‘Stand there,’ Miranda instructed her eldest child, Logan, repositioning him so that he blocked the boot of her car from the eyes of any passers-by. ‘Just wait a minute, Charity, there’s a goo— No, I said wait! Close that door!’ Shaking her head and muttering ‘forgoodnesssake’ under her breath, she tore open the plastic covering and gingerly began transferring Luxury Belgian Chocolate Cupcakes from the circular plastic tray into a large, square Tupperware container that had MIRANDA DAVENPORT printed in capital letters on the side in black Sharpie.
‘They look better in that black thing,’ Logan pointed out, glancing over his shoulder. ‘They look like you made them yourself in that tub.’
Miranda smiled. ‘You just watch out for that nosy cow Mary-Beth King.’
Cupcakes safely transferred, Miranda lifted the tub out of the boot, nearly slamming into Felicity Goldman who was carrying her own Tupperware tub full of delicious-looking cakes. Miranda gave them a pointed look. ‘They look very nice, Felicity. Nothing beats a bit of home cooking, eh?’ She gave a conspiratorial smile that Felicity didn’t return. ‘Where are the girls?’
‘I’m just going to grab them from Owls,’ Felicity replied. ‘I’ve been working this morning.’
‘Aw . . .’ Miranda gave what she hoped was a sympathetic smile. ‘Poor things. My kids would go mad if I put them in school during the holidays.’
‘Yes, well, I’m in a rush, actually,’ Felicity said, sidestepping Miranda and leaving her behind completely.
Miranda shook her head. Some people only wanted to be hostile. Really, she didn’t understand some of the other mothers at this school, acting like they were better than everyone else.
‘Miranda! Just the person. I was hoping I’d catch you here.’
Steph, the school secretary, had a way of appearing as if from nowhere – she was particularly good at using the trick when it came to getting donations out of people. ‘Here, let me hold those while you help Charity out.’ She took the tub of cupcakes and inhaled deeply – exactly why, Miranda had no idea, because all she’d be able to smell was plastic. ‘These look amazing,’ she beamed, her round cheeks fixed in a smile.
‘What was it you wanted, Steph?’ Might as well get it over with.
Steph’s smile faltered. ‘Well, I was just wondering if you’d be running for Parent Governor this year? You did such a great job filling in after Erica, well, after Erica last year and—’
And no one else wants it , Miranda thought. Not now that Erica’s dead . She plastered on a smile. ‘Of course! You can count on me.’
The minute she’d said it she wished she hadn’t. Two months of running a campaign against whichever other poor sods Steph had roped in to make it look like Miranda wasn’t a shoo-in. She wasn’t sure she could be bothered. And yet there was that part of her that so desperately wanted to be everything to everyone: Chair of the PTA, Parent Governor, Parish Counsellor. Hell, she’d even tried to start a Neighbourhood Watch, but no one in Severn Oaks could be bothered. Speaking of which, she was going to have to find time to talk to them all about the CCTV issue; it had been at least six months since she’d raised it last. Perhaps she could hire Felicity to run this campaign for her – her job was PR, after all, and it would leave Miranda time for all the other things she couldn’t stop saying yes to. She thought about how Felicity had snubbed her only moments before. On second thoughts, perhaps she’d hire one of her rivals.
Over at the cake stall Felicity had handed over her distinctly medium-sized tub of cakes and was making civil small talk with Cynthia, who was running the stand, when Miranda sashayed over with her gigantic box.
‘You’ve got the right idea, Felicity,’ Miranda remarked, looking at the box still in Cynthia’s hands. ‘I wish I’d thought to buy mine. So much easier than home cooking. They look wonderful. ’
Felicity opened her mouth to speak but Miranda, having delivered her killer blow, had already placed her tub on the table and walked away, Charity skipping ahead and Logan following behind with a confused look plastered on his face.
