To Catch a Creeper by Ellie Campbell Page B

moves over towards mine then jerks back as if in shock. ‘Gosh, you really have, haven’t you? You stink of Kahlua. So he made a move on you? Tell all.’
    ‘Oh come on, you’re as bad as Alice. He just likes to keep his reputation intact. It’s all a front. He told me everything about it.’
    ‘And you believe him?’
    ‘Actually,’ I pull up a stool, ‘funnily enough I do. And he said there’s only one person he’s ever truly truly loved.’ I grin widely and give a little wink. ‘I’m pretty certain he was referring to you.’
    ‘Me?’
    ‘Come on, you might be all pregnant and bovine, but you can’t have forgotten how het up you were around the time you were renting our attic. “My boss, my married boss, he’s after me” you used to groan. “He’s got a crush on me and I’m not sure how to handle it”. And that’s the other curious thing, he isn’t married.’
    ‘That’s right.’ She smiles and switches on the kettle. ‘He isn’t.’
    ‘But you said he was.’
    ‘Oh, Cathy, you know how everything went a bit pear-shaped with us around then. I had to lie. You didn’t approve of Alec, thought he was stalking you and stealing yourbeer…and I don’t remember what I said. I just wanted to cover things up until I got my head straight. You lied as well, you know, making up friends you didn’t have.’
    ‘Only one,’ I say grumpily. ‘And she was
very
real to me. And far healthier than your imaginary friend
who was always sick
.’
    ‘Look, let’s make a solemn vow. No more lies between us, OK. Ever. Spit.’
    ‘Spit to you.’
    We spit and shake hands.
    ‘Now what do you think? Boy or girl?’ She stands up and turns her profile to me. ‘People say that if it’s sitting out front it’s a boy, but then if you vomit a lot it’s a girl because it’s the mother’s hormones mixing with the girl’s.’
    ‘But you’ve not been vomiting, have you?’
    ‘True. And it’s not sitting out front so that means…what?’
    ‘Dunno. Although apparently if you stop making love for a few days before ovulation, then the fastest swimming sperm, i.e. the boys, have piled into the front and so by the time the egg arrives, they’ve perished and only the future daughters remain. Do you remember having a break from sex at all, just before ovulation?’
    She laughs out loud. ‘Oh, Cathy. You do make me die. We’d only been going out together a matter of weeks when I conceived. We were shagacrazy.’
    I go all misty-eyed a moment before I remember the reason I’ve come here this afternoon. ‘Oh, but I’ve got the most
fabulous
news! Turks wants us to take on the RNW account!’
    ‘Oh.’ She wanders through to her lounge and I follow, eager for her reaction. She flops onto the sofa and stares hard at her toenails. I flop down next to her and wait, breath bated. Is she going to explode with happiness or…? Nothing happens.
    ‘Oh?’ I exhale eventually when my lungs can’t bear it any longer. ‘That’s all you can say, oh? The account we’ve been rooting for? The account you said was the best one in the world? The biggie? And how if we managed to wangle it, it’d be absolutely fantastico? The account we did all that visualisation for? And it’s just a lowly old oh?’
    She looks pained.
    ‘Oh… Ohh…’ She grimaces. ‘Ahh.’
    ‘Are you OK?’ I clutch at her arm. ‘Not the baby, is it? It’s not coming again, is it?’
    ‘No! Get Orf!’ She digs me in the ribs with her elbow. ‘You’re on my bloody leg.’
    I shift my bum over. ‘Sorry about that. But what’s wrong, Rosa? You don’t look, what’s the word? Exhilarated. Or anything?’
    ‘I should have told you.’
    ‘Told me what?’
    ‘Oh, Cathy, I hate to do this. I keep meaning to ring you, let you know.’ She hesitates, then her eyes close and her head drops. ‘I’m not coming back to work.’
    ***
    ‘What, ever?’ Henrietta gasps down the phone.
    ‘That’s what she said. The doctors advised her to have