Our Little Secret (13 page)

As for the porn movie? I’m just going to pretend it was a dream, and park it. I was drunk and confused. I can’t be sure of what I saw. There’s no point in even trying to analyse it any more. Because if I ever dared mention it to anyone, then I have no doubt that I’d be instantly dismissed, and I’m on thin enough ice as it is. Maybe they’ve already decided to fire me.

I hope not, because I can’t face the shame of having to go home and explain what I did wrong, or that I didn’t even get so far as meeting the kids. I can’t face Tiff’s disappointment, or Dad’s joy that my foray into the outside world didn’t work out. But most of all, I can’t face Scott. The dreadful certainty that I will have to break up with him for good this time and that I have no reason to break his heart, other than my own stupidity and vanity.

But grovelling to stay isn’t exactly an easy alternative. However, I have practised my speech to Edward. About how I overstepped the mark and foolishly misread the signals; that the glamour of the evening went to my head and I got completely carried away. How I understand if the Parkers want me to leave, but that, on my life, nothing like that will ever happen again. It’s no excuse, but I was a lot drunker than I realized. I know that now, from how colossal my hangover is this morning.

I take a breath, trying to stop my spinning head and fighting the nausea down as I walk into the kitchen.

I brace myself, expecting to find Edward, but a woman is sitting at the kitchen counter. She laughs as she stares at the screen of an open MacBook laptop, peering through trendy black-framed glasses on the end of her nose.

It’s her.

It’s Marnie Parker.

She has short spiky blonde hair and the most incredible high cheekbones. She’s not wearing any make-up, but her skin has the kind of radiance that can never be bottled or bought. She could have had work done, of course, but she’s naturally youthful, like she’s in her early thirties, although I know she must be older.

But my overriding shock is that, in the flesh, she’s just plain beautiful. Jaw-droppingly beautiful and, in the sunshine-filled kitchen, she sort of radiates this aura.

But
of course she’s beautiful
, I mentally kick myself. Why wouldn’t she be anything other than beautiful, if she’s married to a man like Edward? Seeing her throws the humiliation of last night into even greater relief. My mountain of shame just trebled in height. I’m now experiencing Himalayan humiliation.

It
can’t
have been her in the movie. The woman in the movie had dark hair. Actually, it can’t have been a movie of the Parkers at all. I’ve been so obsessed with Edward, I realize that my whole judgement has been coloured. I feel myself blushing furiously. Oh God, I’m such a fool.

‘There you are,’ she hoots in delight, clapping her hands as I shuffle into the warm, sunny kitchen, shrinking inwardly. Unlike Edward, she has a thick American accent.

I grip the cuffs of my woolly cardy and pull it tightly around me and approach her. I feel shivery and cold in the heat of her presence. I smile weakly. I want to die.

She takes off her glasses and slides off the stool. She’s wearing a white sleeveless vest, which shows off her impressive cleavage, as well as her long, toned arms, which host wristfuls of cool bangles. She’s wearing ripped skinny jeans and her feet, with their perfectly manicured pink nails, are bare. She has a pretty silver ring on her second toe.

She’s possibly the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen. She’s not thin, but kind of peachy, in a curvy, womanly way. She reminds me of those old pictures of Marilyn Monroe. She’s a
real woman
, I realize. The kind Edward was talking about. I bet there were a dozen artists falling over themselves to paint her.

‘Let me see you. You
darling
girl,’ she says, grinning widely at me. Her teeth have a slight gap in them in the front, but somehow this little imperfection only adds to how flawless she is.

She stands in front of me and grabs my shoulders. She’s taller than me and she kisses me warmly on both cheeks. She smells gorgeous, too. A fresh, zesty scent that tingles my nose.

Then she pulls back and looks at me more closely.

‘Oh, my poor baby,’ she soothes, her eyebrows knitting at me, clearly some kind of realization dawning on her.

Do I really look that terrible?

She protrudes her bottom lip in sympathy. ‘Did you get Edwarded?’ she asks.

Edwarded.
Like that’s a thing.

Not waiting for an answer, she puts her hand on her hip. Some rings sparkle and her bangles jangle. She puts the other hand up to her face and pinches her eyes.

‘Don’t tell me, don’t tell me,’ she says, as if she’s divining a memory. ‘So, probably – let me think . . . ? Margaritas or Martinis. Oh my God, yes, Martinis for sure. Daiquiri, probably. Champagne,
definitely
. Am I close?’

