by Unknown
Tory flushes.
‘Oh come on. When we just passed that big bunch of your friends on Main Street, there were some truly good-looking boys. I’d be a disaster if I were in your place. I went to an all-girls’ school, super-strict, with uniforms, and the only boys we ever saw were the boys at UCS, and even the sight of a black and maroon striped blazer was enough to have me salivating. If they’d been in class with me I’d never have got anything done.’
Tory laughs.
‘It’s true,’ Annabel says. ‘I would never have done work if there’d been boys to pass notes to. I was utterly boy-crazy. So, if you’re not going to tell me, I’m just going to have to guess. If I were a thirteen-year-old girl, I would probably like the boy who had the red checked shirt on. He was handsome.’
Tory blushes a bright red.
‘I knew it! You like him.’
‘No! I don’t.’
‘Oh, come on. I’m your aunt. You’re supposed to tell me these things, and especially if you think I’m cool.’
‘You swear you won’t tell Mom?’
Annabel grins and raises her right hand. ‘Brownie swear.’
‘You were a Brownie?’
‘God, no!’ Annabel laughs. ‘I was far too naughty. So, go on, I’m right, aren’t I? What’s the story?’
‘I do kind of like him, and then my friend Liv said he’d asked her if I was going to this bar-mitzvah party on Saturday night, and she thinks he likes me too.’
‘Well, he was kind of gazing at you.’
‘He was?’ Her eyes light up with pleasure.
‘Absolutely. So, a party on Saturday night. What are you going to wear?’
‘I don’t know.’ Tory’s face falls. ‘Mom says she can’t afford to buy me anything new, and Dad always says he will, but he forgets. I guess I’ll just wear the black dress I always wear.’
‘Hmm. You know one of the jobs of an aunt?’
‘What?’
‘To spoil her nieces and nephews. Which means I think we should go shopping.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Of course! Where should we go first?’
‘Can we go to Kool Klothes? Please? It’s kind of expensive but they have a huge sale on and I love almost everything in there.’
‘Okay.’
‘And then can we go to Claire’s? Because they have these earrings that are totally cute and they’re only about five dollars, and they’re amazing, and Maxi and Annie and Natalie have them and I’m the only one who doesn’t and –’
‘Woah!’ Annabel puts her hand up, laughing. ‘Slow down. The answer is yes.’
A phone starts to ring, and as Tory reaches into her backpack Annabel looks at her in surprise.
‘You have a phone?’
‘Yeah. Everyone has them. We use them to text, though, not for the phone. This is probably Mom or Dad.’ She riffles around her backpack, eventually pulling out the phone and flipping it open.
‘Hey, Dad. Guess what? I’m in the Beachside Diner with Aunt Annabel.’
Annabel hides a surreptitious smile when she hears this, the first time Tory has called her Aunt Annabel. Oh the power that shopping will give her…
‘So she said she’s going to take me shopping, and she has Mom’s car, so you don’t have to pick me up, she can drop me at yours… uh huh… uh huh. Okay, hang on,’ and she passes the phone over to Annabel.
‘I hope my daughter isn’t being too demanding?’ Adam’s voice is familiar, after just one meeting.
‘Not at all. We’re having a gorgeous time and now I’m about to take her out and spoil her.’
‘I don’t even know how to thank you, but you clearly know the way to a thirteen-year-old girl’s heart.’
‘Well, I would hope so, having, once upon a time, been a thirteen-year-old girl myself.’
‘Listen, why don’t you join us tonight? I was planning on taking the kids out to Gino’s. It’s a crazy Italian restaurant on the edge of town, family style, completely casual but fun. It’s the kids’ favourite place. I know they’d be thrilled if you came.’
Annabel doesn’t have to think. Tonight is the night she has been banished from the house, and all she has planned are the movies, trying to sneak early peeks at the movies that won’t be out in England for months.
‘I’d love it.’
‘Great! We should probably meet there. Do you need me to give you directions?’
