Derailed (29 page)

Ritchie’s arranged his schedule so that he can start work late and finish later in the day. “Seeing you before I start my working day is like a double shot of caffeine,” he tells me as we lie entwined in each other.

Our time together is brief, barely an hour, so like all affairs, we cram everything into that magical hour or so. Of course the sex is intense, explosive, the best it’s ever been. Affair sex. Dynamite. Not sustainable in everyday life. My body suffers aftershocks long after Ritchie and I part company. To hang onto the magic, we don’t speak about anything that will dilute our happiness. Nothing about Bradley, nothing about tomorrow, or heaven forbid, what will happen if we should get caught.

SCARLETT

There’s a certain unexplained glow to Rival these days. No longer is she moping around with rounded shoulders, no longer are her eyes red-rimmed, no more deflated balloon look. Confusing, isn’t it? Oh, and the other day, I heard her humming. What has she got to sing about?

As for her dress – that too has changed. Sweatpants are out and short skirts are back. Sneakers are AWOL and heels have returned. Her hair is neat, and most of all, she looks like she’s lost some weight. Something’s up for sure. In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say she’s having sex. But with who? Bradley? If she is having sex with Bradley, and considering that she’s gaga over Ritchie, she wouldn’t have this glow about her. (I know my glows, trust me.) My astute brain tells me it’s Ritchie she’s fucking around with. They’re at it again. I could be wrong, but I seldom am. 

I’ve noticed that she’s changed her schedule – she arrives an hour earlier than usual in the mornings to get the brats ready for school. Why? Not only that, but she arrives fully dressed in jeans and boots, and I smell soap and shampoo and perfume. Then she drives the kids
early
to school. Why? I get a strong whiff of fish.

The next morning, before Rival drives the kids to school, I race over to my mother’s house and pick up her Mitsubishi. The nondescript coffin on wheels has served me well, because nobody gives it a second glance. Then, I drive over to the kids’ school and watch Rival from a distance. After dropping off the kids, she literally runs to her car, gets in and drives off. I follow at a safe distance. After about ten minutes of driving, I watch her pull into a driveway of a nearby residence. The garage door opens, she drives inside and the door closes.

Now whose house can this be? Is she working on this property? Decorating it, perhaps? A property of WIN’s? I inch closer, park the car and wait.

Less than a minute later, a Jeep pulls up. Ritchie! I smile to myself as I watch him ease the Jeep into the garage and shut the door. I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!

I give them about ten minutes before I get out of my car and creep toward the house, phone in hand. It doesn’t take me long to locate the deceitful duo in the bedroom, naked and doing a horizontal dance on the bed. As usual, I get some priceless footage, then steal away from the house.

I was right; it is Ritchie behind that glow. Thrilled, I decide to follow them for a little longer before I summon Armageddon. Cool is me.

RIVAL

“Jai’s back tomorrow,” Ritchie says after a few days of us meeting. Our luck has run out. Damn!

“What are we gonna do?” I ask. “I have to see you. I just have to.”

He smiles, obviously pleased at my words. “I’ll figure something out.” 

The next day, I park my car outside my kids’ school and hop into Ritchie’s waiting Jeep. To my surprise, he heads toward his house.

“Ritchie, no!” I say as I slide deep down into my seat to avoid being seen.

“It’ll be okay. Don’t worry.”

“But…but…but what about Girly?”

“She’s gone to Canberra with her sister. Relax, I got this. You’re gonna love being in our home.”

Our home.
That sounds so beautiful.

I do believe that lust and our out-of-control libidos may be making us careless, yet I don’t try to talk him out of it. I’m excited to be going home. When we sneak into our beautiful home that I haven’t seen in more than a month, I am so thrilled, a lump forms in my throat. “God, I missed this!” I say in an emotional voice.

“Thought you’d like it,” Ritchie says as he quickly sheds his clothes and prepares to ravish me.

He’s right, I
do
love it. To be so relaxed in our own home and have leisurely sex in familiar surroundings is simply great. Being able to shower with Ritchie is the cherry on top of our torrid affair. After being so miserable for so long, I am happy. I know Ritchie is happy too. Where to from here? I have no idea, and frankly, I don’t want to think about it. I just want to live in the moment with the man I love, and if
crumbs
is all that’s available right now, I’ll settle for it.

