by Jenny Frame
Becca got a vase for the flowers and arranged them nicely. She looked around and tried to think where to put them, and saw the perfect place on her kitchen windowsill. Now every time she was busy at the sink, she’d be reminded of Dale and her simple kindness.
It was strange. She’d never seen Trent so territorial before. They hadn’t been together in such a long time, but then again she’d never had another relationship since Trent.
It suddenly hit her what she had just thought.
I am not in a relationship with Dale, Becca told herself firmly. But then why did it feel like it was going that way?
Her gaze was drawn to the supermarket bags on the side, and she realized that it was because they were behaving like they were in one. It wasn’t forced or artificial—they had just gradually began to knit their lives together. Dale was running errands, bringing groceries home, working in the garage while she pottered in the kitchen, and the thought gave Becca a warm glow inside. Not as hot as when she thought Dale was going to kiss her, but comforting warmth all the same.
She picked up her meds and took a dose. Hopefully she could start to feel like herself again.
Jake came running in the door saying, “Mummy, are you okay? Dale wanted me to check.”
“I’m fine. Why don’t you ask Dale to come in for tea, and we can talk.”
Jake had a panicked look on his face. “You’re not going to send her away, are you, Mummy?”
“No, I won’t do that. We just have to talk.”
“Trent wasn’t very nice to her at the garage, and Dale just wants to help us.”
Becca sighed. “Okay. Go and get her, Pooh Bear.”
Trent would always be an important part of her life, and the one who had stood by her since she had found her crying on the drawing room floor of her family home, surrounded by the press hovering outside.
She had to make it right with her, and Becca promised herself to call her later. But first she had to get these groceries put away. Dale seemed to have bought a lot. She saw several pizza boxes sticking out of the bags, and they made Becca smile.
Cleary Dale thought pizza was a household priority since Jake liked it. Becca emptied the bags of pizza, milk, cheese, crisps, and lollipops, clearly another McGuire priority.
She got to the last bag and found it full of at least a dozen jars of hot jalapeños, and boxes of crackers.
Dale remembered.
All her emotion and stress were not going to be held back after seeing this sweet act of kindness, and she began to sob.
* * *
“Hi, Becca, Jake said—” Dale pushed through the door when she heard Becca crying. This was not what she expected. Jake said his mum was okay, and just wanted a chat.
“Becca, what’s wrong?”
Becca turned around and hurried across the room and into her arms. Dale held her tightly and stroked her hair. “Shh…it’s okay. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Becca spoke but Dale couldn’t understand what she was saying because she was crying so hard. She looked over to the windowsill and saw her flowers, pride of place, whereas Trent’s were still on the table. Yes! One-nil, team McGuire.
Dale took a step back and cradled Becca’s head gently. “Take a breath, hen. Take a breath and tell me again.”
“Jalapenos and crackers,” Becca managed to say.
“What?” Dale was lost as to why jalapeños and crackers would make a woman cry. She thought she had been doing the right thing. “Maybe chocolates would have been better. I wasn’t really sure what to get.”
“No.” Becca had calmed a bit and placed a hand on Dale’s chest. “I’m crying because getting me jalapenos and crackers was the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
“It was?” The adoring look Becca was giving her made her heart flutter. Who knew chilli peppers had this kind of effect on women? Someone should really write this stuff down.
“Dale, I told you one time, in a throwaway comment, that they were my craving. You remembered and brought me not just a few, but over a dozen. No one else would have thought of that.”
Becca reached up and gave her the sweetest kiss on her cheek. Electricity spread from her cheek and down her body.
Dale wanted to kiss Becca so badly, and it got even worse when Becca grabbed her hand and pressed it to her stomach. “Your wee yin is kicking.”
“My wee yin?” Dale questioned.
Becca smiled and nodded. “Our wee yin. You’ve done so much for us, Dale, and I trust you, and I would like you to be part of their lives. If you want to?”
