Other People’s Diaries (27 page)

M
egan pushed her hair out of her eyes, trying to ignore the fact that she should have washed it this morning.

The cafe's airconditioning couldn't contend with the wall of humid air which oozed in through the doorways. It was too hot for jeans and Megan stretched her legs irritably, denim sticking to her thighs. Even her orange T-shirt, which usually made her feel good, had a stain on the front she hadn't noticed at home.

She was here too late, Megan knew that. An early Sunday breakfast could be a thing of joy. The cafe would be only half full, with a couple of bikes parked outside and their owners celebrating the end of an exercise session with a dose of caffeine and saturated fat. Maybe there'd be a father, unfamiliarly juggling an infant, while its mother slept late. Possibly even someone sitting at an outside table, weary dog lolling at their feet. Then there'd be people by themselves. No apologies were needed for eating by yourself early on a weekend morning. A crisp copy of the Sunday paper was the only companion required.

But by about nine, the couples drifted in. Some were well established, women handing over the sports section without comment. Then there were the relationships which were as new as the day and might not last it out. Those men eyed others' newspapers covetously, while the women tried to make small talk over freshly squeezed orange juice.

The dress code changed too, from exercise wear or clothes which had clearly spent the night on the floor, to crisp leisure wear and elegant shoes. While unbrushed hair was perfectly acceptable at 8 am, it screamed ‘single and not making an effort' after 9 am.

Megan took another sip of her coffee and closed the main part of the newspaper.

She knew she should read the news section, but the only sections she ever really paid any attention to were the colour magazine and the entertainment section. The rest of it just made her feel bad, reminding her that the world was in a shambles and she was doing nothing to fix it.

At least she didn't buy her own newspaper, she thought. Think of the trees she was saving. She pulled the glossy magazine toward her.

DICE MAN IN THE SUBURBS
, screamed the cover.

Megan opened the magazine, thumbing through the early pages to the lead story.

A photo of Alice stared up at her.

She read the first paragraph feeling sick to the stomach. Slowly, not missing anything, she read to the end. It was all there – all of their stories. Even hers. There were no last names and no photos except Alice's, but the journalist had clearly done her research.

The ‘Megan' in the article was a teacher at a northside school who lived in Paddington. She hated teaching and wanted to be a programmer.

‘Duh,' as the kids in her class would have said. Even a passing acquaintance would be able to tell it was her.

And there in black and white was the fact that she was having an affair with a married man. While the man remained anonymous, there were even details about the horrible dinner at Greg's place.

Megan had surprised herself by writing a diary entry when she'd arrived home after that evening. She'd woken ridiculously early the next morning in a panic, remembering that Greg had the password and could access the site. She'd quickly changed it, forwarding the new password to everyone in the group – under
the guise of a regular security update. Fortunately no one had thought to question why she'd done it at four o'clock in the morning.

Images of different members of the group ricocheted around Megan's mind. Claire, Rebecca, Lillian, Kerry. Their lives laid bare.

How had this happened?

Megan paid her bill and walked outside. She paused on the footpath, disoriented, then remembered her bike. Unchaining it from the lamppost, she slung her backpack over her shoulder and climbed on. Although it was ridiculous, she felt as though everyone was looking at her, laughing.

All she wanted to do was get back inside her house, close the blinds and never come out again.

As she pedalled her bike up the steep hill to home, the anger rose up in her. Alice must have given the story to the paper. That was the only explanation that made any sense. Of course she had. She was a faded star and this was a good way to get back in the limelight. Bugger what it did to anyone else.

Megan finally reached her house and threw her bike down, not even bothering to chain it up as she usually did.

Still sweating and breathing hard, she logged onto the familiar website address. With a couple of key strokes, she crashed the whole site. Not just the diary pages but the whole thing.

Sure it was way too little, way too late, but it made her feel slightly better.

J
eremy was halfway through the sports section when Bianca's phone beeped.

Rebecca tensed, looking up from Sam whose face was covered with a gelatinous mixture of Weet-Bix and toast.

They were all supposed to turn their phones off during meals. It was a rule she'd set about six months ago in an effort to regain some family life. But she'd quickly run out of the energy required to enforce the rule. Bianca didn't even pretend to adhere to it these days.

Bianca picked up her phone, ignoring her mother's silent look of disapproval. She looked up from the phone's display and across at the pile of newsprint.

‘Have you got the colour magazine, Jeremy?'

Jeremy didn't even look up, just pushed the pile toward Bianca and nudged his glasses back up his nose. ‘In there somewhere,' he muttered.

Bianca spread the paper with a careless hand and pulled out the glossy magazine.

Intrigued, Rebecca watched her.

The cover was a picture of a large dice taking up a whole supermarket trolley. The shout line read,
DICE MAN IN THE SUBURBS
.

Rebecca remembered
The Dice Man
, the seventies cult book
in which the main character allowed his choices in life to be ruled by the fall of the dice. Good title for an article, she thought vaguely, turning her attention back to Sam.

Bianca stood up suddenly, knocking the chair backwards. It hit the terrazzo floor with a crack and Sam burst out crying.

‘Bianca!' Jeremy exclaimed. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?'

‘Look at this!' She thrust the magazine into his chest. ‘I'll bet she didn't tell you either.'

Rebecca lifted Sam out of the highchair and tried to settle him. She cuddled him into her chest and watched Jeremy silently.

‘What is it, Jer?'

