Mommy by Mistake (13 page)

Alice would also want to know if she’d spoken to Jack, and might wonder where her imaginary husband had come from, Natalie thought, but she didn’t share that with her blissfully ignorant friends.

“Goodness,” Meg said. Natalie and Jess looked at her. She was transfixed by the mannequin in the studio’s display window who was posed on all fours, presenting her behind in one of Mystery Is Power’s more risqué numbers. “Oh dear—I’m not entirely sure…” Meg began.

“Oh, don’t be silly, I wasn’t going to get you to try on anything like that,” Natalie lied. She slid her key into the front door of the office and turned it. “Now, follow me, ladies,” she said. “Your journey of awakening begins here.”

“Well, that’s very nice,” Meg replied tartly. “As long as it doesn’t involve anything with tassels.”

“Come on, Meg, come out!” Natalie coaxed. “It’s only us girls here. Come and give us a twirl!”

Meg had been in the changing cubicle the fitting models used for a good five minutes longer than was necessary to put on something so skimpy.

“I’m really not sure,” she said dubiously.

“This has
got
to be the one,” Natalie told her through the curtain. “I handpicked this for you with my expert eye—I know it will make you look and feel like a sex bomb!”

“Well…” Meg said hesitantly. “It certainly is better than that PVC number you tried to force me into. I think a layer of my skin came off with that one.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Natalie said cheerfully. “I always think it’s best to start with the totally outrageous and that way you might be brave enough to try something much more risqué than usual. You see, I knew that the red bra with the nipple holes I gave you to try wasn’t really
you
.” She winked at Jess. “But it pushed your envelope, so to speak, and actually, come to think of it, it could be very handy for breastfeeding. I’ll have to get Alice to flag that up in the marketing material: the multifunctional nipple-hole bra—genius!”

“Please let us see, Meg,” Jess said. She was a little tipsy from the champagne that Natalie had managed to root out of Alice’s office, and she was hopping up and down in a full-length, ivory lace negligée set designed for brides on their wedding nights. It was a full-blown affair with yards of chiffon and handmade lace that made Jess look a little bit like a child playing at dressing up, particularly as when she had told Natalie and Meg that wearing it was probably the nearest she’d ever get to wearing an actual wedding dress, Natalie had fashioned her a veil out of some netting they used for window dressing and attached it to Jess’s head with a blue-trimmed garter.

“If only Lee could see me now,” Jess had said as she looked in the mirror, her eyes bright with laughter. “He’d run about two million miles. God, I look a sight!” But still, she had yet to take it off.

“Come on, Meg.” Natalie tried to catch a glimpse of the woman through the crack in the changing-room curtain. “Reveal yourself to us. We are your friends. You can trust us. And just remember you are
wo
man, alluring enticing
wo
man, full of mystery—and what is mystery?”

“Power!” Jess called out obligingly, her garter headdress slightly askew.

“Exactly, mystery
is
power, but only if you reveal your hidden delights eventually, otherwise it sort of loses its edge, what with all the waiting around. What
are
you doing in there?”

“I’m
thinking
,” Meg said. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, trying to work out if the expression on her face was more horror or amazement, because she was feeling both. It was as if someone had taken her head—the head of a careworn middle-aged mother of four—and stuck it on the body of a nineteenth-century Parisian prostitute, the kind that would be having a bath in a painting by Renoir. Her body, she thought in astonishment, actually looked pretty good: soft and voluptuous and potentially even quite inviting. That stunned her, but on the other hand she had never thought when she married Robert that the sensible-shoe-wearing, fresh-faced girl she was then would have to dress up like a hooker only a few years later to try to attract the attention of her husband. That was the part that horrified her, the part she wasn’t quite sure she could reconcile herself to. What if Robert took one look at her and thought she just looked like a sluttish piece of mutton dressed up like a tarty lamb?

But then again he had said that the normal her, the everyday her wasn’t the kind of wife he wanted to come home to. That was
exactly what he had said, as clear as day. And when he’d said she wasn’t the kind of wife he wanted to come home to, he hadn’t been merely attacking her domestic skills. What he had meant to say, but had not been either brave or cruel enough to put into words, was that she was not the woman he wanted anymore. There was not a single atom of her being that he still wanted to be near.

Meg stared hard at her reflection. So was this the sort of wife he wished for? she wondered. Would this packed-in, pushed-up flesh be enough to make everything good again? It seemed impossible.

