‘Do you think women glow when they’re pregnant because of the baby or because they’ve had nine months off the sauce?’ I asked Sumi, pressing a hand against my face, only shining thanks to my liberal application of highlighter. Lucy’s baby shower was packed full of gorgeous, glossy pregnant women I had never met before and half-hoped never to meet again. They all squealed as they arrived, grabbing each other’s hands with pincer-type movements and enthusiastically comparing bumps.

‘I don’t know but it’s enough to put me on it,’ she replied, eyeing the bar. Beyond the glasses of pre-prepared mocktails was a whole wall of hard liquor that we could not touch. For shame.

‘You’ve done an amazing job on the party,’ I told her, looking around at the picture-perfect shower. ‘Lucy’s never looked so happy.’

I’d turned up early as promised but there really was no need. Sumi had failed to mention the fact she’d hired an events company to take care of the entire thing, leaving me standing around like a complete tit, holding the world’s saddest papier-mâché stork. Because Lucy and Dave didn’t know the sex of the baby, she had gone to town with a gender-neutral bunny theme. Rabbits hopped all over the walls, girl bunnies in bows, boy bunnies in shorts and, Sumi quietly informed me, non-binary bunnies in shorts and bows, just to piss Dave off. A plush carpet of fake grass was spread beneath our feet and even the corridor down to the toilets had been turned into a rabbit warren with carrot-shaped soaps in the lavs. All the food was bunny-themed, carrot juice to drink, cottontail cupcakes, rabbit-food sandwiches and a huge carrot cake with a dummy on top. And in the middle of the room was the pièce de résistance, a giant eight-foot stuffed rabbit that I really hoped she had a home for after the party because there was no way it would fit through Lucy’s front door. I also hoped Creepy Dave had been lifting weights in secret because I’d helped the delivery men bring it in and it was not light.

They’d even created a ‘traditional’ cigar lounge for Creepy Dave and his man friends and, even though there was nothing traditional about the baby’s dad and awful friends even attending the shower, Sumi had provided exactly what he’d asked for. Through heavy wooden double doors was the smoking lounge of dreams, decanters full of Scotch, hand-rolled Cuban cigars and, at Creepy Dave’s special request, a box full of Peperamis. It was a horrible, horrible dream come true.

‘I should definitely get these people to do Mum and Dad’s wedding,’ I breathed, watching as another pregnant woman arrived, gleefully accepting her bunny ears and tail from one of the waitresses. ‘Do you think they could put an entire party together by next Saturday?’