Faking It Page 19

  ‘The lying little cow – she told me she was sleeping over at Fay’s,’ I say. I can hear the disappointment in my own voice. I know what you’re thinking – that I’m a hypocrite, but I was seventeen when I started coming here, not fifteen, and I definitely wasn’t here with an older boyfriend. It’s not just that he’s older. I mean, he drives like an idiot, takes her to clubs, buys her drinks, dances with her with his hand tucked into the top of her micro mini.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Marco asks.

  ‘Nothing, I guess… not yet anyway,’ I reply. ‘Let’s just go home. We’ve got Henry’s birthday party early tomorrow. That won’t be fun with a hangover. I’ll have to find another way to try and get through to her, but she can’t go on like this…’

  Suddenly I feel like a mum. I feel as though I am responsible for this person and my blood is boiling that she lied to me, that she’s in there, drinking… but I can’t blow my cover. I’ll have to think of something else.

  ‘OK,’ Marco replies. ‘But it’s a shame we’re leaving. Things were just starting to get good.’

  30

  When you haven’t had a hangover for a little while you forget how bad they are.

  I always underestimate mine. As I’ve got older, my hangovers have got worse, and it’s only once I’ve got one that I do the whole ‘that’s it – I’m never drinking again’ thing, and no one really means it when they say that, do they? Except I can honestly say, with my hand on my heart, that I will never drink again the night before a kids’ party, because the combination of a barrage of their joyous squeals and that godawful ‘Baby Shark’ song on repeat is making me want to see if I can’t just suffocate myself in the ball pool.

  We’re at Captain Crazy, one of those children’s play centres that looks like a giant death trap – but one that’s covered with foam so it’s actually safe. You know the type of thing – I don’t know what they call them – but the whole place is basically a massive climbing frame with a series of slides and ball pools. There are climbing walls, ropes, ladders, bumpy slides, near-vertical slides – all things I would have absolutely hated as a kid because they kind of seem like exercise to me.

  Marco plonks himself down on the beanbag next to me. I’m glad he’s here because Rich is at work right now, but he’s joining us later to eat. I wouldn’t be surprised if he just wanted to avoid the noisy part of the party, but you’d think he’d be here anyway.

  ‘You’re putting on a very brave face,’ he tells me. ‘Turtles or starfish?’

  ‘Turtles, please,’ I reply.

  Marco hands me a pair of turtle-shaped sunglasses before putting on the starfish ones himself.

  ‘Best I could do at short notice,’ he says. ‘But it’s fine, we look like we’re getting into the spirit of things.’

  ‘Even if they just hide my tired eyes,’ I say. ‘Especially now the Yummy Mummy Mafia have arrived.’

  Jessica walks through the door flanked by her stooges, Abbey and Cleo. The kids charged in way ahead of them, obviously, and jumped into the ball pool to rough up the birthday boy.

  ‘Good luck,’ he says as I pull myself up.

  ‘Hello, ladies,’ I say brightly as I approach them.

  ‘Jessica wants me to tell you that she is not speaking to you,’ Cleo informs me as Jessica watches on. ‘She’s still upset about you stealing the fundraiser from her.’

  ‘Oh my God, Jessica, I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t trying to steal it from you, I was just making suggestions. I’d wish I’d known you were upset – I would have apologised sooner.’

  ‘Come off it, Emma,’ Abbey chimes in. ‘You must have known something was wrong when we unshared the squad calendar with you.’

  Well, that explains why I didn’t get summoned to any more boring mummy stuff.

  ‘We’re just here for the kids,’ Jessica – who is not speaking to me – says.

  The three of them walk past me – practically through me – and head for the café.

  Well, that’s me told.

  I plonk myself back down next to Marco.

  ‘That was fast,’ he says.

  ‘Apparently they’re not friends with me right now,’ I tell him. ‘Honestly, they’re pathetic. They’re like bitchy school girls.’

  ‘You could try hitting one of them with a foam bat?’ he suggests jokily. ‘If school tactics are on the table.’

  ‘I don’t know if the chairs in the café might be a better shout – WWE style,’ I reply.

