CHAPTER 2
“Die, you little motherf*cker.” Lyn squatted down on the kitchen floor and aimed the cockroach spray like a machine gun.
“Language, young lady!” Lyn looked up to see her stepdaughter, Kara, sucking in her cheeks in a parody of a horrified parent.
“I thought you were gone,” said Lyn, feeling a bit silly to be caught doing her private Hollywood gangster act. She didn’t normally say things like “motherf*cker.” In fact, she generally swore only in situations involving cockroaches or her sisters.
“It’s escaping!” said Kara helpfully.
Lyn looked back down to see the cockroach scuttling across the tiles to a microscopic tunnel under the sink. No doubt it would now live a long, happy life and give birth to many thousands of sweet little cockroach babies.
Lyn stood up and looked at her watch. It was just on nine o’clock. “Aren’t you very late?”
Kara heaved an exhausted sigh to indicate she could not be expected to cope with yet another imbecilic question.
“Well, aren’t you?” asked Lyn, because she couldn’t help herself.
“Lyn, Lyn, Lyn.” Kara shook her head sadly. “What am I going to do with you?”
Kara was six when Lyn first met her, a girly little girl, with butterfly clips in her curly black hair and skinny arms that jangled with sparkly pink bangles. Her most treasured possession was an extra-large pencil case that she called her “Crafty Case”; it had special things in it like glitter, glue, and chunky plastic scissors. Lyn was allowed Crafty Case privileges, and they spent whole Sunday afternoons together, making cardboard and Paddle Pop–stick creations. When Kara eventually began to find other interests, Lyn kept clinging on, making hopeful suggestions for new projects. She gave up only after that fateful, embarrassing day when Kara ceremonially presented her with the Crafty Case, saying, “Here, now you can play with it on your own, whenever you want.”
At fifteen, Kara kept her hair dead straight and rimmed her eyes in thick black eyeliner. Some days she slouched for endless hours on the sofa, yawning hugely, like someone suffering from terrible jet lag. Other days she was flushed and glittery-eyed, almost maniacally happy. Her most treasured possession was her mobile phone, which beeped night and day with text messages from her friends.
Lyn watched as Kara opened the fridge door and stood with one hip at an angle. She stared vaguely into the fridge, swinging the door, and suddenly said, “When did you lose your virginity?”
“None of your business,” answered Lyn. “Do you want something to eat? Have you had breakfast?”
Kara turned around with enthusiasm. “Was it really late? Like, embarrassing late? Why? Did no one want to sleep with you? Don’t feel bad. You can tell me!”
“The apples are good. Have an apple.”
Kara took an apple. She slammed the fridge door and swung herself up on to the kitchen bench, swinging her legs.
“Who did Dad lose his virginity to? Was it Mum, do you reckon?”
“I don’t know.”
Kara gave Lyn a sly, slanting look over her apple. “I’m going to lose my virginity by the end of next year.”
“Are you? Good for you.”
Lyn wasn’t especially worried about Kara and sex. She was fastidious and easily revolted. Just last night Michael had said at the dinner table, “Lyn, I want to pick your brains about something,” and Kara had exploded, covering her face, making him vow to never say anything so disgusting as “pick your brains” ever again.
Surely she wouldn’t be interested in anything as messy as a penis.
Lyn opened the dishwasher and began rinsing that morning’s breakfast dishes. Due to the distressing and frankly shocking news about Dan, last night’s drink with Cat and Gemma had gone three hours longer than scheduled. That meant today’s “to do” list was longer than usual. She’d been up since 5:30 A.M.
Dan was a truly horrible cheating sleaze…She must remind Michael to call his mother for her birthday…Why did Dan even tell Cat? What did it achieve?…If Maddie slept for another hour or so, she could prepare for tomorrow’s meeting at the bakery…Cat could get so irrational. Would their marriage survive this?…Ten Christmas cards a night, starting from tonight…
And beneath all those thoughts was a flicker of concern, a long-buried, knotty little worry that she was refusing to bring out and dust off, just in case it looked really bad.
