Swapping Lives

by Jane Green

  ‘Does that mean you haven’t had a good time?’ Vicky asks.

  ‘I’ve had a great time,’ Amber says. ‘But I honestly don’t know what I was thinking, writing in to you and then actually doing it. Although I have discovered that I adore working again.’

  ‘Are you writing?’

  ‘A lot more than I expected to be, and it seems I’m pretty good at it. I was thinking about maybe looking for a job when I get back, maybe something like a junior writer on a local paper or something.’

  ‘So you have found out things about yourself, then? It hasn’t been a wasted opportunity?’

  ‘Oh my gosh, no! I feel like I’ve had a dose of reality, being here. And I’ve learnt that I need something more in my life other than the League. I need to be useful and needed, to be defined by something other than being a wife, mother, or charity member.’

  ‘So should I start looking into flights?’ Vicky says.

  ‘Absolutely!’ Amber grins. ‘And does this mean I can talk to my kids now?’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ Vicky says. ‘Hang on. Jared! Gracie!’ she yells up the stairs to the kids, who are in the playroom. ‘Pick up the phone. Someone wants to say hello!’

  Chapter Thirty

  Despite Richard’s fear at having to admit to his wife that he is not the successful hunter that she thinks he is, that he has failed at being the breadwinner, that for the past six months when he has looked in the mirror every morning he has seen failure written all over his face, there is something of a relief in finally coming clean.

  The pressure of living a lie has taken its toll, his fear of not being the man his wife thinks he is causing him far more stress than he had realized. As angry as he was at Amber’s leaving, as much as he didn’t understand it, he couldn’t help but feel this was God’s way of punishing him for not living up to the Highfield husband standard.

  The truth was that although he didn’t like not having a job, was ashamed at being made redundant and not being able to walk into something else immediately, he couldn’t honestly say that he loved his job. Not any more. Not for years.

  In the beginning, when he first started trading, he loved the buzz of making money, the rollercoaster of emotions that came with each huge win and loss, the wins generally far outweighing the losses.

  He wasn’t a kid any more, yet he found himself surrounded by kids, getting younger and younger every year, all of them with the same hunger, passion and drive that he vaguely remembered having when he first came into the business.

  He doesn’t remember when the drive started to disappear, but suspects it may have been around the time they moved to Highfield. Not that there was anything wrong with Highfield, but it had been one hell of a shock moving from the city to the suburbs, the commute was a killer, and Amber, who had wanted to move out to the suburbs to raise her children in a ‘more simple way’, seemed to be constantly stressed about how she was going to continue to impress the circles in which she moved.

  The truth was that despite its first impressions, Highfield was far more sinister than Manhattan. At least Manhattan was obvious about what it was. You knew what you were getting in Manhattan. You knew your kids were going to be going through murder to get into one of the handful of private schools that anyone who was anyone had to go to; you knew you would have to pull every string you had to ensure they got the best start in life, and if that meant bringing in private tutors to ensure your three-year-old had a basic understanding of the French language to impress at the interview, then so be it.

  But Highfield wasn’t supposed to be like that. Everyone who’d moved out here from the city said they’d chosen Highfield precisely because it wasn’t like that. Because it was in the country, and there were fields and trees. Because they wanted their children to grow up in nature, and go to the ‘unbelievably good’ public schools, and because they all said they wanted to get out of the rat race.

  They said they loved Highfield because it had New England charm with just enough city sophistication for the ex-Manhattanites to feel at home. They loved that it had an enormous arts festival every year, bringing people from near and far, all flocking to revel in the town that had been built up by artists and actors and writers in the twenties.

  On paper Highfield had seemed perfect, but the more city people that have moved out there, the more city values they have brought with them, and Richard only has to look at Amber to see how little has actually changed since moving out here.

  He loves Amber precisely because she’s not from that world. Because she came from nothing. Because she didn’t expect anything from him. But her humble beginnings gave her a chameleon quality – Amber was able to make herself into whoever she thought she needed to be to fit in, and although Richard knows that the Amber who goes to the League gala in Oscar de la Renta is not the Amber he married, he also knows that as long as they stay here this is who she is going to be.

