The Other Woman (8 page)

Scarlett:
Let’s all give them the space they so badly need right now.
In other words, stay that fuck away from Bradley so I can have complete control over my lover and his children. Don’t meddle, don’t ask too many questions, just back off.

Then I posted on Facebook the small newspaper article about a Sydney mother from the North Shore abandoning her children at the mall and facing a string of charges. I quickly followed that post by hotly defending her.

Scarlett:
It’s all crap, I tell you. I do not believe Rival would do such a thing for one moment and I urge you not to either. Standby for updates.

Then to keep momentum, I craftily posted messages that alluded to drug involvement:

Like if you think drug dealers should be jailed for life.

Don’t huff, don’t puff, keep away from that stuff.

Get high on life, not on drugs.

Shoot for the Stars not your arms.

Drugs: Choose not to use.

I got a ton of likes and questions on how Rival was doing, how her kids were faring, and how Bradley was coping.

Scarlett:
It’s been tough, but we’re all doing the best we can.

Notice how I smoothly I embedded myself into the family
? A godsend, that’s what Scarlett is to poor Bradley and the girls
– that’s what I wanted to hear.

My Facebook updates were frequent, succinct but carefully crafted.

Scarlett
: Taking the kids to the movies. Hoping to distract the poor darlings.

Scarlett: Baking cupcakes with the kids.

I added a picture of us in the kitchen, each of us with a wooden spoon in our hands, with flour dotting our noses.

Scarlett:
Cleaning up with the girls.

I posted a photo of us with buckets, mops, and feather dusters, all of us gloved and looking ready to clean up. We were straightening up the toy room, but I wanted impact, hence the added measure of props.

Then it started. The thank yous.

You’re doing a greeeeat job, Scarlett.
Smiley face.

What would they do without you, Scarlett?
Thumbs up sign.

God bless you, Scarlett.
Three hearts

Tell Brad to hang in there, Scarlett.
Smiley face.

People were starting to appreciate me, see my worth, and all that made it easy to embed myself into Bradley’s life with no fingers pointed at us for cheating or backstabbing.

Even though none of the fuckers mentioned the word godsend, I quietly moved in with Bradley and took over Rival’s life.

After I packed away all Rival’s things and stored them in the garage, I began my search for caterers and a wedding planner.

In three months or so, I planned to throw a wonderful engagement party right in our lovely, lush garden with its koi pond and small bridge. It would be a small affair, but so classy and tasteful, it would be the talk of Facebook. (I decided to keep the koi pond and the ugly fish after I saw a picture on Pinterest of a bridal party throwing bread into a similar koi-filled pond. It was so sweet, I actually created a bridal board and saved the picture. I would have to replace the ugly koi with some exotic-looking expensive ones.) In less than nine months, I planned to become Mrs. Bradley Murdoch. Exciting. It will
not
be a small wedding, I warn you, for I am Scarlett soon-to-be Murdoch, and I never do
small
. Count on it.

End of Part One

****

RIVAL MURDOCH (The Wife)

They’ve reduced my dosage of Lithium and Cerocal. The fog has shifted, and I’m alert enough to be moved out of the Extreme Care Unit of Dunhill Mental Health Care Facility and into the general ward.

I take note of the men in white jackets with their watchful eyes and ready-to-spring-into-action stance, the bare, flaky walls in dire need of a coat of paint, and the sterile sparseness of the facility. I can’t miss the sight of the solid bars on the windows, the solid bars on the ventilation holes, the solid bars that choke the skylights and prevent natural light from entering. The medical staff speak in controlled, sedating voices, and the curious gazes from the patients are unnerving and intimidating.

A woman dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, sneakers, and a leopard-print hair band enters my ward carrying a cup of coffee. Her name badge identifies her as Nurse Eden.

“Here you are, Rival, one sugar, like you requested.”

“Thanks,” I mutter, and accept the coffee from her.

As I sip the luke-warm coffee (only warm drinks are served at Dunhill, never hot, just in case we patients try to burn each other or the staff), she plumps my pillows and chats away.

Two patients stand at the doorway to my room and watch me as if I am a circus monkey. A red-haired male, wiry and in his mid-twenties, and a chubby, greasy-haired female in her late teens.

“Is she still tearing up the bible?” the girl asks, a twinkle in her eye. She cranes her neck to look at me.

“Alison, leave her alone,” Nurse Eden reprimands.

“She’s going to hell after that,” the male patient says, snapping his fingers. “Tell her that. Tell her, tell her!”

“No, she’s going to
Dr
.
Camda
, Jim,” Nurse Eden says in a calming voice. “And you guys remember to make her feel welcome here. It can all be very intimi—”

“Nah!” Jim says, his index finger stuttering in the air. “I don’ wanna ’sociate with her, or I will go to hell by ’sociation. No, no, no, no! I can’t make her feel welcome. No, no!”

“I’ll hide all the bibles,” Alison says in a voice dragging with amusement.

