by Jody Klaire
Susannah hugged her back, confusion, tears, worry in her eyes. “Thank you.”
Kate hugged Blanche, then glared back at Zoë. “Thanks for nothing.” She pulled her phone and headed out into the still morning air. It was cool but not cold. Must mean spring was easing in. She pulled out her phone and dialled the cab number, then found a bench along the Thames to wait at. She hugged a snoring Mikey close, and her tears broke free. Yeah, she’d always been an intruder, and the intruder had just got ejected.
Chapter 39
The paper ran a merciless story that pulled paparazzi pictures from Zoë and Darcy, from the video of Blanche’s argument, and from that night Darcy had pulled Kate into the Kensington house. Susannah felt sick reading about it, especially as Marshall had been painted as some hero who had stuck up for her, telling her mum that she was wrong to lead so many people on, only to be punched.
Cameras camped outside the apartment on the Thames, the house in Kensington, and the larger home in Hampshire. Susannah was kept from the windows, from the media. Zoë and Blanche tried to keep her distracted. Kate had barricaded herself in her flat, and Mikey had headed back to school. The community had tightened around him, blocking the view to the school gates with buses. Mikey’s stepdad had erected a twelve-foot fence all around the front of his house. Like Kate, her mum had remained in her own apartment without a word. Two weeks went by, and the stories were so twisted that Susannah couldn’t take anymore.
“I’m not letting her give up,” she snapped as she strode into the living room. Zoë and Blanche were playing some version of chess, although Blanche didn’t really seem to understand the Queen could not high-kick the King. “We’re fixing this.”
“We can’t, honey,” Zoë said with a heavy sigh. “You’ll only make it worse.”
“Worse?” She put her hands on her hips. “Mum has been ripped to shreds by everyone. We’ve got models saying that she had affairs with them. They’re making her sound like a…tramp!”
Blanche nodded. “That’s what I keep saying.”
Susannah held out her hand. “So give me my phone.”
Blanche went to the dresser and pulled it out.
“Honey, please.” Zoë held up her hands. “You’ll just make it worse!”
Blanche handed it over and smiled down at her. “Hit him back.”
Susannah took the phone and tapped out a tweet: Disgusting how a creep targeted Mum. Bullies Suck. #EmbraceDesigner. She hit send. “Like Kate said, he’s a bully. They are all big bullies and I’m…I’m going to stand up for Mum and Kate.”
Blanche high-fived her. “I have a really cool idea, if you wanna hear it?”
Zoë flicked through her own phone and read something over and over. “Embrace Designer?”
“What she tweeted for Mikey,” Susannah mumbled. “I’m sick of acting like Mum committed a crime.” She fixed on Zoë. “And you should be ashamed that you are hiding like a coward.”
Zoë scowled.
“We counter,” Blanche said, shaking her head at Zoë. “You do what you do best, Marge is itching to help, and if you’re happy to help,” she said, smiling at Susannah, “I know it’ll work, but it’s going to take dropping the fake and telling the truth.”
Zoë slumped back into the sofa. “Great, we’ll just dismantle what dignity we have left.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, honey.” Blanche rolled her eyes and looked to Susannah. “If you’re up for it, I got everyone on standby.”
“You have?” Susannah stared up at her. “Why? Mum’s been horrid to you.”
Blanche winked at her. “I grew up wanting to marry her.” She chuckled. “Somehow I married her instead.” She thumbed at Zoë, who pursed her lips. “I got into the bigger leagues as a fourteen-year-old ‘cause Darcy was working a show and the designer got creepy on me.” She pulled her mouth to the side. “Darcy had a word with him. Guess she must have spotted it. Anyhow, she comes over to me and tells me that being a woman is something special, that I had to honour that no matter how glittery the carrot in front of me. I was worth more.” She cleared her throat. “FYI, if I’d known Zoë was with her, even for a second suspected it, I’d have run the other way.”
Susannah blew out her breath. “You didn’t steal her?”
