Chapter Two It’s a Boy/Girl! （Delete as Appropriate） #4
The blood drains from my face as I read the email Conrad sent me about their full requirements.
There’s quite a lot in the message – Germans are very thorough people, after all.
And everything else I understood and acted upon correctly.
All except one tiny detail, that Conrad mentioned just in passing towards the top of the email.
It reads thusly:
We are very delighted to be having our first baby, and we want to be able to celebrate this with a fun and exciting gender-reveal party, where we can tell all our friends about our new little boy.
Eloise is a girl who loves a big moment (as I’m sure you can tell from our Instagram!) so we really want this to be a very memorable occasion.
You have been recommended to us, as you have a reputation for making these kinds of events happen in an effective and enjoyable manner for all concerned.
The truth is there for all to see, in black and white. He did write that they were having a boy! But why did he have to refer to his wife as a girl a mere four words later??
She’s a fully grown woman, Conrad!
What are you? Some kind of misogynist who can’t accept that women play a valuable and necessary role in our world, and that they should not be described as merely being ‘girls’?
Yes, yes! This is all Conrad’s fault!
He’s the reason why an entire crowd of multi-coloured lunatics are looking at me like I just told them to stop posing for the camera for five seconds, and get out of my bloody way.
Aaaargh.
‘I’m so . . . so sorry,’ I stammer, attempting to back away, but being rendered unable to do so by the sturdy Japanese maple. ‘I could have sworn . . . I thought that . . . I really didn’t . . .’
‘He thinks Zaxxel is a girl!!!’ Eloise once again wails, underlining the point in what I feel is a frankly unnecessary manner.
My mind races for ways to get myself out of this hole.
I could point out that it’s now 2025, and gender is seen as an out-of-date construct. There’s a fluidity to it that people like Eloise, Conrad and their friends should probably be able to appreciate, damn them.
What’s wrong with you, Eloise? Why are you being so old-fashioned? You spent several Instagram stories telling everyone about how plastic pollution is killing our oceans, but where’s your progressivism now, huh?
Maybe little Zaxxel wants to be a girl? Have you even thought of that, Eloise? Have you?
My internal attempts to shift the blame to someone – anyone – else are as pathetic as they are pointless. I might as well point at the woolly creature and blame the whole thing on them.
I do not make mistakes.
I never make mistakes.
Especially ones as astoundingly huge as this one.
And it’s not just transposing two words across one short paragraph that I’m guilty of.
I never followed up with them in person.
In my cocksure way, I simply told them they didn’t have to worry about anything. They could leave it all to me. I thought I knew everything. And I did.
. . . almost.
Aaaargh.
‘Honestly, I don’t think he’s a girl!’ I exclaim at Eloise, my hands held out. ‘I honestly thought you were having a girl! I read your email wrong! I’m so sorry!’
‘You read the email wrong?’ Conrad spits, now fully swimming in the waters of indignancy. ‘There was nothing wrong with it!’
Apart from your grotesque old-fashioned views of women, Conrad! Would you like to join in with your wife about her post-war, backwards beliefs regarding gender as well?
Stop it! This is all your fault and there’s nothing you can do about that!
‘I’m so very, very sorry,’ I repeat. ‘I’ve been very tired of late. I haven’t been sleeping well at all, and I must have misread. I must have misunderstood . . .’
‘Zis is your excuse?’ Conrad demands.
‘Yes!’ I wail. ‘You see it all started with “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas – which I still don’t really understand.’
‘I love that song,’ the woolly creature pipes up, earning a chorus of approving nods from their fellow lunatics.
‘But it gave me a panic attack, you see, for some reason,’ I continue to explain, ‘and I haven’t been sleeping since, so then I haven’t been all that focused, and—’
‘Zaxxel is a boy!!’ Eloise screeches. My hideous error appears to have rendered her unable to speak in sentences of more than a few words, which must all, of course, be uttered at ear-splitting volume.
A stabbing pain shoots through my head above my right eye.
‘I’ll . . . I’ll refund everything you’ve paid,’ I stammer.
‘Yes, you vill!’ Conrad agrees.
‘And . . . I’ll get someone to change the lights to blue.’
