Life Swap

by Jane Green

  ‘God,’ Vicky says after Deborah has told her the whole story, Deborah refusing to take sides, although well aware that she is neither cool enough, pretty enough nor rich enough for either side to have made much of an effort to recruit her. ‘It sounds like they’re all still twelve years old.’

  ‘I’m not sure that women ever change that much,’ Deborah says the next day, the two of them standing waist-deep in the pool while the kids splash around, screaming with laughter. ‘Maybe it’s an American thing, or maybe it’s a suburban thing, but the cliques here are pretty much exactly the same as when we were all at school.’

  ‘Suzy’s obviously the queen bee,’ Vicky says, remembering back to her own schooldays when Catherine Enderley had been the queen bee. The prettiest – and bitchiest – girl in the class, who would one day grant you the gift of her friendship as if it were the most precious pearl, and the next day would treat you as something distasteful she had found on the sole of her shoe.

  ‘And everyone wants to be around the queen bee,’ Deborah says. ‘Which gives her far more power than she deserves, so she can get away with being bitchy and two-faced, because she’s still the one that everyone wants to be friends with.’

  ‘But why?’ Vicky asks, not understanding. ‘Why would they want to be friends with someone so awful?’

  ‘I think maybe some of them just have incredibly low self-esteem. Nadine, for example. She’s not a bad girl, but she has no self-worth at all.’

  ‘You’re joking!’ Vicky says. ‘But she seems to have so much. She’s pretty, she seems bright, funny. Nice husband, kids. Why would she have no self-worth?’

  Deborah shrugs. ‘Why do any of us? But I think she attached herself to Suzy because that’s what gives her a sense of worth – intertwining herself so deeply with someone who has what she wants, who is what she wants to be. If that person deigns to be friends with Nadine, then some of that sparkle will inevitably rub off on Nadine too, and then she will be good enough.’

  ‘And what about Amber?’ Vicky asks curiously. ‘Where does she fit in?’

  Deborah smiles. ‘Ah yes. What about Amber? Bloody good question because Amber is Suzy’s number one rival, even though Amber’s completely torn about whether she wants to be.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well Amber is a Winslow, which over here counts for a hell of a lot, and however much money Suzy’s husband makes, he’ll never be “old money”, he’ll never come from one of those grand patrician families like the Winslows, whose forefathers came over here on the Mayflower, so that’s something she can’t compete against, which immediately gives Amber a head start.

  ‘And then Richard is hugely successful, and they’re about the only people who live in a house that truly compares to Suzy’s, and even though Amber is much lower key than Suzy, doesn’t feel the need to impress quite as much except when she’s feeling hugely insecure or there’s a committee meeting, Amber is the only other one who can basically afford the same lifestyle.’

  ‘But it’s only money,’ Vicky says, bemused. ‘Is Suzy really so shallow that she’s judging everyone by money, by what they have, what size house, what designer clothes?’

  ‘Um, yes!’ Deborah laughs. ‘It’s the American class system. Instead of judging people by their accents like we do in good old Blighty, they judge you by money, and how much money you have basically determines what class you are, regardless of where you came from. Look at Amber, she’s Suzy’s number one rival and she grew up in a trailer park.’

  ‘Does Suzy know?’

  ‘Suzy wouldn’t care. That’s the point. Wherever you came from is irrelevant, it’s what you have that matters and where you are now, and I have to say, as awful as it sometimes feels, it’s one of the things I love most about America. That you can start with nothing and achieve anything you want as long as you have a dream and you’re prepared to work hard.’

  ‘Just tough when you’re a Desperate Housewife living in the suburbs trying to keep up with the queen bee.’

  ‘It can be, but I don’t bother. I’d never be fully accepted anyway given that I’m English,’ Deborah says. ‘The best thing you can do is sit on the sidelines and watch. Bloody good material for a book, I always think.’

  ‘You’re the second person to suggest that.’ Vicky pauses, remembering Hugh Janus saying something about a book, as Gracie comes swimming over to her and clambers onto her back, urging Vicky to swim to the deep end while Gracie clings on, shrieking with joy.

