Chapter Eleven
Lisa pulled on to Felicity’s driveway and the front door flew instantly open. Felicity met Lisa at her van, clearly attempting to contain a grin that didn’t want to be contained.
Lisa shut the van door. ‘I haven’t got long. I told Nathan you’d locked yourself out in your underwear.’
‘Wait. What? Why did you say I was in my underwear?’
‘Because he offered to comefor me, and I had to think of a reason why it had to be me who came to let you in.’
‘But you don’t have a key. Why don’t you have a key? I’ll get you one cut.’
‘That’s not the point. Nathan doesn’t know that; have you seen my bunch of keys?’
They headed for the front door.
‘Right. Right.’ Felicity stopped. ‘If I was in my underwear, how come I had my phone?’
‘I don’t know,Nathan didn’t ask me. If he does, I’ll say you were in the garden trying to get a better signal or something.’
‘Good plan. Why couldn’t Sue or the children let me in?’
‘Flick, calm down, we’re not trying to find an alibi for a murder. You told me to make an excuse to come over and I did.’
They continued towards the front door.
‘Good point. OK. It’s just, I’m excited for you andnervous.’
Lisa could tell Felicity was trying and failing to rein her excitement in.
‘I mean, are you OK? Do you feel all right? I don’t mean physically, but … oh, you know what I mean.’
Lisa looked at Felicity. ‘I don’t know how I feel. Let’s just get the test done and see then.’
‘Sure.’
Felicity led Lisa inside. She said a fleeting hello to Sue, who was sitting between Callumand Fred on the sofa. The boys had wet hair and were in their pyjamas, entranced by something on CBeebies. Upstairs Megan was reading on her bed while Alice was playing with her Barbies. Lisa said hello to them while Felicity told them Lisa was round to borrow some clothes and that they shouldn’t come in the bedroom because she might be getting changed.
Alice looked at them sceptically. ‘Won’tyour clothes be too big for Lisa, Mummy?’
‘Cheeky!’ Felicity put her hand to her mouth, causing Alice to giggle.
‘I’m going out and I need room to eat a big dinner.’ Lisa pulled at the waistband of her jeans.
Felicity looked at Lisa, her eyes wide.
As they pulled Alice’s door to, Lisa whispered, ‘Sorry. It’s the first thing that popped into my head. I didn’t mean—’
‘Shut up,you daft cow. I’m not offended.’
‘You’re the second person to call me daft this week.’
‘Hmm, might be something in that, then.’ Felicity laughed as she led Lisa into her room and began rummaging in her drawer for the test.
Lisa sat on the bed. Now she was actually at Felicity’s and about to do the test, she felt silly. Of course she wouldn’t be pregnant. Like Melissa, she had beenjumping to conclusions based on scant evidence. But she knew she wouldn’t be able to move on and get it out of her mind unless she did the test. She fiddled with the edge of the duvet cover. ‘You’ve finally got Alice playing something other than doctors. That’s good.’
‘Don’t let appearances fool you. She’s probably diagnosed all of those Barbies with something. Either that or she’ll be amputatingtheir limbs as soon as we go downstairs.’ Felicity took the test out of the drawer.
Lisa attempted to push away thoughts of the last time she had seen a pregnancy test, when it had confirmed she was pregnant with her little Pip. The memory was still raw.
