Michelle Vernal Box Set

by Michelle Vernal

  Dick’s eyes had lit up as he urged, “Come on then! Don’t keep us all in suspense; where is the house located?” He abruptly changed the subject to shout, “Stop fussing, woman,” at his wife, who was attempting to cool her daughter’s flushed face by doing a Mexican wave with her new apron. Depicting a pair of juicy red lips and bearing the slogan “Hot Lips,” the apron had been a present for his wife, in keeping with her new image. It nearly put Rebecca off her dinner every time her mum pranced out of the kitchen wearing it because it reminded her of the fact that her parents still had sex.

  This unhealthy insight into her parents’ private life had come to her while rummaging under their bed a few years prior when she’d still been living under their roof. She’d been looking for her missing left knee-high boot thanks to her visiting cousin, Jacqui’s, three-year-old daughter. She’d had a ribald game of Puss ’n’ Boots with Rebecca’s $280.00 boots. As she lifted up the bed skirt, there it was—all the evidence she needed to convict her parents of sexual relations: a tube of K-Y Jelly! All she had to say on the matter, thank you very much, was thank goodness she hadn’t touched it!

  “You know how we’ve been looking in Akaroa?” Jennifer began her story of how they stumbled across their dream house—yet another perfect move in Jennifer’s fantasy life. There was a collective nod of heads round the table. “Well, the house is in the most fantastic spot. There in the hills behind the harbour.” Her voice became cautionary. “It was built in 1882 and, to be honest, it looks like it, but the views are just to die for.”

  “How many bedrooms?” their dad interrupted his daughter.

  “Well, the house is two stories. There’s one bedroom downstairs, along with a study and a separate kitchen with a dining area and sunroom attached. The living room runs off from the kitchen, and it still has the original fireplace. You’d pay a fortune for it now. There’re three bedrooms upstairs,” she finished breathlessly. Then Dick asked the million-dollar question:

  “How many toilets?”

  “Two.”

  He visibly relaxed. His fear of one-toilet homes stemmed from years of living in such a house alongside three women. If you asked him what his proudest moment was, he’d tell you that it wasn’t the birth of his children. Oh no, it was the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new bathroom with the additional toilet he had put in.

  “Like I said, Dad, it’s old. It’s going to need a lot of TLC to bring it back to its former glory, but we can do it, can’t we?” She sought her husband’s reassurance from across the table, and Mark nodded, his eyes sparkling with his wife’s childlike enthusiasm. It was so good to see his wife excited about something again. Ever since Jack had arrived, it was like her inner light was slowly dimming. Her vitality and sparkle were what had first attracted him to her—that and the fact she was drop-dead gorgeous and a fantastic cook to boot.

  “Jen’s right about the views, too. You can see right out over the harbour,” he added; her enthusiasm was catching.

  “That’s not the best bit, though,” she interjected, and then paused for maximum impact.

  Rebecca wished she’d just bloody well get on with it so she could chomp into her lamb chops before they got cold. Didn’t her sister realise that enthusiasm was much easier to muster up on a full tummy?

  “As well as the original homestead, there are three cabins and a dormitory building on the grounds, which was once run as a youth hostel! They’ll be perfect for Cuisine with Carlton’s.”

  Everyone ooh-ed and aah-ed as Jennifer articulated every detail of her renovation plans. And sure enough, Rebecca had to suffer through it until the microwave-reheated lamb chops were at last served.

  “Well, what do you think?” Derbhilla brought her out of her reverie by flapping a tea-towel accented with a grinning Molly Malone selling her cockles and whatnots.

  “It’s great,” Rebecca answered with a grin. “I could just about open an Irish gift shop when I get home.” Then, feeling her eyes begin to fill up, she surprised her friend by enveloping her in a big bear hug. “Thanks heaps, Derbhilla. I’ll miss you.”

  With her own eyes beginning to prickle, Derbhilla stepped back from the embrace. “You’ll be back in two weeks, you big eejit.” She was saying it for her benefit as much as Rebecca’s. “Besides, with today’s modern technology, sure I can text you from Galway and I’ve had a word with Niall from IT. He said he’ll let my emails through to your Hotmail address while you’re away.”