3
‘I thought you said the other dads were going to be here.’ Marcus Kaplan spoke through gritted teeth and nodded at Miranda Davenport, who was hovering around the cake stall looking overly pleased with herself. His wife, Karla, her phone jammed to one ear, gave Miranda a wave and a beaming smile that disintegrated the moment the other woman was out of sight. ‘You said Alex had taken the afternoon off. I only came because—’
‘Hiya, it’s Karla. Just checking in on the Real Housewives pitch – crossing my fingers! Let me know as soon as you hear, okay? Thanks, bye bye.’ She swiped to end the call. ‘She’s not answering. I bet it’s a no again . Do you know I heard that Martin Houseman’s wife is going to be joining them next season? What does she do? Nothing! She’s just a housewife.’
‘I thought that was the point?’
‘Funny. What were you moaning about, anyway?’
‘You said the dads would be coming to the picnic.’
‘Oh, yeah, I thought they would be.’ Karla lied with such ease that it was hard to see why she and Erica hadn’t been better friends when she was alive. ‘Besides, if I have to be here, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be. I did the last two school events on my own while you were swanning around the country on your book tour, you’re lucky I didn’t make you do this one by yourself.’
‘What, and let me loose with all of our respectable neighbours? You wouldn’t dare.’
Marcus Kaplan, a self-made millionaire, was the resident celebrity of Severn Oaks. His internationally best-selling self-help books Unleash the Power of YOU , YOU are all you need , and Destroying the old YOU had sold over ten million copies each, been Sunday Times and New York Times number ones and won numerous awards that currently lined the walls of his forty-foot garden office. Marcus travelled the world to coach some of the biggest celebrities, government officials – he’d even given advice to the President of the United States. His three-day conferences pulled in thousands of people, all wanting to change their life for the better. Miranda had tried to watch one of his YouTube videos once and there had been so many F-bombs that she’d turned off after less than ten minutes.
‘Do you blame me? After Mary-Beth’s last barbecue she had to explain to Teddy what a heroin addict was. Just because our kids are streetwise, Marcus, it doesn’t mean you can just shoot your mouth off in front of everyone else’s.’
Ah yes. The thing about Marcus Kaplan, the part of his story that really made him the talk of Severn Oaks, was the drugs. You see, in order to be able to tell people how to turn your life around, it helps if you have been where they have been – hit rock bottom, as they say. And Marcus Kaplan knew all about rock bottom. If you read any of Marcus’s books, you’ll find that the entire first three chapters are dedicated to his abusive childhood and his descent into heroin addiction, how he narrowly escaped death and prison and turned his whole life on its head by using his YOU principles to become a millionaire life coach to the stars. If he can do it, so can YOU.
‘Mary-Beth saw the funny side,’ Marcus grinned, and Karla relented, shaking her head. That was the thing with their relationship, the thing that most people didn’t know. People assumed the hand holding and the face stroking and their inability to tear their gaze away from one another was part of the circus act that came with being the Kaplans, but the truth was they were devoted to one another in the true sense of Till Death Do Us Part. Whose death was another question.
‘Felicity!’ Karla waved her arm in the air and her friend, looking relieved to see her, crossed the field, the twins running ahead.
‘Girls! Slow down, or you’ll fall!’
Mollie and Amalie flung themselves at Karla and Marcus. Karla gave Amalie a tight squeeze then passed her to Marcus who had hoisted Mollie onto his back.
‘You two!’ Felicity said, shaking her head. ‘Poor Marcus.’
‘Oh, it’s fine – at least they are lighter than my two,’ Marcus said as
both five-year-old girls clung to his neck. ‘Not that Brandon has asked for a piggyback in some time.’
‘I take it Bran isn’t here?’ Felicity asked, glancing around.
Karla snorted.
‘What, spend time with his family? No, he could think of about fifty better things to do. Zach’s over at the football stand – he’ll be there all afternoon. Why doesn’t Uncle Marcus take you girls for cakes?’
The girls cheered and Marcus bounced up and down a few times. ‘You ladies don’t want cake?’
‘Not for me,’ Felicity said. ‘Besides, Miranda’s over there. Do you know, she just basically called me a crap mother for putting my girls in Owls during the holidays? Said they would grow up to hate me or something.’
‘She did not ?’ Karla scowled. ‘If I was one of her kids, I’d be begging to be in school all year round.’
