Unfaithful (17 page)

"Outside, if you don't mind, I need a cigarette.”

"Sure.” Penelope pulled out a chair for Shona and they both sat as close to the heater as possible. "I'll have one too, please," Penelope said as Shona pulled a Marlboro from her handbag.

The two women sat puffing in companionable silence for several minutes, letting the nicotine hit them and calm their rattled nerves. A waiter interrupted them briefly asking if they wanted to order anything.

"A large bottle of Chateau Neufe du Pape please," Penelope ordered, without even bothering to look at the menu which he proffered.

"Is that ok for you, Shona?" she asked.

"Absolutely fine, as long as it's alcohol, I'm not too bothered."

"Good, me neither."

Shona observed Penelope under her eyelashes as the other woman gazed unseeingly at the shoppers who were busily passing by. She felt decidedly under-dressed and plain next to Penelope. I wish I'd at least put on a bit of makeup or even brushed my hair, she thought, self-consciously trying to flatten her hair against her head with her hand.

"You really have the most beautiful hair," Penelope suddenly broke their silence.

"Pardon?" Shona looked at her incredulously, not quite believing her ears.

"I've always envied your hair. It's so full of life and bounce, and such a lovely colour. Is it highlighted?"

"Um, no, it's natural," Shona laughed uncertainly, not really knowing how to respond at getting such a compliment from someone so beautiful.

"You're lucky."

"I don't feel very lucky," Shona muttered.

Penelope looked at her quizzically. "Why?" she asked bluntly.

"Hmmm, let me see; no job, no boyfriend, no money and I'm on the verge of being homeless if I don't pay the rent very soon."

"Oh dear," Penelope replied, "then again, my life isn't much better either. I've had a huge fight with my best friend who's moved out of our apartment, leaving me to pay all the bills on my own. I've just gotten the brush off from my so-called boyfriend, who claims that he's too busy to spend time with me this weekend. I haven't found any work since returning to Ireland and I'm living off my savings which are rapidly diminishing by the day."

"Wow, we really have a lot more in common than I ever thought possible," Shona huffed.

"It's great to be us," Penelope said sarcastically, as she helped herself to another of Shona's cigarettes. "Anyway, tell me, why did you leave M & R Photography? You seemed happy working there."

"Yeah, well, I was happy, but it was getting too complicated."

"Complicated, how?" Penelope probed.

Shona took another long drag from her cigarette and debated whether or not to tell Penelope her woes. "I'm not proud to say that I was sleeping with the boss, who refused to leave his wife. I broke up with him last week, so continuing working with him would have been ever so slightly difficult."

"You and Mark are seeing each other?" Penelope asked. Her face turned deathly pale.

Shona squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. "We were seeing each other, past tense. I'm not proud of my relationship with him," Shona stuttered under Penelope's steady gaze, suddenly feeling like she had to explain herself to the other woman, "but I truly thought he loved me as much as I loved him."

"You and me both," Penelope spat.

"What?" Shona was starting to get annoyed at what she understood to be Penelope's judgmental attitude towards her.

"He said he loved me too."

"Oh, God," Shona buried her head in her hands, forgetting that she was still holding her cigarette and nearly setting fire to her hair. Eventually she resurfaced. "I cringe to think at how sick I've been feeling since I ended our affair. I've hardly left my bed. I've been sleeping like I'm in some sort of hibernation mode. I've hardly eaten. I've started smoking for heavens' sake, at my age! I haven't left my flat in a week, I only left today because I was going to the studio in the hopes of seeing Mark and talking to him. It's like I needed a “Mark fix” so that I could get myself back on track again, the withdrawal symptoms were just too much and to think he was with you the entire time."

"You really do have it bad," Penelope sympathised. "He doesn't deserve to be loved that much by anyone."

"How long have you two been together?" Shona asked desperately.

"Does it really matter now?" Penelope sighed. “Why torment yourself any further?"

"Yes, it does matter, actually," Shona insisted, "it matters to me. I want to understand exactly how much of a lying, insincere twat he is."

"Trust me, Mark McNamara is right at the top of my list of twats, to put it politely.”

"Well, how long were you two seeing each other?" Shona snapped.

"Almost two months," Penelope answered quietly.

"You were sleeping together?" Shona asked shortly.

Penelope nodded, looking somewhat ashamed.

"He told me loved me," Shona groaned, her face turning red with anger. "This is a great cure for heartache anyway," she continued ruefully. "I feel my appetite returning by the second."

"More wine, I think," Penelope beckoned the waiter to bring another bottle, as she refilled Shona's glass and then her own.

She took a large gulp before speaking again. "It seems to me that Mark McNamara has been taking us both for fools," Shona finally managed.

"I can't believe he was seeing us both at the same time," Penelope groaned.

"Who does he think he is?" Shona asked, not for the first time, "I feel like such a cliche; the secretary who was having an affair with her boss, except I was stupid enough to believe him when he promised to leave his wife and life for me."

"Yeah, right," Penelope smirked. Shona looked at her sharply, stung by the mocking look on her face.

"You're a bit of a cliche yourself," she said pointedly, "a model sleeping with a photographer, I'm sure nobody has ever done that before either."

Penelope's expression quickly changed. She took a deep breath, "let's not fall out over that cad, ok? He's not worth it."

Shona relented, "I agree with you completely. “Friends?"

She held out her hand and Penelope shook it eagerly, "friends."

They toasted each other to seal their new-found friendship.

“I don't know about you, but I'm ravenous," Penelope said after they'd finished their second bottle of wine and smoked the rest of Shona's cigarettes.

"I could eat a horse right now," Shona agreed.

They picked up the menus which the waiter had left on their table and settled on two medium pepperoni pizzas and a large plate of garlic breaded stuffed mushrooms.

