Melissa is having lunch with Cassie, something they try to manage at least once a week. They have a lot in common: the only two women on the board; both in their late thirties; ambitious, at the peak of their careers; married. Their only point of difference is children: Cassie has a three-year-old boy and is trying for another.
‘It’s a disaster,’ Melissa says between mouthfuls. ‘Henry and I should have stood our ground at the start. Here we are, three years later, and the kids still detest me.’
Cassie nods, swallows. ‘Hindsight’s a great thing, eh?’
Cassie is sympathetic and gives good advice but sometimes Melissa wonders how her friend can possibly understand. Cassie lived with her husband for several years before they got married. She sees him first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and all weekend long. It’s a genuine partnership, an authentic sharing of lives. Melissa’s marriage is more like ‘dating’ than anything else and she has the overwhelming sense that everything is about to come to a skidding halt. She feels the change happening inside her and welcomes it as much as she dreads it. Another concerning matter is the almost daily messages she’s been exchanging with Jarrod Harris.
Melissa Andrews: How are things in the world of volts? xx
Jarrod Harris: Electric. How about the board table?
Melissa Andrews: Dull, dull, dull. Yawn
Jarrod Harris: Nice photo at industry awards, Snow White.
Brief messages, jokey, nothing untoward. At the same time, a reopened connection and dangerous because of all those old, unresolved feelings. They shared something intense, albeit short-lived. At the time Jarrod said he felt different around her: more focused, more ambitious about the future. Melissa felt different, too: more adventurous, distinctly more sexual. Jarrod seemed like another species to the other boys: a man’s face combined with an athlete’s body, an innate knowledge of what to do with his hands and mouth, eliciting a sexual response Melissa never imagined herself capable of. Their relationship lasted two incredibly vivid, lustful months. It ended via a taut conversation by the basketball courts. ‘Annabel is pregnant. I’m sticking by her. I’m sorry, Melissa.’
Such loyalty. Annabel didn’t deserve it; she’d been the very opposite of loyal with Melissa. Initially maintaining that she didn’t mind about Melissa and Jarrod dating; her subsequent actions proving that she minded very much indeed. It was fear, Melissa keeps telling herself. Annabel was scared.
Now Melissa has the distinct impression that Jarrod is floundering, just like she is. Is he unhappy with Annabel? Is the marriage in trouble? Why else open up dialogue with someone from the far-distant past? When your present life is not working out, it’s all too tempting to look back. She knows this first-hand.
‘What are you wearing tomorrow night?’ she asks Cassie, forcibly directing her thoughts away from Jarrod.
Tomorrow night is a female-only industry event. A gathering of pharmaceutical researchers, scientists and everyone from the production line to executive management. Melissa is sponsoring the event and will be speaking about female empowerment. She’s delivered many similar speeches in the past, but that won’t make her complacent. Tonight, she’ll practise in front of the mirror, delivering the speech over and over again, until it sounds completely unrehearsed and the audience laughs in all the right places, as well as listening when she’s being deadly serious.
Cassie pulls a face. ‘Whatever fits me. What about you?’
‘Maybe the dress I wore to Steve and Anna’s wedding.’
Steve is a fellow board member. The wedding was his third. It was a great day out but the pervading feeling was that this marriage wouldn’t last any longer than the other two.
‘The royal blue? Yeah, that’s lovely on you.’
The conversation moves on to Cassie’s little boy, who’s starting preschool in the new year. Melissa listens intently. She is careful not to become one of those childless women who resent it when mothers talk about their kids.
Just before the hour mark, Cassie calls for the bill – it’s her turn to pay. As they’re walking out of the café, she links her arm through Melissa’s, making them present more like conspiring teenage girls than board executives.
‘You know what I think you should do?’ Cassie says.
‘About tomorrow night?’
‘No ... About Henry, stupid.’
Melissa is bemused. ‘What should I do?’
‘You should get a dog.’
‘A dog? Are you kidding?’
‘Nope. I’m being perfectly serious. Dogs are glue. They bring families together.’
A dog? Melissa is intermittently incredulous for the rest of the afternoon – whenever she has the time to stop and think about it. Henry is ill at ease with dogs. She doesn’t exactly love them herself. A dog means more responsibility, more constraints on her time, and is just about the last thing that would solve her problems. Cassie has taken leave of her senses.
