Swapping Lives

by Jane Green

  Richard opens his eyes wide. ‘About time,’ he says. ‘What brought this on?’

  Amber shrugs. ‘I guess tonight was just the pinnacle of everything that’s wrong with Highfield. Even though I had a good time, it was partly because I felt detached from everything. For the first time I didn’t feel inadequate, didn’t feel I had to keep up with everyone, and I suppose it made me realize how superficial this all is.’

  ‘Well we’re always talking about moving to the Berkshires, or Vermont or somewhere. We could, you know,’ Richard says hopefully. ‘We could get a house on the water where the cost of living is way less.’

  Amber snorts. ‘And I guess you’d make a living as a fisherman? Oh darling, I know you still have to be within commuting distance of New York, and anyway, this realization doesn’t mean I’m ready to change. Not yet. I just want to pull out of all this constant competition. I don’t care any more. Like having Amberley Jacks do the living room. God, I hate that living room.’

  Richard sits up. ‘You’d better be joking, given how much that cost.’

  Amber gulps. ‘Oh yes. I don’t hate it. I just meant it wasn’t what I expected, and I see what you mean about how unnecessarily expensive they are. I don’t care about having Amberley Jacks do our house. I’m going to cancel them tomorrow.’

  ‘I thought you’d cancelled them weeks ago?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Amber looks away, thinking fast. ‘Well I left them a message but never heard anything. I’ll just phone and absolutely confirm they understood.’

  ‘You know, if you were serious about wanting a simpler life, I could find something local. I don’t have to work in the city. I could find a business to run, something small, something that would mean me being at home with the kids.’

  ‘In a dream world that would be ideal.’ Amber smiles. ‘But we’re still consolidating; we spent so much money on this house. You’re the one who’s always saying we need to start saving rather than spending. We should put together something like a five-year plan, put some money away every year so we can have that as a goal to look forward to.’

  ‘You’re the one who’s always spending,’ Richard says bitterly.

  ‘Darling, don’t start a fight now,’ Amber soothes. ‘And I’m much better this month than I was. I’m really trying.’

  ‘You’re a bit better,’ Richard says dubiously. ‘Not much.’

  ‘But I will be much better,’ Amber says firmly. ‘I’m going to resign from the League and I swear to you, I won’t need any of those clothes or the jewllery once I resign. I only bought that stuff to keep up with them, and Suzy didn’t even comment on my ring at the last meeting.’

  Richard furrows his brow. ‘What ring?’

  ‘Oh –’ shit – ‘my engagement ring,’ she says quickly.

  ‘But she’s seen that before, hasn’t she?’ Richard frowns.

  ‘Not since I cleaned it. It’s really sparkly now.’

  ‘Honey, I’m tired now.’ Richard leans over and kisses her on the lips before reaching over and turning off the light. ‘Sleep well. I love you.’

  ‘Yes, honey,’ she says, thankful he didn’t realize she’d bought that ring recently. ‘I love you too.’

  Amber’s sense of well-being continues through until breakfast on Monday. She feels so good about her decision to quit the League she even gives Lavinia the day off, after she’s finished doing the laundry. Richard is just about to go to work when the phone rings, and since he’s closest he picks up, after giving Amber a quizzical look, because who, after all, would call them at 7.45 in the morning?

  ‘It’s for you,’ he holds out the phone, covering the mouthpiece. ‘Some English person called Vicky Townsley.’

  Amber frowns. Vicky Townsley. Vicky Townsley. The name is vaguely familiar but she can’t think why. She takes the phone. ‘This is Amber Winslow.’

  ‘Amber? Hi! This is Vicky Townsley from Poise! magazine. You wrote to us about Life Swap and I’d love to talk to you further.’

  Oh shit. Amber had completely forgotten about that. What on earth had she been thinking?

  ‘So who’s Vicky Townsley?’ Richard’s back in the kitchen, besuited with briefcase in hand, kissing the kids goodbye as he sets off to the train station.

  ‘A journalist on a British magazine,’ Amber says nonchalantly. ‘I’ll explain later. Have a good day,’ and she kisses him goodbye, almost steering him through the mud-room door.

