by Del, Lissa
“Ian!” I gasped into his mouth, pushing his chest and arching my body away. Rather than let me go, his arms pulled me closer, crushing me to him. “Ian!” I shoved harder, breaking the lip-lock. “No!” I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want this.”
It took him a moment to gather himself. “You’re lying. You felt that too.”
“I didn’t, Ian. I’m so sorry, but this isn’t going to happen.”
He was distraught, I remember that clearly, but I promised that we would always be friends and that Nick would never know.
A year later I broke half of that promise. I told Nick, when I realized that he was forever and not just for now. It turns out he knew. He didn't know where, or when, but he knew. It was never mentioned again. And we did all stay friends.
“Evie?” Ian’s voice brings me back to the present moment. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine!” I say brightly. “I had too much to drink on Saturday night and I had a bit of a hangover yesterday, but I’m perfectly fine now.”
“Are you sure?” The look again. It had gone for the longest time, especially after he had met his wife, Carmen, but had reappeared after my first diagnosis, not long after his divorce.
“I’m positive.” I turn my back on him so I don’t have to endure the look any longer. “Do you want some coffee?”
He’s at my side in an instant. “I just had some, but let me make that for you.”
I swat his hand away. “My machine, my rules!”
Nick would’ve laughed. Ian doesn’t.
I hear my car pulling into the garage and a moment later Julia walks through the kitchen door. I’m so relieved I could kiss her, but if she finds my exaggerated welcome odd, she doesn’t comment.
“Ian, this is Julia, Julia, this is Ian. Ian is a very old friend of ours.”
“Hello,” Julia smiles politely and extends her hand. Ian takes it, not before giving her an appraising once over, and then cocks his head to one side. “I’m the nanny,” Julia explains.
“You’re the nanny?” His jaw drops. He looks to me for affirmation and I nod.
“She’s the nanny,” I repeat. I try to see Julia through Ian’s eyes – her slim, but curvy figure with calf muscles to die for, which I assume she got from having to walk everywhere, dark hair naturally highlighted by all her time spent outside in the sun, blue-green eyes. Julia is pretty - exceptionally pretty, if the look on Ian’s face right now is anything to go by.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Julia,” Ian says, oozing private school-boy charm. “I’ve heard only good things.”
Julia laughs politely, but I can tell she feels uncomfortable.
“Thanks for taking the kids in this morning,” I tell her. “Nick had to go into the office early,” I add, for Ian’s benefit, “so Julia dropped them off.”
“Where’s Kat?” Julia asks, busying herself making the coffee I’ve forgotten about. “I thought she’d be here by now.”
“Did I hear my name?” Kat drawls from the doorway. “You do know your front door is open,” she adds, stepping onto the hardwood floor as if it was a runway.
“Ooh la la!” I exclaim as she air-kisses Ian on both cheeks. “Where are you going looking like all of that?” I wave my hand up and down, indicating her woollen dress and tights combination. The heels of her boots are lethal.
“A meeting.”
“Does it happen to be with a delectable young executive from Parker Homes?”
“His younger, more delectable assistant, actually,” Kat replies, dead-pan.
“God help him,” Ian tuts, accepting a cup of coffee from Julia.
“Your phone is ringing,” Kat tells me as my iPhone vibrates across the island. I scoop it up.
“Hey babe.”
“Evie.” Nick sounds furious. “Please tell me, in the name of all that is good and holy, that you did not sign my mother up to Tinder.” In the silence of the kitchen his voice carries.
“What?” I glance up, wide-eyed, to find Kat grinning like a Cheshire cat and a flashback of Saturday night blooms in my head. Oh shit.
“She’s going berserk,” Nick continues. “Apparently her phone has been ringing non-stop with propositions that she calls – and I quote – most inappropriate.”
“I didn’t even know you could list a number on Tinder,” I say, and then I slap my hand over my phone as Kat starts to laugh.
Nick sighs. “Look, I’m not going to come out and say it was you and Kat, but I seem to recall that you two disappeared on Saturday night for a while and it sounded like you were up to no good. As usual,” he adds, for good measure. “So please, if by chance this is your doing, could you delete the account. For me. Please.”
“Got it.”
“And Evie.”
I cringe “Yes?”
Nick chuckles. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I end the call and look over to Kat, horrified. “Tell me we didn’t.”
“We didn’t,” she replies immediately, following the instruction without any care for the truth. Ian looks amused, Julia is simply lost.
“We have to delete it.”
“It’d do the old bag some good.”
“No, Kat. We have to delete it.”
She sighs as she pulls her phone from her bag. “Fine.” She jabs at the screen, “but you know, some of these older men are pretty hot.”
“How did they get her number?”
“I added it into her bio.”
“Kat!”
“What? You told me to!”
“Wait, what did you two do now?” Ian asks, with the emphasis on now because, let’s face it, Kat and I are always up to something.
“We signed Mary-Anne up for Tinder.” I say, trying to keep a straight face. Julia starts to giggle.
“Don’t let them corrupt you, Julia,” Ian warns. “They’re incorrigible.”
“There,” Kat announces, setting her phone down, “all done.”
