The Secret Ingredient

by Dianne Blacklock

  Donna sighed. ‘Hm, that’s what I thought.’

  ‘What brought all this on?’ asked Toby.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ she said vaguely. ‘I was just talking with the girls today . . .’

  Toby shoved the pot drawer closed. ‘So Ross called Andie his current wife?’

  Donna’s eyes grew wide. So much for being vague. ‘How on earth did you jump to that conclusion?’

  ‘You were talking with the girls,’ he said. ‘Jess isn’t married, so that only leaves Andie, which means it had to be Ross.’

  ‘Oh.’ She should have thought of that.

  ‘God, that guy’s such a wanker,’ Toby was saying. ‘Why would he call her that?’

  Donna shrugged. ‘Well, it’s not like it’s incorrect exactly —’

  ‘Was Andie upset? What did she say?’

  ‘She wasn’t upset, we were just talking —’

  ‘The bastard’s getting ready to up stakes and move on,’ he interrupted. ‘You mark my words.’

  ‘Well, now you are jumping to conclusions,’ said Donna. ‘There’s nothing wrong with him referring to Andie as his current wife, especially as he did have another wife before her.’

  ‘How could I forget?’ he muttered.

  ‘It all happened such a long time ago, Toby, you can’t keep hating Ross forever just because he left his wife. He did leave her for Andie, after all.’

  But Toby could never think badly of Andie. He had been best mates with her brother, Brendan, right through school, ever since kindergarten. Brendan and Andie were the closest brother and sister Toby had ever known. Although she was older, if only by a year, Brendan was fiercely protective of her, always threatening guys twice his size if they were ogling her, because she did get ogled quite a bit. On the other hand, Andie was forever getting Brendan out of scrapes and covering up for him. Not that he would ever have really copped it from his parents – he was their beloved only son, their golden boy. Everyone made excuses for Brendan, and allowances for him, and in the absence of consequences he became a little too fearless for his own good. So when he saw a fight break out outside a nightclub, he decided he was the one who would be able to calm everyone down. But instead he was king-hit, his head cracking on the gutter as he went down. He died before an ambulance made it to the scene. Of course, Andie blamed herself for leaving the nightclub earlier without him. But Toby was there, he knew Andie had tried to talk him into going home with her, but Brendan was not easily persuaded, even by his adored sister. So Toby told her it would be all right, he’d stay with him. And he did, until the end, until his best friend died in his arms.

  Toby and Andie shared the loss keenly and a tight bond had formed between them; so much so that when Toby first started dating Donna, she thought he was in love with Andie, and she said as much to him. He was horrified, and a little grossed out. He didn’t think of Andie that way, he insisted, she was like a sister to him. And she could do no wrong in his eyes. So Ross was a cheating bastard, but Andie was completely innocent – it wasn’t her fault that the love of her life turned out to be married, and anyway, he was the one who left his wife, Andie didn’t do anything wrong. Donna tried to argue Ross’s side – he may have been married, but apparently they were only staying together for the sake of the kids, and appearances. Then he found the love of his life . . . wasn’t he as entitled as Andie to pursue it?

  Toby didn’t see it like that. He tolerated Ross. But he had never grown to like him, and certainly not to trust him.

  ‘He left one wife,’ Toby was saying, ‘what’s to stop him leaving another when he’s ready to upgrade again. Like I keep telling you, a leopard —’

  ‘— can’t change its spots,’ Donna chanted. That was Toby’s favourite saying about Ross. ‘Except that’s a myth, you know.’

  ‘Since when?’ he asked.

  ‘Since there was a study recently that showed it’s not true.’

  He looked doubtful.

  ‘Seriously,’ Donna went on, ‘I heard it on the radio. They found that leopards can change their spots depending on their environment. They adapt. So isn’t it possible that Ross has adapted to his life with Andie?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Because,’ he said grumpily.

  Donna smiled, drawing close to him. ‘You know, Toby, sometimes I think you want them to break up.’

  He didn’t have anything to say to that.

  ‘And imagine how devastated Andie would be?’ she said. ‘If you care so much about her, and you don’t want to see her hurt, it seems to me you should be doing everything you can to support them both, rather than finding fault with Ross all the time.’