"I never knew models ate so much," Shona said as the waiter quickly arrived with their order, placing heaped plates of food and more wine in front of them.

"I'm usually very disciplined, I have to admit, and I work out like a demon, but I don't mind over-indulging occasionally," Penelope smiled, helping herself to a very large portion of mushrooms. "Mmm, these are to die for," she enthused, licking her fingers as the garlic sauce dribbled down her hand. "Don't believe what most people tell you about being skinny either," Penelope volunteered. “Anyone who is slim and much over the age of twenty definitely watches their weight and works out, trust me."

"Really?" Shona asked disbelievingly, "I thought some people were blessed with naturally skinny genes.

"I don't believe it," Penelope disagreed, "I watch what I eat ninety five per cent of the time and I work out for an hour every day. If I didn't I'd be the size of a house. I probably won't eat anything but fruit and water for the next week after this evening's feast."

"How awful," Shona sympathised.

"It's not awful at all," Penelope said, "as Kate Moss once wisely said "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels"."

Shona laughed at her friend's analogy. "I must remember that," she giggled.

"We can't let Mark get away with treating us like this," Penelope insisted, as they sat back in their seats digesting their food and sipping their red wine.

"I agree with you, but how do we make him pay?" Shona patted her very round stomach. She burped suddenly, much to her own embarrassment. "Excuse me, so sorry," she quickly drank some water to settle her stomach.

"I haven't figured out how to punish him, but believe me when I tell you that I will make him pay, if it's the last thing I do," Penelope said ominously.

"That's a bit extreme," Shona felt nervous. "He's not worth being the last thing you do."

"I promised myself that I would never let a man treat me like this again," Penelope reiterated. "Has this happened to you before?" Shona asked curiously.

"Unfortunately, yes.  He made a complete idiot of me, ruined my name at my modelling agency, so they fired me."

"What!" Shona exclaimed. “You can't be fired for having an affair, that's unfair dismissal!" "Yes you can, when you're stupid enough to sleep with your boss' husband."

"Ouch," Shona replied, "that explains why you returned to Ireland. I always wondered why you left London to come back to Dublin."

"Well, now you know and here I am making the same stupid mistakes all over again, which is why I am determined to get even this time."

Shona flinched at the look that passed over Penelope's arresting face.

"How shall we punish him?" Penelope continued.

"I don't know.”  Shona was becoming more and more nervous at the edge to Penelope's voice. "I think we should tell his wife. I don't think that would be a good idea," Shona coughed, almost choking on her drink.

"Why not?" Penelope asked baldly, "he deserves to be exposed."

"Wouldn't we be exposing ourselves at the same time?" Shona was trying desperately to be the voice of reason.

"I realise that, of course," Penelope agreed, "but he's got a lot more to lose than us. He'll lose his nice, cosy, stable little life, his wife, his son, his house, his so-called good name and standing in the community. He might even lose his business, depending on how much of a stake his wife has invested in it." Her eyes glinted dangerously at her last sentence.

"It's a bit harsh, don't you think?" Shona asked quietly.

"Harsh!" Penelope almost screamed. "Not harsh enough, I say. He deserves everything he gets and a lot more besides. He thinks he can maintain the status quo in his life and turn our worlds upside down. I don't think so! He needs to learn to keep it in his trousers or learn to pay the price and the consequences."

"I'm not sure," Shona stuttered, "I agree with you that he should suffer but I don't really think it's a good idea to tell his wife. What if she doesn't have a clue about his cheating ways? After all, it's over now between all of us. I don't want to be responsible for splitting up a marriage or devastating his wife, she's the innocent party in all of this."

"Innocent!" Penelope cried. “We're the innocent ones!"

"Well, we're not really that innocent," Shona disagreed, becoming more and more uncomfortable at Penelope's escalating temper.

"He's the married man!" Penelope spat, "it's his responsibility to keep it in his trousers, not ours. If it hadn't been us it would have been some other poor unsuspecting woman."

"Maybe," Shona said hesitantly.

"I can guarantee you another thing," Penelope continued her diatribe, sloshing her wine in its glass. “His wife definitely suspects that he's up to something. She may not know for certain, but she certainly suspects."

Shona opened her eyes wide at the thought of Rebecca suspecting her husband's affair. "Actually, it's interesting you should say that. Rebecca came into the office a few weeks ago, unexpectedly and unannounced. I nearly collapsed with the shock of seeing her and what’s more she insisted on spending the afternoon with me, seeing how I worked."

"My point has just been proven!" Penelope clapped her hands with glee. "She knew he was up to something and she even suspected it was you. She came to the office to check you out."

"Do you really think so?" Shona asked, not wanting to believe what her new friend was saying. "Think about it for a minute," Penelope insisted. "What was her reason for being in the office?" "None, Mark was as surprised as me to see her."

"Exactly," Penelope looked at her smugly. "She already thinks he's up to mischief, she just can't prove it. Well, I think we should put the poor woman out of her misery and tell her everything. Don't you think she has a right to know that her husband is a cheating, lying, disloyal scoundrel? Wouldn't you like to know? I know I would appreciate someone telling me."

"Would you really want to be told by your husband's mistress?" Shona asked.

"Mistresses," Penelope corrected, flicking her sleek dark hair over her shoulder.

"Plural, darling, there's at least two of us."

"Surely there can't be anyone else?"

"I wouldn't be in the least surprised if there was someone else. Oh, God, I cringe at how I believed every word he told me," Shona whispered.

"Stop cringing and let's get even. When shall we tell his wife? Do you know where she lives?" "Steady on a minute," Shona breathed, "I'm not sure if telling his wife is a good idea. I don't think I'm brave enough to deal with the consequences. What if she calls the police or something?"