After the Party

by Cassie Hamer

  She kissed Ben on the cheek and he looked at her with such devotion that Lisa nearly averted her eyes. Every time she saw Ben and Jamie together she felt like doing a happy dance. It was thrilling to see a couple so happy with each other and so in love. To think her sister had come within hours of marrying the wrong man—it sent a chill down Lisa’s spine. Ben was the man for her sister. They were partners in life, and in business, a fact that lit a pilot light of jealousy in Lisa’s heart, for much as she loved Scott, she knew that working with him would be a sure-fire ticket to the couch of a relationship counsellor. There were some things couples simply weren’t meant to do together. But Jamie and Ben seemingly knew no obstacles to their partnership. Since Angel’s departure, they’d taken Spin from strength to strength. Certainly Jamie bore the title of Managing Director but as she was so fond of telling everyone, she was nothing without her right-hand man, the man who also happened to be the love of her life. (Of course, she kept the second bit from clients. Sleeping with one’s assistant sounded so much worse than it actually was.)

  Lisa clinched Ben and Jamie in a three-way hug. ‘I love you guys.’

  ‘Ow.’ Jamie pulled away. ‘Your stomach’s squashing me.’

  ‘What she means is—you look fantastic, Lisa.’ Ben gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Always on the job, this guy. Massaging truths everywhere.’ Jamie looked hungrily at Ben. ‘Never stops,’ she murmured.

  ‘Oh you two should get a room. You’re making me blush.’

  Lisa moved away as Ben and Jamie started nuzzling like randy thoroughbreds. A flutter went off in the lower part of Lisa’s tummy—not the baby but something far more basic. It made Lisa blush to even admit it—but she was feeling hornier than a viking’s helmet. The same thing had happened when she was pregnant with Ava and Jems, and apparently it was common for many women. One of mother nature’s little jokes, she supposed, to raise a woman’s libido just as it became nearly logistically impossible to make love, with the tummy and everything.

  ‘You know you want it, don’t you?’ whispered a sultry voice into her ear. Lisa swung around to find Heather looking very pleased with herself.

  ‘Heather, hi! Thank you so much for coming,’ stammered Lisa as she leant in for a kiss.

  ‘Oh, you look like you’re gagging for it.’ Heather clapped her hands.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Lisa, taking in the leopard-print singlet-top that had squeezed Heather’s breasts into juicy, mountainous perfection. Oh it was unbearable! Now the pregnancy hormones were turning her into a lesbian.

  ‘The cake of course! What else?’ Heather took her over to the kitchen table. ‘I remember simply dying for sugar when I was about to give birth to Savannah-Rose.’ She stood proudly in front of the most gorgeous cake Lisa had ever seen—three-tiered and coated entirely with the most delicately piped white rosettes.

  ‘Oh, it’s even nicer than my wedding cake!’ Lisa gasped.

  ‘Pierre outdid himself this time.’ She leant in. ‘And under all that buttercream is the richest, most moist dark chocolate mud cake you’ve ever tasted in your life.’

  At the word ‘moist’, Lisa lost it and the two women groaned in unison.

  ‘It looks utterly delicious.’ She hugged Heather tightly, trying to ignore the feeling of squished boobs against her own rapidly expanding bosom, until a thought struck her. ‘But where’s the cake I made for Ava?’

  Heather sniffed. ‘Hon, that cake you made last year made even the dog sick.’ She put a consoling hand on Lisa’s arm. ‘It’s about knowing your strengths, babe. I make a mean martini but I cannot make a cake to save myself, so I call in the experts and give precisely zero shits about doing so.’ She made an ‘O’ with her fingers.