  “Ha!” Rebecca exclaimed. “I told you he fancies you. Have you told Shane there’s an IT man who is just itching to get his hands on your hard-drive?”

  Derbhilla laughed, and then held up a pair of shorts with a leprechaun saying, “Help yourself to me pot o’ gold.”

  “If you don’t watch it,” Derbhilla threatened, “I’m going to buy these shorts for Ciaran and tell him they are a gift from you! Who knows—it might just give the pair of you the push you need to sort that chemistry overload you’ve got going on once and for all.”

  Chapter Seven

  “SURPRISE!” MELISSA shouted as Rebecca ventured out of her bedroom, mug in hand, en route to the kitchen. Her eyes swung from the oversized suitcase standing to attention by the front door back to her friend, who had a pair of Jackie O style sunglasses perched on top of her head despite the horrendously early hour.

  Melissa was wearing a white hoodie over her favourite blue lounge pants, the ones that she always wore for flying. “Are you going on holiday too, then?” Rebecca rubbed her eyes, still half-asleep despite having stood under their so-called power shower for ten minutes. Bugger bloody terrorists; thanks to them, she had to be at the airport at six in the morning, two whole hours before her flight. At this ungodly hour, she wondered why Melissa was still standing in the hallway, grinning like a nutter.

  Forcing herself to pay attention to what her friend was saying, she caught the words, “I’m coming to New Zealand too!”

  What? Her befuddled thought processes went into overdrive. Had Melissa just said something about coming home too? Wide awake now, she held her hand up, ordering Melissa to shut up before demanding, “What on earth are you on about?”

  “I just told you.” She sighed exasperatedly. “I’m coming home too.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I heard that bit.”

  “I couldn’t let you go on your own. It wouldn’t have been fair.”

  “How very noble of you,” Rebecca muttered, but Melissa—oblivious of the sarcastic undertones—just swatted her comment away.

  “Don’t sweat it, Becs. That’s what being friends is all about. Besides, I am more than due for some time off.” Being the martyr that she was, Melissa continued, “Tamara was reluctant to let me go. Then she realised that it was a sacrifice for me, too, what with missing the Galway Races and for what?” Giving a shrug of surrender, she looked wide-eyed at her friend. “Two weeks in the heart of the South Island’s winter, but I couldn’t let you look after the rugrats all on your lonesome, now could I?”

  Rebecca gazed back at her friend in disbelief. Melissa truly believed what she was saying—and she wasn’t finished yet either!

  “Oh, and Tamara pulled some strings and got my seat upgraded to first class.” Bending down to pick up her case, Melissa opened the door. “Gotta dash. Tamara organised a car to take me to the airport, and I’d offer you a ride but seeing as you’re not quite ready...” Her voice trailed off, and she blew a kiss over her shoulder as she called out, “Bye! See you at home.”

  AT ELEVEN FIFTEEN THAT morning, Rebecca was trying to catch her breath as she stowed her hand luggage away in the overhead compartment. She’d barely made it. Heathrow Airport was such a navigational nightmare. Standing guard over her now, like an underfed watchdog, was the flight attendant. Bitch, Rebecca thought, stealing a glance at her out of the corner of her eye. There’d been no need for her to be so horrible. It was Fiona, her travel agent’s, fault. She shouldn’t have allowed her precious little time to catch her connecting flight.


  The flight attendant’s long and narrow face was buried in at least a centimetre of tangerine foundation, and with her hair pulled back into a severe ponytail, she was reminiscent of an orange felt-tip pen. When Rebecca had first thundered down the corridor, she’d breathed into her walkie-talkie, “Our missing passenger has arrived, Captain.” Like she’d just apprehended England’s Most Wanted. She then followed it up with, “You’re holding the entire plane up,” before marching down the jet’s narrow aisle with Rebecca trailing apologetically behind, feeling like a naughty child being led out of the assembly.

  With her eyes steadfastly fixed on the little lights on the floor in front of her, Rebecca had managed to avoid the angry stares of her restless fellow passengers. They’d been buckled in and ready for take-off since ten forty-five that morning. She now knew what it felt like to walk the green mile, she’d thought ruefully as Felt-tip at last came to a halt somewhere near the wings. Opening the overhead locker, the flight attendant held her hand out and snapped, “Give me your bags.”

