Versace Sisters (2 page)

Bella could barely walk: her back swayed awkwardly and
her toes were numb. But she wasn't about to let a savagely
tight pencil skirt and toe-aching stiletto pain get in the way
of a killer fashion look.

Her catwalk figure drew travel-weary passengers' eyes
from their newspapers and airport novels as she cut through
the terminal. At five foot eleven, with a pristine blonde
chignon and figure-hugging, chocolate-brown uniform, it
was her air of confidence that attracted the most admiring
glances.

She stifled a yawn. The flight she'd just left had been
completely dull, but at least now there was time for a trip
to The Grove, her favourite LA shopping destination. Over
the past twenty years, Bella had roadtested every shopping
district in LA and her careful research had told her that
with fifty of the most fashionable boutiques, stores and
cafés under its designer roof, The Grove, the latest shopping
mecca, was her best bet for finding a great outfit for
tonight.

Joining her colleagues on the transit bus, she stowed
her bag safely under the seat in front (force of habit) and
checked her Rolex for the fourth time since disembarking.
It was still there. Check. She rubbed her hands together
and examined her manicure. Perfect. She glanced away
and then back again. Still perfect. She patted her hair in
search of stragglers and, finding just sleekness and order,
sighed contentedly.

An hour later she had settled in her room, slipped into
Paige jeans, espadrilles and a ruched aqua silk top and
headed out into the smog of downtown LA.

The Grove was packed as always, but Bella was adept at
cutting through the crowd of gaping tourists and meandering
locals. She started at Abercrombie and Fitch, where she
was delighted to find grey had been declared this season's
new black. She picked up a belt, a pair of straight-leg jeans
and a sheer polka-dot top (in grey of course) to wear to
brunch tomorrow.

Victoria's Secret was the next on her list – she needed
a new coffee-coloured bra and grabbed a black satin
number while she was there – followed by a joyful hour
in Michael Kors, where she decided on a simple cocktail
dress teamed with a tailor-made diamante clutch and
matching sandals. As the salesgirl wrapped her purchases
Bella sighed. Matching accessories just helped the world
make more sense.

In the window of The Gap a crisp white shirt caught
Bella's eye. It was exactly the style Sera wore to work at
DJs. Bella tilted her head to the side. Yes, she thought, it
was perfect. Sera would love it.

She selected five shirts and was almost at the counter
before she stopped herself. She was doing it again. She was
mothering her little sister. When would she stop worrying
about Sera's life, for God's sake? The woman was thirty-six
years old and married with two children, but still Bella
couldn't stop looking after Sera. It was part of the reason
she skipped most of the Stitch 'n' Bitch nights Sera invited
her to: the knitting group was fun but it was time her
younger sister had her own social group. Bella knew Sera
desperately wanted her there, but she was determined to
stick to her plan of tough love. Buying Sera's work uniform
didn't exactly form part of this plan.

Bella played with the soft fabric of the shirts as she
grappled with her decision. She thought back to their childhood,
on the other side of the world and light years away
from the glamour of the upmarket mall. Not that Bella
had really had much of a childhood; instead she'd taken on
most of the parenting of her three rowdy younger brothers
and little sister.

Their father, a surly man who rarely spoke to his family,
fired up a treat down at the pub after a hard day lopping
trees and hauling the firewood that was his livelihood. He'd
married their mother, Marlene, after she broke the news
that she was three months gone with his kid, but that didn't
mean he had to spend his life in her miserable company.
Marlene wasn't going to let his sour face ruin her days so
she sought solace and plenty of good times with the farm
hands at the property next door. And there was always the
RSL bingo to fill a quiet night.

Bella was a good surrogate mother. She boiled meat and
peeled potatoes for the kids' meals, got them all to school,
made sure the washing came in off the line and that the
boys were home by dark. Looking after her brothers was
an exhausting but straightforward chore, rather like zoo-keeping.
But Bella worried for Serandipity; the baby of the
family.

Her sister was named for the nearby town of Serendipity
where Marlene's biggest bingo win had taken place.
Unfortunately their mother's spelling skills meant Serandipity
was sentenced to a lifetime of explaining and correcting
her name.