Zoë shook her head, staring in wonder at Blanche. “I may have walked out months before, but we’d… That just made it official. We’d been unhappy for a long time.” She wagged her finger. “Nice to know I was the dream babe.”
“I fell in love with you, not a picture.” Blanche wagged her finger back. “The real, messed-up, crazy you.”
Zoë cleared her throat. “I’m so going to bawl.”
Susannah shook her head. “Sorry to break up your love fest, but I want to fix this.” She nodded to Blanche. “Let’s kick his ass.”
Blanche grinned. “You got it.”
Susannah and Mikey appeared on a TV show first. The tweet had made people think, and they took on the interviewers with incredible poise. Susannah talked of how amazing her two mothers were, that she was brought up believing everyone was equal. Mikey talked about how Kate was heartbroken, how Darcy was a hero, and how he wanted to give them their smiles back. Susannah told of Marshall and the real reason behind the punch. She called on the cameras that had been there to prove it. #EmbraceDesigner.
The photographers and camera crews produced photos and videos proving what Marshall did. The public stirred. Messages of support began to pour in.
Zoë and Blanche went to the magazines. Zoë talked about how hard Darcy fought to keep Susannah from the press, how their relationship suffered, of how hard it had been when she’d come out and been punished. They called on the industry to prove they were better. #EmbraceDesigner—the reaction was building. Calls came from past friends and distant colleagues moved to help. The public stirred further. Bullies sucked. The hashtag turned into embracing their own bodies, their own spirits and minds, all in support of Darcy.
Darcy’s agent had left her, so Marge went to the high-street shops. She talked to each one about how Darcy had brought business back to their stores, made it fashionable to shop in person again. That she could have ignored them, but she’d embraced them. Now what could they do to help Darcy when she needed them? The stores pooled their ideas, came up with cut-outs, displays to show their support with huge posters of Darcy in her trademark pose. What better way to get PR than to use the one hashtag guaranteed to pull in customers? When else could they get Darcy’s face for free in their window?
They jumped at it. The public support was building, and it was PR for free. Shops unveiled their display, the hashtag prominent, and the younger shops took a picture of Susannah and Mikey for theirs. The duo had shaken people. The hashtag filtered across all social media. The public support grew.
Zoë and Blanche went through an idea with Marge. It was ambitious, crazy perhaps. But if they pulled it off, the message would be clear. And Darcy, who had retreated, would see for herself how much she was loved.
The idea was great. It just needed a certain Welshwoman in a pencil factory to complete it…
Chapter 40
Darcy had removed herself from all outside connection. She’d been irritated at how she’d crumbled, how she’d found it hard to do anything but lie on her bed gazing out of the skylight at the blue skies. She’d kept doing Pilates, ate barely anything, and resumed lying on her bed. She’d not slept for days when Kate left, when Susannah left, but then she seemed to do nothing but sleep for a week following it.
It was an odd fusion—unbearable heartbreak that she’d let Kate go—colossal embarrassment that she’d acted so stupidly—that she’d come undone so easily, that she’d dragged Kate and her family into the mess just by association—and then agony over Susannah. She couldn’t bear to call, although she’d reached for the phone countless times but couldn’t go through with it. She’d sp
ent her entire life trying not to become her mother, to curl up and give up like she had. Yet here she was. The pain felt too great. It had nothing to do with her career, or lack of it. It was about each face she loved showing disappointment at how she’d buckled.
“Mum?” Susannah’s voice whispered as though she were in the room. Odd. Maybe she was hallucinating? “Mum, are you awake?”
Darcy lifted her head and blinked at the hallucination. It couldn’t be Susannah. She would be in Hampshire or California. “Yes.”
“Mum, you need to eat something,” A seemingly flesh-and-blood Susannah sat next to her on the bed and peered down at her. “I need you to eat something for me.”
A momentary flashback of her doing the same to her own mother came to her. Wonderful. “I’m no better than her.” She closed her eyes. If she was hallucinating, she really should eat. She’d done that for herself, kept her body active. Defiance was still lingering.
