The game, p.4
The Game, page 4
“Good grief,” spluttered Collie. “Everyone is making too many excuses!” She snatched the notepad up from the table and began tearing pages off before folding them twice and dropping them into the bowl. “There. The blank notes will mix in with the confessions and no one will have a clue which note belongs to the person who went before them.” She held out her hand to Macy. “Give me the pen,” she ordered. “I’ll go first.”
Chapter Seven
Collie had been in the kitchen with the pen and the confession bowl for what felt like an extraordinarily long time. Bree had tried to start a light-hearted conversation with the others but strangely enough, no one seemed to be in the mood for talking. Each woman had sunk into her own introspective funk and in the end, Bree gave up on making conversation and gazed into the fire. She could hear Collie pacing around in the kitchen behind her, perhaps moving her body in an attempt to stir up some inspiration. “Are you ok out there, Collie?” she called. “How many confessions are you trying to choose between? We only need one.”
“You can write down a limit of ten,” Imogen added cheerfully. “Take the rest of your deep, dark secrets up with your therapist.”
“Ha-ha, everyone’s a kidder tonight.” Collie walked back into the room and sat the bowl of folded notes and the pen down beside the cheese platter. “I’m done. I’ve left the notepad in the kitchen. It’s someone else’s turn now.” She picked her soda can up from where she’d left it and took a hearty swig.
No one moved to pick up the pen. “Well,” said Bree brightly, “If nobody else is volunteering to go next, I guess I’ll put my hand up.”
She took the bowl and the pen and went out into the kitchen. She returned almost immediately to fetch her wine glass. Collie was staring pensively into the flames now while Lily and Stella were having a quiet conversation about their respective sons’ Pokemon addictions. Imogen had closed her eyes and she lay with her head back against the sofa headrest. Macy was eating cheese cubes and flicking backward and forward through her crossword puzzle book as if searching for the answers. The atmosphere in the room had changed and the earlier gaiety and companionship had slipped away, leaving a sense of detachment behind.
“I won’t be long,” Bree said, injecting false sunniness into her tone. “Whoever is planning on taking her turn next should be preparing herself.”
Back in the kitchen, she sipped at her wine and tried to decide what she should write down. The problem was that she didn’t know which secret she should confess. When she’d participated in giggly games of Speak Your Truth with her teenaged friends all those eons ago, every secret had felt exciting and enormous. She realized now that most of those truths had been about boys, about first kisses and crushes, about unrequited love and teenage angst, and about the delicious ‘wondering’ before taking the plunge and kissing a new boy. She started to write, although it was harder and more awkward than she thought it would be to use her left hand and write upside down.
Did she really want to share a secret about the men in her life? She took another sip of her wine, understanding now why Collie had taken so long. How much did she want to give away? This was harder than she’d expected. She could write down something about Daniel – most of the women here had never met her first husband and the chance of any of them guessing that she was the author of the note were slim.
Macy laughed suddenly and Bree glanced over toward the cozy light of the family room. She wanted to confess something to make everyone laugh, something that would bring them all back together into a companionable group again but now that she was no longer a teenager, her secrets weren’t quite so amusing. She didn’t want to write down anything about her worries about her mother’s rapid weight loss and failing health, or about her as yet unspoken concerns that her father was showing signs that could mean he was slipping into early dementia. Those were secrets she had only shared with Harry and Collie and she wasn’t ready to make them public yet.
What about the kids? Could she confess a secret about the children? Jackson was young and forthright and he didn’t know how to do anything in secret but Addison… Bree’s stomach clenched as she recalled her visit to the Principal’s office earlier in the week. The call had come during school hours and Mr. Daintier’s voice down the phone line had sounded calm and serious while imparting a sense of urgency. Could she come in for a brief chat as soon as possible? “Yes,” Bree had replied as she stood in the middle on the grocery store aisle with her shopping half-done and a doctor’s appointment for Jackson looming as soon as he finished school today, “I’ll be there in an hour.”
