The Wedding Invite (Lakeview) (Lakeview Contemporary Romance Book 6) (9 page)

H
elen sat back
on the bed, and rested her daughter’s head against her chest. She turned the page.
“
Then Snow White opened her eyes, and looked into seven expectant little faces.”

Kerry sat up and her eyes opened wide. “Oh! W-w-w-was Snow White … scaid, Mommy?” she asked fearfully.

Helen looked at her. “Why would she be scared, honey? The seven dwarves are Snow White’s friends – you know that.”

“S-s-seven dwawves her fwends?” When she could, Kerry often avoided using verbs. Helen sighed inwardly, noticing this. As much as she hated to admit it, and despite her hopes that pre-school would improve things, Helen had lately begun to accept that Jo and Dr Davis might have been correct in their earlier diagnosis of Kerry’s speech disfluency. The problem had aired itself again recently, when Helen had got a call from her pre-school teacher, concerned about the child’s apparent lack of communication skills.

As a result, Helen was now trying to look past her own denials and parental insecurities in order to seriously consider Jo’s concerns. Yes, Jo could be an interfering old so-and-so but at the end of the day, she did have Kerry’s welfare at heart. Helen supposed she had brushed the childminder’s fears aside at first because Kerry had never been a particularly chatty toddler. Still, with Kerry now almost four years of age, Helen had to agree with Jo and admit that it wasn’t good that Kerry was still mispronouncing her consonants, and using single words instead of sentences. Following a lengthy conversation with the pre-school teacher, she had immediately booked another appointment at the speech-therapy clinic and just last week had brought Kerry to see Dr Davis again. The speech therapist has suggested she spend more relaxed time with Kerry and recommended she read out loud to her each night – the slower rate of speech useful in helping the child become familiar with the correct pronunciation of words. Helen had done this every night since, even when sometimes all she wanted to do was slob in front of the telly. “It’s f
r
iends, Kerry, not
fwends
.” Helen corrected. “Now say it again.”

Kerry repeated with her mother, concentrating hard. “F-f-fwends.”

Helen sighed. “No, no, listen to me – it’s
frrrrr
iends.”

Kerry screwed up her face and tried again, but still couldn’t pronounce the word properly.

Too late Helen remembered to do as the speech therapist advised and tried to hide her frustration so that Kerry wouldn’t feel under pressure or self-conscious. Kerry shook her head. “I g-g-go sleep now, Mommy,” she said quietly.

“OK, hon.” Helen kissed her softly on the forehead, sensing that she might have been too hard on her. Kerry was tired, and her speech was always worse when she was tired or upset.

Helen plugged in the nightlight, and was about to leave the room when Kerry sat up again, as if remembering something. She looked at Helen, and pointed nervously towards her wardrobe. “Mommy, monstaw.”

Helen walked across and opened the wardrobe, having been through this routine many times before. “Kerry, there’s no monster in there. Look, he wouldn’t fit in with all your toys. Anyway, what about the sign?” She pointed towards a sign hanging on the back of the bedroom door, one Laura had bought Kerry a while back to help curb her fears. It read:
No Monsters Allowed
.

Kerry looked from Helen to the sign, the wardrobe and then back again to Helen. She grinned and lay back down, snuggling under the covers.

“N-n-night, night,” she said.

“Night, honey.”

Helen shut the bedroom door behind her. She couldn’t understand how Kerry could be such a nervous child, sometimes. She had heard the fairytale many times before and yet she always worried that the dwarfs would hurt Snow White. In the same way she worried about monsters in her wardrobe, and that Helen would somehow forget to pick her up from the childminder every day.

Helen shook her head. If anything, she was becoming a much more clingy child as she got older. Maybe it was her stutter and the accompanying self-consciousness that triggered Kerry’s almost instinctive fear of people.

It was worrying too that she still hadn’t settled in at the pre-school. As well as the problems she was having with her speech, Helen had also gathered from Mrs Elliot, the pre-school teacher, that Kerry was shy around the other children and found it difficult to make friends. It was still early days but … Helen shook her head, knowing that if anything Kerry seemed to crave solitude. She loved the interactive books Nicola had bought her for her last birthday, and spent hours just sitting and looking at the pictures. Helen often heard her in her room trying to pronounce the words out loud when she thought no one could hear her.