‘I don’t know. Let me ask Tory. Do you know the way to Gino’s?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good, because we’re going to Gino’s for dinner.’
‘We are? Oh my God! This is turning into the best day ever.’ Tory reaches over and grabs the phone. ‘Bye, Dad – we’re going shopping now and I love you so much!’
Adam laughs when he sees Annabel and Tory walk in, laden down with shopping bags.
‘My God!’ he says. ‘Did you buy everything in town?’
‘Almost!’ Tory is giddy with delight. ‘We even got something for you, Buckley.’ And she reaches into a bag and pulls out a Star Wars Transformer.
‘Woah, cool!’ Buckley grins.
‘What do you say?’
‘What?’
Adam looks sternly at Buckley. ‘How about “thank you”?’
‘Um, yeah. Thank you!’
‘They have a table for us in the front room,’ Adam says. ‘I hope that’s okay. It’s kind of loud and crazy but the kids love it.’
‘Yeah, the back room is totally boring,’ Buckley says. ‘And you have to shout in the front room.’
‘He’s right.’ Adam stands up from the bar stool and extends an arm to guide Annabel through the restaurant. ‘There won’t be any getting-to-know-you soft conversation tonight.’
Tory gives her dad a strange look, then looks at Annabel, who shrugs, as if she has no idea what Adam is talking about, but she felt it too, a hint of flirtation in the comment, a frisson of… something.
The restaurant is mobbed, and it feels, dodging the waiters bustling around with huge trays of food held high over their heads, as if everyone sitting there is smiling, laughing, having a great time.
‘This is amazing!’ Annabel shouts to Tory, who is suddenly quiet. ‘I see why you love it.’
Tory doesn’t say anything.
‘So what does “family style” mean?’ Annabel asks, and Adam explains they will all share from large platters of food in the centre of the table.
A round, smiling brunette appears, order pad poised. ‘Good evening, everyone, my name is Maria and I’ll be your server for the night. What can I get you folks to drink?’
‘Kids?’
‘I’ll have a Coke,’ Tory says.
Adam raises an eyebrow. ‘Oh no, you won’t. You can have seltzer.’
Tory tuts loudly, and for the first time Annabel sees a hint of teen angst, of Tory being not quite the perfect girl she had presumed.
‘Fine,’ she huffs. ‘Cranberry juice and seltzer.’
‘Me too,’ says Buckley.
‘And how about Mom?’ says Maria pleasantly, waiting for Annabel.
‘She’s not our mom!’ Tory says quickly, and is it Annabel’s imagination, or is there a slight glare in her eye as Tory looks at her.
‘Nope,’ Annabel says. ‘I’m their aunt. That’s why there’s a family resemblance.’
‘Well, I was close! So how about you, Aunt? What can I get you?’
‘Cranberry juice and seltzer sounds great.’
The food comes, Annabel is forgiven for whatever transgression she unknowingly made, and even though she barely speaks to Adam, she knows he is watching her, can feel his eyes upon her all the time.
She is not unused to this, but not from her new-found sister’s former-and-probably-from-what-she-can-tell-shouldn’t-be ex-husband. This is one complication she doesn’t need. It’s not even as if he’s her type. He’s far too nice a guy for Annabel to be attracted to. Sure, he’s decent-looking, and his body seems in pretty good shape for
a guy in his early forties, but nice guys like this have been chasing Annabel for years, and she’s never been the slightest bit interested.
What he does have, however, is something Annabel has always wanted.
He has a family.
He and she and Tory and Buckley do indeed look like the perfect family. Sure, she’s a little young to be a mother to Tory, but not too young, it would seem from the waitress’s comment.
A family. As a little girl, she had wanted to have a mother and a father, to have siblings; and now, as an adult, being here with Adam and the kids, she wants this.
To sit, as a perfect nuclear family, in a restaurant such as this, laughing and talking about nothing very much, even telling the children to stop fighting – this is all part of a happy family life she wants. Very, very much.
‘What?’ She realizes Adam is saying something to her. ‘I can’t hear you.’