“We’re never drinking again,” I tell her.
“If I had a dollar for every time you’ve said that,” Ian muses.
“You’d be as rich as me,” Kat grins wickedly.
19
Julia
“Son of a bitch!” That’s the second time I’ve pricked myself in as many minutes. A droplet of blood wells up on the pad on my finger and I pop it in my mouth, sucking the blood away. I’m not used to hand stitching. Sadly, my dad had sold my mom’s industrial machine after she died to pay the water bill, so this is as good as it gets. Evie doesn’t own a sewing machine. When I asked, she laughed. Literally threw back her head and laughed, as if it was the funniest question she’d ever heard. I had taken that as a no.
I finish off the last few stitches and hold up my masterpiece. It doesn’t look like much, but it should do the job. It’s been a week since Evie came home drunk and giggling. The drunk and giggling was a good thing. The rash that had developed on her scalp the next day wasn’t. I hadn’t noticed because she’d worn a beanie on Sunday and I’d spent most of the day at my dad’s with Jesse, but by Monday morning the angry red welts were still visible.
I pack away my meagre sewing basket and wander downstairs. The house is so quiet without the Danvers family living loudly within it. Nick and Evie have taken the kids ice-skating, so I wash the few dishes left over from breakfast and straighten up the sofa cushions before settling down to read.
“We’re back!” Evie calls, completely unnecessarily as she opens the front door.
“Hey, how was it?”
“Hilarious. Nick fell on his ass, twice.”
“I didn’t fall, I tripped.”
“Tell that to the five-year-old you took down with you.”
“That was your fault! And it wasn’t even logical – how can ice be lava?”
Evie giggles.
“Did you have fun, Dyl?” I ask, as Dylan jumps onto the sofa next to me.
“Yes.”
“And you, Jesse?”
Jesse grins. “Dad really did fall twice. Although the second time he was trying to get off the ice too fast because Mom called lava. Are you going to visit your dad tomorrow?” The question catches me completely unaware and I’m super conscious of the fact that Evie and Nick have fallen silent.
“I am.”
“Could I come with you?”
“Jesse,” Evie begins gently, “Julia might want to spend some time alone with her dad. She doesn’t see him very often.”
Jesse’s face falls, but he takes it on the chin. “Yeah, I guess.”
I want to reassure him but it’s not my place to counter Evie’s opinion.
“Why don’t you ask your father over to supper one night next week?” she proposes suddenly.
“Here?”
“Yes, why not? I’d love to meet him. You could pick him up and drop him off after.”
“You’re sure?”
“Julia. I wouldn’t offer if I wasn’t.”
“Okay, sure. I’ll ask him.”
“Awesome!” Jesse fist-pumps the air. “I’m going to show him my guitar!”
“He’ll love that.” I smile, ruffling his hair. He waits exactly three seconds before he combs it back with his fingers.
“I’m going to change Casey,” Nick says, lifting her up and flying her around like an airplane. “She’s soaked.”
“She fell about ten times,” Evie tells me as they disappear up the stairs.
“While I’ve got you alone,” I say, pulling the poorly-stitched, elasticated cap out from between the sofa cushions. “I made you something.”
Evie takes it and starts to turn it in her hands. “What’s this?”
“It’s a cloth cap,” I rush to explain. “You wear it under your wig. I Googled it, and apparently it helps with the irritation. I’m sure you could buy a better one, but I thought you could try it to see if it works before you go and spend money on…” I trail off helplessly because Evie has gone still. She’s staring at the elasticated cap intently, her fingers tracing the neat, if irregular, stitching.
“You made this?” she asks eventually. She looks up and I see that her eyes are filled with tears.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to upset you. I just thought – well, I know you like wearing your wig but it irritates you and I thought…” I trail off, because for the life of me I don’t remember what I was thinking when I started making it. “Forget it, I shouldn’t have…” I try to snatch the cap back but Evie jerks it away and clutches it to her chest protectively.
“Julia, thank you. It’s…” she takes a deep breath and gives me a watery smile, “it’s just so thoughtful.”
“It might not work,’ I say, suddenly terrified that I’ll let her down.
“Only one way to find out. Come on!” she grabs my hand and pulls me up the stairs after her.
“What are you two giggling about in here?” Nick asks a few minutes later as he enters the room. He has Casey wrapped in a fluffy pink towel on his hip and an amused smile on his face. He catches sight of Evie wearing her wig and his smile falters. “Babe, take that off. You don’t want to have another reaction.”
“I won’t!” Evie interrupts, giddily. “She whips the wig off and holds up the soft cotton cap. “Julia made this for me! I wear it underneath the wig so my skin is protected.”
Nick takes it from her and rubs it between his fingers. “What is this?” he asks, looking directly at me.
“It’s a cap,” I reply shyly. “I read about them online. I’m sure you probably already know about them, but I figured Evie could try it out and if it works, you can order a new one.”
“Stuff that,” Evie says, taking it back from Nick and pulling it over her head. “This one’s sentimental.”
“What does it say?” Nick asks, leaning closer to get a better look. “Lin? What’s lin?”