“It’s going to be my New Year’s resolution,” Kara was saying, her mouth full of apple. “To lose my virginity next year. Are you going to tell Dad?”
“Do you want me to tell him?”
“I don’t care.”
“Fine. Shouldn’t you be going?”
“So, but what do you think about me losing my virginity this year?”
“I think it’s a very personal decision.”
“So you think I should. Wait till I tell Dad you said I should lose my virginity next year. He’ll go ballistic.”
“I never said that.”
“Out of all the men you’ve slept with, where would you rate Dad? Is he like—any good?” Kara’s face contorted with delighted disgust. “Is he in your top ten? Have you got a top ten? Have you slept with more than ten men even?”
“Kara.”
“Oh my God, don’t answer. I just thought of you and Dad having sex. I’m going to throw up. Oh my God! I can’t get it out of my mind! It’s revolting!”
A miniature figure in pink pajamas toddled into the kitchen, sucking on an empty bottle like a cherubic wino. “Hi!”
Lyn nearly dropped the plate she was holding. “Maddie!”
“Hi!” Maddie politely acknowledged her mother and then immediately turned to Kara with worshipful eyes, offering her bottle like a gift to a goddess.
Kara graciously accepted the bottle. “Can she get out of her cot herself now?”
“So it seems,” said Lyn, trying to readjust to a new world where Maddie could no longer be safely incarcerated in her cot.
The doorbell and the office phone began to ring simultaneously.
“Could you watch her for a minute?” asked Lyn.
“Sorry.” Kara swung herself off the bench and handed the bottle back to Maddie. “I’m really late for school.”
Carelessly, she ruffled Maddie’s dark curly head. “Seeya, sweetie!”
Maddie’s bottom lip quivered. She slammed the bottle down on the floor.
Lyn picked up Kara’s half-eaten apple from the kitchen bench and threw it in the rubbish bin. She scooped up Maddie and walked toward the front door.
“Kara, Kara,” Maddie sobbed pitifully.
“I know just what you mean, darling,” said Lyn, holding tight to her squirming little body. “Kara, Kara.”
To: Michael
From: Lyn
Subject: Please hurry home
Shocking day. Both your daughters driving me insane.
P.S. Who did you lose your virginity to?
P.P.S. Please pick up milk and cockroach baits on your way home.
To: Lyn
From: Michael
Subject: O.K.
Home at 6:30 at the latest.
Fish and chips on beach to make up for my daughters?
Lost my virginity to Jane Brewer on the way home from watching Star Wars at the movies. The force was with me! HA!
P.S. Why?
It was past midnight that same day. Michael kissed her tenderly and said, “You did come, didn’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” said Lyn. “Ages ago.”
She moved her hips. “Heavy.”
“Sorry.” He rolled onto his back with a sigh and reached across to the bedside table for a glass of water. “No need for me to pick up stray women in bars.”
“Michael!”
“Just letting you know you’re safe with me, sweetheart.”
“Well, thanks, you big chauvinist pig.”
He put down his glass of water and settled back down into bed, making contented purring sounds as he pulled up the quilt and curled his body around Lyn’s back.
He was always so chipper after sex.
“Cat is devastated,” said Lyn.
“Hmmm.”
“You’re not very sympathetic.”
“Your sweet sister can be a real bitch.”
“So can I.”
“No you can’t.
“We’re identical. Remember?”
“No. You’re my lovely little Lynnie.”
Efficiently, he bundled her hair to the side so it wouldn’t tickle his face, kissed her shoulder blade, and within seconds began to snore into the back of her neck.
Sex with husband. Check.
I absolutely did not think that, she thought.
