Girl Friday

by Unknown

  The kids will be with their dad on Thursday night – since the divorce he has been forced to be home earlier to look after the children – which leaves just her… and Annabel. Damn. But surely Annabel won’t mind going out for the evening so she can have a quiet dinner?

  ‘Annabel?’ she calls up the stairs. ‘I’m home.’

  ‘Hi! I’ll be right down. I’m just borrowing your computer.’

  ‘Sure,’ Kit says, fighting a smidgen of irritation, then realizing how ridiculous it is to be territorial, to wish that she had been asked first. She has become more selfish, she knows, since living on her own with the kids. She is used to having everything done her way, is used to her stuff being her own (or at least was, before Tory turned thirteen and decided that what was her mother’s was also hers).

  And so what if Annabel didn’t ask to use the computer? This is her sister, for God’s sake.

  In the kitchen she is momentarily dismayed to see a dirty dish and three dirty mugs piled haphazardly by the side of the sink. She sighs. She will have to tell Annabel that she has to clear up, and clean up, after herself. There are rules in this house, and she has to abide by them.

  ‘Hi!’ Annabel bounds into the room and gives Kit a huge hug, and everything is instantly forgiven. ‘How was work?’

  ‘It was good,’ Kit says. ‘What did you do today?’

  ‘I made us supper,’ Annabel says. ‘Fish pie.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Look!’ Annabel opens the oven to reveal a golden, cheese and potato-crusted pie bubbling away. ‘I thought it was time someone looked after you.’

  ‘This is so nice!’ Kit beams. ‘I feel like I’m coming home to a wife.’

  ‘Wife, sister. I don’t mind which it is. It’s just lovely to be here, and to be part of your family. Speaking of which, I still don’t understand why you let that handsome husband of yours go.’

  ‘Adam? Handsome?’ Kit laughs.

  ‘Well, okay, so he’s not my type, but he is obviously a good guy. And you seem, I don’t know, right together. There’s still unresolved business, I think. Would you try again?’

  Kit shakes her head sadly. ‘I’ve thought about it, from time to time, but it would feel like going backwards. Anyway, see those gorgeous flowers over there?’

  ‘Oh wow! Those are gorgeous.’

  ‘Yes, well, they’re from Steve, who you might meet on Thursday. I need to keep moving forward, not turn back to the past. And I wanted to ask you: is it okay if I have the house to myself on Thursday?’

  ‘Oh… sure. I can go to the movies or something.’

  ‘You could go out with Edie, maybe? Or Charlie? I’m just planning a date here.’

  ‘Aha!’ Annabel grins. ‘In that case, of course I’ll make myself scarce. You deserve it.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Kit lays a hand on her arm. ‘I knew you’d understand.’

  18

  Tracy peers at her eye in the mirror and sighs, opening her make-up drawer and digging out the Dermablend.

  She had iced her eye, slathered arnica on it, but it has been difficult to hide the discoloration, although by now you would think she had had enough practice at hiding the bumps and bruises.

  When she was a little girl, she dreamed of a knight in shining armour, her Prince Charming who would carry her off and rescue her from her nightmarish family. She always knew that she would do better, that she would never put up with what her mother put up with, that if anyone ever treated her the way her dad treated her mother, she would leave.

  ‘Why don’t you divorce him?’ she used to hiss at her mother, as her mother tiptoed round the house, telling Tracy to ignore him, to stay out of the way, making sure everything was perfect before her father came back from one of his business trips, terrified to give him any excuse, any reason to lose his temper.

  ‘He said he wouldn’t do it again,’ her mother would say; but then he would, and she would ice her own face, wiping the tears, telling Tracy that she would leave, they would run away together… And her father would come back later, arms filled with flowers, contrite, desperate, falling on his knees in floods of tears, swearing he would never raise a hand to her again, and they would stay. And on it went.

  She never dreamed she would end up where her mother was. Too frightened to leave, too frightened to stay. She thought, when she married Richard Stonehill, that it was finally over, and when she thinks that she was the one who Facebooked Jed, she was the one who went back, she almost vomits.

