Faking It

by Portia MacIntosh

  As I head back downstairs, I remove my phone from my dressing-gown pocket and look at the notes under breakfast. It says…

  Henry: Cereal combos

  Millie: Anything you can possibly get her to eat, she thinks she’s fat

  Wow, Millie is absolutely not fat, not by any stretch of the imagination. So, I just need to get her to eat something and for Henry… cereal combos? What is that? I’ve never heard of it.

  I hurry into the kitchen and begin searching through the cupboards – there are so many cupboards, and most of them are seemingly hidden – until I find the large pull-out one with the cereal boxes in it. I start at the top, scanning my way down past the boxes, looking for whatever combos are.

  ‘What are you doing?’ A voice from behind me snaps me from my quest.

  ‘Millie, you made me jump,’ I tell her, turning around, seeing her sitting on the other side of the island. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’

  ‘OK, are you like depressed or something?’ she says.

  ‘What? No,’ I reply quickly. ‘I’m fine, why do you ask?’

  ‘Well, you’re not dressed, you look like you’ve been tearing your hair out, and you were on the floor when I came in,’ she tells me.

  Millie is intimidatingly mature. Not only does she seem way older than I was expecting her to seem, but she doesn’t look like the awkward chubby teenager in the blue eyeshadow that I was. She has perfectly sculpted eyebrows and contoured cheeks. Her long blonde hair is poker straight. She looks a lot like her mum did at that age, apart from being taller, and boasting the polished appearance of one of the Kardashian-Jenners. Kids should not be allowed to grow up this attractive; it is character building to look completely ridiculous when you’re young. Millie isn’t going to be embarrassed of her leavers’ prom pictures – she’ll probably frame them.

  ‘I was just looking through the cereals,’ I reply by way of a perfectly reasonable explanation.

  ‘Whatever,’ she replies.

  ‘Anyway, what can I get you?’ I say. ‘Cereal, toast…’

  Ah, the two blandest breakfasts I can name; that’s not exactly going to inspire her to eat, is it? But I haven’t had time to riffle through all the cupboards to see what else there is.

  ‘I’ll grab something at school,’ she says.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Erm, yeah,’ she replies. ‘Stop being weird.’

  ‘OK, well, I’ll get Henry something, get dressed and we’ll get going,’ I tell her.

  ‘I’m totally walking,’ she informs me with a semi-scowl. ‘You look so embarrassing.’

  Wow, I can’t believe she actually talks to Emma like this – and Emma must let her get away with it. Unbelievable. Can you tell your own teenage kids to fuck off or is that considered some kind of child abuse? Because it would be on the tip of my tongue if I wasn’t trying to pass myself off as my sister. If Emma takes this from a teenager, she really won’t be having a fun time in prison, even if she is in some low-security rich-person prison. I can’t help but wonder how she’s getting on.

  ‘OK,’ I say, leaving it at that.

  ‘Mum, before I go, don’t freak out, OK?’ she starts, and I am kind of freaking out, but only because it sounds like she’s about to tell me something that is going to need some actual parenting, and I don’t have a clue where to begin with that. I can’t even find a box of cereal in, frankly, the smartest, most efficient kitchen that has ever existed.

  ‘OK,’ I say. I’m saying OK quite a lot for someone who isn’t at all OK.

  Millie steps down from the stool and steps out from behind the kitchen island.

  ‘Cute skirt,’ I tell her, noticing the blue and green plaid mini she’s paired with her navy school jumper.

  Millie goes to the same private secondary school I went to – Hammond Hall – where you can basically wear whatever you want, providing you wear a school-branded jumper or something similar.

  ‘You’re not freaking out about it,’ she points out.

  ‘It looks fab,’ I say, but then I suddenly realise that maybe Emma wouldn’t want her wearing such a short skirt, so maybe I shouldn’t have signed off on it.

  Millie sighs dramatically.

  ‘Don’t try and pretend you’re cool,’ she says before grabbing her bag and walking out.

  As she passes through the doorway, she meets Henry, who she pretty much shoves out of the way.