“Who?” Susannah stroked her forehead. Felt real. Had she tipped into insanity too?
“My mother.” May as well talk to the delusion. Maybe she could say the things she wanted to say to Susannah. “When my father left, she gave up. She never left the house, she smoked and drank and spewed anger at me. All my fault. I didn’t know why, but it was.”
“Mum, you’re not going to give up.” Susannah poked her in the shoulder. “You are stronger than that.”
“So I appear.” She sighed. Her head ached from tears. “The bit that makes me the most nauseous is that I am fake. Just like he was. I couldn’t even tell you…” She blinked away more tears. “I couldn’t tell myself.”
Susannah hauled her up by the arms until she was sitting. “Mum, you did tell me, when I asked. You being scared is not the same as Granddad having another family.”
She peeked open her eyes. Okay, that wasn’t any thought of her own. Her stomach plummeted. “You can’t be here.”
“Well, I am.” Susannah frowned at her, like that irritated child. “Mum, you’re scaring me.”
And snap.
The malaise shattered.
What was she doing? Up. Up now. She was not putting Susannah through it. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry.” She pulled Susannah into her and held on, squeezing her. It didn’t matter what she felt or what she thought. Mother first. “Are you hungry? Do you want me to make you something?”
Susannah shoved her back and shook her head. “I want you to hear me.”
Darcy got up, hurried to the bathroom, washed the tears away, turned on the shower. “I’m listening. Did Zoë keep you on the right foods? Do you need me to go out and do a shop?”
Susannah leaned against the doorjamb. “Zoë looked after me just fine, and Blanche. Zoë is just as cut up as you are.” She rubbed at her forehead. “I can’t even think about Kate ‘cause Mikey could only say she was down.”
Mikey? Darcy glanced over her shoulder, toothbrush in mouth. “When did you talk to him?”
“Blanche has planned a whole countermove.” Susannah nodded, a daft, resolute smile on her face. “We’ve all been hitting back for you.”
Darcy frowned. “Why did Zoë allow that?”
“Because I’m my mother’s daughter, and when I say we’re fighting for you, we’re fighting.” And there was the picture of herself at seventeen: resolute, floppy brown hair, set on fixing injustice. “You didn’t deny a thing. You could have. You could have said anything to try and save face.”
“I’m only fake to a certain point.” She turned back to the sink, finished her teeth, brushed her hair. “I’d never deny I loved someone. I’d just never volunteer the information.”
“Exactly. I feel like you’ve been protecting everyone. I feel like you’re protecting yourself because of something inside.” Susannah headed to her and stopped her as she went to the shower. “Mum, why do you hate being gay?”
Darcy held onto the door to the walk-in shower. She hadn’t actually undressed. Hmm. “Because you have to lie. It makes you lie. No one congratulates you for being gay; you have to confess, confess to everyone you love like you’ve committed a crime.” Best not to shower in clothes. “Or you hide, lie, like my father did.”
“You’re not him?” Susannah frowned up at her.
“Yes, I am. I followed him once. I wanted to see this family he’d left us for. See the children who he was supposed to love more than me.” She chewed on her lip. She’d not understood why when he’d always doted on her. “He walked home from the dock. This man who he must have worked with started off at such a distance, but the closer they got to home, the closer they walked.” She sighed. “He turned and spotted me and hurried away from the man so quickly, shame in his eyes.” She’d assumed it was because of the second family. Only, the blazing image of his face in her mind now illuminated… Wait…wait… “That’s why…” She put her hands over her mouth. “My father was gay.” And it fell out like some jigsaw piece she’d never realised was there. “He was gay.”
“Yes, but things were different then.” Susannah sounded like she’d gained twenty years of wisdom with her tone. “You don’t have to pretend you don’t love Kate now.”
“I can’t pretend anyway.” She tutted at Susannah and waved at her to stand behind the screen. “That was what floored me, you see. I ran out of fake.” She slid out of her clothes and headed into the shower.