  Jed has a plan. Tracy is part of that plan. And right now she’s trying to figure out a way to continue with the plan, but without him. It will take time to think of just the right way to get rid of him, but this time she really wants to leave for ever. This time she really wants it to be different.

  Because now there is Robert McClore, the single bright spot in her life, the one joy that is slowly enabling her to detach from the fear, from the rest of her life that is so dark.

  Tonight, Robert is taking her to Stonehenge for dinner. It is a tiny, romantic inn in Ridgefield, and he mentioned she should bring an overnight bag in case they feel like staying – he has booked a room, but doesn’t want to seem forward, is leaving the decision in her hands.

  And she knows what her decision will be.

  This time, for the first time, she thinks she may have fallen in love.

  On the other side of town, Robert McClore leans back in his chair, sips his cappuccino and smiles to himself with satisfaction.

  Chapter four. Already! Never has a book been easier to write. It is as if he is writing on auto-pilot, the words flowing from his fingertips in a way they haven’t since – well, probably since his first novel.

  Writing was so creative back then, but of late it has felt more and more like a business. He has contracts to fulfil, books to write: one book a year, whether inspiration strikes or not.

  It has become a job, and one that he is starting to find dull.

  The business of outlining, of researching, of sifting through to decide which bits are relevant and which bits are not, used to light him up with passion.

  The moment when characters you thought were pivotal suddenly become irrelevant, when others, supposed to have been bit parts, end up driving the plot, taking over the book, filled him with pleasure.

  Everything about being a writer used to excite him, but these past few books have felt mechanical, as if he is just going through the motions.

  Something has to change. This he knows, as much as he knows that the creative process is all about change.

  He always starts a book with an outline, but has to be fluid, malleable, has to accept that the characters will take over, and that it’s quite possible the finished book will be nothing like the book he had in mind.

  This is why he couldn’t ever do as his agent wants him to do, and take on ghost writers, employ a team, others to write his words.

  Oh he knows others do it, knows it is the Warhol Factory mentality that would thrill his audience, those who want instant gratification, who email him daily demanding he produce more, telling him they can’t bear the wait for a new McClore book, but he can’t.

  His agent, his publisher, suggested a ghost writer for a series of mysteries, but this book is so easy to write that he will be finished in a matter of weeks, doesn’t need a ghost writer. How could a ghost writer possibly tell his story, how could a ghost writer have really known what it was like being married to Penelope, the affairs, the anger, the volatility?

  How could he possibly entrust that to someone else?

  He started off with pseudonyms for everyone, started off writing in the third person, but halfway through the first chapter he wrote it as it was, in the first person, just as he experienced it at the time.

  He can change the names later, will definitely change the names later. But right now, Penelope is Penelope, he is Robert, and everything is just as it was. The clubs, the restaurants, the parties, the celebrities. They will be changed, names will be made up
, because this is a work of fiction, at least as far as everyone else is concerned.

  The only person who knows is Tracy. And she doesn’t actually know anything, but it was her idea, and he said it was an interesting one. She doesn’t know how close the story is, though. He wouldn’t tell her that. Even Kit, whom he has come to trust implicitly, doesn’t know. He has his own computer in his study, password-protected, and is not printing out each chapter, as he usually does, to give it to Kit to proof-read; he is just writing, and will wait until the end before printing it out.

  In many ways, this is the easiest book he has ever written. It does truly feel, as Tracy suggested, that this is the one story he has always been destined to write, a story that is, as a consequence, remarkably easy to tell.

  He thinks of all the women’s fiction that peppers the shelves of the local library, the local bookstores, fiction that depicts women’s legs, or cartoon drawings of handbags, all in shocking shades of pastel and pink.

  He flicked through some of those books. Tales of twenty-something single girls looking for Mr Right while tripping through city streets in fabulous designer heels, or, as they get older, tales of divorces, of adultery, of women miserable in the suburbs, trying to make sense of unhappy marriages, or moving ahead with new-found romances.

