Swapping Lives

by Jane Green

  ‘Not that I’m interested,’ Vicky says slowly, ‘but how come he’s divorced?’

  ‘Wife ran off with the builder. All rather awful although now he says he realizes it’s a good thing, although very hard on the kids. They weren’t that happy, he says now, but he would have stayed, just assumed that that was the way his life was going to be.’

  ‘And no girlfriend?’ Vicky says, because he is quite attractive, even though she hadn’t ever really thought about it before, had assumed he was unavailable.

  ‘Nope.’ Kate grins at her. ‘Are you interested?’

  ‘Oh don’t be ridiculous!’ Vicky says. ‘I don’t even know the man.’

  ‘Okay, okay. Just make sure you check out his bum,’ she whispers, as the men walk back into the kitchen.

  *

  Kate takes the kids up to bath them, Andy disappears over to the neighbour to take back the saw he’d borrowed earlier, and Vicky and Bill clear the dishes.

  ‘You’ve got to be careful about accepting dinner invitations here,’ Vicky says. ‘Delicious food but you have to do the washing-up.’

  ‘Wash or dry?’ Bill says.

  ‘I’ll wash.’

  ‘I was hoping you’d say that. I’m a hopeless washer. My ex-wife used to ban me from doing any washing-up. Can’t say I minded desperately.’

  ‘Does she still live locally?’

  ‘Yes, we still live in the same house actually.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Well, it’s divided into two, but it’s great for the children. They’re eight and ten, and we wanted to cause them as little disruption as possible, so Melanie and Des live on one side, and I live on the other with my chickens.’

  ‘You got the raw end of the deal, then.’

  ‘Why, because of the chickens?’ Vicky nods as Bill bursts into laughter. ‘Actually she hates the chickens, and I’d far rather have the chickens than Des.’

  ‘He was your builder?’

  ‘Yup. Actually he’s not bad. He can’t be that bad for putting up with Mel.’ Bill grins.

  ‘But isn’t it weird, living in the same house as them?’

  ‘I know others think so, but it works for us. Speaking of weird, isn’t it weird to swap lives with a married woman?’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Vicky laughs. ‘You win. Although that was for work rather than by choice.’

  ‘Are you glad you did it?’

  ‘Yes. I really am. I think it really changed the way I think, made me much happier with what I’ve got.’

  ‘I bet the husband must have been happy when you showed up.’

  Vicky almost drops the plate she’s washing in shock. ‘Why, Bill! Was that a compliment?’

  ‘A very heavy-handed one,’ he says sheepishly, ‘but yes.’

  ‘Well thank you,’ she grins. ‘Flattery will get you everywhere. Even though,’ she gives him a sideways glance, ‘I don’t have a serious pair of legs.’

  ‘Oh I don’t know.’ Bill raises an eyebrow. ‘They didn’t look too bad to me,’ and embarrassed at how forward he is, he looks away and pretends to be busy with the tea towel. ‘There. Done.’ He finishes drying the last dish and hangs the damp cloth on the hook.

  ‘I should go and help Kate with the kids,’ Vicky says during the awkward silence.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Bill says. ‘You can’t leave a guest here all by himself. Come and sit with me outside and tell me everything about the life swap.’

  And so Vicky does.

  ‘Well?’ Kate says as Bill finally leaves at the end of the evening. ‘I saw the two of you through the window while I was bathing the kids. Laughing and flirting away, Miss “I’m not interested”!’

  ‘I was not flirting!’ Vicky says, with a blush. ‘Okay, well maybe just a tiny bit.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So did anything happen?’

  ‘Yes. We had sex on the sun lounger while you were upstairs.’

  Kate’s mouth falls open as Vicky starts to laugh.

  ‘Oh, you ridiculous thing! Of course we didn’t have sex. But he asked me if I’d like to come over for dinner next time I’m up. He says he’s a wonderful cook.’

  ‘And will you?’

  ‘I said I’d love to.’

  ‘Oh goodness!’ Kate says excitedly, her cheeks flushed with alcohol and promise. ‘Imagine if you married him! You’d live two minutes away! We’d see you all the time. Vicky Arlington! Mrs Arlington! Mrs Bill Arlington!’