  ‘Well if you do it before me just make sure you give me an acknowledgement.’ Deborah grins as Vicky disappears off to join the splashing children gathered round the step at the deep end.

  *

  The next week Vicky starts to find her stride. She may not have walked a mile in Amber’s shoes, but she is definitely starting to feel she is on the way. The children are more comfortable with her, and Lavinia is now far more friendly and helpful given the amount of free time Vicky is giving her as part of her continuing quest to find out what being a mother and wife is really about.

  Now that Lavinia is no longer chauffeuring the children about from class to class, and she herself is sitting outside Gracie’s ballet class attempting to make small talk with the other nannies and mothers, Vicky finds that the relaxation, her perceived boredom during the first week, was deceptive: now the days fly by, there seems to be little, if any, time to herself.

  Gone are the mornings spent floating round the pool while the children are in camp. Now Vicky spends her mornings at Stop and Shop, or the garden centre – she has decided to tackle Amber’s flower beds behind the pool which are a curious mix of pachysandra and weeds – or the hardware store, or the post office, or any one of a million places that she has to squeeze in between dropping Gracie off at camp and picking her up and taking her home for a nap.

  Now, by the end of the evening, she is always tired. By the end of the afternoon today she couldn’t wait to get the kids in bed so she could put some Diana Krall on the stereo in the kitchen and potter round making supper for her and Richard with a large glass of a delicious Chardonnay.

  But Richard has just phoned to say he will be home late, has a business meeting and not to worry about cooking him anything.

  At seven thirty, as Vicky is throwing together a salad for herself, Gracie appears at the bottom of the stairs in the mud room.

  ‘Gracie, darling,’ Vicky rushes over to her, ‘what are you doing out of bed? What’s the matter?’

  Gracie’s little face crumples as she squeezes her Lambie tightly. ‘I miss my mommy,’ she sobs, as Vicky attempts to cradle her in her arms.

  ‘Mummy will be home soon,’ she croons. ‘Mummy misses you very much too, and she’ll be home very soon, I promise.’

  ‘But I want her now!’ Gracie sobs, fighting Vicky off, and thumping her little fists on the stairs. ‘I want my mommy now! I want her to come home!’ And she dissolves into a fresh round of sobs.

  I want her too, Vicky thinks. I don’t know how to comfort this child, and I know what it feels like to want your mother and she’s not there. And more to the point, what the hell was I thinking, doing Life Swap for a month? A month! Much too long. A week would have been fine, and just as the novelty has evidently worn off for Gracie, so has the novelty worn off for Vicky.

  And oh God, help me comfort this little girl, help me make her feel better, but mostly help her to stop crying, because I just don’t know what to do.

  It takes Vicky half an hour to calm Gracie down. Eventually she manages to get Gracie into bed where she hiccups into her pillow, still crying until she falls asleep, her cheeks still tear-stained, her pyjamas soaking wet from her tears.

  Vicky goes back downstairs, exhausted, then she hears a noise coming from the main stairs. On investigation she finds Jared, also sitting on the bottom step of the stairs – clearly this is a family trait – and whilst he’s not quite crying, it’s clear he’s on the verge of tears.

  ‘Jared, darling,’ Vicky
says, ‘are you okay? What’s the matter?’

  ‘I miss my mom too,’ Jared says, trying very hard to be a man and not to cry.

  ‘I know,’ Vicky sits next to him on the step and nods her head. ‘I know, Jared, and I miss her too. She will be home very soon, though, I promise.’

  ‘But why did she go for so long?’ Jared says. ‘It’s been so long already, and why did she have to go?’

  ‘I don’t actually know,’ Vicky says, and this time she really doesn’t.

  When Richard arrives home at ten o’clock, he’s expecting the house to be quiet. Vicky had said she was exhausted, that she was thrilled he was going to have a business meeting this evening because she needed an early night.

  The house may be quiet, but the lights are still on in the kitchen and when he weaves in to turn them off – he’s had rather more alcohol than he would normally have – he notices that the lights are on in the pool, and there, swimming a leisurely lap, is Vicky.