Felicity smiled. ‘True. I do feel bad, though. I mean, it’s their summer holidays and they are stuck in childcare.’
‘They love Owls,’ Karla replied, linking Felicity’s arm and pulling her over to a picnic blanket all set up on the grass. ‘Here, this is us. Anyway, my kids much preferred childcare to being with me. You’d just be stressed and thinking of all the work you should be doing, and they would be bored within hours. At least at Owls they are surrounded by kids and that annoyingly perky girl – what’s her name . . . Jemma? Is she still there?’
‘Yes,’ Felicity sighed. ‘You’re right, it’s just . . . when Miranda said that, I felt like the worst mum ever.’
‘Ignore her. Women like that make it their mission to make other mums feel crap.’
‘I think you’re right,’ Felicity replied. ‘When I handed over the home-made cakes I’d spent all bloody night on she told everyone they were store-bought.’
‘Ignore her . You’re the only one of us without wrinkles – you don’t need that kind of stress in your life, believe me.’
Felicity pulled a face. ‘I’ll try, but she’s difficult to avoid.’
‘Too true,’ Karla groaned. ‘She’s coming over here now.’
‘Afternoon, ladies!’ Miranda walked towards them, beaming. ‘Marcus said you were sitting over here. Mind if I join you?’
4
‘Mary-Beth not coming to join us?’
‘She said she would,’ Karla said, rifling through her bag for her sunglasses. ‘When I saw her on the gate. She looked like she was regretting saying she’d do it, to be honest. I almost stopped to help.’
‘Almost?’ Felicity grinned.
Karla pushed her glasses up her nose. ‘I didn’t want to leave Marcus on his own, did I?’
‘I’m surprised she came at all,’ Miranda mused.
They’d all told Mary-Beth that they would understand if she decided to opt out of this year’s picnic, that she might feel like it was just too difficult to come alone, to see someone else manning the cake stall or handing out the medals to the winners of the three-legged race. In fact, no one had even bothered to organise the three-legged race this year – they were too busy lazing around the grass, enjoying the sunshine. Erica would have turned in her grave. But Mary-Beth had insisted that she was fine, that she’d be there. Now she seemed to have had a change of heart.
‘Maybe she had to rush off to work?’ Felicity said.
Mary-Beth loved her job at the local estate agents, helping to match people with their dream homes. ‘The most important thing you can buy and I’m right there with them,’ she’d say.
‘She said she’d got the day off for it,’ Karla replied. ‘I think she felt like she should, for Erica.’
‘Poor thing,’ Felicity said. She pulled a twin onto her lap and began lathering her in suncream. ‘She’s still grieving. These last ten months have been so hard on her.’
‘On all of us,’ Miranda pointed out, ruffling her red hair. ‘We all loved Erica.’
To her credit, Karla refrained from rolling her eyes. She had never really understood why Mary-Beth loved Erica so much – the two of them were like chalk and cheese. Mary-Beth kept to herself, was quietly spoken and only ever contributed to a conversation when she had something diplomatic to say. Erica, on the other hand, had a smart mouth and couldn’t help but use it. There was always something cutting and sarcastic lurking on the tip of her tongue. While other women thought of their glorious comebacks hours after an argument, while they were lying in the bath replaying every clever thing they could have said – but wouldn’t have, even if they’d thought about it – Erica was the one who had a litany of put-downs ready and waiting. Sometimes she was disappointed if she didn’t get to use them.
Not only that but Mary-Beth was always so generous, not just with her money, although she gave just as much as the Kaplans without feeling the need to take a full-page ad in the Chester Herald . No, Mary-Beth was generous from her understated, un-highlighted head down to her un-manicured toes. She would let you have from her whatever you needed, be it money, time, sage advice, or her husband.
‘Can I nick a bit of that suncream, Fliss? Bran has his dad’s skin, but Zach burns in the rain.’
Felicity tossed the bottle over to Karla, who scanned the field for her youngest son, made sure everyone saw that she’d tried to find him, then slumped back down in defeat.
Miranda’s phone buzzed, and she made a show of picking it up to examine it.
