If I Never Met You(41)
Pri
Yeah I said the same to Tom. I think L was very driven and Dan felt neglected a lot of the time. She must be devastated though, starting a family straight away with the other woman!
Erica
I think he’s been a shit to Laurie. If she wouldn’t commit to having kids you don’t have an affair do you? I am sure he has his side to it, but it’s awful for her
Pri
Did she not want kids? I thought she was open minded but not in a hurry
Claire
If she did she’s never shown much interest. You know, Dan’s a good looking man with a good job, you can’t take his sort for granted these days, in the baby-making years, that’s the simple truth
Ugh. Baby-making years. Laurie felt grimly vindicated in her previous low-level grumbling dislike of Claire. She was a Stepford Wife, basically, but coated it in lots of twenty-first-century, faux feminist, socially acceptable concern trolling. So, instead of, ‘Why aren’t you home to make Dan’s dinner?’ it was, ‘It must be hard on you working those hours, do you do Sunday batch cooking? I have a great dhal recipe,’ looking only at Laurie.
And Laurie had also noticed men got different treatment from Claire. She claimed once as a yummy mummy, she liked polo necks so much as ‘If you pause while your head is stuck inside it, putting it on, you get a few seconds’ peace!’ and Dan had guffawed and said: ‘Smell of burning martyr!’
If Laurie had said that, oof. She’d get some icy response about not understanding the fatigue until you had one. Claire merely simpered and batted Dan’s arm.
At Claire and Phil’s, men did the jokes and women talked shop(ping).
Pri
Back out there at our age though, can you imagine? Shuddering.
Erica
Absolutely cringing at the thought. No 30s guy wants to date a woman of same age with her clock ticking, they’re busy chatting up 25 year olds online
Claire
Any guy single at this age will have more issues than you can shake a stick at. Or divorce behind him, step kids.
Pri
Yeah slim to no pickings. Poor Laurie.
A minute after her gut-wrenching bewilderment at how they could be conducting this dissection of her, in front of her, Laurie sussed exactly how it had happened. She’d been included in the original Baby Shower team but it had been so long since she replied, they thought they were a trio.
Right there was the answer why she’d got such minimal sympathy: she’d not played the game properly. Laurie turned up at their houses often enough, she’d had them round to theirs. But in the digital age equivalent of nattering over the garden fence, she’d never pretended to be interested in Claire’s daughter’s tongue tie, or Pri’s luxury shed–slash-summer house.
Not least because she had a job where she spent hours in courtrooms with her phone on silent. Not being interested in social media made you seem aloof these days, except Laurie wasn’t aloof, just busy and slightly baffled by it.
Erica
Who is the other woman? Had it been going on for a while? Playing away makes my blood boil tbh
Claire
She’s called Megan, she’s a lawyer and IDK! Dan says not – but for them to be expecting this soon?
Pri
Dan told Tom it was one of those bolt from blue type attraction things where he met Megan and he knew straight away something was going to happen. I think Dan’s riddled with guilt at hurting Laurie, didn’t expect it to move this fast. Some sort of contraception bork …
Claire
Hmmm. Would be curious to meet her! Also I have TONS of stuff of Ella’s to offload if they want it. I am done with the baby having thanks, whatever Phil thinks when he’s had a few Doom Bars
Classic Claire: using the fact she’d had three kids to tell everyone about her sex life (the detailed circumstances of conception of each always discussed as if she was merely telling you where she got her nails done).
Laurie had been coping, almost, with this involuntary ringside seat, but the baby chat was more than she could stand.
Laurie
RIGHT HERE GUYS
She paused and checked.
Pri – Seen
Erica – Seen
Claire – Seen
Yeah you have been seen, and found wanting.
They would now be setting up a Laurieless group in record time, titled HOLY SHIT. She was sure they’d bond over this story of their terrible gaffe and take it on tour around Chorlton, once the agony of it subsided. Laurie thought, you know what: let them.
She left the group.
It was very obvious they’d chosen Dan as the survivor. After a polite interval, it would be Dan and Megan praising their Ottolenghi cauliflower dish and admiring the bifold doors on the extension. Dan had a new partner and a baby on the way, he wasn’t a single, spiky anomaly. Two by two on the Ark, she heard Jamie say. Yep. They’d left her to the floodwaters.
Laurie opened Facebook and removed Dan from her In A Relationship With status, a task which felt teenaged and yet necessary. She forced herself to check and what a surprise: he’d done that first.
She was glad of a WhatsApp message from Jamie Carter, confirming arrangements for Saturday.
Concluding: ‘Also do you have something new to wear? All helps to create disorientation in the mind of the male ex.’
Hmmm. An echo of how Laurie felt when Dan presented in his shiny green Barbour.