She shouldn’t have let Michael call Cat a bitch. She wasn’t, for one thing, but more important, Cat never let anyone say a bad word about her sisters. Oh, she could say plenty of bad words about them but nobody else—not even Dan, Lyn would bet, in the privacy of their own bedroom. Cat’s loyalty was fierce and staunch.
In their school days, Cat was their own personal hit man, their hired thug. When they were seven, for example, Josh Desouza spread a vicious rumor about Gemma. The rumor was that she’d shown him her underpants. (The rumor was true. He tricked her by accusing her of not wearing any. “But I am!” cried Gemma, devastated. “Prove it,” he said.) When Cat heard about it, her face went bright red. She walked straight up to Josh in the middle of the playground and head-butted him. Head-butting hurt a lot, she confided to them afterward, but she didn’t cry, well, only a little bit, when she got home and saw the red mark on her forehead.
Now they were in their thirties, Cat was still ready to spring to their defense, often unnecessarily. Just the other day she and Lyn went out to lunch. “Didn’t you ask for a salad?” Cat said to Lyn. “Excuse me! My sister hasn’t got her salad!”
“I am actually capable of asking myself,” said Lyn.
“My sister.” Cat said it with such unconscious pride. Even after she’d just been telling you what a complete loser you were for ordering a bocconcini salad, when everyone knew bocconcini was a conspiracy to make you eat rubber.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” she said to them in the pub, as if they didn’t already know that the moment they saw her face from the other side of the room.
Lyn fell suddenly, very deeply asleep.
The voice was teeth-jarringly sweet. “Lyn! Georgina! How are you?” Lyn’s stomach muscles tightened in anticipation. She tucked the portable phone under her ear. “Hello, Georgina. How are you?”
She was in the middle of trying to undress Maddie for an unscheduled bath. Maddie had just spent five pleasurable minutes smearing herself with sticky black Vegemite and didn’t want her handiwork removed.
There was only one person capable of leaving an open Vegemite jar sitting in the middle of the living room floor: Georgina’s daughter Kara.
“To be honest, Lyn, I’m rather annoyed.”
Maddie sensed her mother’s attention slip and squirmed free. She escaped from the bathroom, chortling with wicked glee.
“What’s wrong?”
Lyn turned off the bath taps and followed Maddie out into the hallway. Her sisters told her that she had well and truly paid her penance for breaking up Georgina’s marriage by practically bringing up her daughter, leaving her free to lead a life of leisure. They also reminded her that not only had Georgina blissfully remarried some guy who looked like Brad Pitt and seemed bizarrely quite nice, but that she was a vindictive bitch from hell who deserved to have her husband stolen from under her nose.
But still, Lyn was always conscious of Georgina being the wronged party. And so she played her part in these terribly civilized, grown-up-about-it conversations and didn’t even attempt to apply one of the four key techniques for dealing effectively with passive-aggressive behavior.
“Kara is very upset,” said Georgina. “I’m surprised Michael allowed it, I really am. With respect, Lyn, I’m rather surprised at you!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Lyn watched Maddie pick up Kara’s favorite T-shirt from the floor and hug it adoringly to her Vegemited body. There was really nothing she could do to stop her.
“I’m talking about the article in She,” said Georgina. “Kara says you didn’t even ask her permission to use her name! She’s a sensitive child, Lyn. We all need to be a little careful with her feelings.”
“I haven’t seen the article.” Lyn took a deep stress-management breath through her nostrils. She tried not to think of Kara’s ten-year-old face crumpling each time Georgina called to cancel a day out. A little careful of her feelings, indeed.
“I understand of course. Your public profile is important to you,” said Georgina. “Just be careful in future, won’t you? How’s that little ruffian of yours by the way? Kara seems to spend a lot of time looking after her for you. That must be a real help! Wish I had some help when Kara was little. Well, must fly!”
Lyn momentarily considered throwing the portable phone against the wall.
“Bitch,” she said.
