Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
NOW
Reese
‘She hated you for everything you did.’
Sophie’s voice and what she said on the phone runs through my head as I get my children through dinner and bath time. That last night we saw Camilla and that stupid game keep coming back to me and I can almost taste the margaritas, a nauseating drink I have never had again.
I’m so grateful to get a text message from Nick letting me know that he will be home late.
I didn’t tell him about the incident with the kids.
I don’t even know how to begin telling the story, what to say, what to leave out.
I’m sure that Kayla will say something to him so at least he’s not here.
It gives me time to think about what to say and Kayla may well forget this even happened in a day or two.
The run back to the car through the rain and the bubble bath I ran as soon as we got home for her, may take precedence in her mind.
Nick will be furious with me, absolutely furious.
I don’t want him here. I don’t want to speak to him. I have questions for him about his relationship with Victoria but those have been superseded by what I learned this afternoon. What did she do, back then? What was Camilla’s sister talking about?
Once the kids are in bed and I am sitting in my silent clean kitchen, a cup of tea on my kitchen bench and a chocolate biscuit beside it, I take out a notepad.
It helps to write things down sometimes. And as I pick up my pen, I have a flash of memory of doing the exact same thing a month before my wedding to Lawrence. The wedding that never happened.
I wrote a list of pros and cons of marrying Lawrence, putting all his controlling ways in the con column.
In the pro column were all the things he was on a good day. His generosity, his kindness with my father, the way he made me laugh, how he treated me like a princess.
I understood, even at twenty-four, that he was trying to make me small and quiet. But I kept telling myself he was just turning me into a better version of the Reese he fell in love with.
The night I met Camilla at the bar, when I spilled a lot of secrets that I never thought I would tell anyone, was a mistake.
It was just bad timing. Lawrence was at my place, unpacking some stuff in readiness for moving in after our honeymoon because my place was bigger than his, when I came out of the bedroom ready to go and meet Camilla.
‘I’m off,’ I told him. ‘Lock up when you leave. Victoria is spending the night at her mum’s place.’
He didn’t reply but as I opened the front door, he said, ‘Are you really going out dressed to pick up men two weeks before our wedding?’
I was wearing black jeans and a stretchy red top that I had picked because it was so comfortable and because I wasn’t really worried about how I looked.
‘This.’ I laughed, gesturing to my clothes. ‘This is what you think I would wear to pick up men?’
‘Please don’t play dumb with me, Reese. You look like a whore. If that’s what you want, then fine, just say it.’
The words were so cruel that I was stunned. But I knew I was already running late and I didn’t want to change.
‘You’re being ridiculous,’ I told him.
‘You’re being a slut,’ he replied. We spent ten minutes flinging nasty words at each other before I threw up my hands. ‘Fine, I’ll change.’ I stomped off to my bedroom and found the loosest top I had.
‘Does this suit you?’ I snapped when I came out of the bedroom.
‘You look lovely,’ he said, all trace of arsehole Lawrence gone. ‘Have lots of fun with your friend. Enjoy your little truth game.’
I was fuming as I slammed the door behind me and then I was just sad and afraid and tense. And then I met Camilla and decided that I was going to drink away all my worries about my fiancé.
Waking with a dry mouth and the beginnings of a stupendous hangover at 3 a.m., I was mortified by the things I had said and I immediately sent her a text.
And then I messaged again and again and I tried to call her.
She kept me hanging for days but finally replied with a thumbs up emoji and I thought she understood that everything I had said was supposed to be forgotten.
But she didn’t forget. She took that information and used it to sleep with Lawrence. And my life was completely derailed.
Then, apparently, Camilla killed herself. Why? Surely she didn’t care that much about our friendship? What did Victoria do to her? What, exactly? I write that down and underline the word ‘exactly’ three times.
Victoria was angry with her at the time. Furious on my behalf. But what could she have done to Camilla that would lead the woman to take her own life?
I write down everything I know so far.
Camilla has been contacting us, but Camilla is dead.
Sophie, Camilla’s adopted sister, blames Victoria for her death.