Bianca stood glaring at her and Rebecca only just resisted the urge to send her to her room. God, what she'd give for just one day of peace.

Jeremy didn't answer her, his eyes scanning the page. He read for what seemed like a year, turning the page slowly. Finally he looked up, pulling off his glasses and dropping them on the table.

‘What is going on, Rebecca?'

‘What do you mean, what's going on? I have no idea.'

‘Maybe you should have a look at this, then.'

Jeremy turned the magazine around and handed it to her.

A photo of Alice stared back at her. A younger and slimmer Alice, but Alice nonetheless.

A terrible suspicion ran through Rebecca's body, tightening her throat and jolting to a stop at her fingertips.

Her eyes darted to the text on the opposite page:

Four women and one man have put their lives in the hands of Alice Day, a once successful author who hasn't been published in over ten years. Their aim – to fix screwed-up and unhappy lives. Their agreement – to do whatever Alice tells them to and then post their diaries on the internet.

    These are mature, seemingly balanced individuals. There is Lillian, the respectable sixty year old widow, Rebecca the successful recruitment specialist with Bianca the self-mutilating love child and Jeremy the stockbroker hubby …

Rebecca didn't need to read any more.

She looked up at Bianca and Jeremy. Bianca's eyes were furious and flashing. Jeremy's were flat and emotionless. Sam struggled to be put down and strutted off to the other side of the room.

The things she'd written in her diary entries tumbled through her mind. Her dissatisfaction at work, her fight with Jeremy – Bianca cutting herself. Suddenly what she'd done seemed totally and ridiculously stupid. Posting intimate details on a website. She should have known that the fact the site was only accessible by the group members wasn't good enough. Alice had said that the names would be changed in any book that she wrote about the group, but the article used their real names. No surnames were mentioned, but there was no need, they were clearly identifiable.

Rebecca stood up, nightdress sticking to her thighs.

She stepped around the table toward her daughter, who had picked the magazine up again and was reading.

‘Bianca …' She touched her daughter's sleeve.

Bianca flinched as though she'd been struck. ‘Do not touch me! What have you done? You think that you can tell everyone in the world about your terrible daughter and the disaster she has turned your life into.'

‘Sweetheart, that's not it at all. It's something I got into without wanting to and I've been so upset about what you've been doing to yourself that I … well I kept writing about what I was feeling.'

‘About me?' Bianca asked.

‘Yes, but other things too.'

Bianca thrust her hands into the pockets of her jacket and glared up at Rebecca. ‘So … you see that I've done something
to myself … You don't bother to talk to me, you just write to a bunch of strangers on a website which every person that I know in this world will read? What kind of mother are you?' Bianca's voice reached a pitch which was not far off a scream.

She whirled around to Jeremy. ‘Did you know about this?'

‘This is about those drinks you went to that night, isn't it? You said it was a ridiculous thing you wouldn't consider being a part of.'

Jeremy looked at Rebecca with the flat stare she'd lived with for weeks after their last fight.

Rebecca broke his gaze. Jeremy would have to wait.

Bianca turned back to Rebecca.

‘You don't want me in this family,' she ground out.

‘Bianca, that is ridiculous. You're my daughter. I love you. Don't you remember how it used to be with us? Don't you remember when we were friends?'

Bianca looked at her mother, her irises matching the black lines around her eyes.

‘No I don't,' she answered, and turned and ran out of the room.

Rebecca put a hand on the table, only just resisting the urge to sink down onto the floor.

She turned to Jeremy. ‘Jeremy, I'm sorry. I didn't mean this to be anything big. I just kind of got pulled along. God, if I'd thought for a minute that anyone else would read it …'

Jeremy looked at her. ‘What is going on with you, Rebecca? This is not your kind of thing. You'd normally laugh yourself stupid at anyone involved in something like this.'

Rebecca let out a shaky breath. ‘God, I have no idea.' She combed her hair back roughly with spread fingers. ‘Things have been so bad lately, I haven't known which way to turn.'

‘Maybe talking to me would have been a good start.' Jeremy's voice was frosty.

‘I know. I'm sorry.'

The front door slammed and Rebecca and Jeremy looked at each other in alarm.

As Rebecca reached the doorstep, the door to her Saab
clunked shut. Bianca looked through the windscreen, wild eyes set in a white face smeared with black eyeliner. For a moment their eyes met and then Bianca turned the key in the ignition.

The car whined as she threw it into reverse without releasing the parking brake. Suddenly it jolted backwards and careened down the sloping drive much too fast. It hit the gutter at the bottom and the undercarriage screeched along the bottom of the driveway.

A black shape caught at the corner of Rebecca's vision. She saw a four-wheel drive bearing down toward where Bianca had stopped, the back of the Saab stretching onto the wrong side of the road.

‘Oh God,' Rebecca whispered.

At the last moment the driver swept the nose of the large vehicle up onto the left-hand gutter, skirting the Saab. Horn blaring it surged past and continued on.

‘That'll scare her,' Jeremy urged, pushing Rebecca to one side and running down the driveway. ‘Come on.'

He reached the car and spread his hand across the closed window on the driver's side.

‘Bianca!' he yelled. ‘Put the window down. Now!'

With a screech of tyres the Saab took off down the middle of the road. Rebecca reached Jeremy's side and stood there helplessly. The road curved to the left fifty metres away and Bianca took the turn fast. The car clung to the road, but its tyres lost the battle with the speed and drifted over the gutter, slamming into a power pole.