  Toby sighed deeply and leaned his forehead against hers. ‘You can be so annoying, you know that?’

  ‘Why?’ she protested. ‘I thought that made a lot of sense.’

  ‘It does,’ he agreed. ‘That’s what’s so annoying.’

  Friday

  ‘Mu-um, Andie’s on the phone.’

  The journalist clicked off her recorder. Joanna smiled apologetically. ‘Sorry about that.’

  Brooke burst through the doorway, waving the phone. ‘Oh, crap. Sorry, I didn’t realise you were with someone.’

  ‘That’s okay, sweetheart,’ said Joanna. ‘This is my daughter, Brooke.’

  ‘Ah, the one who’s following in Mum’s footsteps, I hear,’ she said. ‘You’re in your third year of architecture, right?’

  ‘Yeah . . .’ Brooke said warily.

  ‘Darling, this is the journalist from Design magazine,’ Joanna explained. ‘Rachelle King.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Brooke nodded. ‘You’re interviewing Mum about the businesswoman award thing?’

  ‘Designing Woman of the Year,’ Rachelle corrected with a smile.

  ‘Did you say Andie wants to speak to me?’ Joanna asked Brooke.

  ‘It’s just about Sunday, I’ll say you’ll call back. Sorry for the interruption,’ said Brooke, slipping from the room.

  ‘My first grandchild’s christening is this Sunday,’ Joanna turned back to the journalist. ‘Lauren’s baby, she’s my eldest.’

  ‘And her husband is James, right?’ said Rachelle, flicking through her notes.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And your son is Matthew.’

  ‘Yes, he’s nineteen, in his first year at uni.’

  Rachelle looked up at her. ‘So Andy is . . . ?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Joanna, smiling. ‘Andie is actually Andrea, she’s Ross’s current wife.’

  ‘You mean your ex-husband, Ross?’

  ‘The one and only.’

  ‘How long has he been remarried?’

  ‘About as long as we’ve been divorced. He left me for Andie.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Rachelle appeared momentarily lost for words. ‘But you’re on speaking terms with her . . . with Andie?’

  ‘Of course,’ Joanna dismissed. ‘I used to despise the girl, but time heals, as they say. I did the work, learned a lot about myself, my marriage . . . moved on.’

  Rachelle clicked the recorder back on. ‘What did you learn?’

  Joanna cast her mind back; it was such a long time ago now, and so much had changed. At first she had hated poor Andie, and she was just a kid, Lauren was older now than she was at the time. But Joanna was the woman scorned. All their friends sided with her – Ross was the one having the affair, the full weight of blame rested on his shoulders. Joanna got off scot-free, and she got all the sympathy. But she had no self-esteem. Her whole identity became that of the victim, the martyr. If she’d kept going down that path she was destined to become a bitter, lonely old woman, she was never going to grow or change. She had to fess up at some point and accept that she had let the side down as well. The marriage had become stale and she had to accept her share of the responsibility for that. Of course she had her defence – she was looking after the kids, her life was consumed by their needs – but in reality, they both had just
stopped trying. When you’re married that long, you think it’s going to take care of itself.

  Joanna stirred as Rachelle cleared her throat. She was still waiting for an answer, but Joanna had forgotten the question.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘What was it that you asked?’

  ‘You were saying that you learned a lot about yourself through the breakdown of your marriage. I was wondering how you achieved that?’

  ‘Well, therapy, of course. When you’re of a certain age, in a certain income bracket, you’re going to take the therapy route eventually.’

  ‘And it helped?’

  Joanna nodded. ‘It did, just to have someone to talk to who didn’t let me get away with bullshit, basically. There wasn’t any blinding moment of insight. My therapist just made me tell the truth. And the truth was that the marriage had died, buried under the weight of the kids and the mortgage and the bills, Ross’s job, his long hours. We were no different to most of the couples we knew at our age. That weariness you feel around each other. The eye-rolling when you hear the same old jokes, the TV in the bedroom so you don’t have to talk to each other. The “can’t be botheredness” of it all.’