Bella's own name was originally Bella-Rene and both
a nod to Marlene's Aunty Rene and a reminder of her
parent's honeymoon, spent cruising the pokie venues of
Victoria's Bellarine Peninsula. At fifteen Bella shortened
her own name by deed poll and refused to call her sister
anything but Sera. The care their mother took with the
spell ing of her second daughter's name was indicative of the
way their relationship developed: Marlene never really paid
much attention to the little girl. Consequently Sera tagged
along with Bella from the moment she could toddle and
turned to her big sister with the news of her first reader,
her first kiss and her first period. Bella was always Sera's
first port of call with any developments and that had never
really changed.

The store's piped music brought Bella back to reality and
she realised she was stroking her Versace handbag as if it was
a pet. She'd longed for the glamour of Versace since puberty.
If she could just own something from the Italian designer,
she'd reasoned, she would be a part of a shinier, happier
world. Her first pay allowed her to buy Versace sunglasses
and from that moment she was hooked. She saved diligently
for a tiny evening bag and when she started flying was able
to indulge in Versace salons worldwide. Gone was the
awkward, badly dressed country kid, and in her place stood
a glowing woman dripping with designer accoutrements.

She put the shirts back down on the shelf and gave them
a last pat, then checked her mobile phone for the seventh
time since entering the store. No messages. She checked
her manicure. Still perfect. She glanced down at her shoes;
dust free, thank God. Hang on, was that a mark? No, it was
okay. Her breathing calmed; it was just a shadow.

She knew she was overreacting, knew what the checking
and re-checking meant. The habit had started on her
wedding day when she'd been unable to stop fingering the
individual beads on her dress just to make sure none were
coming loose. Her compulsive need for perfection, to ensure
that everything about her was just right, had escalated from
there. Only when she'd checked and double-checked everything
could she breathe; only then did she feel secure.

Okay, she thought to herself as she took a deep breath,
well done. It was time to play the doting aunty to Sera's
little ones.

She cruised through Nordstrom's toy department. All
the plastic, commercial rubbish was so boring. Teddy
bears? Too babyish. Remote-control toys? They already
had plenty. She wanted to get something special, something
Sera wouldn't buy them.

At five, Maddy was a girly girl who loved anything
shiny or pretty. Bella pursed her lips as she strolled down
the boulevard. Ah perfect, she thought, catching sight of a
Swarovski shop. She could start a crystal collection for her
niece; a sophisticated, valuable collection that would make
Madeline feel grown-up.

Next, something for little Harry. Bella laughed at the
thought of her fashion-conscious nephew. She knew just
the thing. White Calvin Klein jeans. She scooped up a pair
with a guilty smile – they were completely impractical for
a three-year-old, but she knew he'd love them.

Bella's mobile rang as the shop assistant handed over her
stylish CK carry bag.

'Hello, Bella Walker,' she sang into the mouthpiece.

'Oh,' came the deep reply. 'You've changed your
name back.'

Bella's heart clenched. It was the intonation that Bella
recognised first, the way he stretched out his vowels and his
deep, gravelly timbre.

She hadn't heard his voice in weeks and the shock of
hearing it – here, anywhere – swept over her entire body.

She felt as if she'd been dumped under an enormous wave
at Bondi, losing all sense of direction as the air was forced
from her lungs and her throat clamped shut with fear.

She stumbled blindly to a bench in the shopping mall's
busy thoroughfare, her legs buckling with relief as she
dropped to the slippery plastic surface.

'What do you want?' Bella asked, as her initial nausea
was quickly replaced with a hot bolt of anger. A cocktail
of bitter emotions swirled in her head, tipping her towards
another anxiety attack as she fought to squeeze oxygen into
her lungs.

Images flashed before her eyes: the young flight attendant
in the cockpit moaning as her husband's hand disappeared
up her skirt. The coy looks and sly giggles from
the other flight attendants that stopped abruptly when Bella
walked into a room. Coming home from a trip a day early
to find a nubile young blonde naked in her ensuite, happily
using Bella's favorite Chanel shower scrub.