  Lisa giggled. This was what she loved about Heather, the fact that she was entirely unapologetic for who she was. Together, they’d developed a Friday afternoon ritual of congregating at Heather’s house for ‘drinkie-poos’ where they would workshop the highs and lows of the week over peach Bellinis. Now that the drinks were non-alcoholic, in deference to the pregnancy, Heather had renamed them ‘pussy-tails’—cocktails for pussies. But the tradition had continued and Lisa could always rely on her friend to launch an outrageous rant about a particularly frivolous first-world problem … Lisa, you will NOT believe this but Net-a-Porter had the hide to charge me GST on my new Prada bag because it cost over $1000. That’s an extra 10 per cent! I can’t believe the unfairness … and on she would go for a few more minutes, gradually slowing down, like a wind-up toy in need of another wind. Oh god, I’m a self-entitled bitch, aren’t I? is how she would end, to which Lisa would calmly nod her agreement and the conversation would move on with a clinking of glasses. Cheers to self-awareness, Heather would say. My Buddhist therapist says it’s the pathway to enlightenment. But she’s so fucking zen about everything.

  ‘You’re hilarious and I love you,’ said Lisa dreamily, draping herself over Heather, who stiffened in response.

  ‘Your baby just kicked me in the boobs.’

  ‘Oh gosh, I’m sorry.’

  ‘No sweat, hon. The silicone softened the blow.’ And off Heather sailed in the direction of the cutlery drawer. ‘Getting a knife so we can gorge on this thing,’ she called over her shoulder.

  As Lisa ogled the cake (Heather was right. She did need it. If she couldn’t have sex, then excess sugar would have to do) she felt a warm little hand creep into her own.

  ‘Ellie, sweetie.’ Lisa gave her a quick hug and took in her pale, solemn face. ‘Darling, what’s wrong?’

  ‘I’m worried about your tummy,’ she said seriously.

  ‘It’s a bit of a worry to me too, hon.’ Lisa patted it. ‘But I know it’ll get smaller when the baby’s born.’

  ‘But how will he fit through your belly button?’ said Ellie, closely inspecting Lisa’s mountainous girth.

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Ava did. She said your tummy button opens up like a little door and the baby just pops out like a lolly coming out of a machine.’ Ellie frowned. ‘But your baby is so big, there’s no way he could get through such a small hole.’

  ‘Oh, honey.’ Lisa leant down and put her arm around Ellie’s shoulder. ‘That’s not quite how it works.’

  ‘Then how does it work?’

  ‘How does what work?’ Missy was holding a tray of sausage rolls, which she offered to Lisa.

  Oh, Missy! Just in the nick of time.

  Lisa rose, put her hand on Missy’s shoulder and leant in. ‘I think someone needs a little chat about the birds and the bees.’

  Missy nodded, a small smile playing at her lips. ‘I think I can manage that.’ She took Ellie’s hand. ‘What do you want to know, El?’

  ‘Mummy, how will Lisa’s big baby get out of her belly button?’

  ‘He won’t,’ said Missy matter-of-factly. ‘He’ll come out of her vagina.’

  At the mention of the ‘V-word’, Lisa clutched the bench, but Ellie simply said, ‘Ooooh,’ as if everything now made perfect sense.

  ‘El, why don’t you go play with Ava and Savannah-Rose? I think they’re outside, playing pin-the-needle-on-the-cloth-nappy.’

  ‘Okay, Mummy.’ And off she trotted like a little, obedient lamb.

  ‘Such a special little girl,’ said Lisa, gazing after her.

  ‘I know, right?’ Missy sighed. ‘Especially with such a loser for a father.’

  Thanks to the hair salon showdown, Kyle was now ten months into a fifteen-year jail sentence for attempted kidnap. Happily, the courts took a particularly dim view of parolees who dived straight back into crime and then tried to take a child at gunpoint. Kyle would be well into his forties before he could wear anything but green tracksuits and even when he got out, Missy was confident he would do no harm to her or Ellie. Not if he valued his own life. In that regard, old Mr Ivanov had proved particularly useful. Through the post office box, Missy had sent newspaper clippings from the trial which detailed the terrifying eve
nts of the hair salon confrontation. Obviously, Mr Ivanov got the message, for one day on her way to work a dark car pulled up beside Missy and from within the murky darkness came a familiar Russian voice. Missy. But with Mr Ivanov’s accent it sounded more like Meesy.