Hopefully, with the combination of her excercises at home, and the help of Mrs Elliot, they would soon see a real improvement in Kerry’s speech. Helen certainly hoped so; Kerry would be starting primary school in September, and the teachers there certainly wouldn’t have time to give her any special treatment or extra attention. Still, there was nothing more Helen could do. She was now trying everything, had painstakingly gone through the exercises the speech therapist had recommended, and was insisting that Kerry practise her pronunciation, particularly with her R’s and Th’s.

Anyway, Helen thought, returning quietly to the living-room, she’d better do some exercises of her own before she ended up letting herself go altogether. And letting herself go was not an option for Helen.

Exercising always gave her plenty of adrenalin, and tonight, she thought wryly, she would certainly need that.

She warmed up, did a couple of stretches and then did her usual fifty tummy crunches and fifty hip-and-thigh bends. She missed her old three-day-a-week gym sessions – these days she was lucky if she got there even once a month. And worryingly, she thought, it was beginning to show.

Having finished her exercising, Helen poured herself a glass of Ballygowan, put a CD on low volume, and sat on the sofa to catch a breather. For a quiet few moments, she sat back and listened to the soothing tones of David Gray asking her to ‘sail away’.

Helen stared at the telephone. Should she do it? She’d been so determined earlier, but now she wasn’t so sure. Blast it, why not? He who hesitates and all that …

After all, what had she got to lose?

Helen dialled the number from memory and, despite herself, felt her heartbeat quicken as she waited for an answer.

“Hello?”

“Is that Richard?” Helen asked, using her huskiest voice, the one she used on all the male clients at work.

“Yes, it is. Who’s calling please?”

Suddenly Helen felt unsure. It sounded as though she had caught him at a bad time. “Richard, it’s Helen here.”

A slight pause at the other end. “I’m sorry, who?”

Helen thought she would die of mortification. Despite all the time they’d spent together, Richard Moore didn’t recognise her – or even worse, he didn’t remember her.

“Helen Jackson.”

Another pause. “Oh, Helen, hi … I … um … I didn’t recognise your voice.”

“So I gather,” Helen said coquettishly. “So, tell me, how are
you
doing, how’s business?”

“Fine. Is this a business call, Helen?” Richard said, in a tone that suggested he wanted her to get to the point.

Helen suddenly felt very silly. She had been working up to this for a while now, had thought that maybe with a little time Richard might come round to the idea that she had a child. They had got on so well and he had never made any secret of his interest in her, so …

“No,” Helen said quietly. “No, it’s not. I just thought you might like to …”

‘Go on,’
her inner voice told her, ‘
you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.’

“I thought you might like to meet up some time, you know, for a drink, or something.”

Another, longer pause. “Helen, I’m sorry, but I really don’t think there’s any point. I mean you’re a fantastic person and –”

“Richard, look, just because I have a child doesn’t mean that anything has to change between us, does it? It’s not like I expect you to spend any time with her or anything …” Helen knew she sounded desperate, but she just couldn’t help herself. She
was
desperate.

“I’m sorry, Helen,” Richard said again. “I just don’t think it would work. It was great fun but that kind of thing …” he hesitated. “Look, the whole kids thing just isn’t my scene, but thanks anyway.” With that, Richard disconnected.

Helen stared at the receiver, mortified. What had she done? It had seemed like such a good idea at the time, but now she had made a bad situation even worse. But, if Richard would just give her a chance then surely …?

She slumped down on the sofa. Was this was she had been reduced to? One of those clingy, cringeworthy,
desperate
women that she had always detested?

She clenched her fists in frustration. What was
wrong
with her? When was the last time she had to beg a man for a date? How the hell had she ended up like this?

But of course, there was only one answer to that. Kerry.

Wasn’t she entitled to a life of her own? Yes, she was a mother but did that mean that she had to sacrifice everything that was important to her, everything that made her happy, just because she had a child?

Helen face crumpled. The very fact that she felt this way made her feel worse. The guilt was sometimes crucifying. Here she was, sitting on the sofa feeling bitter and twisted, while the poor child was sleeping innocently in the next room. It wasn’t Kerry’s fault, heaven help her, that her mother just wasn’t maternal.

Helen couldn’t help it. The feelings had never come. Those feelings of exceptional, overpowering, unconditional love that all the magazines and the baby books were so sure existed. This had never happened to Helen. Yes, she loved Kerry, in the same way that you might love your baby sister, but that was it. A mother’s love? Helen didn’t understand it.