  Marco laughs.

  ‘I should go try and smooth things over, shouldn’t I? Not because I want to – I really, really don’t want to,’ I insist. ‘But this is Emma’s life I’m living and these are her friends.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess… don’t hit them with anything, then,’ he says with a faux seriousness. ‘Not if you’re trying to patch things up.’

  ‘Noted,’ I reply. ‘Wish me luck again.’

  I scour the room for them, spotting them tucked away in a leafy corner of the café. They’re plastic leaves, of course, but they give the parents some kind of shield from their kids.

  I’m just approaching their table slowly – because I’m not sure what I’m going to say – when I overhear something that stops me in my tracks. I hang back, behind a plastic tree.

  ‘Are you going to lift your ban on speaking to her to ask her about John?’ Cleo asks Jessica.

  Oh my God, does she know? Because if she does, that’s not fair at all. I’m not getting punched in the face for getting off with someone’s husband when I haven’t actually done anything wrong.

  ‘Yeah, if anyone will know if John is having an affair, it’s Emma,’ Abbey adds. ‘She sees him at work. She’ll know how long he’s there, if he’s ever there alone…’

  ‘That’s true,’ Jessica replies. She thinks for a minute. ‘You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if Emma was having an affair…’

  ‘With John?’ Cleo squeaks.

  ‘No, of course not with John,’ Jessica insists. ‘Gosh, he wouldn’t look twice at her. No – with Christian. I’ve seen the way she is with him, hanging around him like a bad smell, pushing her way into the fundraiser. Jane Roberts told me she saw Christian and his son leaving Emma’s house, and Laura Wood, who was on the spelling bee trip, said she left the two of them at the hotel, and that they were getting a taxi back together instead.’

  ‘Well, maybe it’s Christian,’ Abbey joins in, leaning forward, lowering her voice, smiling widely as if she’s got something juicy. ‘Or maybe it’s Lisa’s deadbeat brother-in-law – she’s spending an awful lot of time with him.’

  ‘The convict?’ Jessica replies, horrified. ‘Are they really spending a lot of time together?’

  ‘Yes, but can you blame her?’ Abbey says. ‘Convict or not, he’s so hot. I’d certainly try and get my claws into him, if I wasn’t married.’

  ‘Wouldn’t we all?’ Cleo replies.

  Jessica smirks and bobs her head from side to side, as though to say she probably would too.

  ‘They said what?’ Marco says after I sneak back to tell him everything I just heard.

  ‘I know, right?’ I reply. ‘Convict! If I hadn’t been earwigging, I would have told them you were never convicted – you were never even charged—’

  ‘Not that,’ Marco says. ‘They all want to shag me?’

  ‘Wow, that’s really all you took from that?’ I reply.

  ‘I’m kidding, I’m kidding,’ he insists. ‘It’s just nice to know I have options.’

  I don’t blame them at all, for lusting after Marco; he is gorgeous. The problem with them lusting after him is the way they view him. They think he’s a bit of rough, a criminal, a ‘deadbeat’, just because his life isn’t quite on track. But he isn’t any of those things; he’s a kind, caring man with an amazing sense of humour. Exactly my type – if I were myself these days, but I’m not, I’m Emma, so I’m keeping thoughts like that out of my head. I need a friend far more than I need a roll in the ball pool,
shall we say.

  ‘We’ll just need to be more careful,’ he says, making it sound as if we are actually having an affair. ‘And… I don’t know, with Christian, they’re probably just jealous you’re teacher’s pet now.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ I reply. I think for a second. At least I try to, but they’re taking ‘Baby Shark’ from the top again.

  ‘I don’t know, romantically linked with four men,’ Marco teases. ‘You’ve certainly caused some excitement since you came to town.’

  ‘Erm, my sister is responsible for two of them, thanks,’ I say. ‘But that’s a good point. I just need to keep my head down, get back on track. Perhaps we need to make sure we always have the kids around us, when we hang out.’

  ‘Worried you’re going to try jump on me now you know every woman in the village wants me?’ he jokes.

  ‘That’ll be it,’ I reply with a smile.

