Your Perfect Life (16 page)

“I have my ways.” I’d seen her staring longingly at her friend Sarah’s pair last week and had made a mental note. I know Rachel would probably kill me later for spoiling them, but it made me feel so good to see Sophie smile that it would be worth her wrath.

“Dad! Check these out!” she calls out to John as he passes by on his way to the kitchen, Charlotte in his arms. I smile. He looks good holding that baby.

“Nice,” he replies as he raises his eyebrow at me. “Mom sure has been doing a lot of shopping lately.” He eyes the Gucci bag on my shoulder.

“This was a gift from Casey,” I remind him.

“Ah yes, that’s right,” he says. “What was the damage today?”

“Not too bad,” I say defensively, not wanting to have this discussion in front of Sophie. I wasn’t used to being questioned about how I spend my money. “Sophie, why don’t you take these up to Audrey’s room?” I take the bags off the table and
hand them to her. After she’s gone, I turn back to John. “You only get one first date. I thought it would be nice to make it special for her.”

“She has a huge closet full of clothes! Did she really need something new?”

“Jesus, it’s just one outfit.”

“And the boots for Sophie.”

“Yes,” I sigh. “Those too. It’s not a big deal.”

“You know I don’t like to micromanage your spending. But you know our situation. You can’t just buy whatever you want, whenever you want.”

Their situation?
Rachel and I never talked money and I had always assumed that they lived comfortably.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I just wanted to make them happy. Did you see the smile on Sophie’s face?”

He softens and hugs me. “I know. Putting a smile on her face is a very difficult thing to do these days! We just need to make sure we live within our means. The pharmaceutical industry is so unstable right now that we can’t go crazy.”

Unstable? Don’t people always need drugs? Rachel had never mentioned anything about John’s job and that it might be in jeopardy. He’s been at the same company for over a decade and I had always thought of him as untouchable.

Despite my better instincts, I relax into his arms, feeling his chiseled chest press against mine, breathing in the faint smell of his aftershave. Guilt sweeps over me immediately, but I tell myself I’m just playing the role of loving wife.

The doorbell rings later that evening and I think I may be even more excited than Audrey. I rush to the door, my fingers shaking, and open it to discover a ridiculously good-looking seventeen-year-old wearing a letterman jacket. I peer past
him to see a shiny black Land Rover in the driveway.
Wow, go, Audrey. Didn’t know you had it in you, girl!
I try my best to squelch my cougar instincts.

“Mrs. Cole?” he asks. “I’m Chris McNies and I’m here to see Audrey. Is she available?”

Manners too.

“Yes, come in,” I stammer as John walks up behind me.

“You must be Mr. Cole,” he says as he holds out his hand for John to shake.

“Have a seat.” John attempts to sound gruff but I can tell he’s crushing on this guy too. “I want to have a quick chat with you.”

Ah, yes,
the chat
was basically John’s premeditated speech he’d warned me he’d be giving Chris about not speeding, drinking, or having sex with our daughter tonight. I stay back in the kitchen with Charlotte to avoid the awkward moment.

They walk out a few minutes later, Chris with a slight smirk on his face and John clearly relieved. John nods at me as a sign that Chris agreed to all his ground rules. “Audrey!” John calls. “Chris is here!”

Audrey appears at the top of the stairs looking stunning. Her hair, usually wavy, now hanging straight, her skin dewy and eyes sparkling with first-date anticipation. I quickly pull out my phone and snap a picture for Rachel. As I gaze at the photo, I wonder, when did Audrey become a woman? I’m sad that the real Rachel is missing this moment. I get a lump in my throat as I think of her, on location, in New York with Charlie, no doubt eating at all my favorite New York haunts, living my life. But as Audrey hugs me tightly before waltzing out the door with Mr. Perfect, I wonder if it’s the life I want anymore.

John shuts the door and peers through the window to
watch them leave. “Nice guy,” he says. “He better not break her heart.”

“I know,” I say, and try not to think about the smug look on his face I caught earlier. I sit down on Rachel and John’s worn couch, admiring its comfort and making a vow to myself to get rid of my own uncomfortable furniture the moment I get back home. “Thanks for letting her go. Potential broken heart or not, it’s time to let her grow up.”