  ‘Andy!’ Vicky calls her brother in from the other room. ‘Will you shut your wife up?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ he grins. ‘Kate? Mrs Arlington would very much like it if you shut up. How’s that?’ He turns to Vicky who rolls her eyes.

  ‘You’re as bad as one another. It’s dinner, for God’s sake. And it’s at his house, not even a date. And who knows what will happen? We’ll probably just be friends.’

  ‘Okay, but just tell me one thing, and then I’ll shut up forever,’ Kate pleads. ‘Did you notice his bum?’

  ‘Yes,’ Vicky grins. ‘And yes, you’re right. It is as sexy as you described.’

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Amber doesn’t speak to Richard for three days.

  ‘What a welcome home,’ she mutters to him over the breakfast table the next morning, trying not to let the kids see that she is furious with him, that he has spent last night in the same place he has spent the previous two and a half weeks – namely in the guest room.

  ‘How could you not tell me?’ she hisses, slamming the plate of toast on the table in front of him. Then later, as she clears up, ‘No money left. Jesus Christ. How could you not have told me?’

  The questions are rhetorical. Richard says nothing. As awful as it is, having this hissing, spurting, simmering version of his wife home, he has to admit he feels a hell of a lot better having told her. There are no pretences these last three days. No ‘Bye, darling, see you after work.’ No leaving the house in his suit and wondering how to fill his day and where to go so he won’t be caught, won’t be seen by any of Amber’s friends or nannies who happen to spy him somewhere.

  These last few days he has slept better than he has in the past six months. Admittedly he is vaguely concerned about Amber, wishes that he could lie next to her in their huge bed, wishes more that he could make love to her – it’s been three weeks, for God’s sake – but he knows she will need to vent, and once she has got all the anger out, they will figure out what to do.

  In the meantime he disappears into his home office during the day. Sits online for hours, checking out the job websites, half-heartedly applying for other trading positions, knowing even as he emails his résumé that he doesn’t really want this. At the same time he looks at businesses for sale, starts to read up on running small businesses, orders books from Amazon about successful businessmen who started small, turning their mom ’n’ pop shops into multi-million-dollar worldwide organizations.

  On day three Amber knocks on the door of his office.

  ‘Okay,’ she says, her expression still stern, but the steam no longer pouring out of her ears. ‘Now we have to talk.’

  ‘We could leave,’ Amber says after they’ve talked about selling the house, what it would be worth, how much they could put away and what would then be left to buy. They’ve talked about what Richard really wants to do, how he doesn’t have the energy to go into the city any more, how he wants to spend more time with them. And they’ve talked about Highfield. About how it isn’t what Richard expected, isn’t what he wants for their children, although he knows how much Amber loves it, how settled she is, and for her sake they should start looking for a smaller house.

  ‘What do you mean, we could leave?’

  ‘I mean we could leave. The kids are young enough, we could start again somewhere else. Somewhere that isn’t a microcosm of Manhattan. Somewhere quiet, and simple, where nobody judges you based on which season’s Luella bag you’re carrying, or who,’ she smiles wryly, ‘decorated
your living room.’

  ‘You would leave Highfield?’

  Amber looks at Richard for a long time then takes a deep breath. ‘In a heartbeat,’ she says finally.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Yes,’ she nods. ‘I think I needed to get away to see it for what it is. I’m tired of trying to keep up, and I agree with you, I don’t want Jared and Gracie becoming the children I see around town.’

  ‘But where would we go?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Amber says. ‘And you need to know that I’m still upset that you didn’t tell me. I understand that you didn’t want to hurt me unnecessarily, but I need some more time to get over that betrayal. Having said that,’ she takes a deep breath, ‘I would support you buying a small business. I think you’d be great at it. I’ve always thought you should be your own boss, and I know you haven’t been happy on Wall Street for a long time. So I think we should base where we go on what you end up buying, and maybe we could even find something that you and I could do together.’

  ‘Come here,’ Richard says, holding out his arms.

