Unsuitable

by Ainslie Paton

  Unsuitable

  Ainslie Paton

  It’s a truth universally unacknowledged, that a single women in possession of a good job must be in want of a wife.

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events that happen are the product of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organisations or people, living or dead is purely co-incidental and beyond the intent of the author and publisher. Copyright © 2014

  Unsuitable

  Ainslie Paton

  Can they make trailblazing and homemaking fit, or is love just another gender stereotype?

  Audrey broke the glass ceiling. Reece swapped a blue collar for a pink collar job.

  She’s a single mum by design. He’s a nanny by choice.

  She gets passed over for promotion. He struggles to find a job.

  She takes a chance on him. He’s worth more than he knows.

  There’s an imbalance of power. There’s an age difference.

  There’s a child whose favourite word is no.

  Everything about them being together is unsuitable.

  Except for love.

  Dedication

  B is for beta hero and beta readers and bloody good editors and brilliant proofreaders. None of which I could do without.

  Unsuitable is for anyone who ever struggled to earn a place doing work they loved.

  Chapter Index

  Dedication

  1: The Break Up

  2: Dating

  3: Witherspoon

  4: Godzilla in the Garden

  5: Family Affair

  6: Stalker

  7: Moving On

  8: Failure to Win

  9: Magnetic

  10: Sudden Comfort

  11: Moody Blues

  12: One Time Only

  13: Crisis

  14: Choosing

  15: Hesitant

  16: Certain

  17: Wrecked

  18: Wonder Drug

  19: Secrets

  20: Past Lives

  21: Ripper

  22: Losing Control

  23: Blurred

  24: Contingency

  25: Loveless

  26: Suitable

  About the Author

  White Balance

  1: The Break Up

  Audrey cried. She wasn’t proud of it. It was the shock. Cameron had been with her from the start. From those first brain-numbed, endorphin-high, dizzy days and nights where up was down, sleep was awake, and white was most definitely an alarming shade of Dijon mustard with a side of green froth.

  Audrey had her first genuine panic attack over the green froth. Cameron knew the green froth did not mean Mia was dying.

  Cameron knew what to do about the green froth, and about proper nipple attachment and nappy rash and sleeping patterns and teething and night terrors and controlled mayhem.

  Cameron knew about crawling, bouncing off furniture, teething, toddling and walking. About potty training and only wanting to wear a purple, sparkly fairy dress, and lying on the floor in the middle of a supermarket aisle screaming while wearing the unwashed purple, sparkly fairy dress. Cameron knew how to make a small, stubborn child who’d had all her joints stiffened with unfathomable rage, bend to get into a car seat.

  Cameron knew about tantrums, tricycles and learning to talk. About fabulous lies and biting, scary monsters and crayon on the wall. Cameron was good with stain removal and reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar, sometimes just one page of it, over and over and over without committing a serious crime.

  And Mia knew Cameron. Went easy into Cameron’s arms in the morning and told her secrets and poked her face and smeared food on her. She trusted Cameron to be there for her when Audrey was at work. Mia loved Cameron, had known Cameron her entire life. And Audrey worshiped at the altar of Cameron.

  So she cried. Big ugly, snotty, gulping, gut-wrenching sobs.

  This was a lot worse than the green froth, than the sleepless nights, than those inexplicable soaring temperatures, and the constant checking that Mia was still breathing.

  This was the worst day of her life.

  Worse than the day her father closed the door in her face, and her mother watched through the sheer curtain, or when Barrett was late to the clinic and wanted out of their deal. Worse than the day Mia’s lips went blue. Worse than returning from maternity leave to find she’d been restructured out of her job.

  Without Cameron, there could be no Mia because it hardly mattered what job Audrey did, she couldn’t do this alone without support.

  And now Cameron was leaving, so Audrey blubbered. And she didn’t do that as a rule. She was a planner, not a thrill seeker. She was practical, pragmatic, reliable; not emotionally unstable. But tears were the only rational response left after offering more money, less work, more everything, less everything.

  Cameron held out the tissue box. “You’re making me feel such a rat.”

  Audrey reached for the top tissue and took the whole box instead. The one box might not be enough. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried. “I don’t mean to, but I never thought you’d leave. We’ve been together three years.” Three years and three hundred milestones, every single one of them enough to turn Audrey inside out if she’d had to do this by herself. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to go on without you. We love you.”

  “Audrey, God.” Cameron snuffled into a tissue. “You always knew I’d eventually have to go.”

  “I wilfully forgot that part around about the time you made our lives so wonderful. I was so lucky to find you, and I can’t imagine what we’re going to do now.”

  Cameron played with her engagement ring, twisting it around and around her finger. This was difficult for her too. But not that difficult. Moving to London wasn’t difficult; it was a walk on the Commons, a tube ride. Raising a three year old alone, when you worked full-time, that was difficult. It was laying the turf on the rotten Commons, digging the bloody tunnels for the underground, and hand-making all the Thomas the Tank Engines needed for peak hour.

  “It’s only two years and she’ll be at school,” Cameron said. It was possibly the singularly least helpful thing she’d ever said after, Audrey, we need to talk, and, Audrey, it’s time for me to move on.

