Faking It

by Portia MacIntosh

  ‘Making a coffee,’ Marco says – just stating a fact, or is it a hint?

  ‘Yes, would you like one?’ I ask, although I really hope he says no, because I haven’t quite figured out how to use it yet.

  ‘I’d love one,’ he says. ‘Thank you.’

  Ah, just wonderful.

  ‘Coming right up,’ I say. ‘Take a seat on the sofa.’

  ‘It’s OK, I’ll sit here, so we can chat,’ he says as he sits on one of the island stools.

  I really don’t need an audience. Things are going to seem off if I can’t work my own coffee machine.

  ‘So, what can I do for you?’ I ask.

  I pick up one of the coffee pods and click it into place. Then, with one random push of a button, the machine springs to life. Oh, thank God.

  ‘A couple of things,’ he starts, tapping his hands on the worktop in front of him, almost like a drumroll. ‘First of all, are we still car-sharing for the boys’ rugby away game?’

  ‘We certainly are,’ I tell him with a completely unjustified confidence. ‘If that’s what we said we’d do, that’s what we’ll do.’

  ‘Great,’ he replies. ‘We appreciate the lift. Will 7 a.m. give us enough time?’

  7 a.m.… 7 a.m.! Christ, I imagine this is going to be a weekend thing, and so setting off at 7 a.m. means getting up way earlier than the 6.30 a.m. weekday Beach Boys wake-up. I was hoping I’d get to lie in on weekends – well, I wasn’t just hoping, I was relying on it to recharge.

  ‘It sure will,’ I reply, safe in the knowledge Emma will have left me detailed instructions and reminders in the Smarty app. ‘I’ll let you know if anything changes.’

  I can’t help but smile at how well I’m doing. Wow, I am so convincing, even I’m impressed. Perhaps my mum was right all along; if I just applied myself, blah blah blah…

  ‘Great, thanks’ he says, as I hand him his coffee. ‘The other thing – and the main reason I’m here – is to borrow the skimmer you said you’d lend me.’

  ‘The skimmer,’ I repeat back to him, trying not to seem at all like I don’t have a fucking clue what a skimmer is. What is a skimmer? What room would it even be in? Is it a kitchen thing? ‘Of course, I’ll just get it for… oh, my phone is just vibrating, excuse me.’

  I pick up my phone – that wasn’t vibrating at all – from the worktop and try to look as though I’m reading some kind of important message, but I’m actually frantically searching online to find out what a strimmer is.

  I look up from a page of what appears to be garden tools and notice Marco laughing at me. I feel frozen on the spot.

  ‘What?’ I ask him. Shit, I feel as though he can see straight through me. He can’t though, can he? Of course not…

  ‘Are you looking it up on your phone?’ he asks with a laugh.

  Shit, maybe he can see straight through me.

  ‘Erm, no,’ I insist, snorting out a laugh to show just how ridiculous I find the concept. I quickly lock my phone and place it down on the worktop in front of me. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Well, you won’t mind showing me what’s on your phone screen, then, will you?’ he says. He looks so smug right now.

  ‘Except what’s in my phone is private,’ I remind him. ‘Didn’t your wife teach you better than to go through a lady’s phone?’

  ‘I don’t have a wife,’ he says with a smile. ‘I thought you knew that?’

  Shit, he and Josh’s mum must not be married, but Henry did say they were always all over each other, so I’d still be ruling out the two of us falling head over heels in love with each other, if I hadn’t done so already, because I kind of want to punch him in the face right now for prodding at me like this.

  ‘Something seems off,’ he says slowly, still smiling ever so slightly.

  Right, I need to do something, so I’ll show him my phone screen, but I’ll quickly swipe away the evidence before I turn the screen towards him.

  ‘OK, fine, I’ll show you my phone,’ I tell him.

  I confidently and casually unlock my screen, to turn it and show him, but he’s around to my side of the island in a flash. I swipe it away, but I suspect it’s too late.

  ‘I said skimmer, not strimmer,’ he says with a laugh. ‘You’re so busted.’

