She handed the letter over and Sarah scanned it quickly. Lizzie already knew it by heart.
Dear Ms. Indigo,
Thank you for letting us read
Hamming It Up
. I’m afraid we do not feel able to represent the manuscript. The juvenile fiction market is tricky, and we do not see a niche for your verses, which are rather long and sophisticated for the early reader, but perhaps too facile for the preteen reader. Of course, another agent may feel differently.
Yours truly,
JEMIMA STRAIGHT LITERARY AGENT
Sarah was flushed with indignation by the time she’d read it through. “They’re just
idiots
,” she burst out. “
I’m
a juvenile reader and I think the verses are great! They’re
miles
better than most of the rubbish they’re putting on the shelves at the library.”
“Oh Sarah, thank you,” Lizzie said, looking at the letter forlornly. “But perhaps you’re not the average kid. Perhaps the average kid is way too cool to read my facile stuff.”
“Way too
stupid
, more likely. Anyway, who says I’m not cool?”
Lizzie ruffled Sarah’s hair. “You’re the coolest kid I know,” she said honestly. “But you’re not dead average, are you? You read weird stuff — well, weird for your generation, I mean. Richmal Crompton. Dodie Smith. Georgette Heyer. Agatha Christie. Mazo de la Roche. I don’t suppose you’re any more in touch with the tastes of today’s juvenile reader than I am. To think that I had the nerve to start writing another volume of the stuff! Anyway, it was worth a try. At least now I’ll never need to find a rhyme for ‘pomegranate.’ ”
And with that, she tossed the thick manila envelope, containing the sum of her literary ambitions, into the kitchen rubbish bin, where it came to rest on a small pile of banana peels, junk mail, and cooked spaghetti. “I’m off to run now,” she said with a big, false grin. “Don’t let the little monsters have any more ice cream. They’ve already had two helpings.”
Running alone around the cornfield, because Tessa wasn’t feeling well and had cancelled at the last minute, Lizzie reflected bleakly that she’d been living in a fantasy world for weeks. She’d allowed Tessa to convince her that she could win James back, but it was obvious that he was no longer hers to reclaim. She’d allowed herself to dream that she could make a living as a writer, but it was obvious that she hadn’t a hope in hell of even being published.
She’d better start living in the real world. She’d better finish drafting those paragraphs for the divorce petition and get them back to her lawyer; the man had already phoned a couple of times, asking for them. And she’d better find herself some work that paid. If only there was something she could do from home! If only she’d suddenly discover that she was a hugely talented painter or sculptor! Yes, she’d be able to do oil paintings of people’s pets, or make busts of local children! Except, of course, she’d consistently been given D’s for art throughout her otherwise blameless school career.
There must be
something
she could do in her little upstairs office that somebody would pay money for. What a pity that her only marketable skill was writing press releases.
Hang on! Surely she could write press releases from home? Perhaps her old company, G.H. Brightman, could be persuaded to send some work her way! Now, there, finally, was an idea worth pursuing.
When she’d worked for him, Gilroy Herbert Brightman had never asked Lizzie to lunch at his club. This was a lucky escape, it appeared. His club seemed to specialize in the kind of food she’d last encountered in her school dining hall.
The roast beef looked like tree bark, but luckily there was gravy to soften it up. Of course, it was the sort of gravy that had a skin on it, but if you broke the skin, you could coax a few glutinous splodges of brown stuff out of the gravy boat and onto your plate.
“Married life seems to suit you, Lizzie,” G. H. Brightman ventured, peering doubtfully at her over his reading glasses as she shook salt over her food. “You’re looking very —. I don’t remember you being quite so —. Anyway. How is your chap? What’s his name? Lawyer, wasn’t he?”
Lizzie picked up her knife and fork and began to saw away busily. “Architect, actually. He’s — um — he’s fine.”
“Kids? Didn’t you send us a birth announcement?”
“Twins. Yes. They’re doing awfully well.” She took her first bite and settled in for a long chew.
Brightman took a thoughtful slug of red wine. “Good of you to —. Always wondered how you were doing. Nice to catch up.” He stared at her in frank mystification.
He’d been surprised to hear from her at all, puzzled but polite when she asked if they could go to lunch. He thought she was the happy wife of a well-placed young man living in bucolic Gloucestershire.