  How odd, he thinks. He and Amber always used to say that they would have midnight swims. When they built the house they even put a balcony with a staircase down to the pool outside the master bedroom for precisely that purpose, and yet, aside from a handful of times the first summer they moved in, they haven’t used it since.

  He’d love to go swimming at night, but Amber is always in bed by nine. The few times he suggests a late-night swim, Amber has rolled her eyes or laughed as if he had suggested they take a quick trip to the moon and back before the kids wake up in the morning.

  He’s used to it now. Amber gives him a perfunctory kiss while they watch television in the family room, and disappears up to bed where she’ll put on her cotton pyjamas and climb under the covers with her books or magazines.

  It is so strange seeing someone swimming in the pool at night, which has always been Richard’s favourite time to be out there. When he was a child he and his brothers and sisters would swim in the pond at night. They’d light torches and troop out there, jumping off the jetty into the cool water when the nights were hot and humid, when the only noises were the cicadas chirping in the bushes, when the sky was like a blanket of black velvet, sprinkled with pinpoints of light, thousands of stars, and occasionally the warm glow of a full moon.

  Night swimming has always comforted him, reminded him of his childhood, particularly here, when again the only noises are the cicadas, the steam rises gently off the surface of the pool, where again on a clear night you can see the moon reflected in the blackness of the water.

  Richard opens the French door in the kitchen, walks down the deck and calls out to Vicky as she approaches the end of the pool. The light from the deck is just enough that he is able to see her towel is there with a glass of wine and a half-empty bottle.

  ‘Having fun?’ he asks, crouching down as she swims towards the end.

  ‘I am in heaven,’ she grins. ‘This is the most beautiful night, and I’ve now decided that when I marry I’ve got to marry rich because I’m not sure I’m going to be able to live without a swimming pool.’

  ‘What about that man you were telling me about – Jimmy? Would he keep you in the style to which you’re rapidly becoming accustomed?’

  ‘It’s Jamie, and yes, he probably would. Depending on how famous you are, if you’re lucky and you’re in the big league you get to have a big old mansion in the country with a swimming pool. Of course the only problem is you can only use it for about three days a year because the weather’s so bloody awful, but still, three days of heaven would be better than none.’

  ‘So you want to marry rich?’ Richard winces ever so slightly.

  ‘No, not really,’ Vicky laughs. ‘Quite frankly at this point I can’t afford to be picky. Beggars can’t be choosy and all that…’

  ‘You’re lovely,’ Richard says, not meaning the words to sound quite as meaningful as they do.

  ‘Um. Well. Thank you,’ Vicky says awkwardly, not knowing quite how to respond, thankful that the light on the deck is not strong enough to reflect her blush. ‘So are you coming in?’ she shouts back as she swims away from Richard to diffuse the way his words made her feel, to allow the blush to disappear in the darkness of the night. Oh shit, she thinks. Why did I just say that? I didn’t mean that. I don’t want you to come swimming. Please say no.

  ‘Sure!’ Richard grins. And he starts undressing. And even though it’s night and the pool lights are not on, Vicky’s eyes have now adjusted enough that she can see everything, and even though she knows this is another woman’s husband, there’s surely no harm in looking, is there? But it’s a shiver of lust that runs through her as she watches him pull his shirt off, and she wants to get out of the pool and go running inside, to safety, to where she knows she won’t do something she may regret, but her legs seem to have turned to stone, and she finds that she doesn’t go anywhere. Just holds on to the side of the pool as Richard slips in wearing just his boxer shorts.

  ‘Wow,’ he says. ‘This is gorgeous. I don’t remember the last time I went swimming at night.’

  ‘You’re joking! If this were my house I’d be doing this every night.’

  They swim past one another in opposite directions for a few lazy laps, not talking, just listening to the noises of the night, and then Vicky stops to catch her breath, not used to this much exercise, and the night is so still as she crouches in the water, leaning back against the wall, listening to just the sound of her breathing, when she becomes aware of Richard’s breath, next to hers.