“Which is why I’m so proud you’re my mum right now,” Susannah whispered through the screen. “Hashtag genuine.”
Darcy placed her palm to the screen as warmth poured onto her from the shower, poured through her with that fact her baby girl had done what she couldn’t: reach her mother. “I’m not sorry about the show… Things may be harder…”
“So, how do you feel?” Susannah’s voice was filled with that hesitation. Did she dare ask?
“Relieved.” She let out a long, shuddering breath. “Like I’ve been let out… Finally set free.”
“And Kate?” Susannah said, her tone filled with a smile.
“I do love her. You must see that.” She put her face into the warm jet for the moment. “I’m just not sure I know how to do happy.”
“Then good thing you’ve got me.” Susannah tapped the glass. “I’m grinning that I’ve got you for my mum and Zoë… And we have Mikey.” She chuckled. “He’s good at finding smiles.”
She laughed. Weight fell from her, sadness finally shattered from around her, and she let go of the images of her father’s guilt-ridden face and her mother’s lost stare. “Yes, I think he is.”
Chapter 41
Kate trudged through the gates of the factory. She’d stayed off work for a month—Frank’s request when she broke down in tears on the phone to him—but now she just wanted to get back to doing something other than mope in her flat and avoid crazy camera-toting reporters. She shoved the main door open and switched off the alarm, only to stare at it. Huh? Had the stand-in security guard forgotten to set it? Not helpful, was it?
She headed to her office and flicked on the monitors. Why was the carpark full? She checked her watch. No, it was only eight. She slid off her coat and slumped into her chair. She’d had to run a crazy gauntlet of reporters just to get to work. She just hoped the neighbours hadn’t minded her climbing through their gardens.
Susannah and the others were doing a great job of helping Darcy out. From what she could bear to watch or check online, the hashtag had gone crazy. Celebrities had gotten involved, and it had gone global. People, no matter who they were, posted pictures and comments about wanting to be themselves, about being allowed to be themselves. Marshall’s family had publicly supported Darcy over him, and people were slamming him from all angles, thanks to Susannah revealing who got the pictures printed. Even the paper had been hit. They were in serious financial trouble. No one wanted to advertise in them, and no one wanted to write for them.
How had Darcy kissing her
on a doorstep done that?
“Kate?” Frank tapped on her door. “Can you come to the boardroom?”
And she was getting fired, then. “Yeah.”
He didn’t say a thing, just led her through a silent floorplate to the boardroom. All the old codgers who owned shares had solemn looks, and Frank took up his chair at the head. “Kate, you know how much this has affected the company?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I’ll just get my stuff.”
But Frank tutted and rubbed at his beard. “Oh nice, you have worked here for years and you’re going to forget us?”
She folded her arms. “No, you’re firing me, aren’t you?”
The directors stared at her like she was stupid. Guess not, then.
Frank tapped his pencil to the table. “We’re outselling every pencil company out there. You know why?”
“Because they like your lead?” What was she supposed to know? Rog was the guy for reports.
Frank bellowed out a laugh and rolled the pencil to her.
She picked it up. “What—oh.” Tears clogged her throat. #EmbraceDesigner on one side. “We love Kate” on the other.
“We would really love you to be our poster girl,” Frank said like he was proposing to her. “A promotion, you know? Although we really miss you fixing the photocopier.”
She stared at the pencil. “Why do you want me?”
“Kate, we’re a family company that has been going for over two hundred years. We made the first pencils that were used by professors and stuffy blokes. We were the first company to make a mass-market pencil.” He nodded like she hadn’t heard that before. “We have kept it in the family. I’m part of that family.” He met her eyes with a beaming smile. “And so are you.”
She opened her mouth, but some odd whimper came out. “I…” She rubbed at her throat as the board members pulled open their shirts. Mikey the Sproutman was on the front. She blurted out her tears. “You’re so weird.”