  ‘Meesy, my dahlink. You and your myshka. You no worry. I take care of your ex. That scum. Pfft.’ With a small spit, the window wound up again and the black car roared away, leaving Missy with heart palpitations that soon slowed into regular beats. From digging around, she’d learnt that Ivanov was a much bigger deal than Kyle in the criminal world, and if he said Missy and Ellie weren’t to be touched, they wouldn’t be. Even Kyle wasn’t dumb enough to take on a Russian mafia boss.

  ‘Missy, at some point you have to forgive yourself.’ Lisa patted her back. ‘We all make mistakes and you have more than made up for yours by being the best mother I know.’

  Missy’s face brightened. ‘You mean that?’

  ‘I do,’ said Lisa confidently. ‘You know, if it wasn’t for you and Ellie I wouldn’t be having this baby.’

  Missy looked puzzled. ‘Lise, even I know enough about the birds and bees to know that babies aren’t made by little girls and their mums. This is all your and Scott’s doing.’

  ‘I know that, silly.’ She gave Missy’s arm a playful flick. ‘But what you showed me is that a mother’s love is endless. It doesn’t have to stop at two children. The heart grows to accommodate all it needs to.’

  ‘So, you’ll still have time for Ellie and me when little Master Wheeldon comes along?’ Missy looked nervous.

  ‘Of course I will,’ she said, wrapping Missy in the warmest hug she could muster. A hug she hoped said You are like family to me.

  ‘Coming through, ladies!’ At the sound of Heather’s very loud and commanding voice, Lisa and Missy sprang apart. The woman was wielding the largest knife in Lisa’s cutlery drawer and her grin was so wide it appeared to glint off the blade. ‘Cake time, kids!’ she bellowed in a voice that triggered a stampede of footsteps into the kitchen.

  As Heather started lighting the candles, Lisa took in the faces around her. Scott, valiantly trying to put his arm around her non-existent waist. Ben and Jamie canoodling. Ava, Jemima, Ellie and Savannah-Rose gazing expectantly on the cake with the candle-flame making their big eyes shine even more brightly than usual. Missy, smiling and looking into Lisa’s eyes in a way that made her feel they were part of a secret club that only they would ever understand. A club where it was understood that a perfect mother was not one who produced Instagram-worthy parties, or dressed their children in a way that made them look at home in a Ralph Lauren catalogue. No. The perfect mother was the one who loved her child with all her heart and did whatever was necessary to keep them safe. Simple as that.

  ‘All right, how about we have Ava and Lisa blow out the candles together?’ Heather stood back. ‘Though I’m not quite sure where you’re fitting air into that body of yours.’

  Lisa took as deep a breath as her squeezed lungs could muster, and blew with all her might. As the flames flickered, there was a watery splat on the floor.

  Everyone looked down.

  ‘God, don’t tell me the dog got into the other cake again,’ Heather groaned and peered more closely. ‘Wait! Why are my Manolos wet! And yuck—they’re slimy. Lisa—you didn’t, did you?’

  As a searing pain went through Lisa’s belly, hot and sharp as a blade, her grip on the knife tightened. ‘Wait, I’m okay. Just give me a second.’ She doubled over, puffing and panting and telling herself to visualise the pain as the Harbour Bridge, rising to a peak, then falling away. Everyone watched her, open-mouthed.

  The pain had gone. Lisa stood up, knife at the ready. ‘All fine. Just one of those super-intense phantom pains—a Braxton Hicks I think.’ She waved the blade airily at the concerned faces surrounding her. ‘All fine. Now who wants some—’ She gripped the bench again. ‘Cake. Oh no. Actually. Wait.’ Another contraction gripped her belly, even more intense than the first. ‘Nope, sorry. Not a Braxton Hicks after all.’ She put the knife down and doubled over again. ‘Ava, honey,’ she gasped from below the bench. ‘Next year, I think you’re going to be sharing your birthday with another little Wheeldon.’

  Scott was at her side, white as the icing. ‘Oh gosh. You mean—’

  Lisa grinned weakly as the contraction started to fade. ‘I do. My hospital bag’s next to the bed, hon,’ she called as Scott scooted up the stairs.

