Girl Friday

by Unknown

  Months later, when she and Charlie were firm friends, Charlie confessed she had no idea who Kit was when she phoned with that initial invitation. ‘And you still came?’ Kit was aghast but Charlie shrugged and said, ‘I needed friends as much as anyone else.’

  The girls had been best frenemies until Charlie sent her daughter to private school, and this had, unwittingly, split them up. Until then, if they weren’t obsessed with one another, unable to breathe or live without the other in her sights at all times, they were having huge and dramatic arguments, which Kit and Charlie tried to laugh about, but in truth they found all rather exhausting.

  Charlie’s husband, Keith, worked, as did most of the husbands in Highfield these days, in finance, and he and Adam instantly bonded, so for a while the four of them were inseparable.

  They went out for dinner every Saturday night, sometimes with others joining in, did classes with their kids at the library and YMCA, and had brunch every Sunday, usually at Kit’s house because, as Charlie said, she was a horrible cook.

  ‘It’s brunch,’ Kit said in disbelief. ‘Bagels, scrambled eggs and bacon. What’s to cook?’

  ‘Have you tasted my scrambled eggs?’ Charlie said, and Kit shook her head. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I’ll make them!’ Kit offered, but the tradition, for a long time, remained brunch at Kit and Adam’s.

  On the night that Kit and Adam decided to divorce – both of them had been waiting for their unhappiness to pass, waiting for things to get better, until they realized that they had been living this way for two years and it wasn’t going to get any better, that they had in fact drifted so far apart they couldn’t see how to find their way back, even if they had wanted to – Charlie and Keith were the first people Kit turned to.

  Kit moves gracefully out of Plank as her mind flits back to walking into Charlie and Keith’s kitchen, sitting at their table as Keith brought over a bottle of vodka. Not for her, but for himself. He was so shocked he was almost numb, just kept shaking his head in disbelief.

  ‘But we’ve been unhappy for years,’ Kit kept saying. ‘Couldn’t you tell?’

  ‘No!’ Keith insisted. ‘I thought all that bickering was just, well, just part of your relationship. I didn’t think it meant there was something wrong with the marriage. I didn’t think you would split up.’

  Kit remembers Charlie saying, afterwards, that Keith had been heartbroken. She said that for both of them, but particularly for Keith, having their best friends break up was like losing a friend, and Keith had to grieve.

  Charlie understood, though. She had liked Adam, but after they split up she confessed she could see that they weren’t perhaps a great match. Adam was very caught up in working on Wall Street, and all the trappings that came with that. And Kit? Well, Charlie realized that the labels and the jewels weren’t her, and Charlie knew how unhappy Kit was, living in the huge house.

  Things had been a little awkward for a while with Keith because Kit knew he still saw Adam – had lunch with him regularly in the city. And although she and Adam had approached their separation and subsequent divorce determined to be friends, ironing out the finances and custody agreement was so horrible that for a time Kit actually hated him.

  Her first priority was to protect the children and she had hoped that she and Adam would be able to come to an amicable arrangement, but Adam’s lawyer, the Rottweiler, as she came to call him, was so aggressive that she is convinced to this day he deliberately made things as contentious and awkward as possible, dragging the proceedings out far longer than was necessary, in order to get more money.

  They are friendlier now. Adam is dating up a storm in New York City, which Kit thinks should bother her more, but in fact she is grateful she does not have to spend time going to the smartest, trendiest restaurants any more, and grateful for her quiet life in Highfield.

  Perhaps it was simply that they married too young, she realizes now. They met at twenty-three, married at twenty-five, long before they knew who they were going to grow into, long before they knew whether they were going to share their journey or find that when they came to a fork, they would both choose a different direction.

  There had been many forks in their marriage, and many different directions chosen, but Kit had never thought seriously about the possibility of leaving because the idea of being on her own again, of handling this life all by herself, was not just overwhelming, but terrifying.

  True, Adam had never been around very much during the marriage, and for most of the time, particularly during the week, she felt like a single mother, but that wasn’t the same as actually being a single mother, having to deal with everything herself, not having any support when the going got tough – and there were times when the going certainly got tough.

