The Trouble with Lucy, page 1
The Trouble with Lucy
Carol Marinelli
The Trouble with Lucy
Copyright © 2014 Carol Marinelli
The Tule Publishing Group, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
ISBN: 978-1-940296-67-8
Dedication
Thank you to my Maytone friends who all know who they are. Your handholds have been invaluable and your support means the world to me.
The Trouble With Lucy really is a book of the heart—I can specifically remember a car-ride and speaking at length with the amazing Jane Porter about the trouble Carol was having with Lucy!
I know that Lucy has found the right home with Tule.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Chapter Fifty-four
Chapter Fifty-five
Chapter Fifty-six
Chapter Fifty-seven
Chapter Fifty-eight
Chapter Fifty-nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-one
Chapter Sixty-two
Chapter Sixty-three
Chapter Sixty-four
Chapter Sixty-five
Chapter Sixty-six
Chapter Sixty-seven
Chapter Sixty-eight
Chapter Sixty-nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-one
Meet Carol Marinelli’s Sexy Russians’
About the Author
Introduction
“If you marry a man who cheats on his wife,
you’ll be married to a man who cheats on his wife.”
Ann Landers
I’ve tried to make this phone call so many times.
I introduce myself and I am met with silence.
‘I was wondering if we could meet—for a coffee perhaps...’ Still there is silence. ‘I’ve got so many questions and I thought you might have some too.’ I hear a sharp intake of breath and I quickly squeeze some words in. ‘I know we can never be friends, I just really need to talk to you.’ I don’t know what else to say now, and I’m about to give in when finally, finally, she speaks.
‘Okay.’ There’s another long stretch of silence and then she suggests we meet for a drink.
Today.
I’m relieved that it’s today, because I know if we postpone this, then one of us will change our minds, one of us will find an excuse not to go.
And I’m nervous too, because it’s today.
She suggests a pub and I agree to the place and the time. She gives me the address and directions and I pretend I’m writing them down, I pretend that it’s an unfamiliar place, except I know the pub well.
It’s a place where he used to take me.
Chapter One
Gloria
I’ve tried to forgive him.
For selfish reasons perhaps, but apparently, you can’t really move on until you forgive the person who hurt you.
And so recently that’s what I’ve been trying to do.
I’m finally ready to move on.
I’ve never even attempted to forgive Lucy though. I’ve nurtured my hate for her for years. I’ve fuelled it, I’ve sustained it, I’ve deserved it and yet, sitting at the hairdressers and listening to the woman in the next chair telling Jasmine about her husband’s affair, I find myself frowning. Instead of joining in, instead of nodding in furious agreement when she talks about the bitch that ruined her marriage, there is, for the first time, the absence of hate when I think of Lucy.
No one notices but me, of course.
I stare in the mirror and I am still frowning as I hear them talking. The way this woman describes it, the way I described it perhaps, was that there I was in the midst of living happily ever after when along came this woman and took my perfectly content husband, tied him to the bed and had sex with him.
Not quite, but possibly you get my drift.
Possibly not.
The woman next to me wouldn’t.
Just a few months ago I wouldn’t have got it either.
She pays and leaves and Jasmine comes over and rolls her eyes. ‘They’ll be back together by next week.’
I smile but not on the inside.
We always got back together, till along came Lucy.
I had the bar of my happiness set so low.
Not now though.
‘You’re looking really well, Gloria,’ Jasmine comments.
‘Thanks.’
‘Right, what are we doing for you today? Just a trim?’
‘No, I’d like to do something about the grey and, also, could you wax my eyebrows and upper lip?’
‘Sure.’ Jasmine smiles and I can tell she’s a bit surprised because I usually just have a trim. ‘Have you got something nice planned for tonight?’
‘No.’ I go a little bit pink when I answer her. ‘I’ve got a date on Monday. Well, just a drink but...’ My voice trails off but Jasmine smiles.
‘Good for you, Gloria! It’s about time you got back out there. How long has it been?’
‘Long enough that I don’t want to answer that question.’
‘So, where did you meet?’ Jasmine asks.
‘At the slimming club I joined.’
We chat away but I’m really only half in on the conversation, instead I am thinking about twelve lost years and how I let myself go.
For a very long while after he left, I didn’t care how I looked.
