Lisa Heidke by Lucy (mobi) (book club reads TXT) 📗

‘Story of my life,’ I tell him.

Day 31

Tonight, Mum insists on taking Bella and Sam so that I can ‘get my head together’. No doubt she’s force-feeding them baked lamb and roasted vegetables, but that’s not such a bad thing. Unfortunately, I let it slip to Gloria that the kids are spending the night at Mum’s so she’s adamant we go out and drown my sorrows on overpriced bubbly.

Because I don’t really feel like going, I choose a bar too close to home. It’s not much fun. Even though the place is packed, it’s full of sensible suburban couples wearing sensible shoes, sipping sensible spritzers and being ever so careful not to get drunk and fall flat on their sensible faces. I recognise several parents from school, including Lizzie and Dee who are talking animatedly together at the bar. Still, I’m surprised to see how many people have social lives on a Wednesday night. Or maybe I just need to get out more.

‘Have you considered writing your autobiography?’ Gloria says.

‘And what would I write, exactly?’

‘Your battle with depression, addiction, mental illness -’

‘I haven’t had any of those.’

‘Really?’ She’s unconvinced. ‘What about family dysfunction, your affair with a cross-dresser who turned out to be your uncle, that sort of thing?’ She smiles benevolently and hugs her wine.

‘Gloria!’

‘Just trying to get you back in the headlines. It worked for Mikki Mansell. You remember her - the drug-addled bulimic whose career nosedived after her ill-fated affair with that transgender American fellow, old whatshisname? Anyway, once she announced she was adopting a tsunami orphan from Sri Lanka -’ Gloria snaps her fingers. ‘Bingo! She was hot property again.’

‘Is she really going through with that?’

‘Of course not, but she and a photographer friend of hers flew over to the orphanage, tossed around a few sweets, mentioned adopting a “swag of children from war-torn and weather-ravaged countries” à la Angelina, and wham-bam-thank-you-mam, life’s sweet.’

‘How you can live with yourself . . .’

‘Publicity, that’s what it’s all about. What about your husband running off with the babysitter and you finding true love with the one-eyed builder? You know he’s keen on you. People love a romance, especially a celebrity romance, and if there’s a disability thrown in - well! Just think of the possibilities, Lucy-Lou.’

‘I’m not sleeping with Patch and there is no romance.’

‘As if that matters. You’ve got to write about something. Gay father? Hermaphrodite brother? A self-help book? You went through a numerology phase, didn’t you?’

‘I’m finished, aren’t I? You can’t get me any decent auditions, that’s what you’re saying. It’s over.’

‘I wouldn’t say that exactly, but you saw the Logies, love-bug. The starlets are all eighteen-year-old tanorexics.’

‘I know. I wanted to grab their pert breasts and tell them how far they’ll fall. Gravity gets us all in the end.’

‘Fantasies aside, we need something to remind people what a bombshell you could be - though losing weight, getting a decent haircut and having your toenails clipped and painted would really help me out here.’

Gloria’s bright idea is to start by taking me to another bar halfway across town. I check my watch. It’s only just past nine o’clock. Even I think that’s too early to go home, especially to an empty house.

‘Come on,’ Gloria insists. ‘It’s just opened, and it’s hip and hopping.’

Twenty-five minutes later, she leads me past a burly bouncer, through a narrow door (perhaps to keep out the obese) and up some stairs to a dimly lit room. It’s packed. Thump-thump music is pumping. The crowd is young, groovy and attractive, all throwing back their glorious manes, laughing deep, throaty laughs and drinking attractive citrus cocktails. It’s mere minutes before I see Rock in his designer suit and obvious fake tan. He looks a little like a tandoori chicken. Several groupies cling to him. He buys me a drink and I play hard to get for . . . oh, all of twenty-two seconds.

Gloria dances past me with not one but three handsome men in tow. ‘Take life with a grain of salt, a wedge of lime and a shot of tequila,’ she says, and swigs from a glass.

Why the hell not, I think, as Rock and I boogie on the dance floor to ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ (it’s retro night, apparently). I must say, I’m impressed with his young bod and the way he moves. Rock might even make it onto Celebrity So You Think You Can Dance.

An hour later, a combination of his suggestive dance moves, alcohol and eighties tunes leads me to eagerly agree when Rock suggests we go back to his place.

Going home with a handsome minor celebrity to avenge herself on her cheating husband isn’t the worst thing a woman can do. See, Max, I can get laid as easily as you can. And it’s great for my ego. Rock’s kissing me on his worn-out futon and telling me how much he wants me. He’s a good kisser - maybe not as good as Dom, but good enough. Where did that bloody thought about Dom come from? I’m not thinking about Dom! It’s Rock lying above me, Rock putting his tongue in my ear - oh!

‘Oh baby,’ Rock’s cooing, his mouth now at my naked breasts. I stop thinking altogether and give in to the momentary pleasure.

Day 32

Though last night was fun and did much to restore my sense of being a sexy, desirable woman, I’m thankful to wake in my own bed. I didn’t want to wake up in Rock’s. I haven’t slept in someone else’s bed (except Gloria’s) since Max and I started dating, and staying out all night would have made me feel bad about being a married woman who’d effectively picked up a stray man in a bar. (Hot and young - and the stamina! Oh, baby! Eat your heart out, Max. But a stray, nonetheless.) And that’s not how I live my life. (Yet.)

Of course, Gloria has to call. ‘So, Mrs Robinson,