  Up until six months ago he didn’t mind. He was more than able to provide her with her wardrobe of beautiful clothes, her Amberley Jacks living room, her McMansion that puts all others to shame, but now he’s going to have to tell her it’s all over, and although he is relieved that he can finally share his own shame, share his secret with the most important woman in his life, everything has to change, and he feels sick with fear at what Amber will say.

  He had prayed it wouldn’t come to this. Had spent the first couple of months phoning everyone he knew, asking if there was anything available, calling headhunters he’d employed himself to find other team members, said members, ironically enough, still employed.

  Everyone had been happy to meet with him, some buying lunch, some giving him flattering amounts of ‘face-time’ in their offices, but none had led to anything. ‘It’s a terrible market,’ he’d heard over and over again. ‘Even for someone in your position,’ and this had inevitably led to sob stories of valued employees of the bank, men far more senior, employed for far longer, who had been let go.

  ‘If there’s ever anything I can do,’ they’d all said as they shook his hand and pressed their business card upon him, but the one thing he wanted them to do they weren’t able to do: provide him with a job.

  And the more time that had elapsed, the more he had taken to daydreaming, going to the aquarium for hours, losing himself in the hypnotic throbbing of the jellyfish, conjuring up elaborate fantasies of what he would really love to do.

  Because the truth was he didn’t really want to be back in the city. He’d had enough of Wall Street, was burnt out, and money just didn’t mean as much to him as it did to his younger, hungrier counterparts who lived for the thrill of the deal, for the ridiculous, enormous bonuses they took home at the end of every year, and that was despite the ‘terrible market’.

  His family never had any money, and it didn’t do him any harm. In fact his memories of his childhood are all good, all happy, and when times were really bad it was turned into an adventure. The Christmas they couldn’t afford decorations or even a tree, they cut down a small white pine from the yard and made their own decorations, his brothers and sisters concentrating fiercely as they cut out paper lanterns by the fire, his mother making it into a big game as she sat in the shabby wing chair by the fireplace, stringing popcorn with his sisters.

  Richard knew that money didn’t buy happiness, and he also knew that, deep down, Amber knew it too. And his dream? To buy a small business somewhere, something small and local, maybe a family-run operation. To have an office close to home, somewhere where he could come home for lunch, spend time with the kids, get to know his family again.

  What Richard really wanted was the simpler life he thought they’d be getting when they moved out to Highfield. He wanted to recreate his childhood, wanted his children to be happy playing Pooh sticks in a little river somewhere, wanted them to know the joy of playing hide and seek in a hayfield, not being constantly ferried by a nanny from class to class, nor losing themselves for mindless hours in an X-box or PlayStation.
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  He doesn’t want Gracie growing up to be like the nine-year-olds he sees around town on the weekends. Tiny little versions of their mothers, in glittery navelbaring T-shirts, mini Louis Vuitton purses slung over their shoulders, the expressions on their faces already jaded as they borrow their mothers’ phones at the nail salon, and sit chatting to friends, splaying their fingers expertly and nonchalantly as a small Korean woman bends over and paints their nails carefully with Ballet Slippers. The girls chew gum and cross their legs, ignore their manicurists in a bid to be more sophisticated. More like their mothers.

  He doesn’t want Jared demanding the latest Nike trainers because those are the only ones that are cool, walking around town with a sense of entitlement that comes from being one of the children of the wealthy but uninvolved: children of parents who are rarely around, the fathers working in Wall Street, the mothers coping as best they can with Wall Street widowhood by throwing themselves into their committees, their Leagues, their PTAs, all determined to be the best they can, to have the best children they can; to be, or to have, the cleverest, the prettiest, the sportiest, the thinnest, the most – and even when they do, it doesn’t seem to be enough.