“Bitch,” repeated Maddie, who had an unerring ear for inappropriate new words to add her to vocabulary. She applauded with chubby joyful hands. “Bitch, bitch, bitch!”
LOVE. KIDS. CAREER. WOMEN WHO STRIKE THE “TRIPLE” JACKPOT!!!
While most of us find it incredibly difficult to juggle career and family, some women seem to have hit up upon that elusive magical formula.
At just thirty-three years of age, Lyn Kettle is the founder and managing director of the hugely successful business Gourmet Brekkie Bus.
Brekkie Bus specializes in mouthwatering Sunday morning breakfasts delivered straight to your door. As every Gourmet Brekkie Bus fan knows (this reporter is one of them!), these breakfasts are to die for. Flaky croissants, eggs Benedict, freshly squeezed juice—and of course, those incredible pastries!
Lyn, a pencil-thin blonde (obviously she doesn’t indulge too often in her own Brekkie Bus breakfasts!) first conceived the idea just three years ago, when she was managing a successful café. Since then, the business has gone from strength to strength with franchises across the country and interest from overseas buyers. Last August Lyn scooped the prestigious Businesswoman of the Year Award.
But running Gourmet Brekkie Bus doesn’t stop Lyn from spending quality time with her husband, computer whiz Michael Dimitropolous, her eighteen-month-old daughter, Maddie, and her fifteen-year-old stepdaughter, Kara. Lyn works from home and her mother takes care of Maddie two to three days each week.
“My family is incredibly important to me,” said Lyn from her exquisite harbor-side home. For the interview, she wore a beautifully cut suit, her blond hair elegantly styled, her makeup flawless.
A huge vase of roses adorned the dining room table. I asked if it was her birthday.
“No,” said Lyn, blushing a little. “I’m very lucky. Michael often buys flowers for no particular reason.”
But that’s not all! She also finds time to teach aerobics two nights a week. “I love it,” said Lyn, crossing her shapely legs. “It’s my time-out. I couldn’t live without it.”
Lyn also loves skiing (Aspen this year!), reading (personal development books are always a fave!), and mountain biking (yes, really!)
And here’s an interesting tidbit! Lyn is a triplet! Her sister Catriona, a marketing executive at Hollingdale Chocolates, is identical to Lyn. Gemma, who isn’t identical (although she does bear a striking resemblance to her sisters!) is a primary-school teacher. The triplets are all very close.
“My sisters are my best friends,” confided Lyn.
Their mother, Maxine Kettle, is president of the Australian Mothers of Multiples Association, a regular speaker at events for mothers of twins and triplets, and author of the book Mothering Multiples: The Heaven, the Hell, which has sold in countries around the world. Their father, Frank Kettle, is a well-known Sydney property developer. Their parents divorced when the girls were six.
“We had great childhoods,” said Lyn. “We split our time between Mum and Dad and we were perfectly happy.”
What next for Lyn?
Another baby might be in the cards, and she is considering expanding the Brekkie business to include Gourmet dinners and lunches.
Whatever she does next, you can be sure it will be a success for this remarkable young woman! What an inspiration!
To order your Gourmet Brekkie delivered straight to your door, call Gourmet Brekkie Bus now at 1-300-BREKKIE.
Lyn shuddered as she handed back the magazine to her mother. “Thank God she included the plug for the business. I don’t know what Kara’s problem is, I’m the one who looks like an idiot.”
“I do,” said Maxine. “It’s the photo. Kara looks quite dreadful.”
Lyn took back the magazine and looked more closely at the photo. The photographer had caught Kara mid-grimace, her mouth pulled down sourly, one eyelid drooping unattractively. It wasn’t the photographer’s fault; Kara had scowled and sulked and sighed throughout the entire session. She was only there at her father’s insistence.
“You’re right,” said Lyn.
“I know I am.” Maxine looked at Maddie, who was chattering with animated delight to her own reflection in the china cabinet. “Lyn, what is on that child’s face? She’s filthy!”
