The Guest List (3 page)

Heidi placed the pregnancy test back on the counter, feeling very impressed with herself. She was so calm about it all, so self-assured and confident. She had known deep down of course, had known for a very long time that she was destined to be a mother. From as long ago as childhood, really, when she used to push her immense doll collection around in her toy pram. She loved dressing them up in all the pretty little clothes, and styling their hair. Oh, she would be the most fantastic mother, Heidi reassured herself, thinking of all the fun that was sure to be had with a real baby. And unlike her own mother, she wouldn’t play favourites with her children. It was obvious to anyone with half a brain that goody-two-shoes Cara was the golden child in the Clancy family, despite Heidi being the youngest.

She bit her lip, and tried again not let such negativity creep in, concentrating instead on her happy news.

Heidi knew exactly when the conception had happened too. Six weeks ago, right in the middle of her cycle, just like the books advised. While it wasn’t the most romantic situation (Paul had been tired and rather unenthusiastic), it had got the job done and that was the most important thing, wasn’t it?

She couldn’t wait to tell everyone. And right away too, none of this waiting for three months or twelve weeks or whatever foolishness some people chose to subscribe to. Heidi wasn’t in the least bit superstitious. No, she would announce the big news straight away so she could make the most of every last minute of her pregnancy.

Six weeks pregnant.

She smiled at herself in the mirror as she patted her still flat tummy and remembered that her family was planning on getting together this coming weekend at her parents’ house for Sunday dinner. It would be the
perfect
time to share her news, and of course a family dinner ensured that she would have the undivided attention of everyone, all at the same time. She could only imagine the big fuss a new baby in the family would cause. There hadn’t been one for ages – not since Ben and Kim’s youngest daughter Lindsay was born. There had been some big commotion back then too surrounding the birth, but Heidi couldn’t remember much about it, as she didn’t trouble herself too much with Kim’s dramas. To say that she and her sister-in-law had little in common was putting it mildly. In fact, as she often said to Paul, as far as Heidi was concerned the only good thing to come of that marriage was her adorable nieces.

And thinking of Paul . . . Heidi couldn’t wait to see his face. Her beloved husband already treated her like a princess, but now he would treat her like an absolute queen. After all, she was carrying his child; she was the one responsible for giving life to his son or daughter.

Her mind flitted off in another direction at that thought. Which would she prefer? she wondered. A boy or a girl?

Her heart said girl so that she could dress her up in pretty little dresses and show her off, and of course when her little girl grew up they could be best friends.

But she didn’t really need to think about that just yet. Plenty of time – well actually seven short months or so – before she would have a tiny baby in her arms.

Once the baby arrived it would get plenty of attention, whereas right now was
her
time. In order to make sure the baby was safe and arrived healthy, it was Heidi’s responsibility to make sure she took good care of herself and, more importantly, made sure everyone else understood what was expected of them now that she was in a delicate condition.

Time to start with her husband.

Heidi turned toward the closed door of the bathroom with the pregnancy test in hand. She exited into the dark panelled hallway that led to the master bedroom, crossing it regally, as if she was a queen off to tell the king that she would be producing him an heir.

She turned on her heel at the door of the bedroom and walked down the hallway, head held high, shoulders back, walking slowly. After all, you never could be too sure when carrying such delicate and precious cargo . . .

She covered her tummy protectively with one hand.

Coming into the well-lit, high-ceilinged living room, she found Paul waiting obediently on the chaise longue across from where she stood. He looked at her hopefully and Heidi recognised awe and wonder on his face. Even he could see that she was already glowing.

‘Well?’ Paul asked, a half-smile on his face, eyebrows raised.

She took a deep breath, savouring the moment. Time to share her news with someone else. Time for her pregnancy to begin. He truly would be over the moon when he heard.

‘Yes, darling,’ she said dramatically, holding up the pregnancy test and feeling fully aware that this was exactly what was meant for her – this was precisely how her life was supposed to be. ‘I am indeed pregnant.’ She smiled. ‘You are looking at the mother of your unborn child.’

