icky is extremely grateful that Richard has not picked her up at Kennedy Airport. If she were Amber, the probability is that he would, but as he dropped Amber off earlier today for her own flight to London, and Vicky wasn’t due to arrive for another three hours, Richard apologized but said he had work commitments.

Still, this is far better, Vicky thinks, leaning back in the luxurious town car that she booked to drive her up to Highfield, Connecticut, to step into Amber’s life. She starts reading through the notes that Amber has emailed her, wishing they were slightly more comprehensive, more like hers, but perhaps as a mother Amber simply didn’t have time, and it isn’t as if there aren’t enough people around to help – there is Richard, evidently, Lavinia, the kids, the best friend Deborah.

If Vicky had left notes this sparse Amber would have been in big trouble, but the only source of help would have been Eartha, and a big furry cat jumping on a duvet in the middle of the night and demanding to have her throat rubbed isn’t really all that much of a help.

Vicky discovers that they never use the front door in the house, always the side door that takes you into the mud room, and that it’s pretty much always unlocked, crime being virtually non-existent in Highfield. Shoes come off as soon as you come in the house (children’s shoes, that is), and the children must hang up their coats themselves.

In fact the vast majority of Amber’s notes focus on the children. Vicky has been looking forward to taking the children to the playground in the afternoons after camp has finished, and going to various farms she’s looked up online. She’s even discovered that a nearby town is running a children’s theatre programme every Thursday afternoon, and has lined up tickets for various puppet shows and productions.

Vicky is determined to be a wonderful mother, not that Amber isn’t a wonderful mother, but even in the short time she’d spent with her when she came over to do the recce, Vicky could see that Amber was a busy woman, and that although loving and attentive with the children when she was with them, she didn’t seem to be with them nearly as much as, say, Kate was with Luke, Polly and Sophie. Vicky is hoping that during her four weeks she’ll spend every afternoon with the children, cook them the things that she ate as a child – fish fingers, cottage pie, meatloaf, jelly and ice cream – but looking through the schedules that Amber has emailed over, Vicky doesn’t have a clue when she’s supposed to spend this time with them.

Both children are in camp in the morning, and it would appear that with the exception of a scheduled playdate every Friday afternoon, both children have some kind of class every afternoon.

Jared’s schedule is as follows:

Monday 3 p.m.: Basketball Camp

Tuesday 4 p.m.: Little League Practice

Wednesday 3.30 p.m.: Swimming

Thursday 4 p.m.: Karate

Friday 3 p.m.: Playdate

Saturday 4 p.m.: Little League game

Vicky takes a deep breath before looking at Gracie’s schedule.

Monday 2 p.m.: Ballet at Miss Cynthia’s

Tuesday 3 p.m.: Art class

Wednesday 3 p.m.: Music class

Thursday 4 p.m.: Swimming

Friday 3 p.m.: Playdate

Saturday: Free time

Well thank God for free time, thinks Vicky, and poor, poor Jared. All he gets is Sundays, and she thinks of Kate, and how Kate never does anything with the children. How Luke, Polly and Sophie roam around the house and garden all day, occasionally torturing frogs they capture in the pond, but mostly building forts in the woods inside which Luke is forced to sit as Polly and Sophie serve him tea in acorn tea cups and ‘delicious suppers’ of pine cones and mud.

When it’s raining the three of them race around the house, or lock themselves away suspiciously in closets planning duplicitous spy activities involving walkie-talkies and binoculars, while Kate, calmly oblivious to all of it, sits at the kitchen table with a friend, or potters round the garden collecting vegetables for supper.

Perhaps Vicky can bring a bit less structure to their lives, she thinks. After all, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if Jared were to miss karate one week, or Gracie to miss swimming. Think how lovely it would be to take them to the theatre. Or failing that, perhaps they could just stay at home one day and cook something, or go on a nature trail at the nature centre Vicky has found. It’s all very well stepping into Amber’s life, but already Vicky can see there are things that she would do differently, and perhaps she could make a change for the better, perhaps she could introduce a new way of thinking that might make everyone happier.

