Frontwards

Friday, January 13th, 2006

People say Friday the 13th is meant to be bad luck, but surely I've had enough of that already recently? It's not even two weeks into a brand new year and already I'm pregnant and stuck in a foreign country with no job and five men I don't even really know. I think I'm probably due some good luck some time about now. So I'm not too concerned.

Oh, Daisy, you optimistic fool.

I was told that when my mother had been pregnant with me, she had craved Skittles. My father used to say she ate so many Skittles that it was a wonder I hadn’t come out all the colours of the rainbow.
For me, though, it seems to be peanut butter, which I have never been too fussed about before. All of a sudden all I can think about is peanut butter. On toast, with chocolate, off a spoon, in a sandwich, it really doesn’t matter to me. I want it all.

By 10.15 this morning, I had devoured all of the peanut butter to be found in the house. But still I carried on in my vain search, like a crack addict looking for just one last fix. I couldn’t help myself. I was flinging open cupboard doors in my frenzy, rummaging desperately through the entire kitchen, even taking my chances in reaching all the way into the murky depths of the back of the fridge. But no such luck.

Mikey entered the kitchen to see me sitting with my head in my hands at the table, so distraught I was at being denied my only craving.

“Are you alright, Daisy?” he asked, somewhat nervously. I should mention now that Mikey is somewhat nervous around me these days. I don’t know if it’s the hormones or if he’s just as freaked out about the whole Alien bursting out of my belly thing or what, but he’s just noticeably on edge. Pregnancy stuff seems to make him very uncomfortable. And so he tiptoes around me. Which is kind of funny. And it’s cruel but it’s oh so amusing to screw with him.

I lifted my head and gazed deep into those hazel eyes of his. “I need peanut butter,” I said pathetically. “I have a craving.”

You could almost see him shudder at the word. Poor little Mikey. He didn’t quite know what to do with himself.

“Erm,” he said, his nose twitching, causing his glasses to bounce around on his face. “Do you want me to go get some from the store?”

My eyes lit up and I grabbed his hand. I’m sure he flinched. “That would be wonderful,” I replied, my eyes welling up with tears at the thought of his kindness.

He nodded and then turned to leave as quickly as possible. I gave a slight chuckle to myself. As he was exiting the room, Frank wandered in from the living room looking all bed-headed and shirtless and sexy. It annoys me when he does that. He just walks into a room and he looks so insanely ridiculously hot that it takes literally all of my self control not to wrestle him to the ground and fuck his brains out. It’s incredibly annoying, let me tell you. If I succumbed to all of these desires I’d never get anything done. And I am clearly a very busy woman these days. Ahem.

“Morning, beautiful,” he grinned, all casual and looking like the cat who got the cream, though heaven knows why. While scruffy hair may look irresistible on him, I’m sure it does me absolutely no favours combined with my squinty eyes through thick glasses and my skin has broken out in spots. Thanks, hormones. Thanks a bunch.

But somehow Frank didn’t seem to mind. He came over and gave me a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I don’t know. The things I would do for just a couple of minutes inside that brain of his.

“How did you sleep?” he asked, flicking on the coffee machine thingy. I couldn’t for the life of me remember what they were called. Defibrillator? No that doesn’t sound right. Procreator? Caffeinator? Damn it.

“Really well, actually,” I lied, trying to act all casual like he was when in fact I had had approximately 3 hours of solid sleep, interrupted every so often by ridiculous dreams and imaginary noises and guilt. I should have just let him sleep in the bed with me. Then I know I would have slept soundly. Because I always do when he’s there beside me. We don’t need to be cuddling or even touching. It’s just nice to hear his deep breaths and feel his warmth seeping across and know that I could reach over and touch him if I wanted to. But for some reason I didn’t say this because as you’ve probably figured out by now, my brain is not my ally. My brain is trying to sabotage every little thing that I do.

“Good,” he smiled, still fiddling with the coffee fascinator.

