“Okay.” Evette was listening.
“I realized a long time ago that having children wasn’t a priority for me. I also realized that I had all these perfectly good eggs that I might never need and that I could help someone who really did want children. So, I began donating them to a fertility clinic. Long story short, someone at the clinic introduced me to a couple who were thinking about surrogacy. She suffered from endometriosis and was unlikely to ever conceive. I’d not really considered it before, but once I started looking into it, I decided that surrogacy was something I could do, something I wanted to do, not as a career or anything, but just once to help someone who needed it. Anyway, there was lots of back-and-forth and eventually everything was in place, and we agreed on a date for insemination. Only, that week, she found out that against all the odds, she was pregnant. It was kind of a miracle. And naturally my services were surplus to requirement.”
“Was everything okay? For the couple, with the pregnancy, I mean?”
“Everything was perfect. They have a little girl, Tansy, and I am her godmother.”
Evette let out a long sigh.
“I get how, for you, this seems to have come out of nowhere,” Star continued. “But I know what I’m getting into, what I’m offering. I was happy to do it for relative strangers. I am ecstatic to be able to do it for my sister. Do you believe in fate?”
“I don’t know. I believe in the power of coincidence.”
“Good enough. Once I’d learned about surrogacy, I knew without a doubt that I was meant to help someone else become a parent. I’d thought it was my calling to help Tansy’s parents, but fate had someone else in mind. Don’t you think it’s crazy that all the while Simone’s been trying to get pregnant, I’ve been waiting to become a surrogate? I had no idea until the other night that you guys were even trying for a baby. I mean, hey, why would my sister tell me? I’m like her least favorite person. And yet, some higher force seems to want us to work together.”
“You’re not her least favorite person. That honor is reserved for the barista who always gets her order wrong, even though she orders the same thing every morning.”
Star laughed, mostly out of relief that the anger had gone out of Evette’s tone. “Yes, I can see how that would annoy my sister.”
“Thank you for talking to me. There’s still so much to think about.”
“There is no hurry and no pressure. All I’m doing is giving you another option.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry for waking you.”
“It’s fine.”
“Well, good night.”
“Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
Star snuggled back down under the duvet. She could hear the wall of clocks in the shop downstairs ticking along together. The old water pipes creaked and the naked branches on the tree outside her window tapped and swished against the glass. These were the sounds of home to her. To Simone and Maggie, this building was always a holiday house, temporary, a brief respite from the normalcy of their home lives. Life with Perdita wasn’t routine or suburban. They lived in lots of places, sometimes caravans, sometimes yurts, periodically during winters they rented flats, ready furnished with someone else’s castoffs. The one and only thing in her childhood that never changed was this house. And she loved it.
The idea of selling it was heart-wrenching. She couldn’t tell Maggie or Simone. It wouldn’t be fair; they needed the money. She needed the money. All the same, she couldn’t imagine this house not belonging to her in some way. To lose this house would be to lose the only dependable part of her life.
30
Maggie burst into the curios shop on Wednesday morning and began speaking without preamble. She had woken up in the early hours worrying about her eviction and the festival and been unable to get back to sleep. She had also been drinking coffee since 5 a.m., and now she had to keep her caffeine levels topped up or risk a slump before lunchtime.
“Okay, I’ve just heard from Belinda, and her festival contact has come through with the marquee. It’s an old one that he doesn’t rent out anymore, so he’ll let us borrow it for free, and since he’s a big fan of Belinda, he’ll loan us his team to build the thing as well. He’ll deliver the marquee on Monday the seventeenth. It’s going to need decorating, of course. We need to make it cozy and festive on a budget, and we’ll need volunteers. Do we have posters? How are we on garlands? The flower association? Ideas? I’ve been googling edible decorations for animals and birds. I don’t know how many takers we’re going to get for helping to make them, but we are going to need ingredients. I’ve spoken to Vanessa this morning, and she’s arranged to get us the funds we’ll need. I’ve borrowed Kat’s business loyalty card for the cash and carry, as I think we’ll need to buy bulk. Simone, how are we doing on dates for things?”
“That was intense,” said Star. “Good morning, Maggie.”
“No time!” she trilled.
Simone was sitting in an armchair with her laptop open, Artemis stretched lazily in the gap between her stomach and the computer. Cat and sister eyed her with the same torpor.
“You are manic. Have a chamomile tea and calm the fuck down. I’m working on a spreadsheet and timetable of things that need doing. I’m also mocking up a poster to advertise the decoration making, which I’ve set for the eighteenth, as the schools will have gone on break, and which hopefully can happen in the marquee if it’s getting delivered on the seventeenth. The flower association are already briefed and ready for garlands, as are the Cussing Crocheters; I met both Ellen and Anita in the queue for coffee at Betty’s this morning. Then on the nineteenth we’ve got tree decorating in the woods from six p.m. In between times we’ve got to organize the food. And the rest happens on the evening of the twenty-first.”
“We are going to be so busy.” Maggie rubbed her forehead. “The twenty-first is going to be a nightmare day. Where are we on the running order for that?” She looked at Star, who put down the loupe she’d been using to date a gold mourning ring—complete with a lock of the deceased’s hair visible beneath a cabochon crystal—and picked up her phone.
“Do you actually know what you’re doing with that thing?” Maggie asked, motioning to the loupe, which Star had taken to wearing permanently around her neck.
“As a matter of fact, I do.” She touched the loupe, smiling. “It’s easy once you know how. Duncan is a very good teacher.”
“It’s not that easy at all,” Duncan interjected. “She’s being modest. I’ve never known anyone to pick it all up so quickly! I show her how to do something once and she’s got it.” His expression was one of a man well and truly smitten.
“Oh my god, these two.” Simone gave Maggie a pained look. “It’s like being in an episode of The Brady Bunch. They’re nice to each other all day long.”