  ‘So you forgave your husband?’

  ‘I don’t know that forgave is the right term,’ said Joanna. ‘I still think it’s disappointing that the father of my children could only leave on the arms of someone else – it shows a lack of courage at the very least. But I do forgive her . . . Andie,’ she added to clarify. ‘Like I said, I hated her at first, but that was just a waste of emotion. What did she know? She was still in her twenties, and Ross, oh, he can turn on the charm all right. He would have had her believing she was saving his life. What girl’s head isn’t going to be turned by talk like that?’ She paused. ‘Anyway, eventually it became clear that the kids were spending more time with her than their father – he was still working very long hours – and they were torn, out of loyalty to me. Someone had to be the adult. I pretty quickly worked out Andie wasn’t a scheming jezebel, she was just a bit naive, really. She was actually a nice person, I liked her. And I wouldn’t be in her shoes for anything.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t put it past Ross to do it again.’

  ‘You mean leave her for another woman?’

  He’d done it once, and it worked out, why wouldn’t he try it again when things went stale? Which they inevitably would. From what Joanna could see, Ross hadn’t learned any other way to deal with conflict, so if they hit a rough patch, she didn’t imagine him trying to weather it.

  But she just waved her hand. ‘What do I know? They’ll probably grow old together. I only know if it was me, I would never be able to trust him again. But Andie’s not me.’ Joanna looked directly at Rachelle, becoming serious. ‘Hey, that’s all off the record, right?’

  ‘Oh, of course, if you say so. It is an interesting angle to your story, though.’

  ‘You can use the angle that I picked myself up after my divorce and made a new life, success is the best revenge, all that. But don’t mention Andie, all right? That wouldn’t be fair to her.’

  Joanna could afford to be generous now. Besides, she wasn’t exactly proud of some of the things she had done back then.

  ‘So,’ said Rachelle, ‘after the divorce, that was when you started the business?’

  ‘Not right away,’ said Joanna. ‘I had to go back to work, and my qualifications were out of date. A degree in architecture is what it is, but the industry had moved on and I’d been left behind. Plans and drawings were all being done on CAD programs and I didn’t have any experience. So I had to find a way to use the skills I did have.’

  ‘From your original degree?’

  She nodded. ‘My head was still full of design ideas, and I believe I was good at communicating them. I single-handedly supervised both our home purchases and the subsequent renovations, Ross was just too busy,’ she said. ‘What I learned at uni was only a part of it. Being a mother of three married to such a busy executive meant I had to be organised, manage my time, manage my kids and their schools and their activities, keep track of dozens of details, and juggle dozens of demands, often on a daily basis. It seemed to me that I had all the skills for project management, but I couldn’t get anyone to take me seriously without formal qualifications or workplace experience. So I decided there was only one way to go, I started my own business.’

  ‘And you’ve never looked back?’

  ‘No, I never have.’ A small smile formed on her lips. ‘I guess you could say that Ross leaving me for another woman was the best thing that ever happened to me.’

  Paddington

  ‘Andie?’

  ‘Short for Andrea,’ Tasha explained to the hairdresser. She had Gia today, she liked Gia, she was a good listener. Much better than . . . whatsername – Alicia? Alanna? Whoever she’d had last week. That girl couldn’t stop talking about herself.

  ‘She’s his current wife. He was married once before as well.’

  ‘That doesn’t bother you?’

  ‘Why should it? The first wife is ancient history now. She was old-school, you know, stayed at home, had the babies . . . Boring! Ross totally outgrew her. He’s so dynamic, so young for a forty-nine-year-old. I mean, I don’t even think of him as that age, he’s, like, only a couple of years younger than my dad. But he’s, like, a whole other generation.’

  ‘Just tilt your head forward,’ said Gia. ‘That’s it, great . . . So he’s forty-nine, did you say? That’s not so old, not for a guy.’

  ‘Exactly. For a guy, it’s like his prime,’ Tasha agreed.

  ‘So what went wrong with the current wife?’

