by Shari Low
Over twenty years later, she still remembered the very moment it was taken. For a split second, the birthday chorus faded into the background, everyone else in the room disappeared and it was just her with her younger self, and an overwhelming feeling that she’d give anything to go back and live that moment again.
10
Mitchell
Mitchell felt his chest tighten with indigestion as Celeste’s car slipped into a parking space outside the Malmaison Hotel in the Blythswood Square area of the city centre. Directly across from the iconic Blythswood Square Hotel, Mitchell had always thought the Malmaison had an air of decadence about it – the bigger, grander hotel’s more rock and roll, rebellious little brother.
‘Shit,’ he exhaled, as he drove around the square before claiming a space further along the same street as Celeste’s Porsche, but mostly obscured by the Range Rover Discovery that hogged the next space. From there, he could see the front of Celeste’s car, he could see the entrance to the Malmaison, and he could see his wife strutting like a catwalk model across the road, her expensive outfit, edgy black bob, huge shades and bright red lipstick giving her a celebrity aura. She’d love that. There was nothing that Celeste enjoyed more than causing interest and intrigue.
So what now? The acid reflux made him wince again and he opened the glovebox and popped a couple of antacids from the stash he kept there for the days when he was facing the occupational hazard of high stress situations. He’d take a convoluted corporate fraud case over suspected infidelity any day of the week.
He pushed the car seat back and flexed his legs to stretch them out. What was his next move? He saw now that he’d messed up by dressing so casually. He’d look pretty conspicuous if he wandered into the hotel dressed in sweats and a T-shirt. And what if Celeste was in the lobby? How would he explain his arrival? ‘Hi honey, fancy meeting you here? What a coincidence? I was just popping in to make a reservation to bring you here for our, erm, anniversary. Yes, I know it’s not until October.’
Never had he felt more of an urge to bang his head off a steering wheel. His ringtone cut through the thought. Skye.
He flicked the steering wheel button to accept the call on hands-free.
‘Hey honey!’ He’d aimed for ‘breezy’, but it came out way too enthusiastic so he sounded like a daytime TV presenter on helium.
‘Eh, how many coffees have you had today, Dad? You sound wired.’
‘Probably too many,’ he admitted, happy to go along with her assumption. It was better than ‘I’ve turned into the kind of stalker they make documentaries about. Bail me out if I get arrested for suspicious behaviour.’ Act normal. ACT NORMAL. ‘What’s up, sweetheart. All okay?’ He could hear laughter and chat and clinking glasses in the background. Sounded like there was a bit of revelry going on there.
‘Yeah. I’m at The Ginger Sponge for Mum’s lunch. Did I see you driving past the window about fifteen minutes ago? Are you going to pop in?’
Bloody hell. She must have eyes like a fricking hawk. The Ginger Sponge was on the same street as the yoga studio, so, yes, he’d gone past it.
‘No, love, I’m not coming in. I was…’ Think. Think. What else was on that street? ‘I was just picking up some dry-cleaning.’
‘Oh. I thought you were going to the boxing gym?’
‘I am. I’m here now.’ He could almost hear the siren of a lie detector wailing above him.
‘Cool. Okay. If you change your mind, we’ll be here for a couple of hours and I know Mum would be happy to see you.’
He wasn’t entirely sure that was the case. After the split, and the bitter fallout afterwards, he and Aggs had found their way back to a civil friendship for the sake of the girls. And, yes, they celebrated big occasions together – Christmas, family birthday parties, New Year – but that was different from him casually gate-crashing her lunch.
‘I don’t think I’ll be back in time, darling, but thank you for the invitation. Wish your mum a happy birthday for me.’
‘I will, Dad. Have to go. Isla’s giving me the death stare because I’m supposed to be helping her get drinks. If I don’t get home, check the café’s wheelie bins for my body.’
With that, she was gone. Mitchell only realised he was grinning when a woman walking past the car gave him a strange look and veered further to the inside of the pavement so that even if he opened the door she was too far away to be snatched in broad daylight. He rapidly straightened his face, lifted his phone up to his ear and faked speaking into the handset until she was out of sight. Never had he felt more ridiculous.