“How’s the office?” Lizzie asked after a gulp of her own wine. “Busy?”
“Oh, doing pretty well. Did you know we’re thinking of opening an office in Glasgow? There’s a gap in the Scottish market. We got Peabody on board — you know, the recycled pet bedding people.”
“Wow. Good job. I bet everybody’s pretty stretched now.”
Brightman shrugged and picked his teeth discreetly. Apparently he was having trouble with the beef too.
Lizzie took a deep breath and rushed into her prepared speech. “I was just wondering whether you might possibly have some freelance work to send my way. You see, I’d really like to keep my hand in. The Internet makes it so easy to telecommute these days. I could easily help you out from home.”
Brightman blinked at her. “Sorry? What?”
It wasn’t the answer she’d hoped for.
“I could do the Petlove press releases. Mr. O’Brien always said he liked the way I handled them,” she said desperately.
“Freelance? You think you could do the press releases freelance?” He adjusted his glasses so they were on the very end of his nose. Then he made a steeple out of his hands and pressed his lips together. “It’s a thought,” he conceded. “But it wouldn’t work. The whole telecommuting thing. Sorry, my dear. You know how Mr. O’Brien operates. He likes to do things face-to-face. I must say, he always did like
your
face in particular.” He leaned forward and patted her hand. “Pity you got married — er, from my point of view, that is. You were an asset, a real asset, my dear. If you ever think of going back to work full-time —. But you won’t, of course.”
Lizzie flashed him a phony smile. “I won’t, of course. Look, I’m terribly sorry but I don’t think I can manage any more of this beef.”
“Ah well, then you’ll have room for the bread-and-butter pudding,” G. H. Brightman said with relish.
“So the fat old bastard wouldn’t give you any freelance work?” Tessa asked as they ran that evening.
“No. Apparently it’s my face the client values, not my press releases,” Lizzie replied grimly. “By the way, what’s the best place in Sevenoaks for day care?”
“How would I know?” Tessa snapped. “I’m childless, haven’t you noticed?”
“Of course you’d know. You know everything.”
Tessa couldn’t suppress a gratified little smile. She’d always been susceptible to flattery. “Where do the mums at the nursery school recommend?” she asked.
Lizzie gave a little snort. “The mums at the nursery school are day care snobs,” she said. “Most of them don’t work at all. A couple work from home. Why else would they have their kids in a place that only opens its doors for three hours a day? But
you
know lots of working women. Where do they send their preschoolers?”
Tessa bit her lip. “Hmm. Well, people do say Little Folks is good. Nice bright facilities and an outdoor playground. But Lizzie, you can’t be thinking seriously of working full-time? You swore you’d never go that route. You made the choice to raise your kids
yourself
. You’re always going on about it — how rotten it is and how much you love it. I mean, isn’t it a bit soon, anyway? You and James aren’t even divorced yet. Maybe this thing with Sonja will blow over. Plus, he’s not going to cut you off without a penny, is he?”
Lizzie pushed herself to run faster. “We haven’t talked about money at all yet. You don’t get to that part until after the divorce petition’s filed. I’ve been stalling on the petition, but I can’t do that forever. And anyway, how can I go on paying the rent out of his bank account, and buying my clothes on his credit card, and getting my hair done with his cash, now that I know he’s with someone else? It’s a matter of pride. Besides, what if he doesn’t have enough money? Between us, we’re running
three
bloody houses now.”
“But one of them’s earning money.”
Lizzie shrugged. “The fact remains, I’ve been living in a bit of a dream world. I had this idea I could make some money out of my nonsense verses, but it turns out I’d probably have to
pay
to get them published. No, I need to sort myself out, one way or another. I’ve got to start bringing home the bacon. I’m on my own now.” She stopped talking to catch her breath. For some reason, the pace wasn’t quite as comfortable as it should have been; maybe something to do with the fact that she’d wolfed down a large bag of chocolate Buttons in the car that morning. She hadn’t meant to eat the Buttons, but as she’d opened the glove compartment to see if she’d left her missing sunglasses there, the bag had fallen to the floor with a lovely rattle. She must have hidden it there weeks ago. She defied any normal person not to eat a Button or two if a large bag of the things fell unexpectedly into their hands.
