Page 33 of Matilda’s Summer of New Beginnings

What the hell? They’d lied to me?

‘But a couple of days ago, the fashion editor decided to do an interview with Damien to go with the photos as a quick filler to use up some spare space they had. They’ve decided he’s one of these up-and-coming talents: artist, model, that sort of thing. And one of the questions was did he have a significant other. And he said yes.’

‘Rosie!’ I was horrified. ‘Has he been leading you on? Has he actually got a girlfriend somewhere we don’t know about?’

‘No! No, not at all.’ There was a hitching sort of sob. ‘It’s me. Me! I’m the significant other. He mentioned me.’

I was utterly confused. Why on earth was she so upset then? I mean, I was the one who was feeling a little thrown by the fact they’d had a secret holiday last weekend.

‘If it’s what you wanted to hear, why are you so upset then?’ I asked, possibly more sharply than I should have done.

‘Because . . .’ There was an extra loud wail. ‘Because he told them all our news. So the whole world knows before you. And I don’t want you to find out from reading a column in Darling! I mean, it’ll be bad enough finding out from me, but I have to tell you, and I’m really going to have to tell you now . . .’ She hitched another sob. ‘That’s why he’s been over at our place so much. That’s why you saw him in his boxers. He was sleeping in my room. But he was tired, and he’d wandered into yours on autopilot.’

Wow — that was a bit of a surprise. I mean, if I thought about it, I maybe should have guessed, I suppose. I also had to let it sink in that we had actually swapped rooms two whole months ago . . . whoa.

I bet she was the one who had converted him to granola.

And I bet he was the one who had put a berry face on her breakfast that morning.

I could feel my expression turn incredulous as I processed it all. Damien and Rosie? It just didn’t make sense. They’d been there, done that, and both said they’d never do it again. She’d said it was weird dating a friend — and he’d said, in an unguarded moment, that they had mutually ended it, and he was glad. Apparently, he’d rather cut his losses at that point than be dumped later and maybe lose their friendship in the process.

However, the rational part of me knew that they were adults. And as much as Damien was entirely not my type, maybe he’d suddenly become Rosie’s? And maybe he wasn’t afraid of being dumped this time? And yeah. I wasn’t going to find out that stuff by reading Darling! Because I didn’t read it anyway.

‘Wow.’ I said, ‘And he blabbed it all over your magazine.’

‘That’s not all he blabbed,’ she said.

I tried to make a joke of it to make her feel better. ‘Oh, let me guess.’ I grinned into the phone as I spoke. ‘You’re pregnant and you’re getting married and you’ll be living together just as soon as humanly possible.’

‘Yes. That’s exactly it,’ she said miserably. ‘Exactly.’

What the hell? That was a joke! A joke!

I stared at the phone, my palms suddenly so sweaty that I feared I was going to drop the thing.

‘Really?’

‘Really,’ she confirmed. ‘I didn’t want you to find out this way, and I’m going to kill Damien. I really am.’

‘But — what about your family? You’ll have to tell them. Why are you telling me?’

I thought of Jay, and Mr and Mrs Rivers, and thought of them not knowing this bombshell about their daughter.

‘Because you are the closest person to the pair of us,’ she replied sadly. ‘And you’re not stupid. If you’d read the article, you would have known straight away. We can’t keep anything from you — nothing like this, anyway. And my family don’t read the magazine. They pretend they do, but they don’t. I can tell them later, once the dust has settled. Just please don’t say anything to Jay.’

‘You kept your relationship secret,’ I said, ignoring the comment about Jay, and yes, feeling slightly guilty that I didn’t read Darling! either, even though Rosie clearly thought I did. Who was I to disillusion her on that one? ‘You and Damien — it’s obviously been going on longer than a couple of weeks. For fuck’s sake, you’re pregnant! That takes more than a day to discover.’

‘I’m just a little bit pregnant,’ she said defensively. No such thing, I wanted to scream. ‘Just about six weeks. We’ve been together properly about three months,’ she said. ‘But it’s escalated much more quickly than we thought. I guess we did all the getting to know each other stuff first time round.’

‘Clearly. So all those times Damien stayed on the sofa, it wasn’t really the sofa?’

‘No.’

‘And all those work nights out . . .’

‘. . . Weren’t really work nights out.’

‘Okay.’ I didn’t know what to say. I felt a bit betrayed. And I needed some time away from the pair of them to get my head around this new development. Going out with each other was one thing — getting married and having a baby was different.