course, you do make it look easy. You’re probably right, and let’s not forget that most of us have two children now. It’s so different when you make the step from one to two.’
I’m casting around for a bludgeoning instrument while Celeste continues.
‘What with running the PTA and all of my charity work I sometimes find that I miss putting Oscar and baby Otto to bed too. The other night I simply could not escape a charity gala on time and poor Oscy was in tears when I got in. Of course I had to have a good talk with the nanny after that, she knows very well that his bedtime is seven p.m. and no later.’
‘Try three kids,’ Frankie chimes in, a toddler hanging off her arm and her baby now decidedly grizzly. ‘It’s a horror show.’
‘Mmm, indeed.’ Celeste wrinkles her nose. ‘Two was enough for us. I was desperate to get my body back. Don’t worry, Frankie, you’ll get there eventually.’
Oh my god! This woman! I want to leap to Frankie’s defence but we’re interrupted by the children coming out of their classroom.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Joe grabbing sweets out of his back pocket and remember what Lila said to me earlier this morning about Sidney’s dad. I’d silently deduced that he was a dickhead and now, after our first meeting, I congratulate my razor-sharp observation skills.
Chapter 3