There was too much other stuff going on.
Then there wasn’t even that excuse.
I simply didn’t care.
I let things slide for a very long while.
Way too long in fact.
But, I’m slowly getting there. I started losing weight a few months ago and I finally plucked up the courage to ring my son-in-law, Noel, and I asked him to fix my teeth.
Even though I never expected to, I met someone at my slimming club.
I recognised him from work and we started chatting and it’s all sort of grown from there. Or rather it’s sort of shrunk from there, because Paul’s lost a lot of weight too. He’s been going there for nine months now and, to be honest, I don’t know if I’d have said yes to a date if he’d been as big as he once was. Then again, he probably wouldn’t have asked and, if he had, I wouldn’t have said yes, but for my own reasons...you sort of lose your confidence really, well I did.
It’s starting to come back though. I finally feel ready to get back out there. In fact, I’m looking forward to it. I know now that I deserve to be treated well.
I care about myself again.
I have hope.
After the hairdressers I walk in the house and I look at my hair. It’s back to dark brown but instead of lingering I head over to the computer and I go onto Facebook.
I shouldn’t.
I just do.
Why am I looking up my ex-husband’s daughter?
She’s my children’s half sister, so I guess there’s your answer but the truth is I’m not really looking to find out more about Charlotte, nor my ex.
I click on an image and there is Lucy, smiling, slender, blonde and beautiful and it’s still there—the absence of hate.
I look at Lucy closely. She’s always been slim but she’s far too thin and there’s also a certain tension to her features that I recognise.
I was always my thinnest when he
I blamed myself.
I blamed her.
It was him.
I scroll through Charlotte’s messages.
Mum and Dad are fighting again!!
I wonder if Lucy checks Charlotte’s posts, if she knows that it’s there for all to see that her perfect life isn’t quite that.
Going for a sleepover to Felicity’s tonight
I do a little further searching and it would seem the reason that Charlotte is going for a sleepover tonight is that her parents are going to a work do.
My stomach tightens as I remember those nights.
Oh, my daughters think they invented sex, that I haven’t a clue. They would die if they knew what some of those work do’s entailed, the stuff that I put myself through in an attempt to hold onto my marriage.
I was boring apparently because I didn’t want it up the bum.
Tears sting my eyes as I remember Greg, the Managing Director and his wife, Shirley. I start to really cry as I remember the humiliation of a foursome, and partner swapping at the end of those work nights.
It was the sort of thing my husband liked.
He put me through hell, my marriage really was a death by a thousand cuts but at the time I didn’t even realise he held the knife.
I’ve spent twelve years blaming you, Lucy.
I start to cry, not for me, but for the old me, for the angry, bitter, terrified person that I once was.
There is no lonelier place than a bad marriage.
None.
The façade, the pretence, the futile hoping, the endless promise of change.
I go back through Charlotte’s posts.
He’s away a lot with work, judging by the presents he brings back for Charlotte. He’s coming home later.
I haven’t seen him in years but I can still smell his trouble a mile off.
He’s messing around, cheating again. I know it down to my bones.
I click back to the image of Lucy.
Is he doing the same to you?
I’ve waited twelve years for your downfall, Lucy.
I’ve fantasised about it in fact but now that it’s here, and it is here, that much about him I know...
I don’t hate her anymore, in fact I actually hurt for her.
I pity her, perhaps?
I turn off the computer and go and make a drink. I’m not going to look anymore, I don’t want to know what’s going on in their lives.
Except, the real truth is, I do...
Chapter Two
Lucy
‘Mrs Jameson?’
I put down my magazine and stand when I hear my name.
‘Lucy.’ I smile at Dr Patel.
My usual GP is on maternity leave, I learned when I made the appointment, but they were able to slot me in with Dr Patel.
I’ll only be here two minutes.
We make small talk as I take a seat and no, she isn’t new, Dr Patel tells me, in fact she’s been here close to a year.
‘I’m not here much,’ I admit. ‘I’m healthy, really...’
Apart from these headaches.
But luckily, after I’ve described my headaches and she’s tested my eyes and done my blood pressure and things, Dr Patel doesn’t think that I have one.
A brain tumour, I mean.
‘Your blood pressure is a bit high, though,’ she tells me.
‘Probably because I’m here.’
