Miss Spelled Read online

  Miss Spelled

  Sarah Belle

  www.escapepublishing.com.au

  Miss Spelled

  Sarah Belle

  Magic realism mixes with romantic comedy in this new novel from Sarah Belle about the dangers of internet shopping – and using magic to solve real world problems.

  Lou’s life is perfect. She loves her job, her renovated house, and most of all, her gorgeous fiancé, Aidan. But when her old flame and Aidan’s school yard nemesis turn out to be the same person, Hunter Wincott, Lou’s life is blown apart. She must divulge her secret past, or have Hunter give it away. Either way, she runs the real risk of losing Aidan.

  In desperation, she turns to Google. A quick search turns up Majique, the Internet Witch, and a spell that will delete herself from Hunter’s memory. But something goes wrong in the casting process, and Lou deletes much more than just a memory. She deletes herself from her life completely.

  Luckily, there’s a one-week window for Lou to get back to the life she loved. One week to win back Aidan, before he walks down the aisle with the wrong woman, and damns everyone to a lifetime of misery. It would be easy, if only Aidan had any idea who Lou actually is.

  About the Author

  Sarah Belle started her professional life in the hospitality industry, working in rough hotels in Melbourne in the late 1980s, surrounded by drug dealers, prostitutes, pimps, and undercover police. Tiring of the inherent dangers of her working environment, Sarah completed a business degree and then worked in the world of admin and recruitment. She met and married the man of her dreams, Blackhawk pilot Jason. They have four gorgeous young sons and live on the beautiful Queensland coast, where Sarah’s days are spent being a frazzled mum, writer, Bikram yoga devotee and the only woman in a house of five males. Sarah’s debut novel, Hindsight, was released in 2013 via Escape Publishing.

  Acknowledgements

  To the wonderful Kate Cuthbert and the team at Escape Publishing, thank you again for your belief in me and my story. Your awesomeness knows no bounds. I am so thrilled to be part of the Escape family. Also, a very big thank you to Una Cruickshank, editor extraordinaire, who worked on both Hindsight and Déjà Vu Lou.

  Thank you to Romance Writers of Australia and Queensland Writer’s Centre, for creating such dynamic organisations that celebrate and nurture Australian talent and in particular to my fellow Year of the Edit students and our teacher, Kari. Your instruction and feedback were invaluable in moulding Lou into a manuscript worthy of submitting. To all my friends in the writing community, thank you for your support and encouragement.

  To my gorgeous husband Jason and our four little men, Ethan, Rylan, Lachlan and Callum – my fingers may belong to the keyboard, but my heart and soul always belong to you. Thank you for your never-ending love, support and inspiration.

  To my friends and family, thank you for your understanding that I am more of a writer than a social creature.

  To my Mum, thank you for shoving endless piles of books under my nose when I was a kid and insisting that I not only read them, but love them and find them fascinating. It worked.

  To my Mum, Joy: my best friend. I love you to the sky and back again, forever and always.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishing…

  Chapter 1

  There’s a new number one on my ‘List of Dumb’. The list is not just run-of-the-mill dumb things, like walking into a glass door because a nice set of biceps has caught my attention, or trying to open the garage door with a tampon packet instead of a remote. No. The new number one is something so incredibly dumb that I should be taken out of the gene pool so as not to pass my genes onto my offspring. Here’s the Lou Mercer top three list of dumb things so far:

  Number Three: inadvertently forcing a confession of adultery from a student’s Dad, in a supermarket, after telling him that he was the father of one of my kids (my school kids — as a grade two teacher I call the entire class ‘my kids’).

  Number Two: contracting vaginal pneumonia after using an old tissue from my handbag when the loo paper ran out in a deserted public toilet.

  And new at the top of the list is buying a magic spell off the internet in order to erase the memory of me from the mind of my long ago ex-boyfriend.

  Number Three would have been easy to laugh off, albeit uncomfortably, had the man’s wife not been standing next to him when he made the confession. Clearly the guilt of his infidelity was killing him, but apparently they have worked through their marital issues with the help of her new credit card and diamond bracelet.