  The next hour is spent on auto-pilot. Lavinia is busy upstairs with the laundry so Amber gets the children dressed and ready for school, so busy she doesn’t have time to think about the conversation she’s just had, what she must have been thinking when she sent that letter in to Poise!.

  The truth is she never expected them to call her. She was intrigued by the article – who wouldn’t be? – and just wrote the note on a whim. Now they’ve called and, worse, they want to fly over to meet her. What was she thinking, and more to the point, what in the hell is she going to tell Richard? ‘Darling, I love you and the kids more than life itself but I’m just popping over to the other side of the Atlantic for a month. Cheerio!’

  How do you explain to the people you love that it isn’t about them? That you’ve done this, even though you didn’t expect it to amount to anything, because it’s about you. Because despite how perfect your life is, how you appear to have everything you have ever wanted or needed, you don’t know who you are any more.

  Amber may no longer want this life – the charities, the social climbing, the insecurities and constant exhaustion that comes with attempting to keep up with the Bartlows and everyone else in the League, but nor does she know quite what to do about it.

  She’s stuck. Too frightened to make a change, too frightened to stay still. And it isn’t about Richard. Isn’t about the children. Isn’t anything to do with them. It’s just that she needs to step outside her life for a bit. Remind herself of who she used to be, of what life was like when she didn’t want or need a Viking range, when she hadn’t heard of Amberley Jacks, when her wardrobe was half empty instead of bursting at the seams, and when the clothes inside came from Old Navy and Gap instead of Oscar de la Renta and Chanel.

  She wants to remind herself of a simpler life. A simpler time when the things that mattered were friendships – real friendships, people who didn’t judge her because of what her living room looks like or what handbag she’s holding. When happiness was something real and attainable – not something she only catches a glimpse of these days, and even then only once in a while.

  But how on earth is she going to tell Richard? How is she going to tell him that she did this without consulting him, and now, if they want her, she’s going to go through with it, because despite her nervousness about his reaction, there’s something stronger going on.

  Excitement. And the overwhelming feeling that this could be exactly what she needs.

  ‘Ow!’ Jared whines as Gracie smirks and inches her foot back from kicking his shin. ‘Mommy! Gracie just kicked me.’

  ‘No! I did not!’ Gracie scowls as Amber gives her a warning look from the kitchen sink where she’s washing up the dishes, catching Grace’s evil smile as her foot inches back towards Jared, causing Jared to start whining again.

  ‘Oh stop it!’ Amber shouts. ‘Jared! Stop whining! Gracie! Leave him alone!’ God. She shakes her head as she tries to finish the dishes, finally wiping her hands furiously on a tea towel and running over to the table to wrench Gracie’s leg away from Jared. How can a three-year-old be so much trouble? Why didn’t anyone warn her about little girls?

  As she makes her way back to the sink there’s a sharp slap from the other side of the room and instantly Gracie starts screaming, Jared runs into the family room with a panicked look on his face. He’d finally been pushed too far and had retaliated, and as usual, even though Gracie started it, he can see he’s going to get the blame.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake!’ Amber shouts. ‘Both of you be QUIET!’ Her voice rises almost to a scre
am, and she turns the radio on at top volume to try and drown out the crying from both of them.

  She hates herself when she’s like this. Fully understands how people hit their children, not that she ever has done, but boy is she tempted when they whine and scream like this, particularly first thing in the morning before she’s even had time to have coffee.

  Carrying Grace on her right hip and dragging Jared along with her left hand, she eventually manages to get them to the end of the driveway for the school bus. She hugs and kisses a tearful Jared – he’s always been the sensitive one, always the one who finds it hardest when she shouts at him, and despite herself she finds she blames him more, expects more from him because he’s older. Even though he’s only six years old.

  As soon as Jared goes and Gracie has Amber to herself, she’s happy. She turns back into the gorgeous little girl that everyone at her pre-school thinks she’s like all of the time – oh if only they knew – and skips along next to Amber, holding her hand, singing, ‘Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. I love my mommy,’ and Amber’s heart melts. Oh God. England. A month away from the children. A month away from this. Could she do it? Does she even want to do it?