  But Amber does seem to want it. There are times when she doesn’t, but how will she cope when he tells her they can’t keep up any more? The market isn’t getting any better, the hope he had for the first few weeks after he was made redundant is well and truly gone, and all the time he is meeting men who are in the same situation as him, only they’ve been out of work for months, and some of them for years.

  How will Amber be able to hold her head up when he tells her they can’t afford their lifestyle? That the only asset they have is the house – his financial adviser had always told him it wasn’t really necessary to have savings until they hit forty, and he still had a couple of years to go, had never worried about their future, assumed his income would keep them safe – and now the house is going to have to be sold.

  It’s the last resort, but unless he finds a job tomorrow, he can’t see another way out. If they sold the house they’d have enough equity to buy something much smaller and live perfectly comfortably, although they wouldn’t be shopping at Rakers any more, wouldn’t be on Amberley Jacks’ Christmas card list this year, would definitely become the source of the town’s gossip – the women like Suzy and Nadine would have a field day.

  Which is perhaps what he’s most scared of. Not that he gives a damn about them, but he knows how humiliating it’s going to be for Amber. He’d be quite happy in an unassuming cape, and Amber has enough style to make it beautiful, but how does Amber explain their change of lifestyle away? Is she strong enough to withstand being talked about and whispered about, being the object of pity amongst her so-called friends in the League?

  But Amber is strong, he tells himself. She has come from far worse than this, and had the ability to recreate herself from nothing then. If she did it then, she can do it again. It will be hard for her to accept at first, he knows, but once she does, they will be okay.

  Please, God, let them be okay.

  Amber passes through customs and out into the crowds of expectant faces in the arrivals lounge at Kennedy Airport. Richard is sending a car for her, and she starts to scan the signs looking for her name, wanting to get into the car and get home as quickly as possible.

  And then she sees them. Richard, so tall, so handsome, so familiar, with Gracie in one arm, his other hand resting on Jared’s head. As a smile spreads on her face and she starts to run towards them, Jared and Gracie see her, and Jared runs towards her, his arms outstretched, his face pure joy.

  ‘Mommy!’ he shrieks as he jumps into her arms, followed by Gracie and Richard.

  Amber doesn’t say anything. Just hugs her children tightly as the tears stream down her face. Oh God, she thinks. How could I leave them? And then she stands up, the children still clinging to her legs, and kisses Richard, feeling suddenly awkward and slightly shy.

  ‘Hey, stranger,’ she whispers as they pull apart and smile at one another.

  ‘Hey, yourself,’ he says. ‘Happy to be home?’

  ‘You have no idea!’ she says, and she links arms with him as they walk to the car park, and by the time they reach the car all the awkwardness has disappeared, and Amber cannot wipe the grin off her face, so overjoyed is she to be finally back where she belongs.

  ‘We missed you, Mommy!’ Jared says as they hit the highway.

  ‘Yes, Mommy. Why did you go for such a long, long time?’ Gracie’s little voice comes from the back seat.

  ‘Don’t worry, kids,’ Amber says. ‘I’m never going away again. Mommy’s going to stay in Highfield forever,’ and she turns to smile at Richard as she puts her hand on his, and is it her imagination or does he look ever so slightly pale?

  ‘Is everything okay, Rich?’ she asks.

  He turns to her and smiles. ‘Everything’s great,’ he says. ‘I thought we could give the kids supper and then go out ourselves later. I’ve booked a table at La Plage for eight o’clock. Can you manage that or are you too tired?’ La Plage is their favourite restaurant in Highfield, and one they don’t go to often enough. It’s the perfect place for Richard to make his confession, not least because it would be impossible to create a scene in La Plage’s quiet sophisticated atmosphere, when there will undoubtedly be at least three other tables of people they know having dinner there, La Plage being one of the few places to ‘be seen’ in Highfield.

  ‘Oh honey, I’m exhausted. It’s now…’ she checks her watch, ‘eleven o’clock in England, and I’d really just love to be with you and the kids. Can we do La Plage tomorrow night instead? Can we maybe just have an early night tonight?’