‘Oh, suncream time for mine too.’ She smiled at the other women. ‘I’d better go and get it out of the car.’
‘Just use mine,’ Felicity said. ‘Save you going back to the car.’
‘Oh,’ Miranda looked at the bottle appraisingly. ‘Factor fifty, is it?’
‘Of course.’ Felicity raised her eyebrows.
Miranda took the bottle from Karla’s outstretched hand. ‘Thank you, that will save me a trip.’
None of the other women had any idea that Miranda had left her children’s suncream somewhere at home, having been entirely unable to find it that morning, or that the beep from her phone had been a news-in-brief update rather than a ‘reapply suncream’ alarm. She called Charity over, safe in the knowledge that as far as anyone knew, she was completely in control.
‘Alex working today?’ Felicity asked in a forced casual tone.
Karla looked at her with raised eyebrows – Felicity knew full well that Miranda’s husband avoided these things like the plague.
‘Marcus said he was hoping he’d be here.’
‘No, he’s working, as always,’ Miranda grumbled. ‘I’d place a bet that he’d take extra shifts rather than go to a school event.’
‘Has he been working a lot recently then?’ Felicity pushed.
Karla glowered at her. ‘Is he going with the blokes to that Thai place they were on about next week?’ she interjected, trying to swing the subject onto safer ground.
Both women ignored her.
‘Not any more than usual.’ Miranda’s smile was pinched.
‘It’s just that I’ve seen him coming back late a few times recently . . .’
Miranda looked like she’d just drunk one of Felicity’s chia seed smoothies.
‘Well, it’s very nice of you to be so concerned about my husband’s work habits. As it happens, he’s worked late a few nights to make up for some time he took off with me . He’ll be touched you’ve been keeping an eye on his comings and goings.’
Felicity laughed, unfazed by Miranda’s discomfort. ‘It’s a small community – everyone sees everything, remember? I hope he’s not working too hard.’
The emphasis on the word ‘working’ hammered home Felicity’s point – Miranda had failed to hide how insecure she was about her husband’s fidelity, and Felicity wasn’t going to let her get away with her offhand jibe about home-made cakes. Whether Miranda would let her get away with her comments about Alex’s comings and goings, they would have to wait and see. Because less than ten minutes later something happened to make them all forget their petty war of words.
5
It was twel
ve fifteen when the first post went up, and by twelve thirty it had been shared by over forty people. A large portion of those people were the mums at the picnic, thumbing through their phones while their offspring jumped up and down mindlessly on the bouncy castle, or uploading photos of Martha and Sophia, stupid grins plastered on their faces, as proof they were picnic-attending, children-pleasing, ‘hands-on’ mums. One mum showed another, who turned to the next. What does it mean, do you think? Is this some kind of joke? Who would say these things? People took screenshots before the school’s web administrator had a chance to react, and before long the number of views had risen to fifty, then sixty. Record numbers for the school Facebook page, which parents were always pretending not to have seen as they scrolled past updates about bingo nights and school discos in favour of their neighbours’ disputes about on-street parking.
Miranda rarely ever used Facebook. Instagram was so much better for showing your life through a sunshine filter, little snapshots of a Level Ten life when the reality was much nearer a Four or Five. On Instagram, you couldn’t see the last-minute dash to the shops for a forgotten picnic, just the ‘after’ picture of your children enjoying Asda pre-made sandwiches decanted into a sparkling clean lunchbox: #lovinglife #winning.
Karla was lying on the grass, her long tanned legs stretched out and her bare feet resting in her husband’s crotch. Her cropped denim cut-offs were so short that the pockets were visible below the ripped edges, and her black ‘Born to fly’ eagle T-shirt had ridden up revealing a flat, golden stomach that showed no sign of the two children who had resided there.
‘Does she have to dress like that?’ Miranda muttered to Felicity, surveying Karla from under her sunglasses. ‘I mean, there are children present. Young, impressionable boys. What must Brandon and Zachary think? Their friends’ tongues are practically on the floor at the sight of their mother!’
Someone Is Lying Page 2
