Page 21 of The Snag List
‘Oh?’ Lindy snapped to attention. Any hint of spousal ambivalence was like her oxygen. Or maybe it was more like a tasty little Valium, as it calmed the anxiety that was unleashed whenever she thought about her own marriage. Unfortunately, just as she was about to gently but determinedly interrogate further, the words ‘You absolute psychos!’ rang out behind them and startled them both. It was Ailbhe, their fall woman, rushing towards them.
Oh crap. Lindy mentally speed-scrolled through about six different excuses for her odd behaviour – from ‘I recently changed my meds’ to ‘I have IBS’ – before she realised Ailbhe was actually laughing.
‘That was pure batshit!’ She gasped as she reached them. ‘Yer one was so pissed off! She had to pretend it was all grand, of course, but you could tell she was fuming. I said “I barely tipped it!” just as another chunk of ceiling fell right on her – I was dead. Dead! Her hair was wrecked, dust everywhere. She was so snotty, but when she copped who I was she had to fake nice.’
‘Why? Who are you?’ asked Lindy, delighted Ailbhe was taking their treachery so well.
‘Oh, I’m no one, like, but my husband is one of the original Monteray investors, Tom Russell.’
‘Ahh.’Interesting, Lindy thought. Tom Russell was a tech megastar. They’d run ads for his wildly popular apps on Maxxed Out. The Optimise schtick was all geared towards self-betterment – a bit like couch to 5K for positive habit forming. The Monteray Valley ‘Living but Better’ thing was very much the Tom Russell MO. So this was the wife: they’d heard some mutterings about a marriage – and a speed-marriage at that – but nothing concrete.She’s gorgeous. As to be expected of a rich man’s wife, she thought cattily. Being around the shiny population of Monteray was proving hard on her self-esteem. Ailbhe had a touch of the Jessica Chastains about her. If Jessica Chastain had a proper Dublin accent. She was dressed in loose cashmere joggers and a cashmere hoodie, looking exactly like an off-duty celeb doing the Starbucks run in New York.
‘We’re not really going to be living here long,’ Ailbhe continued. ‘Tom says it’s more of an investment property. My mam is staying with me at the moment to help with the baby cos Tom is so back and forth with his work here. He’s actually only met our baby once in person, LOL. Anyway, Mam’ll go back to Crumlin when me and Tom move over to therealvalley. Tom wants to go back to California – I cannot wait! Just eight weeks! No more Irish weather. Obviously, there’ll be Americans, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’
Lindy thought of her American in-laws and her husband and son with their mid-Atlantic YouTube accents. ‘They’re not all bad,’ Lindy allowed. ‘My husband’s American. And the in-laws will love you. Red hair, Irish, a “lovely cawwwleeen”,’ Lindy adopted the voice of Selma, her own mother-in-law.
‘Oh no, the Russells despise me. I haven’t even met them but they definitely hadopinionson Tom and me getting married. I think they’re –’ Ailbhe leaned in and Roe and Lindy automatically did the same ‘– Christians,’ Ailbhe whispered meaningfully with her eyes wide. ‘Let’s just say these houses,’ she jerked her head at the red-brick exterior, ‘have been a thing longer than Tom and I have been a thing. And obviously Tilly – that’s our baby – is a bit of a reminder of our sinful shenanigans. We’d only been together a few months when I got pregnant!’
‘No way!’ Lindy laughed. ‘That’s exactly how I ended up with my American too! Though my in-laws are very sweet.’
‘You’re so lucky. Mine think I’m a dirty bitch. Out for his sperm – I’m ten years older! The irony is I wanted no part of the sperm – no baby for me, thanks – but then one landed in my lap. So when they’re not hinting that I baby-daddied him on purpose, they’re playing the money card. He’s loaded,’ she finished with a shrug.
‘Wow,’ Roe breathed. ‘That’s … a lot. Of information, I mean.’
