The Great Christmas Breakup

by Fonteroy, Geraldine

  It would have to be.

  And as for meeting up, how on earth could I let him see me like this? I was about four of the person he once knew.

  Then the nasty voice in my thick head brought me back to reality. You’re married. This isn’t about you, it’s about work.

  ‘Will the job take long?’ I asked, one eye on the door, trying to gauge whether the humiliation of displaying how I’d let myself go was worth it.

  ‘No. It’s urgent. And it pays well. Three stores, three windows, three thousand dollars. That would have to include all the dressing materials, of course, but I am sure it is still something to consider, isn’t it?’

  Three thousand dollars! That was half my year’s takings working with the enigma that was Dan Phillit.

  ‘So, two tomorrow?’ Robert asked.

  I was due at Flindes tomorrow for an afternoon shift, beginning precisely at two. There was no way I could make both.

  And if I asked for time off, Dan Phillit would sooner dance around naked in Saks than give it to me.

  Sod it.

  ‘I’ll see you at Lolly’s at two,’ I said, throwing away any chance there may have conceivably been for a management position with Flindes.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Monday, November 27

  ‘If in doubt, trust your instincts. But don’t act on them.

  You may be right, but being right doesn’t mean you’ll get what you deserve.’

  Jocelyn Priestly.

  CECILY 2 WAS SNORING loudly and woke me. Again. I turned the calendar over, smirked at the nonsense Ms Priestly offered for the day, and then forced myself to ready the kids for school. I wondered what time Cecily 2 was supposed to begin her so-called ‘modeling’ job.

  Shuffling into the living room, I shook her. ‘Cecily 2! Wake up! You’ve got to go to work.’

  In a trice she literally sat straight up as if a hundred volts had just shot through her and bashed right into my head.

  ‘Oww!’ I exclaimed, seeing stars.

  And smelling booze.

  ‘She always wakes up like that,’ Carson called from the kitchen. ‘I used to charge my mates to see it when I was a kid.’

  Poor deluded Carson.

  It wasn’t her sudden waking they were paying to see.

  It was her tits.

  Cecily 2 slept in the nude.

  ‘Always have, always will,’ she’d told me, when the kids had first complained of the horrific sight on a sleepover at Cousin Howie’s place.

  Next, there was a knock on the door. It was only early, and already I was exhausted by the day.

  Hammertro stood in the hallway, looking inside expectantly.

  ‘Come in,’ I said, waving him towards the living room and the object of his affections. ‘The more the merrier.’

  ‘Now that you’ve got that thing repaired, I can’t just walk in,’ he complained, re-fixing his coordinates on Cecily 2’s breasts, which were almost completely visible beneath the thin sheet covering her. ‘Morning hotstuff, fancy doing somethin’ in town again?’

  The suggestion was full of innuendo and Cecily 2 giggled. It sounded like a horse farting.

  ‘She can’t, Hammertro, she is working today.’

  It crossed my mind that if Cecily 2 lost the nonsense job she’d come for, she’d have to leave. So far, so good.

  But in order to be exonerated from any guilt in relation to said miraculous event, I had to at least try to get the stupid cow to go to work.

  Hammertro licked his lips. ‘Where’s this job then, sweet cheeks? Maybe I’ll check it out?’

  ‘Down the road in a basement,’ Cecily yelled. ‘They’ve turned it into some dungeon. I’m gonna be the mistress in a movie, apparently.’

  ‘It’s all making sense to me now,’ I whispered to Carson, who grinned, obviously thinking the same thing.

  You didn’t need to be a stunner to be a mistress, you just needed to be a scary bitch.

  Enter Cecily 2 Teeson.

  My neighbor, however, remained impressed. ‘Mistress, hah? Sounds seeeexy.’

  ‘How’s Uncle Rufus?’ Jessie piped up. My daughter’s bright pink glasses were slightly askew and there were worry lines on her forehead from her ferocious frown. It was a reminder of my own youthful discovery of betrayal, and my heart skipped at the memories of that woman and my dad – of knowing the truth about him.

  I leaned over and kissed Jessie. ‘It’s all fine,’ I told her. ‘Now, eat your breakfast.’