  I frown. I might have been a horrible teenager, of sorts, but I was never like that.

  ‘OK, kid, breakfast,’ I say. ‘Cereal combos…’

  ‘Today I want Coco Pops, Weetos and…’ he thinks for a moment ‘… Krave.’

  OK, now ‘cereal combos’ makes sense – he mixes a few up. Damn, that actually sounds kind of nice.

  ‘Coming right up,’ I say. ‘In fact, I think I’ll join you.’

  ‘But I thought you only ate grapefruits,’ he replies as he eagerly watches me combining the three cereals in two bowls. ‘That’s what Josh’s mum eats too, and he says it makes her grumpy all the time.’

  Seriously, Emma? Grapefruit for breakfast? I’m not taking this gig that seriously, ergh.

  ‘Well, I fancy cereal today,’ I tell him.

  We sit together, silently other than the sound of us crunching our breakfast, with Henry oblivious to the fact I’m not his mum, and me thinking about what a peculiar way this is for me to meet my nephew for the first time. He looks like a mini version of Rich but his eyes are all Emma. It’s almost spooky, looking into them; I feel as though it’s Emma watching me.

  ‘Are you looking forward to school today?’ I ask him.

  Henry goes to – just let me peep my notes – Oakley Primary – also a private school, but not one that was around back when I lived here.

  ‘A bit,’ he says with a shrug.

  That seems fair.

  ‘Well, I’ll just go get dressed and then we can get going,’ I tell him. ‘Good plan?’

  ‘Mmm,’ he says through an especially large spoonful of cereal.

  ‘OK, back in a sec,’ I tell him.

  I make the trek to the dressing room just off my bedroom, where I find a note on the dressing table from Emma telling me to help myself to her make-up and clothing. This is really generous of her, but I imagine it’s also because she thinks I’ll embarrass her with my own things.

  Luckily, I brought my own dry shampoo with me because Emma doesn’t seem to have any. I give my hair a generous spray before repeatedly wrapping my new fringe around a big round brush, to try and give it some shape, but it just keeps popping apart in the middle. Emma got the good fringe genes, it turns out, I got the… I’ll get back to you on that one.

  I notice a framed photo of her and Rich on the dressing table. God, she looks amazing. She’s in great shape, her hair is so sleek, and she and Rich look so impossibly in love – the pair of them look so good you could be convinced this is just the photo that came with the frame.

  I look at myself in the mirror. I’m a little rounder than my sister, and my hair has certainly seen better days – to be honest, I’ve got more split ends than I’ve had boyfriends, and I’ve had a fair few of those, no childhood-sweetheart husband for me.

  I don’t think I look bad, not at all – someone once mistook me for Margot Robbie in a bar, although he was pretty drunk, and probably just trying to sleep with me. But having a twin is like having a mirror that shows you what you could look like, and be like, if you really tried. Or, in my case, looking at this picture of Emma is like looking into a funhouse mirror, one of the ones that makes you look thinner.

  My phone makes a noise in my pocket so I quickly remove it, almost terrified of what it’s going to tell me.

  Set off for school now

  Shit, shit, shit. This early? I thought I had loads of time. I thought kids started at, like, nine at the earliest?

  I scrape my hair up into a messy bun on the top of my head – a very messy bun – before throwing on my own tracksuit and hurrying downstai
rs.

  ‘Come on, kid, we’re going to be late,’ I tell him.

  Henry turns off his Switch and reluctantly mobilises.

  I grab the keys from the kitchen worktop, say goodbye to Marty, and head for the car.

  Once we’re outside I notice there’s a child car seat in the back of the car around the same time I see Henry walk up to the door next to it. Do nine-year-olds have to go in those? Is that right? Sure enough, that’s the side he’s getting in on, so that’s something new I’ve learned today. I follow his lead and help him get strapped in.

  I’ve never driven a Range Rover before – because of course I haven’t – and I’m kind of amazed by just how big it feels. I knew they were big cars but I feel as if I’m driving a tank.

  I set off cautiously, trying to adapt to driving a car twice the size of my old banger, making small talk with Henry as I go.