  ‘OK, you need to leave,’ I tell him, trying not to sound as if I’m panicking. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  I usher him into the hallway, towards the door.

  ‘Hang on, let’s talk about it,’ he says.

  ‘Nope, I’m not talking to you any more, you’re harassing me,’ I tell him. ‘My husband would be horrified…’

  ‘Your husband would, would he?’ he says, almost laughing, stopping dead at the front door. ‘I don’t think he’s your husband at all, just like they’re not your kids.’

  ‘Oh yeah, how’d you figure that one out?’ I ask him.

  I’m trying to sound as if I think he’s being ridiculous but, also, it would be really helpful to know how he figured that one out because he obviously has.

  ‘The boys don’t even play rugby,’ he informs me. ‘And Lord knows what a skimmer is.’

  I feel my jaw drop, ever so slightly, but I’ll bet I’ve got a big, dumb look on my face that is a lot more obvious.

  ‘Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me, for now,’ he teases me. ‘I’ll get going. But let me know when you fancy that chat.’

  I open the door and gesture for him to walk through it.

  ‘Wow, Josh has a real dick for a dad,’ I say, to myself, so that he can hear. Well, he already knows I’m not Emma, so I can’t resist saying something.

  Marco just heads off back down the driveway.

  ‘I’m not Josh’s dad,’ he says as he walks away. ‘I’m his uncle.’

  Oh.

  A notification grabs my attention. I scowl at my phone instead of Marco and see the first reminder I actually set myself: my hair appointment. I’m going to get my hair sorted so that it isn’t quite so tragic, and to do a better job of looking like my sister, because Lord knows I need the extra help now.

  How the hell did Marco rumble me? I know how he confirmed his suspicions but how was he on to me in the first place? I just need to hope he doesn’t tell anyone, because can you imagine if I failed on the second day? That’s exactly what my sister will be expecting me to do, and it’s exactly what my mum would expect me to do if she were still here. Nope, I can’t let that happen. I’ll just have to give that Marco a taste of his own medicine, get some dirt on him too; that way he can’t tell anyone.

  I want to do a good job at being Emma, I really do, but perhaps Ella needs to rear her head, just for an afternoon, just to level the playing field with Marco a little. Then it’s straight back into mum mode, I promise.

  10

  Harris, Emma’s hairdresser, is screaming. Actually screaming, like a little girl in a haunted house. I’m talking a proper, shrill, lengthy, blood-curdling scream, and it’s all because he’s just clapped eyes on me.

  ‘Emma… no… no… what have you… how have you…? Oh, Emma,’ he rants without taking a breath.

  Harris has an accent I can’t place and one hell of an angry look on his face. His own hair is longish and perfectly wavy, and so glossy the light bounces right off it. I suppose that’s one of the perks of being a hairdresser, having perfect hair – I’d be worried if he didn’t.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I say innocently.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he says, not so successfully mimicking my accent. ‘What the hell have you done to your hair since I last saw you?’

  ‘Erm, nothing, I don’t think,’ I say, keeping up the act. ‘I maybe used a different conditioner… maybe the Dyson malfunctioned… it’s hard to say.’

  ‘You look like you’ve used a de-conditioner,’ he tells me. ‘And the only Dyson you’ve been using on that hair is the bloody vac.’

  I feel my eyes widen. So much for the customer always being right. I thought I was coming here for a haircut, not a dre
ssing-down.

  ‘Well, if you could just—’

  ‘Who is he?’ Harris asks.

  ‘Who is who?’ I reply, confused.

  ‘You’ve been with someone else – someone useless – someone who has destroyed your fringe,’ he says. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, just sit in the chair. I can’t even look at you any more. I need to put this right. Immediately.’

  I allow his assistant to tie me up in a silky black gown before I sit down in Harris’s chair, low-key fearing for my life.

  Harris mutters to himself as he examines my ends. It’s almost funny, watching him short-circuit over how on earth I could have shagged the ends of my hair so terribly since he saw Emma last. It’s years of cheap bleach, multiple hairdressers and scorching-hot hair straighteners that are actually to blame, but Harris thinks I’ve had some kind of incident, and/or cheated on him with a lesser stylist.

