The Secret Ingredient

by Dianne Blacklock

  She looked down at them. They were beautiful, of course, his secretary knew the best florists in the city. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘So,’ he said after a while, ‘are you going to invite me in?’

  She hesitated. ‘I don’t know . . .’

  ‘Come on, Andie,’ he cajoled. ‘I drove all this way.’

  Why did he drive all the way over here? What was he hoping for? Andie had avoided being alone with him wherever possible, she didn’t trust him . . . much less herself.

  ‘Look, it’s not as though I’m moving in. Let’s just have a drink,’ he said with a wave of the bottle.

  ‘Okay,’ Andie finally relented, taking a step back as he walked past her into the hall. Don’t be a wimp, you can handle this, you just have to stay in control, keep your wits about you. She closed the door after him and followed him into the lounge room.

  He was looking around. ‘I’ve never been inside this house, you know.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s a little . . .’

  ‘Stuck in a time warp?’ she finished for him. ‘Come through to the kitchen and I’ll get us some glasses.’

  Ross opened the bottle and poured the wine, while Andie searched for a vase for the flowers. She couldn’t find anything appropriate, so in the end she stuck them in a plastic container so at least they were in water.

  ‘I guess I should have brought you a vase as well,’ Ross said with a smile as he handed her a glass of wine.

  ‘Last thing I need is more stuff around here,’ she muttered, bringing the glass to her lips.

  ‘Hold on,’ he stopped her. ‘Shouldn’t we drink to something?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘To new beginnings,’ he said, raising his glass.

  ‘I think it might be more appropriate to drink to endings right now.’

  ‘I hope you’re not referring to us.’

  Andie shrugged. ‘I guess we’ll have to wait and see.’

  Ross threw back the contents of his glass almost in one go, and picked up the bottle again. ‘Top-up?’

  ‘I’ve barely started on this one,’ said Andie. ‘Aren’t you driving?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, filling his glass again.

  If he was going to drink that fast, Andie better get some food into him at the same time. ‘I don’t have much to eat here at the moment,’ she said, opening the fridge door. ‘I was going to do a big shop tomorrow.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I could take you out to dinner, if you like?’

  ‘Thanks anyway.’

  ‘Then we’ll order in.’

  Andie turned to look at him. ‘I thought you were only staying for a drink?’

  ‘Why don’t we play it by ear?’ he said, flashing her one of his stock smiles – category: charming. He took off his jacket and hung it over a chair, then he sat down, loosening his tie.

  Andie put out a wedge of brie and some crackers, but Ross didn’t touch them as he guzzled down another glass. He better not be planning to drink himself over the limit so that he couldn’t drive. Well, that wasn’t her problem, there were such things as taxis.

  ‘So, how’s it coming along?’ he asked.

  ‘I only got here about an hour before you, if that,’ she returned.

  ‘You’ll have to show me around later,’ he said. ‘I’d like to see where you slept when you were a girl.’

  ‘It’s a junk room now, there’s not even a bed in it.’

  ‘Still, there must be beds in other rooms,’ he said with a suggestive wink.

  Andie winced. ‘Ross . . .’

  ‘Sweetheart, we haven’t talked, properly, in weeks.’ He reached over and covered her hand with his. ‘There are so many things I want to say to you.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like I miss you.’

  Andie didn’t respond.

  ‘Don’t you miss me,’ he asked, ‘even a little?’

  ‘That’s a difficult question to answer,’ she replied.

  He treated her to his forlorn face.

  ‘Ross, I miss what we had, or what I thought we had. I don’t know any more. The rug’s been pulled out from under me and I don’t know what’s real and what’s not.’

  ‘What’s real is that I love you. We’ve had ten years together, that’s what’s real.’

  She sighed. ‘Is it, Ross?’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  Andie wasn’t sure she wanted to start dissecting their whole marriage right now. She wasn’t prepared. Ross would have too many clever answers and, well . . . she just wasn’t prepared.

  ‘Never mind,’ she said.