  ‘Why are you using directions?’ he asks me.

  That’s a good question, and the answer is because I don’t know the way, and because I really didn’t think he would notice.

  ‘I’m testing out a new app,’ I tell him.

  That reply seems to satisfy him. I don’t think he’s on to me, or anything like that, I just think that nine-year-olds notice a lot more than people give them credit for, and that they ask a lot of questions.

  Outside Henry’s school is like the queue to get into Disneyland. There are cars everywhere. As we get closer to the front of the traffic, I notice that different cars are driving up different lanes, marked out with different-coloured mini cones.

  ‘Henry, wouldn’t it be funny if Mummy forgot what colour road we drive up?’ I say with a fake chuckle.

  ‘Yes,’ he replies, laughing, but not saying much else.

  I imagine this particular bit of information was in the notes on the schedule, but I didn’t have time to read the notes before we left and I can’t look now that I’m driving.

  We’re the next ones to turn onto the school driveway, which deviates two ways around a roundabout, with two lanes on each side.

  ‘What, er… what would you say to Mummy if she did that?’ I ask him.

  ‘I’d say it’s the blue ones, silly,’ he tells me, just in time for me to quickly pull into one of the right-hand lanes, because obviously the school drop-off process has to be so needlessly confusing. I drive around the roundabout, turning left before I get to the school building. But it’s only as I do that, I notice the blue cones on a different lane – the way I didn’t go. The route I’ve taken actually has purple cones, which, in my defence, do look blue, until you see them in comparison to the actual blue cones.

  ‘Sh…’ I stop myself swearing, but I hear Henry laughing behind me.

  I don’t need to panic, I just need to turn around, go back the way I came and then I’ll be back on track.

  I pull off onto what looks like a dead end, and begin reversing back onto the road I just drove up, trying to turn myself around.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Henry asks me, as someone beeps their horn at me.

  ‘I just missed our turning,’ I tell him casually, but as I try to reverse this monster of a car, to head back down the road, I realise that there’s a queue of cars wanting to get past me, all beeping their horns at me. I don’t think this is what Emma had in mind when she asked me to protect her reputation – then again, driving doesn’t exactly sound as if it was her strong suit so maybe people won’t be surprised.

  One of the high-vis drop-off attendants comes running up the road towards me.

  ‘You’re going the wrong way down a one-way system,’ she shouts at me angrily. ‘Parents are explicitly told that they have to follow the one-way, colour-coded system—’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry, I made a mistake,’ I tell her.

  Jesus Christ, she’s so angry she looks like she’s going to explode. She’s small and kind of round, and in her yellow high-vis coupled with her large, round-rimmed glasses, she looks a bit like a Minion. A really angry Minion.

  ‘Parents are explicitly told that they have to follow…’

  Oh, God, she’s just repeating herself, only twice as loud, all while I am trying to manoeuvre this humongous piece of metal out of the way of an army of angry parents. Two thoughts: one is that I will never, ever, judge Emma for having trouble parking this thing again, and two is that I really wish this woman would move because, God forbid, I run her over.

  ‘Hey, go easy on her, Lesley,’ I hear a male voice call out.

  I glance out of the window to see a man standing outside his open driver’s side door.

  ‘Parents are explicitly told…’ she starts up again.

  Does no one ever make a mistake in this village? Does she not realise that if everyone did this perfectly every single day she would be out of a job?

  ‘Stand down,’ he tells her with a playful bat of his hand. ‘She’ll struggle to move with you breathing down her neck.’

  Lesley’s shoulders drop. So does her face. She doesn’t look happy but she retreats.

  The man, who is maybe in his late thirties/early forties, smiles widely at me. He’s a good-looking fella – he’s almost got a little bit of a Robert Downey Jr thing going on – with dark hair, brown eyes and thick black rimmed glasses.

  I mouth the words ‘thank you’ at him. He just smiles and gets back in his car.

  ‘I think you’re having a bad day, Mum,’ Henry tells me.

  ‘I think you might be right,’ I reply as I finally straighten up and get back on track.