She hadn’t known what to expect from the meeting but she had gone in with the vague idea that Mr. Daintier would look at her over the top of his spectacles and tell her that Addison hadn’t been concentrating in class and that she needed to apply herself more. This would not surprise Bree at all. Since turning fifteen, Addison found it difficult enough to concentrate at home and she must be a nightmare for her poor teachers to manage.
However, that wasn’t the reason why Mr. Daintier had called Bree into his office. Yes, he’d looked at her over the top of his spectacles, instantly regressing her back to her own high school years, but that was where her expectations of the meeting had ended. Instead of talking about failing grades, he’d spoken about Addison’s ‘over familiarity’ with the boys in her class, about damning graffiti in the school bathrooms, and about the way whispers were circulating around the school about Addison’s behavior. Bree had denied it all of course, insisting that he must have the wrong girl, but Mr. Daintier had remained grim and serious in the face of her indignant denials. Bree had left his office with her head reeling and her heart severely wounded.
Addison had also denied everything when Bree confronted her with the allegations after school, shaking her head and shouting that Mr. Daintier had always had it in for her. The girl had glared mutinously at Bree, looking like a stranger rather than her own dear daughter, before running into her bedroom and slamming the door. Bree had followed and they had talked some more, but the conversation remained open-ended with question marks surrounding every single point they had so far discussed. Bree planned to talk to her again once this weekend was over. She hadn’t involved Harry in the issue. Harry was a great step-dad to Addison but Bree had a strong feeling that he wouldn’t approach this delicate matter in a manner beneficial to a peaceful family life. Besides, he was so busy with work.
So now she had reached Harry. Should she reveal to her friends her secret worries about her relationship with Harry? Should she put into writing her concerns about their recent lack of intimacy, about the way he’d withdrawn his affection and often seemed preoccupied and distant? Did she really want to poke a reluctant finger into that particular open wound? She looked down and saw that her restless fingers had folded the edge of the page into a dog’s ear.
She knew what she had to do. Her confession had to be about Daniel. She was not willing to use her current family secrets as topics of entertainment. Awkwardly, using her left hand and printing as best she could upside down, she painstakingly wrote the words – MY HUSBAND LIKES TO DRESS IN WOMEN’S CLOTHES. She dropped the pen and stared at the blunt sentence, happy enough that her writing was unrecognizable as hers but unsure whether she would fold the note and drop her secret into the bowl. No one in the entire world, except for Daniel of course, knew that this was one of the reasons behind the collapse of her marriage. She’d used the present tense, which would throw her friends off the track. The other girls probably wouldn’t guess that she had written the note but the pure ridiculousness of the confession might raise a few smiles.
Before she could change her mind, she hastily folded the note in two and dropped it into the bowl, swishing the other folded papers with her hand to mix them up. She left the bowl and pen on the counter and walked back into the family room. “Who’s next?”
“I need another top up so I’ll go.” Imogen heaved herself out of her chair. “Someone needs to throw another hunk of wood on that fire before it goes out.”
Imogen dealt with her confession surprisingly quickly and then Macy meekly went to take her turn without complaint. She passed the pen to Lily when she came back and Lily stared down at Macy’s hand for a long moment before accepting the pen and walking out to the kitchen.
Lily was gone for some time before she returned to the room. She dropped the pen into Stella’s lap without a word and went to sit close to the fire, huddling down and wrapping her arms around her legs.
“Go on, Stella,” Bree encouraged. “You’re the last one. Go and write down your secret and then we can play the game.”
Stella sighed, clearly not happy. “I still think this is a stupid idea.” She threw her blanket aside, snatched the pen up from where it had fallen to the floor, and stomped out to the kitchen with the pages she’d torn off earlier.
Chapter Eight
A sense of cautious watchfulness now pervaded the family room. The only sound was the noise of the rain against the windows and the snap and crackle of the flames in the fireplace.
