LIZZIE'S WORLD: A surprising encounter with Steve

By lunch time, I am famished and ready for lunch. I’ve been keeping my head in my books all morning trying to forget my problems and the ones of my friends by drowning myself in work, and I have not had time for a tea break – or for breakfast, for that matter – and so I raise my head at 1pm feeling extremely famished.

I decide to pick up a packed lunch and go over to Louise’s house, which is not too far from the office, to visit and her and bring her a meal. I am completely surprised when it is Steve who opens her front door instead of Louise.

“Oh, hi, she’s taking a nap,” he explains as he motions me in to sit down. “You know how it is with babies. Up all night, up all day… so she takes naps when Nia sleeps so at least she’s rested for an hour or two.”

“Oh,” I nod, feeling completely awkward. I had not intended to talk to Steve and so I am completely at a loss as to what I should say next. So I hold out the packed lunch that I had bought Louise.

“I was going to bring her this because I know how hard it is for new mothers to prepare meals and all that. Please make sure she gets it.”

“Are you leaving so fast?” he frowns. “No, please, come sit down for a few minutes. Let’s talk.”

This is a sea change. I have never known Steve to be this friendly towards me. Fatherhood must have mellowed him. However I am only barely controlling the anger that I feel about what he has just done to my best friend – and I don’t want to be caught in the middle of it – so I reckon I should just leave. I tell him that I don’t have that much time and I have to go back to the office before I am too late for the afternoon shift, and he fixes me with a stare. “You mean you drove all the way here with that lunch just so you could drop it off instead of talking with your friend? Right.”

“What’s wrong with that?!” I ask falsely.

He raises an eyebrow as the penny finally drops. “She told you, didn’t she?”

“Who told me what?” I try to look as innocent as I can.

“You and Fatma are like sisters. If something happens to her you’re usually the first one to know. So she must have told you that we broke up.”

I shake my head, exasperated. Then I lay my handbag down on the couch. “You know you really broke my friend’s heart, telling her you were going to work it out and then suddenly flipping to the other side in an instant.”

Steve shakes his head, looking suddenly tired. “Would you rather I abandon my child? And the woman I love just so that I can make Fatma happy?” I have no answer to that. “I mean, you tell me what you would have preferred that I do.”

“Well, perhaps you shouldn’t have promised her that you would stay with her and then turn around and change your mind a few days in.”

“Look, Fatma-,” Steve starts to say, and then Louise’s voice comes floating over our shoulders.

“What about Fatma?”

We both turn around, startled. We were so engrossed in our conversation that we didn’t notice Louise coming to join her. She’s in her night dress and her hair is uncombed, and she looks like she could do with a couple more hours of sleep, and so I feel immediately repentant for putting her in this position.

“We were, um…” I say, then I look hurriedly towards Steve to help me cover both our backsides.

Louise shakes her head, then she motions at me. “Liz, come, let’s go talk outside,” she says.

I pick up my handbag and give Steve a feeble wave, feeling like I have been summoned by the school teacher. We stand just outside her front door, and Louise turns to me.

“I don’t want you coming to my house and talking about Steve’s past, ok,” she says in that shouting-silent way people do when they are furious and they don’t want to make noise.

“But I…” I start. She cuts me off with a hand motion.

“Listen, let me tell you how it’s going to work from now on,” she starts, and I prepare myself for the biggest tongue-lashing I have received in the near past.