“How about you?” I asked, not really sure what answer would satisfy me.

He frowned at the coffee terminator and shrugged, pressing various buttons and whatnot. “I slept okay,” he replied. I think he was lying to make me feel less guilty about taking his bed. He muttered something under his breath and hit the top of the machine. “Damn percolator,” he grumbled.

“Percolator!” I repeated with satisfaction before I could help myself.

Frank gave me a strange sideways glance but he was smiling as well so I didn’t bother explaining myself. I just took a casual sip of my orange juice and slid as gracefully as I could (not gracefully at all) into a seat around the breakfast table.

After another couple of minutes hitting the coffee percolator and muttering profanities, Frank finally took a seat next to me with a hot cup of coffee in his hand. I glanced at him and once again marvelled at exactly how perfect-looking he is. Holy shit he’s hot.

He took a sip from his mug and then turned to me with a smile. “I was thinking today we could go visit my mom,” he announced.

I probably didn’t handle this as well as I’d have liked to. In fact I almost choked. This didn’t go unnoticed, but Frank only gave a short chuckle and drank some more coffee as he waited for me to give a more comprehensive response. It took me a while to gather some words and put them in a logical sequence.

“But won’t she think it’s a bit... You know. Weird? Can you really just turn up with some random British girl all like ‘Hey Mom this is Daisy, I know you probably think I’m still engaged to Saskia but I’m actually not and I’m having a baby with Daisy instead.’” I had imitated Frank’s voice to the best of my abilities but I’m not very good with accents so it sounded more like Goofy than anybody else.

Frank laughed again. “Daisy, relax.”

Well that’s all very well for you Frank because you could not really be more relaxed but I am not like you and I tend to worry about these things.

“I told my mom all about it already,” he shrugged, easy as anything. “She really wants to meet you.”

I blinked for several moments as I processed this. Frank gazed off and drank his coffee in silence.

Eventually I formed more sentences. “You told your mother about me? About...this?” He nodded. “All of it?”

He nodded again. “Of course I did, Daisy,” he smiled. “It’s quite an important thing to keep from your own mother.”

It was at this point exactly, and not a moment sooner, that I realised I had never even considered contacting my mother to tell her she was going to be a granny. Not once had that prospect ever crossed my mind. Our relationship was so damaged that I often forgot she was still alive and she was still my mother. My eyes started to well up.

Frank, who obviously could not read my psyche, nor had ever heard the story of my estranged mother, seemed to think that he had made me cry and put an arm around me.

“Daisy, are you okay?” he asked, all full of concern and beautiful. He kissed the top of my head and I sobbed and I couldn’t even tell him what was wrong so I let him carry on thinking it was about meeting his mother. “There’s no need to cry about it, silly. She won’t be mad at you. She’s lovely. She just wants to meet the mother of her first grandchild.”

None of this made me feel any better, of course, because that’s not even why I was crying. So I just shook my head and wiped my eyes and sniffed and tried to compose myself. “I’d love to meet her,” I said quietly and honestly. Perhaps she could be like a proper mother, I thought to myself. Perhaps we could be friends.

Frank gave me a funny look. “Are you sure? We don’t have to do it today if you don’t want to.”

I gave a short love. “Honestly, Frank, I’d love to,” I said. “I’m just a bit of a mess right now. Hormones and stuff. You’ll get used to it.”

I’m not sure why I didn’t take this perfect opportunity to tell him all about my own mother, who I hadn’t spoken to in approximately 4 years. It didn’t seem like the time. I’d tell him eventually. But not now. I’d made myself look damaged enough this morning, I thought.

Frank nodded slowly but didn’t seem too convinced. The poor bastard was probably just very confused. Thankfully I had hormones to take all of the blame. And also quite thankfully, Mikey returned from the shop at this exact moment with a tub of peanut butter and so I went to town on that bad boy and not another word was spoken about it.