  The class finishes and Tracy bows her head in Prayer Pose, then looks at each of the women in the room intently. ‘Namaste,’ she says to all of them in turn.

  ‘Namaste,’ they say and bow their heads in reply.

  ‘So?’ Tracy gives first Kit then Charlie a hug. ‘Anyone for a smoothie?’

  ‘Love one,’ they both say in unison, turning to one another and laughing.

  ‘I saw in the paper that Robert McClore’s giving a talk tonight,’ Tracy says, as they walk out of the yoga studio and up the stairs towards the smoothie bar. ‘I thought I might go. You’ll be there, right?’

  ‘Thanks for reminding me!’ Kit turns to Charlie. ‘I meant to ask you. Is Keith around tonight? Can I borrow Amanda?’ Amanda is the wonderful Brazilian babysitter who moved into Charlie and Keith’s house six months previously, and has changed their lives.

  ‘Where’s Edie?’

  ‘Pilates tonight.’

  ‘Oh damn. The kids have sleepovers and Amanda’s going out. I’m so sorry. What about Adam? Do you think he could take the kids?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Kit sighs. ‘Adam’s so busy sowing his wild oats he doesn’t tend to be around any more than he needs to be, and certainly not at the last minute. But you’re right, I should try.’ And she reaches down into her bag and brings out her mobile phone to send him a text.

  ‘I can’t believe we’re finally going to meet your reclusive boss,’ Tracy says with a smile as they sit down at a table in the corner.

  ‘Uh oh!’ Charlie casts her a sideways glance. ‘I know that look.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that predatory, cougar look. You’ve got your eye on Robert McClore, haven’t you?’

  Tracy laughs. ‘Don’t call me a cougar!’

  ‘Why not?’ Charlie is all innocence. ‘It’s a compliment!’

  ‘No it’s not. Anyway, isn’t a cougar a woman who goes out with younger men?’

  ‘No. A cougar is a sexually active and confident woman who’s a predator. Tell me you’re not flattered.’

  ‘I’m not flattered.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t mind getting your hands on Robert McClore?’

  ‘Well, he is attractive and single and seriously successful. Why exactly would I not be interested?’

  ‘You’re talking about my boss!’ Kit says. ‘I don’t even think of him that way. Anyway, he’s not interested, and why would you be? He’s in his sixties, Tracy! That’s much too old for you.’

  ‘I’m forty-one,’ Tracy says. ‘And I’ve always liked older men. Just say you’ll introduce me, that’s all. Oh go on… please?’ She leans her head on Kit’s shoulder and Kit laughs.

  ‘Tracy, like you need anyone to introduce you. Men go crazy for you.’

  ‘In my dreams!’ Tracy snorts. ‘Since that freaky ex-husband of mine left, I only seem to attract the losers.’

  ‘Cute losers,’ Charlie says and grins, remembering a guy who was with Tracy one time when she and Keith had bumped into them. That one had turned out to be a drug addict who ended his many clean years soon after he and Tracy started dating.

  ‘Yes, well. I’ve never been able to resist that lethal combination of black hair and green eyes.’ Tracy
remembers the ex with a shrug.

  ‘Doesn’t sound like Robert McClore would be your type,’ Charlie teases.

  ‘Maybe he’s not.’ Tracy grins. ‘But I wouldn’t mind finding out.’

  ‘You’re both incorrigible!’ Kit laughs, but she is thrilled to have found Tracy, thrilled that she now feels part of a ‘gang’, feels like she belongs; and how lovely it is to have someone to share things with, to call up out of the blue or have them drop in unexpectedly for coffee.

  She hadn’t realized, for many years during her marriage, quite how much she had missed her female friends. Not that they fell out deliberately, but she no longer lived in Concord, and nor did any of her school friends, and distance, more than anything else, had forced them to drift apart.

  She was in Connecticut, others were in New York, still others scattered across the United States, and even some in Paris and London. From time to time they exchanged emails, and Facebook had done wonders in reintroducing her to faces from her past, but it wasn’t the same as having that close-knit group of friends, people who knew you back before you grew into your self, people who had known, and loved you, for years.