Maybe pouring them wholesale down your throat as you drove along was slightly less than normal. Still, the Button-guzzling was a minor aberration, a reaction to the stress that seemed to crackle in the air around her. She’d always been a bit of a panic eater, and ever since Alex had mentioned seeing Sonja naked at James’s house, she’d been panicking like mad.
“Let’s not talk about this now,” she told Tessa. “Let’s just do some sprints. I need to work off all that chocolate.”
Tessa stopped in her tracks. “Chocolate? You’ve been eating
chocolate
?”
“Buttons,” Lizzie called over her shoulder. “Children’s emergency bag. Ate them on my way to the supermarket this morning. Don’t worry, they’ve made me feel so sick, I won’t be touching sugar again for weeks. Well, probably for years.”
She felt quite confident as she made this statement. Which just goes to show how wrong a person can be.
I
n the next five days Lizzie ate up the entire stock of her larder and fridge, including dry goods. Everything was grist to her mill: raisins, hot chocolate powder, peanut butter, mild cheddar cheese, condensed milk, stale Rich Tea biscuits, bright blue kids’ yogurt, cartons of custard, even an entire jar of her mother’s homemade lemon curd. That stray bag of emergency Buttons had started something.
And what was the point of being thin, now that her chances of winning James back had been blown out of the water? Why not find comfort where she could? Where was the sense in depriving herself of anything that could make her happy for a few short moments? She knew she was on a juggernaut of self-sabotage, but she lacked the will to jump off.
In ten short days, she was due to appear in front of two hundred or so people, including Sonja Jenkins, in a lilac shot-silk matron of honor dress that was designed to fit like a glove — but what did she care? She might just as well go back to being fat and spineless — what difference was it going to make, after all?
To take her mind off the wedding, she worked on her CV — not the jokey one she’d sent to JEMIMA STRAIGHT LITERARY AGENT in all her innocence, but a deadly serious one that she could send off in response to exacting advertisements in the
Guardian
and the
Independent
. As she sat tapping away on the keyboard, she munched through bowls of Reddybrek and Weetabix with thick crusts of sugar.
Wearing the frayed old jeans from her fat days, Lizzie paid a visit to Little Folks. The place was run by a polished young woman who was the very antithesis of plump and homey Mrs. Kirker. This woman was chic and sharp and thin. She made Lizzie fill out a slew of forms, all of which had to be submitted to some distant Little Folks head office, where Lizzie’s credentials would be scrutinized and either accepted or rejected. Lizzie suspected that “zero” was not the right amount to have filled in under “household income.”
“What was it like, then?” Ingrid Hatter asked as Lizzie sat in the barn’s big bright kitchen, morosely staring into her mug of green tea. “The day care place?”
“It had a padded cell,” Lizzie said. “They called it their soft room. All brightly lit and full of colorful foam cubes. But it was a padded cell.”
“You’ll have to find somewhere else,” said Ingrid. “Maybe someone does child care at home.”
“There’s nowhere else,” Lizzie said. “Nowhere else with room for twins. I’ve already called around all over the place.”
“Do you really have to get a job, then?”
Lizzie gave a great, deep sigh. “How can I not, Ingrid? I’m single. I’ve just handed in a draft of a divorce petition to my lawyer. My husband is sleeping with his PA. I’ve gone and signed a yearlong lease on Back Lane Cottage. Every time I use the credit card or make out a check on the joint account, I feel sick to my stomach. There
is
no joint anything anymore.”
Sometimes, as Lizzie sat on the kitchen floor beside the fridge late at night, eating ice cream straight out of the carton, she realized she’d like to poke Maria in the eye for putting her in this position.
Why hadn’t she simply told James he couldn’t bring a partner?
But that wouldn’t have helped — not really. The mere fact that he’d
asked
if he could bring a woman with him — that alone would’ve been enough to destroy all of Lizzie’s fragile hopes and plans.
If only Maria and Laurence would suddenly have a change of heart and not get married at all. No — she couldn’t wish that. If anybody deserved their special day, it was those two. But oh, how Lizzie wished she didn’t have to be part of it.
She dreaded seeing James with Sonja on his arm. She dreaded going on show, newly single, before a fascinated crowd of village acquaintances. She dreaded leaving the twins overnight at the manor.