Just Between Us

by Cathy Kelly

  No, Stella decided as she clicked on her computer desktop calendar, stepmothers still on her mind, Cinderella’s stepmother was more relevant to her personal story. At least she hadn’t tried to murder her stepdaughter like Snow White’s evil stepmom. Although Cinderella’s mother by marriage was definitely a candidate for charges of child abuse. Your Honour, the defendant wilfully differentiated between her two daughters, the Ugly Sisters, and her husband’s daughter, poor Cinders. He could do nothing to help, being, as he was, blinded by his second wife’s sexual power!

  Stella grinned wryly at the thought of Nick being blinded by her sexual power. He was crazy about her, she knew that. But blinded? Not quite.

  Still, that was the myth behind the fairy story of the stepmom. Stella thought about the two real stepmothers she knew personally. One was the stepmum to three very young children and the chief worry appeared to be making a small house expand to fit an influx of extra children every second weekend. The other had married the long-divorced father of grown-up children, many years after he and their mother had split. The stepmother had adult children of her own as well, and from a distance, it all seemed remarkably civilised and friendly. There didn’t appear to be any problems there, but Stella had to admit that she’d never asked. Perhaps under the surface was a simmering cauldron of hate with the stepsiblings locked in an eternal battle with each other and with their step-parents.

  And now it was her turn: Stella Miller, wicked stepmum-in-waiting.

  With a desk full of legal documents in front of her and the first of the day’s skinny lattes in her hand, Stella didn’t feel she quite fell into the Cinderella/Snow White Evil Stepmum mould. For a start, she didn’t have the waspy waist that all classic fairytale evil female characters had. And her hair wasn’t coal black and sculptured but prone to frizziness. Stella was a slave to anything in the chemists’ with the words ‘sleek’ on it.

  But there could be problems ahead. Stella sipped her latte absently. She and Nick had been going out for three months and she hadn’t met Nick’s kids yet. According to The Art of Step, this was a fatal mistake. One of many fatal mistakes, in fact, because she and Nick had apparently done everything wrong. If there was an award for Most Inept Modern Couple, they’d win it hands down because they’d fallen blindly in love and hadn’t thought of the consequences.

  Nick insisted that Jenna and Sara would adore Stella. ‘They’re not babies,’ he’d said firmly. ‘They know the score.’

  The score, Stella reflected, sounded reasonable to herself and Nick, but what if it didn’t make as much sense to a nineteen-year-old in her first year of college, and to a fourteen-year-old who sounded like Daddy’s pet?

  She knew that her friends had found it hard to fathom how she and Nick had fallen in love so quickly. Their relationship hadn’t been a gradual slide into love: there had been this intense, instant bond and after their second date, there was really no option for them to be apart. But try explaining that to anyone else, especially teenage daughters.

  Stella wasn’t an expert at teenagers. Amelia was only seven, and it felt like a zillion years since Stella herself had experienced teenagerdom. Surely modern teenagers were much more mature and sophisticated. They’d deal with Daddy’s new girlfriend, wouldn’t they?

  Unfortunately, the book hadn’t cheered her up on this point.

  The first rule of stepfamilies was to gently introduce your children to the new squeeze before any life-changing decisions were made. This was vital. No, VITAL. In big letters. The stepfamily book didn’t discuss what would happen if you did make life-changing decisions without telling the various children first, but the implication was that serious misery would follow. Nick and Stella hadn’t planned any huge decisions. Not yet. But she suspected that everything might not be plain sailing for a while. Reading between the lines of the things Nick told her, his ex-wife, Wendy, was in denial over her divorce. She phoned Nick over every little problem, from flat tyres to trouble with the fuse box, and expected him to drop everything to rush to her aid. How would she take the news that her ex had a serious new relationship? That would be bound to hurt. Would that sense of hurt make her suddenly change her mind about an amicable split and start using her daughters as ammunition? Nick saw none of these possibilities but Stella saw them all.

  She stopped scrolling through her diary for a moment. Should they slow it all down, for Jenna and Sara’s sake? What if Nick’s girls couldn’t face a new woman in his life, a woman who couldn’t imagine life without him and who was already daydreaming of the day they lived together?