‘I said I saw a piece you’d written on how your life changes when your friends start having kids. I thought it was really interesting.’
‘Oh. Right. Thanks.’ Annabel is stunned. She has flitted from career to career, and for a brief while, between rehab stints, fancied herself a journalist. She met a guy at a club, one of the nice guys, who was an editor, and part of his wooing process involved commissioning Annabel to write pieces she really had no business writing.
The piece to which Adam is referring was written one night in a drug-induced haze. She recalls rambling on and on, venting her rage at one of her friends who had, she felt, abandoned her once her baby came.
It was only after her final successful stay in rehab that she was able to take responsibility, to accept that the friend had abandoned her because she couldn’t deal with Annabel’s erratic behaviour and unreliability any more.
It was a piece published years ago, in a crappy magazine in England. The only way Adam could have found it would have been online, and even then it would never be something he just stumbled across.
Which means he has been Googling her.
Which means she is right, has not imagined him gazing at her with puppy-dog eyes.
Her sister’s husband has a definite crush on her.
Kit’s living room is once again set for seduction, and this time there will be no last-minute changes.
The plates are sitting in the sink, waiting to be stacked in the dishwasher at an opportune moment, the fire is crackling softly, and the candles are slowly burning down. The iPod playlist ran out a long time ago, and the only sounds are soft murmurs and gentle laughter, the occasional sigh of pleasure.
Steve is lying on the sofa, holding Kit in his arms and planting soft kisses on her forehead. She is closing her eyes in sheer bliss, for this is what she has missed more than anything.
Not the sex, but the affection. Affection she hadn’t had from Adam for years. Lying on a sofa and being held, being told you are beautiful, feeling beautiful.
When was the last time she felt beautiful?
Not for years.
Not like this.
Adam’s body had become as familiar to her as her own. There was comfort in knowing every curve, every bump, every groove, but there wasn’t the anticipation, the sheer heart-stopping thrill of discovering a new body.
Their sex life had become, as with so many married couples, routine. Quick, familiar. Kit wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and go to sleep at the end of the day. Lovely, loving, once they started, but it was the same moves, the same positions, each of them going through the motions until sleep claimed them both.
And here was Steve, so different from Adam, his skin so tan, the hair on his arms dark, his body strong and yet soft, waking her up from a deep sleep with every anticipatory stroke.
She remembers once, standing in her bathroom, peering into the mirror, her chin thrust forward, tweezers poised to seek out and kill the two stray whiskers that had shockingly appeared underneath her chin just before her thirty-fourth birthday.
‘That’s sexy,’ Adam said, laughing at her, as he passed the open door on the way to shave in his own bathroom.
‘Could be worse,’ she said, moving her face from side to side to check that no more had appeared. ‘I could be shaving.’
‘Oh God,’ he groaned, and they both laughed.
‘But seriously,’ she said, finishing her plucking and raising her leg on the bathroom sink to shave from the knee down, ‘don’t you ever feel it would be impossible to start again?’
‘What do you mean, start again?’
‘I mean, here we are, we’ve been together for years, and we know all each other’s disgusting habits. I could never get divorced and be with another man. Actually, I’d never find another man who would put up with me.’
‘I hope you don’t find another man.’ Adam shot her a strange look, but he was used to her musings.
‘Yeah, don’t worry about it,’ Kit muttered, contorting her body to shave up the back of her legs. ‘Two children later, with my saggy boobs and varicose veins, not to mention my whiskers, who’d have me?’
‘Ah, my lovely furry wife –’ Adam blew her a kiss – ‘I’d have you.’
‘Damn good job.’
But it was true, once they had actually got divorced Kit did wonder who would possibly find her attractive again. When she met Adam she’d been young, hard-bodied, not a hint of cellulite or middle-aged spread.
Now, even with yoga, she has a pot belly she’ll never get rid of, lumpy veins in her legs that she blames her father for, and orange-peel skin on her thighs, which no amount of anti-cellulite cream seems to remove.
