5. Katie #2
Oh, come on! A heart surgeon? A heart surgeon with time to create fancy lunchboxes? Are you kidding? How the hell could Katie compete with that?
Chastened and humbled by the sodding cardiologist, Katie bustled her kids out of the door. ‘Let’s go. I’ll do a shop today, I promise.’ She needed to up her game.
‘Swear?’ Lucy didn’t believe her.
‘Swear.’ But as Katie swore, she remembered she was working late, so she wouldn’t have time to do a grocery shop. She’d have to grab a few bits at lunchtime. It’d be fine. She’d take the plastic wrapping off and pretend they were fresh fruits.
Katie was taking a quick break and downing her fourth cup of coffee when Melanie walked into the salon.
She waved at her and rinsed out her cup, while Kya showed her to Katie’s station, put a robe around her and handed her some magazines.
Melanie pushed them aside and typed furiously into her phone.
Katie approached her and placed her hands on her sister-in-law’s shoulders, over the robe and towel.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey, yourself.’ Melanie kept typing. ‘Can I get a quick trim and blow-dry? I know I need my roots done but I just don’t have time.’ She finally looked up from her phone.
‘They need doing. Do you ever have time?’
Melanie half smiled. ‘Nope, but I badly need to get them done before the Goldstone awards. I can’t accompany Sloane looking like a bag lady. I need to look like a super-agent. And Nancy made a badger comment earlier.’
‘Of course she did,’ Katie said, rolling her eyes. ‘Okay, I’ll give you a root spray to tide you over, but you have to come in next week. Or I can do them at your house in the evening if that helps?’
‘That would be amazing. I don’t usually get home before nine, though.’
‘Melanie!’
‘I know. It’s just nuts at the moment.’
Katie looked into the mirror, catching Melanie’s eye. ‘You really need to slow down, or you’ll burn out, and you need to see your family.’
Melanie sighed. ‘I have all the best intentions but something always comes up and … well …’
A bit like me, Katie thought, with my plans to shop and prepare more nutritious lunches. Still, though, the twins would turn sixteen this coming year: Melanie had to lean in before they slipped through her fingers. ‘The twins will be gone soon. Don’t miss out on them.’
Katie wanted to add that she saw herself in the twins, but she wasn’t sure how Melanie would react.
She could see they were live-wires and they needed boundaries.
Katie hadn’t had any boundaries laid down by her dad, and things could have gone a very different way if she hadn’t had a swimming coach who’d kept her from spiralling.
Katie had been a good swimmer, she could probably have been a great one, but she lacked commitment.
Fred Hanson, her coach at the swimming club, had always encouraged her, supported her and kept a close eye on her.
When he saw her beginning to act out, at around sixteen, he had taken her aside and given her a serious talking-to.
‘You have a choice here, Katie, sink or swim – sorry for the swimming reference, but I’m serious.
If you keep mitching off school and hanging around with that bunch of messers, you’ll ruin your life.
Go to school, and if you want to leave next year when you turn seventeen, have a plan.
Find something you like doing and work hard. ’
It was actually Fred who’d suggested hairdressing, ‘because you’re always coming in here with new hairstyles’.
Katie had cried more when Fred died than when her own dad did six months later.
Fred had been the parent-figure she’d craved.
Her dad had wallowed in grief and alcohol.
He wasn’t an alcoholic as such – he didn’t drink all day or miss work or shout at her or anything like that.
He was a quiet, sad drunk. Some people took antidepressants; her dad drank alcohol.
He’d often fall asleep on the couch after a few whiskeys.
Katie would come downstairs in the mornings to find him passed out, still in his suit.
It upset her that her dad had never been able to move on from his grief and find happiness, not even in his own daughter.
Still, he did his best and was kind in his own way, if a bit neglectful.
The house had always been quiet and sad: Katie had hated that and spent as little time there as possible.
It wasn’t her dad she missed, though, it was Fred.
He was the one she spoke to when she needed advice.
She’d look up at the sky and ask him what she should do – and always, without fail, Fred’s deep voice would come into her head with words of wisdom.
Melanie was totally absorbed in her phone, so Katie combed her hair out slowly, losing herself in her thoughts.
Thankfully, she’d met Jamie shortly after her two losses and he had helped fill the deep void in her life.
She had gone out with bad boys before Jamie, but deep down she knew she wanted a good guy.
