Emma would occasionally break ranks, raising her eyebrows to say, ‘Been out partying, PJ?’
PJ would groan, and say, ‘I had babysitting duties. My nephews! Little kids, they wear you out! I don’t know how people do it.’
And the viewers? They didn’t always buy the nephew story, but they still loved him.
Did you see how Emma looked at him when he turned up late this morning?! Total daggers!!!
But you can’t stay angry at him!!! You just want to take care of him.
There was no point asking how he got away with it – from their earliest days on the couch together, Emma had known the rules. She was the mature, working mum. Also, the good girl. He was the bad boy. Emma had occasionally wondered what the reaction would be if she’d ever dared to turn up hung over. The gossip sites would have a field day. She could see it now:
On the brink!
It’s a breakdown!
PJ’s fears for Emma!!
So she just didn’t go there. Emma never went out partying on a school night. She was never photographed falling out of a taxi with one stiletto in her hand. She was never unprepared for an interview. She was always at the studio an hour before they were due to go on air, getting started with Hair and Make-up, sticking to the rules laid down by the girls in Wardrobe:
No knees after forty.
No cleavage, ever, including toe cleavage (no open sandals.)
Hair not too short but not too long either.
One set of earrings only and none that dangled.
No T-shirt slogans.
No jeans, unless we’re broadcasting from the Royal Show.
Emma checked her watch again. 4:59 am.
‘Okay,’ she said, smoothing the emerald green of her dress over her knees. ‘Let’s go, I guess.’
The ON AIR light began to flash. Emma fixed her smile into place. The floor manager held up his hand: five fingers, then four, three . . .
With seconds to go, PJ came striding across the floor. He plopped onto the couch, popping a breath mint into his mouth. Emma went to say something but the theme song began to play, and a prerecorded voice boomed, ‘Welcome to Cuppa with PJ and Emma!’
Emma beamed.
PJ did too. ‘Good morning, good morning everyone,’ he said, as the ON AIR signs lit up. ‘How great is it to be here today, Em? I love Mondays, as you know.’
‘Do you really?’ Emma said, all sceptical, since that suited their riff. ‘I actually do love Mondays. Did you have a nice weekend, PJ?’
‘Fantastic,’ he said, nodding with enthusiasm. ‘My sister’s kids came over. Jeepers, they take it out of you. That’s why I admire you so much, Emma. Three kids, and doesn’t she look gorgeous everyone? Hey, how about we check the conditions on the roads?’
He glanced to his left, where a pretty blonde was standing awkwardly with one foot slightly in front of the other for the purpose of making her look slimmer. The floor manager gave the signal to switch to Camera 4, and she began to speak. ‘Good morning . . .’
Emma waited until she was sure they were off-camera before making a face at PJ, as if to say, Where were you . . .?
He held up a hand, as if to say, Not now, Emma.
Emma fumed. Where does he get off, being so irresponsible? But then they were back, with PJ grinning at Camera 1, saying, ‘Okay, well how about we start the morning with a little “Cuppa Love”, Emma?’
‘Great idea! And it’s a lovely little story we have here,’ said Emma, and they were off and running.
They had two ‘Cuppa Love’ segments: one was a cute story about a bride whose two mums had walked her down the aisle; the other was about a dog with amputated back legs, learning to run in a wheeled contraption built for him by an old blacksmith. Both had been prerecorded – most of the ‘Cuppa Love’ segments were prerecorded in the hours after Cuppa went to air, for use later in the week – allowing PJ to motion for coffee. An intern came running with a disposable cup.
When the camera came back to the couch, Emma said, ‘I guess we all know that tune! Yes, guys, it’s Gadget time!’
Gadget was the Gadget Guy. His real name was Warren. He came bounding towards the couch in a suit and rocket-patterned socks, to canned applause.
‘Good morning, Gadget,’ Emma said. ‘We’ve missed you. You’ve been travelling, haven’t you? Did you bring any amazing new gadgets back for us?’
‘Hello, Emma, hello, PJ. Yes, yes, you’re right, I’ve just come back from a gadget conference in Sin City!’ Gadget enthused. ‘And although what happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas, I have to tell you, I saw some amazing things . . .’
On he went, talking about a fridge that could order its own beer.