Not that she cares particularly. In a community where looks and youth are so prized that the housewives all indulge in Botox, Restylane, laser resurfacing treatments to continue looking good for their wealthy husbands, Kit doesn’t bother.
Yoga is less about keeping her fit, and more about keeping her calm. As for joining a gym and leaping around doing circuit training, or – God forbid – having a personal trainer come to the house once a week, she just can’t be bothered.
One benefit of the divorce was unexpectedly losing weight (she can even fit into her wedding dress again), but as for firming and toning, forget it.
Until now.
Steve unbuttons her shirt and, as a reflex, she pulls her stomach in and stretches out to try to elongate her body.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispers, moving up to kiss her on the lips, before disappearing down her body. ‘Relax.’
And she does, forgetting about her belly, her cellulite, her sag, not thinking about anything, just feeling Steve’s lips on her skin.
‘Will you stay?’ she says later, much later, when they are cuddled up by the dying fire.
‘I wish I could.’ He smiles at her and kisses her on the nose. ‘I have conference calls to Europe at five o’clock in the morning. Next time. What are your plans tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow?’ Does he mean day or night, she wonders. Does he want to see her tomorrow? ‘Nothing much. Just work.’
‘Ah yes. Assistant to the famous author. I’d forgotten. Do you like it?’
‘I love it. Why?’
‘No… I – I just see you as something more than an assistant.’
Kit sits up, startled. ‘It’s not demeaning. It’s wonderful. I love it. What do you mean?’
‘Oh God, not that it’s demeaning. I didn’t mean that at all. I just meant I saw you as running your own business. I don’t know… something that’s all yours.’
Kit smiles. ‘Funny, I always wanted to own a clothes store.’
‘You did?’
‘I know. Weird. Especially since I’m not exactly the fashion queen, but I always saw myself as having this great little independent store, with inexpensive comfortable chic clothing, and a great bunch of loyal customers. I had visions of a cappuccino machine in the corner, and building a community of wonderful people.’
‘I think it’s a great dream. Maybe you should start thinking about how to turn that dream
into a reality.’
‘Now? I don’t think anyone’s able to turn business dreams into a reality in these times. Tracy’s trying to open another branch, and I think she’s having a horrible time raising money.’
‘Tracy?’
‘Who runs Namaste? You know. She’s always in the front. Tall gorgeous blonde? Don’t tell me you don’t remember her. She’s the one who told me about you!’
‘Of course.’ He smiles and draws her closer to kiss her. ‘Isn’t she dating someone?’
Kit laughs. ‘You’ve obviously been listening to too much yoga centre gossip. She’s kind of seeing my boss, I think. I’ve barely seen her. I don’t know what’s going on but it feels like she’s avoiding me. Which is awful.’
‘That’s rough. I’m sorry,’ Steve says. ‘You should sit her down and talk to her, tell her how you feel. So much of the time these tiny things blow up into something huge because people just don’t know how to communicate. Tell her. I bet she has no idea you feel she’s avoiding you.’
Kit smiles gratefully. ‘You’re so right. Thank you.’
‘Listen, if I don’t see you tomorrow, if this work thing takes over – which it might – will you come on Saturday? Your neighbour Edie has already phoned to confirm that I’m in for tennis,’ he says, and groans. ‘Will you come and cheer me on?’
‘I’m so sorry. Of course I’ll come and cheer you on. I wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ Kit says, then covers his face with kisses.
20
Charlie pretends to be busy with the children, so intensely focused on them that she doesn’t have time to look at her husband. A distracted goodbye with no eye contact being about the best she can manage these days.
Her resentment is huge. How could he have let them get to this stage? How could he have pulled the wool so firmly not just over the eyes of everyone they know but, far more worryingly, over her eyes, his own wife?
For there had been times, over the years, so many times, when she had asked him if they could afford it.
‘Can we really afford this house?’ Her eyes, she recalled, had been large when they had first seen it, when Keith had been so determined to make an offer. It had been the biggest house of any she knew, a fairy-tale, a house that would instantly make her the envy of all their peers.
