Mixed Emotions

  Mixed Emotions

  By

  Debbie Viggiano

  Mixed Emotions © Debbie Viggiano 2013

  Kindle Edition published worldwide 2013 © Debbie Viggiano

  All rights reserved in all media. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical (including but not limited to: the Internet, photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system), without prior permission in writing from the author.

  The moral right of Debbie Viggiano as the author of the work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  www.debbieviggiano.com

  http://debbieviggiano.blogspot.com/

  Cover by Robert Coveney

  Kindle formatting by Rebecca Emin

  Like most writers, I belong to a writing group. These short stories were collected over a two year period as a result of monthly in-house competitions. Whilst I love writing chick lit, some of the stories within step out of this genre because they had to fit a set subject. Others are as fluffy as you like! I hope you enjoy them.

  Debbie xx

  *****

  This book is dedicated to Janice, my lovely sister.

  STORIES

  Angst

  Reluctance

  Trouble

  Betrayal

  Realisation

  Shyness

  Irony

  Love

  Shock

  Rebirth

  Surprise

  Prejudice

  Deception

  Obsession

  Treachery

  Revenge

  Misgivings

  Freedom

  Joy

  Crisis

  Breakdown

  ANGST

  Emily stepped out of the boutique’s changing room. Her efforts to find something nice for tonight’s firework party had amounted to zero.

  ‘Any good?’ asked the assistant.

  ‘No,’ Emily gave a tight smile. The assistant was only a couple of years older than herself. About sixteen. She had cropped hair and an eyebrow piercing. Emily didn’t like either. But she did like the girl’s figure. Slender. Some might say willowy. Oh for a figure like that! A scowl settled across Emily’s features. These days the scowl was never far away. Emily wasn’t sure at what point she’d begun scowling, but it was a part of her now. She thrust the size eight jeans at the assistant. Why was being fourteen such hell?

  Janet surveyed her reflection in the bedroom mirror. The wool dress hugged her body. Good. As her husband always said, ‘If you’ve got it, flaunt it!’ And she’d certainly got it. Not that her daughter would agree. Janet experienced a sinking feeling as Emily invaded her thoughts. Emily would declare the dress appalling and question why Janet was such an embarrassment.

  Janet felt a familiar tugging at her lips. Moments later her mouth turned down with sadness. These days the expression was never far away. Janet couldn’t pinpoint exactly when she’d started to look miserable, but the facial expression was a part of her now. She slithered out of the size twenty dress. Why was being the parent of a teenager such hell?

  Emily jumped off the bus and slouched home. As she pushed the front door open, a floorboard creaked overhead. Clearly Mum was in her bedroom. Sounds of a wardrobe opening reached Emily’s ears. No doubt her mother was trying on clothes for tonight’s firework party. Well bully for Mum. Frustration and resentment rippled through Emily like a pain. With every breath she took the hurt increased until it was agony. It was no good. She’d have to do that again. It was the only way to find some relief.

  Emily hastened upstairs. Inside her bedroom she found her pencil case. Rummaging within, her fingers curled around what she was seeking.

  ‘Hello old friend,’ she murmured to the compass.

  Rolling up one sleeve of her sweater and ignoring the scars on the underside of her arm, Emily set to work.

  Janet set the dress to one side for later on. Putting her joggers and t-shirt back on, she paused. Was her daughter home?

  ‘Is that you Emily?’ Janet called out.

  ‘Oh just leave me alone!’ Emily snarled.

  Stung, Janet retreated downstairs. There were a few more hours until tonight’s celebrations kicked off. She’d do some ironing. Janet had ironed just three shirts when the pain in her knees started. With every stroke of the iron the hurt increased until it was agony. It was no good. She’d have to stop. It was the only way to find some relief.

  Janet hobbled over to her handbag on the worktop. She rummaged within. Her fingers curled around what she was seeking.

  ‘Hello old friend,’ she said to the painkillers.

  Then Janet sat down and waited for the tablets to get to work.

