The Restaurant Scene

"Go on, your turn," she nudged his leg with her toe under the table.

He looked around for a moment. "Ok… I have never… been to Sweden."

She laughed. "What and you think I have?"

"Er…" he stumbled.

"Just drink," she told him firmly. "Right. I have never…"

"It's not easy, is it?" he teased as she faltered. "Trying to think of something."

"Shut up," she grinned. "Ah! I've got one: I have never lost a bet to Gerry Standing!"

"Oh whatever," he smiled as he reached for his glass. Wincing as he remembered the bet he'd made when fishing with the boys last weekend. And lost. "Anyway, are you sure about that?"

She thought for a moment and frowned at him. "Actually, no I'm not sure!" she laughed and took a sip from her glass of water. They'd decided to go out for dinner that night, give Mia a bit of space and stay at hers. Well, he'd decided they were going to go out, the rest had just sort of fallen into place. She still hadn't figured out even the first notion of how she was going to tell him what she needed to; she'd managed to put it to the side of her mind since returning to the office Friday afternoon, then rushing about getting ready to go to Brian's, then by being at Brian's… basically it was there, at the side of her mind, never being fully brushed away by whichever task or event she consciously focused her concentration on.

"Sandra?"

"Hmm? Oh, sorry, yes, the mushrooms, thank you."

She savoured the slightly sweet scent coming off the mushroom starter and enjoyed the tangy flavour on her tongue.

"Nice?" Rob raised his fork, pausing before attacking his prawn cocktail. He had absolutely no plan, he realised. He'd spent close to an hour in the jewellers on Friday afternoon choosing the perfect ring. Less than five minutes deciding that he'd take her out on the Saturday night and ask her then. And now here they were sat in the restaurant; and he realised he hadn't given a passing wave to the idea of what he was going to say.

The starters cleared and the mains began; neither were any closer to the crossroads they needed to be at. Perhaps neither of them really wanted to disturb what had been so easy and so relaxed so far. Perhaps when everything had been changing around them so fast, neither of them wanted to disturb what had been their only solid point of certainty. Both were lost in their thoughts; both lost in the previous day's afternoon.

Would this be an engagement ring, sir?

Er..Yes. Yes it would.

Two months.

What sort of thing did you have in mind, sir?

Er... … … …

Nothing specific then, sir?

Er.. … … no. Just something… … a ring.

His palms had been sweating. It had felt as though he'd drank seven pints before he'd even got to the point of deciding to go to the shop and then another half a dozen to send him on his way. Usually he'd be on gin and tonics after eight.

I know that this has come as a shock, Miss Pullman…

Does the lady prefer gold or silver?

Er.. … she has blue eyes?

I think you need to talk to your partner, you do…?

Yes, of course she did. Well, technically, the doctor hadn't known that for definite so the question had been legit. Even if it had incensed her. Most of the appointment had passed in a blur of words though; jumbled words, all of which she'd heard before and could apply meanings to; but couldn't yet comprehend their link to herself. That was probably why she couldn't figure out how to tell him. She'd barely told herself.

"Are you alright?" he studied her meticulously; she'd matched his own quietude while they'd been eating and, quite unlike Sandra, she had merely been toying with the glass of white wine, favouring instead the water with her meal.

She managed to tear her eyes away from the napkin to the side of her half-eaten plate of curry to realise that concern was etched all over his handsome features. Well, she reasoned, she couldn't lie to him.

"Not really, no," she arranged the cutlery side by side on the plate and pushed it away from her slightly.

He sat patiently. At least that's how it seemed to her. Fear gripped his heart as he waited for her to continue. By the normal rules of conversation, it was his turn to speak; but he had no words. If something was worrying her, he wanted to know, he wanted to help. He knew, the rational part of him did anyway, that she'd had something on her mind for weeks now. The irrational part of him, the part that still acted like his brash and rash fifteen year old self, panicked. And realised that his proposal was potentially about to be sidelined, turned down before he'd put it, before he'd even come up with the words, it was over…

"I'm pregnant," she glanced up at him shyly then returned her gaze to the napkin that had seemed so interesting before. The words echoed in her mind. Simple, to the point. Not assuming, light. The words that were going to ruin everything…

A plethora of emotions took him at once, resulting in a rapid succession of blinks before asking her to repeat what she had just said. Surely she hadn't just said…

"I'm pregnant, well, yeah," she trailed off as she choked on finding anything more to say. She'd known it, if she was honest. Rubbish. It could have been any of a number of things making her throw up. Maybe some far corner of her mind had figured it out while the rest of her cognitive abilities had been giving her more reasonable explanations.

"Are you sure?" he asked carefully. He was split between three chains of heavily firing thoughts; how did she feel? How did he feel? Had she really just said what he'd heard? "I mean, have you taken a test?"

She nodded. She could barely meet his eye. "Six," she said quietly.

He couldn't help but laugh. Even when she fixed her sternest eye upon him; frowning as though she couldn't see the joke.

"I'm sorry," he spluttered at last. He needed to pull himself together, she wasn't laughing with him. "I'm sorry… Six?"

"Yeah," she smiled bashfully. It was pretty funny, she supposed.

"Why six?" he asked. In the filing department of his brain, the little minions were happily finding homes for the scraps of observations and worrying behaviour that he hadn't been able to explain, but now he could.

She shrugged. "I wanted to be sure. I mean, at my age, it might have been, something else," she shuddered, remembering Gerry's joke about 'the Change' (she had heard it). "But I went to the doctors yesterday and he confirmed it."

"Pregnant?" he whispered. Quietly he was beginning to register and respond to the emotions that had hit him like a landslide, he smiled gently as he reached across the table to take her hand.

She nodded, wrapping her fingers around the hand he'd placed on hers. She could meet his eye now, she tried to read his reaction. She wasn't even sure of her own at that moment in time. She couldn't get her head around it. She felt guilty, she'd relied on him so much in the last few weeks; sure she'd repaid some of that when he'd been blaming himself for being a terrible father, but in no way was the debt repaid. And now she was looking to him again, to tell her what to do, what to think, how to feel. He smiled. She wasn't sure that her own reply was as sincere however.