Not What You Think

by Melissa Hill

  Oh God! Dan had to reach her before she got to the house – he had to!

  Dan hit the controls for the electronic passenger window. In his haste, he pressed the wrong button and wound down his own window instead.

  “Fuck!” he shouted, fumbling with the controls.

  Chloe was now running a hand through her hair, and walking unsurely towards the house. She had almost reached the door when Dan put his head out the window, hoping that Chloe would hear him from this distance.

  He needed to talk to her first, to explain . . .

  But when he saw Nicola smiling and welcoming his fiancée from the open doorway, Dan knew that it was already too late.

  * * *

  Ken lightly ran his index finger over the newly polished diamond. Would she like it? He certainly hoped so. He was taking a hell of a chance choosing the ring beforehand, he knew that, but he wanted this to be a real proposal, a proper proposal. Ken closed the box and put it in inside his coat pocket.

  Nearly sick with nerves, he put the car in gear and drove towards Stepaside. He couldn’t believe how terrifying all of this felt! Would she say yes immediately, thrilled with the thoughts of marrying him, or would she maybe ask for some time to think about it? Ken steeled himself for every possible scenario, even one where she might say no. She might not yet be ready and if she wasn’t, then, of course, Ken would accept that. He would have no problem waiting for Nicola – he knew she loved him and she was most definitely the one for him. Sometimes, Ken couldn’t quite comprehend the strength of his feelings for her.

  He was glad the thing with that other moron was finally over and done with. He knew there was always a chance that Nicola might see Dan Hunt again – might need to see him again – especially after so long, and after what she had been through.

  But Ken hated the fact that Dan had sauntered back into Nicola’s life lately – almost casually – as if she was some kind of afterthought. Ken would never treat her like that, would never have let her go in the first place. Dan Hunt was nothing but an idiot, a self-serving, spineless idiot, and if that same idiot was only realising now what he had lost, then that was his tough.

  Ken knew that Hunt had been phoning her recently. He knew because the asshole had phoned her at the house a couple of times, and Ken had answered. He was sure that Hunt had recognised his voice too, but typically had been too much of a coward to speak, and had simply hung up. He knew it was Dan because lately Nicola had been preoccupied and when he asked her about the hangups, she’d been nonchalant, almost too nonchalant. Ken didn’t blame her for wanting to keep it this from him – after all, he hadn’t reacted too well when she had confided in him about Dan’s desire to meet up again in the first place.

  Still, the main thing was that Nicola wasn’t reciprocating. And Ken knew she wasn’t reciprocating because Nicola was over Dan. Hadn’t she told Ken that she wished he had been the one she was married to back then? Hadn’t she told him that he and Barney were her family now?

  Well, Ken thought, taking the turn-off to Nicola’s road, if things went as well tonight as he hoped they would, they were about to become a proper family.

  He began rehearsing the words again in his head, how he would say it and how he would lead up to it. Ken grimaced, almost unable to look at the house. He shook his head. God, this was nerve-wracking! He had been practising the build-up these last few days and hopefully, things would all go according to plan. Such a pity though, that he had to go off to Galway tomorrow for an impromptu meeting with the Motiv8 partners. By rights, he really should put this off until he came back. But he had found the perfect ring at the weekend and he knew it would be burning a hole in his pocket if he didn’t do it soon. Anyway, he didn’t think he could wait much longer. Upon arrival at Nicola’s, he would tell her that he had just popped over on the off-chance for a visit before he left for Galway, all the time being really casual, and then he would go out and get . . .

  Suddenly, Ken slammed on the brakes, icy daggers shooting up his spine.

  Hunt! What the hell was he doing here? Ken was still a little away from the house, but he could quite clearly make out the other man’s fat, ignorant head. And Dan was eagerly running up Nicola’s driveway, running towards something – or someone . . .

  Ken sat back, stunned.

  Had she been lying to him all along? Had she been covering up the fact that she and Hunt were in much greater contact than she was letting on? After all, she had been secretive about the phone calls – what else was she being secretive about?