What was it the young ones said? FML. Yep, fuck my life. And fuck the stupid decisions that he’d made to get him to this point. When it came to his marriages, he had enough self-awareness to admit that he’d made mistakes – and in moments of introspective brutal honesty, he had to concede that sometimes he thought that if he could go back and replay everything, he wasn’t sure he’d take the same path. The old saying about hindsight being 20/20 vision definitely applied here. In his case, he’d long accepted that hindsight was also proof that he’d been an utter tit. Actually, make that a cheating tit. Maybe payback was exactly what he deserved.
The roar of an exhaust snapped him out of his self-flagellation. It was the stuff of a Top Gear host’s wet dreams, the unmistakable sound of a Maserati rumbling past him and pulling up at the entrance to the hotel. He didn’t even have to look, but of course he did, and, yep, there he was. Derek fucking Evans.
Evans got out, abandoning the car on a double yellow line (where were the bloody traffic wardens now?), and swaggered towards the entrance. Mitchell couldn’t miss the contrast. Who was winning in life today? Him, sitting in a car in the midday heat, sweating his bollocks off while staking out his wife, or Derek Evans, climbing out of his hundred grand car, dressed in a suit that probably cost more than a few pairs of those Louboutin shoes Celeste was so fond of.
Mitchell switched the engine back on so that he could turn up the air con. Okay, think this through. Arguments for the defence. Maybe it was just lunch with a client. And perhaps Celeste didn’t want to say it was Evans because Mitchell had got a bit arsey and jealous after the fundraiser. Or maybe he’d called and asked to meet after she left the house this morning and she’d ditched the other meeting to come here instead. All plausible. At a stretch.
Arguments for the prosecution? She’d lied for illicit reasons. She knew the whole time that she was coming here because she’s been shagging Derek Evans behind his back for an indeterminate length of time. She was never planning to meet a new client and then go shopping, because if she was, she wouldn’t have come dressed like she’d just walked off the pages of a power lunch spread in a magazine. In fact…
Another scenario began to play out in full colour in his mind. Celeste, in a luxury bedroom with Evans. There was no way she’d let him rip her clothes off, she’d always been far too concerned about damaging her designer wear. Instead, she was gradually discarding each item of her clothing, while Evans lay on a bed, a leer of enjoyment on his smug face. No amount of antacids could settle his stomach until he knew the answer to the question that was burning his insides. What was this – lunch or something far more?
One way to find out. He flicked another button on the steering wheel, bringing up the favourites list on his speed dial. He might have to redefine that term after today. There were only five names on there. Isla. Skye. His secretary, Catherine. Agnetha. Celeste.
He scrolled and hit ‘call’ on Celeste’s name.
It rang. It rang again. It stopped.
Shit, she’d rejected the call.
But then, if it was a business meeting, he wouldn’t expect her to answer.
This was getting him nowhere. Reaching back into the glove compartment, he popped another couple of antacids, then made a decision. He’d been in the hotel a few times before and vaguely remembered the layout. He wasn’t sure if he could pull off what he needed to do, but it was worth a try.
Switching off the engine, he jumped out of the car and jogged along the road and into the hotel. A smiling receptionist greeted him and he just hoped that she hadn’t been on all morning without a break. ‘Hi, I’m staying in the hotel and just realised I didn’t take my key when I went out for a run. I think my wife’s in the restaurant. I know I’m not dressed for it, but do you mind if I just pop in and grab the key from her?’
‘Of course not, sir. Just through there to the left.’
‘Great, thanks.’
This was stupid. Fraught with risk. But if he was both careful and a bit lucky…
The restaurant was in the basement with an internal staircase that would allow him to look around. As long as Celeste didn’t look up and spot him, he just might get the answers he needed without looking like a complete tool.