  ‘The most disgusting fringe I’ve ever seen in my life,’ he mutters to himself.

  ‘It just keeps parting,’ I tell him. ‘Just… anything you can do to make it look nice.’

  ‘Bridget,’ he calls out. ‘Bridget!’

  He’s near hysterical by the time he has to call her name a second time.

  Bridget appears with a wrinkle in her nose. It’s like no one here can stand looking at my hair for too long; it offends every inch of them, so much so they can’t hide it.

  ‘Bridget, get me basically every bottle of Olaplex we have,’ he tells her. ‘And a huge glass of white wine.’

  ‘Oh, I’m driving, I’m fine for a drink, thanks,’ I tell him.

  ‘It’s not for you,’ he replies solemnly.

  Harris messes with my hair in his fingertips before puffing air from his cheeks.

  ‘OK, so we’re going to treat it, try and sort the condition out, and we’re going for more blonde highlights, tone the brassy ends into something that doesn’t make me cry and, as for the fringe, just… leave it with me, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ I reply. I daren’t say much else.

  After what seems hours in the chair I look like a different woman. Not myself. Not my sister. A whole new person.

  ‘Oh my gosh,’ I say as I look in the mirror and run my hand through my hair. ‘It’s so soft… it’s so soft I can hardly feel it…’

  My hair is the brightest, lightest blonde it has ever been. Despite having length taken off, it somehow looks longer, and it looks so much healthier, and it feels amazing! As for my disastrous DIY fringe, it’s a thing of the past. I now have a super-stylish curtain fringe – apparently the key to my having a good-looking fringe was to have even more cut, purposefully parted in the middle, gradually blending it into the hair that hangs at the sides of my face. Think Tahani Al-Jamil from The Good Place, even though I’m way more of an Eleanor, and I’m definitely living in the Bad Place at the moment.

  ‘Do me a favour,’ Harris says as he takes the payment – which is loads, but he’s earned every penny. ‘Whatever you did, don’t do it again, OK?’

  ‘I won’t, I promise,’ I tell him confidently, because I’m safe in the knowledge I’ll never see him again.

  It turns out the salon is owned by Harris and his wife, Bernice. Bernice, who gave me a spectacular set of acrylic nails while I waited for my peroxide to take effect, also asked me if I wanted my Botox topping up. I mean, she offered because she said I’m looking more wrinkly than usual, but that’s not the point, she said ‘topping up’, which means that Emma has been having some chemical intervention to keep looking so young. I don’t feel half as bad for looking so rough around the edges now – well, maybe I looked rough before I got here today but now, wow, I can’t believe this is my hair. It’s so beautiful I decided not to take up the offer of Botox (but if I’m being honest, I’m way too scared of it going wrong to give it a go anyway).

  Spurred on by my new look – which is new for both me and Emma – I decide that what I need is to buy some new clothes. Something that incorporates both of our personalities – the part of Emma that wishes she had the confidence to wear sexy designer clothing and the part of me that wishes I could afford them. What Emma has is nice, really nice, but what she needs are a few pieces with a bit of edge, with some extra style. Even if I don’t dare wear them now, at least I can leave them in her wardrobe for her, for when she gets back. Or maybe I’ll slip into something slutty and go pick up the kids from school, because if you can’t look sexy for the school run, when can you? You never know when you’re going to bump into a hot dad – or a crazy uncle, like Marco, who I’m going to have to talk to at some point, before he blows my cover. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that time bomb but, now that I’ve got my sexy new hairdo, maybe I can finally use my sexuality for good, huh?

  11

  I top up my bright red lipstick in the rear-view mirror as I wait for Henry. I swear, every other child appears to have rushed outside and they’re halfway home by now, but not Henry… The area clears of kids and parents but there’s still no sign of him at all.

  Safe in the knowledge that I’m not going to bump into Marco, I get out of the car and head for the school entrance.