  Emily watched the house fill with relatives and neighbours. Outside her father was staking out various parts of the lawn for different pyrotechnic activity. Her mother was in the kitchen overseeing umpteen jacket potatoes. Emily wouldn’t eat one mouthful. She didn’t eat carbs. And she didn’t even want to look at the vast cake Aunty Carol had brought to the gathering.

  Janet mashed more butter into her potato. The fireworks were noisy, bright and beautiful. Everybody was oohing and aahing. Apart from her daughter. Janet could see Emily standing alone. Aloof. A banger leapt skywards making everybody jump. Janet pondered at what point she’d lost the loving relationship with her daughter. She thanked God in his heaven that, unlike fireworks, the sound of her heart breaking was silent.

  Emily locked herself in the bathroom. Turning, she leant over the toilet bowl. Why had she permitted Aunty Carol to persuade her to eat some cake? She’d barely finished eating it when her stomach had swelled. Outside a rocket exploded. Emily thanked God in his heaven that the fireworks covered the sound of her puking.

  Janet was feeling horribly queasy. She abandoned her fifth slice of cake. She must have caught a bug. Or perhaps it was a virus. Maybe that was why her knees ached so much. Janet’s stomach contracted uncomfortably. Hauling herself off the chair, she moved as quickly as possible. She’d have taken the stairs two at a time if one hip wasn’t suddenly hurting. Locking herself in the bathroom, she leant over the toilet bowl. Something was wrong. On Monday she’d visit the doctor.

  Emily sat in the Headmistress’s office.

  ‘Oh dear, you are in a spot of bother,’ the Head said kindly.

  ‘Yes.’ Emily’s shoulders sagged. Carla Jackson had grassed. Carla had spotted the marks on Emily’s arm during PE. Later Carla had caught Emily out in the toilets purging a sandwich from lunch break. ‘I’m bulimic and self-harming. I can’t seem to stop. Although I’d like to.’

  Janet listened to the doctor in disbelief. Knee replacements? Hip replacements? At forty-seven? She was stunned.

  ‘Eighteen stone is too heavy,’ the doctor advised.

  ‘Yes,’ Janet nodded. ‘I’m a comfort eater, and I can’t seem to stop. Although I’d like to.’

  One year later...

  Emily and Janet stepped out of the boutique’s changing room. Their efforts to find something for this year’s firework party had proved successful.

  ‘Any good?’ asked the assistant.

  ‘Yes,’ Emily grinned, before hugging her mother.

  It had been an arduous twelve months. But with the help of counsellors, dieticians, and love for each other, they’d both won through.

  The changing room assistant stared after the teenager and trendy moth
er. Why couldn’t she have a figure like them? Slender. Some might say willowy. A scowl settled across her features. These days the scowl was never far away. She wasn’t sure at what point she’d begun scowling, but it was now a part of her. Why was being a teenager such hell?

  RELUCTANCE

  ‘I don’t want to go to Don’s firework party,’ I folded my arms across my chest. A defensive gesture.

  Andy sighed. ‘So you keep telling me. Unfortunately I don’t have a choice in the matter.’

  ‘Of course you do!’ I regarded my boyfriend incredulously. Since when was it compulsory to accept all social invitations? Not that we were up to our eyeballs in gilt-edged cards bearing swirly RSVP letters, but you know what I mean.

  ‘Don is my boss. He expects me to be there. And you’re my ‘plus one’. So I expect you to be there. By my side.’

  ‘If I come along, there’ll be more than rockets going off. There will be fireworks on a nuclear scale. And you know it.’

  ‘Of course there won’t. You’re just being dramatic darling.’

  ‘No I’m not,’ I could feel a bit of lip tremble coming on. My eyes welled.

  ‘Why don’t you want to go?’

  ‘You know perfectly well why. She will be there.’

  ‘I presume you’re talking about Penny.’

  ‘Of course I’m talking about Penny,’ I wailed.

  Penny was Andy’s ex-wife. She’d been a cross to bear ever since I’d met Andy. And no, I wasn’t the other woman. But I was the other man.

