“I suppose not when you put it like that.” Grabbing the navy-blue windbreaker hanging off a hook on the other side of the door, Melissa quickly slid into it. Then, taking as wide a berth around her angry friend as she could manage, she stepped out into the encroaching darkness of the porch, instantly regretting not having put a pair of shoes on her feet. As Rebecca pulled the door behind her, a sensor light suddenly kicked in, and both girls found themselves bathed in a strong white light.
It was Melissa—who was busily hopping from foot to foot to keep warm—who managed to say her piece first. “I betcha it looks fab though, babes, and you know how the saying goes: no pain, no gain.” She grinned smugly and Rebecca saw red.
“I wouldn’t go that far! A denuded chicken would be a better description!”
Taking a step back, Melissa held up her hand. “No need to shout; I’m right here.” Then, thinking of a point to win her case, she added enthusiastically, “Just think! Tucking those little strays back in will be a thing of the past. I did you a favour, if you think about it like that.”
“With a friend like you, who needs enemies?” Rebecca felt her stomach begin to roil at the sight of Melissa’s smug face. The words she’d wanted to say to this so-called friend of hers so many times over the years finally erupted forth. “Do you know what, Melissa? I have had enough. I came home to look after my sister and her family, and you don’t need to be here, so why don’t you head on inside and pack your bags. All you’ve done while you’ve been here is sit on your bum and make snide remarks. In fact, that’s all you ever do, and I have just come to the realisation that I no longer need you bringing me down.”
Wow! Rebecca put her hand on her pounding heart and steadied her breath while Melissa’s face turned chalky. She was not good at confrontation, but she had to say she felt liberated—she felt amazing! Melissa had indeed done her a favour because it might have taken something as silly as a botched bikini line but she had, after twenty-something years of a very one-sided friendship, finally said her piece.
“Becs, you don’t mean it. I truly had your best interests at heart. I figured you needed a break or at the very least a bonk with David because it might wake you up where Ciaran is concerned—and I just wanted to give you the best chance possible.”
“Bring out the violins, why don’t you? You forget that I know you only too well. You never have anyone else’s best interests at heart. So go on, Melissa. I mean it—pack your bags.”
“Yee-hah! You go, girl!” whooped a voice from the darkness, followed by several claps and a solitary, “Wahoo!”
Melissa stalked over to the wooden railing and peering out into the early evening gloom, snapped, “Who’s there?”
“Mindy-Lou to you, sugar.” She whistled between her teeth. “Darn tootin’! I reckon you jest got told where to get off, possum-pie,” bounced up at her.
Rebecca lingered outside, breathing in the night air after Melissa—having shot her with her best deeply wounded look to no avail—retreated inside to do as she’d been told. Rebecca’s expression had brooked no argument, and it wasn’t long before she heard a car door slam and the engine rev. She exhaled slowly, emitting a fine white mist into the night air as she watched Melissa’s headlights sweep down the driveway and out of her life, albeit for the time being.
Who knew, she thought, turning and returning to the warmth inside; she might soften her stance in a day or two but only if Melissa took on board what she’d said. She had a feeling she’d be hearing from her before the week was out, grovelling, because Rebecca suddenly knew with clarity that Melissa needed her more than she needed her. The balance had shifted, and it felt good.
“Melissa’s gone. She said you were real mad with her.” Jack’s eyes never moved from the television. “What’s a denuded chicken?”
She flushed. “Jack, you should not eavesdrop on other people’s conversations. It’s bad manners.”
“I wasn’t eavesdropping; you were shouting.”
He had her there.
“Yes, well, sorry about that.”
“So what is it?” He obviously wasn’t going to let this one go.
“It’s a chicken that’s had all its feathers plucked.”
Seeing his face turn pale green, she demanded, “Now what?”
“I feel sick.” He glanced uneasily over at his empty dinner bowl.
“What did you have for tea?”
“Chicken.”