  Number Two was quickly fixed with a short course of antibiotics, after medical students were brought in to discuss, in detail, just how a woman might catch pneumonia of the vagina. Never one for the centre of attention, I prayed to the Universe to take me away when one of the interns queried if my vagina would be kind enough to cough for him.

  And Number One? Well, it didn’t quite work out as planned. Like most things that appear brilliant in theory but are failures of cosmic proportions in practice, the impact of this is still unknown. It’s probably better to start at the beginning…

  * * *

  One week ago: Hairloom Hairdressing Salon

  ‘Do you want a little bit of spray, love?’ Mum asks. ‘Being a special occasion and all, you might need a bit of staying power tonight. Can’t have you wilting,’ she says as she poufs my pixie crop into a halo of blondness.

  Mum can’t do hairspray in ‘little bits’. It’s against her religion, which was formed in the 1980’s when hair was big and highly flammable, eyeshadow was blue, blusher was fairy floss pink and clothes were tighter than skin.

  ‘No thanks, Mum. I’ll just work a bit of serum through it,’ I say, smoothing my hair back down and into a less retro style.

  Mum has been doing my hair since birth, 30 years ago, and our family photo album is full of pictures of me sporting a variety of tragic hairstyles and colours, courtesy of Mum and her salon, Hairloom. There were the Baby Spice pigtails, held in place with fluoro scrunchies and covered in tiny butterfly clips. Then there was the ‘more volume than an amplifier’ hair that Cindy Crawford made infamous, the Nicole Kidman-inspired spiral perm that twisted itself into tiny knots constantly, and of course, the ‘Rachel’.

  If it was bad for me, it must have been near unliveable for my twin brother, Ben, who was unlucky enough to be picked on at school not only for his superior intellect, but his assortment of haircuts and colours.

  ‘What’s the special occasion, Dee?’ asks Maureen, an elderly regular waiting for her poodle perm to set.

  A crash and a bang announces Dad’s emergence from the store room. He’s a builder and is in charge of the maintenance work around the salon.

  ‘Our girl’s probably going to get engaged tonight, Maureen,’ Mum says, making no attempt to keep my innermost wish to herself.

  ‘Muuuum! It may not happen, don’t jinx me.’

  ‘Oh jeez, Dee. Are you still rabitting on about that?’ says Dad. ‘Leave the poor girl alone. You’ve convinced her that Aiden’s going to propose tonight, but what if he doesn’t?’

  ‘You and I got engaged on our first anniversary, Rodney,’ says Mum, with a nod.

  �
�That’s because you were four months pregnant and your father gave me an ultimatum.’

  ‘Oh Rodney! We would have married anyway, darls. You were smitten with me. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other.’

  ‘As evidenced by the fact that you were already four months pregnant,’ I say quietly. Dad smirks and turns a nice shade of red.

  Mum giggles and bats her eyelashes at him. As sweet as their affection for one another is, it can get pretty sickening at times. Like, get-a-room sickening.

  ‘That’s lovely news, Lou! That nice Aiden boy, is it?’ Maureen asks, placing her copy of New Idea down on the bench in front of her.

  It’s no surprise that Maureen knows about Aiden. Everyone knows about Aiden because Hairloom is the epicentre of gossip in the area and the size of Mum’s mouth is only outdone by the size of her heart.

  ‘Yes, such a nice young man,’ Mum says, clearly bursting with pride. ‘From a very good family, too. They live in Toorak you know, one of the fancy streets.’

  ‘Ooohh,’ Maureen coos. ‘La-di-da! You marrying posh are you, Lou?’

  To the residents of Brownsville, any of the inner suburbs to the east can be termed ‘posh’. In comparison, the suburbs to the west are the only ones in the entire city that could call Brownsville posh. It’s a social-demographic fact.

  ‘So will you retire from teaching after you get married? You know, spend your days shopping and attending charity luncheons, like all the swanky ladies?’ Maureen asks.