  And still a small voice says yes. Still the butterflies flutter with excitement in the pit of her stomach when she stops to think about waking up in a small apartment in – where did that article say Vicky Townsley lives? – Marylebone High Street? Yes that’s it. Marylebone High Street.

  Amber puts Gracie in the car seat and turns on a Wiggles CD. You know things are bad, she thinks idly as she listens to the now all-too-familiar strains of fruit salad, yummy, yummy, when you’re watching The Wiggles and wondering which one you’d sleep with if you absolutely had to. Just for the record, it’s Anthony, and just in case you’re a mother who hasn’t learnt each of their names by heart, he’s the blue one.

  And as she drives, she tries to remember the article that Vicky Townsley wrote, the collage of pictures documenting her life – her apartment, no, make that a flat, her wardrobe, pictures of her family, her friends. She does her grocery shopping at a supermarket called Waitrose, but buys fruit and produce from a market that sets up close to her on the weekend.

  London. Wouldn’t it be wonderful? ‘Hello, I’m Amber Winslow,’ Amber attempts in a British accent. ‘How lovely to make your acquaintance.’ She giggles to herself, thinking she really ought to practise.

  ‘What?’ Gracie shouts, leaning forward from the back seat. ‘What you say, Mommy?’

  ‘Nothing, darling,’ Amber smiles. ‘I’m just talking to myself.’

  Amber has only been to London once. Up until she was in her mid-twenties she hadn’t been anywhere at all, but as soon as she started making money as a lawyer she started travelling, although London wasn’t until she met Richard.

  He’d taken her there for a romantic weekend soon after they’d met. They had stayed at Claridge’s, had shopped on Bond Street, taken a boat on the Serpentine in Hyde Park, strolled around Kensington Palace, and had, rather disappointingly, waited in line for two hours with all the other American tourists to get into Madame Tussauds. Not worth the wait.

  But she had loved it. Had loved how the people spoke. How quaint and charming everything was. She had felt as if she had stepped into that movie, Four Weddings and a Funeral. She kept expecting to turn a corner and find Hugh Grant standing there, although even if he had been she was probably too besotted with Richard to have even taken any notice of him.

  Even Amber knew that London as a tourist and London as a Londoner were two very different things, and she was aware that as much as she had fallen in love with the city, she couldn’t possibly know what it was really like unless she lived there. Not that she ever thought she would. But a month in London! She imagines herself striding over to the market, a basket over her arm, in Vicky Townsley’s clothes, far trendier and more boho than anything she has in her own wardrobe.

  She sees herself sitting in pubs, nursing a pint of beer, laughing delightedly with some of Vicky’s cool journalist friends who, in these fantasies, immediately welcome Amber as one of their own, treating her like someone they’ve known their entire lives.

  She could sleep in, she thinks, imagining herself waking up to the sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling picture windows in Vicky Townsley’s bedroom, a cafetière of fresh coffee waiting on the kitchen table, maybe a touch of Diana Krall floating from the stereo.

  She’d get to work for a magazine – how much fun would that be? Going to work again! Being an adult! Being someone who doesn’t have to have thirty-three conversations a day about why it’s impossible to find a nanny who stays with you for longer than a year any more, and why all the people in Highfield are so snooty, even though many of the women with whom she finds herself having those conversations are considered by others to be the snootiest of all.

  Think of the trendy restaurants, the bars, the clubs. Not that Amber has the energy any more, but maybe, without the children, without any responsibilities other than getting to work by 10 a.m. every day, maybe she would find the energy.

  Not that Amber’s looking to meet anyone. Not in the sense of having an affair, at any rate. No. She’s perfectly happy with Richard, and although she occasionally thinks, if they were into wife-swapping, which of her friends’ husbands she would want to sleep with – the truth is she isn’t actually attracted to any of them, but at an absolute push she’d have to say Spencer because she’s always had a bit of a secret thing for men with long hair – she loves her husband, and wouldn’t be unfaithful. Not even when the likelihood would be that he’d never find out.

