Part 11 (2/2)

'Come on, guys,' repeated Lexie. 'Stephen's waiting.'

Let him wait, I thought. I hunkered down so that my eyes were level with my son's. 'What did you like best about the weekend, little buddy?'

'The zoo was awesome, we got fries and shakes, and you took us to the hospital.'

'You bought them fries?' snapped Lexie, adding this new crime and misdemeanour to the charge sheet for, according to the Gospel of St Lexie, fries were the Great Satan.

'You'll take care of The Terminator, Dad?' said Joe as Lexie zipped his hoodie.

'Yeah, sure I will,' I promised. 'I'll see you kids tomorrow after school. We'll bake up cupcakes.'

'I get to put the frosting on?'

'Of course.'

'Joe and Polly, do I have to tell you for the third time?' Lexie glared at me. 'You're doing this on purpose, Patrick, trying to alienate my children. My attorney warned me about devious guys like you.'

She pushed them out the door.

I fed The Terminator, shot the breeze with him awhile. But I have to tell you now that hamsters aren't the greatest when it comes to conversation.

I took a shower and grabbed a beer, lay on the couch and watched some trash TV, missing my kids, my cotton-candy-scented baby, my little tough guy Joe.

I missed Rosie, too and missing Rosie made me hurt like I had never hurt before. If hearts and minds can truly ache, mine did that Sunday night.

ROSIE.

I got so excited.

I did my hair and did my nails and gave myself a special lime-and-mango facial that was guaranteed to make me glow. By Friday lunchtime, I was more than glowing. I was almost radioactive with antic.i.p.ation.

But Patrick didn't come. On Friday evening, there were just the three of us for dinner, which we had at home a takeout pizza, coleslaw, garlic bread because there was a game on television Ben wanted to see.

Okay, perhaps on Friday Pat was tired? But surely he'd turn up on Sat.u.r.day, if only to see Ben? I wasn't going to ask. I wasn't going to say his name out loud because I knew I'd colour up. Tess was sure to notice and she would laugh and tease me.

But I'm sorry, this was not a laughing matter.

On Sat.u.r.day I said I had a headache when Ben suggested he and Tess and I should go and check out something scenic, a waterfall or lake or something wet, I didn't catch its name. So he and Tess went out while I stayed home, because for some ridiculous reason I was certain Pat would call me.

I was wrong, of course. I mean, good heavens, psychic me? I'm just about as psychic as a box of jelly doughnuts.

'What's the matter, Rosie?' Ben enquired when he and Tess came home again with their usual clutch of carrier bags more clothes for Tess, gadgets for him. 'Your colour's very high. Perhaps you have a temperature? I said we ought to get that foot checked out.'

'She's wearing make-up, stupid.' Tess looked hard at me. 'You going somewhere, are you?'

'No, trying out some samples. Fan wants feedback for a magazine.'

'The eye-shadow's well cool. No streaks, no lines, no creases. It's subtly metallic but not trashy bright. The lipstick's horrible. That kind of scarlet isn't good on everyone and it's not good on you. But it might suit me. I'll go and try it, shall I? You can tell me what you think?'

'Okay.'

'Do you need a sealer? Does it bleed?'

'It doesn't bleed.'

But my heart was bleeding because Patrick clearly wasn't coming and I could have cried and cried.

On Sunday morning, while we were having breakfast and I had got my hopes up high as skysc.r.a.pers all over again today, I thought, he's sure to come Ben happened to observe that we would not be seeing Pat because he had to watch his children all weekend.

'Hey, you don't take sugar in your coffee,' Tess said, frowning as she watched me spooning it into my mug. 'It's very bad for you.'

'I fancy something bad for me today.'

'So be a little more adventurous? Sugar, it's just empty carbohydrate. All it will do is make you fat and spotty and give you diabetes. I read about it in a magazine. Let's go shopping, shall we get a little healthy exercise?'

On Monday afternoon, while we were at the MoA and getting healthy exercise and Tess was buying casual clothes for Ben in Gap and Urban Outfitters she was taking his restructuring programme very seriously indeed, but wasn't getting any real designer stuff for him just yet because she didn't want to frighten him her mobile rang.

Maybe it was Ben to say he wouldn't be home for dinner?

That morning, he'd gone into college early for a meeting with the dean or that was where he'd told us he was going, anyway smelling like he'd fallen in a vat of aftershave. I'd wondered if the dean was twenty-five and blonde and s.e.xy. I sort of guessed Tess might be wondering, too.

'You mean this week?' she said, sounding surprised. 'Well, I suppose so. Yeah, it's very exciting. We'll see you later, shall we? Yeah, I love you, too.'

'What was that about?' I asked.

'Ben's going to New York tomorrow. He needs to see his publisher.' She slipped her phone into her bag and then glanced up at me. She looked apologetic. 'I'll feel very mean about it, leaving you to entertain yourself, but he wants me to go.'

'Of course he does,' I said. 'Tess, you're his wife.'

'Yeah, I'm Mrs Fairfax Three.' She shrugged. 'I'm wondering now, if he wants company, maybe I should say take Mrs Fairfax One or Two? One lives in Virginia and Two is in New Jersey. One of them could go with him, perhaps?'

'But don't you want to go?'

'It'll probably be quite boring, listening to Ben and Mr Publisher droning on about Ben's books. I'm not an intellectual, as you know. But One and Two are intellectuals, and Ben and they are still good friends, whatever that might mean. They're still in contact, anyway, especially Ben and Mrs Fairfax Two. She's his literary executor.'

'Why is she his literary executor?'

'Oh, she's a professor in some college. So she knows all about that sort of stuff.'

'She might, but you're Ben's wife,' I said. 'I think it should be you.'

'But she's welcome, Rosie. The whole thing sounds a total waste of time and energy. He sends her copies of all his paperwork and emails, photographs, the lot, so she can keep them in a special archive and write his authorised biography, that's when the time is right. I mean, is he up himself, or what?'

'You mean every letter, every email, this woman gets a copy?'

'Yeah, that's what he told me.'

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