  TROUBLE

  Rosie was having a sensational dream. She was in bed. With a gorgeous guy. In sleep, she smiled. A warm hand was curling around her hip. Now it was circling her left buttock. Fingertips were stroking. She moaned. Nice. Arousing. In Rosie’s dream, her hand burrowed under the duvet. She touched a toned chest and soft hair. Sexy! Dave, her husband, had a hairless chest. Like his head. Her brow furrowed. She didn’t want to think about Dave. She wanted her thoughts to be of nothing but the Adonis. Oh no! A part of her was swimming to the surface of wakefulness. Desperately, Rosie tried to hold the dream. Her mind back-peddled frantically. Sighing contentedly, she once again sank to groggy depths. Her hand moved across the hunk’s body. It felt so good. Greedily, she began to explore. Down. Down a bit more. Rosie paused. Something wasn’t right. Why would she dream about a man having a piercing? And there of all places? Rosie’s eyes pinged open. Grey gloom. But then the bit before dawn was always like that. Rosie blinked rapidly. Tried to focus on the features of the silhouette by her side.

  ‘Why have you stopped?’ asked an unfamiliar voice.

  Rosie instantly released the piercing and the body part it was attached to.

  ‘Dave?’ she quavered.

  There was a pause. The clicking of a bedside switch. The room flooded with lamplight. Rosie stared, bug-eyed, at a stranger. He had hazel eyes and tousled hair the colour of Galaxy chocolate. He looked exactly like the guy in her dream.

  ‘I’m not Dave,’ he said.

  ‘Christ Almighty!’ Rosie sat up, snatching the duvet to her.

  ‘I’m not Him either.’ The man sounded amused. He propped himself up on one elbow.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ Rosie squeaked. Her heart was pounding. Head hammering. How had she ended up in bed with somebody she didn’t know? She thought she might vomit.

  ‘My name’s Matt. Matt Palmer. And you?’

  ‘Never mind who I am,’ Rosie spluttered. ‘Get out of my bed!’

  ‘Well I would,’ Matt scratched his chin thoughtfully, ‘except you’re actually in my bed.’

  Rosie stared around the room. Her jaw dropped as she took in white walls and minimalist furniture. The bed was vast. About an acre of leather headboard reared up to the ceiling. This place screamed Sexy Bachelor Pad. It was everything Rosie’s bedroom wasn’t. No chair propped against the wall bearing a tottering pagoda of Dave’s clothes. No untidy piles of shoes due to Dave still not assembling the flat pack cupboard. And not a festering pair of underpants in sight. Tell a lie. Her eye snagged on a familiar scrap of lace languishing by the door. Female pants. Hers. Dear God. She was totally starkers. Her head began to throb. A hangover. Memory flooded back.

  She’d been out with the girls. Lucy’s hen night. Lucy – who Rosie had known forever – had insisted it would be a night to remember. Or not in Rosie’s case. Her last recollection had been dancing with the girls. Lucy had been shrieking with laughter. They’d been wearing flashing pink Stetsons and behaving outrageously. Rosie had shipped enough champagne to christen several cruise ships. Booze anaesthetised you. Made you forget about being trapped in a loveless marriage with an unemployed husband and exhausting toddler. And watching Lucy recently – excited, happy, and oh-so-in-lurve – had reminded Rosie that her own marriage was a sham. But she had only herself to blame. And her mother.

  ‘You’re the wrong side of thirty my girl,’ Hester had exhorted. At the time Rosie had been nursing a shattered heart. Her previous long-term boyfriend, who she’d been crazy about, had cheated on her with an ex-friend. ‘Dave is a man with prospects,’ Hester’s voice had been relentless. Like a dripping tap. ‘He has an engineering degree! And he’s loyal.’

  Loyal. That was the clincher. And four months later Rosie had stood before a congregation of two hundred guests and married Dave Perfect. A man she didn’t love.

  ‘Love doesn’t pay the bills,’ her father, well meaning but weak, had patted her hand kindly. Rosie had harboured hopes that love would grow. In the beginning Dave had been polite. Kind. But he hadn’t made her heart flutter. Two years later he was surly, out of work, gambling his dole money and drinking the housekeeping. And her heart definitely wasn’t fluttering.