  And, somehow, I don’t think things are going to get much easier.

  7

  While some might say me waking up in a strange bed with my arms around someone I don’t remember falling asleep with might not sound all that out of character for me, it does take me by surprise for a few seconds, until I realise I’ve just woken up from a nap in Emma’s bed, and the dog I’m waking up with is an actual dog – Marty – who has taken it upon himself to spoon me while I sleep.

  Emma’s schedule certainly didn’t mention anything about day naps, but I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever felt so tired.

  I don’t know how she does it. I really, really don’t know how. What could my sister possibly have in her genetic make-up, in her system, that I don’t have? Because I am knackered already.

  Getting up at 6.30 a.m., it turns out, does not agree with me, and I certainly don’t agree with it either, but that’s what I have to do every weekday, apparently.

  I didn’t actually intend to have a proper nap, it just sort of happened. As soon as I got home, with the house to myself, I curled up on my bed – just to rest my eyes – and fell asleep. But now I’m way behind schedule so I jump up and head for the car before making my way to Buckley’s to do the shopping, which I need to get done in time to pick Henry up from school. I’m even more tired just thinking about it.

  Buckley’s is basically a supermarket except everything costs around four times as much as it does in a Tesco, but God forbid we’d have a Tesco in the village. If Tesco so much as tried to set up shop here the locals would run them out of town on day one. So, I’m here, sticking out like a sore thumb in Buckley’s, except I left home without my/Emma’s phone, so I’m pretty much freestyling it, just buying the staples, playing it safe. I’ll give it at least a week before I make them my favourite dishes, like grilled cheese sandwiches with pineapple in them – that’s always a crowd divider.

  Buckley’s is perfect. So clean and tidy. Everyone is so civilised. As I push my trolley around, barely needing to move a muscle to weave in and out of people like I often have to do in the shops I usually visit, I feel fresh out of that scene in the supermarket towards the end of The Stepford Wives – the 2004 comedy remake, not the original horror version from 1975. However, I look nothing like tall, slim, beautiful, blonde-haired Nicole Kidman – I’m a Bette Midler with a chip in my head, tops. Everyone else here seems positively perfect, and that is like something out of a horror movie for me, because you know
the classic anxiety people talk about where you’re having to give a speech in front of a bunch of people and then you realise, you’re naked? Well, I feel kind of like that now, except it would probably be less embarrassing if I were naked. I’m certainly the only one in here in Primark’s finest, and I can’t help but notice the strange looks I’m getting – although the fact I didn’t wake up too long ago, coupled with my bird’s nest hair, probably isn’t helping either.

  It’s not all bad though. To someone like me, who usually has to think about how much they are spending, this is like a dream. The feeling of walking around a supermarket, just throwing things in the trolley – branded items, foods that are typically expensive, anything and everything, straight in the trolley, because today I am Emma and Emma doesn’t need to worry about whether or not she can afford one of the pizzas in the fancy black boxes instead of the ones wrapped in plastic from the freezer – it feels amazing.

  As I browse the organic chicken nuggets in the chilled section, I hear someone calling my name – well, my sister’s name. Do you ever feel as though you’re not going to like someone based on nothing but the sound of their voice? Because this does not sound like my kind of person at all.

  ‘Emma? Oh, Emma, is that you?’

  I glance up to see two women with trolleys heading straight for me. One is a skinny blonde in her late twenties who would have WAG written all over her if her clothes didn’t already have Balenciaga printed all over them. The other is more likely in her late thirties. She has voluminous brown curls with one big streak of grey hanging down on one side of her face that must be intentional, because it looks too perfect to be natural. Her eyes are so big and round. They look almost glazed over as she stares at me, smiling the worst fake smile I have ever seen in my life. Actually, I think it might be genuine; she looks almost intensely pleased to see me…

  ‘Oh, Emma, love, are you OK?’ she asks me with a sort of playfully concerned look on her face – the kind you usually reserve for kids with bumped elbows as you offer to smack the coffee table that wronged them after they ran into it. ‘What on earth has happened? Did little Henry cut your hair while you were sleeping?’