A couple, holding hands and both radiating the kind of happiness he only had faint memories of feeling, were coming out of the door as he approached it and they held it open for him. He nodded thanks as he passed them, then pretended to look at his phone as if he’d just received a text, so they wouldn’t wonder why he didn’t carry on down the stairs into the restaurant. As soon as they were out of sight, he edged in, scanning the tables below. No sign of them. There was a problem though. The restaurant stretched round a corner so he couldn’t see all the tables. Shit. Stay or go? Should he take the risk? It would be crazy. He’d have to go down there and somehow peek round the corner and…
Sod it. He went for it. Ignoring a couple of curious glances, he went downstairs and surreptitiously scoped out the whole restaurant, gradually edging around corners to ensure he didn’t bang straight into them.
No sign of them.
He repeated the same cautious investigation in the bar. Nothing.
They weren’t here.
At least, they weren’t downstairs. So that could only mean one thing, couldn’t it?
They had to be upstairs in a bedroom. Fuck.
If there was an upside to the nausea that was now bubbling inside him, at least it was taking his mind of the searing pain of the indigestion.
There was no next move to make here. He wasn’t going to go upstairs and storm the room, even if he knew where they were. He’d spent the last ten minutes hiding behind plant pots in a hotel restaurant and bar – hadn’t he sunk low enough?
As he passed her, he reacted to the receptionist’s confused expression with a cheery ‘Thanks, bye!’ and then jogged back to the car. This required serious thought. Knee-jerk reactions weren’t his style. He needed a strategy. Needed a plan. But, first, he needed to understand and there was only one place he knew that he’d find help with that.
Mitchell McMaster slipped on his Prada sunglasses, switched on the engine, and headed for The Ginger Sponge.
11
Agnetha and Celeste – 1997
‘I’m falling in love with you. And I was just kinda wondering if you felt the same?’ Aaron’s words were hanging in the air, just waiting for a response, and Agnetha paused, temporarily robbed of speech by the tendrils of excitement that were furling around her vocal cords. The rest of the world, the waiters circulating with drinks, the pool lifeguards in the wooden seats at the top of their stations, the crowds of revellers on sunloungers and splashing in the water, the pool speakers blaring TLC’s ‘Waterfalls’, all of it just faded away. It was just Aaron. And her. And he’d just told her he loved her.
A heartbeat. Then another. Aaron’s expression was melting from adoration to something closer to concern, then to abject relief when she finally responded with a giggly, ‘Yes. Yes!’
‘Holy crap, you had me worried there. I think I just aged a few years.’
‘It just took my breath for a moment…’ Agnetha stretched across to kiss him, then yelped as he somehow managed to flip her up so she was lying on top of him, their lips sealing the deal until Agnetha pulled back. ‘Hang on, I need to check… Are you sure? Nobody’s spiked your drink? You’ve not just been watching too many romcoms since I got here? Under hypnosis?’
Feigning outrage, he playfully bumped her off him, so she rolled back down onto the canvas top of the double lounger, both of them creasing with giggles. He held his arm out straight, palm on her shoulder, so that their faces were an arm’s length apart. ‘I love you, Agnetha Crazy Lady. Just so you know, I’ve never said that to anyone before. Well, apart from my cousin and we were six, so it doesn’t count. You’re sure you feel the same?’
‘I do. Although I’m now worried your cousin may hunt me down. Could I take her?’
‘I’d bet on you.’
‘Excellent. I feel much better about it all now.’ Even with the excitement and sheer fricking joy of the moment, Agnetha hoped he didn’t ask her if she’d said that before. The truth was that she had, three times – one was a teenage romance and the other two occasions were short-lived but passionate relationships that blew out as quickly as they’d started.
Yes, sometimes she was guilty of getting swept up in the moment, but that wasn’t what this was, she was sure of it. The truth was she’d been feeling the same thing for days now and the thought of leaving him made her want to sob. And now… now he was saying he felt the same. She’d proclaim her happiness to the world if she wasn’t fairly sure that Celeste would react by launching the water polo ball at her head.
‘Tell me,’ Aaron was coaxing now, his voice equally tender and teasing.
She went for innocence. ‘Tell you what?’
‘Tell me you love me. I want to see your face when you say it.’
