She stared until she thought she would go cross-eyed and then she straightened, pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin.
It was a familiar routine. One she’d learned at school when she needed to present a brave face to the world. She hadn’t had the charm and easy wit of some of her classmates, but what she’d lacked in confidence she’d made up for with observation and hard work.
She’d spent hours studying the popular girls, the way they stood and talked. Even their laughs and hand gestures. Then she’d got up early and practised in the bathroom mirror while everyone else was snoring. Pretty soon she’d had friends and the teachers seemed to notice her more and, by the end of her days at Lumley College, she’d been head girl.
No one need know the geeky girl still lurked under the surface. She was hidden by the right body language, a certain glint in the eyes. It was like slipping on a cloak, an outer skin that nobody bothered to look beneath.
She could normally make the transformation with a single bat of her eyelashes, but today had been especially trying and she needed the reassurance the mirror could give her.
Over the years her alter ego had spent more and more time in the limelight. Nowadays the real Adele only peeked out when safely within the sanctuary of her own home. Maybe one day the shy little girl would get drowned out by this alternate persona altogether and the brisk efficiency, the confidence, would be real.
She smiled. Eventually she’d named the other side of her personality. Super Adele she’d called her. Only instead of a cape and unforgiving Lycra, her costume had more to do with the way she held herself, the smile gauged to be just bright enough without being obviously fake. The precise dimensions had taken years to perfect.
Carefully, she added another layer of mascara and brushed the lipstick across her lips. There. Ready to face the world—on the outside, anyway.
She hoisted her handbag squarely back onto her shoulder and walked over to the door.
Super Adele had seemed such a good idea in the beginning. Everybody loved her. And, for a while, she’d revelled in the attention. Nowadays, the adoration had lost its warm glow.
It’s her they love, not me.
Even Nick. He’d fallen in love with Super Adele.
When they’d first been married, she’d gloried in the way he’d thought she could do anything, be anything, but after a couple of years it had just got tiring. She’d tried to climb down off the pedestal, but Nick wouldn’t let her. He was holding fast to Super Adele and wasn’t going to let her go.
The impulse to sag and let her shoulders droop was almost overwhelming, but she straightened her spine further. The restaurant was just in front of her and she could see Nick sitting at a table waiting for her.
Oh, how she longed to just slump into the moulded plastic seat, lay her head on the table and sob.
Sometimes she hated her alter ego.
Nick let Adele sweep off and made his way to the café. An abundance of bright plastic and the smell of greasy food greeted him. He avoided the ageing sausages and other offerings—they looked as if they had been sitting under the heat lamps for at least a week—and bought two cups of grim-looking coffee instead.
He settled into an off-white seat near the streaky windows that filled one side of the room and waited for Adele to appear.
The restaurant was practically deserted. An elderly couple were working their way through a rubbery-looking fried breakfast with excruciating slowness, a businessman took refuge behind a crisp newspaper and a teenager in a dirty apron was only just pretending to clean the tables.
She soon appeared and sat down, all stiff and starchy, in the seat opposite him. He hated it when she did that. She didn’t need to put on a front with him.
‘Come on, Adele. It’s not the end of the world. It didn’t take us long to find the next exit and work our way back to the right motorway.’
Adele nodded and sipped her coffee. As always, her anger had run out of fuel and she was left feeling drained.
He caught her eye. ‘Have you ever maybe thought that your standards are a little too high? You set yourself punishing goals and are tough on yourself if you don’t achieve them. You don’t have to prove yourself over and over, you know. It was just a wrong turning. Everybody goes the wrong way at one time or another.’
‘I’m not trying to prove anything or impress anyone. I just like things to be done right. I only ask of myself what I expect in others. It would be hypocritical if I didn’t.’
He nodded slightly to himself. Talk about hitting the nail on the head. To live up to Adele’s standards you needed to be able to pole-vault.
‘I think the closer people get to you, the higher the pass mark is.’
‘Don’t be silly. People don’t need to sit an exam to be my friends.’
Oh, no? Then why did he feel as if every word, every movement he made was being weighed and judged?
‘I think you want everyone to do things the way you do.’
She shook her head while she swallowed a sip of coffee.
‘Just because I don’t plan everything a year in advance, it doesn’t mean I’m hopeless,’ he continued. ‘I’m different from you, Adele, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get things done or I don’t care. I do. I’ve never missed a deadline or broken a contract. It might look like I’m winging it to you, but I’m not. We just have different methods for achieving our goals.’
‘I know that.’
He wanted to hold his stomach and laugh out loud until the retired couple gave him dirty looks.
This was pointless. If he couldn’t make her see sense, he might as well settle for improving her mood. He should have got a little gold star for resisting the urge to crack a joke and try and force a smile out of her.
‘Do you want a pain au chocolat? I saw some on the counter.’
She nodded again, a hint of a smile on her face. He jumped up and paid for it quickly. If Adele didn’t get a blood-sugar boost soon, she’d never cheer up.
He tipped his head to one side and took a good look at her. ‘You look wiped out.’
‘Thanks a lot.’
He reached forward and took her hand. She looked tired, all the fight sucked out of her, but she was still incredibly beautiful. Not in a showy way, but there was a strength in her delicate features that gave an indication of her drive and tenacity, an intelligent light behind her eyes that warned him to keep on his toes.
‘I’ll drive the next leg. Are you insured for that?’
Just for a nanosecond, she visibly sagged. ‘It’s me, Nick. Of course I’m insured. For everything—flood, fire, acts of God, spontaneous combustion…Go on, make a joke about that.’
He squeezed her hand. He’d always loved her fingers—long and fine. He’d missed them.
‘You go back to the car and sink into the passenger seat. I’ve got a couple of things to get from the shop.’
He watched her as she walked away. She always stood so straight, so proud.
How he was going to demolish those proud barriers, he didn’t know. But one thing was certain: he wanted his wife back, and he was going to do everything in his power this weekend to remind her how much she wanted him too.
Just as well he had a few tricks up his sleeve to help nudge her in the right direction.
Pretending to be asleep could in fact be very tiring, Adele decided. She