Gucci Mamas (8 page)

‘What do you mean?’ asked Liz. ‘Sex is sex, isn’t it?’

‘Not necessarily. Obviously if he fell in love and left me for her then that’s the end of it and I’d have to move on, but if it was sex like meeting a mate for squash, then I’d probably be more lenient. I wouldn’t castrate him immediately, at any rate.’

‘Jeez, lucky James,’ commented Monique.

‘Well, don’t tell him, obviously!’ Mim said, laughing. ‘It’s not like he’s got a leave pass to screw around on me!’

The women were laughing at this when the doorbell rang.

‘Bugger,’ said Mim getting up to refresh the coffee. ‘Well that’s put a downer on that conversation!’

The doorbell rang again and Mim went to answer it.

‘Hello beautiful lady,’ Mim said to Tiffany, giving her close friend a hug and wishing she could share her pain.

‘Hi Mim,’ said Tiffany breezily. Her bouffant, blonde mane bounced about her shoulders and highlighted her recently acquired Noosa tan, which was offset by a white silver-studded denim jacket and tight white jeans.

‘Sorry I’m late, girls,’ she squeaked, throwing her arms out in greeting.

‘Tiff!’ Monique and Liz said in unison as they burst into a quick round of ‘love-your-outfit, have-you-done-something-new-with-your-hair?’ exclamations.

‘Ellie not here yet?’

‘As if,’ said Mim. ‘She’s only half an hour late, it’s too soon yet! Caffeine pick-me-up, sweetie?’ she asked, moving into the kitchen.

‘Kill for one, darling. Can you do me a soy macchiato with low foam? My lactose intolerance is flaring again and I’ve just bloated like a pig.’

‘How was Noosa, darling?’ Monique asked. ‘Did you stay at the Sheraton again?’

‘Oh, God no. We were going to but Cliff had to cancel coming with us at the last minute – work commitments – so I said, stuff him, and booked us into a stunning house on the riverfront with a pool, and took Jana with us instead.’

‘Fabulous, take the nanny and you’ve got yourself a real holiday,’ Mim said.

‘I know, it’s a nightmare with them on my own. The kids have a grand old time, and
husband
usually skives off from doing anything remotely associated with parenting because apparently it’s his holiday. But for me … well, it’s just same shit, different location.’

They all nodded knowingly.

‘Did you go out much?’ asked Liz.

‘I ran into Jennifer Gowrie-Smith – unfortunately,’
Tiffany grimaced. ‘What is with that woman? She’s so pretentious.’ Tiffany sipped her coffee. ‘So I went out one night with her and her husband to Berardos. It was worth it, though. The food is absolutely divine.’

‘And how was Hastings Street?’

‘Oh, the usual, see and be seen. Aromas for coffee every morning. And as usual the place was teeming with Victorians. Although it wasn’t anywhere near as “Little Melbourne” as it is in the September hols. I did run into Carla Johnson though, just back from a cruise and off she pops to Noosa. Life’s a bitch, ain’t it?’

‘Oh, how did she find the Diamond Cruise Line?’ enquired Mim.

‘Oh who’d know, all she could do was rave about Davey the cabin boy, how hot he was, how sweet he was, what a great body he had, the tattoo on his shoulder …’ Tiffany let the sentence drift off and raised her eyebrows over her coffee cup.

The girls all squealed. ‘How would she know about the tat unless she … ohmigod, you don’t think she … but she’s married!’ squeaked Mim with barely concealed delight.

‘I don’t know anything, I’m not saying anything, but what I do know is that he was twenty-eight years old!’

‘Twenty-eight!’ The girls screeched in unison,

‘Oh Jesus, half her luck. I’m very jealous!’ said Monique, fanning herself with a napkin. ‘Look, I’ve gone all hot under the collar just thinking about it!’

As the ladies twittered and tittered and filled each other in on the latest inane gossip, Mim was suddenly struck by the shallowness of it all. When was the last time she’d had a truly deep discussion: an esoteric, spiritual, meaty dialogue with someone? She fondly thought of her uni days: hours spent over bottles of cheap red and flickering candlelight in crappy student housing, wrestling with fellow students on
the questions of the cosmos. She’d been dirt poor at the time, but somehow she felt that her life had been richer.

