The Stepmother (8 page)

About half an hour after Charlie had pushed into the room a trolley with a huge cake with forty burning candles, the grown-ups at last had a chance to dance off their sugar high. As the band came on, Jimmy sought me out.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the dishy lead singer, “we would like to ask a very special lady onto the stage. Faith and Luke, if you wouldn't mind taking your place on the dance floor…”

They seemed confused. I could tell this wasn't part of the program, not Faith's anyway, and it certainly wasn't something I'd known about, but Jimmy was smiling. The siblings were up to something. I heard the first bars of “You Do Something to Me” by Paul Weller, and the entire room let out a communal “Aaah.” It was the song Luke had played to Faith when he proposed. It was the song that summed up everything about them. But it wasn't sung by the lead singer. He had stood back and a woman's voice filled the room.

At first I was confused. Who was singing so beautifully? Moments before the spotlight picked her out, I knew. Amber.

Faith and Luke stopped dancing and clapped madly, then everyone crammed onto the dance floor, joined by Honor and Peter. Jimmy held out his hand to me and, without taking my eyes off my daughter, I allowed myself to be guided to the floor. I was nervous. We'd stopped dancing a long time ago.

We fell quickly into our routine. He spun me toward him, then turned me away. He put his hand on my waist and I encircled him. We wove in and out of each other's arms without a bump. It was as if we'd danced only the day before, and every day before that. I only realized that Amber had stopped singing when everyone else started whooping, clapping, and yelling for more. Jimmy and I clapped and whooped louder than all of them. Amber stood on the stage, the mic in her hand, beaming. I had a million questions.

“How did you know she was going to do that?”

“We've been rehearsing. It was a surprise.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“It was a surprise,” Jimmy said again.

“But she didn't say a word.”

“She thought she might lose her nerve and didn't want to let you down.”

The clapping was not abating. “I hope you rehearsed an encore,” I said, laughing over the din.

“We did,” said Jimmy.

The band started playing again. “Sorry, Luke,” said Amber. “But this one is for my mum and dad.”

“It's for you, really,” said Jimmy. “I wanted you to know what a great lady we all think you are.” Amber started singing “Son of a Preacher Man,” one of my all-time favorite songs—well, at least in the top fifty. I looked at Jimmy, the only boy who ever did reach me. I took a step toward him, but we were surrounded by Lulu and Maddy, clamoring to join us. Jimmy and I split and took a daughter each as our eldest sang like a pro to a crowd of a hundred.

That was what I meant when I said the best was yet to come. I couldn't remember ever being so happy. I couldn't remember ever feeling so complete. I couldn't remember ever feeling so loved.

When she finished, Amber took several more bows. Then, slipping back into her fourteen-year-old skin, she jumped off the stage and ran to us. The lead singer launched into a rowdy rendition of “Carwash.” I stepped back a bit to catch my breath and watched Jimmy and his girls dance together, my heart bursting with love.

Eventually I had to sit down. The trouble with killer heels is that they kill. Blood had ceased to circulate in my toes, and the balls of my feet seemed to have been stripped of cushioning. Every step hit bone. I was happy to watch my family cavort around the dance floor.

“What's going on, Bea?” asked Lucy, pulling up a chair beside me.

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, Doe Eyes, you can't fool me. What's going on?”

“Lucy, can you turn your witching eye on someone else for once?”

“No. Not when my brother's sanity is at stake.”

I decided to assume that this conversation was lighthearted banter,
though the sudden rise in my blood pressure warned me otherwise. “That's a bit dramatic.”

“Is it?”

“We were just dancing.”

“You weren't
just
doing anything.”

I pulled a you're-not-being-serious face, which she returned deadpan. We both turned to the dance floor. Jimmy was laughing with the girls. When they saw we were watching, they blew kisses in our direction. All four of them.

“You'd better be sure about this, Bea.”

“Look, Lucy, Jimmy and I are big enough and ugly enough to work out our own shit. All right?”

“Not all right, because that's a bloody lie and you know it.”

I exhaled dramatically.