  The more Amber thinks about how single life in London would be, the more excited she becomes, and the more nervous she is about telling Richard. Because once she’s dropped Gracie at pre-school, once she’s arrived back home and has opened up the magazine again to study the pictures, re-read the article, see if there’s anything left to fantasize about that she may have missed whilst in the car this morning, she knows that if she is the one that Poise! ends up picking, there’s no way she’s going to say no.

  When they say jump, Amber already knows her response: How high?

  ‘What?’ Richard sits across the table from her at the French restaurant opposite the train station and looks at her in disbelief. Surely he couldn’t have heard what she just said. It doesn’t make sense. Why would she be leaving him and the children for a month? Did she say England? What on earth is she talking about?

  Amber slowly repeats the speech she has practised with Deborah, in whom she confided earlier today. ‘I think you’re completely mad,’ Deborah had said, placing two Starbucks grande skim lattes on the table in front of them, ‘and I’m deeply jealous. But what in the hell is Richard going to say?’

  What indeed.

  ‘What?’ he says again, shaking his head in an attempt to clear the confusion of thoughts that have sprung up as Amber continues speaking. He watches her lips move but struggles to make sense of the actual words.

  ‘Are you saying that you want to leave me and the kids and go to live in London for a month for some magazine article?’ He pauses as Amber nods, hopefully.

  ‘Are you out of your fucking mind?’ he continues, his voice menacingly low.

  ‘I know it seems crazy…’ Amber starts, having already predicted his reaction, although she didn’t expect to see quite this much anger in his eyes.

  ‘Crazy? You’re insane. I don’t understand. You want to leave us? What the hell are you talking about? Why would you want to leave?’

  ‘Richard,’ she places a hand on his arm, ‘it’s not that I want to leave you and the children. I don’t. I love you, and you know I love the kids, it’s just that I’m not happy, I haven’t been happy for a while, and this isn’t leaving, this is just a journalistic exercise for a magazine piece. I just need to go and find myself.’ She sighs, struggling to think of the right words to say. ‘Remember what life used to be like before we got caught up in all this Highfield crap? This doe
sn’t have anything to do with you or the children. This is about me. And I’ll be home in a month. It’s not leaving you, this isn’t a separation, nothing like that at all.

  ‘Richard,’ she continues, seeing that there’s no reaction from him at all. ‘I love you. Do you understand? I don’t want to be with anyone else other than you. This isn’t about you, okay? It’s just something I have to do.’

  ‘So you’ve made up your mind?’

  ‘Well… no. I don’t even know that they’ll choose me, but the journalist wants to come next week and meet us, see how we live and what we’re like.’

  ‘And what if I say no? Absolutely not?’

  ‘I’m hoping you won’t,’ Amber says quietly. ‘Because this is something I really, really need to do. I’m hoping that you’ll understand the reasons why I’m not happy, why I feel I’m stuck, and why I need to do this. If you love me you’ll let me go.’

  Richard exhales. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.’

  ‘Doing what?’ Amber says in exasperation. ‘I’m just going on vacation for a month. If you wanted to go away with the guys for a month I’d let you go.’

  ‘But that’s the point. I wouldn’t want to. I wouldn’t want to be away from you for a month, and anyway, this isn’t the same thing at all. This isn’t going to a spa or something with your girlfriends. If I understand you correctly you’re telling me you want to be single again, to live a single life without a husband, without children, and even though you’re saying it’s only for a month, what the hell am I supposed to think that you’re even considering this? That this is something you actually want?’ Richard’s voice rises with anger.

  ‘If I hadn’t read the magazine I would never have wanted this. I never want to be without you and Jared and Gracie, not permanently. I just need a break. It’s not that I want to be single, I just want to remember what life used to be like. I feel as though I look in the mirror and I have no idea who I am any more. What happened to the strong, successful, independent woman I used to be? How did I become a person whose sole topics of conversation involve what I bought at Rakers last week, or why no one can get good goddamned help any more.