  ‘Hi Stel, did you go home at all last night?’ asked Vicki, appearing at the door with her briefcase. ‘Or do you have a bed in there?’

  ‘I left at six, you slacker,’ Stella joked back.

  ‘That’s practically a half-day for you. I remember when you used to stay in the office until half seven on Monday nights,’ sighed Vicki. ‘But now that you have the delectable Nick to go home to…’

  ‘I only stayed until half seven on Mondays because that was Amelia’s swimming lesson night,’ Stella retorted. ‘And the delectable Nick doesn’t live with me.’ He had his own key, though, she thought happily.

  ‘Yet,’ said Vicki, batting her eyelashes dramatically in the manner of a silent movie star, ‘he might as well move in, he’s there all the time.’

  ‘He isn’t,’ protested Stella.

  ‘Vicki grinned. ‘Give it time,’ she said with a knowing smirk. I’ll see you for lunch?’

  Stella worked flat out all morning, pausing only to grab another cup of coffee after her noon meeting. She took the coffee back to her desk and decided that a five-minute break was in order.

  Vicki was buried under a mountain of paperwork.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt, but have you still got that gift catalogue?’ Stella asked. ‘I’ve got to look for an anniversary present for Mum and Dad. The party’s in two weeks and we still haven’t got anything. Tara and Holly will kill me because I’m in charge of getting it.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Vicki, delving into the drawer where she kept her supply of magazines, spare tights and tampons for emergency use.

  She handed Stella a fat luxury gifts catalogue.

  Back in her office, Stella flicked through the catalogue rapidly, past endless pages of murderously expensive cutlery, and several displays of sickeningly twee figurines. Who bought this stuff? she wondered as she looked at a particularly hideous carriage clock that was a disastrous fusion of Louis XIV and Liberace. She knew the answer: people desperate for fortieth anniversary presents. When there wasn’t anything the anniversary couple needed, the only option was something straight from such a catalogue.

  Presents like that came complete with an unspoken: ‘Yes, we know it’s awful but it cost lots of money and that’s the whole point, right?’

  Only this present was for her parents and Stella didn’t want to buy a soulless canteen of cutlery or an ugly clock.

  She wanted to buy something special, the perfect gift that reflected her love for them—and their love for each other. These days there weren’t many couples who’d lasted forty years together. Her marriage hadn’t.

  But forty years of Nick, she thought dreamily, that would be wonderful. She dragged herself back to the task in hand. Reaching the ruby anniversary was one hell of an achievement and was why Hugh and Rose Miller’s present had to be perfect. Stella turned a page and came upon a section where the Liberace/Louis XIV fusion thing had resulted in a selection of statues of Greek goddesses with lots of gilt embellishment on their flowing robes and way too much bare bosoms. Sighing, Stella threw the catalogue in her desk drawer and wished her mother had agreed to the holiday.

  Stella and Tara had thought it was the best idea they’d ever had; that their combined anniversary gift would be a week in Paris.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t hear of it, Stella, although you’re wonderful girls and I’m so proud of you all for even thinking of it,’ Rose had said.

  Dear Mum
, Stella smiled. She was always thinking of other people. Rose Miller was the sort of mum who pretended she wasn’t hungry if too many people turned up for dinner and who wouldn’t dream of buying herself so much as a new pair of tights if she could possibly spend the money on any of her three daughters or her husband. Her daughters adored her. There had to be a perfect anniversary present out there.

  Vicki stuck her head round the door. ‘Lunch?’

  ‘Give me one minute,’ Stella replied and began to tidy her desk. She was ready to leave when the phone rang and a sense of duty made her pick it up.

  ‘I hoped I’d catch you,’ Nick said. ‘They work you too hard. You never get to go to lunch on time.’

  ‘Pot, kettle and black,’ retorted Stella. ‘Rearrange these words into a simple sentence.’

  ‘Point taken,’ he said ruefully. ‘I’m going out for a sand- wich later. This is just a quick call to say three things. One, I’m definitely cooking dinner tonight.’

  Stella smiled. ‘Two lessons and you’re already an expert,’ she teased. Nick had barely known how to turn an oven on until Stella had given him a crash course in cooking. Twenty years of marriage to a brilliant cook meant he could hardly make a cup of coffee without consulting a recipe book.