  ‘No, Andie, I want you to tell me what’s on your mind,’ he said earnestly. ‘We should have it all out. Say whatever you’ve been wanting to say, give me a chance to defend myself.’

  ‘I don’t know, Ross,’ she said. ‘You have an art.’

  ‘Well, that’s hardly fair,’ he protested. ‘You’re going to dismiss everything I say because I have a way of saying it?’

  She shrugged, and he took hold of her hand now and drew it to his lips, planting a kiss.

  ‘Ross —’

  ‘No, listen to me,’ he urged. ‘I know I’ve made mistakes, huge ones, but I’ve come to realise through all this that I love you more than anything.’

  He was stroking her hand, gazing at her with those vivid blue eyes of his. It had been ages since . . . Andie couldn’t even remember the last time they made love. Why was she even thinking about that now? He pressed his lips into the palm of her hand and it was as though a jolt of electricity passed through her body.

  She had to stay in control. She jerked her hand away and got to her feet. ‘You’ve had your drink, Ross, in fact you’ve had two. Time to go.’

  ‘Andie —’

  ‘Really, Ross, I want you to go now.’

  He stood up and she backed away from the table, right into the corner of the kitchen. Well, that was stupid. Why didn’t she head for the doorway? Was this some kind of Freudian slip? Now he was right in front of her, blocking her. She would have to physically push him out of the way to move to the door, and that was hardly going to look like she was in control. She would like to maintain some dignity.

  She folded her arms in front of her. ‘Ross, enough, I’m asking you to leave. Politely.’

  ‘Andie,’ he said, bringing his hand up to cup her face. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’

  Screw dignity. She went to brush him off but he caught her up in his arms, holding her tight.

  ‘Ross, let me go,’ she said firmly.

  ‘I don’t want to let you go,’ he said, ‘that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.’

  He brought his lips down onto hers and kissed her hard, his hand cupping the back of her head so she couldn’t pull away. Andie steeled herself not to respond, but it was useless. His lips prised hers open as his tongue plunged into her mouth. Andie began to dissolve into him . . . oh God, she was losing it. They hadn’t had sex in ages, certainly not sex like this. It used to be like this all the time, tearing the clothes off each other in the kitchen, the living room, wherever, their passion too overwhelming to wait till they got to the bedroom. But no longer. Andie had begun to doubt he was even interested any more, and she had switched off, because what else was she going to do? Live in a perpetual state of frustration? Now she was so achingly sensitive to his touch that she felt like she was all nerve-endings. His hands slid down to grasp her hips, propping her up onto the bench behind, and drawing himself in between her knees. Andie wrapped her legs around him, it was like a reflex action. She wanted him inside her, she wanted him to lose himself in a rage of desire, to realise what he’d been missing . . . She arched her head back as his lips slid down her neck and his hands grasped her breasts. And she saw the woman, straddling him on the bed. Andie opened her eyes and was jolted back into the reality that was her parents’ kitchen. And Ross.

  ‘No, Ross,’ she breathed, grabbing his shoulders.

&
nbsp; ‘It’s okay,’ he murmured into her neck.

  ‘No, it’s not!’ She pushed against his shoulders now, slipping down off the bench. ‘It’s not okay at all!’

  ‘What’s the matter, Andie? What’s wrong?’

  She sidled away from him and around the kitchen table, putting more distance, and an obstacle, between them. ‘I can’t, Ross. I can’t be with you.’

  ‘Why? Come on, Andie, it’s obvious that we still want each other,’ he said.

  ‘So what, Ross?’ she cried. ‘Two dogs passing in the street “want” each other.’

  He grimaced. ‘How can you say that? Are you going to tell me you have no feelings for me, beyond some kind of Pavlovian sexual urge?’

  ‘Ross —’

  ‘No, tell me, Andie, I want to know. Because what I feel for you is so much more than that.’

  ‘Then why did you have to go and sleep with another woman?’

  He sighed, dropping his head. ‘That’s what this is about?’