Vicky’s already planning on giving the nanny some free time. Lavinia wasn’t too friendly when Vicky met her before, but this time Vicky is armed with a giant box of Quality Street that Amber has told her are Lavinia’s favourite, and Vicky is hopeful it will be enough ammunition to garner her support.

And whilst she’d like Lavinia to be around, and certainly to carry on helping with the laundry and cleaning up, Vicky is certain that she doesn’t want to send the children off with Lavinia all the time. After all, what’s a mother for?

The house is oddly quiet as Vicky pushes open the door to the mud room and walks into the kitchen, placing her very light suitcase on the floor. She can’t take it upstairs to Amber’s room, because the one thing they were both very clear on was that there would be no sleeping with the husband. Not that Vicky would want to sleep with the husband, even though he was attractive, but it’s best to clarify right from the beginning that they will have separate bedrooms.

There’s a note on the kitchen counter, and Amber wanders over and sees it’s for her.

Dear Vicky,

Welcome! I just wanted to write you a note and wish you a wonderful visit to my life! I’m very nervous but very excited and am sure you feel the same way! Richard is going to give you the master bedroom and he’ll sleep in the guest room downstairs, so go ahead and put your stuff away (although what stuff? Given that you’re going to be wearing my clothes, you probably, like me, have packed almost nothing. Isn’t this the most bizarre way of travelling???). So, good luck, and Deborah said she’s around today if there’s anything at all that you need. And don’t forget that Jared and Gracie have playdates this afternoon, although Lavinia can fill you in.

Fondly,

Amber

Fondly? thinks Vicky. Whoops. For of course she has left a very similar note, and has, perhaps inappropriately she now realizes, signed off with lots of love, and several kisses. Yet another sign of how they do things differently in America.

A whining outside the door alerts her to Ginger’s face, peering in at the window, and as she opens the kitchen door Ginger bounds in and proceeds to jump excitedly all over Vicky, covering her outfit with huge muddy paw prints.

‘Oh God.’ Vicky tries to push him away, but 114 pounds of golden retriever is not that easy to push away. ‘Ginger, get down!’ she commands, at which point Ginger pants eagerly and jumps up again. ‘Ginger, sit!’ she tries, in her best Joan Crawford voice. ‘Sit!’ but Ginger then runs circles around the island in the kitchen, jumping up on Vicky again.

‘Oh well,’ Vicky sighs, calming Ginger down by stroking him gently and crooning to him. ‘I’ll just have to change clothes. What a shame, I’ll have to put on some of your mummy’s gorgeous designer wardrobe. Oh dear.’ And leaving Ginger in the mud room – thanks to Ginger she now realizes why it’s called a mud room – she takes her suitcase upstairs to Amber’s bedroom.

Now this, she thinks, is what it’s all about. Amber is not one of the top customers at Rakers for nothing. Her wardrobe is packed with all the clothes that Vicky dreams about but generally, apart from a very occasional blow-out, can’t afford. There are Michael Kors jackets, TSE sweaters, Oscar de la Renta dresses, and of course the obligatory Manolo Blahnik shoes. But not just the couple of pairs that are in Vicky’s wardrobe, lines and lines and lines of them: enough to open a Manolo Blahnik store. And on the other side of the closet is the casual stuff. Lines of Pumas and Nikes in every conceivable colour and style, shelves of workout gear, fleeces in lime green, orange and hot-pink.

I don’t wear all the good designer clothes every day. Generally the good stuff is for when we go out for dinner, for charity events, when I go to the city, and of course for the committee meetings of the League. Mostly during the day I run around in the workout gear, but obviously you do whatever makes you feel comfortable. And I know you’re swooning over the Birkins, so treat them well, and make sure you never leave them unattended! Enjoy …

Oh God, groans Vicky, eyeing up the Birkins, and a Chloe dress that she’d lusted after in Vogue a couple of months ago. I’ll just see what they look like. No one’s home, no one will know. And in less time than it takes to say ‘Jimmy Choo’, Vicky is standing in her underwear, pulling on the Chloe dress.

