by Cate Kendall
‘Fine, lovey, how are you?’ Liz returned the butterfly graze.
‘So busy, I can’t believe this shop thing is actually going to happen. Thanks, sweetie,’ she took the skinny latte from Mim and fixed her grey-green eyes on Liz.
‘What sort of things will you stock?’ Liz asked, as she made herself comfortable on Mim’s chocolate-brown leather couches.
‘Lots of gorgeous loveliness. Retro pieces, vintage things, all with a contemporary edge, but definitely with a design flair,’ Monique answered, stretching out her leg to admire her new boots again.
Mim placed a plate of biscotti on the coffee table and sat down. ‘That’s so fab. How are you fitting it all in with the children?’
Monique was seriously in line for a supermother award, or maybe some extended care at a mental facility. She’d been a stay-at-home mum since her first child, Mitchell, was born and Sienna had followed two years later, but now with her retail project she had returned to full-time work and the guilt was making her overcompensate at home.
‘It’s working so far,’ Monique said, crossing her fingers. ‘I’ve set up a parenting timetable and it seems to be functioning quite successfully. I do reading twice a week at school, I have thirty minutes of structured together time with each child before their bedtime, a shared bedtime story ritual, and we like to fit in blocks of unstructured time if we can, just to allow for spontaneity.’ Even as she was saying it Monique was looking for flaws in her plan, wishing she could do better and hoping her kids wouldn’t end up in therapy in twenty years’ time – like their mum.
‘And while they’re at school I sort out the shop. It’s just a matter of juggling, I guess.’
‘Oh I know that one,’ Mim cried. ‘All my balls seem to be in the air all the time!’
They laughed. Liz eyed off the biscotti, extended then withdrew her hand. ‘Oh I can’t, they look so naughty – but fabulous,’ she said skimming her hand over her greyhound-thin highs. ‘Oh, Mim, I just remembered,’ she said, looking up from the biscotti with a start, ‘I heard some playground gossip from the Car Park Mafia today.’
‘What?’ Mim said, looking over.
Monique stopped admiring her new boots, this sounded tasty.
‘LJ is furious with you, apparently,’ Liz said.
‘Me? Oh, shit, that’s all I need. Why?’
‘She is mad that you had the idea for the very best stall at the fete. She’s fuming. Hortense says she’s trying to do an aggressive takeover and take it on for herself,’ Liz explained. ‘I spoke to Hortense at drop-off.’
‘But that’s stupid! It’s only a few of us girls with espresso machines, for heaven’s sake. She can have it if it means that much to her!’ Mim said in disgust.
‘Oh, don’t do that, Mim,’ Monique protested. ‘We’re all going in on your stall with you. I don’t want to spend the day with LJ – I’ll get toxic shock syndrome!’
‘Why can’t she just think up a different stall?’ Mim asked. ‘She’s totally over-reacting.’
‘Of course she is. Don’t worry about it, it’ll all blow over by Saturday,’ Monique placated her friend.
‘Yes, of course, you’re right. I can’t help feeling nervous though – she’s just so … scary!’
Everyone murmured in agreement.
‘Are Ellie and Tiff coming today?’ Monique asked.
‘Yah! As if they’d miss it, they’d be too worried we’d talk about them,’ Mim laughed. ‘But I am so worried about poor Tiffany. Did you hear about Cliff’s performance at Sophie’s birthday party?’
The other two had missed the party – Monique had been in Hong Kong on a buying trip and Liz had been on one of her mysterious outings.
‘I heard about the OTT present, a mini-Mercedes. Good God, what will they give her for her eighteenth, at this rate she’ll have everything!’ Monique sniffed.
‘Well, that’s not all.’ Mim told them about the Fairy Fanny incident.
‘Oh no, that’s shocking. Did you tell her?’ asked Liz.
Mim frowned. ‘No, I didn’t, and I’m in a bit of a quandary about what to do.’
‘He is such a sleazebag, so creepy. I can’t stand the way he grabs my butt when he says hello,’ Monique shuddered. ‘Surely she must know her husband is a complete lech!’
