Life Swap (34 page)

It’s only after a few days that Vicky realizes why Amber doesn’t mention anything about checking ticks at bathtime, or only giving Jared butter sandwiches because he won’t eat anything else, not even egg mayonnaise (which surely all children adore), and she doesn’t tell Vicky not to give Gracie peanut butter sandwiches – a lesson which she learnt the hard way after the chief counsellor of Gracie’s camp called her in and sternly admonished her, announcing that the camp is a nut-free zone due to several children having severe nut allergies.

Vicky realizes that Amber doesn’t mention this because Amber doesn’t
know
. Lavinia, the nanny, is having more free time this week than she’s had in years, and as a result she’s decided that Vicky is not the
enemy after all, and has slowly opened up to her, informing her of quite how little time Amber spends with the children.

Who makes the kids’ lunches in the morning? Lavinia. Who baths them every night and checks for ticks? Lavinia. Who drives them to most of their activities, other than the ones at which friends of Amber’s will be? Why, Lavinia of course.

And yet the children are lovely, far better behaved than Vicky had expected, and she can’t understand why Amber, who also seems so nice, and professes to love her children so much, doesn’t spend more time with them.

‘Oh she’s very busy,’ says Lavinia who, despite being overworked and underpaid, is loyal and likes her bosses. ‘All that charity work. Raising money for the church. She’s a busy lady.’

And therein lies the problem. No matter how hard Vicky tries to emulate Amber, she can’t quite see how Amber is so busy. There has been plenty of time for Vicky to dream of drifting around the swimming pool – she’s hoping that next week her skin will be tough enough for her to put that particular plan in motion, with factor 30 sun cream in future. There has been plenty of time, period. Time in which Vicky ambles around the enormous house, wondering whether she should perhaps do some dusting, before remembering that a cleaning team takes care of that. Maybe she should do the children’s laundry, but Lavinia wouldn’t hear of it.

So she has cooked the children, and Richard, lavish meals. Not known for her cooking skills, even Vicky knows how to follow a recipe, and she has produced all the nursery classics she loved so much when she was a child.

Richard is delirious with joy. He’s far more used to cold pizza or take-outs from various restaurants around town, and this past week he’s been sitting down to proper home-cooked meals.

The children on the other hand are not quite so happy. In fact they are downright suspicious of this foreign food. Toad in the hole was the biggest success thus far, and only because they had huge fun playing with it, trying to put the sausages back perfectly in the batter, both of them refusing to take a single bite. Even macaroni cheese, which Vicky was convinced they would love, was a disaster. She made it with three different cheeses, a hint of mustard, a sprinkling of nutmeg, and even Vicky was astounded by how delicious it was.

‘This isn’t macaroni cheese,’ Jared announced, staring suspiciously at the dish Vicky had put on the table.

‘Yes it is, Jar. I made it myself.’

‘But it’s the wrong
colour
,’ he said, pushing his plate away.

‘Just take one bite. It’s absolutely delicious,’ Vicky said, demonstrating by gobbling up two mouthfuls herself, and making ecstatic noises of joy when she finished. ‘Mmmm. Mmmm. Yummy. That is so yummy.’

But Jared refused to even taste it. Gracie on the other hand took an enthusiastic forkful, then spat it out all over the table.

Nope. The cooking hasn’t been a success, and feeling somewhat guilty Vicky is resorting to the stockpile of pizza and chicken nuggets in the freezer.

This mother game, she realizes, isn’t quite as much fun as it looks when she’s the beloved aunt down at Kate and Andy’s. There are the constant fights she has to break up between Jared and Gracie, the whining and crying that seem to start soon after they wake up, until roughly just before they go to bed.

The first three days they were perfect. Vicky thought she had landed in a commercial for bizarro children – the children from another planet who looked like normal children but were far better behaved. Unfortunately the thrill of having a new mother wore off by day four, and the bad behaviour and fighting started, not to mention the constant asking when their real mommy would be coming home.

Gracie took it hardest, and Vicky made an extra special effort to do things with her, try and distract her from the fact that Amber wasn’t there, and as she was sitting in the kitchen making a dollhouse out of one of the stack of Manolo Blahnik shoeboxes piled in Amber’s closet – surely she wouldn’t mind… what could she be keeping them for anyway? – Vicky realized what a sacrifice Amber had made. It was so easy for Vicky to give up her single life, so easy for her to walk
towards what she knew, with absolute certainty, would be better.