  It’s a modern building – practically space-age looking. I can’t even imagine what primary school must be like these days; it must be so hi-tech, nothing like when I was at school. I don’t think I touched a school computer until I was in year 4, or something like that, and I must have been a teenager before we were using the Internet. I am that age where things were just starting to change, so Internet browsing at secondary school was pretty open. These days I’ll bet the filters are so strict, you can’t get away with anything – I doubt you’d be able to sit on MSN Messenger all day, like I used to (not that MSN Messenger even exists any more).

  I’m approaching the door when a twenty-something woman in a tight white shirt and a black pencil skirt shuffles out with Henry in tow.

  ‘Ah, Mrs Cooper, I was just coming to find you,’ she says. ‘The deputy head would like to see you about Henry.’

  I thought this was supposed to be the good child!

  ‘Oh, OK,’ I say. ‘And the deputy head is…?’

  ‘In his office,’ she says. I must be staring at her blankly. ‘A left, to the end of the corridor, then a left again.’

  ‘Right, OK, erm…’

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on Henry,’ she tells me.

  I look at him as I pass him, hoping he’ll give me some indication of why I’m being summoned, but he’s nine years old, he has no idea how to convey a variety of signals with his eyes alone, although he does look puzzled by my new look.

  I wander down the corridor, until I happen upon the deputy head’s office. His name is on the door: Christian Clegg. At least I’m going in knowing his name.

  Mr Clegg’s door has a big glass window in it, which he’s covered from the inside with black paper to give him some privacy. It creates a sort of mirror on the back of the door, and when I catch sight of my hair again, I can’t help but admire it. It just doesn’t look like my hair, and I could never have afforded an outfit like this – I can’t stop looking at myself, not because I think I’m some super babe, but just because I really do look so different, and I feel different too. I wasn’t exactly lacking in confidence before, but my new hair makes me feel kind of invincible.

  I knock on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ Mr Clegg calls out.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ I say as I enter his office.

  He flashes me a bemused grin, probably because I just said that like I recognised him, because I actually do, but of course Emma would recognise him.

  ‘Hello, Emma, how’s things?’ he asks. ‘Come in, sit down.’

  Christian Clegg is the hot dad I saw yesterday, when I had my drop-off disaster – he’s the one who stood up for me. And now he’s talking to me as if he knows me, like we already have a friendly rapport, so he and Emma must be on good terms.

  ‘I’m doing great, thank you, how are you?’ I ask as I take a seat at the messy desk opposite h
im.

  ‘Oh, you know, knackered, bored out of my skull this afternoon, frustrated from trying to get ten-year-olds to read lines of dialogue from Macbeth – the joys of being a drama teacher in a primary school,’ he says with a smile. ‘You’ve changed your hair – it suits you.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ I say as I self-consciously run a hand through my hair, because apparently having confidence in your new look vanishes the second someone compliments you on it.

  His desk is a mess of papers, wrappers and no less than three coffee cups. There’s a framed picture of him and a little boy, who looks around Henry’s age, so he must have a child that goes here, as well as being the deputy head.

  ‘I just wanted to see if everything was OK with Henry,’ he starts, snapping into teacher mode.

  ‘Oh, yes, he’s fine,’ I insist as casually as I can. I’m sure he is?

  ‘Well, it was most unlike him, but he fell fast asleep in English today, which is usually his favourite subject. His teacher asked him why he was so tired and he said he was up until 3 a.m. playing Animal Crossing…’

  I laugh theatrically – perhaps too theatrically. I imagine Christian sees better acting from the kids.

  ‘Oh, that boy,’ I say, laughing still. ‘Such an imagination. No, no, Mr Clegg, of course he wasn’t playing games all night. I put him to bed, as I always do, tucked him in, watched him fall asleep – I even prod him, to make sure he is actually asleep and not faking.’

  OK, first of all, I thought I was just supposed to send him to bed, not actually put him to bed, and second of all the prodding thing sounded like a great parent-type thing to say in my head, but out loud it sounded completely weird.

  ‘Call me Christian,’ he insists with a laugh. Emma must already be on first name terms with him. ‘Well, don’t worry, I didn’t think it would be true. I know what a fantastic mum you are. I remember Calvin doing something similar once – of course, he wasn’t sleeping properly because it was while his mum and I were divorcing.’