The Contract

CHAPTER 2

'Hello?'

'Belles? It's your mother.'

'Oh, hi Mom,' Maribelle groaned inwardly. 'How are you?'

It was rare for Constance Ames to break away from her daily routine of playing the role of beloved wife to her husband of 30 years to call her daughter. That meant one thing and one thing only. Her mother was throwing some kind of 'do' and she thought it would be a perfect opportunity for her to set Maribelle up with John, Barry, Kris or whoever it was that month her mother had 'found.' Maribelle could already sense her mother's anticipation over the receiver.

'Well, I'm doing fine considering my cholesterol is through the roof, I constantly suffer from heartburn, my body aches all over and Cinnamon has been vomiting non-stop since she mischievously devoured my very expensive eye cream,' tutted Constance.

Maribelle rolled her eyes to the ceiling. Her mother had a slight tendency to exaggerate her many (imagined) ailments. Any small hiccup, burp and cough was a sure sign of some kind of impending illness that she would just have to get checked out by the family GP. As far back as she could remember, Maribelle would accompany Constance to countless trips to the doctor's surgery only to come away with a box of the-cure-to-everything paracetamol and the lingering smell of hand sanitizer, which whenever Maribelle caught a whiff off now, she always associated with those childhood memories.

'Belles, your father and I are having a small get together this weekend and we would like you to be there.' From her mother's tone of voice, Maribelle was smart enough to know that this wasn't an invite; it was more of an order.

'What is the get-together for Mom?'

'Well, you know we just felt like we haven't seen everybody in such a long time and thought it would be nice to have a weekend soiree.'

'Oh okay. Thanks for the invite Mom, but I honestly can't make it this weekend....' Maribelle's mind raced looking for a believable excuse in order to avoid a whole weekend with her delusional (in the nicest possible way) family.

'Why ever not Belle's? You haven't visited us since Easter.' She paused. 'Your brother is coming.' Another pause. 'And you know your father would be very disappointed if you weren't there.' She waited.

Her mother knew exactly what to say to guilt Maribelle into agreeing. The two people in life she loved the most; her straight-to-the-point and chilled out father, Graham (the total opposite to her neurotic mother) and her crazy but affectionate older brother, Callum. They were the only ones who kept her sane whenever she felt obliged to visit her hometown of Surrey.

'Okay Mom, I will try and come up this weekend.'

'Great! I will let everybody know!'

'Who else is...?'

'Be here for noon. Bye honey!' And before Maribelle could finish her sentence, her mother had hung up. Maribelle listened to the dial tone and rolled her eyes to the heavens in silent prayer for the weekend ahead.

Maribelle parked her battered old Fiat 500 on her parents' gravelled driveway and shut the engine off. She sat back and looked up at the semi-detached Edwardian home where she had spent her childhood and sighed. It's not that she didn't like visiting her parents (no matter how neurotic her mother was, she still loved her), it was just that she would rather forget her adolescent years and coming back home always took her back to the bittersweet memory of one particular summer and one particular visitor.

She was 17 years old and had just finished her first year of college. She was blossoming into a lovely young lady as the acne that had plagued her high school years had more or less cleared up and those god-awful braces had come off to reveal new pearly whites. She had started to experiment with make up, with a little bit of concealer and mascara, and instead of using her thick brown locks to hide behind as she used to, she had it cut and styled so it fell in soft layers around her oval-shaped face. She was still quite timid and shy and tried to keep to herself at college, but with guidance from girlfriends and encouragement from her college tutors about her studies and promising future, she was beginning to come into her own.