An Enormous Yes by Wendy Perriam Page B

matchmaker – trying to pair the client with his ideal, perfect candidate.’
    Maria disliked the word ‘headhunter’, with its overtones of cannibals, but her daughter used it all the time. She glanced anxiously at Amy, knowing how dejected she was about this morning’s phone call. Apparently, the man who’d rung had been her lead candidate for the post of marketing director of some prestigious firm but, just this weekend, he had decided against the job and so was pulling out of tomorrow’s meeting with the CEO. Which meant that Amy’s months of hard, painstaking work and delicate negotiations had been a total waste of time and, the minute this lunch was over, she would have to sort out the mess.
    Aware her mind was wandering, Maria resumed her small talk with Fiona. ‘So I suppose you’re as busy as Amy?’
    ‘Absolutely. High pressure goes with the job.’
    ‘And have you also worked in Dubai?’
    ‘Sadly, no. They say it’s the shopping capital of the world and I’m an incurable shopaholic!’
    Was she a prig or, worse, a killjoy, Maria wondered, in that she regarded shopping in the same light as manicures? Hanna’s influence again, of course. Her mother considered it wasteful to buy more clothes or household wares when the old ones were still serviceable. Luckily for Hanna, though, she had never had to mix in so fashionable a milieu. Compared with these sophisticates, she herself felt overweight, under-dressed, homespun and decidedly ancient. The irony was that, when caring for her mother,
she
had been the ‘young’ and trendy one.
    As if for comfort, she forked in more potatoes – Waitrose again, presumably , since they had been lavishly cooked with onions and cream – then took a swig of her Sauvignon Blanc, savouring its bouquet. It was an unaccustomed treat for her to eat and drink so well and, indeed, to eat and drink in company, and as for the voguish dining-room, it was like something from the Design Museum, with its extensive black-glass table and high-backed, grey-steel chairs. Even the vase of roses – exotic beauties in the subtlest shade of pink – looked as if they’d been hothoused in Kew Gardens.
    ‘No, we thought we’d try the Maldives this year. We did consider Peru, but …’
    The talk was now of holidays, although, distracted by her surroundings, she had missed the details of who was going where.
    ‘No holiday for us, alas.’ Chloe gave a sigh. ‘I’m already as big as a house, so I wouldn’t be seen dead in a swimsuit. You’re lucky, Amy. You hardly show at all.’
    ‘You’re meant to flaunt your bulge these days,’ Caroline observed, pausing with a forkful of chicken halfway to her mouth. ‘Even wear a bikini at nine months!’
    ‘Oh, that’s just gross.’ Chloe shuddered.
    ‘So when are your babies due?’ Maria enquired, feeling guilty for not having asked before.
    ‘Well, officially, it’s May 5th, though they’ll probably be delivered early. But, however gruesome the labour is, I honestly can’t wait.’ She patted her protuberant stomach with a grimace. ‘What I’ll be like in another three months doesn’t bear thinking about.’
    ‘Don’t they usually do a Caesarean for twins?’ Maria asked.
    ‘Yes, that’s the norm, but you can opt for vaginal delivery if the babies are in the right position and there aren’t any complications and, frankly, I’d prefer that to having an ugly scar.’
    ‘Is a scar any worse,’ Caroline demanded, ‘than being left saggy and incontinent, which you risk with a normal birth?’
    Alexander screwed up his face in revulsion. ‘Look, we’re meant to be eating, if you
don’t
mind! And, anyway, all this pregnancy-talk is really pissing me off. I hope you lot realize that, as little as a year ago, none of us was even thinking about procreation. Yet now three of our number have fallen for the myth that life’s not complete without an adorable little sprog – or three.’
    ‘It’s not a myth. Speak for