“Who will read out the notes?” Collie asked. “I feel as if I’m waiting to hear the results of an exam.”
“A vaginal exam,” Imogen suggested. “Testing for STDs after a particularly dubious one night stand.”
Bree laughed lightly, unsure if she was being serious or not. It was sometimes hard to tell with Imogen. “I’ll be the Mistress of Ceremonies,” she said. She wanted the previous fun mood to return and for everyone to start enjoying themselves again.
Collie got up to turn down the volume on the stereo. “Sorry, Ed. Love your voice but we don’t need any distractions.”
Bree rustled her hand through the bowl of folded notes, hoping to build some sense of anticipation. “There’s just a couple of rules before I start. We can try to guess who the owner of each note is, but no one is under any obligation to reveal themselves,” she said. “And whatever we hear in this room tonight stays in the cabin. These secrets aren’t for sharing with outsiders.”
Collie folded her long, boney limbs back down into her chair. “Bring it on.”
Bree skimmed her eyes over the room. Collie and Macy were waiting expectantly but Stella was looking down at her lap and toying with the pages of the puzzle book. Lily was still sitting in front of the fire, apparently entranced by the flames, and Imogen had her head back and her eyes closed. “Imogen, are you still with us or have you dozed off?”
Imogen’s eyes snapped open. “I’m listening. Get on with it.”
Bree plunged her hand to the bottom of the bowl and her fingers scraped against the glass. She grabbed one of the folded pieces of paper and drew it out. “The first confession is…” She hurriedly unfolded it. “Uh. It’s a blank note.”
Imogen lazily raised her hand. “That one’s mine. It took me a while to come up with it but I managed it in the end.”
“Very funny.” Bree tossed the blank piece of paper to one side and scrabbled her hand through the bowl again. The second note she drew out was also blank but the third one had a message written on it. She squinted at the untidy writing. “It’s hard to read.”
“They were hard to write,” said Lily. She picked up a lump of wood and tossed it onto the flames, sending a torrent of orange and gold stars rushing up the chimney. “I don’t think I’ve ever written anything with my left hand before.”
Bree struggled to suppress a smirk as she made out the words on the page. This was Collie’s confession and she knew that for a fact. Collie was one of her oldest friends and she’d shared plenty of her secrets with Bree. She often called herself a sieve, finding it impossible to prevent her thoughts from continually pouring out of her head. Bree cleared her throat. “I LIED TO MY HUSBAND AND TOLD HIM I WAS A VIRGIN WHEN WE FIRST MET.”
Imogen snorted. “I think you’d be surprised by how many women are keeping that little secret up their sleeve.”
“Not me,” said Macy hastily. “I was very open with Jerry when we met. We both know each other’s history and I prefer it that way.”
“Thank you, Macy,” Imogen said, allowing a note of sarcasm to enter her voice. “We all now know that isn’t your secret, which means that one of the remaining five confessions belongs to you.”
Macy blushed and reached for her wine glass.
“Does the author of this confession want to talk about it now that it’s out in the open?” Bree asked, making sure not to look at Collie.
No one replied.
“Should we try to guess?” she suggested. This game would be over too soon if nobody played along.
“I think it was you,” said Collie. Her brown eyes sparkled with amusement as she met Bree’s gaze. “I think you pulled the wool over Daniel’s eyes and told him a fib.”
“Daniel?” Stella looked at her sharply. “But your husband’s name is Harry.”
“Daniel was Bree’s first husband,” Collie said, before Bree could answer. “She was a teen bride.”
“Oh.” Stella looked at Bree with renewed interest. “Are the children both Harry’s?”
“No. Addison is Daniel’s daughter. And I wasn’t a teen bride, Collie. I was in my early twenties.” She needed to contact Daniel and tell him about what Mr. Daintier had said about Addison. He lived in Australia now and he was on the periphery of Addison’s life rather than playing a major part in it, but he probably should know about this latest problem. He had hinted about paying for Addison’s flights out to see him at some stage in the future, but Daniel had made hints like that in the past and nothing had ever come of it.