Dale felt her own tears coming, but she gulped them down. She had gotten in the door, and gained Becca’s trust. Nothing could make her happier, nothing apart from kissing her.
“Thank you, Becca. I won’t let you down. All I want to be is a support to you, and someone the kids can rely on.”
On cue the baby started kicking again. Dale slipped her hand under the edge of Becca’s blouse and tenderly stroked her stomach. As she did, she noticed Becca’s breathing quicken. She was clearly enjoying Dale’s touch, and that excited Dale so much.
“You’re so beautiful, Becca.”
Dale leaned in, her lips aching to touch Becca’s.
“I’m not. I’m a huge pregnant woman.”
“Then you can’t see what I see. Maybe I can show you?”
Becca nodded and her lips were inches from touching hers when Jake came bundling in the door and they broke apart.
Becca’s cheeks went bright red.
“Mummy, have you finished talking? I want Dale to come and see my computer program.”
Becca cleared her throat nervously. “Can you give us a minute, and I’ll send Dale up?”
“With lollipops?” Dale said with a wink.
“Yes!” Jake shouted excitedly and ran off up the stairs.
They stepped apart, and Becca said, “I’ve never seen him so animated as he is with you.”
“Eh, thanks. It’s probably just my stupid jokes.”
“No, it’s more than that, but we can add that to the million other things we need to talk about, and I mean we need to talk. I want to tell you about my past before…” Becca hesitated.
And Dale finished for her, “Before we go any further with our relationship?”
“Yes, exactly,” Becca said.
Dale took another chance and held Becca’s hand. “There’s nothing that could stop me wanting to be here for you. I want to help you.”
“You know I’m Victoria, but you don’t know the real story, only the one the media sold.”
Dale smiled. “We’ve got lots of time, because you’ve got to understand one thing. I’m not leaving you and Jake alone tonight after what happened.”
“We’ll be okay. Trent negotiated two weeks for me to pay him. His thugs won’t be back till then.”
Dale placed her hand on Becca’s baby bump and said softly, “You were puking your guts up this morning. You need rest, proper rest. Tell me you wouldn’t sleep better if I was in the house?”
Becca let out a long breath. “Okay, but I don’t want you to ever feel like you have to be here.”
I want to be here, Dale thought.
“I promise I won’t, and I always keep my promises. And I brought pizza so you don’t have to worry about dinner.”
Becca laughed. “That’s one thing you’re going to have to learn about being in a family, Dale. You can’t just give your kids pizza all the time because they like it, or lollipops.”
Dale felt like her heart might just burst after what Becca said. Your kids.
Oh man, I want them to be my kids.
“You can’t? Okay, well maybe you could teach me,” Dale said with a smile.
“Maybe. You better go and see Jake now or he’ll come back and pull you upstairs.”
“I’m going, hen. Don’t lift or do anything, will you?” Dale said while walking backwards to the kitchen door.
“I’ll put the food in the fridge and then pig out
on some jalapenos. Is that acceptable?”
“Perfect.” Dale was halfway out the door when she turned back and said, “Hey, Becca. Why did the jalapeno put on a jumper?”
“Do tell,” Becca said.
“Because he was chilli. You get it? The chilli was chilly?”
Becca shook her head and smiled. “That was terrible, McGuire. But in a good way.”
* * *
Dale sat at Jake’s computer desk and watched with awe as his fingers whizzed across the keyboard, and he explained what he was doing.
“The game is a story mixed with maths problems. If a child gets the problem wrong, then the story takes a bad path, and they know they have to go back and fix it, but if they get it right, the hero moves on to the next puzzle.”
“That’s amazing, Jake, and really kind of you to think of other kids.”
Jake shrugged. “I wanted other kids to know how cool numbers are. They’re not scary like most kids think.”
“So this will keep you busy enough that you won’t hack into any more websites?” Dale said firmly.
Jake put his head down. “I hadn’t done that for a long time, and then it was because I was bored. This time I just wanted to find you.”