When we found out Camilla had slept with Lawrence, Victoria said she would make her pay.
I can see myself the next morning, the day after Camilla dropped her truth bomb and blew up my life.
I woke up early with a splitting headache on the sofa, Victoria asleep on the floor next to me.
I knew what she would say and I didn’t want to talk to her.
Instead, I got up quietly and tiptoed through my apartment to the bathroom. I showered and sipped water as I got dressed, unable to tolerate anything else. I made sure that I had done a reasonable job with my make-up.
And then I drove over to Lawrence’s house, a large mansion on the leafy north shore. He had moved out of his place and was staying with his folks before the wedding.
In my car, I texted him that I was outside, knowing that even though it was 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning, he would be awake because he liked to go to gym early.
Can we talk?
I’m heading out to gym Reese. You know I go to gym on a Saturday morning. I’ll see you later when we meet up. Have fun tonight and behave. Remember you’re going to be Mrs Lawrence Holmes.
I’m outside your house. We need to talk now. Right now.
I waited for his reply but it never came. I expected an angry text back but he must have known something was going on because after five minutes, the automatic gates swung open and he came out of the house.
I didn’t get out of the car and he waved his hands at me. ‘What are you doing?’
I shook my head and he opened the car door and slid into the passenger seat. ‘Reese, what the hell are you doing? What do you want?’
‘I saw Camilla last night,’ I said.
‘Yeah, I know and you look like shit this morning so I’m assuming you got drunk. And then tonight you’re going to get drunk again, I assume. That crap stops when we get married.’
I waited, my heart racing and my palms on my steering wheel, damp. ‘She says you slept with her.’
I have no idea what I wanted in that moment. I couldn’t actually form a coherent thought. My stomach churned and I was too hot and I could smell his musky deodorant that he had obviously only just applied.
He didn’t reply so we sat in silence and even though, in every argument or discussion we ever had, I always jumped in, bumbling my way to an apology or explanation, this time I was quiet.
Lawrence sighed. ‘So apparently you went out with Camilla last week and told her I was a controlling arsehole.’
Camilla hadn’t forgotten everything I said. She had gone to my fiancé and told him everything.
She received my texts asking her to forget everything and she didn’t reply, not because she understood, but because she had no intention of doing as I asked. And because she was going to use the information to destroy my relationship.
‘I…’ There was nothing I could say. I knew the moment I woke up after my drunken night with Camilla that I should never have trusted her. I knew it and I just hoped that she would let it be. But there was no way that was going to happen.
‘You told Camilla that I control you. She came to me and told me that you’re going around saying that I tell you what to wear and what to do with your life.
You’re making me sound like an arsehole.
I gave you everything and I was willing to do that for the rest of our lives. But it wasn’t enough for you.’
‘So, you fucked her,’ I said softly. I didn’t look at him, just stared out of my windscreen at the beautiful old tree on the pavement outside his house where the leaves were a blaze of rich green.
‘You don’t have to use that language, Reese.’
I felt chastened, embarrassed for myself.
‘Look. What happened between me and Camilla was a one-time thing,’ he said. ‘You should never have said those things to her because you know they’re not true. But I’m willing to forgive you. We can move on and just forget all about it.’
It was on the tip of my tongue to agree, to sweep it all under the expensive designer rug he had bought for my apartment. I was cowed by Lawrence, afraid to say or do the wrong thing in front of him and his family. But something stopped me from acquiescing.
‘I don’t want to get married,’ I whispered.
‘Oh for… Listen, Reese, you need to go home and sleep off last night and call me when you’re able to have a sane conversation. Our wedding is in seven days and we’re getting married. Imagine what my parents will think, what your parents will think. They’ve spent thousands. Don’t be such a child.’
‘I can’t marry you,’ I repeated.
‘Don’t be fucking ridiculous.’ He got out of the car, slamming the door behind him and stomping back up his driveway.
I started the car and drove home, my mind curiously silent except for one thought.
I have no control over my life.
When I got home, Victoria was awake, nursing a coffee.
I told her everything Lawrence had said and I told her about the night in the bar with Camilla.