“Please come out,” Jess begged. Meg smiled at the sound of her. Jess might have been a little tipsy but even so she had looked truly happy and genuinely relaxed for the first time since Meg had known her, as she watched her trying on the pretty baby-blue gingham matching set that Natalie had found for her and the rather more racy crimson number she would also be taking home. It was as if the underwear brought her out of herself; maybe Natalie was right about pants holding the key to everything. That was until it was her turn and Natalie had handed her the corset and the nipple-hole bra.

Natalie was right about one thing, though: after those two ensembles, this corset with a layer of black chiffon silk slicked over baby-pink satin seemed much more her style than she could have ever imagined.

Meg took a deep breath and opened the curtain.

“Wow,” Natalie said, and she didn’t appear to be laughing. “You are hot.”

“Is it really wow or is it desperately sad?” Meg asked her. Natalie drew back the curtain for Jess to see, and Meg had to resist the impulse to cower in the corner. She hated feeling so exposed.

“Wow!” Jess said. “You look incredible. You’ve had four kids and you look like…”

“Like a ripe peach,” Natalie said thoughtfully.

“Or a rose in full bloom,” Jess added, her head tipped to one side.

“Bloody gorgeous,” a male voice said from the doorway.

All three women shrieked and the one in her pants raced back into the cubicle and dragged the curtain shut. Natalie turned round to find Gregory, their head designer, standing there, looking like Christmas had come early.

“I keep telling you we need models like that,” he said. “Real, sexy women, and anyway what are you doing here?”

“Gregory!” Natalie yelped happily, momentarily forgetting poor Meg. She rushed over to kiss him, calling out over her shoulder, “Don’t worry, Meg, it’s only Gregory and he sees half-naked women every day of the week. He’s become immune to it, a bit like a doctor really, haven’t you, Gregory?” She nodded enthusiastically at him.

“Yes,” Gregory said loudly as he disentangled himself from Natalie’s embrace. “You’ve seen one half-naked woman, you’ve seen them all.” Then, lowering his voice, he added, “I think that’s the woman I’ve been looking for all these years; can you get me her number?”

Natalie smiled indulgently at him.

“She is fabulous, isn’t she?” she said. “But that’s not the point. That woman is married with four children.”

“Not necessarily a deal-breaker,” Gregory said, smiling at Jess. “This one looks as if she’s about to get married.”

“I’m Jess,” Jess told him, sticking out a lace-garnished wrist. “I am not married. I live in sin.”

“Who doesn’t?” Gregory said with a shrug. “Any chance of some of that champagne?”

Eventually Meg reemerged fully clothed, if a very bright shade of pink. She even managed to shake hands with Gregory, although
she could not look him in the eye, and he could not stop looking at her with that predatory fixation that had lured more than one model into his lair. Natalie considered telling him to lay off her friend, that Meg was far too good and decent for an old Lothario like him, but she decided not to. It was good for Meg to feel the full heat of another man’s desire for her. It would remind her that she was actually very desirable.

“Let’s open Alice’s last bottle of champagne and celebrate,” Natalie said, already easing the cork from the bottle.

“Celebrate what?” Jess asked, holding out her glass.

“Womanhood, of course. And a night of unbridled, more or less married passion ahead of you two ladies, courtesy of Mystery Is Power.”

“You are so sweet, Natalie,” Jess said. It was a compliment that wasn’t often, if ever, aimed at Natalie. “Here you are fixing us up—it must really make you miss your…”

“Anyway, why are you even here, Greg?” Natalie asked the designer, hoping Jess would leave the subject of absent husbands alone.

Greg smiled steadily at Meg.

“It must have been fate,” he said. “That, and because Alice wanted to meet me here and go over our winter collection before the big presentation on Monday. Believe it or not, we do miss you being around. It turns out you really do make a positive contribution to the company, after all!”

“Oh, ha, ha. Who says men can’t be bitchy,” Natalie said, and then she realized what Greg had said. “Hold on, Alice told you to meet her…”

“Here,” Alice said, appearing in the doorway, her arms crossed.

“Now, Alice, I can explain—” Natalie began bracing herself for the full stay-away-from-work lecture.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Alice said. “I’m not cross, you dummy—it’s great to see you and you’ve brought some friends!” She smiled unquestioningly at Jess, still in her bride’s nightie, and shook Meg’s hand.