How could she have just let him lie to her again and
again? She hated herself for swallowing his flimsy explanations;
for ignoring the winks, the flirtations, the little secret
waves directed at her philandering husband from so many
of her colleagues, even as she walked beside him through
terminals across the world.

Of course she'd seen them. Of course she'd been aware.
Then why in the hell had she denied it for so long? She
had tortured herself with this question every day since he'd
walked out on her.

Her stomach lurched with unhappiness. How long would
it have gone on for? How long would she have lived in her
carefully constructed fantasy world, refusing to wake up? God,
she was useless and pathetic and hopeless and weak and –

'That's no way to talk to your captain,' Curtis drawled,
interrupting her angry thoughts.

'Oh, are you on Flight 421 tomorrow?' she asked,
struggling to keep her voice even and detached, but failing
miserably.

'Sure am, baby, and I checked the flight-attendant
schedule and saw that you are too.'

Flight attendant schedule, she scoffed, more like shopping
list. Any fresh meat you haven't tasted yet, darling?
There was no way she would put herself through that.
She'd ring in sick as soon as she got the creep off the
phone.

'Listen, babe,' he continued. 'Can't chat, this isn't a
social call, I need you to do something for me.' He spoke
with a casual familiarity that made her gasp and she held
the phone away from her ear in disbelief. Do something for
him? Was he delirious?

Maybe he'd been drinking, Bella thought, ready to tell
the snivelling cheat that he was dreaming if he thought
there was anything on this earth she would do for him.

'Sure, what's up?' she heard herself respond coolly.
Damn my weakness, she thought, stamping her foot.

'I need those divorce papers signed, baby, aysap.'

The divorce papers had been sitting in the bottom of
Bella's travel bag for weeks waiting for her signature, but
for some reason she hadn't gotten around to it yet. It wasn't
as if she didn't want to get divorced. God no. Bring it on!

'Yeah, sure, I'll put them in tonight's mail.' Her breathing
had almost returned to normal. See, she thought with
relief, I can manage a normal conversation with the filthy,
dirty low-life. I'm not going to have a meltdown; I'm
doing well.

'Thanks, baby, you're a star. I need them pronto because
I'm getting married next month. Oh shit, must fly, ha-ha,
pilot joke. My limo's just arrived. Ciao, Bella.'

Although the line was dead, Bella still held the phone to
her ear; her face lifeless, her body motionless. She was snap-frozen.
Eventually her body's survival mechanism kicked
in, forcing her to take a deep, mindless gulp of air.

Her sister, her little sister, she needed her right now,
more than ever before. Sera was the only one who could
help her through this. She fumbled with the phone. Her
fingers seemed numb and disconnected. She gave up. Who
was she kidding? She couldn't call Sera. Sera's life was
crazy. There was no way she was going to drag the poor
thing down further with this crap. The best she could do
was to keep her ignorant from this . . . this . . . nightmare.
Besides, there was so much background she'd have to fill
her in on. The affairs, the betrayal, the hideous night he'd
left her. She'd been unable to articulate it to anybody yet.
It was too sickening. Nausea surged up from her gut.

Bella's head dropped back and the ceiling seemed to
be corrugated and undulating. The floor suddenly tilted
and she only caught herself from flipping off the bench by
falling heavily onto her hand.

A tangerine-coloured woman passing by took one look
at Bella's dilated pupils and the glistening layer of perspiration
that coated her cheeks and tutted in a superior manner.
'Junkie,' she muttered and teetered off as fast as her two-inch-
high Jimmy Choos would allow.

Bella threw her head between her knees and waited
for equilibrium to return. Within a few minutes the blood
returned to her head, her breathing slowed and she was able
to collect herself.

So he was getting married. Fucking hell. Who to? The
same bimbo bunny he'd left her for? Bella felt nausea rise
in her throat again, and dipped her head back into her lap
for a few more minutes.

But what the hell do I care? she thought. She wanted
him out of her life. She wanted this terrible, humiliating
episode to be over. Surely this meant she could now be
truly free of him and get on with her life? Maybe she'd
even consider dating again, though something told her
the damage to her heart was going to need time to heal
properly.