Page 86 of Did My Love Life Shrink in the Wash?
‘OK. Well, some women get spotting as their bodies adjust to the pregnancy. If the bleeding gets heavier or you get any cramping then call us again but your baby looks fine to me. The morning sickness should subside as your body gets used to all the extra hormones. Your blood sugar is low. Do you eat enough?’
I want to say that as a model, food is an alien concept.
‘I’ve had trouble keeping anything down. Beth told me to eat Tangfastics.’
The medical professionals look at me in disgust. I wasn’t telling her to eat those solely; as part of a balanced diet of course. If she’s just eating them, that baby will come out with some angry soured expression.
‘Well, just make sure you’re eating other things too. Did this happen with your other pregnancy?’ she asks, looking at Joe. He looks up from his stroller, big eyes like a lemur penetrating the gloom of the room.
‘Joe’s mine,’ I mutter.
‘Are you her partner then? Sister?’ she asks me, trying to work out our relationship. Shit. She thinks we’re either married or related. Talk about a total mismatch in terms of genes or coupling.
‘She’s my friend,’ Yasmin says.
Friend: an interesting definition of our relationship. I don’t know whether to correct her and just say we used to take the same number bus home when we were sixteen.
‘Well, you must be a very good friend to be here. Look after her. Lots of liquids and make sure she’s taking antenatal vitamins. Folic acid, in particular.’
I feel the need to salute this instruction as it dawns on me that I have been assigned follow-up ‘friend’ duties. They both leave, pulling the curtain behind them while Yasmin rubs the ultrasound jelly off her still enviably flat stomach.
‘I’m glad you’re OK,’ I say.
Silence. She seems a bit sheepish, at a loss for words.
‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ she says finally. ‘No one’s ever, I mean…I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing.’
‘Well, it wasn’t nothing. You were scared, emotional.’
She runs her tongue along the top of her teeth, almost like I’m shaming her for feeling something about this incident, this pregnancy.
‘Is Jethro on tour?’ I ask her, curious why he isn’t here instead of me.
Her nostrils flare and her face quivers with emotion.
‘Jethro moved out. With Dicky. About a fortnight ago now.’
‘Oh.’
Simple maths tells me that was around the time of the shoot. Has she been carrying this on her own since then?
‘What about…your family?’
‘I…I haven’t told my family yet. And all my friends are’ – she pauses to find a word – ‘they wouldn’t be interested.’
‘I think if you were sick or hurt, they might want to know.’
She shakes her head sternly. ‘No one needs to know.’
That puts me in my place. Is this her way of telling me that I’m supposed to remain tight-lipped?
‘I haven’t told anyone, if that’s what you’re implying.’
‘No. I meant my friends are different to you. They wouldn’t care,’ she says, ruefully. ‘To be fair, I don’t have many friends. Real friends.’
‘What about Kelly Taylor from school? You went out for lunch with her the other day.’
I realise that’s evidence I’ve been stalking her on social media.