  Immediately, he wrenched the ring-box from his pocket and flung it furiously onto the floor of the car. Then, reversing into a nearby gateway, face red with anger and tyres screeching wildly, Ken sped off in the other direction.

  Chapter 31

  “NEIL, IT WAS fantastic!” Laura danced excitedly around the kitchen. She had just returned from another day of the Crafts Exhibition, and although Neil had come with her on the first day to set up her exhibition stand, she was on her own once the doors opened to the public.

  “I couldn’t believe the amount of people that were interested in my work. I must’ve given out at least two boxes of business cards!”

  Neil crossed the room and gave her a massive hug. “That’s fantastic, love – didn’t I tell you it would be brilliant?”

  Laura beamed at her husband. It had been brilliant. Finally her designs had been exposed to the right people – or to the right market as Helen would say – and the feedback had been enormously positive.

  Helen. Laura’s heart lurched again as she thought about her friend. She had heard nothing from her since the other night.

  Maybe Helen didn’t want to discuss it at all. Maybe she just didn’t want to deal with it, preferring instead to just get on with it and cut Laura out of her life like she had the first time round. That was Helen’s way, after all. When faced with unpleasantness or trouble, she generally preferred to pretend the problem didn’t exist. That was what she had done with Nicola, and to a lesser degree with Laura, immediately after the thing with Neil.

  Laura doubted that Helen was troubling herself about it, although she looked very shaken upon her departure the other night. Laura didn’t think she had ever seen her look so ashamed.

  But it was good to have it out in the open. She was pleased too that she had had the guts to stand up for herself, and not let Helen paper it over with excuses and pleas of drunkenness. She smiled to herself. Nicola had been amazed to discover that Laura had known all along and had never said a word. But what was the point? Neil had told her all she needed to know. And because he hadn’t hidden it from her, because of the fact that he respected Laura enough to come clean and in effect risk losing her, Laura believed what Neil had told her.

  Yet, in spite of everything, in spite of their ups and downs, Laura didn’t want to lose Helen as a friend. They had been through a lot together and lately life hadn’t exactly been all that rosy for Helen. Her friend was lonely – who would have thought it?

  Laura collapsed onto a chair, unwilling to let thoughts of Helen get her down.

  “Oh, and guess who I met there?” she said.

  “Who?” Neil asked with a grin, pleased at her enthusiasm.

  “Debbie – from Amazing Days in Wicklow.”

  Neil looked blank.

  “The stationery designer?” she prompted.

  “Oh, right.”

  “She’s a dote – we had a great chat.”

  Laura had bumped into Debbie while rushing off to grab a coffee – trusting the girl displaying handmade fudge across the way to watch over her stand. She had felt a tap on the shoulder while standing in the queue, and saw a smiling Debbie standing behind her.

  “I thought I recognised you, earlier,” Debbie said cheerily. “Are you just browsing or . . .”

  “No, I’m exhibiting,” Laura said proudly. Now she was amongst like-minded people and was getting so much positive feedback, she wasn’t at all apologetic about her work. “I’m a jewe
llery designer.”

  “Really? I had no idea. I must pop over and have a look at your work. You already know what mine looks like,” she added grinning. “Oh, and cheers for the ‘Thank you’ card – do you know you’re the first bride ever to send me one?”

  Laura was amazed. “But you did such a fantastic job! We were delighted with the invitations; people were mad about them.”

  “Mmm, a fantastic job all right – apart from the fact that we gave them away to someone else!” Debbie bought two coffees and, Styrofoam cups in hand, she and Laura walked back towards the stands.

  “That’s right!” Laura pretended she had forgotten, not wanting Debbie to think that it had been a problem.

  But Debbie had something else on her mind. “Actually,” she said, “I don’t mean to gossip or anything, but your one was such a stuck-up cow, and you were so nice about the whole thing . . .”