She opens her large Persian-cat grey eyes and stares at me. She’s not being horrible, but quite the reverse. The fact that she knows how dreadful I’m feeling, and seems to be implying it’s not my fault, feels so comforting.

I nod. ‘And whiskey.’

She slaps her forehead dramatically. ‘Whiskey! Oh my GAHD. That, too.’

She gasps and grabs the top of my arms. ‘Sweetie. Lesson one. Nobody can drink with that monster at his speed. Nobody on this Earth. He has a liver from the Devil alone.’

I smile weakly, warmed by her kindness.

‘He wasn’t mean, was he?’ she asks, peering into my eyes and stroking my cheek tenderly. ‘He’s an old shark for trying to wrong-foot people.’

She doesn’t know. She can’t possibly know what happened
. Which means
he
can’t have said anything. Which means that maybe it’s not so bad after all.

I shake my head. It’s all I can do not to throw myself into her arms. I just want to cuddle her. I’m so grateful that she’s being so nice.

‘I’m sorry,’ I tell her. Because I am. About everything. About making a fool of myself with her husband. About being a hungover wreck, when I wanted to make the best first impression. ‘I wanted to be—’

‘Oh, darling, darling, darling,’ she interrupts, smoothing my hair, shaking her head to refuse any confession I’m about to make. ‘You, sweetie-pie, are my star. My
star
,’ she gushes, leaning in and grabbing my cheeks and planting a huge kiss on my forehead. She pulls away, all wide eyes and teeth. ‘Come see! Come see!’ she says, grabbing my arm and pulling me over to the counter.

What the fuck?

She twists around the laptop. There’s a full-length picture of me at the gallery last night. I’m on the stairs, looking over my shoulder. It looks like the kind of shot they use in the glossy mags after Oscar night. Except it’s me.

She claps her hands together and presses her forefingers against her lips, watching me closely for my reaction. ‘Isn’t is just fantastic!’

She’s obviously beside herself with excitement, but I can’t see why. I stare at the picture, hardly recognizing myself. I’ve been to hell and back since that naive girl was photographed. I was expecting Marnie Parker to be upset, so I don’t understand at all her overtly joyful reaction at seeing me.

‘You don’t mind?’ I venture. ‘You don’t mind that I was there?’
With your husband
, I nearly add, but before I can say it, she cuts me off.

‘Mind?’ she guffaws loudly. ‘
Mind?
’ She shakes her head at me as if I’m crazy. ‘You, my darling girl, are a genius.’

I don’t feel like a genius. I feel like an idiot. What’s going on?

Marnie slides her perfect vintage-jeans-clad buttocks onto the seat. She smiles at me and laughs, astonished that I haven’t cottoned on.

‘That dress is the centrepiece of my secret collection,’ she says, tapping away at the keys on the keyboard. ‘And Edward knows – I mean, he
knows
, right . . .’ she glances at me over the top of the screen, in a show of seriousness, ‘how stressed I’ve been about it. So when I went to LA, he got Roberta to
steal
the dress,’ she says, giving me wide eyes. ‘And then got
you
to out it at the gallery. He told them that you’d run away from my private show!’ She claps her hands and laughs. ‘It’s a PR triumph.’

She twists around the screen. This time, it’s split into four. Four different images of me. But I see now that she’s not looking at me, but at the dress.

Oh.

It was always about the dress
.

I stare now at the screen, but I’m not looking at me, but at Edward in the next picture. The one where he’s just given me a Martini on the high bridge. I thought he was being intimate, but actually, in each shot, he looks like he’s being a protective bouncer. Like he’s waiting to be caught out any second.

He was playing along with the ruse, too. He was staging it all.

I feel a lump in my throat. What an idiot I’ve been. I have no claim on Edward. What must he think of me? No wonder he cut the evening off, the second it looked like it was getting out of hand. He used me all along, and I was too stupid to realize it.

‘He is so naughty,’ Marnie continues, her voice high with delighted mirth. ‘You wait till I see him.’ She raises her eyebrows in mock-threat. ‘The phone in the office has been ringing off the hook. I have twenty orders already.’

‘He’s not here?’ My voice cracks.

‘
Gahd
, no. He left – I don’t know . . . early . . .’ she says, flapping her hand dismissively and turning back to the laptop. ‘I was fast asleep.’

