Stand-In Wife (7 page)

“Dog.” Chuckling, Harry pointed to Salsa who, torn between conflicting impulses, wagged his tail and growled.

“You were happy to accept fillet steak from me this morning,” Viv snapped. She’d left more meat strewn across the countertop defrosting and there was a packet of emergency sausages in her handbag for when she returned. “What is it, anyway? My perfume? Most dogs
love
me….
Tilly!
” At least she had the mother holler down pat.

Her niece meandered into the hall, chewing the last
morsel of toast Viv had given her half an hour ago. “I’ll just brush my teeth.”

“No time.” How did Merry cope with such a dawdler? “I have to drop you guys at school and day care and make it back for your uncle Ross, remember?”

Tilly had decided to go to school when she’d heard Uncle Ross was coming. “He’s bossy,” she explained when Viv asked why. “He keeps telling me to think about other people.” As she spoke she’d swiped her baby brother’s toast and replaced it with a piece she’d already licked the butter off. “It’s bad for him,” she’d said blithely when Viv protested. “Butter causes heart attacks.”

“What about your heart?” Viv had started to wonder if her formidable niece had one. She seemed to have shaken off her grief over Linda and pretty much ignored Harry. Possibly because he was too young to take orders. Viv, on the other hand, had been barked at incessantly. By dog and child.

Strapping Harry into Mere’s seven-seater people mover, Viv gave him a toy, returned to the house for his baby bag and Tilly’s school backpack then heckled her niece out of the bathroom and into the front passenger seat. Tilly had refused to get in the back. “I can’t sit next to Harry, he stinks.”

“A little present for Daddy’s day-care girlfriend,” Viv had muttered.

As Viv shut the passenger door she noticed the Subaru’s insignia—Liberty. Ha!

Merry’s cell rang and Viv turned away from the car in case Tilly could lip-read. She’d been eyeing Viv suspiciously ever since she’d offered to style her for school. She checked caller ID. Merry. Again.

“Hey—” she injected cheerfulness into her voice “—how are you feeling this morning?”

“As if I’ve got a plate screwed to my leg,” said Merry tightly. “But the specialist is coming at ten, so hopefully he’ll up the pain meds. Someone called Jean Paul left three messages on your cell overnight.”

“Oh, no, I forgot to return his call,” Viv said. Too many other things to think about.

“Should I text him your new phone numbers?”

“Yes…no…too dangerous. I’ll phone him when I’m alone.”

“His tone suggested he wasn’t taking the breakup well,” Merry commented.

“I told him I don’t get serious,” Viv said indignantly. “For Pete’s sake, affair is even a French word. It’s not like it got lost in translation. I haven’t got time for dramatics.” Merry snorted. “Except this one,” she amended. “Anyway, the only callers who get your number are the big Broadway producer, Cal Muldoon, or his assistant, Sue Bradbury. In fact, it’s very important that—”

“I’ve got it—Muldoon or Bradbury. Listen, I’ve emailed more tips and lists through to my PC. Make sure you don’t leave any printouts lying around.”

“I won’t.” Viv was starting to regret lending Merry her new laptop. With nothing to do but lie in a hospital bed her sister’s organizing brain had gone into overdrive. Worse, she’d latched on to Charlie’s slight warming as though it heralded the end of the Ice Age. It made Viv nervous. As if there wasn’t enough pressure.

“Have you dropped the kids off yet?”

“Just leaving. I hadn’t allowed for Princess Dawdle.”

“You did get up at six like I told you?”

“Yes.” Bleary-eyed and jet-lagged she’d given Harry a bottle and taken him back to bed with her. Woke thirty minutes later to find him trying to crawl through the cat door
in the kitchen. Her brain threw up a factoid from Merry’s tutoring. Pickles, died aged fifteen, buried in the garden.

The baby banged on the passenger window. “Uh-oh, Harry’s spotted the cell. I’ll call when I’ve dropped off the kids.” Merry had already given her instructions on location, teachers, mums she might meet and Viv’s brain was full to bursting. Had she really only been in the country three days?

“One day at a time,” she kept telling her sister. “That’s all we have to do.” Even if that day felt as long as a week. “I’ll call you when I have privacy, Merry.” If she could costume all of Henry the VIII’s wives, getting two kids to school and day care should be a cinch.

As long as she remembered to stay on the left-hand side of the road. It had been that long.

Flipping her cell shut, Viv turned to see Tilly hanging out the open car window, holding her nose. Her eyes were as wide as saucers.