‘Well,’ Ailbhe shrugged, ‘we’re gonna be Monteray Valley inmates together – may as well get to know each other. Though I’ve gotta say I’m glad my incarceration isn’t a life sentence. So how’re ye all getting on here? The gaffs are beyond!’
‘Yeah,’ Roe agreed.
Lindy nodded. ‘We were actually just talking about the snag-list stuff for the builder.’
‘Oh!’ Ailbhe perked up. ‘I need to get ours sorted too before we hit the road. Cannotwaitto get going. Not that there’s anything wrong with Monteray,’ she added. ‘But, like, it’s a bit …’
‘Soulless?’ Lindy murmured.
‘Contrived?’ Roe said. ‘It’s like Disneyland for middle-class families.’
‘Where in Cali will you be?’ Lindy needed to steer away from the Monteray moaning. She had to make the effort to stay on whatever message Maxxed Out was contractually tied to at any given time.
‘Morgan Hill, it’s basically the Howth of Silicon Valley. I cannot wait! It is so swanky – Michelin-starred restaurants, man-made lakes, wineries.’ She beamed around. ‘Everything this place’s trying to be.’
Ouch, Lindy thought.
‘Sorry, that came out wrong. I’m just dying to get going. I’m sort of in between stuff cos Tom’s over there and I’m here with my baby and my mother. Feels a bit like purgatory,’ Ailbhe groaned. ‘Ugh. Sorry, I hardly talk to humans I don’t share genetic material with any more.’
Lindy grinned at this attempt at an explanation. ‘Why don’t we set up a WhatsApp for the snag list?’ She was warming to these two. She needed allies out here and they seemed comfortingly real. ‘We could pool our grievances! He can’t ignore all of us.’
‘Yes! Come to mine next weekend.’ Ailbhe beamed. ‘I’ll get my mam to take Tilly out and we can booze and bitch about the incredibly tiny, superficial things that are wrong with our mansions!’
Later that night, Adam was in their en suite deep into his pre-bed skincare routine – there were crystals and somehow saging involved – while Lindy undressed in her enormous dressing room. Having a dressing room for her vast collection of mum-casuals was definitely overkill, but she could hardly call it her ‘hiding from my fucking life’ room.
Along one wall hung every shade of striped tee in creation, underneath which hung her collection of grey and navy jeans. It gave the impression that an entire army of listless Lindys were hanging there, waiting to be dragged out and forced into action. A smaller section of the next wall was home to six gowns that she trotted out for the rare YouTube events and awards she agreed to attend with Adam and Max. She’d once read a comment on the internet saying she dressed like a ‘noughties nightmare’.Gotta love being vaguely known online, she’d thought gloomily at the time. A rack of boots filled more open shelving, while the entire third wall was taken up by floor-to-ceiling wardrobes, with smooth mirrored doors – all of which were empty. Caring about clothes seemed to have leaked away as she got deeper into her thirties. Was it a cry for help as Finn had slagged?
She thought back to the women at the mixer and took in her reflection. She had good points. She had lovely dark hair, wide-set grey eyes, and Adam had always loved her freckles – he used to trace them across her cheekbones and marvel at the fact that they even scattered across her eyelids. But it was hard to ignore how perfect everyone else in Monteray looked. To Botox or not to Botox? She was grand still, but a bit of filler would get her in mint condition. Ish. She strolled back into the bedroom and peeled off her dressing-gown, draping it over the sofa by the window that looked out on Monteray’s own ornamental lake.
‘I can’t believe this,’ Adam muttered out the side of his mouth – she’d been filling him in on the accidental show-home trashing of earlier. ‘Seriously, that’s really embarrassing, Lindy! Thank fuck Tom Russell’s wife was cool about it.’
‘Relax, would you?’
Lindy dragged all the completely functionless throw pillows off the bed and hopped in. She pulled up her book on the Kindle to shut out his admonishments. Time was they would’ve laughed about something like that.