  ‘Drink up Rosie!’ Lucy had roared over the music. Glittering lights had glanced off the champagne glasses as they’d toasted the future bride. Rosie had welcomed the high jinks and hilarity. Hell, it had been fun. Something she’d not had for such a long time. Certainly not since marrying Dave and drowning in a sea of financial hardship.

  Rosie’s mind stumbled back to the present. Where were her clothes?

  ‘Er,’ Rosie gulped, ‘Mr Palmer. Could I trouble you to lean out of bed please and,’ Rosie put a hand on the mattress to steady herself, ‘pass me those pants. Over there.’ She pointed at the scrap of lace.

  ‘Sure,’ said Matt. He tossed his bit of duvet to one side and stood up.

  ‘No!’ Rosie screeched.

  ‘No?’ Matt swung round. Rosie instantly clapped a hand over her eyes. ‘I thought you wanted your pants?’

  ‘I do.’ Rosie peeked through parted fingers. ‘I just didn’t want to see you–’

  ‘Ah. Naked.’ Matt bent down and retrieved a hidden pair of boxers. ‘You can look now. I’m decent.’ He gathered up Rosie’s pants and chucked them at her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she snatched them up. A quick inspection of the floor didn’t reveal any further garments. ‘Where are the rest of my clothes?’

  ‘In the hallway,’ said Matt.

  ‘In the hall–?’

  ‘You couldn’t wait to get them off,’ Matt informed her. ‘Insisted on stripping as soon as your feet touched my Welcome mat.’

  Rosie clamped a hand over her mouth. Please God don’t let her be sick. Let her get out of here – wherever here was – and get home. Preferably with a damn good excuse for Dave. He’d not been happy about her going out. Or being left with the son and heir.

  ‘Isn’t your mother looking after Luke?’ he’d asked, aghast.

  Her mother? Hardly! Hester had made it very plain she didn’t ‘do’ babies.

  ‘I look forward to bonding with Luke when he’s ready to go to school,’ she’d said.

  Something landed on Rosie’s head.

  ‘Yours I think.’ Matt Palmer had retrieved her Little Black Dress. Very apposite. It barely covered her backside. The dress belonged to Lucy. Rosie couldn’t afford dresses like this one. Lucy worked in media and earned a fortune. Her clot
hes were expensive. Like their owner, they spent a lot of time in life’s fast lane.

  ‘Could you–?’ Rosie gestured.

  ‘Sure. I’ll put some coffee on.’

  Rosie had no intention of getting cosy with Matt Palmer over coffee. The moment he’d left the room, she rocketed out of bed. Shimmying into the dress, Rosie retrieved Lucy’s clutch bag from the bedside table, jammed her feet into Lucy’s stilettos and tottered into the hallway. A clock on the wall read 6.27. Dave would go into orbit. Rosie crept past the kitchen. Matt Palmer was peering into a vast fridge. Reaching the front door, Rosie carefully eased back the bolts. The door cracked open. Instantly a cacophony of noise broke out. Rosie screamed and clutched her heart. Matt Palmer shot into the hallway. He punched some numbers into a wall panel and the noise instantly ceased. Rosie’s eardrums continued to ring like a tinnitus victim.

  ‘Off already?’ asked Matt.

  ‘Obviously.’ Rosie leant weakly against the wall, waiting for her heart rate to steady.

  ‘How are you getting home?’

  ‘Tube.’

  ‘This is Kent. There are no tubes.’

  Another piece of memory slotted into place. Lucy’s hen do had been at The Cavendish Club, a country club often frequented by footballers, rock stars and City millionaires. Thanks to Lucy’s contacts in media, there had been VIP passes.

  ‘I’ll catch a bus then,’ said Rosie.

  ‘The bus stop is over a mile away. It’s pretty rural here.’

  ‘Then I’ll walk,’ Rosie said in exasperation. Outside April showers were in full pelt. She had no coat. Stupid woman. She was meant to be a responsible person. She was a wife. A mother no less. She should have made her excuses to Lucy and stayed at home. With Luke. A sudden vision of her infant son crying for Mummy brought hot tears to her eyes.