  No way, José, Rebecca thought, glaring back at her. She wasn’t letting that harridan anywhere near her bags. Inevitably, a tug-o-war had ensued which, through sheer bloody-minded determination, Rebecca won.

  Felt-tip wasn’t a gracious loser, judging by the snorting sounds emitted through her nostrils. Nor by the looks of things was she going to go away until Rebecca’s rear was in its rightful window seat. Rebecca snapped the luggage compartment shut before flicking her eyes over her seated flight-mates. Great—Fatty and Skinny, she thought as she slipped nimbly past Skinny, who had the aisle seat. Pausing, she eyed the rotund female passenger ensconced in the middle seat. Getting past her was going to be a tad more challenging. She cleared her throat. “Er, excuse me?”

  The woman looked up at her with the panicked expression of an overweight deer caught in headlights. If she hadn’t been in such a bad temper, she’d have felt sorry for her. “Could I just squeeze past you, please?”

  Tiny beads of sweat popped up on the woman’s forehead as, licking her lips and breathing in heavily, she attempted to manoeuvre her legs over to the left. It made no difference whatsoever to the miniscule space, and there was no way Rebecca’s size 12 frame would squeeze through. With a great deal of huffing and puffing, the woman tried angling her legs over to the right. It was a marginal improvement and Rebecca decided to seize the moment before she got lynched by an angry mob. A split second later, her nose was buried in a strange man’s scalp while her chest was jammed up against the folded dinner tray. Her bottom was blocking off the large woman’s airspace and Felt-tip was beginning to lose what little was left of her composure as she shouted, “Would you just sit down!”

  “I’m stuck,” Rebecca mumbled as her breath sent wisps of sparse black hair flying in the air. The man whose personal space she had just invaded was in a frenzy, trying to twist around to see what had just landed on his head. She grimaced, momentarily distracted from her dilemma, and made a mental note to remember to tell him she knew a good shampoo for flaky scalp when this nightmare was over.

  “Pardon me?” snapped Felt-tip, tapping her nails ominously on the headrest in front of her.

  “I’m stuck,” she repeated. Then, seeing Felt-tip’s disbelieving look out of the corner of her eye, she decided to spell it out for her. “S-T-U-C-K—STUCK! I can’t bloody well move—got it!”

  Panic set in as Rebecca sensed the drama unfolding, and hundreds of pairs of eyes swivelled towards her. Felt-tip was quiet for a moment as she assessed the situation. There was nothing in the manual on how to deal with a situation like this and screaming, “Move both your fat arses now!” most likely wouldn’t earn her any brownie points with Captain James. Perhaps giving the not-so-fat one a good shove would shift her.

  “Ouch!” squealed Rebecca a moment later, still firmly wedged in place.

  Okay, that didn’t work. Time for Plan B. Felt-tip grabbed Rebecca’s arm and yanked it violently towards her.

  “YEOW! I think you’ve dislocated my arm!”

  Damn. The attendant bit her lip nervously, deciding to ease up before she found herself being sued. Dislocating a passenger’s arm wouldn’t look good on her unblemished service record, even if it were due to extenuating circumstances. She swiped angrily at a stray hair that was making a bid for freedom and looked frantically around the plane for help.

  Ah—there was Megan, a useless lump of a girl, but better than nothing. The younger flight attendant was standing over by the toilets with a lifejacket on in readiness for the safety spiel. Waving her over, she quickly explained the situation and instructed her to put her arms around her waist for support. “Take the life jacket off first!” Felt-tip screeched. “The sodding thing will probably inflate otherwise.”

  “Oh right,” mumbled Megan. She was the last person you’d want in a crisis for her head became a muddled mess when asked to think. If it hadn’t been for Captain James putting in a kind word for her with the “powers that be,” she’d never have gotten out of the training centre and onto an actual plane. Smiling to herself as she pulled the vest up over her head and tossed it aside, she recalled how Captain James had told her that her in-flight service was the best he’d ever had.