  ‘Shit, Lise. Is there anything we can do?’ Jamie rushed to her side as the pain began to mount in her belly again.

  ‘Just stay and look after the girls,’ she exhaled.

  ‘I’ll stay too,’ volunteered Missy.

  ‘Me as well,’ said Heather.

  Leaning on Ben and Jamie, Lisa staggered into the garden as Scott charged ahead to start the car.

  ‘Oh wow, so on this day next year you’ll be celebrating your baby boy’s first birthday and Ava’s seventh,’ said Ben in amazement.

  ‘How the hell are you going to manage that, Lise?’ said Jamie, opening the car door for Lisa to lower herself into the seat. ‘Two parties on one day.’

  As another contraction took hold of her stomach, Lisa looked at the concerned faces above her. ‘I have no idea,’ she said, smiling widely through the pain. ‘But I can’t wait to try.’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Writing these acknowledgements is a ‘pinch-me’ moment. It is such a thrill and a privilege to be in a position of being able to express my overwhelming gratitude to the many people who have helped bring After the Party into the world. You have made my dreams come true!

  Firstly, to editor and writer extraordinaire Kim Swivel. Kim, I asked you for a manuscript assessment and you gave me an annotated manuscript, along with a full report. Such a generous gift! The story wouldn’t be what it is now without your initial input.

  Finding a publisher is a bit like blind dating—sometimes you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find ‘the one’—but with Jo Mackay, the moment we sat down together, I knew my book had found ‘the one’. Your support and encouragement has given me much needed confidence, and your insightful feedback has made this into a much better book. Many, many thanks.

  Johanna Baker—I don’t know how many unsolicited manuscripts come across your desk, but thank you for spotting mine in the pile, and for being its first ‘champion’. I struck the lottery when you laid eyes on this story, and loved it.

  To the wider Harlequin/Harper Collins family—James Kellow, Sue Brockhoff, Darren Kelly and all in sales, marketing, publicity and design—you have been so warm in your welcome and generous in your enthusiasm. A special shout-out to the cover fairies for giving me the smashed cupcake of my dreams, and also to the editorial team—co-ordinator Annabel Blay, editor Alex Craig and proofreader Annabel Adair—for the gentle yet attentive editing. It wasn’t half as scary as I was expecting!

  Writing can be a solitary business, but what I have discovered is that there is a community of writers out there who are warm, witty and wise. I am so pleased to be among your ranks. Thank you for the inspiration and solidarity. Also, to the readers and booksellers of this world: you are a special bunch, and I thank you for making this book a possibility.

  To my ‘real-life’ friends, right through from school days to mother’s group and now. You are my loveliest cheer squad and I thank you all—especially my ‘mum’ friends, who are the inspiration behind much of the material in this book.

  One of life’s great blessings is to have an extended family that you not only love, but really, really like spending time with. Sade, Tim, Muz, Jack, Jen and all my darling nieces and nephews—I love you all, I appreciate your support and I love hanging out with you.

  Mum and Dad—I wish every kid in this world had parents like you! You have been my biggest and most biased supporters, always believing more in me than I have myself. You taught me what it is to be a reader. You put books in my hands and when my reading was obsessional, you (rightly) to
ld me to put them down and engage with the world. I love you very much and know I can never repay you, but I’ll keep trying!

  To Ruby, Sasha and Lucy—you are my sun, moon and stars, my sunshine and my clouds, my rain and my rainbows. I adore you, even when you don’t finish your dinner. I think you’re proud of me, and maybe you have learned that dreams can become reality, even when you’re really, really old, like me!

  Finally, to Sam (now I really am crying). Spilling that drink on you all those years ago was the best klutzy move I ever made. I love our little life together because it is big in the ways that matter. I could not and would not have done this without you. Thank you for holding my hand.

  ISBN: 9781489257901

  TITLE: AFTER THE PARTY

  First Australian Publication 2019

  Copyright © 2019 Cassie Hamer

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.