  Audrey sniffled. “Only.” Seven hundred and thirty days, that was longer than some of her staff stayed in their jobs before wanting to travel or take sabbaticals or go volunteering. What happened to staying in your job long enough for a gold watch, for long service leave? That’d gone the way of the fax machine, of the camera that wasn’t also a phone, of CD Rom drives and DVD players. Now there were pens that could print 3D. Now you stayed in your job five minutes and you asked for a promotion. Or you moved to London to nanny for people who lived in a ruddy castle.

  Audrey and Mia did not live in a castle. They lived in a very nice bungalow cottage in a good suburb, with a huge mortgage on it and a backyard that needed serious reality renovation show attention.

  So what if Cameron was getting her own two-bedroom apartment in her new job. Yes, it made the guest bedroom she used when she stayed over seem mean, but the bungalow had Mia in it. The castle, which was probably not actually a stone building with ramparts and turrets given it was in Belgravia, had unknown English preschoolers in it, but it might as well have had a moat and ghosts, it was such a bad scene.

  “I’ll organise a short list for you. All you’ll have to do is interview a new nanny and pick someone wonderful and it’ll all be fine.”

  It wouldn’t be fine. Mia would be devastated, emotionally disturbed.

  “Or maybe you want to consider kindy, now she’s three.”

  Maybe enough kindys for the waiting list that snaked aro
und the suburb had opened since Audrey checked—but probably not. She shook her head.

  Cameron was a mind-reader. “Or family day care?” Cameron was following her heart, or rather following Miles, which was the same thing. Why did she have to love the only Paddington Bear English boy in the world who couldn’t live without pea soup weather and warm beer?

  Having Mia cared for with a small group of other children had always been a option but it didn’t help when Audrey had to work late or travel, so even if she could find a local family day care arrangement that worked, she’d still need a nanny for the nights she had to be away. Mia needed someone she was comfortable and secure with, not a different person every time.

  Audrey blew her nose. “This is really happening, isn’t it? Do I have make-up running everywhere?”

  Cameron nodded. They both knew it was smarter not to let Mia see them crying. Fortunately Peppa Pig was attending Edmund Elephant’s birthday party in the other room, and that was pretty absorbing stuff. Pig noise. Otherwise there would be so many tears the house might flood. Snort.

  Telling Mia was going to require a strategy. Probably a morning activity with lots of distractions planned for the remainder of the day to combat horrendous, meaningless guilt, followed by alcohol to enhance the wallowing. Mia would need Disney. Lashings of Ariel, Rapunzel, Snow White and Jasmine. There would need to be quite a bit of singing along with Elsa before either of them was going to be able to let Cameron go.

  2: Dating

  Mia wasn’t happy about the strangers. It gave her a chance to practise her whispering. Her whispering needed work.

  “Mum, Cam,” she said, while Audrey was interviewing Jessie. Mia wasn’t easy to ignore or talk over, and her repetition skills were professional level.

  Jessie was one of Cameron’s hit picks. She smiled at Mia, who had a death grip on the sleeve of Audrey’s shirt. “Is Cam your favourite toy?”

  Mia gave a violent full body shake. “My nanny. Mine.”

  “Would you like me to be your new nanny?”

  Ooh, Audrey knew what was coming. Jessie might’ve looked good on paper but that was a rookie move.

  “No.” Mia bashed her forehead into Audrey’s shoulder. “Don’t like you.”

  There it was.

  “But I like you, Mia. I could read you a story.”

  There was a hand flap as Mia said, “Go way,” but Audrey wasn’t quick enough to salvage her sleeve, the peanut butter fingers were back.

  Jessie smiled. “She’s so cute.”

  Mia was covered in gobs of something sticky, most of which she was grinding into Audrey’s shirt. She was ornery as an old man with haemorrhoids on a day his arthritis was playing up. She was wearing her limp, tattered fairy dress over jeans and a stripy wool jumper. She’d refused to wear shoes or socks. She had pink highlighter on her face. She looked like an escapee from an old-fashioned lunatic asylum.

  If that was Jessie’s definition of cute, big tick.

  Huge.

  “Thanks for your time, Jessie. I’m interviewing a few people today and I’ll make a decision by Monday and let you know.” Audrey stood with some difficulty, given the lead weight of a manic fairy attached to her clothing. She offered Jessie a hand to shake, and the girl put her water glass in Audrey’s hand instead—awkward. Perhaps it wasn’t the done thing to offer to shake hands with a nanny interviewee in your own home like it would be if you were interviewing in your office. But whoever Audrey hired was going to help raise her daughter, live in her house, do her shopping, prepare her food, occasionally sleep in her guest room and be part of their lives. And that help raise her daughter thing, big, so big—ginormous—so the handshake, the eye contact, the whole vibe of the person was critical.

  Audrey was parent central evenings for a few hours and weekends. The new Cameron would be on duty for ten hours a day, five days a week, and longer if Audrey was travelling. So the new nanny needed to be a special person; not only paper perfect, with the right skills and experience, but with a slew of personal qualities that would make them an appropriate influence for Mia in what everyone said were her formative years.

