After the Party

by Cassie Hamer

  ‘Hon, I’m sure it’s going to be fine.’

  ‘You weren’t there!’ Jamie fixed Lisa with an accusatory glare.

  ‘Where wasn’t I?’

  ‘My meeting with Angel. It was terrible. She told me I couldn’t run a bingo competition, let alone my own business—or hers.’

  ‘But you did so much preparation for that meeting.’ Lisa had seen the PowerPoint. She’d even helped Jamie with the figures about cash flow, profit and loss.

  ‘I know!’ Jamie cried. ‘But Jared put me off.’

  As Jamie filled her in on the meeting with the celebrant, Lisa felt shock coursing through her body, causing her feet and toes to tingle.

  ‘So you’re saying Jared may have a child.’ Lisa slumped into a chair across the desk from Jamie.

  ‘Possibly.’

  She paused. The idea was almost too bizarre to say out loud. She’d never adored Jared, that much was true, but he was a smart man—far too smart to be unsure as to whether he had fathered a child or not. She’d heard of people being in denial about impending parenthood, but this went beyond that—it bordered on wilful ignorance. And the next bit was even harder to fathom.

  ‘And the child … could be Ellie?’

  ‘Yes. No … I don’t know. I mean, they look alike.’

  ‘But that doesn’t really prove much. I mean, my postman looks a bit like a hound dog, but I’d never suggest he was related to one.’

  ‘Unless you wanted to extinguish all hope of ever receiving another letter.’ Jamie smiled weakly.

  ‘Might not be a bad thing,’ said Lisa gloomily. ‘All we get are bills.’ She looked out the window. The lights in the offices across the street were starting to come on. The city was prettier at night. The dull grey of concrete and bitumen gave way to sparkling lights against inky blackness. Usually, it made Lisa happy to see the city putting on her shimmery dress, but tonight she just wanted to bundle up her three little girls, race back to the safety of their own home and shut the door. Things had settled. Ellie was happy. Lisa was loving the extra little person in their life. The house was noisy and chaotic and Lisa was actually enjoying it immensely. But this? It was too much.

  ‘I mean, it might explain why Ellie’s mother left her with you,’ said Jamie thoughtfully.

  ‘But if Jared’s her dad, why didn’t she take Ellie straight to him?’

  ‘Because she knows Jared and knows he’s a man-child who would try to shirk the responsibility. This way, he can’t really ignore her, can he? I mean, Ellie’s living with you.’

  ‘Maybe. But how would she have found us?’

  ‘Oh, Lise, you’re so innocent,’ Jamie smiled. ‘There’s this thing called the internet. Makes it really easy to find people. Facebook. Relationship status. Would have taken her five minutes to work out who Jared was dating and who I was, and my family, my friends. All of it!’

  ‘But there are privacy settings that stop people you don’t know from seeing all that. I’m sure Scott showed me how.’

  ‘I work in PR. Nothing’s private. I’m an open book.’ As Jamie swivelled nervously in her chair, Lisa leant forward and locked eyes with her.

  ‘So, photos of the girls, their parties, that beach holiday we had together last year—that’s all open to anyone to see?’

  Jamie nodded.

  ‘Oh, god.’ Lisa clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘That photo of me in the bikini just after Jem was born and my tummy’s all jelly and wobbly, you don’t have that one up there, do you?’

  Jamie reddened. ‘Your tummy wasn’t that bad.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Anyway, I think you’re missing the point. It’s really Ellie we should be worried about.’

  Yes, Ellie. That dear, sweet, loving, intelligent little girl. She couldn’t possibly have half of Jared’s genes. She was far too nice! Not that Lisa would say that to Jamie. The guy might have been a lying snake in the grass, but he was still her sister’s fiancé. For the moment.

  ‘Ellie says her dad died. And I know she wouldn’t make that up,’ said Lisa.

  Jamie sighed. ‘That poor child has obviously been lied to about a lot of things. You really think her mother wouldn’t lie about this?’

  ‘You sound like you want Jared to be Ellie’s father.’

  ‘And you sound like you don’t want to find out,’ said Jamie.

  Lisa paused. ‘I’ve hired a private investigator to try and find Missy.’

  ‘You hired a what?’

  ‘An investigator. People do it all the time,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘People on TV shows! Not people who live in the suburbs and never take pens from hotel rooms because they think it’s stealing.’