The doorbell finally announced Ellie’s presence. ‘Greetings, gorgeous girls,’ she sang, gliding in on a cloud of Allure. She bestowed noisy air-kisses all round before seating herself regally like the rightful Queen Bee of their group and carelessly spread her designer accessories around her.

Mim couldn’t help but smile. Ellie really was a parody of herself. She took the whole society thing to the nth degree and was probably laughing on the inside the entire time. You couldn’t help but love her, no matter how pretentious she seemed.

‘Hello, Ellie, sweetie,’ said Mim. ‘Latte?’

‘Mim, darling, you life-saver, I am DYING for some caffeine stimulation! Make it a double. Liz, looking resplendent. Monique, stylish as ever. And Tiffany, what a sweet little pure white thing you’ve got going on there, love the tan.’ Ellie immediately assumed centre stage and spread her charismatic glow among them.

If anyone was to ask Mim to define the elusive X factor, Mim knew exactly what she’d say: Ellie – whatever it was she had, it was what all the minor celebs in Hollywood needed. Stylish, beautiful and with perfect white teeth, Ellie lived the golden life – and to top it all off she was actually a nice person too.

‘So what have you been up to, Ellie?’ Mim asked.

‘Oh sweetie, it’s been such a bore with Bryce away again, my bed is just too big without him.’

‘You guys are such a love story,’ Monique laughed. ‘After fifteen years, how do you do it?’

‘Just lucky, I guess,’ Ellie smiled.

‘You met him when you were modelling, didn’t you?’ Mim asked.

The Mothers’ Group had intermittently badgered Ellie to show them her modelling portfolio, but she insisted it was in storage and too difficult to find. They had to be content with the few snippets of her hey-day and the deliciously romantic details of her wonderful years spent overseas with Bryce. Although she was extremely vivacious and chatty, and could quite frankly talk the leg off an Eames chair, she remained evasive about the details of her life pre-Bryce. The other girls, self-involved with their own busy lives, didn’t seem to notice, but it always struck Mim as curious how she’d remain tight-lipped when the others would reminisce about their private schoolgirl days of hats and gloves, trams and boys.

The conversation swelled around Mim as she cradled her latte and watched Ellie carefully. She seemed her usually glowing and chatty self, but Mim had detected a slight edge to her voice in the past few weeks, a subtle shadow in her best friend’s eyes, and twice when she had questioned Ellie about it she’d been fobbed off.

‘So Mim, how’s life as a single mum?’ asked Liz.

Mim sighed. ‘Oh, the same as always really. Even when James is home it’s not like he’s ever home before bedtime or anything. I had to send him an email with a photo of Charley’s lost tooth last week.’

‘That’s crappy, Mim. Have you told him how you feel?’

‘Well, I haven’t as such. We just don’t seem to be connecting lately. Our only communication seems to be brief phone calls and emails about domestic stuff – it’s not exactly how I thought marriage would turn out.’

‘Work must be intense for him if he’s so busy. He must be under a lot of pressure – not that we care really, because we’re on your side,’ Tiffany laughed.

‘Well, absolutely. Anyway, we’ll cope,’ Mim said, rubbing absently at an invisible mark on her pants. ‘With all the
retrenchments in his company he’s keeping his head down and his bum up. He leaves by 7.30 a.m. every day and never gets home before eight in the evenings.’

Liz frowned, leaning forward to pat Mim on the knee.

‘I know exactly how you feel. Remember when Sebastian got that huge job last year? I can’t believe we actually celebrated it! Sure, the money was great, but he disappeared overseas for months. He missed Hubert’s first recital and when he eventually came home he was at the piano the whole time.’

‘I remember, you were at the end of your tether,’ Tiffany sympathised.

‘What we did was to make a standing booking with a babysitter and go out together once a week on a date,’ Liz said.

Mim shot Liz a quizzical look.

‘I know what you’re thinking: why go out when you’re at home together most nights, and sometimes they’re the last person you want to be with, particularly with you feeling the way you are at the moment. But it really works. It gets him away from the desk, the phone and the television and gives you two a chance to talk. Think of all that empty space to fill in between ordering and entrée!’

Tiffany nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yes, it worked for us a couple of years ago too. You get all the boring household stuff out of the way in the car en route and then in the restaurant you discuss topics that can’t be discussed over the children’s dinner or on the weekend.’

‘So, Tiff, why did you guys stop this date routine then?’ Mim asked.