  ‘Chick lit,’ he said, sniffing derisively, privately thinking it wasn’t writing, it was journaling – the women getting out their angst, their frustration with their relationships, their dissatisfaction with their lives in the form of a novel.

  Where was the fiction, he wondered. Where was the story-telling? The art? But now he sees the ease in writing about your life. It’s true that it doesn’t feel like the same discipline, but it is a discipline nevertheless, a craft: to draw upon your memory, to analyse the emotions, to paint the pictures in a way that is so authentic, it cannot help but resonate with your readers.

  And it is extraordinarily cathartic. In many ways it enables him to process his relationship with Penelope, his relationships with all of those people, in a way he never thought possible. He sees them all in a new light, is able to see Penelope as a hurt child, a child in a woman’s body, who struck out because she was scared.

  She wasn’t the villain he thought she was at the time. And this, perhaps, is the most extraordinary thing of all – that in writing this book, writing about Penelope for the first time in his life, he finds that his own anger has gone, and it gives his writing an honesty and a clarity that his fans won’t recognize as coming from Robert McClore.

  It is Tracy he has to thank. Tracy with her easy smile, her wisdom. He hasn’t had a muse in many years, not since Penelope, but it feels as though Tracy has come into his life at just the right time. It is time for a muse. Time for him to move on.

  He checks his watch. Good Lord, it is four o’clock. He has written for eight hours solidly. Eight hours! That is unheard of. A good writing day is anywhere between three and five hours, but eight hours have passed in a flash; and he knows this is good, knows, in fact, this may be the best thing he has ever written.

  He stands up and stretches, then shuts off his computer, thinking about Tracy. He is picking her up at half past six, and he feels a flutter of anticipation and excitement as he walks up the stairs. It is the first time he has been this excited about a woman since Penelope, who is vivid again after all these years when she was supposed to have died.

  ‘I’m not sure about those roses,’ Edie says, suspicion in her eyes as she reads the card again. ‘I still think he has an ulterior motive.’

  ‘Oh Edie,’ Annabel says with a laugh. ‘Don’t be such a killjoy. I think it’s romantic.’

  ‘It would be romantic if he’d left one small posy. But two enormous bouquets of roses? That feels like manipulation.’

  ‘Manipulation?’ Now it’s Kit’s turn to laugh. ‘Why? Do you think he’s after my secret millions?’

  ‘Do you have secret millions?’ Annabel’s eyes light up.

  ‘Sadly, if I do, they’re so secret even I don’t know about them.’

  ‘Bugger. I guess I’ll just fly home, then.’

  ‘Thanks.’ They smile at each other, already comfortable in their teasing, in starting to know what it is like to have a sister.

  ‘Stay for dinner, Edie,’ Annabel says. ‘I’ve made enough for an army.’

  ‘Well, I will,’ grumbles Edie, ‘but you two are terrifically naive. You just wait and see. I’m telling you he’s not to be trusted. He’s too charming and too good-looking, and I’m old enough to know that my instincts are always right.’

  Annabel grins at Edie. ‘I think you’re just jealous. I bet you wish someone would send you some white roses and whisk you out for sumptuous, dinners.’

  ‘At my age? Girls, you’re ridiculous,’ Edie says, but she can’t help a small smile.

  ‘Well, you did say tennis this weekend,’ Kit reminds her. ‘You and Rose will have to check him out properly.’

  ‘Especially his thighs,’ Annabel adds. ‘Anyway, I think he sounds lovely, and I admit, it might have been a bit… naff… if he’d sent red roses, but white? I still think it’s romantic.’

  ‘So what about you, young lady?’ Edie asks curiously. ‘Do you have a special somebody back home in England?’

  ‘I wish.’ Annabel sighs. ‘Unfortunately, I have a penchant for bad boys, and after the last one I’ve decided to swear off men for a while.’

  ‘How bad is bad?’ Kit wants to know.