Cara woke early the next morning. Creeping out of bed while Shane slept, she glanced lovingly at him and blushed as she recalled the night before. The curry they’d ended up ordering from the local takeaway wasn’t the only thing that had been hot and spicy.

However, as she tiptoed into the bathroom to get ready for work, she couldn’t shake the feeling of confusion that now plagued her. They didn’t speak about weddings again last night after Shane had made the comment about how Audrey McCarthy’s tacky and overblown wedding ‘wouldn’t be them’, and Cara was still wondering what that meant.

Did it mean that a proposal would soon be forthcoming? Or that it would happen somewhere down the road? Worse yet, and while she couldn’t imagine this being the case, what if ‘that
won’t
be us’– meant them
not
getting married, ever?

She shook her head in an effort to banish her bleariness and try to clarify her thoughts. No, she thought, she wasn’t in a big hurry to get married and surely it wasn’t a case of ‘if’ but ‘when’? She reaffirmed her thoughts from the day before. When the time was right, Shane would ask and she would say yes.

She took a deep breath and tried to put the thought out of her mind, instead focusing on the day ahead. She had a mountain of work to get through for Octagon and thanks to the night before (and the fact that she was otherwise distracted), she hadn’t gone near any of the files that she had brought home with her.

Just as she was putting the finishing touches to her make-up, swiping her eyelashes with mascara, the bathroom door opened and Shane shuffled in, bleary-eyed, bare-chested and wearing pyjama bottoms covered in characters from
The Simpsons
.

‘Looks like someone had a rough night,’ she teased.

Shane smiled and leaned in to plant a kiss on her cheek. ‘Thanks to you, you little minx.’

She smiled. All too easy when Shane simply looked like
that
.

He pulled aside the shower curtain and started the water, waiting for it to heat up. As he removed his pyjama bottoms and jumped in, Cara was quick to throw an appreciative glance at his rear in the reflection of the mirror.

‘So,’ Shane said from the confines of the shower. ‘Do you have a busy day ahead?’

‘Yep’ Cara told him. ‘Conor handed me a pile of work before I left last night – which of course, simply adds to the pile that was already on my desk. I was hoping to get started on it last night but . . .’

‘Hmm, sounds like he’s working you a bit hard.’

‘Ah, you know Conor isn’t like that,’ she said quickly, anxious not to get into a conversation with him about her boss. ‘Still, I was hoping to have lunch with Kim later, but I’m not sure if I will have time for that now.’

Kim was Cara’s sister-in-law, married to her older brother Ben. While she had sisters of her own – the older Danielle and younger Heidi – Cara had felt closer to Kim since well before she married into the family, and by all accounts had more in common with her than she had with her own flesh and blood.

Of course, much of this had to do with the fact that Danielle had been living in Florida for as long as she could remember, and rarely returned for visits. Truth be told, Cara didn’t have too many memories of her older sister, as she’d moved out of the family home when Cara was still very young, first getting her own place in the city centre, and eventually moving onwards to the US.

The last time she saw Danielle, on her most recent visit home to Dublin a few years ago, it had looked as though her sister was doing her best to single-handedly support the American plastic surgery industry. By all accounts she enjoyed a fabulous life in south Florida, promoted by her wealthy boyfriend Zack and her own apparently successful career as a real estate agent.

Cara (or indeed any of the Clancy family) had never met Zack, but from what little they knew about him through Danielle, it seemed he was some kind of globetrotting aficionado with business interests in pretty much every sector in the US.

She knew her sister worshipped wealth, youth and material possessions and clearly she loved life in America too, as every time Cara spoke to her she thought she sounded like a character in some soap opera. She had developed a pronounced American accent over the years, now considered herself a ‘Floridian’ and sadly seemed all too happy to have left her Irish roots behind.

Cara never quite understood that part. Her parents Betty and Mick were great people, hard workers who had formed a quality life and built a family together. Cara felt that was something to be proud of in parents, not something to shun and hide the way Danielle did. Her parents weren’t flighty or superficial, and they certainly didn’t put on false airs and graces like Danielle did. Sometimes Cara couldn’t believe that she was actually related to her older sister, they were just so dissimilar.

