Part 1

The Marriage Diaries: A Novel
by Rebecca Campbell

Meet Sean and Celeste - living proof that opposites attract.

Savvy and sophisticated Celeste is a top clothing buyer in London; Sean is a scruffy, eccentric writer turned stay-at-home dad who, courtesy of the couple's toddler, has mastered the art of changing stinky diapers. Needing to be seen (if only by himself) as more than just a drool-spattered Mr. Mom, Sean begins a hilarious journal detailing the ridiculous, wondrous, and sometimes salacious aspects of being a househusband - including such juicy tidbits as his growing attraction to the beautiful Uma Thursday, a single mother from his son's play group.

But when Celeste stumbles upon Sean's secret entries, she's dismayed to discover she's opened a Pandora's box on her marriage. Hardly the kind of girl to take a straying husband lying down, she devises a scheme of her own, and the twin strands of the will-they-won't-they plot become ever more entangled. Can love trump lust? Can fidelity conquer passion? Or will the destructive forces of untrammeled desire wreck what may just be, for all its faults, the perfect marriage?

With sparkling wit and characters who leap off the page, Rebecca Campbell has crafted a brilliant and utterly winning novel about vows, straying, and finding a way home.

Chapter 1

It was eight o'clock when I came in. The weather was filthy, and I was shaking with cold. My third-favorite Manolo Blahniks were ruined with the rain. It had been a day of such grinding awfulness that I just wanted wine and sympathy. My nerves were plinking manically like an avant-garde Bulgarian jazz trio. Usually Sean comes to meet me at the door to the apartment when he hears the jangle of my keys, but tonight there was nothing but the dark hall echoing to the clicking of my destroyed heels. Then I heard the TV murmuring and went into the living room.

At the sight of my two boys, I felt the horrors of the day depart like a shaggy old crow taking off from a tree. They were sleeping. Harry was wrapped up in his Spider-Man duvet, nothing showing except his white face and his flop of blond hair. He was lying on Sean's lap. Sean was half slumped on the sofa, his head at a crazy angle that gave me a neckache just to look at it. It's hard not to love someone when you see them asleep. I went over to them and picked up Harry - soon he'd be too heavy for me. He nuzzled into me and made that noise like an old man eating porridge. Sean stirred.

"I wasn't sleeping," he said sleepily. "Just resting my eyes."

It's one of Sean's things that he hates to be caught napping. He probably thought I'd use it against him - you know, totting up all his little sleeps and using them as an excuse for me to have a sleep in while he did the first diaper change of the morning.

"Harry wanted to watch this program about man-eating sharks."

"Man-eating . . . ?"

"Yeah, I don't know why it is, but there're only two types of documentary on these days. It's always either the Second World War or sharks. I should be grateful that Hitler never trained his own elite squadron of great whites or there'd be only the one documentary, 'Nazi Killer Sharks.' I suppose there might also be the porn channel version, 'Nazi Killer Sharks' Anal Adventures.' "

That was Sean all over. I mean, the way he could go straight from sleep to articulate rant.

"He shouldn't really be watching that sort of thing," I said, without edge. "It'll give him nightmares."

"No, it was one of those where they try to show the tender, nurturing side of the great white. Anyway, he fell asleep after the first attack. Seen one leg bitten off, seen 'em all."

I took Harry to his bedroom and went back to sit next to Sean.

"Good day?" he asked, half an eye on the sharks.

"Stinker."

"Sorry. Why?"

"Didn't you see the news? The papers?"

"Not really. Too busy looking after our child."

I let that one go.

"Erica Svebo."

"Who?"

"The seventh most famous model in the world. The one who's fronting up our new campaign."

"Oh, her," he said, clearly utterly baffled. I might as well have been talking about quantum mechanics to a pigeon. "What about her?"

"She was all over the tabloids this morning. They had a picture of her with a syringe sticking out of her groin."

Yes, there she was, blurry but all too recognizable, her Marc Jacobs skirt pulled up to her waist, injecting herself in the upper thigh, like any other self-respecting long-term junkie. It was a disaster. Erica was all set to be the face (and, more important, the body) of our spring/summer campaign. Of course, PR isn't my speciality, but I'm usually asked to sit in to give the buyers' take on things, plus I'm friends with Milo, who is to fashion PR what Afghanistan is to high-grade raw opium. Erica was his idea, which made her my idea, which was why the grief poured upon me from on high.

I'd called Milo. I had the papers fanned on my desk. Some of the pictures took in the whole scene: Erica against a grimy background, her head hanging low, hair cascading like a dark auburn water- fall. Some focused more narrowly on the honey-colored thigh, the hand, the syringe.

"You've seen the photographs?" No point beating about the bush.

"Yes. Shame she wasn't wearing one of your outfits. It's not as if Marc Jacobs needed any more fucking exposure."

"Milo, this is serious. Heroin chic is so 1990s."

"Hey, listen, the classics never go out of fashion."

"It's not funny."

"Who's laughing? Look, there is a problem here, but not the one you think."

"It's pretty obvious what the problem is. Our new face is suddenly in the gutter, and boy is she not looking at the stars. And then, well, the poor girl - "

"It's insulin, sweetheart."

"Insulin? You can't get stoned on . . . Oh."

"She's diabetic."

Pause.

"I guess that's . . . something. She kept it well hidden."

"Oh, there were telltale signs. There always are."

Copyright © 2006 by Rebecca Campbell.

About the Author

Rebecca Campbell was educated at the London School of Economics and the London College of Fashion. She and her mother, Paddy Campbell, run a clothing design firm that sells throughout Ireland and the United Kingdom. She lives in North London with her husband, a writer, and their son, Gabriel.