Page 23 of One Day at a Time

‘I was right. She’s out there with wet hair and a towel round her shoulders, conducting them with a French loaf stick. I really worry about the world we live in.’

Maddie couldn’t even laugh, because she was still concentrating on her physical wellbeing. ‘I’ll be right back out. I just need a minute to make sure it isn’t about to happen again.’

Alyssa shook her head. ‘Take your time, hon. There’s no hurry. I once spent a whole day like this in here with Georgie, but that was slightly different because she was pregnant at the time. She had morning sickness that lasted round the clock some days.’

Maddie groaned. ‘That must have been a nightm—’ Her word got stuck in her throat somewhere between a shocking realisation turning her sympathy to panic.

Alyssa picked up on it straight away and joined the dots.

‘What? Wait. You couldn’t be pregnant, could you? Oh damn, Maddie, what did you do on that couch?’

Maddie groaned again, but this time it was a low, loud wail of horror that ended with her resting her forehead on the mirror. She stayed there for a couple of seconds before rewinding. ‘No, I can’t be. I’m on the pill. Have been for years. I even stayed on it after I came here, and my love life became non-existent. That’s optimism for you right there. So no, I can’t be pregnant. Definitely not.’

Alyssa was nodding and Maddie took comfort that she was agreeing with her. Until she wasn’t.

‘But you and Dylan… When was it? Right before he left?’

‘The day before. Remember Jessie sent me home because I was sick and…’

‘So it was right after we all had that bug. After you’d been throwing up for over a week.’

‘Yeah, that’s right and I came back to work too soon and… Oh.’

Maddie’s words drifted off as she realised where Alyssa was going with this. She’d been sick. And much as Maddie didn’t pretend to know all the ins and outs of contraception, she had a sudden flashback to a conversation with her doctor from several years ago, when she was prescribed the pill for the first time. ‘Just remember, if you’re sick for any reason, it lowers the pill’s effectiveness.’

It. Lowers. The. Pill’s. Effectiveness.

No. Surely she couldn’t be that unlucky. Could she?

Outside the room, more singing began. ‘Give Me Joy In My Heart’ this time.

Maddie could do with some of that herself right now.

‘You need a test,’ Alyssa said, stating the obvious.

Maddie threw her hands up. ‘I know, but Jessie is out there in the middle ofSongs of Praise, waiting for her blow-dry,’ she wailed.

She could have hugged Alyssa when her friend took charge of the situation.

‘Leave it to me. I don’t quite know what I’m going to do yet, but I’ll think of something. You stay here.’

For the next five minutes, Maddie sat on the staffroom floor, calculating, recalculating, calculating again and trying to work out when she’d had her last period. How did she not know? Why couldn’t she remember? Her cycle had gone completely haywire last year with all the stress over her mum, so shehadn’t even given it a thought. How could she be so damn careless?

As the minutes ticked by, she decided that she couldn’t sit there any longer. She had to get up and…

Before she’d finished that thought, the staffroom door opened and in stormed Jessie clutching a Clear Blue box, her hair still wet and the towel still round her neck, Alyssa behind her.

‘I nipped next door to the chemist for this. The rumours that will now be flying round this village don’t bear thinking about,’ Jessie blurted.

Maddie eyed Alyssa. ‘So your “I’ll take care of this” was really “I’ll tell Jessie”?’

Alyssa nodded with just a little shame. ‘Sorry. I had to. The choir was gearing up for “All Things Bright and Beautiful” and I couldn’t take it.’

Maddie decided she had a point.

‘Okay, pet, here you go. Let’s get this over with. I’m sure it’ll be fine and you’ll laugh about this a week from now. Hopefully you’ll have finished my hair by then too, because the dash to the chemist has air dried it.’

Maddie knew Jessie was just doing her usual thing of using humour to lower the stress in a situation, and she appreciated it.