So she wasn’t watching a porn movie. And neither was Edward.

She must have been here last night, then. When we got back. Perhaps she was asleep, whilst I was trying to get off with her husband downstairs.

What happened? Did he go upstairs and crawl into bed with her? Did they talk about me?

But no, they couldn’t have, if this revelation on the Internet was his romantic big surprise for his wife. The realization hits me with full force. They haven’t discussed me, because I don’t matter. As in,
at all
. I am nothing to Edward Parker, except a naive clotheshorse. And nothing more.

‘Sweetheart,’ Marnie says, suddenly gauging my non-reaction to all this. ‘You look terrible.’

I nod. I’m fighting back tears.

She claps her hands together twice, as if she’s made a decision.

‘OK. Sit,’ she commands, taking my shoulders and forcing me into her place on the stool. She taps my shoulders decisively with her fingers. ‘I’m going to fix you.’

Five minutes later, she’s got a juicer out and she’s piling vegetables in it until she’s concocted a sludgy brown smoothie, into which she tips sachets of powder. I know she’s going to make me drink it, but even the thought of it makes me want to puke.

I can’t take my eyes off her, though, as she gushes about the collection and how clever Edward has been, and how she’d never have agreed to such a ruse. I thought she’d be – I don’t know – some sort of ice-queen. I expected her to be mysterious and intense, but instead she’s the warmest, most confident person I’ve ever encountered. I can’t imagine anything fazing her at all. She seems to be so gregarious and full of laughter, and she’s talking to me like we’re old girlfriends and I’ve popped in for a catch-up.

I watch her shimmy between cupboards, knocking the drawer shut with her hip. She’s all toned curves and womanly softness. If I thought she was comfortable in her own skin when I saw her in the oil painting, it’s nothing to how she actually is in the flesh.

‘I knew I’d love you, as soon as I saw your interview in London,’ she says, pouring the smoothie into a glass. She licks her finger with the mixture on it. ‘There were others of course, but I said to Edward, “She’s the one. She’s perfect.”’

So it was Marnie who chose me, not Edward. This only makes me like her even more. And feel even shabbier about last night.

‘Here.’ She puts the drink down in front of me and grins, raising her eyebrows. ‘Do it down in one. It’s the only way. Believe me, after nearly twenty years with Edward, I know the only way to cure the morning after.’

She leans against the counter, watching me drink. Then she shakes her head in self-congratulation.

‘The boys will love you when they arrive.’

I don’t know whether it’s the smoothie, or her warm smile, or the relief that I’m so clearly not about to be sacked because of what happened last night, but I feel myself relaxing. I’m so relieved we’re back on familiar ground and talking about my job.

But I’m not kidding myself, either. It is still going to be horribly awkward the next time I see Edward.

‘When will the boys be back?’ I ask her.

Marnie pulls a face. ‘Oh God, well . . . soon, I hope. There’s so much to talk about, but let’s do it when you’re less hungover, right?’

I nod gratefully and she smiles again at me.

‘Step one is the juice. Now for step two,’ she says.

‘Step two?’

25

In a moment she’s dragged me towards the front door, and I squint into the morning sun.

It’s warm outside. Marnie jogs down the front of the house in some cool designer sneakers that she roughly shoved on in the hall. She’s got a spring in her step – like she’s up to something. Even in my hungover state, it’s impossible not to be swept along by her.

On the driveway at the bottom of the steps, gleaming in the morning light, is a convertible sports car. I know nothing about cars, but doesn’t Prince William have one like this? As I reach the light-blue shiny car, I realize it’s an Aston Martin. And it’s new. As in brand-spanking-new. There’s not a scratch on it. The tyres are completely black. It must be worth a fortune.

‘This is step two,’ Marnie tells me, with a grin.

‘It is?’

‘Yep,’ she says, jogging around to the driver’s side. ‘Get in.’

She doesn’t even need a key to start it, but presses in a code with a confident punch. She takes some Ray-Ban shades that are in the tray between the two seats and puts them on. They’re too big for her, but she manages to rock them anyway.

She laughs gleefully as the car starts. The roar of the engine is thunderous beneath me. She revs it like she’s one of the boy racers on the estate by my old school. As I sink into the passenger seat I’m engulfed by the smell of sunshine on leather. The tortoiseshell dashboard gleams. I reach out and run my fingers over the dials. It’s so beautiful.