You Can’t Fall in Love With Your Ex (Can You?) Read Free Page B

higher year group for maths for a few months
now, and although she’s thriving academically I worry that the other children
might resent the fact that she’s so bright. When you have a child who’s truly
exceptional, it’s so hard to know where to strike the balance between their
relationship with their peer group and one’s duty to make sure they fulfil
their potential. But then I look at Warren, who went up to Cambridge when he
was sixteen, and I think, being that little bit stretched doesn’t seem to have
done her daddy any harm, so perhaps it’s the right thing for her, too.”
    Great
– I’d inadvertently signed up for my début Competitive Parenting tournament and
crashed out in the first round. I felt a surge of nostalgia for those rare
nights out at the pub with my old colleagues, when we were all too busy
bitching about our clients and whoever in the team wasn’t there at the time to
even touch on our lives outside the Soho office.
    “Nibbles,
anyone?” Amanda said, sliding a baking sheet out of her oven. It was the very
same model I’d seen in the kitchen showroom a few weeks ago and coveted, until
I showed it to Jonathan and he said, “How much? You’re joking, right? It’s not
like we ever cook anything more challenging than oven chips and chicken
nuggets.” Which I’d had to concede was a fair point.
    “Now,
these are gluten-free, made with chickpea flour, so they’ll be fine for you,
Monica. And I know you’re low-carbing, Sigourney, so I did some tuna sashimi
and crab and cucumber rolls. Top-up, anyone?” She passed round the bottle and I
held my glass out gratefully.
    “So,”
Amanda said, sitting down and crossing her legs, “I popped into Liberty the
other day to buy some fabric – the lady you recommended, Helen, is making up a
party dress for Delphine to wear this summer – and I almost literally bumped
into Zélide Campbell at the Aesop counter.”
    There
was an intake of breath around the table and Faith and Helen stopped talking
about tutoring for the Eleven Plus.
    “Zélide
Campbell!” Sigourney speared a piece of tuna and ate it. Her low-carb regimen
was clearly working – she was model-slender in her black leather jeans. I felt
a pang of envy and guilt as I remembered the slices of microwave pizza I’d
eaten for supper with the children, and resolved to start drinking bullet-proof
coffee the next day.
    “She
seriously needed her roots doing,” Amanda said. “I always thought her colour
wasn’t natural, and that harsh black is so ageing. But of course she’s botoxed
to the max.”
    “It’s
the shiny forehead that gives it away,” Monica said.
    “Iranian,
my arse,” Amanda said, and everyone except me giggled.
    “Who’s
Zélide Campbell?” asked one of the Helens, to my relief – I wasn’t the only one
without a clue, and I hadn’t had to reveal my ignorance.
    “She
lives just a couple of doors down from you, Laura,” Amanda said. “So I expect
you’ll encounter her soon enough. Her and her precocious daughter – what’s she
called again? Jennifer?”
    “Juniper,”
Sigourney said, making a face like she’d bitten into an off piece of sashimi.
    “Yes,
of course, that’s right,” Monica said. “So pretentious.”
    Which
was a bit much, I thought, coming from someone who’d called their child
Taleisin. I found myself feeling a bit sorry for Zélide, whoever she was.
    “What
did she do?” I asked.
    “Constantly
disruptive in class, acting out, major meltdowns like you’d expect from a
two-year-old, not a girl of eight,” said Monica.
    “I
meant her mother, actually,” I said.
    “We
don’t really talk about it,” Amanda said.
    I
was intrigued. Was this woman some sort of suburban witch who’d initiate me
into a cult? Or a cougar who’d try and seduce my husband?
    “Why?”
I said. “Is she going to try and rope me into selling Younique or something?”
    “Frankly,
I wouldn’t put it past her,” Amanda said.
    There
was a ripple of