“Don't do that, Bea. We all know what happened,” she said.

No. No, you don't.

“Shall I refresh your memory—”

I put up my hand to stop her, but Lucy is Lucy.

“You broke his heart, you took his kids, you decided life with no one was better than life with him. Now you turn up looking like this, dance with him like that…Just because what? You've changed your mind? You're bored? Well, get a job. It's not fair, Bea. It's not fair to him.”

Outraged, I opened my mouth to retaliate. “I…How…If you…”

When I was lying on my own in bed, imagining a new future, it had seemed so clear. I could defend the indefensible, I could justify my actions—hell, I could spin them better than any Labour Party flunky and make them seem like salvation rather than the destruction they had been. But under the cool, knowing eyes of my ex-sister-in-law, I faltered. I lost my nerve. I was back in the dock. Guilty as charged. “Lucy, things happened that you don't—”

Jimmy joined us, red in the face from being outdanced by much younger partners. “What are you two gassing about?”

I stood up. “Take my seat,” I said. “I need to pee.” I shot Lucy an imploring look and escaped to the sanctuary of the ladies' loo.

That was where Faith found me, twenty minutes later.

“You okay, honey?”

I was sitting on the loo with my head in my hands.

“Too much booze?” she asked knowingly.

I looked up at her through my fingers and immediately all mockery left her voice. She crouched next to me. “Jesus, what's wrong?”

I shook my head slowly.

“What? What is it?”

“I don't want to do this here. You should be dancing.”

“Shut up, you arse. A party isn't a party without some drama in the ladies' loo. What happened?”

“It's Jimmy…”

Faith waited for me to elaborate. I wasn't sure I could. Something that had seemed so easy to reverse in my mind was impossible to say out loud. “I think…I think I might…”

“Like him again?” said Faith, finishing my sentence.

I clutched my head. “Oh, my God, that sounds mad, doesn't it, after everything that happened?”

“Not really. He's a great guy who happens to be the father of your children and was the love of your life.”

“Lucy all but warned me off the notion.”

“Well, she would. She had to pick up the pieces the first time. We all did.”

I could hear the cogs in my brain grind. “But you were all so nice to me.”

I guess Faith was pissed, her tongue loosened by alcohol.

“We were ready to lynch you, honey. Pitchforks at dawn.”

“What?”

“You can't be that surprised.”

“No one said a word to me!”

“Oh Jimbean, we weren't allowed to.”

“Huh?”

“It was Jimmy!
He
insisted we didn't take sides.
He
made us swear we wouldn't freeze you out.”

Freeze me out? They were going to freeze me out? My best friends? “Literally, on pain of fucking death. He said it was for the sake of the girls, but we guessed why he wanted us to keep it sweet.”

I continued to stare at her with my mouth open. You have to understand that the support of my ex-in-laws had given me the courage of my convictions. They saw my side. They must have, or there would have been revolution. To think they wanted to freeze me out, take sides,
his
side…

“He hoped you'd change your mind and everything would go back to how it was,” said Faith. I got off the loo. “I thought you knew that.”

I shook my head again. “Oh, my God, Faith, I've made a terrible mistake.”

Faith broke into such a huge smile it nearly knocked me over. “At last! So put it right!”

I laughed, wary that someone as loved-up as Faith might have a skewed view of the capacity of other people's hearts. Surely it wasn't as easy as that. “You think he still loves me?”

“Sweetie, he's never stopped. Bea, it's only ever been you.”

The air left me again, but this time in a good way.

“Oh, Faith, when we danced, I just…and I think about him all the time. God, I want to rip his clothes off.” I was laughing now. “When did he get so handsome?”

“He's always been handsome—not quite as dishy as mine, of course, but not bad.”

“I feel like a teenager. God, Faith, I want him all the time.”

Faith eased up on the joviality stick. “There was a time when you couldn't stand him touching you.”

“I wasn't myself,” I replied, not wanting to think of such things.

“And now?”

“How do I look to you?”

She didn't answer, because one of her godchildren had come in.