  “Right—on the count of three!” Felt-tip yelled. “One, two, three—PULL!” With her face buried in dandruff man’s scalp, Rebecca wondered if the crowd that had now gathered in the aisle would notice if she burst into tears. Probably not, she surmised. They were all far too busy joining in the circus by shouting out their instructions to the ringmaster: “Try lifting her up and then out.” “No! That won’t work. Keep pulling her towards you.” “I think her rear end is too wide to squeeze through that way. She has to back out then climb over. It’s the only way.” And on they went, discussing various parts of her anatomy until a booming voice diffused the comments.

  “Good morning, this is your captain speaking. We seem to be experiencing a slight seating problem, which we hope to have rectified shortly. In the meantime, I would request that all passengers return to their seats in preparation for take-off.”

  Like scolded children, the crowd dispersed.

  “I can’t breathe,” gasped the size-challenged woman.

  “Move your bottom to the right a bit,” directed Felt-tip.

  “I can’t,” hissed Rebecca. “Besides, I’m only a size twelve; she’ll survive.”

  Raising one thinly drawn eyebrow, Felt-tip shook her head. Size 12? The poor girl was delusional. Five minutes later, as the British Airways jumbo jet rocked on the runway to thunderous applause, Rebecca slumped down into her seat. She felt bruised and battered both physically and emotionally, but she was alive.

  Six, seven, or possibly even eight hours later, she was fervently wishing she wasn’t. She sat with her nose glued to the porthole window, anxiously keeping watch for any sign of their first stop on the way to New Zealand: Los Angeles. Every time they hit the slightest bit of turbulence, the woman trumpeted like a baby elephant and grabbed hold of her arm. She had introduced herself as Una and after their shared near-death experience, had decided she was Rebecca’s new best friend.

  Amidst Una’s assaults, an annoying toddler kept popping his snot-nosed face over the seat in front of Rebecca and blowing raspberries. It had been cute at first, but when he dribbled into her choice of “fish in white sauce” lunch and with her temper already frayed, she snapped for him to sit down. The toddler’s mum had peered through the gap in the seats and given her the evil eye. She’d elbowed her husband, who had poked his uncomfortably familiar head over his seat and said, “If I were you, love, I’d be keeping a low profile.” His rounded face bore an uncanny resemblance to Tony Soprano; perhaps she’d be best to keep her bit of anti-dandruff shampoo advice to herself then.

  Bugger bloody Melissa. Her eyes were glued to the inky sky. She could just picture her friend stretched out on a reclining chair in her comfortable but elegant lounging pants. She was probably sipping on a cold glass of champagne and e
ating big fat strawberries or whatever it was people did in first class right this very minute. It wasn’t bloody fair, she thought, wiping away the mist her breath had left behind on the small window. Not to mention that she hadn’t decided how she felt about Melissa having invited herself along for the ride. The extra help with the kids on Melissa’s part would be good, but then, doing anything selfless wasn’t exactly Melissa’s style.

  She’d probably lie around for the next two weeks, enjoying the view and cadging free food from Carlton’s if she could be bothered to get off her bum to get it. Yep, that would be right. Rebecca frowned as a picture of herself scurrying back and forth to wait on Her Highness sprang to mind. A whiff of something eggy and unpleasant drifted past her, and she waved her hand in front of her nose; she was pretty sure Una had just passed wind. Violent and, unlike the woman herself, silent.

  Stumbling into Los Angeles International Airport’s transit lounge, Rebecca breathed in great big lungfuls of the closest thing to fresh air she’d smelt in what felt like days. With only an hour to spare, she found a row of spare seats and buried her nose in the bestseller she’d bought specifically for the long flight home. Thanks to Una’s constant trumpeting, though, she had not yet had a chance to lose herself in it. Enjoying the sensation of stretching out, she felt comforted by the knowledge that the last leg of her journey could in no way be as nightmarish as the previous one.

  Nor was it. Everything had gone just swimmingly until the Boeing 747 touched down at Christchurch International Airport.

  “Get off! Go away. Shoo—go on, get!” Rebecca hissed at the beagle who was having way too much fun sticking his randy little nose up her nether regions to take the hint. His handler, a stern New Zealand customs officer, had taken note of the exchange and through narrowed eyes sized her up. Behind her, the bags on the carousel kept whirring around and around because none of her fellow passengers were the slightest bit interested in collecting the rest of their belongings. Why would they be when the airport was providing free in-house entertainment?