‘That bitch, that absolute bitch,’ she kept muttering. Lawrence wasn’t blameless but her ire was concentrated on Camilla, who had betrayed a friend.
‘What are you going to do?’ she finally asked me.
‘I’m not getting married,’ I said and I meant it.
I will never forget the dark days that followed. I went home to tell my parents and then I went to bed in my childhood bedroom. And that’s where I stayed.
I got into bed and didn’t get up for two weeks.
My mother brought me food that I didn’t eat and then she brought in a doctor who brought in a therapist, but I had no interest in talking to either of them.
I was already on leave from my job but I never went back and I never even gave the event planning firm where I had been working the courtesy of an explanation.
Victoria visited nearly every day, bringing treats and then listening as I sobbed about everything that I had lost. ‘She won’t get away with this,’ Victoria kept repeating.
Camilla never made contact. She never called or came over. She just dropped out of my life.
Lawrence’s parents came over one night and I heard them talking to my parents, asking them to get me to speak to Lawrence, to give him another chance. But my father threw them out, shouting about how they had raised a bad man.
My twenty-fifth birthday came and went and I refused to celebrate it.
After two weeks, Victoria arrived with a box of my favourite caramel-filled chocolates and handed them to me as I lay in my bed enveloped by a sour unwashed smell, my hair limp and my skin dry and flaky.
‘Get up and have a shower, eat these and let’s go out.’
‘I can’t—’ I began to wail.
‘You can,’ snapped Victoria. ‘You can and you will because you’ve been sad long enough and now we’re going to do something different.’
‘What? What can we do?’ I cried.
‘Don’t you worry,’ she said. ‘We can get even.’ Her tone was filled with vitriol. ‘And that’s what we’re going to do. I’ve already…’ She stopped speaking and I didn’t ask her what she was going to say. I didn’t care. I was only thinking about my own pain.
I didn’t care about getting even. I wanted to stay in bed forever.
She left in a huff but I didn’t care about that either.
And then, two days later, my father had a stroke and even though the doctors told us there was no reason for it, I knew it was the stress.
I was lying in bed when I heard my mother screaming and I jumped up, racing to her bedroom where I saw my father, almost gasping for air. Instinct kicked in and before I even had time to panic, I called the ambulance and then followed it to the hospital with my mother.
He didn’t survive.
My mother and I came home ten hours later with a funeral to plan. I had to call my sister and listen to her howling her distress over the phone.
And I have never hated anyone as much as I hated Camilla.
That night, the day my father died, I got into a shower and stayed there for half an hour and when I got out, I pushed everything that had happened with Lawrence and Camilla to the back of my mind.
I needed to support my mother. And as my sister and I planned a funeral and worked through my parents’ finances and we got my mother to sell the house and move into an apartment so she could manage, I nursed my hatred for Camilla.
Whenever I said something to Victoria, she always replied with the same line. ‘Don’t worry. She’s paying for it.’
I do know that she contacted Camilla’s parents and told her mother that Camilla was living in their house.
‘Her mother said there’s no way that can be allowed,’ Victoria reported triumphantly.
‘But how did you contact her? Camilla said they’re away.’
‘She has a phone, Reese, and she was really, really pissed off. She’s going to make sure she leaves.’
So, Camilla is gone. She died sixteen years ago. But is it Victoria’s fault, or my fault? Someone blames us for Camilla’s death.
Who?
I write down ‘Sophie’ and ‘Lia’ on my pad. Sophie is a florist and blames Victoria for Camilla’s death. But enough to do all this to us now? To send threats, to take our children from school?
Camilla and Sophie got closer over the years.
Did Camilla tell Sophie everything that had happened?
Is Sophie the one who has been contacting us?
How did she manage to hack my email so that the school would give her my kids?
She’s a florist. Not exactly the kind of person you expect to be an expert computer hacker.
There are so many questions. I need to start with Victoria. We need to speak honestly. I will ask her about her relationship with Nick and I will ask her what else she did to Camilla and then we will find out who’s doing this and end it.
Because whoever it is came after our kids, and that cannot be allowed.