  “What?” Laura was intrigued.

  “Well, it turned out that . . .” Debbie paused at Laura’s stand and stopped mid-sentence when she saw her display. “Are these yours? They’re fabulous!”

  Laura hardly heard her. “What? Tell me about that other girl.”

  “Oh right. Well,” Debbie lowered her voice conspiratorially, as if Chloe might pop out from under the pile of Aran sweaters at the next stand down, “it turned out that her wedding had to be postponed.”

  “Postponed? Why?”

  “She didn’t say. I know it galled her to have to ring me and ask for a reprint and another date, but what else could she do? It would cost her a fortune to get them made up from scratch again somewhere else.”

  Dan’s wedding postponed! Laura was amazed. But why? Did it have anything to do with Nicola? More importantly should she tell Nicola? No, there was nothing to be gained by doing that – it might only make things worse.

  But wasn’t it a bit of a coincidence that Dan’s wedding had to be put off not too long after he met up with Nicola again? Not to mention the fact that he had been pestering Nicola ever since?

  “Anyway,” Laura said to Neil now, “we went for coffee together when the exhibition closed, and she told me all about how she got started in the business, and how it took her ages to get going. Neil, to hear her talking, it was like listening to my own story! Her family were always popping in unannounced for coffee when she was trying to get some work done, and she too got landed with baby-sitting her friend’s children while they went off shopping, or whatever. People used to send her off collecting laundry, or get her to wait at their houses to accept furniture deliveries and things like that.”

  Debbie’s experiences had practically mirrored her own.

  “They acted as though I was just sitting at home, with my feet up and nothing else to do but watch Sally Jessy and Jerry Springer,” Debbie had confided, “Eventually I had to put a stop to it. I was getting nothing done, and being out of the house as often as I was didn’t help the business.”

  “So, what did you say to them?” Laura was particularly interested in how she handled that, although Debbie, didn’t seem the type of woman to take nonsense from anyone.

  Debbie grimaced. “I ended up falling out with some of them for a while,” she said. “Most of my friends understood, but only after I sat them down and explained that even though I was working from home, I was still working and they couldn’t just call in when they felt like it and expect me to be free. After that they were very supportive. Of course, once I got the shop I was able to separate business time from personal time and that helped enormously. But I’ll tell you,” she said with a shake of her head, “it wasn’t easy.”

  Laura nodded sympathetically, thinking about her own family situation.

  “But in order to keep going, you have to keep believing not just in your product, but in yourself. And you have to condition your mind into believing that failure is not an option. It’s not easy and no matter what the papers tell you, there are very few overnight successes and instant millionaires out there.” She took a mouthful of coffee. “You just stay determined and keep working away and eventually you’ll get the break you need.” She gave Laura’s hand an encouraging squeeze. “You know, sometimes that’s all it takes – just one break. And by exhibiting here today, Laura, you’re definitely on the right track.”

  Sitting now in her kitchen, Laura wondered about that.

  Just one break? If that was all it took, would she recognise the all-important opportunity when it came?

  Or, she thought nervously – recalling Brid Cassidy’s interest in her wedding jewellery – had the opportunity already passed her by?

  * * *

  That same afternoon, a weary and despondent Helen called to Kerry’s primary school.

  She was still reeling from events at Laura’s. How could her friend have known all those years and never said a thing? Helen didn’t know how Laura could even have forced herself to stay friends with her, never mind being such a good one at that.

  She knew she had taken Laura’s friendship for granted, asking her to pick up Kerry from school and look after her daughter while she slipped off for sex sessions with Paul. She had taken advantage of Laura’s kind heart and gentle nature in the same way she had mistreated Jo, who had always been helpful and accommodating where Kerry was concerned, even when Helen treated her like muck.