  Charlie she has known for eleven years. They have shared history, laughter, tears. When Charlie suffered three miscarriages in a row after Paige was born, Kit was the one on whose shoulder she cried.

  And when Emma was born, it was Kit who threw the baby shower, Kit who gathered her friends together and made beautiful favours of miniature bassinets stuffed with embroidered goodies, Kit who took care of Emma when Charlie had to be somewhere for Paige.

  They met Tracy at an event called Cocktails, Creators and Chat, just over a year ago. In aid of one of the local breast cancer charities, it was a monthly event that had guest speakers, and women all over Highfield insisted their husbands get the earlier train home, or found a babysitter, and they filled the hall of the local theatre, sipping Cosmos and chattering excitedly, so thrilled to be away from their families for the night.

  Tracy stepped up to the stage, gorgeous with her long, blonde hair, her fresh-faced Californian beauty, and she talked about her love of yoga, her journey from being a girl who leaped from one drama to another, to a woman who had finally found peace.

  Her speech affected Kit, particularly. She was coming out of the haze of her divorce, and was starting to enjoy her life, to feel serenity during the weekends she was all alone, rather than a crippling fear.

  Kit had approached Tracy afterwards, a little intimidated by both Tracy’s confidence and her beauty. ‘I loved your talk.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Tracy smiled. ‘I love being able to share some of my journey with women, especially those of us who are on a similar path.’

  ‘Well, I just got divorced, so it was more than a little relevant.’

  ‘How are you doing?’ Tracy asked, placing a hand on Kit’s arm, and Kit found herself talking to Tracy as if she were an old friend, an instant bond between them.

  Part of the gift bag that night had been a free yoga session at Tracy’s new studio, Namaste.

  ‘Will you come?’ Tracy said, as she was being pulled away to talk to other women.

  ‘Sure,’ Kit said, thinking, suddenly, and sadly, that Tracy was only being a good businesswoman.

  ‘No, seriously. I want you to come. I don’t often meet other single women and I think it’s really important to have girlfriends. Honestly, I could do with some single girlfriends. Will you come? Make sure it’s one of my classes and we can have some tea afterwards. Can we do that?’

  Kit’s face lit up. ‘I’d love to,’ she said.

  The following week she and Charlie did exactly that, and by the time they had all finished their tea and had sat chatting and laughing for over an hour, they were firm friends.

  3

  Edie is stooped over, pulling at the roses to bring them closer so she can deadhead them, when she hears Kit’s car pull into the driveway.

  Many years ago, Edie knew all of her neighbours. She grew up in this same house, and remembers sitting on the front porch every night, watching the procession of neighbours pass the house, all of them stopping to wander over and say hello, most of them with dogs by their side.

  She, and all the other kids on the street, would leave the house at dawn and rarely reappear until dusk, zipping around the neighbourhood on bikes, taking pitchers of iced water to the fields across the street and collapsing under huge weeping maples when they got too hot and bothered.

  ‘Don’t misbehave,’ their mothers would tell them as they ran out through the back door in the morning. ‘One of us will see, and you know we’ll tell.’ And it was true, for every mother on the street was at home, and all of them considered the children of the neighbourhood their own children – if someone misbehaved, it was their right to reprimand, no matter who the child in question belonged to.

  When it rained they would sit under the covered porches playing Sorry, Monopoly, or Chutes and Ladders.

  Summers were filled with cookouts, and if you were spotted in the street, you were invited in, friend, neighbour or stranger. It didn’t matter.

  Over the years, Edie has got used to seeing fewer and fewer people in her street. She spends time in her front yard, carefully training the roses over the picket fence, weeding the beds, cutting back the bayberry, and every time she hears a sound she looks up hopefully, but not so many people walk past these days.

  The daily routine around here seems to be the same. Edie sees the husbands leave for the city any time between five and seven o’clock, driving purposefully to the train station, their Wall Street Journals beside them on the passenger seat.