And as for her younger sister Heidi . . . well, Heidi was almost a different species altogether. At twenty-seven, two years younger than Cara, she was the baby of the family and as such had always been spoilt rotten. Heidi was practised in getting her own way and, if ever she didn’t, there was hell to pay.

They all knew that Heidi, married now for just over a year, and evidently already bored with playing newlyweds, was currently dead set on becoming pregnant ASAP. When she was planning her wedding just over a year before, she’d been the ultimate bridezilla, and now the world revolved around her becoming a mother.

She probably wouldn’t be so spoilt if her husband would put his foot down with her occasionally, but he indulged and treated her like the princess she believed herself to be. Paul held a senior management position at one of the country’s biggest banks – one of the reasons (if not the only one, Cara sometimes thought) Heidi had pursued him so relentlessly when they first met.

Still, thanks to Paul’s income, Cara’s baby sister now lived in a fabulous home in one of Dublin’s most upmarket coastal suburbs, and didn’t have to worry her pretty little head about work. What Heidi did all day (other than obsess about getting married – and now getting pregnant) was a mystery.

Shane spoke again, bringing her thoughts back to the present. ‘Too much work to do to grab a bite with Kim?’ he asked. ‘Surely Conor doesn’t expect you to work through lunch too?’

‘He doesn’t expect anything of me other than to get through the work, which I plan to do,’ she said with an easy-going smile. ‘You keep forgetting, what I do isn’t the same as working with numbers –’ she teased, referring to his profession ‘– there are few absolutes.’

‘Ah yes, I sometimes forget that you creative types are a different breed altogether,’ he said, winking. ‘Honestly, though, don’t work too hard.’

‘I know; I’d prefer not to have to cancel – I was really looking forward to seeing Kim – but I honestly don’t think I can spare the time now. You know, we should really organise a night out with her and Ben, or at least arrange to get together for lunch or dinner some weekend. It’s been ages since I saw the girls.’

Kim and Ben were parents to Cara’s nieces, the lively and precocious Olivia and the inquisitive and curious Lindsay.

‘Good idea, why don’t you set up something soon? I’d like to see them all, too.’

Cara smiled. She was delighted that Shane got along so well with her family. While he wasn’t keen on Heidi and all her posturing, he was never anything but polite and respectful to her, something Cara herself had problems with when it came to her baby sister.

He also carried on a lively relationship with Ben and Kim, another reason Cara enjoyed spending time with her older brother and his wife.

And most importantly, her parents Betty and Mick adored the ground he walked on and vice versa. While Cara in turn had a good relationship with the Richardsons, she was always slightly intimidated by them, compared to the relaxed and easy-going rapport Shane enjoyed with her family. Cara anticipated that if they did get married themselves, those family ties would be the ones that would matter the most, especially when they had their own children. The thought brought her straight back to her confusion over the night before. Surely Shane wouldn’t set so much store by spending time with her family if he didn’t plan to be around for the long haul?

‘Shane?’ she said nervously to the shower curtain. She was reluctant to ask because she didn’t want to be viewed as some kind of marriage-obsessed psycho, but she knew that this would probably just eat at her for the rest of the day if she didn’t say something now. And she and Shane were usually straight with one another about anything that was on their minds.

‘Yes?’ He peeked his head out from one side of the curtain. He had suds in his hair that were streaming towards his eyes, and he brought a hand up to brush them away quickly.

‘Well, I was just wondering . . . look, it’s silly really, I know it is, but I just have to ask.’

‘Ask what, hon?’ he asked, squinting at her. Apparently some soap had made it into his eyes after all.

‘It’s stupid, but well . . .’

‘Cara, what is it?’ Shane reached a hand out of the shower and grabbed a towel, bringing it to his face and wiping it. He looked concerned.

‘Well, remember when you said last night that “it won’t be us” with regard to that stupid wedding invitation? Did you mean that it’s not going to be us because we aren’t materialistic and crazy like Audrey and her fiancé? Or that it’s not going to be us because you’re not just interested in getting married? To me, I mean.’