  ‘It is stealing. You don’t pay for them.’

  ‘Oh, Lise, it’s factored into the price.’

  ‘Well, hiring a PI is perfectly legal, but that’s all beside the point because I haven’t heard back from him since last week. He obviously hasn’t found her yet or he would have told me something,’ said Lisa.

  ‘You know you really shouldn’t sound so happy about that,’ Jamie admonished.

  ‘I know.’ Lisa hung her head. ‘And I know she hasn’t been with us long but she’s become like part of the family. I don’t think I’m ready to lose her.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to lose Jared, but Ellie deserves her mum.’ Jamie tapped the desk. ‘And I deserve the truth! And certainty. I want to know who I’m marrying and where I’m going to be working. And I don’t know anything at the moment.’ Jamie threw her hands up in exasperation and started weeping again quietly.

  Lisa felt her heart give way. Poor Jamie. She was really suffering. As different as the two sisters were, Lisa completely understood her sister’s need for certainty. ‘Hon, please don’t cry. You know Jared really loves you.’ She thought it was the most reassuring thing she could say, but it only seemed to make Jamie cry harder.

  ‘I … pink … ruddy … dove … Ben.’ Jamie was sobbing now, which made her words almost impossible to make out.

  ‘What are you saying, hon? Something about Ben having a pink and ruddy dove?’ That word again. Lisa wished she’d never said it to Ava; now it was all she kept hearing.

  Jamie lifted her head. ‘I think I love Ben,’ she moaned, before dropping her forehead to the desk again.

  But before Lisa could respond she noticed a figure at the door, surrounded by three littler figures. Ben and the girls. Had he heard Jamie’s declaration? Fortunately, her head was again buried in her arms and she didn’t notice the party in the doorway until Lisa spoke. ‘Ben! Girls!’ she said brightly. ‘Did you have fun?’

  As Ben stood behind them, Ava prattled on and on about the chocolate biscuits and the soft drinks and all the cake in the kitchen. Finally, she drew breath and Lisa leapt at the chance to speak. ‘Sounds like a wonderful time, so, girls, please thank Ben.’

  ‘Thank you, Ben!’ the girls chorused.

  ‘Ben, I think you should go now. It’s getting late. We’ll be fine from here,’ said Lisa reassuringly.

  ‘You sure?’ He looked at Jamie, who was wiping her eyes with tissues and smearing mascara across her entire face in the process.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Lisa confidently. ‘All under control. Jamie will come home with us.’

  ‘All right,’ said Ben slowly. ‘But at least let me help you all into the car.’ He smiled at Lisa. ‘My sister says she never goes anywhere because it takes longer to get the kids in and out of the car than the outing itself.’ He knelt down in front of Jemima. ‘Climb aboard,’ he said, allowing her to climb onto his back.

  ‘What about me?’ complained Ava. ‘Why don’t I get a piggy-back?’

  ‘You will,’ said Ben easily. ‘I’ll take Jem to the lift. Then you can have a go while we’re going down, and then it’ll be Ellie’s turn in the street. Fair?’

  Ava nodded and jogged compliantly behind Ben as he horsey-galloped towards the lift, causing Jemima to squeal in delight. God, no wonder Jamie was in love with him. Even thou
gh they’d only met briefly, Lisa already had the feeling that Ben was the most thoughtful man, aside from Scott, that she had ever encountered. And he would make an incredible father, she marvelled, before turning her attention back to Ellie, who hadn’t followed the others, but was looking carefully at Jamie’s mascara-stained face.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ The little girl put her arm around Jamie’s shoulder. ‘Are you okay? You seem really sad.’

  Lisa felt her heart melting.

  ‘I’ll be fine, Ellie,’ said Jamie, patting her arm. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  For the average human, one week may have been a short time in which to overcome a significant personal trauma but, in public relations, time passed like dog years; for Jamie, one week had provided ample time for her to get past the shock and hatch a plan. It was complex, intriguing and involved a black wig. In other words, a chance for Jamie to act out a long held fantasy, while also getting to the truth about Ellie.