  Plonking her spoon unenthusiastically into her bowl, Jessie sighed.

  The poor kid deserved better than con-flakes for breakfast, didn’t she? A whole cupboard full of proper food would be the first thing I’d buy if Robert managed to get me that window dressing job.

  Cecily 2 didn’t comprehend the implication of the question about her husband and answered matter-of-factly: ‘He went off with Howie to some place with lots of trees.’

  ‘A park?’ said Jessie.

  ‘A forest?’ said J.

  ‘Yeah,’ Cecily 2 said to both of them. ‘Campin’, I think.’

  ‘I’d like to put you in my tent,’ Hammertro told her. ‘My pants’ tent.’

  J laughed and immediately relayed the faux-rapper’s latest missive to all his mates via his mobile Facebook app, tapping with one hand as he shoveled con-flakes with the other.

  ‘Hammertro, the children!’

  ‘Where?’ He and Cecily 2 looked around.

  ‘Jessie and J.’

  His striking face broke into a huge grin and Hammertro punched my arm playfully. It hurt.

  ‘Come on, Mrs T., they ain’t no children. They are twelve and fourteen. I was doing it with forty-year-old nightclub hookers at fourteen.’

  ‘Really?’ Both my husband’s and son’s eyes were wide with astonishment.

  Jessie’s hands were over her ears.

  I didn’t blame her.

  ‘Can you tell me–‘ J started to say, but I cut him off by asking if he wanted some of the day old milk that he’d picked up the night before. Because if J asked which nightclub forty-year-olds with no sense of decency or legality hung out at, I vowed to ground him for eternity.

  Sensing he was on thin ice, my son took his dismal plate of breakfast with added milk and hurried back to his room.

  ‘So, leave off work and come play with me?’ Hammertro wasn’t giving up.

  Carson told Cecily 2 that whilst the subject matter of her employment might be fruity, the organization was probably professional. In which case, she had less than an hour to get dressed and present herself at the ‘studio’.

  ‘You don’t get modeling, do you big brother? They give you the clothes and do your hair. Once I’ve washed my teeth, I’m ready.’

  Surely she wasn’t planning on sashaying down the street naked?

  ‘I could go naked,’ she confirmed, winking at Hammertro.

  ‘Oh yeah!’ he agreed.

  Checking my watch, I decided that I was over Carson’s dysfunctional sister.

  I’d make sure the kids got to school then head in to LollyBliss.

  Let Cecily 2 lose the only form of suitable employment that had come her way in a lifetime.

  Let Cecily the First have a major freak-out.

  Let Carson micro-manage his IQ-deficient sibling.

  ‘I have to go to work,’ he told me. Carson was, once again, stuffing great sheaves of papers into his briefcase.

  His class were going love getting those back. Who didn’t want a War and Peace on why their work was rubbish?

  ‘School doesn’t start for an hour,’ I said, pointing at the clock over the mantle.

  ‘Prep,’ he informed me, brushing my nose with his cheek as he went past.

  ‘Well, I’m going on out and I won’t be held responsible for . . .’ Tilting my head in the direction of his sister, I indicated a locking action with my left hand, ‘. . . any forgetfulness that leads to loss.’

  ‘You’d make a good lawyer with language like that,�
�� Carson replied, a tiny smirk on his face.

  And once the door was closed it registered why his words sounded so strange.

  He hadn’t spoken about the law since that huge argument with his family, right after we were married.

  The word law hadn’t crossed his lips in all that time.

  And I knew why.

  Which made me all the more angry that he’d chosen to suddenly throw it at me now.

  - Cue truly awful memory of the first meeting of the Teesons:

  ‘I suppose you think being a teacher is honorable too, do you?’ Cecily glared at me.

  It was the first time we had met and for some reason, the Teesons hated me on sight.

  I suppose they weren’t used to seeing someone with naturally white skin and clothing that covered most of their intimate body parts.

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Socialist,’ said Cecily.

  ‘Communist,’ said Cecily 2.

  ‘I don’t think she’s a communist,’ said Rufus.