“Hey,” she said weakly. “Guess you heard Mom— Mummy talking to her friend, Merry. Real funny that we have the same name, huh?”

With a gasp, Tilly released her nose. “I’m so gonna tell on you, Auntie Viv.”

“W
HERE
is
MUM
?”

Viv switched on the indicators to signal a right turn and the wipers squealed across the dry windshield. “In hospital in Hamilton…she went to an appointment there and broke her leg but she’s fine. She just can’t come home for a few days and while she’s away I’m looking after you.”

“Why are you pretending to be her?”

The traffic lights at Fendleton turned red. Viv braked and turned to the passenger seat.

“It’s kinda a game.” She tried to win her suspicious niece over with a big smile. “Can you see it could be fun having an identical twin you can swap with?”
Oh, yeah. Fun, fun, fun.

“No,” said Tilly flatly. “I like to be just me. When Harry came things got badder and Dad went to live with Nana Lin.”

“Harry has nothing to do with your parents’ separation, Tilly. Really, it’s not his fault. It’s a coincidence.”

She didn’t look convinced. “Anyway, you hate being a twin.”

Viv was shocked. “What makes you say that?”

The small shoulders shrugged. “Everyone says it—Uncle Dan, Nana, Pops…Auntie Jo, Cousin—”

“Okay, you’ve made your point.”

“And Mum,” said Tilly.

Viv broke that disconcerting gaze. “Well, we’re doing the twin thing now.”
Whether we want to or not.

A car honked impatiently behind her, the lights had changed. She concentrated on the busy morning traffic.

“Would Daddy be mad if he finds out?”

“Yes,” said Viv because Tilly had to understand the gravity of telling. Except how did you explain adult screw-ups to a child? Tell her that Daddy might try to take her and her brother away from Mummy out of fear and anger. Tell her that things could get worse, when to her child’s mind they were already as bad as they could be.

“Your mum and I made a couple of poor decisions and now we’re trying to reverse them, Tilly, without making things worse. Keeping this secret is best for everybody—you, Harry, your mum
and
your dad. Which is why you can’t tell anyone. Not Uncle Ross, not even your friends.”

The little girl was silent a moment. “Mum wants Dad to come home and live with us again. So do I. That’s why not all of me is sad about Nana Lin. Maybe Dad will change his mind now he can’t live with her anymore. He doesn’t like living by himself. I heard him tell Uncle Ross.”

“Oh, honey, don’t get your hopes up. But I think if we can keep this secret your mum and dad will be better friends.”

“Because he thinks that Mum—you—tried to save Nana Lin?”

Viv winced. “Yes. But remember no matter how they feel about each other, Tilly, they love you. That doesn’t change ever.”

“And they buy me anything I want now, to make it up to me. And now you have to, too,” she added cheerfully.

Uh-oh. “Well, I don’t know—”

“I want McDonald’s for dinner,” said Tilly, and it wasn’t a request.

Viv braked at the roundabout, trying to work out who gave way. “I’ll think about it.”

Another impatient toot, then a BMW overtook her. Now that was definitely illegal. “I have a baby on board, idiot!” She flipped him the bird, New York style.

“I can help you get better at being Mum.”

Viv pulled tentatively into the roundabout traffic. “I’m listening.”

“Take out those streaky things in your hair.”

“Highlights. Sorry, kid, your mum could have had those done.”

“And your teeth are too white.”

“Laser,” said Viv. “I’ll drink more red wine.”

“And you don’t really act the same.”

“Okay, maybe this is worth McD’s.” Viv pulled into the drop-off bay outside the school. “How can I be more like your mum?”

The little girl’s brow wrinkled as she shouldered her school backpack. “Don’t smile so much. And look sadder.”

It was like a punch to the heart.

Tilly opened the car door.

“Does your mum normally hug you goodbye?” Viv managed to ask.

“When I let her.”

Viv opened her arms with a pleading expression. “That’s more like Mum,” Tilly approved. She slid out of the car, landing solidly. “Maybe I’ll let you hug me tomorrow.” She turned, then swung back anxiously. “Who’ll take soccer practice tomorrow, if Mum’s not here?”

“It’s okay, I can manage a simple training session.” Merry was a coach. Not because she was particularly athletic, she’d told Viv, but because there was no one else and she had a chronic problem with volunteerism.

Tilly frowned. “Do you know the rules?”