  ‘Yes, Ross,’ she cried. ‘I can’t get the image of you and that woman out of my head.’

  ‘Well, you have to try,’ he urged, ‘for the sake of our marriage, Andie, you have to put this behind us. I may have “wanted” someone else – for a brief, stupid, careless moment – but it’s you that I love. I’ve never stopped loving you, and I could never stop loving you.’ He paused, his eyes searching hers. ‘I can’t bear this, Andie. Remember how much we went through to be together? And now you want to throw everything away because I made one mistake?’ He paused again, for effect. ‘It just feels like it can’t have mattered as much to you as it has to me.’

  Andie stood there trembling . . . How could he turn the tables on her like that? It was her responsibility now to fix the marriage? But then, if what he said was true, if this was just a . . . a lapse on his part, was it bad enough to give up everything? She’d read the magazines, affairs didn’t always ruin marriages, sometimes they saved them, or at least alerted the couple to problems and got them working on the relationship. Was it really wise to throw away ten years on a ‘careless moment’, as he’d put it?

  The problem was, the image of that ‘careless moment’ was burned into her brain, the thought of it made her sick. And Andie was just not sure of her own feelings any more, if she even had it in her to work on the marriage.

  Ross was watching her, she wondered if he could read her mind.

  ‘I’m not seeing Tasha, I told you that,’ he said. ‘She was a mistake, Andie, I swear to you. She got through to me when my defences were down, and she was relentless . . . I was even a bit afraid of her at the end . . . I think she might be a bit unhinged . . .’

  His voice faded and Andie suddenly remembered the look on Joanna’s face when she’d said that word. Something snapped inside her. ‘Is that what you said to Joanna about me?’

  ‘What?’ He was clearly stunned. ‘What’s this got to do with Joanna?’

  ‘You made the same excuses to her,’ she accused. ‘You blamed everything on me.’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ he looked confused. ‘Where are you getting this from?’

  ‘Joanna.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve been reading from the same script, Ross, but I guess you never planned on your current wife and your former wife comparing notes.’

  ‘What the hell?’ he said. ‘What were you doing talking to Joanna?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, and it’s none of your business who I talk to anyway.’

  ‘This is crazy, Andie,’ said Ross. ‘I don’t know what Joanna’s been telling you, but you actually trust her word over mine? You don’t think she might have an agenda to get back at me?’

  Andie groaned. ‘Why would she do that, Ross, after all this time? She has nothing to gain.’

  ‘Except revenge. And sticking it to you. Are you really that naive, Andie?’

  She bristled. ‘Joanna didn’t have any reason to lie to me, Ross. She said things unwittingly . . . she didn’t know that you’d fed me a completely different line. The fact is, you lied to everyone – to me about Joanna, to Joanna about me, and now you’re lying to me about Tasha. And you’re probably lying to Tasha as well.’

  He was just glaring at her. ‘This is bullshit. Andie, honestly, you’ll believe anything.’

  ‘Yes, apparently I will.’ She was getting pissed off now. ‘I almost believed you just then, that I’m the big love of your life, that you’ll never stop loving me. Well, I don’t know about you, Ross, but I couldn’t sleep with someone – for months – if I was in love with someone else. I just couldn’t. So,’ she paused to catch her breath, ‘it seems to me there’s definitely plenty of bullshit going around, but it isn’t coming from me.’

  Her voice reverberated around the room for a second, and then there was silence. He obviously had nothing to say to that.

  ‘Now would you please leave,’ said Andie.

  ‘Gladly.’ He strode over to the table and picked up his jacket, then he grabbed the bottle of wine.

  ‘Ross, don’t be an idiot,’ she said. ‘You’re driving.’

  ‘Don’t act like you could give a shit, Andie,’ he threw back at her as he marched out of the room. Eventually she heard the front door open, and then a loud slam as it shut again.

  Andie stood there trembling. What had she done? She shouldn’t have told him she’d spoken to Joanna, she had no right to give up a confidence like that. And now Ross was driving off into the night, angry, with half a bottle of wine in his hand, and most of the other half in his bloodstream.