‘I don’t know if I need that,’ said Emma. ‘I’ve already got a dryer that beeps at me. Beep, beep, beep. Drives me mad.’
‘It’s doing you a favour,’ said Gadget. ‘Telling you when the clothes are dry.’
‘Well, I disagree,’ said PJ. ‘I love a good gadget. My new toilet seat from Japan, for example! It’s got a seat warmer. Lovely on a chilly morning.’
‘Okay, now that really is enough,’ said Emma. ‘It’s time for a check of the news headlines.’ She turned towards Zoe – Emma knew all their names – and said, ‘What’s happening today?’
‘Well, Emma,’ Zoe said, ‘we do in fact have some breaking news . . .’
Monday 12 October
9:45 am
Fifteen minutes before Cuppa was due to wrap for the day, the floor manager called for a commercial break. Emma rose from the couch as a wardrobe assistant hurried over with an apron. The last segment was always the cooking segment. Emma looked at her watch and mentally clocked what her family would be doing. It had always been difficult for her, being on air, and out of contact, for hours at a time. How often had she switched on her phone to find frantic messages from her husband, or one of the nannies they’d had over the years, saying: have you seen Hudson’s goggles? Or Seal’s lunchbox? Or Fox’s teddy?
Or even: who goes where again today?
Because Brandon, when he’d been working, could never be reached. Now that he wasn’t working, things had become easier, although Emma still kept a mental list of who had to be where at what time on any given day. Given the hour, she surmised that the nanny – their new one, Lena – would have come and gone from the house, to take the boys to school, and Fox to daycare. She considered calling Brandon but thought better of it. He’d have just finished cleaning the kitchen, probably, or maybe he’d be at the computer, tallying up overnight profits and losses from his new job as a day trader.
A day trader.
No matter how many times Emma told people, she could still hear them thinking: Oh! Her husband is unemployed.
PJ for example. She remembered telling him about Brandon’s decision to start working from home.
‘So, what, he got the sack then?’ had been his response.
‘No. He’s taking a package. We’ve been doing the two-job thing for years, and it’s really hard.’ And it had been really hard. The busyness of their lives had nearly broken them and now – life being life – the unbusyness of Brandon’s life was doing much the same.
Emma stepped to one side as the Cuppa kitchen came rolling by. She lifted the hem of her apron. Something about it looked different. She squinted at the writing, trying to make out the words on the front.
You can get more veggies in!
Matty, watching from above, spoke into her earpiece. ‘Yeah, okay, I forgot to mention, we’re showing off a new product today, Emma – the Magic Zucchini Spiralizer.’
‘The what?’
‘Don’t ask me, I don’t cook. Apparently it turns vegetables into spaghetti. So, less carbs. It’s a comp segment. A friend of PJ’s is trying to make it the next big thing.’
Emma was dismayed. ‘Another comp cooking segment?’ she replied. ‘What happened to the Magic Chicken people? Why are we giving these segments away?’
‘Yeah, okay, so
we’re having some trouble selling the segment,’ Matty replied awkwardly. ‘It’s okay. We’ll get another sponsor. This will do for now.’
The floor manager held up the five fingers, and began counting them down, five, four, three . . .
Emma fixed her smile into place. ‘Well, good morning everyone who has just joined us,’ she said.
‘Yes, welcome!’ said PJ. ‘You’re just in time for a little Cuppa kitchen. And we’ve got a special guest today who is going to show us a fantastic new product. Please welcome . . . Roxie Moore!’
Matty hit the button for audience applause, and a young woman with a bouncing ponytail came bounding onto the set.
‘Hello everyone,’ she said chirpily. Roxie had a sexy pair of three-quarter exercise pants on. Her top was racer style, and her arms toned. She wore hot-pink sneakers with no socks, and her face betrayed not a hint of nervousness.
PJ appeared smitten.
‘I’ve heard about these things,’ he said, moving closer to the spiralizer, and at the same time, closer to Roxie. ‘You can turn any vegetable into spaghetti. You want to show us how it works?’
Roxie lunged towards a fat zucchini, sitting in a bowl. PJ grabbed the other end, and they both started tugging and burst into giggles.
Matty spoke into Emma’s earpiece. ‘Christ, is he on heat? Get him off her.’