“You be careful,” she said, as we walked out. “And I don't just mean for your sake. I haven't seen him so happy for years. He's only just got his shit together, so you'd better be sure. And I mean fucking sure.” No problem. I was. Absolutely fucking sure.

 

S
O THE PLAN WAS THIS
. Monday night, Jolen. Tuesday night, hair tint. Wednesday night, tell my ex-husband I still loved him and wanted him back. Easy. What could possibly go wrong?

I laid out my beauty products before me. Jolen. Tweezers. Face scrub and pack. Dye to cover the gray. I was going to be up all night. I stared at my reflection. The lines didn't bother me so much. There weren't that many. I didn't need to inject fat into my crow's-feet; cream puffs worked just as well. Lines I would welcome once I'd climbed out of this fat suit. I listened carefully to the silence of the house, and when I was sure it was deep enough, I opened the jar of hair bleach. I didn't want to have to explain myself to the kids, especially not Amber. Not yet, anyway. I was sure they'd be happy to see Jimmy and me back together again. Well, almost sure. Almost nearly sure.

I had just finished plucking my right eyebrow when the doorbell made me jump. “Ow!” I rubbed the tender skin near my temple. There was no way I was answering it. I had a thick smear of bleach cream over my upper lip, one bushy eyebrow to tame and a plastic bag over my head. The doorbell rang again.

Shit. I went to the intercom.

“Hello?”

“Bea, it's—”

“Jimmy! What are you doing here?”

“I was just passing.”

“It's ten o'clock.”

“I really wanted to speak to—” I held my breath—“you.”

My mind raced. I could buzz him in, do the other eyebrow, take off the bleach…but what about the red mark it left? Makeup! Of course, but I hadn't worn makeup for—God, my hair!

“Bea?”

“Yes?”

“Is this a bad time?”

I was desperate to let him in. “I'm sorry,” I said truthfully.

“No, no. I should have called.”

“Wednesday would be better.” How could I wait that long? Bloody Jolen. Bloody aging process. Bloody hell.

“Okay. Wednesday, then. I'll see you Wednesday.”

“Great. I look forward to it.”

“Me too. 'Night, Bea.”

“'Night, Jimmy.” I love you. Soon, I thought, replacing the door-phone. Soon.

 

I
WAS A JITTERBUG BY
Wednesday. Another two pounds had fallen away in two days, spent on nothing but emotional energy. I was whizzing. Couldn't sit down. I had the energy of a twenty-year-old. My mood was effervescent. My libido was off the scale. Jim and Bean were to be reunited and my girls would have their father back. It would be the happy ending I'd always planned. The happy ending I'd ruined.

Finally I heard Amber's key in the lock. I bounded up from the kitchen table and raced down the hallway. Who cared if I seemed desperate? I was desperate. Desperate to have my family back together again.

I kissed and hugged the girls, then, full of gay abandon, kissed and hugged Jimmy. He looked really happy to see me, if a little nervous. So to put his mind at rest, I was as easy and relaxed with him as I'd been long ago. There's nothing to worry about, I whispered silently in my head. If you can forgive me, I can forgive myself, and all this will be behind us.

I let Lulu off the dreaded reading and did Maddy's homework for her while they ate supper, then practically frog-marched the children to bed. There were no complaints, because they knew Daddy was staying for a while, not running off at meltdown point. So there was no meltdown. I wondered happily, as I watched the younger two brush their teeth, whether with Jimmy back at home meltdowns would be a thing of the past. Not completely, but vastly reduced. The girls missed their father. That was why they got upset when he left. It was my fault and I would rectify it.

I looked at my watch. Almost lights-off time. As we pulled the younger girls' bedroom door nearly closed and kissed Amber good-night—she was allowed her light on for another hour but had to stay in her room—my heart was playing Pac-Man in my chest.

Downstairs in the kitchen I allowed myself to open a bottle of wine. Since I reckoned I'd expended those calories in just the last few minutes, I wasn't worried. And I needed something to settle my nerves. I poured out two glasses and handed one to Jimmy. He raised it to me and drank—quite a lot, I noticed. We were both nervous.