‘Well you’d think she would,’ Liz reminded the girls. ‘Tiffany was his affair, remember, He ditched his first wife for her, so she really has first-hand evidence that he is a complete dirtbag.’
‘I don’t think she recognised it for what it was at the time – love is blind and all that,’ said Mim. ‘Maybe it’s only just dawning on her now. You should have seen the filthy glare she threw him when he arrived at Sophie’s party. I assumed it was because he hadn’t helped at all with the preparation, but now I’m thinking it must be something more. Maybe she thinks he’s having an affair.’
‘I wouldn’t put it past him,’ said Monique. ‘Did you see him looking down Ellie’s top at school sports day?’
Mim nodded. ‘Yes!! What a pig!’
‘He’ll be in a world of pain if Fairy Fanny decides to slap a sexual harassment suit on him,’ said Monique.
‘I doubt she’d do that,’ the sensible Liz said. ‘She’s cash only, so no union and also, it would create publicity and her little lucrative business is not something she’d want the ATO to find out about.’
‘So the bastard can just hit on any poor innocent girl and get away with it?’ Mim said in disgust.
‘I know,’ agreed Monique. ‘Although I reckon Fairy Fanny can look after herself, but poor Tiff. What do you think she’ll do if it’s true? I’d leave Malcolm in a heartbeat if he so much as looked at another woman. But it’s my theory that if you look after the boys at home, they won’t stray.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, you’re not still putting out once a week, are you?’ asked Mim. ‘You’re a sexpot!’
Monique smiled demurely and turned to Liz. ‘What about you, Liz, what would you do?’
‘Well,’ said Liz, ‘I’d have to be sure, you know, the evidence would need to be fairly strong, but I guess my first course of action would be to take Sebastian to marriage counselling and see if we could work it out.’
‘What about you, Mim?’ The girls turned to get Mim’s opinion. ‘What would you do?’
‘I don’t know – it’s a tricky hypothetical, isn’t it. I guess it depends on what kind of sex James is having.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Liz. ‘Sex is sex, isn’t it?’
‘Not necessarily. Obviously if he fell in love and left me for her then that’s the end of it and I’d have to move on, but if it was sex like meeting a mate for squash, then I’d probably be more lenient. I wouldn’t castrate him immediately, at any rate.’
‘Jeez, lucky James,’ commented Monique.
‘Well, don’t tell him, obviously!’ Mim said, laughing. ‘It’s not like he’s got a leave pass to screw around on me!’
The women were laughing at this when the doorbell rang.
‘Bugger,’ said Mim getting up to refresh the coffee. ‘Well that’s put a downer on that conversation!’
The doorbell rang again and Mim went to answer it.
‘Hello beautiful lady,’ Mim said to Tiffany, giving her close friend a hug and wishing she could share her pain.
‘Hi Mim,’ said Tiffany breezily. Her bouffant, blonde mane bounced about her shoulders and highlighted her recently acquired Noosa tan, which was offset by a white silver-studded denim jacket and tight white jeans.
‘Sorry I’m late, girls,’ she squeaked, throwing her arms out in greeting.
‘Tiff!’ Monique and Liz said in unison as they burst into a quick round of ‘love-your-outfit, have-you-done-something-new-with-your-hair?’ exclamations.
‘Ellie not here yet?’
‘As if,’ said Mim. ‘She’s only half an hour late, it’s too soon yet! Caffeine pick-me-up, sweetie?’ she asked, moving into the kitchen.
‘Kill for
one, darling. Can you do me a soy macchiato with low foam? My lactose intolerance is flaring again and I’ve just bloated like a pig.’
‘How was Noosa, darling?’ Monique asked. ‘Did you stay at the Sheraton again?’
‘Oh, God no. We were going to but Cliff had to cancel coming with us at the last minute – work commitments – so I said, stuff him, and booked us into a stunning house on the riverfront with a pool, and took Jana with us instead.’
‘Fabulous, take the nanny and you’ve got yourself a real holiday,’ Mim said.
‘I know, it’s a nightmare with them on my own. The kids have a grand old time, and husband usually skives off from doing anything remotely associated with parenting because apparently it’s his holiday. But for me … well, it’s just same shit, different location.’
They all nodded knowingly.
