Chapter 4
FOUR
NOW
Reese
I am distracted, listening for my phone, knowing that Victoria may call at any moment to discuss Camilla. It’s hard not to regret ever meeting her. The three of us were once so close but after everything that happened, I never expected to hear from Camilla again.
The kids are in bed and Nick is helping me clean the kitchen, stacking plates in the dishwasher with his usual precision. But my mind is on Victoria and Camilla, my thoughts whirling.
‘How’s the Goldman wedding shaping up?’ he asks.
I try to snap my attention to the present. ‘Zane is panicking but I think everything is under control. The bride is fairly easy-going and so is her mother. One thing I do need to check on is the cake. I know they wanted it to be gluten free and I’m not sure the baker has remembered.’
I’m talking to myself more than I am to him, but I appreciate how he keeps track of my events and the things that are concerning me.
It’s one of the things I love about him.
He earns way more than I do but he’s never made me feel like my work is somehow less important because I work fewer hours and earn less.
And he’s an involved father when he’s able to be.
‘I probably need to do another hour of work,’ he says as I wipe down the cream and grey marble kitchen countertop.
‘You can leave this to me,’ I say. ‘Go do your work.’ I don’t ask him what he’s working on because I know he can’t tell me. I’m looking forward to being alone anyway. The message from Camilla is all I can really think about.
‘Thanks, babe,’ he says and he comes over to me, wraps me in a quick hug. I’m reminded again of how lucky I am to have met him.
I had almost given up hope of finding someone at twenty-nine. I wasn’t old by anyone’s standard but I had struggled with relationships for years because trusting people was hard for me.
But then his firm was responsible for staging a conference on insurance law reform and they hired Zane to put everything together.
I prefer organising weddings and that’s what I usually take care of for The Epitome of Perfection Events, but Zane asked me to make sure the new caterer was a good choice so I hung around for most of the Saturday, sampling the food.
After the cocktail hour, I reported back to Zane that the caterer was a great fit for our company and went to grab my things. ‘You don’t look like an insurance lawyer,’ I heard and I turned around to see a man with sandy-blond hair, brown eyes and a smile that lit up his face.
‘What does an insurance lawyer look like?’ I asked, smiling back.
Instead of saying anything, he bowed to me, making me laugh and we started talking. When everyone went off in different directions, we went out for a late-night drink.
Nick proposed three times before I said ‘yes’.
The first time was over that drink, in a small bar with low lighting and empty tables all around us and I knew he was joking.
The next time was three months later and I wasn’t ready, but three months after that I was.
I knew I could trust him. I never wondered where he was or what he was doing or if he was hiding something from me.
I got pregnant on our wedding night but that was the plan anyway because I really wanted children and he was ready for a baby as well.
As I finish up in the kitchen, I feel a twinge of guilt as I remember the message. The truth about your life is that it’s built on a lie. I want to dismiss the words but I can’t because there are things I haven’t shared with Nick, things that I never thought I would have to share.
I have definitely not shared the message from Camilla and I hope I never have to do that. I know Victoria will call me later, and that she doesn’t want me to reply to the message. She wants to strategise so that both of us give Camilla the same answer. But I need to know why she contacted me, us.
I leave the kitchen and go to the living room. It’s not often I come in here. We have a separate playroom where we have the family television and that’s where we sit at night after dinner.
The children are not allowed in the living room so it remains a sanctuary of peace and curated neatness.
It’s here that we have the expensive blue velvet sofas and the antique side tables decorated with porcelain figurines that I’ve inherited from my grandmother.
I love being in here because it reminds me of her, and of all the advice she gave me when she was alive.
‘Do what makes you happy, Reese, marry a man who likes to cook, say please and thank you and spread kindness.’ It also reminds me to be grateful for the money that she left me which helped me get a great start in life.
Walking into this room usually calms me but tonight I’m on edge, worried, unsure.
I sit down on one end of a sofa and open my phone, reading the message again.
The truth about your life is that it’s built on a lie. It’s been a long time Reese and I’m finally ready to talk. You had better be ready to listen. Camilla.
She sounds so angry, it’s frightening. What do you want? I type in reply.
It’s rude and abrupt and I nearly delete it but then I send it anyway. I need to be direct and not worry about hurting her feelings. She must know that she won’t get a warm reception from me.
Her reply is instant.
I want the truth to be told.
I try to imagine her as she would be now. I haven’t thought about Camilla for years. But here she is, looming so large she could be standing in front of me, her mouth pursed with disapproval as she looks around my neat living room.
The last time I saw her, her white-blonde hair had grown into a long bob after she cut it short and hated it, and her ice-blue eyes were wide and round.
I remember she always hated her thin lips and her pointy chin.
She hated how skinny she was as well. There was a lot she didn’t like about herself and her life.
It made her an angry person. From the moment I met her, I wavered between feeling sorry for her and being scared of her sharp tongue.
She liked to say, ‘I’m just being honest,’ after she said something really hurtful.
And she did say a lot of hurtful things like, ‘Sometimes you come across as really immature. Not everyone has your privilege, remember that. Life must be so easy for you and it’s not for everyone.
’ Despite knowing her for years, the nasty stuff she said always took me by surprise because I could never imagine saying something like that to another person.
I would end up agreeing with her and thanking her for her honesty.
She said some ugly things but that was nothing compared to what she did. I have no reason to believe she’s changed and her message just reinforces that idea.
I wonder where she lives now, if she’s married and has kids.
I shouldn’t have replied to her but I’m in this now.
What’s the truth Camilla?
I shift on the sofa, feeling my heart race.
You know what I’m talking about Reese. There are things you know and things you don’t. There’s a lot of stuff you don’t know about your best friend. A lot. And just as much she doesn’t know about you. I don’t know how you and Victoria thought you could get away with what you did.
I shouldn’t have done this. Victoria told me not to talk to her until we had worked out what we were going to say. And now I’ve stuffed up by replying to Camilla’s message.
How does she know Victoria and I are still friends anyway?
We haven’t spoken to her in sixteen years.
I suppose there might be something on my Instagram or Facebook page that shows we have remained friends, but a quick scroll back through months of photos shows nothing of me and Victoria together.
Has Camilla just made the assumption? I don’t know how you and Victoria thought you could get away with what you did.
Is Camilla back to spill my secrets into the world? Am I ready for Victoria to know exactly what happened? Not what she thinks happened, but everything that actually did.
I feel my thumb going to my mouth because the urge to tear off a fingernail rises inside me and I forcefully stop myself. I haven’t bitten my nails in… sixteen years.
Suddenly I am twenty-four again, too young to know how awful the world could be, too stupid to understand that I couldn’t trust everyone in my life and I am staring down at my hand where all the nails have been chewed off, hating how it looks, hating how I feel, hating everything.
But I’m forty now and I have a husband, two children and a career. I remind myself how lucky I am to have these two children and this family, to have found Nick and be able to have a career doing something I love.
I clench my fist, stopping myself from destructive behaviour. I keep my nails short and layered in clear polish. My job is about projecting calm reassurance that I am the right person to handle someone’s special day. Chewed nails hardly demonstrate that.
Closing down my phone, I look up at the ceiling of the room, letting my eyes roam over the perfect white space, clearing my mind.
And then I sit up and open Google, type in Camilla’s name and have a quick look at the first few pages, but nothing comes up.
‘Weird,’ I mutter. I jump at the ping of another Instagram message.
Don’t you want to know what I have to say? Maybe you’re worried that once that lovely husband of yours knows the truth, he won’t want to be around you?
I feel my cheeks flush as my stomach churns. I think I might be in trouble here. Real trouble.