He sinks into the couch next to me. “True. It’s just so hard. I had to stop myself from jumping in the car and following them.” He laughs, but I know he’s serious.

I touch his arm. “She’s a smart girl, she’ll be fine.”

For the second time today, he pulls me in for an embrace and I bury my head in his shoulder. “It seems unfair that Audrey is the only one dating,” he says. “Can I take you out this week?”

I pull back, surprised. It’s one thing to slip into your best friend’s body and live with her husband who doesn’t seem to give a shit anymore. It’s a whole other thing to start going on romantic dates with him. But how can I say no? John really seems to be coming around and the last thing I want to do is send him back to being that detached jerk I moved in with a few weeks ago. I tell myself I’d be doing this for Rachel, that she’ll come back to a husband that’s ready to plug back in. “Sure, I’d love that,” before I can stop myself.

CHAPTER 20

rachel

“You know we actually need to get some work done at some point,” I say as Charlie twirls me and I start to lose my balance as my ice skate catches. He grabs the sleeve of my coat and pulls me upright before I fall. Charlie to the rescue.
Yet again.
If he only knew how in the span of just a few days he’d made me feel sexy and self-confident for the first time in years.

“We’re doing research.” Charlie flashes me a boyish grin and I can’t help but laugh, despite my anxiety that we’re not in the office working alongside the producers and associate producers trying to secure interviews with the key players in the Ryan McKnight scandal.

“Remind me. How is ice skating in Central Park research again?” I gaze up at the sun reflecting against the skyscrapers and grab Charlie’s hand to steady myself.

“I think Ryan McKnight skated here once.”

We’ve been having so much fun since arriving in New York last night, grabbing hot dogs from a street vendor, sitting on the
steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art people watching and talking until we couldn’t stand the cold a minute longer, then ducking into a Starbucks for hot cocoa. I don’t want to bring us back to reality and remind Charlie that we still don’t have the exclusive interview with Ryan McKnight’s estranged wife, Daisy. That even though a crafty production assistant tracked down her cell phone number and I called and gave her my best sell for why she should come on, she’d told me she’d need to think about it and call me back. But that might never happen. Then what?

I try to relax and enjoy the moment. Why am I always so high strung? Why do I force Audrey to do her homework the second she walks in the door from school?
Why don’t I ask her about her day first? About boys?
Maybe if I did, we’d be closer. And I’d know her the way Casey seems to in just a few short weeks. Maybe I’d even agree that she was mature enough to date. And maybe the photos Casey texted me of Audrey getting ready for her first date wouldn’t have caused me to fall into a heaping mess on the marble floor of my hotel bathroom. I was conflicted that she’s dating at all, while feeling guilty and regretful that I wasn’t there.

Suddenly, a man with a long-lens camera is skating in our direction. Is he taking pictures of us? Just as I turn to ask Charlie what’s going on, another man with a camera appears and begins snapping photos, and I realize, they’re the paparazzi. I pull my arm up to protect my face, as if that’s going to help. They’re obviously taking pictures of Casey and who they think must be her flavor of the month.

Since the interview with Ryan McKnight, Casey Lee has become a household name—this week even gracing the cover of
People
magazine (well, a square on the bottom right, but still!).
Suddenly Casey’s love life is news. Should I have been more careful today? Was it a rookie mistake on my part to go to such a public place with Charlie? Were they taking pictures of us last night too? And how will Casey feel when she sees pictures of herself and Charlie in the tabloids? Ice skating, no less! Especially after she warned me I needed to keep things with him professional. I sigh, already knowing the answer.

“We’d better get going,” I say, feeling defeated.

“Says who? They already got their picture, let’s continue our fun.” Charlie skates circles around me, literally.

I hesitate as I watch the paparazzi skate away, snow beginning to fall around us, thinking of Casey, knowing we should go, but wanting to stay with Charlie, here in this moment. “You’re right. They can’t stop us!” I skate past him awkwardly but he quickly catches up and I feel his arms wrap around my waist. For a moment, I let his hands rest there and lean my head back against his chest. Just as I begin to wonder what John would think if he saw me like this, another man with a camera ice skates past us and takes our picture. And I know instantly that he got
the
shot; the picture all the gossip sites will salivate over. I can write the headline for them,
Casey Lee Heats Up the Ice as She Melts into Her New Man.