  ‘I’m a fast learner,’ he replied. ‘Roast chicken sound OK to you?’

  This time, she couldn’t stop herself laughing. Roast chicken was the only thing he could cook. She planned to teach him a couple of other menu options one day.

  ‘Roast chicken would be lovely. What are the two other things?’

  I was talking to Wendy earlier about bringing Jenna and Sara out at the weekend. It’s Jenna’s birthday on Friday and she’s having a party, but I wanted to do something with her. And,’ he hesitated, ‘I told Wendy that I wanted the girls to meet you and that I’d have a big talk with them about it tomorrow night.’

  ‘How did she take it?’ asked Stella anxiously.

  ‘Not bad, she seemed OK. She didn’t say much but that’s good, right?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Stella slowly.

  ‘Last but not least, my brother phoned and he and Clarisse want us to go to dinner with them next week.’

  Stella grimaced. Nick’s caustic sister-in-law was definitely one of the clouds on their horizon. Howard was a sweetheart. But Clarisse was another kettle of fish.

  Stella had met her only once and it had not been fun. The two couples had bumped into each other in a hotel lobby and Clarisse had looked at Stella the way an exterminator would inspect a cockroach. Stella was not used to people looking at her like that, with…with disgust, she realised in shock. Afterwards, an embarrassed Nick explained that Clarisse was very friendly with Wendy.

  ‘Ah,’ said Stella, suddenly understanding why Clarisse’s face had frozen when Nick had artlessly introduced Stella by putting a protective arm around her shoulders. During the few minutes the four of them had been together, Clarisse hadn’t addressed a single word to Stella. An entire dinner with Clarisse was not something Stella looked forward to.

  ‘It won’t be so bad, Stella,’ Nick said, knowing exactly what she was thinking. ‘Clarisse will love you when she gets to know you.’

  Stella raised her eyes to heaven. Men, they were so innocent, really. Nick hadn’t a clue when it came to personal relationships. Emotional intelligence was the key and Nick, for all his brilliance as a businessman, had none. He honestly believed that his sister-in-law would roll over like a playful kitten as soon as she got to know Stella. In his rose-tinted view, the two women would be bestest friends in months. Stella knew that they’d be sending out for gas heaters in Hell before Clarisse did anything but curl her lip at the sight of Nick’s girlfriend.

  ‘I didn’t set a date for dinner, mind you,’ Nick was saying, ‘I said we’d need to check your diary but Howard thinks they’re free next Thursday.’

  ‘Great,’ Stella said, wincing. She’d bet anything that Clarisse had organised dinner to either inspect Stella at close quarters—or to frighten her off.

  ‘I’ll bring the ingredients for dinner tonight and see you at half six, then?’

  ‘Great. Love you,’ she said.

  ‘Love you,’ he replied.

  As she hung up, the sense of unease that had been dogging Stella all day returned. It was nothing to do with another evening of roast chicken, with Nick opening the oven door every ten minutes to ‘check if it’s done’. It was the thought of his blind innocence when it came to his sister-in-law. If he could be so sure that she’d like Stella, when Stella knew this was highly unlikely, then he could be wrong about other important things. Like how his Jenna and Sara would react to their father’s new partner, and how their mother would react, too.

  Luigi’s was jam-packed, with at least half of the tables taken up by lawyers from Lawson, Wilde & McKenna. Stella smiled at a few people and sank onto a banquette beside Vicki, who was already deep in Hello! and crostini smothered in garlicky tomatoes.

  ‘What’s up?’ Vicki asked, shutting the magazine, even though she was in the middle of a very juicy article about the Monaco royal family. ‘You haven’t had a bust-up with the love of your life?’

  ‘No,’ said Stella, unable to stop the moony look crossing her face. ‘He’s still fabulous. His sister-in-law is the fly in the ointment. We’re going out to dinner with her on Thursday next.’ She didn’t mention the worry about the children. It seemed disloyal to Nick to talk about this most private thing, even with her dear friend.

  ‘The sister-in-law? The one who looks like Gary Oldman in his ancient Dracula make-up?’

  Stella erupted with laughter. ‘You’re evil, Vicki, you know that?’

  ‘You were the one who told me she had this sort of stretched face as if the plastic surgery had gone wrong,’ protested Vicki.