‘Did you go out much?’ asked Liz.
‘I ran into Jennifer Gowrie-Smith – unfortunately,’ Tiffany grimaced. ‘What is with that woman? She’s so pretentious.’ Tiffany sipped her coffee. ‘So I went out one night with her and her husband to Berardos. It was worth it, though. The food is absolutely divine.’
‘And how was Hastings Street?’
‘Oh, the usual, see and be seen. Aromas for coffee every morning. And as usual the place was teeming with Victorians. Although it wasn’t anywhere near as “Little Melbourne” as it is in the September hols. I did run into Carla Johnson though, just back from a cruise and off she pops to Noosa. Life’s a bitch, ain’t it?’
‘Oh, how did she find the Diamond Cruise Line?’ enquired Mim.
‘Oh who’d know, all she could do was rave about Davey the cabin boy, how hot he was, how sweet he was, what a great body he had, the tattoo on his shoulder …’ Tiffany let the sentence drift off and raised her eyebrows over her coffee cup.
The girls all squealed. ‘How would she know about the tat unless she … ohmigod, you don’t think she … but she’s married!’ squeaked Mim with barely concealed delight.
‘I don’t know anything, I’m not saying anything, but what I do know is that he was twenty-eight years old!’
‘Twenty-eight!’ The girls screeched in unison,
‘Oh Jesus, half her luck. I’m very jealous!’ said Monique, fanning herself with a napkin. ‘Look, I’ve gone all hot under the collar just thinking about it!’
As the ladies twittered and tittered and filled each other in on the latest inane gossip, Mim was suddenly struck by the shallowness of it all. When was the last time she’d had a truly deep discussion: an esoteric, spiritual, meaty dialogue with someone? She fondly thought of her uni days: hours spent over bottles of cheap red and flickering candlelight in crappy student housing, wrestling with fellow students on the questions of the cosmos. She’d been dirt poor at the time, but somehow she felt that her life had been richer.
The doorbell finally announced Ellie’s presence. ‘Greetings, gorgeous girls,’ she sang, gliding in on a cloud of Allure. She bestowed noisy air-kisses all round before seating herself regally like the rightful Queen Bee of their group and carelessly spread her designer accessories around her.
Mim couldn’t help but smile. Ellie really was a parody of herself. She took the whole society thing to the nth degree and was probably laughing on the inside the entire time. You couldn’t help but love her, no matter how pretentious she seemed.
‘Hello, Ellie, sweetie,’ said Mim. ‘Latte?’
‘Mim, darling, you life-saver, I am DYING for some caffeine stimulation! Make it a double. Liz, looking resplendent. Monique, stylish as ever. And Tiffany, what a sweet little pure white thing you’ve got going on there, love the tan.’ Ellie immediately assumed centre stage and spread her charismatic glow among them.
If anyone was to ask Mim to define the elusive X factor, Mim knew exactly what she’d say: Ellie – whatever it was she had, it was what all the minor celebs in Hollywood needed. Stylish, beautiful and with perfect white teeth, Ellie lived the golden life – and to top it all off she was actually a nice person too.
‘So what have you been up to, Ellie?’ Mim asked.
‘Oh sweetie, it’s been such a bore with Bryce away again, my bed is just too big without him.’
‘You guys are such a love story,’ Monique laughed. ‘After fifteen years, how do you do it?’
‘Just lucky, I guess,’ Ellie smiled.
‘You met him when you were modelling, didn’t you?’ Mim asked.
The Mothers’ Group had intermittently badgered Ellie to show them her modelling portfolio, but she insisted it was in storage and too difficult to find. They had to be content with the few snippets of her hey-day and the deliciously romantic details of her wonderful years spent overseas with Bryce. Although she was extremely vivacious and chatty, and could quite frankly talk the leg off an Eames chair, she remained evasive about the details of her life pre-Bryce. The other girls, self-involved with their own busy lives, didn’t seem to notice, but it always struck Mim as curious how she’d remain tight-lipped when the others would reminisce about their private schoolgirl days of hats and gloves, trams and boys.