  Neither of them says anything. Vicky feels frozen, timeless and weightless in the dark, and she is not thinking as she turns to where she can just make out Richard’s silhouette, and she is not thinking as she feels his hands alight softly on her shoulders, and she is not thinking as she moves closer to him, close enough to feel his breath on her lips, closer still, closer…

  ‘Daddy!’ A voice from the deck makes both of them jump, split apart, guilty, and Richard clambers out of the pool immediately.

  ‘Honey?’ he says to Gracie who is standing there clutching Lambie. ‘What’s the matter, honey? Don’t worry, Daddy’s here. Daddy won’t let anything happen to you,’ and with that he picks her up and carries her inside.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  ‘I’m warning you now,’ Amber shakes a finger at Daniel. ‘This is not a date, and you are not allowed to flirt with me.’

  ‘But I have to flirt with you.’ Daniel grins as he shakes the blanket out on the grass underneath a large old maple tree. ‘It’s my job.’

  ‘Well try and think of this as less work, more…’

  ‘…play?’ he finishes off for her with another grin.

  ‘No, that’s not what I meant at all,’ Amber says, unable to keep the smile from her face. Of course she’s not interested. Of course she’s not going to do anything about it, but when was the last time someone actually dared to flirt with her? When was the last time, for that matter, she had been on her own with a man other than her husband for an entire evening?

  It’s not that I miss being single, she muses, as she helps Daniel open the containers and set them out on the blanket, it’s that I miss excitement. How lovely to do something different, to have some attention paid to you, to really feel like a woman again.

  Because that is precisely how Amber hasn’t been feeling. Does she feel like a wife? Of course. And a mother? Without a doubt. But a woman? Very rarely these days. Rarely does she feel seductive, feminine, sensual. Rarely is she aware of her own, once powerful, sexuality.

  As a mother she has become de-sexualized, she realizes with a shock. All the passion that she once poured onto her husband, she now pours into her children, leaving her with the comfortable feeling of an old pair of slippers: she adores Richard, feels safe and cosy and warm with him, and would never question the validity of their marriage, but she has quite forgotten the heady feeling of being made to feel sexy, of having someone so clearly lust after you.

  And Daniel? What had Vicky said in her notes about Dan
iel? Her neighbourhood ‘shag’ – Amber remembers that unfamiliar word with a smile. But of course she would start thinking about sex when with him, if only because she knows that is his role in Vicky’s life.

  How convenient, she thinks. But how difficult to just leave it be at that. How is it possible to sleep with someone on a regular basis, someone who is a friend, and not have it turn into something more, not become emotionally involved?

  Daniel sits down opposite her and pours the wine into a plastic cup, handing it to her with a rueful smile.

  ‘Cheers,’ he says. ‘Sorry about the cups. The crystal was in the diswasher.’

  ‘Now I know you’re lying,’ Amber shoots back. ‘Crystal never ever goes into a dishwasher. But cheers. To… what? To life-swapping!’ she says finally.

  ‘Wife-swapping, did you say?’ Daniel says deliberately. ‘I’ll drink to that. Hear, hear. To wife-swapping. And all who indulge in it.’

  Amber shakes her head. ‘Are you this incorrigible all the time? And if so, how does Vicky put up with you?’

  ‘The answer to your question is no, I’m not this incorrigible all the time, only when I’m around feisty Americans with great legs,’ he eyes her legs approvingly, ‘and the reason Vix is able to put up with me is because we’re friends first, and I would say lovers second, although since Jamie Donnelly came into the equation she won’t shag me any more anyway.’

  ‘And are you upset about that?’

  ‘Upset? That she’s been refusing me or that she’s with Donnelly?’

  Amber shrugs. ‘Either? Both?’

  ‘Well obviously I’m slightly disappointed when I feel like, well, you know, and she fobs me off with some chit-chat and a chaste goodnight kiss, but I think you’re asking me if I’m jealous, and the answer to that is a definite no.’

  ‘Okay. So now I have to ask you something. Would you and Vicky ever be more than friends?’