Life Swap

by Jane Green

  And it fits her perfectly. Originally a size larger than Amber, Vicky has been dieting furiously to get into Amber’s wardrobe, and now she is thrilled that they are the same size, even though Vicky could never be quite as firm, as cellulite-free as Amber.

  Vicky slips her feet into very high Gucci satin sandals that snake up her ankles and are quite possibly the sexiest things she’s ever seen, and then slips a Chanel bag on her shoulder, throws a mink wrap around her neck, and sashays over to the huge mirror on the wall. ‘Hello, darling,’ she says, pretending to be holding a cigarette in a long, ebony cigarette holder. ‘Missed me?’

  *

  At that point Vicky knows not only is she being ridiculous, but this is the point at which the culprit is always caught, usually by a housekeeper or nanny, and feeling horribly guilty as she pictures Lavinia’s disapproving face, she strips off the dress and pulls on some stretchy leggings and a fleece, slipping her feet into Nikes, even though she suspects that Amber never wears shoes inside the house – those wooden floors are just too shiny for that.

  Looking at herself in the mirror, Vicky hardly recognizes herself. She would never, in a million years, wear these kinds of clothes unless she was going to an exercise class, and yet Amber insists this is her daily uniform. Admittedly she is incredibly comfortable, but she looks so… ordinary. So dowdy. Surely this look can be jazzed up somehow. And then she remembers. The Balenciaga or Prada bag. The diamond studs.

  Ten minutes later Vicky re-examines herself in the mirror, and this time she smiles. Amber’s four-carat diamond studs glitter in her ears, the black togo Birkin bag is casually looped over her arm, and she has reapplied some make-up, a similar amount to that which Amber was wearing when she and Vicky met.

  ‘That’s more like it,’ Vicky nods, with a grin. ‘Now I look the part,’ and with a spring in her step that surely owes more to her mood than to the Nikes on her feet, Vicky heads downstairs.

  An hour later she has looked inside every cupboard. She has located the tea cups but not the tea bags, although the pantry has every kind of herbal tea you can imagine; but frankly, as far as Vicky is concerned, if it ain’t Tetley it ain’t tea. She has found the television sets (hidden away behind a built-in), located the few books in the house (in a room Amber referred to as the library, so-called because it houses the only bookshelves in the house, and the only books on the bookshelves are Richard’s business books), and has moved a radio from the laundry room to the kitchen so she can have some noise to break up the silence. Well now what? She drums her fingers on the kitchen table. What am I supposed to do with myself now?

  Across the Atlantic Amber is lying happily on Vicky’s bed, sighing with pleasure as she thinks about where she is and what she’s doing. She got a black cab at Heathrow, even though Vicky had told her not to, warning her that it would be horrendously expensive, and then tipped him over twenty per cent, even though Deborah had said nobody does that, but she would have felt horrible giving him anything else.

  He was obviously delighted, and said giving a beautiful lady like herself a ride was pleasure enough in itself, and Amber smiled, wondering if all the men in England were quite so charming.

  She loved driving up Marylebone High Street, found it to be everything she had dreamt of, and so much more besides. Was that an Aveda store she saw before her? Oh joy! To be single and living in shopping heaven. What more could a girl ask for?

  Vicky’s apartment was what Amber calls a walk-up. In a small apartment building just off the High Street, it was dark and had a rather peculiar smell when she walked up the narrow staircase, and for the first time since touching down Amber suddenly thought, what if this is awful? What if Vicky lives in a pigsty? Even though she had seen pictures, she was still clearly the one most disadvantaged, having not been able to give Vicky’s life the once-over, the way Vicky had done hers.

  But as soon as she managed to get the key to work and slid open the door, Amber was delighted. The flat – she had to get used to calling it a flat rather than an apartment – was light and airy, flooded with sunshine, which belied its rather small size. Decorated with enormous style in neutral colors, the shots of colour came from the books, of which there must have been thousands.

  Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined each wall of the living room, stacks of books were piled artfully on the coffee table, amongst Indian trinkets and Balinese bowls. This was a true home, Amber thought happily, a flat filled with things the owner has collected over the years, beautiful and personal, a place where Amber could truly be happy, and she picked up a delicate silver dish and ran her fingers over the burnished edges.

  ‘I love it here,’ she said, wanting to run around with glee, but instead she went to examine the rest of the flat.

  Ah, she thought, seeing the kitchen. Perhaps it’s not as perfect as I thought. The kitchen was a small, dark L-shape off the living room, with no natural light. No amount of cool maple cupboards or smart granite counters could disguise the fact that the kitchen was tiny, with an under-the-counter fridge that was barely big enough to hold a few sodas.

  No wonder she never eats at home, Amber thought. You can’t fit anything in that fridge, but then again Amber isn’t exactly a chef, so it’s no bad thing. If anything, this kitchen was bigger than the one she had in her apartment when she met Richard, and if she could cope with that, she can definitely cope with this. It’s all a matter of relativity, she told herself, not to mention that she barely ever uses her Viking stove anyway.

  The bedroom was sweet. Enormous windows led onto a lovely iron balcony, and she opened them so the sheer linen curtains billowed in the wind. The closets were far smaller than she was used to, and she tutted as she looked through the clothes. Not because she didn’t like what she saw – she’s looking forward to experimenting with that English boho style – but because everything was crammed so tightly together; how do the clothes not get horrendously wrinkled? Amber has learnt that there ought to be an inch between the hangers, and she wondered if Vicky would mind if she sorted out her closets.

  On opening the door of the bathroom, Eartha charged out. She’d been locked in there by mistake when Vicky left, and she was not a happy cat, although now someone was there she was very happy indeed, and she wound her way around and around Amber’s ankles, purring enthusiastically as she rubbed her face on Amber’s legs.

  ‘Hello, you sweet kittie cat.’ Amber bent down on one knee to stroke her. Not that Amber was particularly a cat person, but she’s never heard such a loud purr, and this cat seemed to like her, and who can resist being so obviously pursued?

  ‘Hang on,’ Amber said, running into the living room for her suitcase and pulling out the bag of cat treats that Deborah had given her. She opened it and fed them to Eartha who then jumped onto Amber’s lap for some more loving.

  ‘You and I are going to get along just fine,’ Amber said, scooping her up and cradling her like a baby, which Eartha didn’t seem to mind in the slightest, and then Amber went to inspect the bathroom.

  Not that she should be surprised. She was used to a shower that is the mother of all showers. A shower that doesn’t have just one showerhead, nor even two, but has eight. One giant one that hangs from the ceiling, and seven more that spout from the walls of her huge, oversized stall that is almost a room in itself. In fact, looking at Vicky’s bathroom, Amber judged that it was ever so slightly smaller than her shower.

  But what was worse was there was no shower. There was a bathtub with a hose, and dubiously Amber turned it on to see it produce a faint trickle of water. Damn. She’d heard about the British and their showers, but she didn’t actually think it would still be so bad in this day and age.

  It was like British food. For years Americans joked that the British had the worst food in the world, and then just recently Gourmet magazine had devoted an entire issue to how Britain now had the best food in the world.

  So really, can you blame Amber for assuming that the showers would naturally follow suit?


  She sighed with disappointment and resigned herself to getting used to baths. Urgh. Sitting in your own dirty water. Maybe she could have two baths. One to soap herself, and then one to rinse. Or maybe sponge baths. But standing there Amber made a decision. I am not going to let one silly thing like the lack of a decent shower ruin this trip for me. I am going to have a wonderful time.

  And that is when she collapsed onto the bed with a huge grin on her face, followed swiftly by Eartha who climbed straight onto her stomach, and that is where we first find her, on her first day in Vicky’s life.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Vicky didn’t expect it to feel quite so strange. She keeps looking around to ask permission to do things: is it okay if I drive the car? Can I help myself to food in the fridge? Should I be feeding Ginger or does he always beg like this? And most importantly, what am I supposed to do until the kids get home?