  She hurried up the hall and pulled open the front door, but his car was already gone. She stepped out onto the porch, in time to see it swerve around the corner and out of sight.

  Joanna had made plans to go out tonight, but it had been one of those days, and she’d felt a headache coming on the closer the clock ticked over towards five. She would have to leave no later than that to get home in time to get ready to meet the girls . . . it made her tired just thinking about it.

  As she texted her girlfriend to bow out, she readied herself for the onslaught she would receive in reply. Her friends all thought she worked too much and played too little. And they probably had a point. But Joanna liked her work, she revelled in it, most of the time it didn’t even feel like work. Okay, so today had been hectic, and frustrating, and stressful, but she had made it through, problems solved, or well on the way to being solved. Joanna felt a sense of accomplishment in her work that she had rarely felt with anything else before in her life.

  That was all well and good, her friends would say, but she needed to get laid once in a while. Joanna didn’t disagree, necessarily, but she was not interested in a relationship and all the complications that went with it. Her friends said they weren’t talking about a relationship, they were talking about sex, pure and simple, while Joanna maintained there was no such thing. She hadn’t exactly been a nun, it had been ten years after all. Friends had set her up, which nearly always proved to be a mistake, if not an outright disaster. At Lauren’s insistence, she’d even given internet dating a whirl. But Lauren said it didn’t count if she only ever exchanged emails and didn’t actually arrange to meet anyone. Joanna simply could not be bothered. Any vaguely interesting, accomplished men – though who knew for sure, they could make up anything online – were only interested in women who were ten, even twenty years her junior. She gave up, she told Lauren she didn’t need to resort to the internet because she met plenty of men through her work; she was in a male-dominated industry after all. However, they all seemed to be intimidated by a woman succeeding on their turf, and felt the need to go to extraordinary lengths to establish their superiority. That was just tiresome.

  Joanna decided eventually that she was not built for the midlife dating scene. The truth was, though she’d never breathe a word of it to another soul, she often just wished her marriage had weathered the storm and survived. That’s the way she was, it was in her DNA. When she married Ross, it w
as forever. She knew the relationship had seen better days, but she’d assumed it would come good again as the children grew in independence and they moved on to the next stage. She envied long-married couples, free of kids and babysitters, going out to restaurants and the theatre, travelling together, enjoying their grandchildren. She would have been quite content with that kind of life.

  Oh, she was well and truly over Ross, the man; she wouldn’t have him back now if someone paid her. It wasn’t him, it was the concept that she missed – the security and ease that came from the knowledge you would be with that person for the rest of your life. Some people, a lot of people, found that stifling. But Joanna had found it an enormous comfort, and she suspected she was never going to find that same level of comfort with someone else. If she did, it would have to come along when she least expected it, so she had stopped expecting it.

  Her headache eased as soon as she’d sent the text and was off the hook for the night, at least once she’d dealt with the flood of messages trying to talk her into changing her mind. Finally she was on her way home, listening to Paul Simon on the car stereo, looking forward to a glass of wine and a bath. All on her own. Bliss.

  But when she arrived home she was confronted by a trio of noisy boys playing the X-box in her family room. They were actually young adults now, but they reverted to noisy boys when they were playing that damn thing, and Joanna could have screamed, until she was informed they were only waiting for Matty to get ready and then they’d be ‘out of here, Mrs C’.

  Her bath would have to wait, so she kicked off her shoes, shrugged off her jacket, and poured herself a glass of wine. Joanna couldn’t stand the sound of video games, so she went out onto the terrace, and before she’d finished her glass, Matty had come out to say goodbye. When she heard the doorbell only a few minutes later, she thought he must have forgotten something. It was his usual trick, he never seemed to be able to make a clean getaway, that kid. It was probably his keys, which would explain why he was ringing the doorbell.

  But to Joanna’s considerable surprise, it wasn’t Matty at all.

  ‘Ross, what are you doing here?’

  ‘What kind of welcome is that?’ he returned.