RIVAL

Scarlett leans against the doorway to the kitchen, cocktail glass in hand as she silently watches me prepare dinner for the kids. At first I ignore her, but it’s obvious she has something on her mind. After a while, I turn around and glare at her. “What?”

“You’re singing.” She takes a sip from her glass. “I’m on the right track baby, I was born this way heyyyy!” She grins. “Gaga will go gaga if she knew what a huge fan you are.”

I shrug.

“Of course, she’ll commit suicide if she hears the way you butcher her lyrics you’re keening.”

“Piss off, Scarlett.” 

She chuckles, then runs the tip of her tongue around the rim of her glass. “Bet you don’t know why I did that?”

“I don’t give a rat’s –”

“’Cause when you lick the rim of the glass, you get to keep your lipstick on your
lips
. No transference of your lipstick onto the glass.”

“You’re a mine of useless information,” I retort. “As for rimming, you’d know more about that than anyone –”

“Don’t say I don’t never teach ya nothin’,” she slurs, ignoring my insults.

Muttering under my breath, I return to the chicken on the stove.

“Hey, you know what? I smell sex.” Her nose wrinkles. “And…it’s coming…” her head snaps around the room, before she looks at me, eyes wide open. “Holy fuck, it’s coming from you!”

I roll my eyes.

“Smells like…like someone…mm, smells like an affair fuck. Like, you know, when you fuck a lover in the early hours of the morning and then spend the day with his cum all over you?”

A surge of fear shoots through me.
She can’t know.
My knees become wobbly.

“I used to do that when I was fucking Bradley,” she explains in a good-natured voice. “I liked the pong of it – reminded me of us earlier that day, when we were fucking in his friend’s house,
his
house…”

What the hell are you taking about?
That’s what I want to say, yet, I my brain isn’t connecting with my mouth right now. A taut silence follows, forcing me to turn and look at her. With her eyes fixed on mine, she takes a sip of her drink.

“This Side Car is just delicious. Ever had one?”

I don’t answer, I just stare at her.

“Brandy, Cointreau, and lemon juice. That’s it. Three ingredients, and you’ve got such a fab cocktail. It’s delicious. Some crushed ice and, like Bond says, ‘shaken, not stirred.’” She smiles. “Decadent, and oh so delightful. You really should try it sometime.” She points at the stove. “Your food…”

I whirl around to see the chicken burning. Damn! Quickly, I grab the handle of the saucepan and drag it to the sink, burning my fingers in the process. “Damn!”

She laughs. “I’ve really rattled you.”

I say nothing, because…I don’t know what to say. It’s obvious she knows about my trysts with Ritchie.

Ignoring the pain in my scalded fingers, I bring out more chicken and start to cook it.  

“I’m going to have a lot of fun filling in Brandy…eh, Bradley.” She giggles at her drunken error. 

I don’t answer, but open the freezer, take some ice, and rub it over my scalded fingers. 

“He’s probably going to kick that stupid arse of yours, then obtain a restraining order against you.” She flicks her fingers in the air. “Poof! Rival is gone girl!”

Oh God, oh God!

“Then he’s gonna come after Ritchie with Thor’s hammer, and he’s gonna make shish kebab out of him.” She laughs as she makes a pounding motion with her fist, spilling her Side Car.

“Oh, look what you’ve done,” she says as she eyes her spilt drink on the parquet flooring. “You’ve made me spill my drink. Now I have to make another.” Without bothering to wipe up her spill, she turns and walks out of the kitchen.

To prevent myself or my kids slipping on the spill, I grab some paper towels and clean it up. As I do, my brain races. How the hell did she discover our secret? I was so careful.

When she returns, it’s with another foamy cocktail.

“This is what I call a racist, sexual drink,” she says, then goes on to lick the rim of her glass once again. “It’s called a White Lady. Triple Sec, London Dry Gin, lemon juice, sugar syrup, and half an egg white. Just half. White Lady.”

“You’ll suffer too if you do tell, Scarlett,” I say.

She squints at me, then continues. “To produce the foam, once again, you have to
shake
it because of the egg white. Never stir. Like –” She shakes a fist next to her crotch and laughs. “Told you it was a sexual drink.”