  There is no Lavinia, presumably because she has gone to collect the children from their various activities, and the last thing Vicky wants is for Lavinia to walk in and find her doing something heinous and lazy like watching the Oprah show in the middle of the day, so in the end she makes herself a bagel – the jet lag is making her starving, even though she’s already had about eight meals today – and sits at the kitchen counter leafing through the pile of catalogues that are threatening to topple off the edge of the desk.

  In the Neiman Marcus catalogue she finds three pairs of shoes that she would kill for but couldn’t afford; in J. Jill she admires a floaty chiffon-like skirt, and in Frontgate she spends a few minutes fantasizing over the various pool toys, and wondering whether Amber and Richard already have one of those glorious-looking lilos with a hole in the arm just the right size for a pina colada.

  They do, after all, have the swimming pool, and Amber is one of those women who have a permanent tan from April through to October. Vicky has seen those movies where the women lounge around the pool all morning, working on their tans and keeping up with celebrity gossip via the trashy magazines, and she is rather hopeful that she will find some time to do the same, even though Amber’s typical schedule doesn’t seem to have any sunbathing time worked into it.

  Today is a glorious August day, and the water is starting to tempt. Vicky goes outside and dips a finger in, and she smiles widely. It’s almost as warm as a bath – just the way Vicky likes it. Oh what the hell. She has time for a quick swim, and going to the pool house she finds that of course Amber and Richard have one of the lilos with a hole in the arm for a drink – what self-respecting McMansion owner wouldn’t? – and pulling it out she places it carefully next to the edge of the pool before heading back in to double-check the timetable.

  The timetable hasn’t changed. Fridays are still playdate days, and given that it’s only three thirty, Lavinia and the kids won’t be back for hours, so even though Vicky is determined to be the greatest mother in the whole wide world, it doesn’t have to start until the children get home from their playdate. Admittedly, she did think about spending the afternoon cooking one of the meals remembered from her own childhood, but she can always start the whole mother thing tomorrow, and a cursory glance at the freezer reveals it is stuffed to the gills with frozen pizzas and chicken nuggets, so it isn’t as if the children are going to go hungry if she doesn’t cook. Not that Amber ever cooks herself, and Vicky’s had a long flight and is tired – hell, she deserves to spend a couple of hours trying to erase her white, pasty skin, the product of a typical English summer in London.

  Now this is more like it, Vicky smiles as she floats around the pool, stretching out luxuriously as she enjoys the silence. Christ, she thinks, how does Amber ever get up and out? If I lived here all the time I’d be out here all day every day. This is like being on holiday, how could anyone ever motivate themselves to do anything other than this?

  Her swimming costume is still squashed somewhere at the bottom of her suitcase, and the last thing she felt like doing was unpacking. And there’s no one here, and no one to see, and she just wanted to see what it felt like, floating on this lilo, and so what if she’s in bra and knickers. It’s not as if she’s never done this before, although granted, if she were stripping off in a London park she probably wouldn’t wear a black lacy push-up bra that she’s practically spilling out of, teamed with a purple G-string, but she’s only going to be a minute, and it was so much easier to just strip off and leave her clothes on a sunbed.

  Vicky closes her eyes and thinks about her childhood, remembers begging her parents to put in a swimming pool, announcing very seriously that the only thing she ever wanted for her eighth birthday was a proper swimming pool, and if she didn’t get one she might die.

  Around the corner there was a family called the Simpsons, and they had a swimming pool. Vicky knew they must have been very rich, and even though she wasn’t that friendly with the daughter, Cathy, every now and then the neighbourhood gang of kids would be invited over for a swimming party.

  Then Samantha Payne’s parents bought a new house and they had a swimming pool too, and it was indoor, and when they went over there the pool was so hot there was steam rising up from it, clouding the glass roof.

  ‘Please, please, please,’ Vicky remembers begging as her parents had laughed and said not only was it not worth it given the typical English summer, but did Vicky think they were made of money?