Emma took a deep breath. ‘Okay, maybe I should . . .’
Roxie snatched the zucchini from PJ and began feeding it into the spiralizer.
‘A lot of people think zucchini is boring but watch now when it comes out the other end,’ she said.
‘The other end,’ said PJ, guffawing.
‘Okay,’ said Emma, moving swiftly and deliberately into the tiny gap between them. ‘Let me look. Oh wow, it does look like spaghetti!’
‘But without the carbs,’ said Roxie, ‘because it’s all vegetable!’
‘That is clever. And I guess the idea is to get more veggies into your kids?’
She waited for Roxie to respond, but Roxie flipped her ponytail instead, while PJ stood grinning. Emma felt her heart racing. Dead air. The enemy of good TV. She jumped back in, suggesting, ‘Why don’t we have a taste?’
She looked around for a fork, and stuck it into the bowl. Turning to Camera 1, she held it up, and began reading from the auto-cue. ‘If you’re a mum at home looking for some cute new meal ideas, this might be just the thing. The Magic Zucchini Spiralizer. And all you have to do is call the number on the screen, because we’ve got an amazing payment plan, and I have to tell you, I’m in love with the idea behind this product.’
Matty said into her earpiece, ‘Credits are rolling.’
Emma popped some zucchini into her mouth, swallowed quickly, and said, ‘Mmmm. It is great. And with that, I think we’ve got to go.’
‘No way,’ said PJ. ‘We’ve been having too much fun.’
The Cuppa music began to play.
‘Well, don’t worry, we’ll be back tomorrow,’ said Emma, waving at the camera. ‘Bye-bye from everyone here at Cuppa.’
PJ grinned at the camera. ‘Yep. Say bye, Roxie.’
‘Bye-bye,’ Roxie said, waving four fingers up and down.
The floor manager called ‘cut’ and the camera lights went off. Emma put the fork down and began untying her apron. She felt furious with PJ and was about to say something, but before she could get any words out, Matty came jogging over, took her elbow, and said, ‘Emma? You need to come with me.’
Monday 12 October
10 am
Emma spread her arms wide to allow the sound technician to unzip her dress and strip her of her microphone cords.
‘Why do I have to come with you?’ she said.
‘Just come straight to the meeting room when you’re done,’ Matty said. He was hopping from one foot to the other. ‘We’ve got some things to discuss.’
‘But is it urgent?’ asked Emma. ‘Because if it’s not, I’m going to get changed out of this dress.’
Matty grimaced. ‘It’s not urgent, but . . .’
‘Well, then, I’ll see you in ten minutes, because I’m also dying for the loo.’
Matty made an anguished face but Emma ignored it as she ducked under the darkened ON AIR sign and into the corridor, where she ran straight into an intern carrying an iPad, who said, ‘Oh!’
‘What?’ said Emma.
‘Nothing,’ she cried, shaking her head urgently. ‘I’m so sorry!’
Emma frowned. Something was up and whatever it was, it wasn’t good. She hurried down the corridor to her dressing room, where she fished her phone out of one of the many deep pockets in her tote and switched it on, allowing messages to pile in. The first one was from Hudson. It was a cute picture of his face, with some kind of cartoon bunny ears and bunny teeth super-imposed, probably the result of some new app he’d discovered.
Emma quickly texted back: You look great, funny bunny.
The next message was from the family’s nanny – the Granny-Nanny – Lena.
Dropped boys at school, Fox to daycare. Reminder: my Book Club tonight. You’re getting Fox?
Emma sighed. No. She wasn’t meant to be getting Fox. Hadn’t she already told Lena that? Yes, she had, but she quickly texted back: Got it, re: Book Club. Brandon’s getting Fox. Have a great day.
Lena must have been near her phone, because she texted straight back: ‘Brandon for Fox? You sure? It’s Monday.’
Emma understood her confusion. Fox had been at daycare since she was six months old. In the beginning, she’d only gone one day, because that was all the time Emma had been able to get. Two months in, she’d been offered a second day, and then a third, so now she was there Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, which suited Emma because she believed in socialising kids. At the same time, she also believed fervently in ‘Mummy and Me’ time – just Emma and her only daughter doing girly things – so Emma had set up a schedule, whereby she’d collect Fox from daycare around lunchtime on Mondays, which in turn made Mondays ‘Emma’s Day’.
