“It means you’re hot, darling. You’re at boiling point. Your saucepan simmereth over.”
There’s a silence. Modelling is how I got into this mess in the first place. OK, technically lying is how I got into it. But I wouldn’t have had to lie if the modelling had never happened. Nothing’s going to get better if I keep going down this path.
“I don’t care,” I say. “Sorry, Wilbur.”
Wilbur laughs. “That almost sounded like I don’t care,” he says, giggling. “But obviously I misheard you. This is… this is… the stuff of dreams.”
“Not of mine.”
And I put down the phone.
I’m not sure what my next plan should be. But it’s going to start with Annabel.
he best way to make amends for lying is probably not by lying, but I can’t really see an alternative. Not after the way Annabel responded to Dad.
Luckily the receptionist is new, which makes the process significantly easier. As long as there isn’t a little warning photo of me taped behind the desk: you know, like the photos they have of terrorists and people who steal penny sweets from newsagents.
“May I speak to Annabel Manners, please?” I ask sweetly, taking the fur hat off and making myself look as small and vulnerable as physically possible.
The receptionist reluctantly puts down her magazine. “Do you have an appointment?”
“Yes.” I widen my eyes to make my face a vision of innocence. “Gosh, that’s a nice ponytail you have. Did you do it yourself?” And when she turns round to try and look at it, I lean over the desk and quickly scan the schedule. “My name is Roberta Adams,” I say as she turns back.
She frowns at the list. “Bit young to have your own lawyer, aren’t you?”
“I’m suing my parents,” I say calmly.
Her expression immediately clears. “Oooh, I thought about doing that too. Let me know how much money you get. Go straight up.”
And she buzzes me through before I get a chance to change my mind.
This building has always scared me. When I was young, I refused to come in alone when Annabel was working late because I thought it was haunted.
“It’s not haunted,” Dad said when I told him. “Haunted buildings are full of souls with no bodies, Harriet. A lawyer’s office is full of bodies with no souls. There’s a big difference.”
And then he’d laughed until Annabel put salt in his wine glass.
Even the lift feels like some sort of creepy horror-movie glass coffin. When I finally get to Annabel’s office, I can see through the window that she has her head down and is writing some kind of report.
“Ahem,” I say softly.
“Roberta,” she says without looking up. “Take a seat. I’ve been going through the file and I think getting custody of the guinea pig isn’t going to be a problem.”
I take a seat despite not being Roberta and squirm. I’ve just realised that Roberta is a real person and not just a name on a sheet, and she might actually turn up too. Annabel writes a few more things down and then glances up. She fixes me with a long stare, while I try desperately to activate the dimples in my cheeks.
“Well, Roberta,” she says eventually. “Can I just say that you have grown a lot younger in the three weeks since I saw you last. Being away from your husband is clearly doing wonders for your complexion.”
“Annabel—”
“And,” she says, looking at my head, “that’s a great improvement on your last hairstyle. Although as your last hairstyle was a purple rinse, that’s not necessarily saying much.”
“Annabel, I—”
She looks at the hat in my hand. “I thought for a moment perhaps you had brought the guinea pig with you, but I’m relieved to see that’s not the case. I would suggest, however, making sure that whatever that is, is definitely dead. It looks like it might bite.”
“Annabel—”
Annabel leans forward and presses a button on her phone. “Audrey? When the other Roberta Adams turns up, please keep her in reception until I alert you otherwise. And for future reference, none of my clients are schoolgirls. Thank you.”
And then she leans back in her chair and looks at me in silence.
fter what feels like forever, I finally manage to say, “Hello, Annabel.”
“Hello, Harriet.”
“How are you?” This seems like a good conversation opener. Actually, I think this is the only conversation opener. I don’t know how she is at all.
“Sleeping on the floor of my office, which is never ideal, but apart from that I’m just dandy, thank you.”
I stare at her stomach. It doesn’t look any different, but I can’t stop staring. It’s amazing really. A few days ago it was a stomach containing strawberry jam and now it contains a person. I’m actually really excited, even though it does mean that every minute I’ve spent in the last five years researching famous only children on the internet was a total waste of my time. “So it’s true?” I ask. “What you wrote?”
“That I am gravid, parous, fecund, enceinte, teeming with child?”
“Umm.” I think Annabel’s thesaurus is bigger than mine. “Yes?”