But how could Amber have done the same thing? How could she have left her children and husband so easily? Even though temporary, Vicky is surprised that Amber was able to do the swap. Surprised that any woman would be able to do it, particularly when the husband is as nice as Richard, the kids as sweet as these, the lifestyle as wonderful as this.

Although Vicky can see how easy it would be to lose your self in this seemingly perfect world. Either immersed in the children or doing nothing, without a job, or something to keep her busy, Vicky can’t imagine how Amber doesn’t go out of her mind with boredom.

Which is why, she supposes, she does so much charity work. Ah yes. Speaking of charity work, Vicky goes to check the charity schedule, the one area in which Amber was meticulous. Knowing that she doesn’t have any events until next week, she hasn’t bothered to look at it before now, aside from the cursory glance on the plane, and now when she looks, she gasps in horror.

Friday, 17 August, 12 p.m. jewellery lunch at our house. Sonia Parkinson is the jewellery designer, and she should be coming here to set up at around 11. I’ve ordered food from Rosemary & Thyme in town; you should pick it up in the morning, although you’ll need to make a big salad, and get fresh bread from the bakery. Also, usually I do a fruit plate with some magic bars and lemon squares afterwards – you can get the fruit and bars at Heywood Farms. Often I make a couple of pitchers of iced tea, and set out a selection of sodas. Sonia will come and set up her displays, then the women from the League will come at 12, and will probably browse as they eat lunch. I’m sorry to land this on you but I planned it before we knew we were going to swap! But I know you’ll be fine…

Fine? Vicky’s heart starts pounding. Fine? How can this be fine when it’s ten o’clock and she’s sitting at the desk in the kitchen typing, still in her pyjamas, and God knows how many women are going to be coming for lunch in two hours. Oh shit. Oh shit shit shit.

‘Lavinia!’ Vicky shrieks from the bottom of the stairs.

‘I’m upstairs doing laundry,’ comes a distant voice.

‘Okay, I’ll come upstairs. It’s an emergency.’ And Vicky runs upstairs to rope Lavinia in to help.

Lavinia goes to pick up the food while Vicky brews up some tea and pours it into pitchers with thousands of ice cubes, praying it will be cold by the time the women arrive.

She starts a salad with what’s in the fridge – some slightly wilted lettuce that is probably still good for another three hours if she’s lucky, two punnets of baby tomatoes, and lots and lots of sliced red onion. With any luck Lavinia will have been able to buy lots more salad stuff while she’s out.

Scurrying round the pantry she finds some paper plates – God knows how Amber entertains, but given that Vicky has no idea how many people are coming, it
will have to be paper today – paper napkins, half of them a lovely blue toile, and the other half clearly left over from Gracie’s third birthday as they have Barbie pictures all over them. ‘Oh fuck it,’ Vicky mutters, balancing the toile napkins on top of the Barbie ones, hoping that perhaps there won’t be that many people and they won’t ever get to Barbie.

And then the doorbell rings.

‘Hi. I’m Sonia.’ A woman stands on the doorstep surrounded by boxes, looking slightly puzzled at the door being opened at 11 a.m. by someone still in pyjamas. ‘Is Amber home?’

‘Um, no. She’s in England. I’m Vicky. I’m her temporary replacement.’

‘Ah ha!’ Sonia grins. ‘You’re the swapper?’

‘Careful,’ Vicky says. ‘I don’t want people to get the wrong idea.’

‘In this town? Are you kidding? People have already got the wrong idea. You’re the scarlet woman come to steal Amber’s husband.’

‘Oh my God. You’re not serious?’

‘Yes,’ Sonia laughs. ‘But don’t worry about it. Everyone’s just madly excited they’ve got something to gossip about, and it’s great for me, means we’re going to have a huge turnout today because everyone’s dying to see what you look like.’

‘This is horrific,’ Vicky groans. ‘I can’t believe everyone’s talking about me. Look at me, for Christ’s sake. Do I look like a scarlet woman to you?’

‘No, but please tell me you’re not planning on
wearing pyjamas to lunch? Although who knows, it might start a new trend.’

‘I have to take a shower but I haven’t had time. I didn’t know about this lunch until an hour ago, and now I’ve got to get everything ready, and I’ve done nothing.’

‘No flowers? No candles? No room spray?’ Sonia looks horrified, and Vicky isn’t sure whether she’s joking or not.