Tiffany rolled her eyes. ‘It worked fine for the first few weeks, but then he kept being called away for an emergency, and once he didn’t even show! I felt like a right twat sitting at Florentino’s by myself nibbling breadsticks.’

‘I didn’t know that cosmetic orthodontists were on call,’ Mim said subtly.

‘Oh, yes, well, apparently it’s the way the whole medical profession is going now. Even a colleague of his, a plastic surgeon, had to do a house call recently when a patient’s boob job suddenly dropped during a particularly strenuous tennis match.’

‘Ohmigod, no way,’ said Mim as they all laughed – except Monique, who looked at her chest nervously.

‘Our house at Portsea has always been a great spot for romantic getaways, too, you know,’ mused Tiffany, never missing a chance to mention their new beach house.

‘God, I love Portsea, so relaxing. Have you seen the Trevallys’ new place?’ Mim asked.

‘Isn’t that in NQP?’ said Liz.

Mim looked at her enquiringly. ‘NQP?’

‘Not-Quite-Portsea, you know, Sorrento,’ finished Liz. They all laughed at the sheer bitchiness of the comment.

‘What’s on for tonight, girls? Usual Monday night blah?’ Mim asked as they all started to make moves towards leaving.

‘Same old, same old,’ said Liz. ‘Violin lesson, then tae kwon do, homework, dinner, bath, bed, ho, hum.’

‘I’ve got the out-laws coming over,’ said Tiffany. ‘Hideous man, Cliff’s dad, he’s such a creep.’

‘Oh, poor you, what are you serving?’ asked Monique.

‘It doesn’t matter what I serve, she always turns up her lip as though it’s chuck steak,’ Tiffany moaned.

Mim leaned in eagerly. ‘I know what you mean. James’s mother is the same and she sniffs my food constantly. It’s truly odd.’

As the women gathered at the door, swapping kisses and goodbyes, Tiffany’s mobile trilled an incoming SMS. She flipped it open and read the message.

‘DAMN!’ she cried out and looked up at her group of friends. ‘That was Cliff, he’s cancelled on me again! That’s the third time this week. I’m going to have to deal with his parents by myself!’

As each of her friends murmured words of sympathy to Tiffany there was no longer any doubt in their minds.

Cliff was clearly having an affair.

September 1998

Half-wits and morons – that’s what I have to deal with, Liz thought in exasperation as she bustled along the high-ceilinged hall of their newly-built modern, streamlined home. Good Lord, what a day she was having already. Why could nothing go right? What with the nanny whingeing about baby Roman keeping her up at night and the nightmare of their move a few weeks ago, it was all too much. No matter how hard Liz supervised the cleaning team, removalists and unpacking specialists, none of them could get anything the way she wanted it. No wonder people in the suburbs did things for themselves, she thought wryly, as one of the little men from
Moveurs
– the unpacking firm – placed her objet d’art in completely the wrong light yet again.

And tonight she’d decided to host a small soiree, just a casual get-together for the other mothers she’d just met last month at the upmarket private hospital where seafood, fine
wine and vaginal bypass (aka caesarean) were all on the menu.

She’d met a few of the other mothers at the postnatal manicure morning provided by the hospital and, deciding it was never too soon to start acquiring the right sorts of playmates for her newborn, had planned tonight’s dinner. Parchment-printed invitations had been sent out with spearmint-coloured teddies in cute boxes to some of the most promising prospects. That lovely Mim Woolcott who had been so friendly in the maternity ward, and Monique, whose husband ran the family business importing bottled water from Europe and seemed to do very well out of it.

She wasn’t quite sure about that Ellie, married well, of course, and the figure had snapped back almost immediately post-birth – naturally can you believe? But there was something a bit flashy about her that Liz couldn’t put her finger on.

Tiffany had amused the women greatly because she had chosen the birthing facility largely for its comfortable approach to cosmetic caesareans – after the money she’d spent on labioplasty to acquire a designer vagina she was hardly going to have it mashed out of shape by giving birth the old-fashioned way, thank you very much. Liz didn’t hold out much hope that she’d become close friends with the woman – her idea of classical music was ‘Hooked on Classics’, for heaven’s sake. However, she had invited her and her husband Cliff as the other women seemed fond of her.

With the plans made, invitations sent and caterers booked, Liz was hoping for a smooth day, but so far it had been a nightmare. She fiddled nervously with her three-carat brilliant-cut diamond ring and tried to blot out Roman’s wails from the nursery.

