My Not So Perfect Life(77)

“I’m not up to anything!”

I crawl to the side of the swamp and dip my head in the fresh water of the adjoining pond, trying to calm my adrenaline rush. OK. Regroup. This was not the plan. I have to keep it together. This may be Demeter, but she’s a guest too. I cannot be having a mud fight with her. I mean, it really wouldn’t sound good on TripAdvisor.

Although—who’s to believe her word against mine? You know. If it came to it.

Feeling steadier, I lift my head from the fresh water. My face is clean, all traces of mud gone. My baseball cap’s disappeared somewhere, but never mind. I pull my dripping hair back and scrunch it into a knot. Right. Back to my professional tour-leader act.



“OK.” I turn to Demeter. “Well. I think we should finish the nature walk there. I do apologize for any—”

“Wait,” she says, her voice suddenly quivering. “Wait right there. Cath.”

My stomach does a loop the loop of terror.

“No, Cat.” Demeter corrects herself, her eyes like gimlets. “Cat. Isn’t it?”

“Who’s Cat?” I manage to keep in control of my voice.

“Don’t give me that!” Demeter sounds so incandescent, I almost feel my skin shrivel. “Cat Brenner. It’s you, isn’t it? I can see it now.”

I’ve wrecked my disguise, I realize with a sickening thud. The hat and the makeup and the curly hair. All gone. How could I have been so stupid?

For a few petrified seconds, my mind gallops around my options. Deny…run away…other…

“OK, it’s me,” I say at last, trying to sound nonchalant. “I changed my nickname. Is that against the law?”

A crow flaps past, cawing, but neither of us moves. We’re both standing motionless in the swamp, covered in mud, staring at each other as though life is on pause. My blood is pulsing in terror, but I feel a strange relief too. At least now she’ll know. She’ll know.

Demeter has her swivelly-eyed, has-the-world-gone-mad look. She keeps peering at me, then frowning, then going all distant, as though she’s consulting her memory.

Things could go anywhere from here. Anywhere. I feel almost exhilarated.

“OK, I don’t understand,” says Demeter, and I can tell she’s trying to stay calm, with difficulty. “I don’t. I’m trying to understand, I’m trying to get my head round this, but I can’t. What the hell is going on?”



“Nothing’s going on.”

“You engineered me into the swamp!” Demeter’s starting to sound agitated. “You told me to hurry so I would fall in. Do you have something against me?”

She looks so ignorant, so oblivious, that I draw breath. Do I have something against her? Where do I start?

“And catching me with that stick!” she exclaims, before I can respond. “That was on purpose too. This whole morning has been a vendetta, hasn’t it? Has this whole week been a vendetta?” I can see her thoughts working, tracking back, analyzing everything, until her eyes snap with suspicion. “Oh my God. Is Vedari a real thing?”

“Of course it’s not a real bloody thing!” I explode with pent-up frustration. “Only a totally pretentious early adopter like you would fall for something like that. It’s pitiful! I just had to mention Gwyneth Paltrow and you were all over it!”

“But the website!”

“I know.” I nod with satisfaction. “Good, wasn’t it?”

I feel a shaft of triumph as I see her face dropping. Ha. Gotcha.

“I see,” says Demeter, in the same controlled, even tones. “So you’ve taken me for a fool. Well, congratulations, Cat, or Katie, or whatever you call yourself. But what I still don’t understand is, why? Is this because you lost your job? Are you blaming me for that? Because, one, that was not my fault personally, and, two, as I said to you at the time, losing your job is really not the end of the world.”

She draws herself up tall, despite the swamp, casting herself as the tolerant, put-upon boss figure, and my rage simmers up again into a froth.



“You know something, Demeter?” I say, casting around for my own version of dignity. “When you don’t have any funds and you’d rather die than ask your parents for cash, then losing your job pretty much is the end of the world.”

“Nonsense!” says Demeter with asperity. “You’ll find another job.”

“I’ve applied and applied! I’ve got nothing! At least, nothing that pays. But I’m not like Flora; I can’t afford to work for no pay. All I ever wanted was to live in London, and that day my dream got squashed, and of course that wasn’t your fault. But it was your fault that you didn’t even remember if you’d let me go or not!” My voice rises in anguish. “That was my life you held in your hands, and you didn’t even remember! You were like, Ooh, unimportant junior person whose name I can’t recall, have I ruined your life today or not? Please remind me.”

“All right,” says Demeter after a pause. “I accept that. My behavior was…unfortunate. Things were very difficult for me at that time—”

“How could they be difficult?” I throw any remaining caution to the winds. “You’ve got the perfect bloody life! You’ve got everything!”