After the difficulties she had throughout the pregnancy and with Kerry’s illness, Helen had been expecting – had been
waiting
for the big flash, the big realisation – this so-called burst of maternal love. At first, she had thought it was because she was still pining for Jamie, and so transferring her own misery to the child. And at the time, she hadn’t been able to discuss it with anyone. Her own mother had died when Helen was in her early teens, but the two of them had had what Helen considered a relatively normal mother/daughter relationship, so no amateur psychology clues there.

She had lost contact with most of her and Jamie’s circle after the birth, and especially during Kerry’s illness. Laura had been great of course, calling to see her, helping in any way she could, but that was Laura – Miss Reliable.

Nicola had sensed something once, a long time ago, when Helen was feeling particularly sorry for herself, but she hadn’t pursued it.

“It takes time,” she had said. “You’ve had some huge upheavals in your life lately – the birth and the end of a long relationship. You just need time to get back on track. Then everything will fall into place.” Helen had been almost ashamed at the time, because back then Nicola was dealing with a huge upheaval of her own and coping admirably.

So, Helen had said nothing and just waited. Waited for it to happen, waited for the big bang, waited for things to ‘fall into place’.

But by the time Kerry’s first birthday came around and there was
still
nothing, Helen had decided that maybe she just wasn’t like that. Maybe she just wasn’t the maternal kind.

Surely she couldn’t be the
only
mother out there who didn’t feel this so-called ‘overwhelming passion’ for her child? Weren’t all people different in the way they felt, in the way they loved? Wasn’t it possible that some women just weren’t made that way?

To her absolute amazement, Helen felt warm tears streak across her face. She hated the way she was feeling, hated what she had become. What kind of a person was she? Why couldn’t she just be normal?

But what was normal?

Helen remembered watching some wildlife programme on TV a while back. There was some animal – some kind of rodent (appropriately enough, she thought wryly) that didn’t suckle its young after birth. The babies were simply born and left to find their own way in the world, the mother going about her business as normal.

Helen exhaled deeply. Not that she would ever dream of leaving Kerry on her own to face the world. She
did
love her. But she was torn between what she felt, and what she
should
feel – what magazines and TV and society in general insisted all women should feel.

And it just wasn’t there.

N
icola was discussing
the following week’s staffing arrangements with the leisure centre’s assistant manager, when the
Mode
magazine team approached reception.

“Fidelma Corrigan looking for Nicola Peters, please,” the woman announced bossily. Nicola looked up. Fidelma looked no older than twenty-two or three, not quite what she had been expecting.

“I’m Nicola – good to meet you.” She moved out from behind the desk and extended a hand to Fidelma.

“Oh, I thought …” Fidelma was perplexed. “Sorry,” she said, recovering herself, “I was expecting someone … someone … older.”

“That makes two of us then,” Nicola said, smiling brightly at her.

“Well this is Sean Kenny, our photographer. Now, if we could just start with a photograph of you at reception …”

It soon became evident that the features writer was a bossy little madam, and Nicola didn’t appreciate being ordered about. It had already been a long day and she just wasn’t up to it, having had a night of broken sleep while wandering in and out of vivid, lucid, dreams – worryingly, Nicola thought, about Dan.

“Can you turn your head slightly to the left – no, to your other left, that’s it – perfect. Now if your receptionist could again just move out of the way … great!”

Nicola knew that Sally had been desperately disappointed that she wouldn’t be featuring in the article. She couldn’t be consoled when Fidelma informed her that they wanted Nicola
only
for the photographs and could the receptionist stop ‘popping up and grinning in the background’.

When the shoot was over, Nicola had a short interview with the journalist in her office.

“So how long has the centre been in business?” Fidelma asked.

“Well, after a very encouraging first year, we’re now well into our second year in operation,” Nicola said confidently. She wasn’t going to let the woman know that their first accounting year had been a new lesson in mathematics. Ken had been expecting losses but none quite so heavy as they had experienced. Nicola knew that this year the pressure was on to ensure business improved beyond expectations, and hopefully this article would help do just that.

“You’ve been living outside of Ireland for some time, I understand?”

“Yes, in the UK. I spent some time in a health and fitness centre there, and found that Hydrotherapy was most beneficial to clients and of course a huge selling point for any leisure club.” Nicola was anxious to veer the interview more towards the business, rather than the personal side of things. “Ken and I decided that such a treatment would go down well in a place like Lakeview, with a burgeoning population of city commuter residents, and Motiv8 now offers the most diverse range of alternative therapies outside Dublin.”