‘You’re very odd.’ She was playing with him. ‘But okay. Since we’re here and there’s nothing on the telly…’ That came with a nod to the blank TV screen on the wall of the cabana. ‘Aaron Ward, I love you. It’s bonkers, but I don’t care, because I’m so frigging happy. I love you.’
He punched the air. ‘Yassssss! Christ, you’re beautiful. Do you know that?’
‘Now I’m sure your drink has been spiked.’ Accepting compliments had never been her strong point and he shushed her by kissing her again. She had a feeling there would be a lot of that today.
This time, he pulled away first, and reached over her to pick up her camera from the table at the side of the lounger. ‘I want to take a picture of you, so you’ll see how beautiful you are. And we’ll know forever that this was the moment you told me you loved me.’
‘We can’t ever show the grandkids. My boobs are falling out of this bikini.’ She feigned suspicion. ‘Is that why you said you love me? You’ve got a thing for public indecency?’
His exasperated eye roll set her off on another fit of the giggles and that was the moment the shutter of the camera clicked.
Great. Now the whole of the Boots photography department was going to see her in an obscenely tiny bikini, face a shade of tomato from the heat, hair a wild mane of red curls, when she put this in to be developed. She’d never be able to show her face in that shop ever again.
‘What did I miss?’ Celeste asked, as she appeared at Agnetha’s side and shook her body so the drips from the pool soaked her friends, making Agnetha shriek and Aaron groan in protest.
She pushed her wet hair back from her face and Agnetha could absolutely see why she was picking up more and more modelling jobs as every month passed. If Celeste had been in George Michael’s ‘Freedom’ video, she’d have been Linda Evangelista’s ebony haired sister, the one who shared her insanely gorgeous eyes and cheekbones like speed bumps. Not to mention the body that was as close to perfection as it got without medical intervention.
Another thought, and it didn’t come from smugness, more absolute gratitude and incredulity. How lucky was she that Aaron was in love with her, and hadn’t gone after Celeste, who was always the most beautiful woman in any room?
Aaron climbed off the lounger, tenderly trailing his hand along hers as he moved away. ‘I’m just going to go cool off.’ He slipped into the pool, his back to them now, his shoulders and arms stretched along the pool edge, every m
uscle defined and hard.
Celeste clicked her fingers in front of Agnetha’s face. ‘Earth calling, Aggs, come in, you soppy cow.’
Agnetha shrugged. ‘Guilty as charged.’ She shook it off, not wanting to rub salt in Celeste’s gooseberry wound. ‘How you doing, honey? Pissed off about Zac?’
Celeste lay down on Aaron’s side of the lounger, adjusting her bikini so that it sat perfectly on her flat stomach, and batted away the question. ‘Nah, not at all.’
Agnetha could sense that there was a large slice of bravado in there, but she didn’t say anything, just let Celeste reframe the reality in whatever way she needed to.
‘It was always just a bit of a fling. To be honest, it probably blew itself out for me a couple of weeks ago, but the guy had VIP access to every club in town so I was having waaaaay too much fun with that to end it. It’s only a few days until we go home though, so I think I’ll cope without free entry into the Viper Room for the rest of the week.’
Agnetha took a sip of her drink. ‘I’m glad, hon. He’s clearly a tit anyway. There isn’t a guy at this pool who would get out of bed with you in the middle of the night and take off. He’s obviously got issues.’
‘Exactly what I was thinking,’ Celeste grinned, before rolling over and flopping on top of Aggs, cuddling her. ‘This is why you’re my friend. You’re completely biased and you don’t mind that I take daily bitch pills.’
Agnetha laughed. ‘Yeah, you might want to cut down the dosage. Zac’s worried you’re going to come back to LA and pummel him with a baseball bat while he sleeps.’
Celeste popped her head up off Agnetha’s shoulder. ‘He really shouldn’t give me ideas like that.’ She sat up and stretched over to the bag she’d left on top of the cabana’s mini fridge. Pulling out a packet of Marlboro Lights, she lit one, took a long drag and then gestured to the back of Aaron’s head, just a couple of metres away. ‘How come you always pick the nice one and I always pick the one who turns out to be a complete prick?’