“Sure he may ban me from seeing the kids, and yes, he’ll go after Ritchie, but he’s also going to spend a ton of cash on that woman in Bali.” I speak fast, eager to prevent her interrupting me. “He’s gonna have to spend days in Bali because of her, and what’s going to happen to his political career here while he’s entangled in that sordid mess? The mess that doesn’t benefit you in any way?”

Her response is to tug at an eyelash. “These eyelash extensions are never –”

“And while he’s in Bali, who’s going to be saddled with the kids twenty-four-seven? There’ll be a restraining order against me, remember? It’s all your responsibility now. No more cocktail hour, because you have to drop the kids and pick them up every single day. You want that? No more drinking till midnight, because you have to be sober and under the legal limit to drive the kids to school. What will the papers say when you are busted for drunk driving? In the
morning
?”

She raises her glass to her lips but pauses mid-air, a thoughtful look on her face. 

“And Ritchie, do you think he won’t fight back? Do you think if he’s going down, he’s not gonna take Bradley with him? Spill the beans? Publically at that. How our future PM
stole
his wife’s house, how he had an affair with her best friend? Do you think Liefie’s husband, Vlad, who is an attorney, won’t take on Bradley and defend his wife?”

“Liefie’s a whore!” she spits. “That Russian slut acts all superior, like her shit don’t stink, but do you know her ABC?”

I don’t answer.

“Ritchie didn’t tell you?”

I don’t answer.

With her eyes shining with excitement, and as if she’s gossiping to a good mate of hers, she blurts stuff about Liefie that makes my ears sing. I don’t know if she’s telling the truth, but somehow, I don’t think she’s lying.

“That’s why Ritchie’s in this boat,” she says. “It’s because of her past. Her shit really stinks, believe me. She’s a whore, and so are you, and Ritchie, well, let’s just say, he has the worst little whorehouse in Texas! Or Sydney.” She laughs. I don’t.

“Scarlett, Vlad will probably drag in the press and bust this whole mess open for all to see. Your life, Bradley’s secrets – they will all be made public. Even if Bradley gets out looking better than Ritchie and Liefie, his rep will be tarnished forever, and he may never make it to Kirribilli House. You really want to take a chance on Bradley’s career like that? You wanna gamble with your dreams? Huh? Place everything on red and black comes in. Everything on red, because of
me
, to spite me, only to lose it all. All of it gone in minutes. Is it going to be worth it, Scarlett?”

She gulps at her drink, her forehead creased. Then she turns and walks out of the kitchen and into the living room. She puts on a CD and starts to dance. Drunken but sensual moves with her hands above her head. Desperate for her to see my point, I turn down the volume.

“Now why’d you do that?” she asks.

“As long as I am with Ritchie, I am not going after Bradley. That leaves you free reign of your husband.”

Her eyebrows disappear behind her blunt fringe. 

“Yes, he’s
your
husband. He’s no longer my husband, Scarlett, and trust me when I tell you that I
want
him to be happy with you. I no longer want you out of the picture. You two, you’ll deserve each other, and –”

She holds up a finger. I stop. “Sorry to interrupt your boring maunder…actually, I’m not sorry, but I would like to point out that you are cremating dinner again.”

The chicken! I rush back into the kitchen, pull the scorched pan off the stove and throw it into the sink, burning my fingers once again in the process. The chicken has burnt to a crisp. Again. “Damn!”

Scarlett stands at the door and laughs hysterically at my distress.

Chapter Twenty-One

RIVAL

I’m so worried and distracted, I can’t concentrate on anything, let alone cooking. Instead of burning more chicken, and in desperate need of air, I cart the kids off to McDonalds. With my fingers in a disposable cup full of ice, I watch my kids swing on the jungle gym.

Will Scarlett buy my argument? If she tells Bradley, I can forget about seeing my kids again. I look at my phone. I have to tell Ritchie about Scarlett busting us, but I don’t have the heart to put him through what I’m going through. I should, so that he can prepare for the avalanche of drama hurtling our way, but I am loathe to worry him. I sit with my hands covering my face.

“Mum?”

I look up into Holly’s face. “You okay, Mum?”

I nod and swallow hard.