Dale stroked his head and smiled. “I’m so glad you did. You know, I love numbers too. I was really good at maths at school,” Dale told him.
Jake smiled excitedly. “You did? I’m just like you then.”
“No, you are so much more intelligent than I was, and braver. When I got to high school, and got involved with my friends, cars, and going out, I gave up on my studies. I was too concerned about fitting in with the crowd.”
“What was your school like?” Jake focused intently on Dale while sucking on one of the lollipops she had bought.
“It wasn’t the best of areas I lived in, but my primary school was a great place—and then I went to high school. I was kind of naughty.”
For some reason, this made Jake laugh. “Tell me, tell me what you did.”
Dale went on to entertain him with some censored exploits of her times at school, and Jake loved hearing every second of it.
After she finished her last story she said, “Don’t tell your mum about that one, okay?”
“Okay. That was so funny.”
Dale had been thinking about ways to get Jake interacting with other kids, but in a way that would stimulate his razor-sharp mind, and she thought she had found the perfect answer.
“Jake? Do you know how to play chess?”
* * *
After a nice dinner, Becca got Jake ready for bed and left him reading a book on chess on his iPad. Ever since Dale had told him how she enjoyed the game, and suggested he go to the school’s chess club, he’d become determined to learn everything about it.
It was sweet that he had come to hero worship Dale in such a short space of time. It wasn’t surprising though—Dale just had that sort of enthusiastic personality that drew you to her. Becca was getting closer and closer herself.
Becca settled herself on the living room couch while Dale attended to the fire. The roaring fire and the low lights gave the room a warm glow. Becca hadn’t sat with someone like this for a long time, and it was nice.
“Thanks for getting Jake to go to chess club. That was a great idea.”
“Well, I thought it might interest a boy as intelligent as Jake. Plus he’ll have to play and mix with the other kids. Hopefully it’ll help him. I know I loved it.”
“You, Dale McGuire, went to chess club?” Becca laughed softly.
Dale’s cheeks went a little red. “Aye, up until my first year at high school, when I foolishly bowed to peer pressure and gave up chess and maths clubs. I was getting made fun of, and I realized the girls were more into the cool boys that played sports and worked on cars. All my mates were boys, and I wanted attention from the girls, just like them.”
“I can just imagine you chasing after girls when you were young. So? What did your parents say?” Becca realized what she had said and backed up. “I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean to mention them.”
“Hey, don’t worry. You were right. They were my only parents. Ma and Da loved me so much. I sometimes wish I had never found out. Anyway, my ma wasn’t too pleased, because she always had this dream of me being the first McGuire to go to university to become a doctor or lawyer. Da, on the other hand, was secretly pleased, I think. He worked all his life in the Glasgow shipyards as a welder. So he wanted me to have a trade.”
Becca wasn’t surprised by Dale’s story. It all made perfect sense. “Did you give up on school then?” Becca asked.
“Pretty much, apart from sports and tech classes. I didn’t stay on at school past sixteen, but I did leave with qualifications in maths and physics.” Dale smiled mischievously. “You know why?”
Becca shook her head in reply.
“My maths and physics teachers hated me. Who knows why? Well maybe because I left a fish behind the heaters in both their classrooms over the summer…”
Becca burst out laughing. “You did not.”
“Uh-huh. They had to get the place fumigated. I was an idiot trying to impress her idiot friends. Anyway, that’s beside the point. They both told me there wasn’t any point in me taking the exam, because there was no way I’d pass it.”
“A teacher said that to you? So I suppose you took that as a challenge?”
“Oh yes. I got A plus in both subjects, and then left school with the most arrogant smile on my face. I’m surprised one of them didn’t kill me. Looking back now, I wouldn’t have blamed them.”
Becca felt just the opposite. “I don’t think so—they should have tried to engage you more, and interest you with work, and then you wouldn’t have had time to cook up fish plots.”
Dale laughed. “Maybe.”