The conversation swelled around Mim as she cradled her latte and watched Ellie carefully. She seemed her usually glowing and chatty self, but Mim had detected a slight edge to her voice in the past few weeks, a subtle shadow in her best friend’s eyes, and twice when she had questioned Ellie about it she’d been fobbed off.
‘So Mim, how’s life as a single mum?’ asked Liz.
Mim sighed. ‘Oh, the same as always really. Even when James is home it’s not like he’s ever home before bedtime or anything. I had to send him an email with a photo of Charley’s lost tooth last week.’
‘That’s crappy, Mim. Have you told him how you feel?’
‘Well, I haven’t as such. We just don’t seem to be connecting lately. Our only communication seems to be brief phone calls and emails about domestic stuff – it’s not exactly how I thought marriage would turn out.’
‘Work must be intense for him if he’s so busy. He must be under a lot of pressure – not that we care really, because we’re on your side,’ Tiffany laughed.
‘Well, absolutely. Anyway, we’ll cope,’ Mim said, rubbing absently at an invisible mark on her pants. ‘With all the retrenchments in his company he’s keeping his head down and his bum up. He leaves by 7.30 a.m. every day and never gets home before eight in the evenings.’
Liz frowned, leaning forward to pat Mim on the knee.
‘I know exactly how you feel. Remember when Sebastian got that huge job last year? I can’t believe we actually celebrated it! Sure, the money was great, but he disappeared overseas for months. He missed Hubert’s first recital and when he eventually came home he was at the piano the whole time.’
‘I remember, you were at the end of your tether,’ Tiffany sympathised.
‘What we did was to make a standing booking with a babysitter and go out together once a week on a date,’ Liz said.
Mim shot Liz a quizzical look.
‘I know what you’re thinking: why go out when you’re at home together most nights, and sometimes they’re the last person you want to be with, particularly with you feeling the way you are at the moment. But it really works. It gets him away from the desk, the phone and the television and gives you two a chance to talk. Think of all that empty space to fill in between ordering and entrée!’
Tiffany nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yes, it worked for us a couple of years ago too. You get all the boring household stuff out of the way in the car en route and then in the restaurant you discuss topics that can’t be discussed over the children’s dinner or on the weekend.’
‘So, Tiff, why did you guys stop this date routine then?’ Mim asked.
Tiffany rolled her eyes. ‘It worked fine for the first few weeks, but then he kept being called away for an emergency, and once he didn’t even show! I felt like a right twat sitting at Florentino’s by myself nibbling breadsticks.’
‘I didn’t know tha
t cosmetic orthodontists were on call,’ Mim said subtly.
‘Oh, yes, well, apparently it’s the way the whole medical profession is going now. Even a colleague of his, a plastic surgeon, had to do a house call recently when a patient’s boob job suddenly dropped during a particularly strenuous tennis match.’
‘Ohmigod, no way,’ said Mim as they all laughed – except Monique, who looked at her chest nervously.
‘Our house at Portsea has always been a great spot for romantic getaways, too, you know,’ mused Tiffany, never missing a chance to mention their new beach house.
‘God, I love Portsea, so relaxing. Have you seen the Trevallys’ new place?’ Mim asked.
‘Isn’t that in NQP?’ said Liz.
Mim looked at her enquiringly. ‘NQP?’
‘Not-Quite-Portsea, you know, Sorrento,’ finished Liz. They all laughed at the sheer bitchiness of the comment.
‘What’s on for tonight, girls? Usual Monday night blah?’ Mim asked as they all started to make moves towards leaving.
‘Same old, same old,’ said Liz. ‘Violin lesson, then tae kwon do, homework, dinner, bath, bed, ho, hum.’
‘I’ve got the out-laws coming over,’ said Tiffany. ‘Hideous man, Cliff’s dad, he’s such a creep.’
‘Oh, poor you, what are you serving?’ asked Monique.
‘It doesn’t matter what I serve, she always turns up her lip as though it’s chuck steak,’ Tiffany moaned.
Mim leaned in eagerly. ‘I know what you mean. James’s mother is the same and she sniffs my food constantly. It’s truly odd.’
As the women gathered at the door, swapping kisses and goodbyes, Tiffany’s mobile trilled an incoming SMS. She flipped it open and read the message.