She’d made a big point of blocking her diary out, telling her colleagues at Stellar that she wanted Monday afternoons kept free, so she could take Fox to Build-A-Bear at Gallery Main Street, or else to the chocolate pizza place, but how many times had she actually managed to collect Fox from daycare on a Monday? Three weeks in four? Two weeks in four?
Maybe, if she was lucky, she got there two weeks in four, because that was Emma’s life. Yes, okay, her show was only on air until 10 am every day, and she was pretty sure that most people thought that was the end of her working day, but no. There were sponsors’ lunches, and meet-and-greets with Cuppa fans. She had charity obligations, and fundraising appearances, and meet-the-advertisers events, and ‘Cuppa Love’ segments to shoot; or else Matty would put her name down to attend a High Tea, or there would be a Fashion Week launch, or a film premiere, and Emma would have to scramble and get somebody else to pick up Fox.
She rarely complained. Why bother? No one would feel sorry for her. Nobody thought that Emma had a tough life. She had a glamorous, well-paid job. She had a handsome husband and three angelic children. She had cleaners and nannies. She was not allowed to complain, and especially not about something so privileged as missing Mummy and Me time with her adored blonde daughter, one or two Mondays a month.
Emma texted back to Lena: Yep, I can’t get there today, have work to do. Don’t worry, he knows.
Lena texted back: Okay, great.
Next came a message that didn’t immediately make sense. It was from one of Emma’s oldest friends, and it said: I love porridge!
What did that mean?
Emma was about to write: ‘Huh?’ when the phone pinged with another incoming message. It was Maven: Come now. We better talk about this.
Confused, Emma texted back: Talk about what?
She received no reply, so she threw her phone in her tote, before heading back down the corridor to the post-show meeting room, where she found Maven, Matty and PJ alre
ady seated around the oval table, while a nervous minion – one of Maven’s cookie-cutter blonde interns – stood nervously against the wall.
‘Is somebody going to tell me what’s going on?’ asked Emma.
Maven signalled to the minion, saying, ‘You found it. You tell her.’
She looked horrified.
‘Come on, don’t dilly-dally,’ said Maven.
‘Okay,’ the minion said, ‘So, well . . .’ But she couldn’t go on.
Maven rolled her eyes. ‘Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? Emma, you’re on The Snoop. All over their website. They’ve got shitty pictures, and they’re saying you’re fat. Or frumpy. Legs made of porridge. That’s about it, isn’t it?’
The minion gave two quicks nods of her head. She was clutching the iPad to her chest like she could not have been more embarrassed.
‘Which you’re not,’ said Maven. ‘They’re arseholes. And who gives a shit? It’s all click-bait. Nasty stuff.’
Emma stared at Maven, then at the minion. She didn’t immediately understand what Maven meant.
Fat? Frumpy? Porridge? They had pictures?
‘Show me,’ she said.
The minion stepped forward, offering the iPad. Emma touched the screen and there they were: pictures of Emma wearing a one-piece bathing costume and a big hat on a beach not far from where she lived. She’d gone down there on the weekend to play with Fox, who was also in the pictures, although her little face was pixelated, so all anyone could see was a fuzzy blob playing with buckets and spades.
Forget Forrest GUMP, here’s EMMA FRUMP.
That was their headline. Emma scrolled down. The story seemed to go on forever. There were close-ups of her rear end and her thighs. The reporters – were they even reporters? – at The Snoop had drawn blue rings around the worst of her bulges, with arrows pointing, labelled: ‘Porridge!!’ Meaning her bum. And her thighs. They were mottled like porridge, or maybe cottage cheese? With helpful close-ups, and with highlight rings drawn around the fatty bits.
The minion bit her lip. Nobody spoke. Emma felt herself blushing. It was mortifying. Here she was – a mother of three, an ambassador for a cancer foundation, co-host of one of the longest-running programs on TV – reduced to porridge. Part of her felt indignant. Who cared if she had a little cellulite? How nasty could people be? But part of her also felt ashamed. Her legs did look hideous.
The Ones You Trust Page 3