I blush. “Zepplin. I used one of my old T-shirts. I washed it first,” I hasten to add, “but the website I found recommended old T-shirt material because it’s thin and has already been softened.
“Zepplin?” Nick looks like he’s trying not to laugh.
“You don’t like Zepplin?”
“It’s perfect,” he says, and the smile he gives me is only marginally less warm than the one he bestows on Evie a second later. “It couldn’t be more perfect. Unless it was Pearl Jam, of course.”
Evie wears her wig for the rest of the afternoon. She even puts on a little blusher and, although she won’t admit to anything else, her eyelashes look fuller than they did this morning.
When Nick offers to read the kids their bedtime story, Evie wags her finger at him. “It’s my turn.”
“Don’t encourage her,” Nick tells me when I chuckle. “The only reason she’s offering is to get out of doing all these dishes.”
“I’ve always told you, I’m not just a pretty face!” Evie’s voice calls back to us from the foot of the stairs.
I giggle again and start clearing up the dishes. I scrape the left-over food into the bin and start running hot water into the sink. Nick hasn’t moved.
“Julia…” he says, getting my attention.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know how to thank you, for what you’ve done for Evie.”
“It’s nothing,” I insist. “I just cut up an old T-shirt.”
“It’s not nothing.” He holds my gaze until I look away.
“It’s just an elasticated cap,” I mumble.
“It’s a chance for her to feel beautiful again without the fear of pain,” he corrects.
I scrape the last of Casey’s mash into a plastic bowl so she can have it for lunch tomorrow. “Please don’t say that yet. You’re going to jinx it. For all we know, she’s going to wake up tomorrow with welts all over her head.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Brush it off. Look at me.” I do and Nick smiles. “If only my kids were that easy to control,” he teases, before he turns serious once more. “What you did today was kind and thoughtful and I want you to accept my appreciation without making out like it was nothing.”
“Okay,” I nod self-consciously.
“Good girl. Now, let’s get these dishes done.”
20
Nick
I offer to dry. I know it’s the shittier of the two jobs and, after what she did today, Julia gets to wash. I glance over at her when she’s not looking and wonder how such a sweet girl ended up with such a raw deal. Losing her mother, then her fiancé and becoming financially responsible for her father. It’s heart-breaking.
“What did you want to do?” I ask, taking the next plate from her. “If you could’ve done anything, what would it be?”
“Well, I’m a psych major, so it would’ve been nice to continue with that.”
“Private practice?”
“No,” she hands me another plate, “I think I would’ve gone into social work.”
“Why don’t you finish? It’s never too late to follow your passion.”
“I was actually thinking of taking a couple of night classes next semester. It won’t interfere with my work here,” she adds quickly.
“I didn’t say that it would. And, if it did, we’d work around it.”
I’m not paying her lip service. I want her to achieve her full potential. Over the past two weeks Julia has become a part of the family. I found it easier to be nice to her than I had expected, once I let my guard down. And, with this one act of extraordinary kindness, she’s secured a soft spot in my heart and somehow become an extension of Evie and my children.
Which is why, when Julia bends down to retrieve the milk bowl Evie had set out for the cat, revealing an ample amount of cleavage and the edge of a budded, rose-pink nipple peeking over the lace of her bra, the swooping sensation in my chest is so unexpected. I am so taken aback by my body’s reaction that I drop the bowl I’m holding. It lands with a soft splash in the sink, sloshing sudsy water over my pants but, before Julia ca
n ask what happened, I’ve bolted.
I find Evie curled around Dylan’s body like an eel. Dylan’s room is decorated like a pirate ship. Evie had painted the mural of the Jolly Roger on the wall herself but I’d drilled the ship’s wheel into the wall. Dylan spent the first month turning it constantly, pretending to be the ship’s captain. No one else was permitted to touch it although we were all invited aboard. Now it just hangs there, an abandoned helm. Dylan moved on to airplanes and neither Evie nor I had had the energy to keep up. They grow up too fast I’d told Evie, to which she’d replied that the sooner they left home, the sooner we could run around naked again.
I lift the edge of the duvet and curl myself around Evie. She wriggles backward until she’s pressed up against me like she always does. She senses me, no matter how deeply she’s sleeping.
When we were first married we hardly bothered with clothes at night. Nine times out of ten they’d end up in a discarded heap on the floor anyway, and Evie hates doing laundry even more than she hates doing dishes. We’d always had an incredible sex life. Evie was as uninhibited in bed as she was in everything else she did and I wasn’t about to argue, not when I considered myself the luckiest man on earth for having a wife whose physical needs matched my own. We’d made love while driving through the gorge on our way home from a trip to the mountains, made out in an airplane until the stewardess banged on the door and Evie had to tug out a chunk of her hair to free herself from my zipper. I doubt the numerous hotels in every city we’d visited had ever seen such passion.
“What if someone sees us?” I’d asked, when she insisted we sneak into the waterpark in a resort in Phuket to prove we could have sex while going down the lazy water slide.
“We’ll tell them we’re leading by example,” she’d replied, pressing her lips to mine in a way that meant business.