  ‘But there’s so much to talk about,’ Richard says, knowing that he can’t put this off another night, the pressure of the secret becoming almost too much for him to bear. ‘I want to hear all about London.’

  ‘I just can’t face getting dressed up and going out,’ Amber says.

  ‘Stay home, Mommy!’ chorus Jared and Gracie from the back seat. ‘Don’t go out. Stay home.’

  ‘See?’ Amber grins. ‘Looks like you’re outvoted. But I tell you what. When the kids are in bed why don’t we get take-out and you and I will eat on the porch? We’ll have a couple of glasses of wine and I can tell you a bit about London, and meanwhile you can tell me what it was like having Vicky here. How was it, having Vicky here? Promise me you didn’t sleep with her?’ She’s half joking. And half not.

  Richard turns to her and smiles, so grateful that the moment he had shared with Vicky never materialized into something else, knowing that he has always been a hopeless liar, that if anything had happened Amber would know, has always been able to read him like a book.

  ‘Hand on my heart,’ he puts his hand on his heart, and does his best Clinton impersonation. ‘I did not have sex with that woman.’

  ‘And no blow jobs either?’

  He grins. ‘No blow jobs either.’

  ‘Good,’ Amber says. ‘But you know I just had to ask.’

  ‘I know. And I missed you. I really, really missed you.’

  ‘I really, really missed you too.’

  The children take a while to settle, the excitement at having Amber home sending them into giggling fits as they keep appearing at the bottom of the stairs long after they’ve – repeatedly – been put to bed.

  Amber and Richard sit outside, and Amber bubbles over with excitement as she tells him about London. About how invigorating it was, being around ‘real’ people again, about feeling that she was contributing something by actually writing pieces for the magazine, that it’s made her realize that she wants to go back to work. No, she needs to go back to work. Not full-time, never full-time, but she has to do something that occupies her brain.

  ‘And the League doesn’t?’ Richard grins.

  ‘Oh God,’ she says. ‘That’s one thing I haven’t missed in the slightest. How did Vicky cope with the League? How was the jewellery s
how? Did she survive the hell of Suzy?’

  ‘Actually she did great. She and Deborah became buddies and she did a good job, although it wasn’t you.’

  ‘Did you like her? Did you get on with her? Come on, admit it, didn’t you find her attractive?’

  ‘Oh will you stop? Why do you keep asking me this? Have you got something to tell me?’

  ‘Actually I have,’ Amber says playfully, reaching over the table and helping herself to more Szechuan vegetables. ‘I had a date, and he thought I was the most gorgeous woman in the world.’

  ‘You’re not serious?’ Richard is horrified. ‘You had a date and you’re telling me about it, why?’

  Amber shrugs with a naughty grin. ‘Oh don’t be silly. I didn’t do anything. I’d never do anything, it was just really weird that this friend of Vicky’s, Daniel, insisted on taking me out and I thought it was just as friends but he had this whole romantic picnic planned and he flirted outrageously with me.’

  ‘I still don’t understand why you’re telling me.’

  ‘Because you’re my best friend, and I tell you everything, and because it made me realize that I never want to be single again, and I never want to be dating again, or flirting with anyone other than you, darling husband. Although I’ll admit, it’s damn nice to be flirted with after all these years.’

  ‘Well I’m glad he made you happy.’ Richard swallows hard. ‘Now there’s something I have to tell you. Oh shit.’ He takes a deep breath and looks away, unable to look Amber in the eye, and Amber starts to shake as a vice of fear grips her heart.

  ‘Oh God,’ she whispers. ‘You did do something with Vicky, didn’t you? You slept with her. Oh my God.’

  ‘No!’ Richard meets her eye. ‘I did not. It’s something else. I…’

  ‘What?’ There’s a silence as Richard tries to figure out how to say it. ‘What?’ she ends up shrieking at him, terrified of what she’s going to hear.