  ‘I never mentioned Dracula,’ Stella pointed out, deeply embarrassed by the way she’d described Clarisse to Vicki. It wasn’t like her to be so bitchy but she’d felt so upset by the other woman’s reaction to her, and painting Clarisse in unflattering terms had somehow got the rage out of her system.

  ‘No, but you described her so well, I moved a step on. A disapproving hen’s bum mouth and skin-stretched-tautly-over-cheekbones, you said. Dracula, I thought. Reminds me of Dracula.’

  Stella winced. ‘Don’t,’ she begged. ‘I should never have said that. I’m turning into a horrible cow, just the sort of person I hate.’

  ‘Are you ready to order?’ asked the waitress.

  ‘Lots of garlic, I think,’ Vicki murmured under her breath.

  Stella asked Vicki’s opinion on anniversary presents, explaining that the Paris week was off. ‘Mum says Dad doesn’t have the time,’ Stella said, ‘but she never actually asked him. I keep thinking that maybe I should phone him at work and ask him what he thinks. He might be madly keen to go to Paris with Mum. I can see them walking hand in hand through the old quarter. Oh well, if they can’t go, they can’t go. I must ring Holly and Tara to sort out a trip into town to buy something.’

  ‘Imagine being that in love after forty years,’ sighed Vicki. ‘It’s wonderful.’

  ‘I know,’ Stella said. ‘But you have to find the right person. That’s rare. My parents have these friends, people I’ve known since I was a child, and I’m amazed at how they stay married at all. When this couple turn up at my parents’ house for dinner it’s like the Cold War: all icy glances and contemptuous remarks. It’s horrible. Why do they bother staying together?’

  ‘You only think it’s horrible because your mum and dad are so happily married,’ Vicki pointed out equably. ‘You were lucky, dearie. The Cold War is the norm. My parents fought so much it’s a miracle they didn’t murder each other. I used to think that happy families was another bit of Disney propaganda and that open warfare was standard relationship behaviour. That must be why I’m so hopeless with men,’ she added.

  ‘What do you mean “hopeless”?’ chided Stella. ‘You floated into the office on cloud nine la
st week after that date with Craig.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I did,’ twinkled Vicki. ‘He is cute, for a younger guy. I don’t want to get too serious though.’ She grinned. ‘What are we like? This time last year we thought all men were pigs.’ She waved her fork at Stella. ‘The romance fairy has seriously affected our judgement.’

  Stella laughed at the idea as the waitress laid two plates in front of them. Vicki’s eyes lit up at the sight of her thincrust pizza, glistening with extra cheese. ‘Who needs the romance fairy when the mozzarella fairy is alive and well?’ she said, digging in.

  After lunch, they walked slowly back to the office, enjoying the fine day.

  ‘I hope it stays fine at the weekend,’ Vicki said. ‘I’m going to Wexford with the girls and you know me, if I plan a weekend away, a tropical rainstorm is bound to hit. What are you up to?’

  ‘Clearing out the spare room,’ Stella replied. ‘There’s so much junk in there and I began to think that if Nick and I did move in together…’ She ignored Vicki’s big grin. ‘If Nick moves in with me and his kids come to stay, they’ll need a room. Not that it’s very big, mind you. His ex has bought this huge, detached house on a third of an acre.’

  They’d reached the glass and steel revolving doors of Lawson, Wilde & McKenna. Vicki looked at her colleague. They’d known each other for eight years, had joined the company at the same time. Stella had been a good friend to Vicki during the time when Vicki’s wheelchair-bound mother was slowly dying, the years when Vicki had no life outside the office and her work as a carer. Vicki had been there for Stella when she’d split up with Glenn, when Amelia was only a baby, and both money and childcare arrangements had been hell. They’d come through the hard years together and now Vicki was thrilled that her friend had found love. She was worried about her too.

  ‘Stella,’ she said now, ‘it might not be a bed of roses, you know, the whole children bit.’

  Stella gave Vicki her sunny, warm smile. It lit up her face, made her dark eyes dance, and transformed her from an attractive woman into a stunning one. ‘Come on, Vicki,’ she said, ‘if I can deal with the Machiavellian politics in this office, I can certainly deal with Nick’s children.’