“What an afternoon! I thought I’d never get away. They’re not a bad bunch of gals down there, though, not once you see past all the warrior get-up.” Jennifer appeared in the living room. “Hello sweetie-pie. Have you had your dinner?” Hannah had run over to her mother as though it had been months and not a matter of hours since she’d last seen her.
“Lissa made it cos Auntie Becca had her hair taken out, but then she got mad, and Lissa’s gone now,” Hannah lisped as her mother, who wasn’t listening, smiled and swung her up, planting a big kiss on her cheek. She turned her attention to her son. “Hi, Jack, love. Did you have a good day?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t move his gaze from the television.
“Look at me, please, son, when I’m talking to you.”
He still didn’t move his eyes away from the screen.
“Jack!” Jennifer admonished sharply.
He swung around to face her. “I said yeah!” Then, flinging the remote down, he stampeded off up the stairs.
“What did I do?” Jennifer asked, looking at Rebecca before plonking herself down on the couch with a weary sigh.
Rebecca shrugged. “No idea. He was behaving like a toad when I picked him up, so maybe something happened at school. I’ll go up and talk to him once he’s calmed down if you want?”
“That would be good. He might tell you what his problem is because I just seem to annoy him at the moment.”
“Don’t take it personally, sis. He’s seven.”
Jennifer gave her a watery smile as Hannah climbed onto her lap and snuggled in. She stroked her daughter’s hair and within seconds she was fast asleep, emitting soft and snuffly snores with every other breath. “You know, Mark being away is hitting him harder than he’s letting on. Thank goodness he’s back in a couple of days. I suppose that’s when the real fun will begin, though.” She looked uncertain. “There are counsellors who can help kids cope with marital splits. I think Mark and I are going to need all the help we can get where the kids are concerned. I’ll have to look up some names tomorrow.”
“That’s a good idea. If in doubt, take it to a professional, I always say.”
“Where do you get these little sayings from?”
“Dunno—they just pop into my head.”
“You’re mad, you know that? So come on then—what was the to-do I heard before all about?”
“You heard me?”
“I’d say they heard you down in Little River. Now come on, spill.”
Rebecca filled her in on how she had finally found her chutzpah where Melissa was concerned, and Jennifer clapped her hands delightedly.
“Well done, you. She’s had that coming for a long time! It’s going to be awkward when you go back to Ireland, though, isn’t it, what with you sharing an apartment?”
“I have a feeling Melissa will come crawling well before it’s time to fly back but Jen, I wanted to talk to you about that.” She hesitated for a moment because if she said the words out loud, there would be no going back. “I, uh, I don’t think I am going to go back.” There, she had said it, and now that she’d given voice to the idea that had begun to take seed over the past week, it suddenly sprouted. “I—and please don’t laugh—I want to open a dance school.”
Jennifer felt some of the fog that she had been wandering around in for the past couple of months dissipate as excitement penetrated it. Sitting forward, her face was the most animated Rebecca had seen it since she’d come home. “Why would I laugh? I think that is a fantastic idea. Mum, Dad, and I always hoped you’d go back to your
dancing one day. You had so much talent and then you just pulled the pin on it. I never got why you did that.”
“I didn’t pull the pin, Jen. I failed my Grade 9 exam, which meant I was never going to make it as a professional ballerina, and that was my dream. It was such a slap in the face. How would you have felt if you realised you would never get further than working in the kitchen at Sophia’s?”
Jennifer nodded slowly as understanding dawned. What she had seen at the time was a moody sixteen-year-old who refused to get back up and fight her corner at the first serious knockback that came her way. She had always viewed her sister as a bit of a dilly dreamer who had gotten a rude shock at a taste of rejection in the real world. Perhaps out of the two of them, though, it was her who was the realist after all. Rebecca was facing up to her future whereas she was in denial. Unwilling to take responsibility for her part in the great stuff-up that was her marriage. Thankfully her sister saved her from falling into the abyss that this train of thought always led her to.