It’s seven thirty before Melissa calls it a night. Her car – metallic blue, easy to pick out – is parked in the staff car park. The air is thick and claustrophobic in the basement. Melissa gets inside the car and turns on the air-conditioning full blast. As soon as she exits the car park, she phones Henry and they have a perfunctory discussion. She tells him she had lunch with Cassie but doesn’t mention the dog. He reminds her that he’s attending a school concert and won’t be able to talk later on. This incites yet another flare of dissatisfaction with their situation.
The air inside her apartment is muggy with trapped heat and she flings open the balcony doors so the breeze can run through. ‘There. That’s better.’
She detests it when she talks aloud, as though there is someone here to listen.
Dinner is a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, which she takes outside. Someone from one of the other apartments is playing loud rap music. She can hear voices from the balcony below, as well as the background sound of a television. Most of what she hears is silence; this is what she hates about coming home to an empty apartment. She finishes her sandwich, brings the plate inside and swaps it for her laptop. A dozen unread messages since she left the office, over an hour ago. Her eyes skim over them. One stands out.
From: admin11@yearbook.com.au
Subject: Year Book Macquarie High
Name: Melissa Andrews (aka Snow White)
What you do now: Sales Director for pharmaceuticals company.
Highlights of last twenty years: Being promoted more than you deserve.
Lowlights: Henry refusing to live together because his kids hate you.
Deepest fears: Dying alone. And you will.
Ouch! Melissa reads it again, scrupulously, finding its accuracy even more alarming than its venom. A simple Google search would throw up information about her career, but not her living arrangements with Henry, or the ongoing friction with his children. Who sent this? How do they have access to this information? Has someone been spying on her? Watching Henry’s car come and go and reaching the obvious conclusion? That seems too dramatic. Maybe it’s a double connection, someone who knows her from the old days and also knows Henry, or perhaps his kids, through some other avenue? Sydney can be a small place. Whatever the connection, she’s rattled and freshly angry with Henry. He should be here. Helping her make sense of this, even to laugh it off. Instead she feels strangely insecure and vulnerable. She goes back inside, locks the balcony doors and pulls the blinds. She’s not the only one who’s had these messages. They’re an annoyance, yes, but no one has suggested danger of any kind. She reads the email yet again. Nothing overtly threatening. Except for the gross invasion of her privacy. Except for the unnerving accuracy. Except for the venom, which feels oddly familiar. Could it be Annabel? Dredging up old grudges after finding out that Melissa and Jarrod have resumed contact? But Annabel herself was one of the first to get an email, so how can that possibly make sense?
She forwards the email to Katy Buckley.
This came today. I’m a little unsettled by it ... Who is sending these? Where is it all leading?
Melissa works through the other messages in her inbox, sending quick responses where she can. She is about to finish up when a response comes from Katy.
Have no idea. It’s creeping me out. Starting to think I should call the whole thing off.
Is that the end game here? A simple desire to have the reunion called off? Or is the motive more elaborate? Elaborate enough for Annabel to send herself an email and thereby throw everyone off the scent? Maybe she can’t bear the thought of everyone being reinvented, her old position as queen bee under threat. Or maybe she is insecure about the idea of Melissa and Jarrod coming face to face after all these years. Or maybe she has found out about their recent contact and is livid. Or scared. Annabel can be frightening when she’s scared.
However, it does seem a rather long bow to draw for a mother of three who must have many other things to obsess about. Would she really go to such lengths?
Melissa stands up. Stretches. Yawns. Then sighs as she remembers that she still needs to rehearse her speech for tomorrow night. A copy in hand, she stations herself in front of the bedroom mirror. Her voice is quivery. She doesn’t know if it’s due to nervous tension or exhaustion. She clears her throat, injects more power, but now she sounds too harsh. Her voice rings through the apartment, hard and unanswered.
Here I am, talking to myself again.
Annabel’s face materialises alongside her own in the mirror. Tanned skin, blonde hair, in stark contrast to her own looks. Her mouth contorts, words forming. Melissa hears them, resurrecting Annabel’s acidic tones of long ago.
Dying alone. And you will.