  Checking her reflection in the rear-view mirror of the car, Jamie was quite pleased with what she saw. The wig of straight, black, shoulder blade-length hair gave her a sense of mystery that her normal dirty-blonde curls could not. Hardly anyone at work knew that she had curls, for every morning she ironed them into submission. Straight hair was far more sophisticated and Jared agreed. He referred to her bathroom routine as the ‘transformation of the woolly mammoth’. In their early dating months, after they spent their first full night together, he’d actually been quite shocked to wake up and find himself sleeping next to a girl who looked nothing like the one he’d gone to bed with. A straightening iron was the first personal item Jared had allowed her to keep at his place. Now, wearing the wig, Jamie wondered why she’d wasted all that time straightening when she could have simply popped on someone else’s hair in five seconds flat.

  ‘I really think this is a bad idea,’ said Lisa, watching as Jamie tucked in a rogue curl.

  ‘Nonsense. It’ll be fine. She’ll never guess who I am.’

  ‘But all this lying,’ said Lisa miserably. ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘It’s not you who’s doing the lying. It’s me.’ She swivelled round to the back seat. ‘And Jems.’ She winked at her niece, chomping on a milk arrowroot biscuit. ‘Isn’t that right, little daughter?’

  ‘Yes, Mummy,’ said Jemima with a big grin. She thought it was a tremendous lark. Aunty Jamie playing dress-ups with that wig, and Jemima having to pretend that Aunty Jamie was actually her mummy. It was just like the mummies and daddies games she, Ava and Ellie played at home, except that this time, she was not being forced to be the family dog, Bosco.

  Jamie checked her make-up one last time and slid on a pair of white plastic oversized sunglasses. She looked a little ridiculous. Nothing like her usual self. Perfect!

  ‘There must be another way,’ said Lisa, leaning on the steering wheel.

  ‘There’s not, so don’t worry. It’ll be fine.’ Jamie patted her arm soothingly. She was embarrassed about her mini nervous breakdown the previous week, which was completely out of character. Thankfully, her sister hadn’t mentioned her little outburst about Ben. How mortifying! Of course she wasn’t in love with her assistant. It was just a minor case of cold feet—in fact lightly chilled feet, if you like. It was only natural, given the speed of her engagement and the shock of Jared’s possible parenthood, that she would waver at some point. And that was all it was. She loved Jared. She’d invested five years of her life in him. She couldn’t throw that away because of a couple of speed bumps. But she did need to know the truth. That was reasonable, wasn’t it?

  At first, Jared had been reluctant to provide any clues at all—but Jamie insisted the only way forward for their relationship was full disclosure. Finally, Jared had started to talk more openly about Melissa—her looks, her hobbies, her personality, her family, where she went to school and uni. All of it. His recall of her was actually quite startling and he seemed to warm so enthusiastically to the topic that it was quite difficult to get him to stop. After a full two hours of Melissa this and Melissa that, Jamie finally had to hold up her hand.

  ‘Okay, I’ve got it,’ she’d said, pacing about the kitchen while Jared sat mournfully on the couch.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘We are going to find her and find out what happened.’

  Jared had looked aghast. ‘I can’t. She hates me. She said she never wanted to see me again. There’s no way she’ll talk to me.’

  Jamie had thought for a moment. ‘Maybe not to you, but she might to me. Especially if she doesn’t know who I am.’

  Thanks to the load of information Jared had supplied, the process of finding Melissa took just a few clicks, and there she was—a photo of her at the Kid’s Biz Kindy Christmas party. It was Melissa, Jamie had no doubt. Based on Jared’s description of a buxom brunette with a nose ring, it had to be her. Though now, she wasn’t just an employee of the preschool, she was its director.

  But she still had the nose ring.

  She wasn’t Jared’s type at all. It was so strange, how one man could be attracted to two such completely different women, and here they were about to come face to face.

  Of course, Lisa had been dead against the idea. Such a rule follower.

  ‘Jamie, you can’t! You’ll get caught. You said yourself that Melissa’s probably been stalking you on Facebook. She’ll know you right away. Let me get Jeff to investigate her. It’s what I’m paying him for after all.’

  ‘I need to see this woman for myself.’ Jamie had been firm.

  ‘But it doesn’t make sense,’ Lisa kept saying. ‘Why would Jared’s former girlfriend give her child to me?’

  ‘Why would anyone give their child to you?’ was Jamie’s rather tactless reply. She hadn’t meant it that way. ‘I mean—why would anyone give their child to a virtual stranger?’

  Lisa had got the point. One way or the other, they needed to find out firstly whether Melissa had given birth to Jared’s child, and secondly, if that child was Ellie. The hows and whys of it all could come later.