  And now here she is, she thinks happily, finally with a swimming pool, even though it’s only hers for a month; but she’s definitely going to make the most of it, and if she misses a few of Amber’s charity meetings, what the hell? Surely it’s just as important to look the part as it is to play the part, and having a suntan suddenly seems like a top priority.

  ‘Vicky! Vicky!’

  The voice sounds as if it’s coming from far away and reluctantly Vicky opens her eyes. She’s so comfortable, drifting around the pool, fast asleep, in the middle of a wonderful dream where she’s on a yacht with Jamie Donnelly who is just about to kiss her (even though he doesn’t look like Jamie Donnelly, in fact he doesn’t seem to have much of a face at all, which is the usual story with her dreams – one of these days she must remember to look that up and see what it means – but still, it feels delicious), and someone from shore is disturbing that kiss by shouting her name.

  Except it’s not someone from shore. It’s Lavinia standing by the side of the swimming pool, holding Gracie on her hip as Jared dances from foot to foot announcing that he wants to go swimming too.

  Vicky blinks her eyes in a bid to focus and wake up properly, and sees that over by the gate is another woman with three children, and as Vicky rouses herself she is mortified that she has fallen asleep in the swimming pool on her first day here, and there are guests, and what a terrible first impression. What kind of a mother would do this?

  ‘Oh God, Lavinia, I’m so sorry!’ Vicky paddles to the side of the pool and rather gracelessly clambers out. ‘I fell asleep. It must have been the jet lag. I’m so embarrassed!’ And she becomes more so as she stands and remembers what she’s wearing. A black lacy bra that is probably too small for her, and a purple G-string.

  ‘You’d better put some cream on that white skin of yours,’ Lavinia sniffs. ‘You’re the colour of a lobster.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Vicky groans, willing herself not to cry, and it’s only as she desperately tries to pull on her clothes that she hears hoots of laughter and whistles behind her.

  Turning she sees a team of Mexican gardeners, leaning on their hoes as they whistle and grin approvingly at her, speaking amongst themselves in Spanish.

  ‘Oh Fuck Off,’ she is tempted to shout, and manages not to, remembering that she is still trying to make a good impression, and there are five small children around who do not need to hear that.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says again to Lavinia, now dressed, with a flush of embarrassment still on her cheeks.

  ‘I’m Vicky,’ she says to the other mother. ‘I’m staying here for a month.’

  �
��And making yourself at home, I see,’ says the other mother, but not unkindly, and there is a twinkle in her eye. ‘Just ignore the gardeners,’ she continues. ‘You’ve probably just made their summer. And I’m Nadine. We’ve had a playdate this afternoon and I needed to just come by and pick up the permission slip for the kids to go on a Field Trip next week. Amber was meant to have dropped it in but she must have forgotten. Do you know where it is?’

  ‘Um, Lavinia? Do you know?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Well let’s go inside and have a look for it,’ Vicky says pleasantly. ‘I’m sure it’s somewhere around. Hi, Gracie!’ Vicky bends down to say hello to Gracie, sure that the child will remember her, will be pleased to see her given how well they got on last time, but without Amber here Gracie, suddenly shy, hides behind Lavinia’s legs and refuses to look Vicky in the eye.

  Well this is a great start, thinks Vicky. At least it’s not going to get any worse.

  The permission slip is nowhere to be found. Lavinia disappears to finish the laundry, leaving Vicky with the two children, Nadine, Nadine’s children and a lost permission slip.

  Feeling like a spy, Vicky checks all the drawers of the desk, Jared and Gracie’s backpacks, and various coat pockets. Nothing.

  ‘Is there any chance I could get another one?’ she asks. ‘Do you think if I came to camp early on Monday morning and got one it would be fine?’

  ‘You can try,’ Nadine says. ‘Although they said the deadline was today, and anyone who didn’t have a slip couldn’t go.’

  ‘Go where?’ Jared asks, skidding to a stop in the kitchen, followed by Nadine’s son who goes crashing into him.

  ‘To the Bronx zoo,’ Nadine’s son says. ‘You’re not coming because you don’t have a permission slip.’