Rachel, who was Isabel’s only real female friend and now the owner of an unused wine-red bridesmaid dress, answered on the first ring.
‘Can you talk?’ was Isabel’s first question. ‘Have I rung at a bad time?’
Rachel’s life was devoted to minding her foster-mother who had Alzheimer’s. She’d been doing it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for over four years now. Despite being a labour of love, it was a grinding existence with little pleasure or leisure. Rachel’s decision to take on this onerous task after her foster-mum’s husband had deserted her, had cost her her job as a top secretary at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and her own partner at the time. Sacrifice, it seemed, was not a virtue men aspired to.
Nowadays, Rachel made ends meet by doing clothes alterations at home. Her only entertainment was reading and watching television, plus one night out a month which Isabel paid for and organised. Last night had actually been one of those times, Isabel taking her friend to Star City Casino for dinner then a show afterwards. It was a pleasing thought that she’d have the time and the money to take Rachel out more often now.
‘It’s okay,’ Rachel said. ‘Lettie’s asleep. Thank goodness. It’s been a really bad day. She didn’t even know me. Or she pretended not to. She’s always difficult the day after I’ve been out with you. I don’t think she likes anyone else but me minding her.’
‘Poor Rachel. I’m sorry to ring you with more bad news.’
‘Oh, no, what’s happened?’
‘The wedding’s off.’
‘The miserable bastard,’ was Rachel’s immediate response, which rather startled Isabel.
‘What makes you think it was Luke’s doing?’
‘I know you, Isabel. No way would you opt out of marrying Luke. So what was it? Another woman?’
‘How did you guess?’ Isabel said ruefully.
‘It wasn’t hard. Men are so typical.’
‘Mum blames me. She says Luke looked elsewhere because I didn’t love him.’
‘You confessed it wasn’t a romantic match?’
‘No, she guessed.’
‘Oh, well, you have to agree she had a few clues to go on. Luke wasn’t your usual type. Too traditionally good-looking and far too straight-down-the-line.’
‘Mmm. It turned out he wasn’t quite the Mr Goody-Two-Shoes I thought he was. Not once he met the sexy Celia.’
‘So who is sexy Celia? Where and when did he meet her?’
‘He only met her yesterday, and she’s his father’s mistress’s daughter.’
‘What?’ Rachel choked out. ‘Would you like to repeat that?’
She did, along with the rest of Luke’s story. Isabel had to admit it made fascinating listening. It wasn’t every day that a son found out his high-profile hero-status father had been cheating on his mother for twenty years. Or that the same engaged and rather strait-laced son would jump into bed with the mistress’s daughter within an hour or two of meeting her.
Isabel still did not believe that Luke was in love with this Celia, but he obviously thought he was after spending all night with her doing who knew what. Even now he was speeding back up to his dad’s secret love-nest on Lake Macquarie for more of the same!
It sounded like an episode from a soap opera.
No, a week of episodes!
Rachel’s ear was glued to the phone for a good fifteen minutes.
‘You didn’t tell your mother all that, did you?’ she asked at the end of it.
‘No. I just said he’d met someone else, fallen in love with her and decided he couldn’t go through with the wedding.’
‘At least he was decent enough to do that. A lot of guys these days would have tried to have their cake and eat it too, a bit like Luke’s father did with this Celia’s poor mother for twenty years.’
‘Yes. I thought of that. But I also wondered if Luke might eventually realise it wasn’t love he felt for Celia, but just good old lust.’
‘Could be. So you’d take him back if he changed his mind?’
‘In a shot.’
‘Maybe I shouldn’t alter my bridesmaid dress just yet, then.’
‘Maybe not.’
‘And maybe you shouldn’t cancel the reception place, or the cake, or the photographer. Not for a couple of days, anyway.’
Isabel wished Rachel hadn’t mentioned the photographer. She didn’t want to think about Rafe.
‘Oh, dear, I think Lettie’s just called out for me,’ Rachel said. ‘Amazing how she’s remembered my name now that I’m on the phone. I must go, Isabel. And I am sorry. But…’
‘Don’t you dare tell me it’s all for the best,’ Isabel warned.
Rachel laughed. ‘All right, I won’t. Keep in touch.’
‘I will.’ When Isabel got off the phone, she realised she hadn’t told Rachel about her financial windfall. But she would, the next time she rang her.
Meanwhile, she set about packing her clothes. She was emptying the drawers in her old dressing table when her mother came into the bedroom, looking miserable and chastened.
‘I feel terrible about what I said to you earlier, Isabel. Your father said I should have my tongue cut out.’
‘It’s all right, Mum. You were upset.’
‘What I said. I…I don’t think you were marrying Luke just for his money. I know you liked him a lot, too.’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Do…do you think he might not have fallen for this other girl if you’d slept with him before the wedding?’
Isabel turned to stare at her mother. Truly, what world did she live in? ‘Mum,’ she said with a degree of exasperation, ‘I did sleep with him. Quite often.’
‘Oh…’
‘And he liked it. A lot.’
‘Oh!’
‘Sex wasn’t the problem. It was passion.’
‘Passion?’
‘Yes, that overwhelming feeling you get when you look at a person and you just have to be with them.’
‘Jump into bed, you mean?’
‘Yes. Luke and I never really felt like that about each other.’
‘I used to feel that way about your dad,’ her mother whispered, ‘when we were first married. And he felt that way about me, too.’
Isabel smiled at her. ‘That’s good, Mum. That’s how it should be.’
‘Maybe your dad’s right. Maybe you’ll find someone nicer than Luke, someone you’ll fall deeply in love with and who’ll feel the same way about you.’
‘I hope so, Mum. I really do.’ It would be cruel to take away her mother’s hope. She’d always had this dream of seeing her daughter as a bride. Isabel had had the same dream.
But not any more.
‘You’re still going to move out?’ her mother asked a bit tearily.
Isabel stopped what she was doing to face her mother. ‘Mum, I’m thirty years old. I’m a grown woman. I have to make my own life away from home, regardless. I only moved back in for a while because it was sensible and convenient,