  ‘I am quite fond of China, though,’ I told him, trying to make light of the situation. As if trying to instill balance in his chaotic world, Rufus was as nice to me as his wife was rude.

  ‘Indeed,’ Rufus agreed, and then went back to scooping up his dinner, which was balanced precariously on one knee.

  Ridley, a nephew they were babysitting, came up and spat on me. Cecily backhanded him and not a word was heard from any adult in the room.

  Technically, not a word could be heard over the screaming, but still, you’d think they might react in some way.

  Did Carson think this behavior was appropriate?

  I glanced over at my fiancé, but he was busy shoveling pie and mash into his mouth too.

  How could he not have warned me about his weirdo family?

  And why were they on at him about being a teacher?

  From what I could make out, he’d certainly jumped a few hundred rungs up the ladder. He was a long way from where he’d started. You’d think they would be proud.

  Cecily, wearing what could only be described as a cat sick tracksuit, spoke through huge mouthfuls of food, ‘Is she knocked up, is that why you gave up law?’

  Carson sighed loudly. ‘No, of course not. I was already a teacher when I met Scarlet.’

  ‘Isn’t that the name of a pimp?’ Cecily 2 asked her husband. The long suffering Rufus flinched at the blatant demonstration of his wife’s stupidity.

  ‘No, that’s the Scarlet Pimpernel.’

  ‘Pimp. Close enough,’ Cecily 2 said.

  ‘Cecily 2, that’s out of order.’ Carson finally weighed into an argument, but his mother was still engaged in the previous one.

  ‘Then maybe she can make you do law.’ She turned to me. ‘Tell him, Scarface.’

  ‘It’s Scarlet.’ I corrected her, although the mother wasn’t stupid like the daughter, so the mistake was probably intentional. ‘And Carson is his own man.’

  ‘He likes his own man,’ Cecily 2 said, making a rude gesture with her hand.

  ‘Now, now, darling, your mother has guests.’ Rufus had the good grace to blush.

  I imagined my mum and dad meeting the Teesons, and decided, then and there, to make sure that never happened.

  Ever.

  Even if I had to lie and say they’d gone abroad.

  Or into space.

  Better yet, that they’d permanently succumbed to Cecily’s cooking.

  ‘It’s not too late to take the New York Bar exams, Carson,’ Cecily said.

  Once again, she threw vile suggestions at me. ‘Make it a condition of you keeping that baby, him doing those exams.’

  ‘Mother!’

  ‘I am not pregnant,’ I said.

  ‘What’s that gut about then,’ Cecily 2 asked.

  I pulled down my sweater, uncomfortable under her gaze.

  ‘I don’t get it.’ I turned to Carson. ‘Why wouldn’t you do law if that’s what you studied?’

  Carson stood up, red faced. ‘Since when is everyone else responsible for my career choice except for me?’

  And with that he stormed out of the mobile home door, calling for me to follow.

  ‘Must be that girl,’ Cecily 2 said, sidling up to me as I gathered my coat and handbag. ‘That one he was madly in love with. She’s ditched him like trash and she’s a hotshot lawyer now. He turned his back on the whole profession, because of one slag.’

  ‘Turned his back on us,’ her mother barked. ‘I had my room in his penthouse apartment all planned out. Now what I am supposed to do in my old age?’

  Die, I wanted to suggest.

  Cecily eyed me up and down.

  ‘You didn’t study law, did you?’

  I suppose she figured she might still get the penthouse bedroom.

  ‘No, a dress design.’

  They all burst out laughing. It sounded like a cull at a seal sanctuary. Cecily came over and thumped me on the back.

  ‘At least ya funny, Scarface. Welcome to the family.’ She cast her hand around her palatial hovel, then led me to the metal door of the static home and shoved me out after Carson.

  And that ended my first experience of the Teesons.

  *

  ‘You can’t wear that!’ Lolly came out of the dressing rooms and stood, open-mouthed, while Lucinda smirked behind her.

  ‘Why not?’

  It was the only item of clothing I owned that didn’t scream charity shop: a stretchy brown patterned dress that crossed over at the front, making much of my ample bust. I’d teamed it with brown boots with a thick, squat heel that was not nouveau and, from the looks on the faces of the two women standing in front of me, not retro either.