  Of course, what Audrey really needed was a wife. A wife would know exactly what to do, to make a household work, to help raise a little girl with laughter and leniency, with the kind of ninja cleverness that would trick Mia into eating vegetables hidden in meatballs, and make drinking milk fun.

  Someone who brought to the job a total commitment to forming a partnership designed around Mia’s needs: singing and playing and learning to talk in full sentences, playgroup and kindy gym and patting safe puppies in the park.

  Someone who was happy to take direction but had their own initiative that was simpatico with Audrey’s views. Someone Mia could feel secure and happy with. Who’d wipe her nose and patch her knees, hold her hand and remind her Mum would be home soon.

  Cameron had been such a wife, and like any break up getting over her was a messy hell. Not hiring on the rebound was another problem. Jessie had all the qualifications needed, all the personal attributes and stunning personal and professional references. But was she wife material? And only someone who was, would allow Audrey to be halfway around the country, or cope for a week in a steamy Asian capital without being out of her head worried about Mia.

  Oh God. Cameron. She wanted to weep for their loss in front of Mia and Jessie. How did women do this when it was their husband who walked out the door, taking their hopes for a happy family with them? She couldn’t fathom it. It’d been so much smarter to plan to do without that.

  It was bad enough most of the men at work thought she was a bad mother, not that they said it, but it was implied Mia would be ‘trouble’ in that pregnant and on crack before she was sixteen way. Some of the older women thought the same thing. And they were vocal. They’d done it differently, taken career breaks. Why wasn’t that good enough for Audrey? How could she take on being a single parent by choice, wasn’t she worried all the time about leaving her kid with a stranger, what made her decide to have a child on her own anyway? It was brave, by which they mostly meant what Esther meant—it was irresponsible, and therefore, she had no right for it to come easily.

  It wasn’t easy. It was what it was, parenting in the age of digital everything, where if you were a thirty something career women who’d never found the one, or even the one to settle with, you did what you had to do to get close to a life you dreamed of, and hang what anyone else thought.

  It was a haze of uncomfortable judgements, toughing it out and guilty good times. It was the constant worry the critics were right. Raising a child wasn’t something anyone should voluntarily step up for alone without a lot of thought. The whole it took a village thing was probably true. But there weren’t a lot of villages in the city these days and Mia wasn’t alone being raised by a single parent, and Mia’s single parent had the economic means to provide the best for her daughter, even if that meant a much prettier, cleaner fairy dress with the most amazing detachable wings hung in Mia’s wardrobe, unworn.

  And right now it meant more interviews.

  While Mia coloured in, refusing crayons for the highlighter she’d stolen from Audrey’s briefcase and Audrey wondered if pink highlighter would come off the polished floorboards, she interviewed Michelle. Michelle was awesome, she’d worked as a birthday party fairy as a teenager. Audrey could picture Mia’s fourth birthday as a fantasy of tiaras and sparkles.

  Mia watched The Little Mermaid for an entire fifteen seconds of the interview with Bethany, and clung to Audrey’s leg for the remaining forty-five minutes, eyeing Bethany as if she was a black belt in mother trafficking and would whisk Audrey away with plastic ties on her wrists and feet any minute. Bethany’s black belt was musical, she was an accomplished guitarist.

  Mia grizzled for most of the interview with Lee, who was also an experienced chef, while Lee demonstrated exceptional capacity for selective deafness and stoic calm.

  And then there was one to go. By the end o
f the day, Audrey would’ve met five highly qualified Cameron approved candidates for the role of Mia’s nanny.

  There was no doubt Jessie, Michelle, Bethany and Lee could all do the job. None of them so far had the illusive Cameron quality that made them the obvious choice, but they were all young, highly qualified, star referenced, personable, well adjusted, sociable, pleasant people Audrey could happily employ.

  Cameron had given two months notice, so there was still time. Audrey didn’t have to choose from this batch of candidates, though it had taken time to collect these résumés and ideally the new hire would spend at least a fortnight with Cameron before she shipped out.

  She watched Mia put one foot on the colouring book and then move it back and forth across the wood floor. She had to wiggle her entire body, arms out at the side like a tightrope walker for balance. She had this look on her face that said, see that, bet you can’t do it. And when it came to replacing Cameron, Audrey wasn’t sure she could. Part two of the interview process would include a trip to the park so they could test drive the new relationship, maybe that would help clarify her decision.

  Objectively this shouldn’t be so hard. She made big decisions with widespread implications for other people every day with less mental torture. But she’d misplaced her objectivity about Mia the moment the midwife placed her tiny, squalling body into her hands. On Monday she had to sign off on making fourteen people redundant, today she couldn’t be decisive about getting off the couch.

  She checked her watch. Half an hour before the next candidate arrived. Reece was a certified swim coach, had advanced life saving qualifications including a Bronze Medallion, excellent references and was older than the other candidates. Reece would only make the decision harder.

  She sat watching Mia talk to herself about, well, who knew really, it was as if she saw things other mortals had no access to, and when the phone rang her wish was granted. A few minutes sanity in the form of Merrill.