I look at Nurse Eden. “What are they talking about?”

Her wave is dismissive.

Alison opens her eyes really wide and makes a motion of tearing up pages, squashing them, and throwing them around the room. Jim pretends to grab at the imaginary pages in the air.

I squint at them and shake my head. I would never do that – I’m not religious, but I respect religion enough not to do something sacrilegious like that.

“Okay, Jim, Alison,” Nurse Eden says in a firm voice, clapping her hands twice, “run along now.”

Jim stares at her as if he’s ready to argue with her and I grow a little anxious.

Suddenly, he crouches low, his focus intent and ahead, as if he is about to take off running.

But he doesn’t take off. Instead, he starts to run on the spot in slow motion, his movements exaggerated, his mouth distorting and moving in all directions. “Chariots of Fire!” he says, and starts to hum a tune I do not recognize. Alison collapses against the wall in a fit of giggles. The more she laughs, the more exaggerated Jim’s movements become. With a sign, Nurse Eden shuts my room door on them.

“You ready for Doctor Camda?” Nurse Eden asks.

No.

As if she’s reading my mind, she says, “Your mood has stabilized, Rival. It’s now time for your assessment.”

I nod.

“Good, then. You know where her office is.” She flashes me a reassuring smile. “Off you go then.”

With my eyes to the floor, I shuffle my way to Dr Camda, whose name is not at all familiar to me. As I pass two huge metal doors, I catch a glimpse of someone I do not recognize. My sweat pants are black, my white t-shirt is creased, my limp hair is in a ponytail, and my pallor is grey. But most striking of all, I am reed-thin and gaunt.

Dr June Camda is waiting for me. “Do come in, Rival,” she says in a soothing voice.

I murmur my thanks, take a seat in a plastic chair, and sit with my hands linked on my lap. I have always found that with Cerocal and Lithium comes both fuzziness and a heightened sense of awareness. I notice everything around me: two plastic chairs, a small, round metal table that is bolted to the floor, and a wooden wall shelf with three compartments holding four boxes of Kleenex with pictures of puppies on them. The brown and white Beagles have sad eyes...

For the next hour we talk about what brought me to Dunhill – my husband’s affair, my leaving my children at the mall and going home to sleep off drugs, the drugs found in my purse, and my obvious mental breakdown.

“I don’t do drugs,” I say in a vehement voice.

“You don’t do drugs or you don’t
remember
doing drugs?”

I hold my head with both hands as I repeat, “Dr. Camda, I don’t do drugs. How the drugs got into my system…I don’t know. And because of that, I feel like I am going…” I stop myself just in time.

With a nod, Dr. Camda writes furiously as I speak. “When was the last time your husband visited you?” she asks.

“When I was admitted, three weeks ago. He hasn’t brought the kids to see me.”

“How does that make you feel?”

A dry sob escapes me, and a lump the size of a tennis ball lodges in my throat. It remains there for the rest of my painful session with Dr. Camda.

****

RIVAL

Nurse Eden raps on my room door. “It’s lunch time, Rival!”

With a nod, I reluctantly slide out of my bed, and with shoulders hunched and my eyes to the floor, I shuffle to the dining room.

After my painful session with Dr Camda earlier on, I am in no mood to talk or interact with anyone. But one of the things Dr. Camda mentioned is my refusal of food. In order for me to leave this place, I have to eat.

My plan is to grab my food, scoff it down in full view of the nursing staff, and return to my room.

Alison, Jim, and a few other patients cloister around a man talking animatedly about God. Heads bob as he regales them with tales from the bible.

“So Noah, under God’s mighty spell, shook his staff at the Red Sea and…” everyone leans in and listens intently, their eyes fixed to the man whom I suspect is a priest, “…the Red Sea…” his voice drops to a whisper, “parted…and…and…everyone, every
single
one of them, all his disciples...” his voice rises and he throws his hands to the sky, “could walk through and get to safety. Is that a MIRACLE OR WHAT?”

Everyone gets to their feet, claps and cheers, and the preacher beams.

“Hey, man, wasn’t that
Moses
who parted the Red sea?” a thin, tall man in his early twenties asks. “And disciples, man? Noah didn’t have
disciples
, man? Jesus had disciples. Seriously, man.”

The place goes silent.

The preacher, who happens to be the most handsome man I have ever seen – tall, broad-shouldered, sandy-haired, and with striking green eyes – hurtles into damage control. “Satan will rise among you in the guise of a comrade,” he says, his voice once again rising in pitch as he eyes the young man who dared challenge him, “and he will TURN your heads against the Lord, by questioning his word, so beware of those apostates!” His hand darts toward the young man who corrected him.

All heads turn to look at the young man.

“Hey, man, why you calling me Satan, man?”

“Satan,” Alison says through clenched teeth. “From now on Shauno, I am going to call you…Satan.”

Everyone points at Shauno and chants, “Satan, Satan, Satan!”

