Big Little Lies(25)

“Just stop it,” that nice eager woman would have surely said, disgusted and disapproving.
Celeste didn’t want to tell her either. She wanted her to guess. She wanted her to ask the right question. But she never did.
After they left the counselor’s office, they were both so exhilarated to be out of there, their performance over, that they went to a hotel bar in the middle of the afternoon and had a drink, and flirted with each other, and they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Halfway through his drink, Perry suddenly stood, took her hand and led her to the reception desk. They literally “got a room.” Ha ha. So funny, so sexy. It was as though the counselor really had fixed everything. Because after all, how many married couples did that? Afterward she felt seedy and sexy and disheveled and filled with despair.
“So where’s the uniform shop?” said Perry as they walked back up into the school’s main quadrangle.
“I don’t know,” said Celeste. How should I know? Why should I know?
“The uniform shop, did you say? It’s over here.”
Celeste turned around. It was that intense little woman with the glasses from the orientation day. The one whose daughter said Ziggy tried to choke her. The curly-haired little girl was with her.
“I’m Renata,” said the woman. “I met you at the orientation day last year. You’re friends with Madeline Mackenzie, aren’t you? Amabella, stop that. What are you doing?” The little girl was holding on to her mother’s white shirt and shyly twisting her body behind her mother’s. “Come and say hello. These are some of the boys who will be in your class. They’re identical twins. Isn’t that so interesting?” She looked at Perry, who had deposited the boys at his feet. “How in the world do you ever tell them apart?”
Perry held out his hand. “Perry,” he said. “We can’t tell them apart either. No idea which is which.”
Renata pumped Perry’s hand enthusiastically. Women always took to Perry. It was that Tom Cruise, white-toothed smile and the way he gave them his full attention.
“Very pleased to meet you. Here to get the boys their uniforms, are you? Exciting! Amabella was going to come with her nanny, but then my board meeting finished early so I decided to come myself.”
Perry nodded along, as if this were all very fascinating.
Renata lowered her voice. “Amabella has become a little anxious ever since the incident at the school. Did your wife tell you? A little boy tried to choke her on the orientation day. She had bruises on her neck. A little boy called Ziggy. We seriously considered reporting it to the police.”
“That’s terrible,” said Perry. “Jesus. Your poor little girl.”
“Da-ad,” said Max, pulling on his father’s hand. “Hurry up!”
“Actually, I’m sorry,” said Renata, looking brightly at Celeste. “I might have put my foot in it! Didn’t you and Madeline have some sort of little birthday party with that boy’s mother? Jane? Was that her name? A very young girl. I mistook her for an au pair. You might all be best friends, for all I know! I hear you were all drinking champagne! In the morning!”
“Ziggy?” frowned Perry. “We don’t know anyone with a kid called Ziggy, do we?”
Celeste cleared her throat. “I met Jane for the first time that day,” she said to Renata. “She gave Madeline a lift after she hurt her ankle. She was . . . well, she seemed very nice.”
She didn’t particularly want to be aligned with the mother of a bully, but on the other hand she’d liked Jane, and the poor girl had looked quite sick when Renata’s daughter pointed out Ziggy.
“She’s deluded, that’s what she is,” said Renata. “She absolutely refused to accept that her precious child did what he did. I’ve told Amabella to stay well away from this Ziggy. If I were you I’d tell your boys to steer clear too.”
“Probably a good idea,” said Perry. “We don’t want them getting in with a bad crowd from day one.” His tone was light and humorous, as if he weren’t really taking any of it seriously, although, knowing Perry, the lightness was probably a cover. He had a particular paranoia about bullying because of his own experiences as a child. He was like a secret service guy when it came to his boys, his eyes darting about suspiciously, monitoring the park or the playground for rough kids or savage dogs or pedophiles posing as grandfathers.
Celeste opened her mouth. “Um,” she said. They’re five. Is this a bit over the top?
But then again, there was something about Ziggy. She’d only seen him briefly at the school, and she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was about his face, but there was something about him that made her feel off-balance, something that filled her with mistrust. (But he was a beautiful little five-year-old boy, just like her boys! How could she feel like that about a five-year-old?)