“Vegemite. When Gemma and Cat read this, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Well, I don’t see why.” Maxine got down on her knees and held Maddie’s chin firmly while she rubbed at the Vegemite with a handkerchief. Maddie kept her eyes fixed on the little girl in the china cabinet and smiled secretively. “You said they were your best friends.”
“Exactly! And I never said any such thing.”
She picked up her keys from the coffee table and looked at Maddie, who was now busily shredding pages from She magazine.
“Kiss for Mummy?” she asked, with little hope.
“No!” Maddie looked up, affronted. Lyn leaned down toward her and Maddie shook an admonishing finger. “No!”
“Oh well.”
Lyn picked up her briefcase. “I’ll be back around six. I’ve got to pick Kara up from her friend’s place after the meeting at the bakery.”
“You look absolutely dreadful, Lyn,” announced Maxine.
“Thank you, Mum.”
“You do. You’re a skeleton, all pale and drab and miserable-looking. That color doesn’t do you any favors of course. I’ve told you girls not to wear black, you refuse to listen. The point is, you do far too much. Why isn’t Kara’s mother picking her up? I mean really, why won’t Michael put his foot down?”
“Mum, please.”
Lyn could feel a scratchy tickle at the back of her throat. She put down her briefcase and sneezed three times.
“Hay fever,” said Maxine with satisfaction. “It’s that time of year for you three. I’ll get you an antihistamine.”
“I don’t have time.”
“It will only take a minute. Sit.”
She disappeared down the hallway, heels tapping a brisk rhythm across the tiles, Maddie running along behind her. Suddenly exhausted, Lyn sat back down on her mother’s puffy cream sofa.
She looked at the familiar photos that lined the walls. The traditional Kettle Triplet pose: Gemma in the middle, Lyn and Cat on either side. It pleased their mother’s sense of balance to have the redhead separating the blondes. Identical dresses, identical hair ribbons, identical poses. Three little girls with crinkled eyes, laughing at the camera. They were laughing at their father of course. When they were children they thought he was the funniest man to walk the Earth.
She could hear her mother talking to Maddie in the kitchen. “No, you may not have one. These are not lollies. There is no point in looking at me like that, young lady. No point at all.”
Some of Lyn’s friends complained about their children being spoiled by doting grandparents. She didn’t need to worry about Maddie missing out on her discipline quota with Maxine. It was like sending her to boot camp.
On the coffee table was a typed document Maxine was obviously in the middle of proofreading. Lyn picked it up. It was a speech for a parenting workshop her mother was running called “Triple the Heartache, Triple the Fun!”
“She’s made a career out of being our mother,” Cat always complained.
“So what?” Lyn would say.
“It’s exploitation.”
“Oh, please.”
Lyn flicked idly through the speech. Most of it she recognized from previous speeches, articles, and her mother’s book:
Sometimes you may feel like a traveling freak show. Eventually, you’ll get used to the stares and the approaches by strangers. I remember once I counted the number of times I was stopped by well-meaning people wanting to look at my daughters as I walked through Chatswood Shopping Center. It was—
Fifteen, thought Lyn. Yes, we know, fifteen times!
It has been calculated that it takes twenty-eight hours a day to look after triplets. That’s tricky, considering we only have twenty-four at our disposal! (Wait for laugh)
I’m not so sure you’ll get one, Mum. That’s not actually very funny.
Monozygotic twins—meaning one egg—share 100 percent of their genes. Dizygotic twins—meaning two eggs—share only 25 percent of their genes, like any normal sibling.
Gemma would be offended to hear herself described as a “normal” sibling. When they were in second class, Sister Joyce Mary chalked a picture of the three-leafed shamrock on the blackboard to illustrate how “the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were three persons but one God.” Gemma’s hand shot into the air. “Like triplets! Like us!” The nun winced. “I’m afraid the Kettle girls are not like the Holy Trinity!” “Yes, but I think we are, Sister,” said Gemma kindly.