There was a lull in the conversation, as they each took a drink of tea. Becca felt the nerves start to twist in her stomach, because she knew it was her turn to talk. It was right that she tell Dale, but she hadn’t done this in such a long time.
“You look stressed, hen,” Dale said. “You don’t have to tell me if you’re not ready.”
Becca placed both palms on her baby bump. “No, I want to, I need to. I’m so sick of hiding.”
“You don’t ever have to hide from me. We share egg stuff, remember?” Dale said with a wink.
The comment made her relax immediately. “You were right. My name was Victoria Carter. What did you find out on the internet?”
“I only looked quickly before I left to come here. I read that your dad was a doctor and involved in a big fraud scandal.”
“That’s just a part of the story. My father was a doctor. He worked for the National Health Service as a consultant pain specialist, and he had a private practice on Harley Street.”
Dale’s eyes went wide. “Wow, he was an accomplished guy.”
“Academically, yes, but not as a man, husband, or father.” Becca started to shiver slightly with the cold and reliving the story.
Dale noticed and got up to get a blanket from the chair and tucked it around her. Dale was so kind and considerate. Becca knew she was doing the right thing in placing her trust in her.
Becca continued, “As I was growing up, I never thought we were different from other people. I thought my life was normal, that all doctors lived as lavishly as we did. We had a large house in Belgravia, and relied on staff to look after us. Nanny, cook, that sort of thing. It’s a sad fact that I had to teach myself to cook when I went to university.”
Dale lifted Becca’s blanket-covered feet and placed them on her lap. “Hey, don’t feel bad. You had a cook and staff. I had a ma who did everything for me, and I mean everything. When I moved in with Sammy and Val, Val quickly gave me a crash course on household tasks, like how to use the washing machine and iron, because she certainly wasn’t doing them for me. So we’re similar at different ends of the scale.”
Becca chuckled, imagining Dale wrestling with domestic applian
ces. “So can you use a washing machine now?”
Dale looked down sheepishly. “Well since we’re sharing secrets, I’ll tell you. Every time I’ve gotten a new washing machine for my flat, Val sticks a yellow label next to the washing programme I’m meant to use. Pathetic, huh?”
“No, as you say, we were both spoiled, just at opposite ends of the scale. My own mother wouldn’t have known where our appliances were.”
“What was your ma like?” Dale asked.
How to explain Carlotta Carter? “It’s difficult to explain. My mother Carlotta wasn’t in any sense of the word a mother. I don’t want you to think she was a bad mother who didn’t care about me, she did, and I loved her a lot, but she was more like a big sister. A glamorous, much older sister who regaled me with stories of her and my father’s nights out in London society circles. She was a former model, much younger than my father, and he was delighted with her. Delighted to have her on his arm.”
“Like a trophy kind of thing?” Dale asked.
“Yes, exactly. He wasn’t cruel to her, but he wasn’t affectionate. It just wasn’t him, and she was used to being given lots of love and attention during her career. I found out later she used drugs and alcohol to compensate for that lack of love. Father was rarely home as she got older, and I would often find Mother in drug-induced stupors.”
“Man, that’s a shame,” Dale said.
“It was. Little did I know she was being supplied by my father and his friends.”
Dale did a double take. “Your father? I thought it was fraud he was done for?”
“It was, prescription fraud. Eugene Hardy was in partnership with my father, Thomas. My father invented phantom patients and used the prescriptions to procure drugs, which Eugene would then sell on the streets for big money. Everything that I ever had was bought with ordinary people’s desperation for drugs,” Becca said, still feeling the guilt deeply inside her.
“You can’t think like that, Becca. You didn’t know,” Dale said, while she rubbed her feet to soothe her.
“It doesn’t make it any better though. Then everything came crashing down. I was in my first year at uni. I still lived at home, and the police raided our house at five a.m. one morning. It was terrifying. They took nearly everything for evidence, arrested my father, and froze all our bank accounts. Mother and I were in a bad way. The press was camped outside the house, so we couldn’t go anywhere.”