‘All I can say is thank God Amber’s not here to see what a horrible job I’m doing.’ The sound of keys from the kitchen captures Vicky’s attention, and Sonia follows Vicky into the kitchen to find Lavinia unpacking bags.

‘Oh thank God!’ Vicky says. ‘The food.’

‘They’d mislaid the order,’ Lavinia says, ‘and they were out of most of it, so I had to go to the supermarket and choose a couple of things. Figured I couldn’t leave you empty-handed.’

‘So what did you get?’

‘Macaroni cheese and meatloaf.’

‘What? Oh God. What about the salad? Did you get salad stuff?’

‘Oh no!’ Lavinia groans. ‘I
knew
there was something I forgot. But I brought your fruit and magic bars. I have to go and pick up Gracie from school now. I’ll see you later.’ And Lavinia leaves Vicky to unpack the bags, almost in tears as she surveys tin trays of congealing macaroni cheese and an unappetizing meatloaf.

‘Well this will certainly be…
different
,’ Sonia says, as
she starts unpacking her boxes and laying necklaces and earrings out on the kitchen counter. ‘I doubt any of this crowd has eaten macaroni cheese or meatloaf since they were seven.’

‘Never mind that, it even looks horrible. I know this isn’t what Amber would do, but on the bright side at least they’ll be happy to see her come back. This is probably the most revolting lunch they’ve ever been to. Skanky old salad, Barbie napkins, and yucky-looking mac ’n’ cheese and meatloaf.’

‘I shouldn’t worry about it too much,’ Sonia laughs. ‘Most of these women aren’t going to eat that anyway. Red meat in the meatloaf and macaroni cheese way too carby. Shame you don’t have more salad, but they’re not here for the food, they’re here to see what they’re wearing, and hopefully to buy my jewellery.’

‘Oh shit!’ Vicky yelps, looking at the clock. ‘I’ve got fifteen minutes. If the doorbell rings, will you get it?’ and without waiting for an answer she runs upstairs.

No time for a shower, barely time for make-up, her hair, which is in dire need of a wash, is scraped back in a ponytail while she rifles through Amber’s wardrobe. ‘What to wear, what to wear?’

And today is not a day that is kind to her. Vicky is used to these days at home. She can put on her favourite jeans on a Saturday and feel like a goddess – sexy, skinny, gorgeous, and Sunday, just one day later, she will pull on the same jeans and feel like an ogre – ugly, fat, disgusting.

Today is that Sunday, except it’s not even her own wardrobe. She had thought that she and Amber were the same size, except now she realizes that in the week she’s been here she’s clearly been overeating to mask her discomfort, and now everything feels uncomfortably tight, and as for Amber’s Chip & Pepper jeans: they barely make it over her knees.

And Amber said the women dress up for one another, and hasn’t that Sonia just said the same thing? But what does that mean? Does that mean jeans and high-heeled boots, or a cocktail dress?

In the end, in the four minutes remaining, Vicky settles on a knee-length Audrey Hepburn-style black cotton dress, with a black silk bow just under the bust. It fits, it’s comfortable, and in line with this Holly Golightly moment, Vicky throws on several strands of large costume pearls, slips her feet into black satin slingbacks, and twists her hair up in a beehive. No time for make-up other than a slick of lipstick, and no time to check herself in the mirror as the doorbell rings. She will just have to do.

‘Are you going to a party?’ Deborah grins on the doorstep as she kisses Vicky hello and deposits a giant cake box on the table.

‘Oh God, you mean this is completely wrong, isn’t it?’ Vicky looks at Deborah’s outfit of chinos and a pink linen shirt, and turns to run upstairs and change.

‘No don’t worry, I was just teasing. Anyway, I wouldn’t judge my outfit as what you should wear –
I’m always either coming back from the stables or about to go to the stables, and I’m always the worst-dressed one here, although frankly I couldn’t care less. Anyway, love that dress. I’ve always told Amber it’s very Audrey.’

‘Well that was the look I was going for.’

‘You pulled it off. And don’t worry about what everyone else is wearing. Half of them will be in brand new designer outfits from Rakers which they bought just for today, and frankly who can be bothered to compete with that? So how did you manage everything today? Amber said she was doing food from my favourite place, Rosemary & Thyme.’

‘Ah yes. I’m afraid there’s been a bit of a disaster on that front,’ Vicky says. ‘They misplaced the order and I’d put Lavinia in charge, so she took herself off to Stop and Shop and came back with macaroni cheese and meatloaf.’