Fidelma nodded. “You and Ken Harris, you two go back together quite a bit.”

“Yes, years ago we worked together in the city.” Nicola was a little taken aback. The reporter had obviously done her homework, because not all that many people were aware of Nicola and Ken’s previous association. She didn’t want to be drawn on their present association either, and quietly resolved to deflect any questions of that nature, should they be asked.

After a while, Fidelma leaned forward in her seat. “I have to ask – isn’t it unusual for someone like yourself to be involved in this industry?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know …” Her voice trailed off, as she looked Nicola up and down. “You normally wouldn’t expect someone ….”

Nicola waited. “Go on.”

“Well,” Fidelma now looked uncomfortable. “Someone who isn’t that, I suppose … well, you know … active.”

Nicola bristled. She was sick to the teeth of people like Miss Fake-Tanned-Stick-Insect looking down their skinny little noses at her. Why did supposedly intelligent people think they could make instant deductions about others, based simply on appearance? She crossed her arms and took a deep breath.

“Fidelma, if you’re trying to point out that I hardly teach aerobics classes, and that I wouldn’t be much good on a treadmill, let me assure you that it doesn’t stop me from doing my job and doing it well.”

The other woman at least had the good grace to look embarrassed. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean any offence, I just thought …”

Nicola shook her head. There was no point in blowing what would be a good publicity for Motiv8, by getting into a strop.

“It’s not a problem. But I’d prefer if you’d concentrate on the centre. You’re not doing a feature on
me
after all.”

“Sure.” Fidelma duly backed off. She then at last began asking some useful questions about the Motiv8 facilities

“Well, thank you for your time,” Fidelma said eventually. “The article will appear in our next issue and I’ll get the office to send you on a copy.”

“Thank you,” Nicola said, pleased that Fidelma was finally leaving and she could get some real work done.

Not long after the journalist’s departure, Ken popped his head around the door of her office. “Nicola, sorry to do this to you, but is there any chance you can cover at reception? There’s a guy downstairs waiting to become a member, and Kelly’s in the middle of another client’s fitness program. We don’t really want to leave him waiting for an assessment so . . .”

“No problem,” she said quickly. “Tell them I’ll be down in a minute.”

Ken studied her. “What’s up?” he said, coming into the room and closing the door behind him. “Didn’t the interview go well?”

Nicola shook her head, exasperated. “It was fine, but … oh, don’t mind me, I’m just a little out of sorts today.”

She still hadn’t told him anything about Dan’s new marriage and, the longer it went on, the harder it was to broach the subject. She didn’t want Ken to think she was hiding things from him and she wasn’t
really
, it was just …

“Will this help?” Ken had come round to her side of the desk and was now gently massaging her shoulders.

“Mmmm … that feels great,” she said, closing her eyes. Ken bent down and planted a kiss on the top of her head. Immediately Nicola began to feel guilty. She should tell him about the Dan situation – it was only fair. She and Ken shared everything, and he knew better than most what Nicola had gone through to get to the stage she was at now. He understood how much things back then with Dan had affected her. So surely he would understand that things felt a little strange for her now.

“Ken –”

Just then, the intercom buzzed and Sally’s voice blared over it. “Nicola, sorry to rush you, but Ken said he’d ask if you could cover – ”

“Sorry, Sal, I’m just on my way down.” She reached for Ken’s hand and kissed it softly. “Duty calls, I’m afraid.”

“Unfortunately. Sorry to do this to you. I know you have a lot on your plate at the moment ... ”

Nicola started. A lot on her plate? How did he know?

“But I’m already looking into taking on additional staff, and that will free you up a little. I know you hate being called on at the last minute to cover people.” He smiled, obviously thinking Nicola was down and out because of pressure at work.

“Ken, it’s fine, I don’t mind doing what I have to, to keep this business going, you know that. Listen, why don’t you come over to my place this evening – I’ll cook.”

He walked with her to the door. “Sounds great but I’m playing squash with Charlie Mellon tonight,” he said mournfully. Ken adored her cooking.

“Oh, I’d forgotten about that.”

“I’ll hold you to it, though – see you later.” He grinned and headed back towards his office, leaving Nicola unsure whether to feel relieved or upset that the opportunity to talk had gone amiss.

On her way down in the elevator to free Sally up for her fitness assessment, Nicola tried to remember the last time
she
had carried out one of those. Most leisure staff hated doing it and Nicola was no exception. She smiled. There was one particular time though, when she hadn’t minded at all.