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I was smack in the middle of it, and then I got booted out. Big time.
“Mommy!”
Inside the front door, crouched next to an open travel bag—Yves St. Laurent—is Bronwyn.
“There you are!” she exclaims. “Come here, beautiful girl!” she chirps as she picks up Charlie and kisses her on one cheek, then the other. “Just like they do it in Roma!” She says “Roma” with an Italian accent. Charlie wraps her arms around her mother’s neck and rests her head on her shoulder and a small, very small, barely worth mentioning little dart of jealousy nicks at my heart. Jack appears in the doorway and leans against the wall, his arms crossed, smiling, but not really, not all the way up to his eyes.
I smile too, benignly, anything to hide the little twist of anxiety in my chest. This is the first time I’ve come face to face with Bronwyn since Jack and I got together so yes, I’m nervous. I’m hoping she won’t kill me, essentially. Bronwyn may have a very wealthy, very nice, very devoted fiancé, but I bet she’d still like the previous ones to be visibly pining.
I’ll just tell her he was on the rebound. An easy catch. Never would have happened, otherwise. I come to stand next to him and he puts his arm around my shoulders.
I forget how well put together Bronwyn is. Or maybe I don’tforget, exactly. I just try not to remember. Still, it’s a shock to see her up close and be confronted by her beauty, those long, tanned legs, the fabulous clothes that drape themselves around her like liquid.
“My God, Charlotte!”
“I know,” I say, unbuttoning my coat and wishing I’d done up my face. “She’s grown so much since—”
“Your hair is so long!” she exclaims. Charlie has curly hair and likes to weave it into a single braid that she drops over one shoulder.
Bronwyn holds Charlie’s braid in the palm of her hand and studies it closely.
“It’s the Greta Thunberg look,” I say. No idea why.
Bronwyn looks up at me, puzzled, but not unfriendly. “Don’t you put conditioner in her hair?”
“I’m sorry?”
“She’s got split ends! Look!” She points to a microscopic point on the end of Charlie’s braid. Jack and I both lean forward and frown at it, as does Charlie, so that we’re all examining the first of my failures as a stepmom, with many more to come, of that I have no doubt.
“I think it’s a two-in-one brand,” I say.
She smiles, pats Charlie’s head. “Well. Never mind. You need a haircut anyway, we’ll pick up some treatments at the same time.”
“Treatments?” I snort. They’re all looking at me and I pretend to cough. “Sure, good idea,” I say. What I mean is, good luck with that. Because if there’s one thing Charlie hates it’s washing her hair. She’s old enough to bathe on her own—after I’ve checked the bath temperature of course—but if I ask her to wash her hair she’ll sulk, then drop a perfunctory minute drop of shampoo, scratch at her scalp and barely rinse it, so I still wash her hair for her. It’s traumatic enough as it is, so the idea of adding conditioner into the mix, let alone treatments? Let’s see how that pans out. I can’t wait.
She stands up straight and takes Charlie’s hand. “Anyway, come on. Why don’t you show me your room?” She gazes around. “I wonder whatthatlooks like,” she muses. “There’s been a few changes around here.”
“Okay,” Charlie replies happily.
“Did you see what she did there?” I whisper to Jack. I’m dragging him to the kitchen so I can start dinner.
He opens the cupboards and grabs two wine glasses. “What are you talking about?”
I give a small scoff, one side of my mouth raised in mockery. “I mean, seriously? Split ends? She’s seven years old. Who cares?”
I expected him to laugh with me, but instead he just shrugs. I pull out vegetables from the crisper drawer of the fridge. “Anyway, I couldn’t see any, could you?”
“I have no idea what split ends look like, Laura. But so what? You know what Bron’s like.”
“Yes, yes. You’re right.” I pull out the colander, turn on the cold tap. “Whatisshe like?”
“You know, she’s a perfectionist.”
I scoff. “Then she’ll be over the moon because Charlie is perfect!”
Jack picks up an already-opened bottle of wine from the bench and studies the label. “You want one?”
“Yes, thanks,” I say. “This wasn’t about perfection or Charlie’s hair, Jack. She was having a dig at me. Christ! She’s only been here five minutes and she’s already found something to criticize about my mothering skills. God! She can talk. She wouldn’t know a mothering skill if it punched her in the face.”