“A ball, an end zone, touchdowns…” Her niece’s face darkened and Viv relented. “It’s okay, hon, I’m making a joke. I know there’s a try-line.”

“You mean a goal,” said Tilly.

“That’s what I meant to say.” Viv made a mental note to check online sites.

Tilly was still frowning. “No more jokes about soccer,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Satisfied, the girl walked away, equal parts titanium and vulnerability, sparkly pink scrunchie glittering against the nut-brown hair, the backpack bouncing on her Dora the Explorer velour tracksuit. “Tell me the truth.” Viv glanced behind to Harry in his car seat, being ignored as he waved goodbye. “Can your big sister keep a secret?”

“No,” he said.

“Of all your seven words you had to pick that one.” She turned her cell off because she didn’t trust Merry not to call while she was with Ross, then pulled into the stream of traffic. “Let’s extend that vocabulary. Say ‘rock.’”

“Dog,” Harry offered.

“How about ‘hard place’?”

“Train,” Harry countered.

“You’re right, hard place is two words, I apologize.”

The day care was only a few blocks away, a wooden building with a sloping sod roof, planted in fat swells of purple and green succulents and swathes of spiky grasses. There was a wide verandah on one side, overhung with an awning.

“So,” said Viv. “This is where Daddy’s squeeze works.”

Harry clapped his hands.

She shrugged off Merry’s fawn trench coat and shivered as the cool air hit the skin exposed by the deep V in the back of the sexy cherry-red dress she’d bought for Merry.

Harry stared at it. “Hey, it was in her wardrobe so technically it counts,” she said defensively. Merry might want to be civilized about this but Viv was in the mood for a little restorative justice.

Charlie might have been more open to forgiveness and reconciliation if it hadn’t been for this rebound opportunist. Viv slipped out of her sister’s practical shoes and stepped into some red satin high-heeled mules. Apparently Susan was twenty-one and gorgeous. “Well, Mummy can be gorgeous, too,” she said to Harry, unstrapping him from his car seat, “if not twenty-one.” She and Merry hit thirty next birthday. “Let Susan be the insecure one for a change.” If Viv could throw a spanner in the works, she would.

“Ooose,” he said.

“Are we talking about what’s in your diaper?” Breathing through her mouth, she checked for leaks then positioned the baby on her hip and picked up his bag. She jumped as Harry’s chill hand settled on her bare flesh. “What we do for love, hey? Both of us deep in doozy.”

He gave her a drooly grin then laid his head against her breast. “Aww,” she said. “Stinky or not, you’re gorgeous.”

A tall brown picket fence surrounded the center. She unhooked the safety catch, opened the gate and walked into noisy chaos. It reminded her of the chicken house on the family farm a few hours south. Lots of frantic, small creatures underfoot, intent on their business. Something hard slammed into her calves. Viv turned and looked down at her ripped stockings, then at the tiny driver of the pedal car.

“I think we’re going to have to exchange details for the purposes of insurance.”

“You’re on the racetrack,” complained the unsmiling tot.

He backed up and pedaled around her.

“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”

Harry agitated to get down and Viv soothed him perfunctorily as her gaze swept the grown-ups for a woman fitting Merry’s description. She settled on a curvaceous tousle-haired blonde in a denim skirt and long-sleeved T-shirt who was handing out toys. Jackpot. Viv headed toward her, lengthening her stride so the split in her sexy dress opened wider. Harry pointed. “Ooose,” he said excitedly.

“Traitor,” she muttered. “Hello, Susan.” She coolly traversed the sandpit then ruined the effect by leaving a shoe behind.

The younger woman picked it up and returned it. “Oh, Meredith, how awful about Linda.” Her big blue eyes radiated sympathy. “When I heard you were with her when she passed, I added you to my prayers.”

Viv blinked. “Yes, well…thank you.” Putting on her shoe, she was suddenly conscious that her dress wasn’t appropriate for a woman in mourning.

Susan looked at it, too.

Feeling the high ground slipping away, Viv thrust the baby forward and said with an evil smile, “Harry needs changing.”

“No problem.” Susan brushed sand off her fingers. “Mind carrying him until I can wash my hands?”

The sweetness jarred Viv, and she started toward the building to hide her scowl. Didn’t this ditz know Meredith was heartbroken over Susan’s relationship with her husband?

“Meredith, did you get a tattoo?” said Susan in an awed voice behind her.

Viv felt her stomach plummet. Calling herself every kind of idiot she said, “Heaven’s no. It’s a transfer. One of Tilly’s fun things to do.”