“I’ve always wondered where Addison gets her glorious hair from.” Stella lifted her eyes to study Bree’s uninspiring, highlighted blonde hair. “I thought the color might have been a throwback to a previous generation.”
“No. Everyone on my side is boringly mousy and Harry’s family all have hair in varying tones of black. Addison shares Daniel’s hair color.” She was feeling slightly guilty now about revealing his secret. He’d begged her not to tell anyone and she promised she wouldn’t, but what were the chances of anyone guessing that the confession belonged to her? No one but her seemed to know that the first confession belonged to Collie, which was a good sign.
Imogen looked bored. “Don’t most husbands in this day and age expect that their wives-to-be have done a bit of exploring of their own? Expecting your wife to be a virgin feels very 1950-ish and old-fashioned. Everyone has moved forward with their thinking and the world’s a better place for it.”
“Not if the couple met when they were young and didn’t have much time for exploring beforehand.” Macy’s expression had twisted into something mean and spiteful. She didn’t look anything like lovely and unassuming Macy. Bree stared, shocked to see the change in her. How many glasses of wine had she consumed? Macy was not usually a big drinker.
Macy slid her eyes across to Collie. “Weren’t you and Jon high school sweethearts?”
Collie coolly returned her stare. “We were. Are you asking me directly if this is my secret, Macy?”
The mean look evaporated and Macy looked like her sweet self again. She dropped her eyes down to stare at her hands in her lap. “Sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”
Collie shrugged. “I don’t care. It’s not such a big secret anyway.” She turned her head to smile at Bree. “Bree knows and I’ve probably told a few other people over the years. Even Jon knows now.”
Lily sucked in a breath. “What did he say when he found out that you’d lied to him?”
“He wasn’t very happy.”
The room fell into silence for several seconds before Imogen spoke up. “I can’t imagine Jon getting angry about anything. Was he very hurt?”
“He was hurt but we talked it through.” Collie pasted on a smile. “Guys, stop looking at me like that! Jon and I sorted it out and our relationship is back to normal again. It has been for some time. It happened about five years ago now. It’s all in the past.”
“You’re very lucky,” murmured Stella. “You clearly have an amazing relationship with your husband if you can sit down and talk things through like that.”
“We went to a marriage counsellor for a while,” Collie said. She twirled her wine glass around by the stem and gazed into the middle distance. “I’d probably be lying if I said it wasn’t touch and go for a while though. I’ll never lie to him again. I value my marriage too much for that.”
Bree shifted in her chair. She remembered this part, too. She had offered her friend a shoulder to cry on and nodded in complete sympathy when Collie wailed that she probably should have kept her revelation to herself. Jon had gone to stay at his parents’ house but he had only lasted a night before he returned to the family home. It was Jon who suggested the sessions with the marriage counsellor and within weeks, the couple were back to their own loving normality – at least to the eyes of anyone looking in.
“Interesting,” murmured Stella.
“You should open another note,” said Lily. She had stretched her legs out in front of her now and was leaning back on her hands. Her cheeks were pink from the heat of the flames and her eyes glassy. “Well done, Collie. You can relax and enjoy the fun now that your turn is out of the way.”
Chapter Nine
Macy had stopped the game for a few minutes so she could run off and get herself a cup of coffee, which Bree thought was probably a good idea. Macy’s bitchy comment and fleeting sly looks were out of character, and probably brought on by a little too much alcohol.
It was hot in here now, almost too hot, and Bree asked Lily to stop throwing so many cut logs onto the fire. She had pulled off Harry’s sweatshirt and slung it over the back of her chair and she was now wearing just a camisole and her sweatpants. She idly swirled her hand around inside the bowl of confessions where it rested on the arm of her chair. Imogen and Collie were now engaged in a spirited debate about whether morals were declining or whether they had merely found a new level of acceptance within society in general.