  Old Mrs Carlisle had suggested I go and change when she’d seen me on the stairs, but I’d thought that was a joke.

  Obviously not. Clearly everyone had taste but me. How could I have ever thought being a fashion designer was on the cards?

  ‘Um, it’s totally revolting,’ Lucinda offered.

  ‘Completely,’ Lolly agreed. ‘Makes you look huge.’

  ‘I am huge.’

  ‘No,’ said Lucinda, surprising me with the implied compliment. ‘You’re just badly dressed. You’ve got a small waist, nice legs. Black jeggings with that new Insret top?’ She was addressing Lolly now.

  ‘Perfect,’ Lolly said. ‘And those new olive suede ankle boots we just got in to trial?’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ Lucinda was excited now, and I took back every rotten curse word I’d silently lobbed her way.

  ‘How about the rat’s nest on top?’ Lucinda poked at my hair.

  ‘But I love Scarlet’s hair,’ exclaimed Lolly, her pretty face flushed. I expect she thought there was only so much abuse I could take.

  I’d been careful not to introduce her to the Teesons, so my friend was unaware that my threshold for insults was relatively high.

  ‘I’ve got my portable straighteners and some leave-in conditioner.’ Lucinda raced off to the stock room, excitement evident in her uneven gait.

  I noticed Lolly watching her.

  ‘She might look like she’s just stepped off a catwalk but she runs like a kook,’ I observed dryly.

  ‘You okay with this?’ Lolly turned her eyes back to me.

  ‘Looking better than I have in years? Stupid question.’

  ‘No, seeing Robert.’

  ‘It’s about work and I need the money, so why wouldn’t I be?’

  Lolly’s face pinked up again, and she ran her pristinely manicured hands through her long fair hair, something she only did when nervous. ‘I’m pretty sure he still has a thing for you.’

  Before I could reply, Lucinda was back, and it seemed only a matter of moments and the transformation was complete. The stupid fuzzy ball of hair was no more – in its place a slick sheet of shimmery maroon.

  ‘How did you do it? The color looks completely different?’

  ‘It’s my ultra-exclusive salon formula conditioning hairspray. You look amazing. I’d b
e glad to call you my Mom now.’

  ‘We’re not that old!’ Lolly said.

  ‘She looks it though,’ her employee responded, clearly not concerned for her job.

  I guessed Lucinda had a trust fund awaiting her at twenty five, and was just treading water until then.

  What other reason was there for being so bloody rude all the time?

  ‘That dishy old guy is going to love you,’ Lucinda said.

  I thought about the stupid, post-teenaged crush I’d had on Robert, who worked across the street from the college and regularly came into the same diner we all ate at. He seemed so unattainable and I figured he would never reciprocate my feelings.

  Then, just when I had begun to date Carson, Robert had asked me out. I’d said no, because I was in that heady space of lust and possibilities that comes with every new relationship.

  It was only a few years later that the regrets about being too hasty began scratching at my consciousness.

  But that was all in the past now, wasn’t it? I was married, and nothing could change that.

  ‘I don’t want him to love me,’ I said. ‘I want him to give me work.’

  ‘You used to want him to love you,’ Lolly observed, and then suddenly sucked in her breath.

  I realized that lately, I’d been a rubbish friend. Lolly wasn’t dating anyone – and hadn’t in ages. At least I had a family, and if you excluded the feral Teeson element, they weren’t half bad.

  ‘Are you alright, Lols? Maybe you need to go after him? I mean, who wouldn’t want a piece of good looking corporate arse?’

  It was a joke but my friend wasn’t laughing.

  Then Lolly nudged me and I turned to find the man in question standing directly behind us.

  Sod it.

  ‘Oh, Robert,’ I mumbled, self-consciously pulling at the long sheer top Lolly had provided, suddenly wondering if, despite the image I’d seen in the full-length mirror moments before, I was way too plump to be wearing black jeggings.

  I needn’t have worried.

  ‘Wow, Scarlet! You look amazing, better than I remembered.’