  She had finished with Paul that night. What was the point? Nicola was right. She had gone too far in her lies, so far that she had even denied her own daughter’s existence. No matter how much she wanted someone, there was no excuse for that. She hadn’t even told Paul about Kerry in the end, better letting him think that she had just gone off him. In fairness, he hadn’t seemed all that bothered. Then again, Helen thought, it wasn’t as though it had been a deep and meaningful relationship; they had spent most of their time together in bed. And Helen was pretty certain that the so-called ‘sick mother’ he kept visiting was a lot more likely be a ‘long-term girlfriend’. She knew enough about men to read the signs. All Helen had to do was admit to herself that she had been nothing more than a weekday fling for Paul.

  That time with Neil – of course she had felt guilty about it afterwards, realising how nasty she had been in coming on to him. Poor thing, he was so drunk and so innocent he hadn’t a hope, really. But the guilt hadn’t lasted that long, and certainly wasn’t severe enough for Helen to really comprehend the damage she might have done.

  At the time, Helen hadn’t been too worried. Nicola had interrupted them and they hadn’t ended up sleeping together, so really, it was no big deal, just a bit of a fumble. Why feel guilty, when there was nothing to feel guilty about?

  But the fact that Laura knew all along – had been her friend and had still managed to help and support her without question – now made Helen felt very guilty indeed. Laura’s decency towards her, even immediately afterwards, served to truly highlight Helen’s own inadequacies as a person.

  She felt sick when she thought about it. Would she have done the same as Laura had? Would she have examined the situation and thought about Laura’s state of mind at the time, and her motives for trying to steal Jamie away? Helen didn’t think so. In fact, Helen would have probably have punched her in the nose. She certainly wouldn’t have kept her as a friend, and she most definitely wouldn’t have understood!

  How could Laura be so understanding and so forgiving of people all the time?

  Helen had always thought it a huge weakness in her oldest friend, but now she knew she had been very wrong. It was an unbelievable strength, a strength of character that no one, not even Nicola, had given Laura credit for.

  And when Nicola too was struggling on her own after Dan, when her life was in tatters, it had been Laura helping her pick up the pieces, Laura the one who had sat with her day in day out, listening to her fears about how she might never be the same again.

  Again, Helen felt ashamed that she hadn’t been able to do that. It was another blight on her character that she had all but abandoned Nicola when her friend
was at her lowest. She kept telling herself at the time that she had her own problems, that Jamie was about to leave her, but of course that wasn’t it.

  The truth was that she was afraid – afraid of what might happen to Nicola, afraid of how she as Nicola’s friend might then be expected to cope.

  Guiding the car into a free parking space, Helen realised that she was not only a terrible friend and a terrible mother but, all in all, a terrible person.

  * * *

  The headmistress, Mrs Clancy, looked at her gravely from across the table. Helen knew that the older woman was annoyed with her for not having met with her sooner. Kerry had started here in early September, and Helen knew her daughter hadn’t really taken to it.

  Mrs Clancy had been trying to arrange an appointment with Helen for quite some time, and after a lot of procrastinating (and particularly following recent events) Helen had finally decided to bite the bullet and meet the woman. She knew what this would be about; obviously Kerry’s speech problems were impeding her learning and Helen suspected that the headmistress would want Helen to consider taking her out and starting her again next year, when she was a little more advanced.

  “Ms Jackson, as I’m sure you’re aware, Kerry has quite a severe speech problem,” the headmistress began.

  Helen nodded. “I am – I mean I do. She’s seen a therapist but she doesn’t seem to be getting any better. I had hoped,” she continued, seeing the principal was about to interrupt, “I had hoped that going to school and being around other children would help her, although I realise now that she may have problems keeping up.”

  Mrs Clancy’s eyes widened. “Far from it, Ms Jackson,” she said. “In fact, Kerry is one of the brightest children in her class.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, although Mrs Cosgrove – that’s Kerry’s teacher, by the way,” she added, in a poorly disguised jibe at Helen’s lack of interest to date, “rarely asks her to read out loud in front of the others because of her stutter. But she has a keen ear for grammar and, from what I am aware, tries her utmost to keep up in class.”