  ‘No,’ Amber stands up and heads for the door. ‘This doesn’t mean you’re forgiven. It doesn’t mean that everything’s suddenly okay. I still need some time, but I’ve pulled myself up from far worse situations, and I can do it again; and who knows, maybe this will be the best thing that ever happened to us. But I can’t pretend that I’m fine with it. Not yet.’

  Amber drops the children off at Deborah’s the next day, and sends Lavinia out to do the grocery shopping.

  ‘You’re not coming in?’ Deborah asks after giving Amber a huge welcome-back hug. ‘But I need to talk to you, I have to fill you in on League gossip, not to mention hear everything about London. You look great! I love that skirt.’ Deborah fingers Amber’s suspiciously trendy skirt. ‘Whistles?’

  ‘Nope. Jigsaw!’ Amber laughs and shakes her head. ‘I’ve got a million things to do,’ she says. ‘Life is crazy busy, but I’ll come and pick the kids up and I promise we can have a glass of wine then and I’ll fill you in on what’s going on.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Deborah calls out after her as Amber climbs back into her car. ‘Stop! You can’t leave me hanging like this. What do you mean, “what’s going on”? What is going on?’

  ‘Tell you later,’ Amber calls back through the window as she drives off with a wave, heading back home to continue her research on the Internet.

  The way Amber thinks is this: if she can’t trust her husband to tell her he’s lost his job so they can figure out what the next step should be, instead of saying nothing and letting her blow his severance pay on ridiculous frivolities because she had no idea they were about to be skint, how can she possibly trust him to find a business?

  And so Amber has taken it upon herself to find a business. No. More than a business. A new life. She has dived into this new project with a vigour and an enthusiasm that she hasn’t felt since, well, since she was sitting behind the features director’s desk at Poise! magazine.

  Already she has found a few businesses that would have suited Richard perfectly, but a closer investigation of the towns in which they’re based has ruled them out. She’s found a few towns that she’s fallen in love with, but a closer investigation of the businesses has ruled them out.

  Just for the hell of it, she’s taken to going to realtor.com to see what they could get for their money, just in case they would move to any of these towns, and she is shocked when she sees what their money will buy.

  In Highfield, a starter home now runs at close to a million dollars. In Portland, Oregon, a starter condo runs at around a hundred and fifty thousand. In Tucson, Arizona, they could buy a luxury house for a million and a half, and in Charlottesville, Virginia, a small farm would be just under a million.

  And then she stumbles upon an apple orchard for sale just outside Albany, New York. It’s a pick-your-own orchard, a successful family business that has a farm shop selling home-made pies, apple butter, apple desserts. They have their own website, and with rising excitement Amber scans the pictures of the house: an eighteenth-century farmhouse, picture-perfect, surrounded by a picket fence with clouds of lavender and catmint, the farm shop across the road next to the orchards, a playground, and a barnyard complete with chickens, geese, sheep, goats, three (little) pigs, two cows and a pony.

  ‘The local schools regularly bring classes to Appletree Orchard for field trips,’ Amber reads, ‘where the children learn how to look after animals, including hand-rearing our lambs in the spring.’

  And best of all, it’s well within their price range. Laughably cheap. A house and a business in one. Plus four outbuildings including a barn that would make a perfect office, because as it stands the orchard is pretty, but seasonal. If it were ever to become something substantial, they would have to figure out how to make money in winter. She prints out the pages from the website and takes them down to Richard’s office.

  ‘Have a look at this,’ she says, placing the pages in front of him. ‘I’m going to get the kids from Deborah’s and she wants to hear about London, so I’ll probably be back in a couple of hours.’

  ‘Okay,’ Richard says, calling out after her as she goes, ‘I love you!’

  ‘I love you too!’ she yells back absent-mindedly, her mind already in Sommersby, New York, picturing the children collecting fresh eggs from the chickens, concentrating on what you would do with an apple orchard in winter.

  But Richard smiles. Now he knows he’s on the way to being forgiven.

  ‘Mail order!’ Amber announces, rushing into his office, the children behind her.