And it fits her perfectly. Originally a size larger than Amber, Vicky has been dieting furiously to get into Amber’s wardrobe, and now she is thrilled that they are the same size, even though Vicky could never be quite as firm, as cellulite-free as Amber.

Vicky slips her feet into very high Gucci satin sandals that snake up her ankles and are quite possibly the sexiest things she’s ever seen, and then slips a Chanel bag on her shoulder, throws a mink wrap around her neck, and sashays over to the huge mirror on the wall. ‘Hello, darling,’ she says, pretending to be holding a cigarette in a long, ebony cigarette holder. ‘Missed me?’

*

At that point Vicky knows not only is she being ridiculous, but this is the point at which the culprit is always caught, usually by a housekeeper or nanny, and feeling horribly guilty as she pictures Lavinia’s disapproving face, she strips off the dress and pulls on some stretchy leggings and a fleece, slipping her feet into Nikes, even though she suspects that Amber never wears shoes inside the house – those wooden floors are just too shiny for that.

Looking at herself in the mirror, Vicky hardly recognizes herself. She would never, in a million years, wear these kinds of clothes unless she was going to an exercise class, and yet Amber insists this is her daily uniform. Admittedly she is incredibly comfortable, but she looks so… ordinary. So dowdy. Surely this look can be jazzed up somehow. And then she remembers. The Balenciaga or Prada bag. The diamond studs.

Ten minutes later Vicky re-examines herself in the mirror, and this time she smiles. Amber’s four-carat diamond studs glitter in her ears, the black togo Birkin bag is casually looped over her arm, and she has reapplied some make-up, a similar amount to that which Amber was wearing when she and Vicky met.

‘That’s more like it,’ Vicky nods, with a grin. ‘Now I look the part,’ and with a spring in her step that surely owes more to her mood than to the Nikes on her feet, Vicky heads downstairs.

An hour later she has looked inside every cupboard. She has located the tea cups but not the tea bags, although the pantry has every kind of herbal tea you can imagine; but frankly, as far as Vicky is concerned, if it ain’t Tetley it ain’t tea. She has found the television sets (hidden away behind a built-in), located the few books in the house (in a room Amber referred to as the library, so-called because it houses the only bookshelves in the house, and the only books on the bookshelves are Richard’s business books), and has moved a radio from the laundry room to the kitchen so she can have some noise to break up the silence. Well now what? She drums her fingers on the kitchen table. What am I supposed to do with myself now?

Across the Atlantic Amber is lying happily on Vicky’s bed, sighing with pleasure as she thinks about where she is and what she’s doing. She got a black cab at Heathrow, even though Vicky had told her not to, warning her that it would be horrendously expensive, and then tipped him over twenty per cent, even though Deborah had said nobody does that, but she would have felt horrible giving him anything else.

He was obviously delighted, and said giving a beautiful lady like herself a ride was pleasure enough in itself, and Amber smiled, wondering if all the men in England were quite so charming.

She loved driving up Marylebone High Street, found it to be everything she had dreamt of, and so much more besides. Was that an Aveda store she saw before her? Oh joy! To be single and living in shopping heaven. What more could a girl ask for?

Vicky’s apartment was what Amber calls a walk-up. In a small apartment building just off the High Street, it was dark and had a rather peculiar smell when she walked up the narrow staircase, and for the first time since touching down Amber suddenly thought, what if this is awful? What if Vicky lives in a pigsty? Even though she had seen pictures, she was still clearly the one most disadvantaged, having not been able to give Vicky’s life the once-over, the way Vicky had done hers.

But as soon as she managed to get the key to work and slid open the door, Amber was delighted. The flat – she had to get used to calling it a flat rather than an apartment – was light and airy, flooded with sunshine, which belied its rather small size. Decorated with enormous style in neutral colors, the shots of colour came from the books, of which there must have been thousands.

Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined each wall of the living room, stacks of books were piled artfully on the coffee table, amongst Indian trinkets and Balinese bowls. This was a true home, Amber thought happily, a flat filled with things the owner has collected over the years, beautiful and personal, a place where Amber could truly be happy, and she picked up a delicate silver dish and ran her fingers over the burnished edges.

‘I love it here,’ she said, wanting to run around with glee, but instead she went to examine the rest of the flat.

Ah, she thought, seeing the kitchen. Perhaps it’s not as perfect as I thought. The kitchen was a small, dark L-shape off the living room, with no natural light. No amount of cool maple cupboards or smart granite counters could disguise the fact that the kitchen was tiny, with an under-the-counter fridge that was barely big enough to hold a few sodas.

No wonder she never eats at home, Amber thought. You can’t fit anything in that fridge, but then again Amber isn’t exactly a chef, so it’s no bad thing. If anything, this kitchen was bigger than the one she had in her apartment when she met Richard, and if she could cope with that, she can definitely cope with this. It’s all a matter of relativity, she told herself, not to mention that she barely ever uses her Viking stove anyway.

The bedroom was sweet. Enormous windows led onto a lovely iron balcony, and she opened them so the sheer linen curtains billowed in the wind. The closets were far smaller than she was used to, and she tutted as she looked through the clothes. Not because she didn’t like what she saw – she’s looking forward to experimenting with that English boho style – but because everything was crammed so tightly together; how do the clothes not get horrendously wrinkled? Amber has learnt that there ought to be an inch between the hangers, and she wondered if Vicky would mind if she sorted out her closets.

On opening the door of the bathroom, Eartha charged out. She’d been locked in there by mistake when Vicky left, and she was not a happy cat, although now someone was there she was very happy indeed, and she wound her way around and around Amber’s ankles, purring enthusiastically as she rubbed her face on Amber’s legs.

‘Hello, you sweet kittie cat.’ Amber bent down on one knee to stroke her. Not that Amber was particularly a cat person, but she’s never heard such a loud purr, and this cat seemed to like her, and who can resist being so obviously pursued?

‘Hang on,’ Amber said, running into the living room for her suitcase and pulling out the bag of cat treats that Deborah had given her. She opened it and fed them to Eartha who then jumped onto Amber’s lap for some more loving.

‘You and I are going to get along just fine,’ Amber said, scooping her up and cradling her like a baby, which Eartha didn’t seem to mind in the slightest, and then Amber went to inspect the bathroom.

Not that she should be surprised. She was used to a shower that is the mother of all showers. A shower that doesn’t have just one showerhead, nor even two, but has eight. One giant one that hangs from the ceiling, and seven more that spout from the walls of her huge, oversized stall that is almost a room in itself. In fact, looking at Vicky’s bathroom, Amber judged that it was ever so slightly smaller than her shower.

But what was worse was there was no shower. There was a bathtub with a hose, and dubiously Amber turned it on to see it produce a faint trickle of water. Damn. She’d heard about the British and their showers, but she didn’t actually think it would still be so bad in this day and age.

It was like British food. For years Americans joked that the British had the worst food in the world, and then just recently Gourmet magazine had devoted an entire issue to how Britain now had the best food in the world.

So really, can you blame Amber for assuming that the showers would naturally follow suit?

She sighed with disappointment and resigned herself to getting used to baths. Urgh. Sitting in your own dirty water. Maybe she could have two baths. One to soap herself, and then one to rinse. Or maybe sponge baths. But standing there Amber made a decision. I am not going to let one silly thing like the lack of a decent shower ruin this trip for me. I am going to have a wonderful time.

And that is when she collapsed onto the bed with a huge grin on her face, followed swiftly by Eartha who climbed straight onto her stomach, and that is where we first find her, on her first day in Vicky’s life.