‘Vot about ze cake?!’ Conrad’s accent has now fully developed into camp Kommandant. This is the first and last time in my life I’m going to feel like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.
What I wouldn’t give to be able to make one of those right now . . .
‘Er . . . er . . . there’s not much I can do about that! It’s pink inside!’
There’s an audible intake of breath from the influencers.
‘It still tastes very nice, though!’ I say, trying for all I’m worth to soften the disappointment.
‘I don’t want pink!!’ Eloise tells me in terms that really do brook no argument.
‘Oh God, I’m so sorry!’
There’s nothing else I can say at this point. I’ve already promised a full refund (which is going to cripple me financially for this month). I simply don’t have anything else in my usually full repertoire of charming responses. I am bereft.
That’s because nothing in your repertoire is about you apologising for screwing something up so badly.
I don’t make these kinds of mistakes!
You do now, idiot! And we bloody well know why, don’t we?
Yes, we absolutely do. It all started at a bowling alley.
Maybe Annie is right. Maybe I do need to see someone?
It’s one thing for a lack of sleep to make you a bit cranky, it’s another thing when it starts to threaten your livelihood.
‘I zink you should leave,’ Conrad tells me. ‘Eloise is very upset by your presence.’
My eyes go wide.
This is humiliation beyond anything I’ve ever experienced before. It’s the kind of thing you’re only supposed to experience in anxiety dreams – but here it is, happening right here in the real world.
I stare at Conrad for another couple of seconds, before lowering my head and scuttling away as fast as possible, through the crowd standing around the bifold doors. I can see a few of them recording all of this on their phones. God help me if this gets out on social media.
. . . as if that’s not going to happen.
‘Dickhead gets gender wrong at reveal party’ is the kind of top-drawer entertainment that nails you at least a million views on TikTok. I’m going to be ruined.
Once I’m out of the house completely and stumbling back to my car, I can feel wetness on my cheeks in the cool breeze. Oh God, now I’m crying. Partly from the sheer, unadulterated humiliation . . . but probably also because I’m so bloody tired.
Annie is right. I must see someone about this.
But does it have to be a doctor?
That’s going a bit far, isn’t it?
I consider this carefully as I snap the seat belt into position and fire up the car’s engine.
Yes. A doctor at this stage would be ridiculous.
I’m not actually sick. There’s nothing really wrong with me that a good night’s sleep wouldn’t fix. I don’t need to be bothering a doctor with any of it.
I’m fine.
Just out of sorts enough to screw up a gender-reveal party, that’s all.
Yes.
That’s what I am . . .
Out of sorts.
Nothing more.
I’ll sort myself out, get a decent night’s sleep, think up a winning strategy to apologise to Conrad and Eloise, and move on from this torrid, embarrassing affair as quickly as I possibly can.
I relax a little in the car seat as I very slowly make my way home. At least I feel like I have some sort of plan to move forward.
That’s more the Charlie King everyone is used to. The Charlie King I’m used to. That’s the Charlie King I want Annie to be around.
The man with the plan.
Even when things go comprehensively wrong, he always knows a way to dig himself out!
I can repair the damage I’ve done here today to my reputation. I know I can.
I can work out why I can’t get a decent night’s sleep, as well.
And why I can’t get the stupid lyrics of that song out of my head.
Everything is going to be alright.
Everything is going to be totally fine.
I continue to feel that way until about an hour after I get home, and I start to see notifications spring up on my phone.
You see, not only have all of Conrad and Eloise’s influencer friends decided to share my humiliation on TikTok, they’ve also decided to tag me in their posts. Because what’s the point of destroying somebody’s life if you don’t make sure they know all about it, eh?
@KingPromotionsUK is absolutely inundated with notifications over the course of the evening. It becomes such a social media nightmare that I have to cancel my evening with Annie so I can deal with the fallout.
Still, it’s the highest amount of engagement I’ve ever had on TikTok, so it can’t be all bad, can it?
What do they say? All publicity is good publicity!
Sadly, I think the only people who ever actually say this are serial killers, CEOs and marketing executives.
What on earth am I going to do?
. . . about all of this?