The front doorbell rang and she opened the grand,
timber and opaque-glass door by its long, stainless silver handle and tutted to find the caterer standing there.

‘Yes, hello, I’m glad you’ve finally arrived,’ she said to the young woman obscured by a huge load of foil trays. ‘I did make it clear to your company, however, that I expected you to unload your van at the service entrance around the back.’

‘Oh, I am sorry, I didn’t get that message,’ the girl said with an exasperated sigh. ‘While I’m here, do you think I could drop this lot off and I’ll drive the van around the back for the rest of the unloading? It’s just that it’s very heavy.’

‘You’ll find the rear entrance is off Sandford Lane,’ Liz replied, closing the door firmly in the girls’ face.

She immediately regretted being so rude, but it had been one hell of a day. Her exclusive dry-cleaners had not managed to clean and press her Dior silk blouse by this morning, which meant she’d have to send someone back there to pick it up this afternoon, and if they didn’t have it done by then, well, she may as well call the whole evening off. The blouse, in its gentle taupe, was the centrepoint of the evening’s colour scheme, and nothing else in her several wardrobes would suffice.

Then the florist had phoned, to explain they didn’t have any of the Stella roses in the beige that matched the dining room and her outfit perfectly – they only had white. White, honestly!

Experience told Liz not to depend on Sebastian – these creative types found it so hard to live by a schedule, so she’d booked a waiter through Dial-an-Angel. It was too much to expect that Liz could also pour guests’ drinks. She’d be flat-out mingling, making small-talk and supervising the catering staff as it was. She was only one woman after all. And then, just to put the icing on the cake, she’d broken a nail. Really, what more could life throw at her today? Her eyes filled with tears as she surveyed the torn cuticle. I mean
honestly: this morning, ten perfectly manicured fingers, and now this. She wondered if Larissa would make a house call, after all it was an emergency.

Her eyes scanned the room for faults, alighting on the timber Indigenous sculpture inside the front door. She sighed heavily as she noticed the dust resting on it. She must get Lenore on to that when she’d finished polishing the cutlery.

She glanced anxiously into the formal dining room. The Minotti glass-topped table and steel chairs had been shipped from Italy, arriving only days earlier. It had been an extravagance, but the gallery-style dining room was a space that afforded such a striking piece.

She sped her way back to the kitchen and pressed the garage door remote to allow the caterer entry through the rear four-car garage when the front doorbell summoned her again. She nearly screamed in exasperation. If that bloody florist has had the nerve to come to the front door I’ll spit, she fumed, retracing her steps, her Chanel loafers muffled by the Persian runner.

She flung open the front door, ready to snap, but was caught off-guard by the bizarre sight that greeted her. A hideous-looking creature stood there, startling blue eyes peering up at her through a horrifying wild nest of black hair.

‘Yes?’ she said officiously, immediately relieved that it was clearly nothing that concerned her. The child had obviously got lost or come begging, though one would have thought the council would have taken better care with such things.

The creature simply stood and stared. Her jaw dropped open, then closed.

‘Yes, whatever is it? I am a very busy woman.’

‘Are you Elizabeth Munroe?’

‘Yes, I am, what can I help you with?’ Liz was getting
very impatient and folded her arms in front of her, contemplating a glare – although tempting fate for future wrinkles, it could well be worth the cost in this situation.

The child paused and then said, ‘Were you Elizabeth Hepburn?’

‘Yes, I was,’ said Liz suspiciously. ‘What’s going on here?’ The stench from the child was starting to seep into the front hall and an odour issue was the last thing Liz needed today.

The phone began trilling and she just knew that it was that damn florist with another excuse, and she really had to get a wriggle on if she was going to apply a face-mask before the evening’s function.

The girl anxiously looked past Liz and into the house within. She took in the stark interior and warehouse-style foyer. Her eyes followed the clean lines of the sweeping staircase up to the second floor.

‘Look, child, if you want money I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place,’ Liz said, shooing her off the front step in frustration. ‘I’m not in the habit of making doorstop donations to beggars. Now please leave.’ She moved to shut the door.

The girl, who had recoiled at Liz’s words as if she’d been slapped, stepped forward, took a deep breath, shook her dreadlocks from her face and said:

‘I am Mikaylah Boomhauer. I am your daughter.’