  ‘Well, Ross totally believed this “Andie” was his soulmate, but she’s turned out to be worse than the first. She used to be ambitious, it was one of the things that attracted him to her, he told me. Apparently she was this amazing chef with loads of potential, but now she just works in a shop.’

  ‘Really? What kind of shop?’

  ‘It’s a deli, gourmet foodie place. You know the kind of thing. Ross had to buy it for her to give her something to do.’

  ‘All right for some.’

  ‘I know, right?’ said Tasha. It was so good to talk to someone who totally got it. ‘It gets worse. She absolutely vowed to Ross that she never wanted kids. That was the agreement when they got married. And now she’s gone and changed her mind, just like that.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes,’ Tasha confirmed. ‘I mean, how could you do that to a guy? Totally sucks. He’s shit-scared she’s going to trick him, stop taking the pill, and it’s not like he can wear a condom without her knowing.’

  ‘So they’re still having sex?’

  ‘Oh, hardly ever,’ she dismissed. ‘He’s trying to avoid it as much as he can without her getting suspicious, you know? He tells her he’s working late, or he’s at the gym, when he’s with me. And he’s not drinking at the moment, so he’s got his wits about him.’

  ‘Sounds totes stressful.’

  ‘Tell me about it. I just say to him, I say, Ross, baby, walk away. You can move in with me. But you know, it’s not that easy. The first wife sucked him dry, and it’s taken him ten years to get back on his feet. If he leaves the current Mrs Corcoran, well, he’ll get screwed all over again.’

  ‘Didn’t he protect himself this time around? Like, he didn’t put the shop in her name, did he?’

  ‘He didn’t have a choice,’ Tasha insisted. ‘They had to put it in her name because of taxes and that, even though he bankrolled the whole business. The thing is, it’s not like he planned for this to happen. He’s so not like that, he’s way too trusting. So she’ll get the business, as well as half of everything else.’

  Gia frowned, looking at Tasha’s reflection in the mirror. ‘But wouldn’t he get half of her assets as well? I think that’s the way it works.’

  ‘Not according to Ross,’ Tasha maintained. ‘Like with his first wife, she got way more
than half of everything, yet she’s this kick-arse property developer, making a fortune.’

  ‘The first wife?’ said Gia. ‘I thought you said she was old-school, stayed at home with the kids?’

  What was this now, an inquisition?

  ‘Well, yeah, while she had Ross to support her she stayed home and did nothing. Seriously, all he’s ever done is try to look after the people he loves, and they’ve taken advantage of him, again and again. I say to him, it’s a wonder you want to take the risk again with me.’

  Gia just nodded as she combed a hank of Tasha’s hair upwards. Was she even listening?

  ‘But then he says he’s never met anyone like me,’ Tasha said loudly. ‘He’s never felt so alive. He said he feels like he’s twenty years younger and all his life’s ahead of him. Because of me,’ she emphasised.

  ‘Wow . . .’

  ‘I know, right. Wow,’ she said.

  ‘So do you get to spend much time together?’

  ‘Enough, for now,’ said Tasha, inspecting her nails. ‘I’m seeing him tonight, as a matter of fact. He told his wife he’s going to the gym, but he has to be home later for something or other,’ she dismissed. ‘So he’s coming to my place for a drink, and, you know . . . whatevs,’ Tasha smiled suggestively.

  ‘Hm, doesn’t that feel like . . .’ Gia seemed to be searching for a word.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, you know,’ she shrugged, ‘a booty call?’

  Tasha was beginning to think she was better off with whatsername. Gia had a weird take on things. Envy did strange things to people.

  ‘Ross’s situation puts limitations on him that have nothing to do with how he feels about me,’ Tasha insisted, reciting the exact words Ross had said to her so many times. ‘And yes, we’ll have sex when he comes over later, but that doesn’t make it a booty call. I want it as much as he does, believe me. Have you ever had sex with an older man, Gia?’

  ‘You mean much older?’

  Tasha didn’t like her tone.

  ‘It’s amazing,’ she said. ‘Being with an older man – not that I think of Ross as older, like I said – but it’s so different to being with a guy your own age. They’re so into themselves, sex is just a way for them to get off. They don’t think about your needs.’