  Richard grins. ‘Great minds think alike,’ he says, swivelling his computer screen so Amber can see the website he’s looking at: ‘Baked and unbaked, fresh and frozen apple pies delivered to your door,’ she reads. ‘Twenty-eight different varieties of pie. All delicious, all 100 per cent organic and natural.’

  ‘Is that Appletree Orchard’s website?’ she asks, not remembering seeing it before.

  ‘No. I’ve been looking at orchard websites in general and what they offer, and mail order and Internet do seem to be where it’s at. We could combine pies, pastries and cakes with gift baskets. Look at this.’ He clicks again and Amber perches on the arm of his chair to look at Harryanddavid.com, admire their hampers filled with fresh apples, gourmet cheeses, nuts, crackers and delicious jams.

  ‘We could do all of this,’ Richard says happily. ‘And more. We could really make this work.’

  ‘And children’s parties,’ Amber says excitedly. ‘We could offer children’s parties at the farm, petting, playground, food and drink included.’ Amber smiles. ‘You know, I’m not sure we’re ever going to become millionaires with something like this.’

  ‘No, but we’d be happy,’ Richard says. ‘It would be our own business, and seeing as you’re now the star writer in the family you could write all the copy in the catalogues.’

  ‘Oh thanks a lot,’ Amber sniffs. ‘But before you get your knickers in a twist…’

  ‘What?’ Richard starts to laugh.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What did you just say?’

  ‘I said before you get your knickers in a twist. It’s an English expression.’ Amber smiles. ‘One of my favourites actually. That, and cor blimey.’

  Richard reaches out and pulls Amber onto his lap. ‘I do love you, you know,’ he says, nuzzling her neck. ‘And I’m sorry. I know I was wrong. I really am so sorry for being so stupid.’

  ‘Dad!’ Jared pipes up from the corner of the room where he and Gracie are decorating Richard’s now defunct business cards. ‘You did say a bad word!’ His eyes are wide with horror.

  ‘Oh. You’re right, Jar. Sorry. I didn’t mean to say the S-word and I won’t say it again.’

  ‘You have to say sorry to Mommy,’ Gracie adds.

  ‘Okay,’ Richard grins, so thankful that he has Amber home, that she is supporting him, that they will find a way out of this mess, and tha
t there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and all of a sudden it seems to be burning bright. ‘I’m sorry, Mommy.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ Amber lets out a reluctant smile as she finds herself relaxing involuntarily into his arms. ‘But as I was saying, before you get all excited, let’s check out the town, okay? There’s no point doing all this research if it’s a horrible town with crappy schools.’

  Richard reaches behind Amber to his desk and hands her a stack of papers.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Schools report. Town information. Ranked number nine in best small towns in America.’ He looks at his watch. ‘And in about half an hour Ted Riley is faxing over the business report.’

  ‘Ted Riley?’

  Richard grins. ‘The owner of Appletree Orchard. I spent an hour on the phone with him. We’re driving up there to see it on Tuesday.’

  Amber’s mouth drops open. ‘How did you manage all this while I was out?’

  ‘Honestly? I’m excited. I’m really excited about this change. I’m excited about the prospect of starting my own business…’

  ‘Our own business,’ Amber corrects him.

  ‘Oh yes?’ Richard raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Yes,’ Amber says firmly. ‘Never mind just writing the copy. It’s a family business, which means it needs a family to run it.’

  ‘You’re right. So Gracie can write the copy for the catalogues, and Jared can be in charge of inventory.’

  ‘Be serious.’

  ‘I’m sorry, darling. But yes, you’re right. Part of not wanting to be on Wall Street any more is to spend more time with my family, and a family business could be perfect. But we shouldn’t get too excited until we see it.’

  ‘I know. But if this isn’t the one for us, at least we’ve made a firm decision that we’re going to move, and if Appletree Orchard is awful, something better will come along.’

  ‘Will you phone our realtor tomorrow morning and get her to come over to value this?’

  ‘Yup, but I have to tell you, a girl in the League just sold her house on Edgetree Road for $3.6 million, and it’s not as nice as this, not as big, and in a far worse location.’