  ‘Ready to go, kiddo?’ Jamie winked at Jemima and hopped out of the car.

  ‘Yes, Aunty—oops, I mean, Mummy.’ Jemima clambered out.

  Without doubt, Jems was the weak link of the plan. Relying on a three-year-old to maintain a lie for more than five minutes was like relying on a puppy to be a seeing-eye dog. It could work, but there was a high chance of failure and the puppy could barely be held responsible.

  But Jemima seemed to grasp the seriousness of the situation, her appreciation of its gravity no doubt helped along by the promise of a Barbie doll. The deal was—if she could ‘pretend’ (lying was a naughty-step offence in the Wheeldon household) that Aunty Jamie was her mummy during a visit to a new kindy, then she could have the new Crystal Palace Barbie doll.

  Say no more. Jemima was in. She’d happily disown her own family if it meant getting that new doll.

  But as Jamie stood at the entry to the kindy, her legs felt weak. What was she actually going to say to Melissa?

  Hi, how are you? Do you have a kid? Can I see the kid?

  They weren’t exactly the type of questions one would ask at a tour of a prospective kindy. Actually, what the hell did a parent ask at one of those things?

  From inside the kindy, she could hear high-pitched screams of terror, as if one of the kids was being stretched over a rack and stabbed with knives.

  Jamie must have trembled a little because Jemima squeezed her hand. ‘Don’t worry. My kindy sounds like that too.’

  ‘Thanks,’ whispered Jamie as she rang the doorbell and stood back.

  The kindy itself was in an area of Sydney known as the Hills District, part of the suburban commuter belt on the city’s fringes. It had taken them forty-five minutes to drive there and as Jamie passed row after row of tightly packed project homes with bikes and station wagons in the driveways she felt slightly ill. She put it down to a mixture of nerves about meet
ing Melissa and a slight fear that even though her marriage was imminent, she was nowhere near ready for a life of cutting crusts off sandwiches and pushing swings.

  Lisa, though, was unconcerned, and hummed along to the radio as they sped through suburbia. She had embraced family life with such a full and open heart. For the first time in her life, Jamie felt envious of her sister’s maternal desires.

  Holding Jemima’s hand, Jamie buzzed on the door to the kindy, which looked very much like every other blond-brick house in the street, except for the tall, child-proof fence surrounding it on all sides.

  The door opened with a whoosh.

  ‘Welcome to Kid’s Biz!’

  It was her, Melissa, beaming a big, friendly grin as she reached down to shake Jemima’s hand. ‘Hi, Verity. Welcome to Kid’s Biz. I’m Melissa.’

  As part of the ‘pretend’ game, Jemima had insisted on choosing her own name, which of course, she based on her favourite television fairy. ‘Hi, Melissa,’ said Jemima. ‘Can I go play?’ Without waiting for an answer, she ran off to the closest group of children, huddled around the biggest box of Lego Jamie had ever seen.

  ‘And you must be Georgina?’ Melissa beamed again. She was prettier than in her online photos. And slimmer too. Her scoop-necked T-shirt showed just a hint of the fulsome cleavage beneath but not too much as to worry the kindy mums, nor give the kindy dads too much of an eyeful. Her dark curly hair was partly constrained by a colourful headscarf, but it sprang free joyously from behind—an explosion of corkscrews and ringlets.

  ‘Yes. I am Georgina,’ said Jamie rather robotically. ‘Thank you for letting us see your kindergarten.’

  ‘Our pleasure. Looks like little Miss Verity knows her way around a Lego table, so how about I show you the rest of the kindergarten while she’s busy?’

  They visited the outdoor play area, then the kitchen, followed by the school-preparation room for the four-year-olds and lastly the toilets, where Jamie marvelled (inwardly) at the size of the seats. Such tiny little bottoms these kids had! And the taps at knee height—so cute! Melissa kept up a running commentary about the kindy’s philosophy of education and their staff ratios and usual daily routine etc, etc. Jamie didn’t remove her sunglasses, concerned Melissa might work out who she was. Every so often, she would look at Jamie quizzically and ask if she had any questions, which Jamie didn’t. At least, not about the kindergarten. In her mind, she was shouting Are you the mother of my fiancé’s child? And is that child Ellie? But no actual words came out of her mouth which she could tell Melissa thought was a bit odd.