When Gemma told the story to their mother, Maxine explained that her analogy might have been reasonable if they’d all come from the one egg. However, as only Cat and Lyn were identical and Gemma was a “single egg” they probably couldn’t be compared to the Holy Trinity, which was a lot of nonsense anyway. “I don’t want to be a single egg!” wailed Gemma. “What if we were Siamese triplets?” asked Cat. “With our heads all glued together?” But their mother had turned up the car radio to drown out Gemma.
Sibling rivalry is obviously a complex issue, which I will be discussing at length. On other hand, you may feel envious of mothers of “singletons” and worry that your babies are actually closer to each other than to you. This is perfectly normal.
That was a new one. Surely their profoundly practical mother had never worried about anything like that?
“Why did you tell that journalist Gemma was a teacher?” Maxine came back into the room and handed over a glass of water and a tablet.
“I think she might still do some casual teaching every now and then,” said Lyn, putting the speech aside. “How was I meant to describe her?”
“Yes, well, that’s certainly a point,” said Maxine. “Odds-body! Jack of all trades! I called her the other day and she casually mentioned she was off to do stilt walking for some promotion at Fox Studios. Gemma, I said, are you actually capable of walking on stilts?”
“She wasn’t,” said Lyn. “She told me she kept toppling over. But apparently the kids in the audience all thought it was hilarious.”
“Hilarious indeed. Gemma is a drifter. I read in the paper today about that murderer in Melbourne. They called him a drifter. I thought to myself, that’s how people would describe Gemma! My own daughter! A drifter!”
“She doesn’t drift far. At least she only drifts around Sydney.”
“I’ll grant you that.” Maxine, who was sitting on the sofa in front of Lyn, suddenly took a deep breath and pressed her hands to her knees in a strangely awkward gesture. “Yes, well, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something. A little issue.”
“Have you really?” Her mother wasn’t in the habit of meaning to say things; she generally just said them. “What is it?”
At that moment, Lyn’s mobile began to ring and vibrate on the coffee table. She glanced at the name on the screen. “Speak of the drifter. I’ll let her go to voicemail.”
“No, answer it. I’ll talk to you about it another time. You’re in a rush anyway.” Maxine stood up briskly and removed the glass of water from Lyn’s hand.
“Tell Gemma to water that poor man’s flowers,” she ordered cryptically, and went tapping off again down the hallway, calling out, “Just what are you up to now, Maddie?”
“Cat Crisis!” announced Gemma happily. “Guess where she is!”
“I give up, where?”
“Well, all right then, I’ll tell you. She’s sitting in her car outside the woman’s place!”
“What woman?”
“What woman, she says. The woman! The woman dastardly Dan had sex with! Cat is stalking her. I think Cat is perfectly capable of boiling a rabbit, don’t you? Or a puppy. Even a kitten.”
“Can you please be serious for once in your life?” said Lyn. “What’s she doing there?”
“Wait till you hear how she found her! She was like an undercover detective.”
“Gemma.”
“I am being serious. Deadly serious. We have to stop her! She says she just wants to see what the woman looks like, but that sounds a bit passive for Cat, don’t you think? She’s probably planning to throw acid at her, something to horribly disfigure her. Can we drive there together? My air conditioning isn’t working.”
“I’ve got a meeting,” Lyn looked at her watch, “in half an hour.”
“I’ll see you soon. I’ll wait out front.”
“Gemma!”
“Can’t talk, going to sneeze!” Gemma hung up mid-sneeze.
Lyn put down the phone and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, while she tried to remember where Gemma was living at the moment.
She thought of her meeting at the bakery. The rich fragrance that would envelop her, the respect that would greet her, the pleasure of dealing with efficient, professional, calm, normal people.
She called out to Maxine, “You’d better give me two more of those antihistamines.”
She’d forgotten all about her mother’s “little issue.”