  ‘Oh God no!’ I can feel my face twist and contort in distaste. ‘My kids mean everything to me. I love them all too much to leave.’

  ‘Lou could never leave teaching, Maurs. She’s a natural,’ Mum says. ‘Aiden actually wanted to be a teacher too, but was pressured into working in the finance industry because…why was that again, Lou?’

  ‘Because his entire family for the last four generations have worked in the industry. It’s expected of him,’ I say.

  It’s true. Aiden bows to the pressure of his family. It’s the one thing I would change about him if it were possible.

  Dad starts to hammer a picture rail into the wall.

  ‘Aiden went to Geelong Grammar school and then to Melbourne University,’ Mum says, raising her voice above the hammering. ‘Rodney! Must you make all that noise? Can’t you hammer quietly?’

  Dad crinkles his eyebrows together, almost forming a question mark on his forehead.

  ‘Geelong Grammar? Isn’t that where Prince Charles went when he was out here? They didn’t go there at the same time, did they?’ Maureen asks as she clutches at her chest. ‘Oh, love, you’re not marrying some old fart with one foot in the grave, are you?’

  ‘No Maureen, he’s only 34,’ Mum says. ‘He’s a big wig at an investment bank and he’s crazy in love with our Lou,’ she beams. ‘Tonight is their first anniversary and it’s likely he’s going to get down on one knee and ask for her hand in marriage.’

  ‘Mu-um!’ I sound like a petulant teenager. ‘It’s our one year anniversary, Maureen, that’s all. Mum’s just getting ahead of herself.’

  I don’t want to admit publicly that my greatest wish is for him to propose, that way if it doesn’t happen I won’t have to dodge sympathy smiles and comments from all of Mum’s clients.

  ‘What do you think about all this, Rodney? Does your future son-in-law shape up to the Mercer family standards?’ Maureen asks.

  Dad stops hammering and removes the nails from between his lips. ‘He’s a good bloke, nice kid. I‘d give my blessing if he asked for it.’

  ‘Ooh! That’s quite a recommendation, coming from you,’ says Maureen with a smile. My smile is even bigger. I know how much my parents love Aiden, but it’s still nice to hear it every now and then.

  ‘He’s part of the family now, Maurs. Makes a cuppa for everyone, does the dishes and even goes to the footy with Rodney,’ says Mum.

  ‘Very nice. So what are the in-laws like, Dee?’ Maureen asks.

  ‘Ahh…well they haven’t had a chance to meet yet,’ I interrupt.

  Aiden’s family are…unappreciative of the cultural and economic diversity on the other side of the Yarra.

  ‘You know how young people are nowadays Maureen. Parents usually don’t meet until the wedding day, not like it was in our time. We’ll all get together to celebrate the pending nuptials, no doubt,’ she smiles at me, but the hurt in her eyes is clear.

  So far his parents have resisted every invitation to come over for a barbeque or even a cuppa. They constantly have charity balls to attend or luncheons with business partners and just can’t seem to make the pilgrimage to the other side of the city.

  ‘Must do it differently in the posher suburbs,’ Maureen says.

  Mum perks up and replies, ‘Oh yes, love, they’re all class over there. Okay, Lou. You’d best get a move on if you want to get ready for tonight, sweets.’ She hands me my handbag. ‘God knows you’ve waited long enough to hear someone ask this question, you don’t want to delay it any further.’

  ‘Mum! It’s not as though I’m an old maid or anything.’ I can feel my face flush with embarrassment.

  ‘No, but you’re not getting any younger either, so off you go,’ she says chasing me towards the door. ‘Have a wonderful night, love.’

  ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, Lou,’ Dad calls out.

  ‘Well, that doesn’t narrow it down by much, Dad.’

  He sends me a knowing wink and smile.

  ‘Don’t pay any attention to your father, Lou. He’s crude,’ Mum says to me before shifting her attention to Dad. ‘You’ll have to shape up when we meet the St. James family, Rodney, perhaps even put a shirt on— one with a collar—and proper pants. No more elasticised waists.’