  Then the children come straggling down the road, backpacks falling off, kicking stones, barely mumbling a response to Edie’s loud and ringing ‘Good morning’.

  And lastly, once the children are off to school, the mothers appear, striding down the road in pairs, for their morning power walk. Always dressed in black, with baseball caps and sunglasses, they stride past Edie, not even looking over, certainly not saying anything to the old lady with the white ponytail who they probably think is a little bit nuts.

  Thank God for Kit! Edie lays down her pruning shears and walks over to the car. It isn’t that Edie was lonely exactly – she still has her job, after all, and goes to the YMCA regularly for her exercise classes – but she didn’t realize quite how much she missed having a friend next door, until Kit moved in.

  Despite the age difference of over forty years, Edie now considers Kit to be a close friend. More than that; Kit is the daughter she never had. It is a special relationship, and one she has only ever experienced once before, many years ago. It didn’t end well, and she tries not to remember.

  Edie was careful not to impose too much on Kit, after that initial visit, but then Kit got the job working for Robert and was so grateful to Edie she brought her beautiful flowers to thank her, and now Edie finds she has a family, complete with blooming thirteen-year-old Tory, and adorable, adoring, eight-year-old Buckley.

  And if you ask Kit, she would say she would never have expected to adopt a mother but, in truth, Edie is the mother she always wished she had. Not that Kit’s mother is bad, but she has never been particularly interested in Kit, never available for her in the way Kit always wanted.

  There are times when Kit would love to punish her for being so unavailable – by keeping the kids from her – but she is relieved that the children enjoy her so much, and that they are able to have a relationship with her mother she never had.

  But Edie? Edie is something quite different. Edie is the one she can rely on, Edie is the one who will drop everything to go and pick Buckley up from school if he’s sick and Kit can’t get to him. Edie joins them for dinner, at least a couple of times a week, firmly instructing Buckley not to talk with food in his mouth, and even, on occasion, forcing Tory to spit her chewing gum into the waiting hand Edie holds at Tory’s chin level.

  ‘Disgusting habit,’ Edie mutters, as she heads to the trash
can to get rid of the offending substance. ‘Not in my presence.’

  Amazingly, the children don’t seem to mind being told what to do by Edie. In fact, they are far more likely to listen to Edie than to Kit. Many’s the time Buckley has requested that Edie put him to bed, not Mom, and Kit has no idea what she would do without this surrogate grandmother, mother and friend who has become so indispensable in her life.

  ‘I saw in the paper that Robert’s giving a talk tonight,’ Edie says, opening Kit’s car door for her, as the children shout their hellos and run into the house to switch on the television set. ‘I have Pilates but I thought perhaps I could miss it for once.’

  ‘No! You’d miss Pilates? I thought you never missed Pilates.’

  ‘Well, I don’t,’ Edie grumbles. ‘But this is special. It’s not often that Robert gives talks any more and I’d like to hear what he has to say.’

  ‘It’s such a shame, isn’t it, that he rarely does this these days?’

  ‘I agree,’ Edie says with a sigh. ‘I think the press gave him such a hard time after his wife died, he just decided to keep to himself. Can’t blame the poor man, really. Terrible thing to happen to him, and there he was, trying to recover from the tragedy, and then all those rumours started. I would have probably gone to live in South America.’ She follows Kit into the house.

  Kit laughs. ‘And then everyone would have assumed you were guilty.’

  ‘True, but you’d be living in a lovely hot climate, sunning yourself on a tropical beach. Who cares what people might think?’

  ‘Only you would think like that. Well, I’m going, and I’d love you to come with me. Adam, miraculously, said he’d come home early and take the kids, so he should be here at around quarter to seven, and then we could head over there.’

  ‘Lovely!’ Edie’s face lights up. ‘I’ll just go and get ready.’

  When Kit and Adam were first divorced, most of the time when Adam showed up to get the kids, or Kit drove over to his house to drop them off, it was like being with a stranger. There was something so familiar about him, and yet they were so stiff with one another, so awkward, she sometimes got out the wedding album and flicked through, just to check that she actually did marry him, that it wasn’t just a figment of her imagination.