Shauno’s face spasms. “Hey man, why you guys gotta do me like that, man?”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” the preacher says, moving in front of Shauno in a protective gesture. “We must forgive, and that is why I shall pray for him.” He bows his head and closes his eyes. “Father, we come before you to ask you to forgive brother Shauno, who is an imperfect being and is being manipulated by Satan into questioning my sermon to—”

“Lunch time, everybody!” Nurse Eden calls. “Take your seats.” She looks at the preacher. “You too, Samuel.”

“Hey, have some respect,” the preacher snaps, as he takes his seat with the rest of the patients.

Eden rolls her eyes. “Okay,
Jesus
, you too, take your seat. Enough preaching for today.”

His green eyes darken. “I will pray for you too, Sister Eden,” he says, hurt dragging his words and causing his lips to barely move when he speaks. “I will petition our beloved father who art in heaven to forgive—”

“Rice or bread roll, Jesus?” Nurse Eden asks.

Jesus thinks about it before he answers. “Bread, please.” He then proceeds to break up his bread roll and hands a piece to everyone around him. “This is my body…”

I groan to myself. He’s mad for sure.

A woman with thick black eyeliner, piercing green eyes and thin, penciled-in eyebrows, breaks away from Jesus and approaches me. If I had to guess, I would say she’s Lebanese or Middle-Eastern.

“Where do you live?” she asks.

“Eh…Wahroonga.”

She jerks back. “What? Me too.” She extends a hand with blood-red acrylics. “I’m Bun Khoury.”

“Nice to meet you,” I say.

“I’m a make-up artist,” she says, her eyes scanning my face. “I can make you look heaps pretty, you know. Gotta pluck your eyebrows first.”

“Can you guys please eat as you talk?” Nurse Eden chimes.

“Don’t tell us what to do,” Bun says, whirling around to glare at Nurse Eden.

“Yeah,” Jim says from his seat. “Yesterday you locked away the urn. How we supposed to make coffee, huh?”

“Yeah, I was thirsty,” Bun says. “I wanted a cup of coffee, but I had to drink
water
!”

“Me too,” Alison says. “I had to drink water too.”

Nurse Eden holds up her hands. “You guys back off. It was necessary at that time to lock away boiling water.”

“It’s was necessary at that time to lock away boiling water,” Bun mimics.

“You’re a horrible, mean person,” Alison says to Nurse Eden, and sniffs loudly. “I hate you.”

“I hate yous too,” Bun says.

“Me too,” Jim says. "I
really
hate you.”

“We should never hate,” Jesus says.

“Okay,” Nurse Eden says, appearing unfazed by the avalanche of hate in the room.

“I hate you more,” Alison says. “And I wish you would die.”

“Yeah. And when I get out of here,” Bun says, “I will take yous on.”

“Oh, yeah?” Eden says.

I start to fret. Are they allowed to threaten a member of the medical staff like that?

“Yeah. No badges, no uniforms, no guns, no nothing!” Bun snarls, even though Nurse Eden is not wearing a uniform, has just a
name
badge, and I have not seen her pull out a gun. Yet. “Just yous and me. Woman to—” she stops and peers at Nurse Eden’s neck. “Hey, is that gold?” Bun’s green eyes narrow at the wishbone choker around Nurse Eden’s neck.

“It is gold,” Jim says, moving closer to Nurse Eden to look at the choker. “It’s really dear too. Me Mum has one of those. Me dad bought it for—”

“I’m gonna get me one of those,” Bun says, excitement rampant in her emerald eyes. “Where did yous get it from?”

Eden lifts and drops her shoulders. “My husband bought it for me for Valentine’s—”

“Aww, sweeeet!” Bun says. “He’s so niiiice. So sweet.”

“He is,” Nurse Eden says, touching her choker, then moving to serve lunch.

I pick at my grilled hake, sautéed greens, mash, and caramel tart. Not bad food, but I have no appetite, and the food tastes like polystyrene in my mouth. Under the watchful eye of the staff, I make a show of eating.

“You are going to be fine,” Bun says in a reassuring voice.

“Yes,” Jesus says, appearing behind me and placing his hand on my shoulder. “You’re among friends, Rival,” he says in the voice of an evangelist. “This is a safe environment, so feel free to lower your guard and take advantage of the hand of God that is extended.” With a warm smile, he takes a seat next to me.

“Thank you,” I mutter.
Father
?

He drops his voice and leans in. “I’ll be seeing him later on. What would you like me to ask him?”

“Who?” I ask.

He points upwards. “God.”

I blink rapidly at the handsome, but clearly mad man in front of me. “Oh…” I shrug. “Um…”

He nods. “Standard request?”

“What’s a standard—”

“Ask Him to bless you and your family?”

“No,” Bun says, clamping her arm over mine. “Ask Him for permanent make-up. Like a black tattoo eye-liner, and a burnt-orange lip liner. Those colors blend with anything. Seriously.”