  ‘What’s wrong with this?’ Dad asks posing catwalk style in his singlet and shorts.

  ‘Oh, where do I begin?’ Mum rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

  Mum holds me in her squishy arms and squeezes as though she’ll never see me again.

  ‘Don’t worry love, I won’t let him embarrass you when the time comes to meet Aiden’s family. I’ve got it all sorted.’

  ‘Good luck, love,’ Maureen calls from her chair as she resumes analysing her magazine. ‘Enjoy the romance while you can. Before you know it he’s sitting on the couch in his Y-fronts, belching, farting and expecting you to bring him another beer.’

  ‘I re-it-er-ate again,’ says Dad. ‘There’s nothing wrong with what I’m wearing and I would never be so uncouth as to burp or fart in front of the St. Jameses. I’m a fucking gentleman, for God’s sake.’

  I leave them to it and can hear Dad belch like a wharfie and the three of them cackle with laughter as I approach my car, which is parked right out the front of the salon. Suddenly, a swarm of butterflies lift off inside my stomach. Could this be the night? I’ve tried not to let myself get carried away with the thought of Aiden proposing, because then if he doesn’t I will have ruined a night that was meant to be lovely and romantic, but there’s still a little light inside of me that hopes he will ask me to marry him.

  Chapter 2

  My cottage still makes me smile each time I park my car in the driveway. When I bought it five years ago, it was in desperate need of rescuing— or demolition, as Ben suggested. But with Dad’s help, it was transformed from a sad, unloved little house into one bursting with pride and confidence again.

  Of course, taking out a mortgage at the age of 25 meant missing out on those years of frivolous spending and holidaying like my friends and colleagues. Each holiday period was spent sanding, painting, laying tiles or working in the garden. My friends came home from their overseas jaunts, raving about partying in Mexico or Los Angeles, trekking the Inca trail, or skiing in Canada, but they didn’t have a house of their own like I did. There’s still a lot to do, but it will get done eventually. Renovating is a marathon, not a sprint.

  I go inside, throw myself in the shower and get ready for tonight. My favourite dress, a red number wi
th wild tropical print on it in shades of yellow, green, turquoise and deep blue is ready to go. A dab of foundation, which does nothing to cover my freckles, a swish of blush, lick of mascara and light coat of sparkly pink lippie follows. A spritz of my favourite citrusy fragrance that reminds me of sunny spring mornings and my makeover is complete. My three-inch, red satin heels propel me to the staggering height of five foot five. Along with a sheer black pashmina and matching clutch, I feel like a movie star about to step out onto the red carpet.

  With the remaining 30 minutes, I sit down and attempt to relax with a cup of chamomile tea. It doesn’t work because my adrenal glands have kicked into overdrive while my imagination throws forth images of tonight—how Aiden will propose to me, my reaction and how happy we will be planning the rest of our lives together.

  I attempt to distract myself by thinking about which part of the house will be tackled first in the next week, seeing as today was the end of Term Two and there are now two weeks of holidays ahead of me. It doesn’t work. Instead, I pack my bag into the car, lock up the house and make my way against the traffic, into the city to Aiden’s apartment. The drive is only 30 minutes long and quite enjoyable, although the traffic heading in the other direction would be unbearable. Parts of Punt Road are at a virtual standstill, but that isn’t unusual. I park my car in one of the spaces provided for Aiden’s apartment in the below-ground parking area, and take the short walk to the Langham Hotel, our meeting place.

  The Langham is quite busy and I take my place at the bar, sipping on an icy cold glass of Sav Blanc. The wine does a little to soothe my nerves, and the packet of peanuts temporarily stops a growling tummy that had no hope of holding food in it earlier today. My nerves have been on high alert all day.

  30 minutes later, Aiden arrives in his work suit. Even if I hadn’t seen him enter the bar, it would be obvious that someone very good-looking had arrived. The majority of females in the room turn their heads to gawk in his direction.