Susan laughed and the sound was all silvery bells. “Of course, you’d never get a tramp stamp.” She leaned forward. “Close-up I can tell it’s a fake, quite badly done. And how corny, angel wings.”

Viv resisted the urge to slap her. Inside the brightly painted restroom where the toilet bowls were leprechaun-size, Susan washed her hands. “I wasn’t sure if I’d see Harry today after what happened. It’s such a tragedy.” Her eyes filled with sudden tears. “I never met Linda and now I never will.”

“Don’t you think tears are a bit over the top?” Viv couldn’t keep the hostility out of her voice. “It’s not as though you’re family.”

Blue eyes looked at her blankly, then widened. “Oh, no. I’m not tearing up over Charlie’s mother. That would be inappropriate.”

And boinking my sister’s husband isn’t?
Viv bit her tongue.

“I’m upset about Charlie.”

“I’m sure he’ll be glad of your support.”
All 36D of it.

Taking Harry, the younger woman placed him on the changing table. Viv backed up. This was her second encounter with baby poop and she was in no hurry to repeat it.

Susan sent her a sidelong glance. “I saw Charlie last night.”

Viv folded her arms. “Really.” So her brother-in-law could find time to seek comfort on Susan’s ample breasts but relied on his estranged wife for help with funeral arrangements. Meanwhile Mere was lying in a lonely hospital bed riddled with false guilt.

The younger woman wiped Harry’s tiny bottom clean. “Do you want to hear what happened?”

Incredulous, Viv stared at her. “You are some piece of work.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” To hell with it, the woman needed a reality check. “Isn’t dating a client’s father breaking the pre-school equivalent of a Hippocratic oath? I don’t know how you can look at that baby’s sweet face—” actually Harry was presenting another part of his anatomy “—and think I want to hear what you and my
husband
—because we’re not divorced yet—get up to in the sack.”

Susan looked shocked. “As a committed Christian, I don’t believe in premarital sex.”

Viv narrowed her eyes. “You’re waiting until you’re the second Mrs. Coltrane, is that it?”

Susan’s full lower lip trembled. “You’re upset about Linda, that’s why you’re being so hurtful. And of course you can’t know…” Susan put Harry on his feet and the baby scrambled off to play without a backward glance. “Anyway—” bravely, Susan lifted her chin “—I forgive you.”

“You forgive…” For a moment Viv was speechless. “If you’re the devout Christian how come
I’m
the one having to turn the other cheek?”

Susan burst into tears.

Viv hardened her heart. This sniveling, pathetic victim mentality from the perpetrator was too much. “You hurt M—me and you hurt my kids and you need to accept some responsibility for that.”

Susan cried harder. “Charlie broke up with me.”

“What?”

“Last night. And you’re right, I am to blame. Even when you said you didn’t care when I wanted to ask him out, I guessed that was probably your pride talking.”

And wasn’t that typical of Merry, Viv thought irritably.
Backing off when she most needed to fight. Making it too damn easy for another woman to move in. Susan was still sobbing. Grabbing a roll of toilet tissue, Viv handed it over. “I’m sorry,” she said grudgingly.

“No, you’re not.” Mopping her face, Susan gave her a tremulous smile that made Viv feel as if she’d pulled the wings off a butterfly. “And why should you be? I’m only getting my just deserts. He wasn’t ready to move on and I ignored that for my benefit. But when he dropped Harry off after you guys broke up…seeing that big strong man so vulnerable and brave, week after week…he just got to me, you know?” She started to cry again. “And now he’s broken my heart.”

Viv steered her over to a bench on one wall and sat her down. She’d never been fooled by Charlie’s hulking appearance and he’d always seemed to need too many societal props for his masculinity, such as earning more than his wife and being head of the house. “I know it hurts now,” she soothed, “but you’ll get over it.”

“Like you’re getting over Charlie?” Susan asked skeptically.

Viv tried to channel, but it was hard. Why did people put everything into a relationship? Her mother had given up her own ambitions to marry Dad and though Pat had tried to make the best of it, her unacknowledged regrets had corroded not just her marriage but Viv’s view of it. Not her twin’s, though.

“I’m still in love with him,” Viv declared solemnly. To hell with Merry’s pride, this was too important.

Susan rubbed her eyes. “How you must hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.” No wonder Merry had trouble being mean to Susan, she was so sweet. “Stop crying now. Heavens, someone who looks like you do can win any man she wants. Raise your sights.”