  ‘Really bad.’ Annabel shoots a warning look at Kit, not wanting to divulge too much in front of Edie. ‘Drink, drugs, tattoos, violence…’ She shakes her head. ‘Put it like this: show me a man who knows how to treat a woman like dirt, and I will faint with delight at his feet and allow him to treat me like the doormat he so clearly wants me to be.’

  Kit laughs. ‘Annabel, you’re too much. I don’t believe you.’

  ‘I know. No one does. When I’m single, I’m this fabulous, independent, confident woman, and then I get involved with one disastrous man after another and I turn into this needy, insecure, fearful girl who becomes frightened of her own shadow. I’m telling you, I may become a lesbian after the last one.’

  ‘I tried that, and I wouldn’t recommend it either,’ Edie says nonchalantly. ‘Women are much too high-maintenance. All that drama! It was exhausting.’

  ‘Edie!’ Annabel’s mouth falls open in shock.

  ‘This is why we love her.’ Kit puts an arm around Edie and plants a kiss on her cheek. ‘Because she has lived more lifetimes than you and I could ever even dream about.’

  Annabel is rapt. ‘Tell us all about it. I want to know everything.’

  ‘Her name was Monika.’ Edie takes off her glasses and smiles at the memory. ‘I was nineteen, in my second year at Yale, and she was a German exchange student, studying in America for a year.’

  ‘What did she look like?’ Annabel asks, as Edie drifts off into the memories.

  ‘I have a photograph somewhere in a drawer. Would you like me to get it?’ Edie gets up and disappears through the back door.

  ‘Edie in a lesbian love drama!’ Kit breathes to Annabel. ‘Who would have thought?’

  ‘I know! I guess everyone has their secrets,’ Annabel says. ‘Even Edie.’

  The room at Stonehenge is dark, candlelit, romantic. Tracy looks at Robert, her heart softening, as he reaches out and strokes her hand, both of them smiling as the waiter silently refills her glass of champagne.

  ‘That was a wonderful night the other night,’ he says.

  ‘It was,’ she echoes, ‘and more than that, it was special. You’re special. I think you’re an extraordinary man.’ Robert beams in the face of her compliment.

  How ironic, she thinks. That it has taken her forty-one years to discover what love is, and that it has come when she least expected it, when she wasn’t looking, when, in fact, her plans were far more devious.

  She had married Richard Stonehill because he felt safe, because she’d had enough
pain to last her a lifetime, and because although Richard had many faults, and faults she was aware of before she married him, she knew he wouldn’t hurt her.

  She knew because there was no passion, and the only time she had felt passion, it had come with a price.

  When she agreed to Jed’s plan, and realized that she could use Robert to get away from Jed, she thought she was being given a second chance. Not at happiness – that would have been too much to ask – but at a lifestyle she would never, could never have on her own.

  She could have diamonds and pearls and holidays and clothes and a huge house, and be Mrs Robert McClore!

  She could go to movie premieres, and parties, and be friends with the right people, and perhaps then she would be happy, perhaps then she would fit in.

  Robert McClore was offering safety. He was many things, but he was not a man who had a temper, of this she was certain. He was old school, a man who knew how to take care of a woman, who opened doors, treated women with respect, and charm. He was offering her a chance, a chance of security she didn’t think would come around again.

  But sitting here tonight, at the tiny corner table lit up with candlelight and love, Tracy knows there is so much more than this.

  ‘I love you,’ she whispers.

  They are words she has never volunteered before, always too frightened to say them first, and Robert’s eyes fill with tears as he leans over and gathers her in his arms.

  19

  ‘You are just totally cool,’ Tory breathes, as she and Annabel sit in a booth at the old-fashioned diner, sharing a chocolate milkshake. ‘Seriously, I can’t believe that you’re related to my mom, and I can’t believe you’re my aunt!’

  ‘Well, thank you.’ Annabel pours the rest of the pitcher equally between their two tall glasses. ‘And I have to say this is totally cool. I love this place. I feel like I’ve stepped back in time to the nineteen fifties. Do you have any idea how lucky you are to live here?’

  Tory shrugs. ‘I guess.’

  ‘And your school! All those cute boys you get to go to school with. So which one do you like?’