“Actually, I’ve seen you before,” Jess hiccuped as she took Alice’s hand. “I was on Natalie’s ward when she had Freddie; my baby’s about eight hours younger than him.”

“Oh, well, nice to meet you properly,” Alice replied. “I haven’t had a minute to visit Natalie while we’ve been getting the new collection ready, so it’s good to know there are some sane people keeping an eye on her.” She smiled at Jess. “Or insane, anyway.”

Alice embraced Natalie, and pulling back examined her friend’s face. “You look great,” she said. “And you’ve lost a lot of that baby weight.”

“I knew there was a reason I loved you,” Natalie told her. “Your comforting lies.”

“I’m just glad Natalie’s got some friends to hang out with and keep her out of trouble,” Alice said with a laugh as she sipped from the glass of champagne that Natalie handed her. “Otherwise she just keeps pestering me day after day to let her come back to work!”

“Yes, we were saying before,” Jess said, rather reluctantly removing her garter headdress, “how hard it must be for her with her husband away. I don’t know what I’d do without Lee, not that he is technically a husband…”

“Her husband away?” Alice repeated the phrase, as if she needed a moment to absorb its meaning.

“Oh well, I do miss him, yes of course I do, but not to worry!” Natalie said quickly, grinning fixedly at first Alice and then Greg. Greg would be a little slower to pick up on the lie, but he’d probably go with it because it wouldn’t be entirely out of character for Natalie to have actually got secretly married in the last few months.
It was Alice she was worried about, moral, high-minded, truth-telling-fanatic Alice.

Alice’s smile was unreadable.

“And where is he working now?” she asked Natalie sharply. “China?”

“Dubai, actually.”

Alice raised her eyebrows and took a sip from her glass.

“Poor old you,” she said lightly. “And poor old Freddie, too. I’d bet he’d love to see his dad.” She tipped her head to one side so that her straight hair fell over one shoulder. “Can I have a quick word with you in the office, Natalie? About the collection?”

Natalie followed Alice into her office. She winced when Alice firmly shut the door behind her.

“Guess what,” Natalie put in quickly before Alice could speak. “My mom came to stay! I phoned her and invited her over like you told me to. She’s been here since yesterday and we’ve hardly fought at all! Well, not while we’re in separate rooms or asleep.”

“Really?” But Alice was only momentarily distracted. “And have you spoken to Jack?” she said, sitting on the edge of her desk and crossing her arms. “What about Jack?”

Natalie chewed the inside of her mouth. “What about Jack? Well, I was about to call him when you’ll never believe what happened…”

“Natalie,” Alice interrupted her. “Come on, this is me you’re talking to. Just exactly how did you go from deciding to tell Jack he is the father of your baby to inventing a fake husband?”

“Did I mention my mom is staying?” Natalie said wanly.

“Natalie!” Alice’s voice was full of frustration. “You know that I love you, don’t you?”

Natalie nodded. “I love you, too,” she replied.

“And since you’ve been on leave I’ve realized exactly how much stuff you do around here, stuff I didn’t really appreciate before.”

Natalie brightened a little. “Really?”

“Yes! Knowing all those journalists, and buyers, and writing all the presentations. It’s been hard work to keep up your standards, which by the way is meant purely as a compliment and not as an invitation to come back to work yet.”

“Thanks!” Natalie said. “But if you’re complimenting me, why does it still sound like you’re cross?”

“I’m not cross,” Alice said crossly. “I’m worried about you! What I’m trying to say is that you are a good, kind, generous person, not to mention my best friend. And you are obviously a clever person, otherwise you wouldn’t have helped make this business work so well. But yet you still seem to think and act like a half-brain-dead teenager who’s got drunk on a bottle of Thunderbird! What’s all this about a husband, and what about Jack?”

“The husband thing was sort of a random comment,” Natalie explained. “The electrician asked to speak to him and I don’t know, I sort of panicked, and before I knew it I said he couldn’t because my husband worked abroad. And then I mentioned it to one person and another and it snowballed! It’s too late to take it back now. Did I tell you I’m in a baby group? We meet once or twice a week to do activities. We did Baby Aerobics yesterday and every time I threw Freddie in the air he laughed his head off. Proper deep little chuckles. I swear he’s got the laugh of a fifty-year-old man who smokes fifty a day and drinks whisky.”