I ask for some stronger headache tablets but she doesn’t leave things at that, instead she asks if I exercise as she takes me over to the scales and weighs me.
‘I’m at the gym every other day.’
‘You certainly don’t need to lose weight, Lucy.’ Dr Patel nods, and then, when we’re back sitting down, she asks about my lifestyle but there’s nothing lurking there.
‘We eat really well,’ I say, and we do. ‘I’m really careful about our diet and no, I don’t smoke or drink.’
Well, hardly.
‘I have the odd glass of wine.’
She nods.
‘And I like a brandy now and then.’
She nods again.
Dr Patel, I am starting to realise, does that a lot.
And no, we’re not under any financial pressure—she just has to look at my address!
I don’t like all these questions.
Everything’s perfect, I tell her. I just want some stronger headache tablets and I’ll get my eyes properly tested as she suggested, but Dr Patel is still just sitting there. She asks about my relationship and that’s perfect too, I tell her, except...
My mind darts to Beth who works in reception and I wonder if she reads the patient notes. She’s a mum from school and I don’t want anyone knowing about this, I mean, I don’t want anyone knowing that we’re having problems...
Or rather, we’re not having problems.
He is.
With that.
I don’t want to tell Dr Patel, I certainly never intended to.
Except, I do.
Of course, a moment later I regret it. I have to sit there as Dr Patel tells me everything I already know—that there are lots of treatments available, that just because one thing doesn’t work, something else might.
I can Google too!
‘Well, given that he won’t even talk to me about it, there’s no way I can get him to come and see you.’
We just sit in silence for a moment. I shouldn’t have said anything. I know that there’s nothing she can do if he won’t even come in and, even if he does—well, I’m finding it hard enough to talk to Dr Patel so I can’t imagine he would!
‘I’m trying to be understanding.’ I am. Though I don’t tell her that I’m not doing a very good job of it. My face starts burning as I think of the last time we tried and patience isn’t the virtue that springs to mind.
God, Lucy!
I close my eyes as I recall it and, to be honest, I couldn’t have handled it more badly if I’d tried.
Not it.
I mean, the situation.
‘I know he’s older than me, I know that it happens...’
I just never thought it would be happening to me.
That I’d be sitting in a doctor’s office on a Saturday afternoon discussing my husband’s floppy willy. ‘It’s just hard sometimes...’ I say, and then I smile at her. ‘Well, actually, it’s not.’ But she doesn’t get my little joke apparently, because she doesn’t smile back—there are no double entendres with Dr Patel. She just looks at me with her solemn brown eyes and waits for my smile to fade.
Then we chat for a little while longer.
Well, she does.
She gives me all these pamphlets, one about his problem, one for partners dealing with his problem and then she suggests that perhaps I could try talking to him again, let him know that it’s concerning me...
‘Or, I could just leave these by the bedside!’ I smile, but again it isn’t returned.
I don’t think she gets me.
Then, I know that she doesn’t when she reminds me that the surgery offers counselling and couples counselling. Oh, and I’m to make an appointment with the practice nurse to get some blood work done and my blood pressure checked again. I get a few more pamphlets to read—there are pamphlets for everything it would seem.
It’s me that’s nodding now, I just want out of here.
I smile and I thank her, tuck the leaflets into my bag, and then I wave to Beth at reception and head outside.
I’ll ring and make an appointment on Monday—I’m not asking Beth. Isn’t high blood pressure something that old people get?
Not thirty-six-year-olds who take care of themselves—and I do take care of myself, absolutely I do.
I promptly bin the leaflets.
I shouldn’t have said anything.
I’m cross with myself that I did.
She didn’t even give me some decent headache tablets.
I’ve got an hour to kill before my hair appointment. We’re going to a dinner party tonight but as I walk down to the high street it’s with purpose.
I’m going to fix his little problem by more traditional means!
I step into my favourite boutique and yes, I thought I knew what I was wearing tonight, but I’ve changed my mind.
It’s spring.
I flick through the racks and I don’t know what I want, but I’ll know it when I see it. My hand hovers on a dress, but it’s different from my usual. It’s a blood-red dress with huge silver flowers on it. It sounds disgusting, I know, and really, it’s so not me but, as the assistant assured me when I held it up, it does look stunning on.