  ‘Here’s my darling wife,’ Rich announces as he approaches the table.

  He extends an arm, and beckons for me to come close with his hand.

  ‘Hey, I thought you had work,’ I say as I get up to accept the kiss he’s waiting to plant on my cheek. I’m actually really pleased to see him. It felt like he was missing.

  ‘I thought I’d finish early, make the tail end of the party,’ he says as he keeps me held close. ‘Just in case the kids were running you ragged.’

  ‘It’s not the kids who are the problem, it’s the mums,’ I reply.

  ‘Ignore them, they’re just jealous,’ he says, squeezing me again. This must be for the benefit of everyone else in the room. Everyone but me, the person he’s hugging, and Marco too, I guess, because Rich knows that he knows the truth.

  Still, it doesn’t stop Marco staring at us with an inquisitive look on his face.

  ‘OK, I’m going to go find Henry, see if he’s having fun,’ Rich says. He kisses me on the cheek again. ‘Back in a moment.’

  ‘Are you sure he knows you’re faking it?’ Marco asks me as I sit back down next to him.

  ‘Yeah.’ I laugh awkwardly. ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re looking pretty close,’ he points out.

  ‘It’s all for show,’ I assure him, not that he needs me to.

  ‘You wanna make sure he knows it,’ Marco warns. ‘You look just like his missus, remember? What if he’s starting to get confused? Or maybe he has Stockholm syndrome after a few too many cheese and pineapple sandwiches.’

  ‘You leave my sandwiches out of it,’ I joke back in faux anger.

  As much as I love Marco’s teasing, there’s something about the idea of Rich falling in love with me that’s too terrifying to consider. I’ve already sort of ruined Emma’s relationship with her friends, imagine if I ruined things with her husband too? Thankfully I know that could never ever happen, but the concept alone freaks me out. I’m supposed to be making her life easier, not destroying it, and I know that if Emma lost Rich, she really would think her life was over.

  31

  Emma always has everything all figured out. Everything is planned in advance, everything is booked into the diary, the entire house is organised from top to bottom. I had been wondering if there were any flaws in her system at all, but I didn’t consider one variable: the rest of her family.

  So, while Emma might be Housewife of the Year, she has no control over the things Rich and the kids throw at her, and it turns out sometimes they throw big stuff.

  Take this evening, for example. With little more than six hours’ notice I received a call from Rich saying that he had forgotten to mention that he had invited two of his bosses and their wives over for dinner. He was pretty stressed out about it, to be fair; he was panicking about what to do. As he babbled out potential – but highly implausible – fake emergencies to get him out of it I decided that I just needed to do what Emma would do.

  ‘Don’t worry, I can handle it,’ I told him.

  ‘Ella… are you sure?’ he replied.

  His voice didn’t exactly show a great deal of confidence in my offer but that only made me more determined to prove him wrong.

  I do have a secret weapon, of course… Marco!

  We’ve been sticking to our new rule of only hanging out when the boys are around, or when we’re at work, and I’ve been keeping my ear to the ground for any more rumours but they seem to have died down. The same goes for Christian, who I’ve been totally avoiding since the last time I saw him, and with event planning mostly being done by email, now that we’re just down to the finishing touches, it’s pretty easy. Well, it’s easy in that it’s not technically difficult to execute, but I am finding it a little hard just because I was enjoying spending time with him, seeing where things were going. Of course, they weren’t going anywhere, because he thinks I’m Emma, and he’s a good guy; I’m sure he’d never actually make a move on someone he thought was married, which is exactly what makes him so attractive – argh. It’s messy, to say the least. The only thing messier right now is this kitchen.

  The weather isn’t quite as bad as it has been, and the kitchen is roasting because we’ve been cooking for what feels like hours, so we’ve got the door open. Marco encouraged Henry and Josh to go in the garden and practise their football, because they’re at full volume today, but every time I look out at them, they’re gleefully hitting each other with sticks.

  Marco is sitting on the worktop next to me, overseeing the three-course Italian meal I’m cooking for the dinner party tonight.

