Ill Conceived Plans

Guess Who's coming to dinner

TELEPHONES are useful devices – when you turn them on.

When you turn them on you can get messages to whoever you need to. In Petra's case, you could receive messages sent from your friend Sarah telling you she hasn't told Dane she's pregnant. If you're Sarah turning on a phone on would allow you to receive a message from your best friend telling you that her husband has dropped you in it and now your mutual friend now knows about the baby.

Hell later on in the night, if you were Dane, you could even get a message that your girlfriend is on her way from Paris.

If you don't turn them on, then well, they are beyond useless and let's face it you have opened yourself so that the shit can well and truly hit the fan and your life can go to hell in a hand-basket at lightning speed.

Sarah Huntington turned her phone off after messaging Petra to tell her not to let slip to Dane that she was pregnant; that she was going to his house tomorrow to tell him face to face as friends should.

Neville had figured out what she was hiding straight away and Sarah wondered if the others had too. Not willing to risk giving herself away totally, she'd taken the cowards way out and rung the rest of her family. Margaret Hilditch had been cautious, Jane suspicious (and their conversation had been cut short by "another call coming in"), Lydia supportive and Athena, thrilled.

Her little sister had nieces on the Hilditch side but she'd actually thought there'd be a snowflakes chance in hell of a little Huntington coming into the world– not that this was all Huntington (though Thena didn't need to know that – not yet – down the track when she was older and Dane was married with ten kids then maybe).

She'd told work people, well just those she worked closely with. She kept herself to herself at the best of times and wasn't about to shout her private business to the world but she had a tiny bump now and it was starting become difficult to hide; soon even the October/November coats and jumpers wouldn't do much to keep her secret. So she needed to get out there and control the narrative, speculation was her enemy. 

With her pregnancy progressing, the preliminary 14-week scan out of the way, it was now time to tell her superiors. 

That's why she was having this dinner party.

This was a party crammed with the people who made sure she was paid and paid well. Well enough that she could afford to do this on her own, with no input from the "sperm donor". 

She didn't need anything from him. 

In fact, Sarah was trying her hardest not to think about him, about the fact that he was home and later tonight he'd be back just a block from her door, her bed. Yeah like that was ever going to happen again – look where it landed her last time! Up the duff and in danger of waddling like a duck, when she wasn't puking into the nearest receptacle. Dane Hilditch wouldn't be allowed to warm her sheets again! 

And she wouldn't think about him tonight, wouldn't think about the man who'd contributed half the DNA for little Bean. Tonight was about her bosses at the library and the RSC and her director from the BBC and their spouses – her friends. That's why she'd turned down Petra's invitation (well that's what she told herself) but it was certainly why she'd turned off her phone.

It was also why, as she entertained her guests at her house in London (and not in Stratford as she'd told Petra) she was blissfully unaware that Dane knew there was a baby – and in his addled jetlagged, boy's brain had put two and two together and come up with seven.

She was also totally unaware at 8pm, as she served up the main meal – a full roast beef dinner with Yorkies and homemade gravy (Dane's favourite) that her old friend had left Petra's – even though Petra had left a message about George's gaffe. They'd eaten early and he was too tired to stick around too long – it wasn't a lie – traveling had drained him and then the news had finished him off. He made his apologies and left.