She wanted to marry someone solid, someone who would not let her down, like her dad had.
Someone who would keep her from going down the wrong path.
Katie was self-aware enough to know that her loneliness could lead her to throw herself into the wrong marriage. Jamie had saved her. He was her person.
She always felt Fred had sent him to her because she’d met Jamie in an old-fashioned bar, full of old men drinking pints of Guinness and talking about the olden days, not young, fit guys you could date.
She used to go there with Fred and she had gone in one day after work, feeling lonely and missing him.
Jamie was sitting up at the bar, and she noticed him immediately because he was half the age of anyone else there.
His car had broken down outside and he was waiting for the AA to arrive.
They got chatting and that was that. It was Fate, and she firmly believed that Fred had brought them together.
Because of her gloomy childhood, Katie was determined that her kids would grow up in a house painted in bright colours, with music, fun and a mum and dad who loved them and showed them affection all the time.
But parenting was harder than she’d thought.
She tried to be fun, but sometimes she was tired, and the constant organizing, scheduling and meeting their emotional needs was exhausting.
Running her hands through Melanie’s soft hair, Katie said, ‘You’re so lucky. You’re one of those annoying women who could never look bad, even if you tried.’
It was true, Melanie was naturally gorgeous.
Her roots did need to be done, but her long dark hair, big brown eyes and smooth skin made her seem ten years younger than forty-three.
Katie thought she looked a bit like Demi Moore.
Make-up didn’t really enhance Melanie: she was just really naturally pretty.
Katie had to work hard to look good. Melanie didn’t.
And the big black-framed glasses she wore gave her a sexy-smart vibe.
Katie had had her eyes lasered – no way was she wearing glasses, no matter how cool they were on some people. They looked rubbish on her – less sexy-smart and more dorky-dumb.
Melanie’s phone rang. Joni’s name flashed up. It still made Katie giggle that Melanie had given in to Frank’s desire to call his twin girls Joni and Janis – after his two female rock icons, Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplin. It was probably the last thing she had given in on to Frank.
‘Yes?’ Melanie answered sharply.
‘I feel sick,’ Joni said. ‘Dad’s not answering his phone.’
‘You were fine this morning.’
‘Yeah, well, I amn’t now.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Period cramp.’
‘You finished your period last week.’ Melanie rolled her eyes at Katie in the mirror.
‘What? Yeah, well, I have post-period cramps.’
‘I can’t pick you up. I’m tied up all day.’
‘As usual. Where’s Dad?’
‘He’s working.’
‘I’m dying here, Mum.’
‘I think you’ll survive for a few hours.’
‘God, you’re such a bitch.’ Joni hung up.
Katie was shocked by Joni’s rudeness but tried not to show it.
Hairdressers were experts at not reacting to things they heard and Katie had heard some hair-raising things in her many years in the salon.
She always thought hairdressers would make great spies: people spilt their guts to you and you just kept your face neutral and listened.
Melanie put her phone down and raised her eyebrows. ‘Enjoy Lucy while she’s still sweet because teenage girls are horrible.’
‘She didn’t mean it. Probably just hormones.’
Melanie shook her head. ‘Oh, she meant it. They both think I’m far too hard on them, but I have to be to balance out Frank, who never says no to them.
Do you know they came home last week with brand new iPhones?
He bought them the latest version because they told him they needed new phones so as not to be social outcasts.
Can you believe it? He is such a walkover. I don’t want to raise spoilt kids.’
As much as Katie loved Frank, and he was very lovable, he needed to learn to say no. ‘They’re good girls. It’s just a phase. I was a nightmare at fifteen. I’d no mother to keep an eye on me and my poor, clueless dad thought I was in my bedroom asleep while I was out partying.’
‘God, I was the opposite. At fifteen I was either studying in my room, playing hockey or reading. There was no tolerance for any messing in my house. It was too strict and, as a result, none of us is close to our parents, but I respected them, and their rules and regulations worked. Me and my three sisters knew we had to succeed in life. I want to be less strict than my parents were, but with Frank being so lenient I find I always end up being the bad guy and the disciplinarian.’
‘They’ll thank you for it one day. They’re just at a tricky age, pushing boundaries, trying to be “cool”, meeting boys, fitting in, bodies changing … It’s a lot.’
Melanie clicked open an email. ‘I hope you’re right.’