“Let’s go,” I say, this time not taking no for an answer.

• • •

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Casey launches into a tirade the moment I answer my cell phone the next day.

“I wasn’t,” I answer quietly, backstage at the studio we’ve rented. I hear footsteps behind me, spin around quickly, and nearly knock over a young girl who looks more like a supermodel than a production assistant. She tries to hand me a stack
of blue cards for my exclusive sit-down interview with Daisy McKnight. The past twenty-four hours had been a whirlwind. From the time Charlie and I left the ice rink to just a few hours later when the picture showed up on TMZ, to last night when I spent two hours on the phone successfully convincing Daisy to tell her story.

She’d cried throughout our phone conversation, revealing to me why she was choosing to stand by her husband. How she knew what the press was going to say, especially now that as many as four women had come forward, each making an allegation that he’d slept with them. So far, Ryan had only admitted to the one in the hot tub, but Daisy knew in her gut they were all telling the truth and suspected there were even more. That’s off the record, she’d warned, momentarily remembering who she was talking to.
I have to do it for our five-year-old daughter,
she’d said, her voice small, sounding more like she was trying to convince herself than me.

I’d told her I understood why she’d want to keep her family together at all costs, thinking again of the photos Casey texted me of Audrey before she went on her first date, looking so beautiful and grown up (and stylish!). Thinking for a moment of my own potential indiscretion with Charlie and how if I did cross the line, where would that leave my marriage, my family, and me? Daisy had been surprised that I was so insightful about her situation because I wasn’t married and didn’t have any kids, did I? “I’m very close to my nieces,” was all I could offer her. I hadn’t worked that hard since I tried to convince the PTA to sell wrapping paper instead of flavored popcorn for the annual fund-raiser (as I’m sure Casey now knows, those PTA moms aren’t a walk in the park either!).

“Casey, we need you over here for a lighting check.” The
stage manager came around the corner and motioned for me to sit in an oversized cream chair while an audio guy put a mic pack on me.

Fiona glares at me from an identical chair across from mine. She’s doing the lighting check for Daisy because they’re both blond and about the same height. But that’s where the similarities end. Unlike Fiona, Daisy is natural. No plastic surgery. Nothing fake about her. In fact she seems genuinely sweet, a former schoolteacher from the Midwest who met Ryan early in his career when he came to the Mall of America to perform “Baby It’s You,” the song that would catapult him into ridiculous boy-band fame. She was working in one of the clothing stores there and he’d noticed her and asked one of his “people” to inquire if she’d like to meet him. Not having a clue who he was, but incredibly curious, she’d agreed. “And we’ve been together ever since, twelve years just this month, you know, the night he was with her . . .” Daisy had trailed off and I didn’t push her to talk about the fact that he cheated on her on their wedding anniversary. I just promised myself I’d handle the interview well for her sake. She trusted me now.

“I don’t know what I’m more upset about,” Casey snaps, “that you went ice skating with Charlie and got all lovey dovey with him—which by the way you’re going to have to explain in a minute—or that you were wearing that god-awful coat. Wait, I’m zooming in now. Jesus, is that my old pea coat from college?”

I slouch down in my seat and close my eyes, not prepared to have this conversation even though I know I owe it to Casey to have it.

“Sorry to interrupt you, Casey, but can you please sit up a little taller while we check this lighting? We’re almost done.”
The stage manager is hovering nearby and I know he’s anxious to get this done with only an hour until we roll tape. “I told her,” the stage manager says into his headset to the director in the control room.

“Yeah, sorry.” I sit up.

“Yeah, sorry? That’s all I get?” Casey spits.

“Not you, I was talking to the stage manager.”

“Can you focus on this please? It’s only my life we’re talking about here.”

It’s not just your life anymore,
I think, and despite it all, I can’t help but smile as I remember Charlie’s arms around my waist. How safe I felt. How sexy I felt, even in Casey’s old pea coat.