“I think teaching might be something that would give me the best of both worlds. I can pass on my passion to others but without all that pressure. I was never cut out to take that side of it. I like my food far too much for one thing and this way I could have my cake and eat it too!” She grinned and Jennifer had to smile back at her analogy. “I’ve looked into it and the Royal Academy of Dance runs a two-year distance course, which means I could sit for my Certificate of Ballet Teaching and work at the same time.”
“So when did you come up with all of this?”
“The idea’s been niggling at the back of my mind for a long time, but it always seemed way too hard.” Rebecca shrugged. “It was easy to do nothing about it while I was in Dublin. I think maybe that being home has made me stop and take stock of a lot of things.”
“Like Ciaran, perhaps?” Jennifer raised an eyebrow. She’d seen the sappy look on her sister’s face when she’d faced him across the kitchen the other night.
“Yes. No. I don’t know. What I do know is that if I don’t sign up for this course now, then I will always regret it.”
“So what are you going to tell him?”
“The truth, I guess—that I would like nothing more than to take the easy option and hotfoot it back to Dublin with him and everything I know over there. But I’ve been running away from what I want to do all these years because I was scared I’d fail. What I’ve just realised, though, is that if I don’t even try, then I am a failure.”
Jennifer absorbed what her sister had said for a moment before struggling to her feet with Hannah a dead weight in her arms. “Come on, oh great wise one, let’s get the kids off to bed so we can crack open a bottle of vino and talk about it. Honestly, though, Becs.” She flashed a genuine grin at her sister. “This dance school idea is the best news I have heard in a long time.”
Rebecca, buoyed by her sister’s enthusiasm, rose too and then winced as she swaggered towards the stairs.
“Jack,” she called out softly, tapping on his door before opening it. He was sitting cross-legged on his bed and by the looks of the toy car that was in bits beside him, playing mechanics. “It’s time for bed, mate,” she said, easing herself down next to him.
He didn’t move.
“Is everything okay?” There was no answer. “Jack?” When he finally replied, his chin was so far down in his chest that she had to strain to hear him properly.
“I had a fight with Ben.” With everything that had since happened, she’d forgotten about the way the pair of them had been behaving when she picked him up from school.
“What about?” When no reply was forthcoming, she put her arm around his shoulders, surprised at how tense they were. “Sweetheart, I promise you that you’ll feel much better if you talk about it.” As his small face looked up at hers, and she saw how upset he was, Rebecca had a sinking feeling. It was going to be another one of those awkward, auntie moments where she was most likely going to have to wing it.
“Ben said my mum and dad don’t like each other anymore, just like his mum and dad.” He swiped angrily at his nose, which was beginning to run. “And he said that Hannah will get to stay with Mum cos she’s a girl and that I’ll have to go and live with Dad in Christchurch.”
It just wasn’t fair, she raged silently. Jennifer and Mark’s splitting was going to hit this little boy so very hard. What was she supposed to say? She couldn’t lie to him and say that Mum and Dad were the best of friends. All she could do was plaster over things until Jennifer and Mark decided to tell him the news. She cuddled him in next to her and, in as stern a voice as she could muster, said, “Now listen to me, Jack Carlton. That is just not going to happen. I have already explained to you that Ben’s situation is different from yours. You’re going to have to be the bigger boy and ignore it if he says anything like that again, okay?” There was an imperceptible nod. “You don’t want to fall out with him because he’s your best friend and everybody needs their best friend, don’t they?” Melissa’s face sprang to mind, and she gave her a good mental kick up the backside. This time he nodded like he meant it. “So, tomorrow you go to school and tell Ben that you’re sorry for whatever you said. And if he says anything else about your mum and dad, you’re just to say that you don’t want to talk about it with him. Ask him how he’s getting on with his karate lessons instead, okay?”