  We decided on three dishes that Marco assured me were mostly quick and very easy to make, and he promised to help me every step of the way, which makes me feel a bit better. Still, I’m feeling pretty frazzled, because Rich is relying on me and I really want to get this right.

  To start, we’re making a Caprese salad, which might just be the easiest salad to make in the world. The main course is tagliatelle bolognese, followed by a tiramisu for dessert and, yes, I do feel kind of like I’m on Come Dine With Me right now – but not one of the earlier episodes, where it was all people who thought they were excellent chefs, one of the newer ones with people who can’t cook but just want to be on TV.

  We made the tiramisu first, so that’s just chilling in the fridge, and everything is ready to make the salad when people arrive. So, the only real heavy lifting to do is for the bolognese.

  It’s been interesting, cooking with Marco, I feel like I’ve learned a lot. We’re making a traditional bolognese, which, it turns out, is nothing like the way most people prepare it in this country. For starters it’s made with tagliatelle (not spaghetti), it only requires a tiny amount of tomato sauce (just enough to bind the ingredients together), and there’s much debate about whether or not the dish should contain any garlic at all, so we’re not using any.

  I think it’s going well, and Marco keeps telling me I’m doing all the right things – the thing stressing me out the most is probably Marty who, at the first smell of mince, just barks and barks and barks.

  ‘It’s smelling…’

  Marco says something but Marty barks right over the second part.

  I open up the cupboard where all of the doggy supplies are and grab Marty’s favourite frisbee. This usually makes him bark too, because he will demand you throw it for him repeatedly, and he would probably keep chasing after it until he died, if you didn’t eventually hide it from him so he would have a drink of water and a rest. At least if I throw it outside, he might pester the boys to throw it for him.

  ‘Marty, play frisbee,’ I shout as I launch the frisbee through the open door.

  ‘Playing “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None The Richer,’ the Smarty announces, in that irritating robotic voice of hers, before she starts pumping it out at quite a high volume.

  ‘Arrrgh!’ I moan, my stress levels rising. ‘Whatever they’re paying you to hack that thing – I will double it if you just kneecap the thing instead, make it so that none of them ever work again.’

  Marco laughs.

  ‘OK, you need to relax,’ he in
sists. ‘Your food will taste bad if you were stressed when you made it.’

  ‘Will it?’ I squeak, suddenly feeling even more stressed.

  ‘Of course it won’t, that was a joke,’ he points out, as though it should have been obvious. ‘Come on, we need to get you to loosen up.’

  Marco takes me by the hand and pulls me close.

  ‘Dance with me,’ he insists.

  ‘What? No, come on,’ I say, laughing it off. ‘The bolognese…’

  ‘…is simmering,’ he says. ‘Come on, it made you feel better the other night. Just let loose.’

  I can’t help but smile as Marco twirls me around before pulling me close again.

  ‘Mum, why are you being so weird?’ I hear Millie’s voice call out over the music.

  ‘Smarty, stop,’ I say quickly as I wiggle out of Marco’s arms. ‘Honey, hello.’

  ‘Honey? Right,’ she replies with a roll of her eyes. ‘Listen, I need a favour.’

  I feel my eyebrows shoot up curiously. I can tell by the quick shift in her attitude that she wants something. That flip from mocking me to staring at her feet, every word that leaves her lips suddenly and clearly so begrudgingly blank – she doesn’t go as far as sucking up. Well, that wouldn’t be cool, would it?

  ‘What’s that?’ I reply, getting back to my bolognese.

  ‘There’s a party on Friday night,’ she starts.

  ‘Where?’ I reply. ‘What kind of party? Whose party is it?’

  ‘Oh my God, I knew you’d be like that,’ she snaps. ‘It’s just a party, Mum. Just a party-party, and everyone else is going.’

  ‘I’m not going,’ I say, with a little attitude of my own. I turn to Marco. ‘Are you going?’

  ‘My invitation has not come through yet, no,’ he replies in a similar tone.

  ‘Oh my God, why are you being such losers? It’s just a house party,’ she says. ‘I’m sixteen soon anyway, then I can do whatever I want, so you might as well let me go.’