Rebecca was relieved to see the worried frown between his dark brows vanish as he raised a small smile. Perhaps this hands-on auntie thing wasn’t so hard after all. Who knew? Maybe she was, at long last, growing up because she felt very learned as she kissed him on his forehead. “Come on, into bed. It’s time to snuggle down.”
She met Jennifer outside in the hallway. “You need to talk to him.” She relayed what he had conveyed to her in a whisper and put her hand on her sister’s arm as her face crumpled.
“But I don’t know what to say to him.”
“Wing it—I did,” she told her firmly before spinning her around and giving her a shove in the small of her back. “Now get in there and reassure him that he is not about to get shipped off to Christchurch to live with his father.”
As she tiptoed back downstairs, she made a mental note to mention to David what Ben had been saying. It sounded as though the little boy wasn’t coping quite as well as he seemed to think.
Jennifer came back downstairs a short while later in her pyjamas.
“How did you get on?” Rebecca sat, twisting her hair around her index finger anxiously.
Wrapping her dressing gown around herself as though giving herself a cuddle, Jennifer shook her head. “I don’t know, Becs. He’s so angry at me. He blames me for everything that’s going on.”
“But that’s so wrong.” Rebecca was indignant. Mark was the one who had the affair, and he wasn’t even here helping to deal with the fallout.
Jennifer shrugged. “Maybe, but I can’t very well start bagging his father to him, can I?”
“No, I guess not.” It sucked having to be a grown-up sometimes.
“At least I got to say my piece to him, though. He knows I love him and that he’s not going anywhere. I reassured him his dad will be home in a few days too.”
“Did you tell him that you and Mark are separating?”
Jennifer looked startled. “I think deep down he already knows but no, I didn’t. Mark and I haven’t even talked about the logistics of it ourselves yet. It’s ironic, I suppose. There we were thinking a holiday might get us back on track when what we needed all along was the distance between us to face up to the reality of going our separate ways.” She shook her head, and her loose hair swished softly over her shoulders. “It still feels surreal hearing you say that we are separating like that, though.”
“Sorry.”
She shrugged. “There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. It’s the truth, and we are both going to have to deal with it. Mark and I need to sit down and nut out how we are going to make it work for the kids. When we have it clear with each othe
r as to how we are going to do things, we’ll talk to Jack and Hannah.” She shuddered at the thought of that little conversation. “I need a drink.” She disappeared into the kitchen with Rebecca trailing behind her.
From the depths of the fridge, Jennifer produced a bottle of locally produced wine and poured out two large glasses, holding one out to Rebecca.
“Thanks.” She took a sip; it was gorgeous. “Yum.”
“Yeah, it’s not bad for a Chardonnay. Here’s to you coming home and to opening your very own dance school.” She raised her glass.
Rebecca felt a frisson of excitement at hearing the words her very own dance school—it truly was possible. Sure, it would take two years to get her teaching certificate but hey, she had whiled away so many more years tip-tapping on a computer doing others’ bidding. Two years in the grand scheme of her working career was nothing. She smiled and clinked her sister’s glass. “Cheers.” Then, seeing Jennifer shiver, she suggested they head through to the warmth of the living room. Jennifer acquiesced, and they wandered through to curl up companionably at opposite ends of the couch. “What’s a good name for a dance school?”
“Ballet with Becs has a good ring to it.”
Rebecca cringed. “For someone with supposed business savvy, I hope you are joking. No, it would have to be something professional sounding, like, um, oh, I don’t know—what about Loughton’s School of Dance?”
“I’ll grant you that does sound a tad more prestigious. So what will you do while you train for your teacher’s certificate?”
Rebecca shrugged. “I suppose I’ll have to get a legal secretary job in Christchurch to pay the bills in the interim. It’s only two years; it will fly by.”
Jennifer looked thoughtful for a moment. “What about staying on here and helping me out as my nanny cum Girl Friday while you study? You said the course was distance learning.”
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