Part 4 (1/2)
”What's going on?” she asked when the children were out of earshot. Her arms were growing tired from holding up her dress, but she couldn't bring herself to ask him for so simple a thing as a zip up.
He shrugged. ”Sarah has her son for the weekend, so . . .” He shrugged again. Sarah Grant was a wealthy socialite who had started as a patient and become his best advertis.e.m.e.nt. Sometime before, during, or after the round of procedures that had perfected her facial features and enhanced many of her body parts, Zachary had started sleeping with her. Now Sarah was, as Zachary had told Brooke more than once, everything Brooke refused to be.
”So if you're going to have one child cramping your style, you might as well have three?” Brooke asked.
The flush spreading across his face told her she'd hit the mark. Brooke didn't know Sarah well, and she hoped to keep it that way. She didn't feel at all good about the fact that the only reason her children were going to see their father was because his girlfriend was parenting.
”I hope you're not planning to complain,” Zachary said. ”You're always wanting me to take them.”
Her mouth dropped open at the unfairness of the accusation; after all they'd been through, he only ever saw her in the worst possible light. ”I want you to take them when you're supposed to because you're their father and they miss you,” she said. ”Not because your girlfriend has her son so you might as well have your kids there, too.”
She stared up into the hard planes and angles of his face and into the emerald-colored eyes that had once glowed with enthusiasm for their life together. All they held now was the cold sharpness of his disdain for her; she who had stood and delivered in adversity and crumpled like a wadded-up piece of paper in the face of success.
”Can you hurry them along? Sarah and Trent are waiting in the car downstairs.” He took her by the shoulders, spun her around in much the same way you might move a sack of potatoes out of the way, and zipped up the back of her dress. ”We're taking them to Piedmont Park, so no dresses or Sunday-school shoes. I want them dressed appropriately.”
Brooke's head jerked up at his tone. She couldn't remember when he'd begun to talk to her in that hurtful condescending way. But years of writing off his shortcomings to the stress of medical school and the demands of his residency and then to avoid confrontations in front of the kids had allowed him to treat her like a doormat. She heard the girls calling her. With difficulty she swallowed back the retort that had sprung to her lips and hurried toward their bedrooms to help them pack.
AFTER A LEISURELY MORNING DAWDLING OVER coffee and the New York Times, Claire spent Sunday afternoon rambling around the fifty-plus-acre Piedmont Park. She and Hailey had driven in from the suburbs for different festivals and events at the park over the years, but she'd never had the time or opportunity to explore it in earnest until now. It was an easy walk from the Alexander and throughout the week, she'd varied her route each time she went, entering the grounds from a different access point and covering a different quadrant. Today the breeze was warm, still tinged with summer and laden with humidity. The gra.s.s was green and lush from summer rain and the leaves had not yet begun to turn. As Claire walked and watched the families cavort, she pushed her brain toward the book she would start on in earnest tomorrow, but it resisted, preferring to skitter and float like the summer scents of jasmine and sunscreen that floated on the breeze.
Her cell phone rang and she pulled it out of her pocket to answer it. ”Hey, stranger,” she said, keeping her tone light. ”Where have you been?” Hailey had sent the occasional text between cla.s.ses or late at night, but it had been days since she'd heard her daughter's voice-or any voice at all.
”I've been swamped,” Hailey said. ”I'm not sure what made me think that taking an intensive writing cla.s.s in my first semester was a good idea. And I got the part-time job in the library and had to go to orientation there twice this week.” Hailey had been awarded a good deal of scholars.h.i.+p money, but had insisted on working to help supplement her living expenses-her contribution to what she called Claire's ”grand year of writing.”
”You know you don't have to . . .” Claire began.
”Yes, I do and I don't want to talk about it again,” her daughter replied. ”You've done enough. It's my turn to step up for a while.”
Claire swallowed the automatic protest, not wanting to diminish Hailey's pleasure in her contribution. ”Okay. So tell me what's going on there. I need some detail so I can picture what you're doing.”
Claire walked and listened with pleasure as Hailey chattered on, describing her roommate's borderline compulsive cleaning routines, her professors' various quirks, and even the sharp spicy scent of the head librarian's perfume, with an evocative economy of words that the writer in Claire envied. She kept the phone to her ear, enjoying the sound of Hailey's voice, treasuring the connection.
”Where are you now?” Hailey asked.
”I've just left the park and I'm back on Piedmont walking west toward Peachtree.”
”Are you going home?” Both of them paused at the word.
”Yes.” When she reached the Alexander she put her key in the lock and stepped inside. The security guard nodded and smiled. ”I'm in the lobby and headed for the elevator,” she said in the tone of a travelogue host. ”Oh, and what is that I hear?” As she pa.s.sed the fountain, she took the phone from her ear and held it out for a moment so that Hailey could hear the splash and spill of water.
”Is that the fountain?”
”Ding, ding, ding,” Claire said. ”You got that one right.”
She kept up the travelogue as she stepped onto the elevator.
”I'm on the eighth floor now, nearing my front door.” She jiggled the key in the lock so that Hailey could hear it. The door creaked slightly as it opened.
”Phew.” She slammed the door and threw the dead bolt. ”Thank G.o.d I made it in one piece.”
Hailey laughed. ”So what do you have going on the rest of the day?”
”Oh, a little of this and a little of that,” Claire said evasively. Both of them had dreamed for so long about Claire's new life that she didn't want to spoil their vision with anything that even sounded like a complaint. ”I picked up the Sunday New York Times and you know I can spend a full day on the crossword puzzle alone.”
”You'd be better off going out to a movie or to dinner with a friend,” Hailey said.
Claire did not want to point out the obvious-if she wanted to see any of her existing friends she was going to have to drive out to them. ”I had emails from Susie and Karen.” She mentioned her online critique partners. One of them was at her vacation home in Florida, the other in Indiana. Typically they brainstormed by phone and critiqued online. Once a year they met up at a writers' conference. Every other year they rented a mountain cabin where they wrote all day and drank wine, brainstormed, and watched movies each night.
”Emails and phone calls aren't the same as having someone there to do things with,” Hailey pointed out.
”That's true,” Claire conceded.
”I think this would be the perfect time to give online dating a try,” Hailey said, not for the first time. ”You should post a profile and get started.”
Claire bit back a groan. ”Oh, Hailey. There's no way I'm doing that.” She wasn't even sure what she'd do with a man at this point. ”I really need to focus on my book. And it's not like I've never dated.”
”Mom, you've had what-three or four dates in the last fifteen years? You haven't been out with a man in this century!”
”I'm sure it's like riding a bicycle . . .” Claire began.
”I hate to break it to you, Mom, but dating is not like riding a bicycle. Things have changed. One out of three people meet significant others now online.”
”Really?” Claire said, her tone dry. ”And here I thought I could just mosey on into a bar, drink too much, pick up someone, and live happily ever after.”
”Isn't that how you met Dad?”
There was a silence.
”There are some really great sites, Mom. I could set up your profile for you if you want.”
”No, Hailey,” she said as clearly as she could. ”I appreciate you wanting to help, but no.”
”Well, then you at least have to try to make some friends there. Maybe you could join some sort of organization. Or do volunteer work. I bet there are some people in the building you'd like.”
”I appreciate your concern, Hailey, but I don't need you to orchestrate my social life or find friends for me.”
”Yes, you do.”
”I've only been here a week,” Claire protested. ”And I don't have any problem with my own company.”
Hailey gave her a teenaged version of ”humpf.” ”Have you seen anyone in the building who looks interesting?”
”I met someone just the other day.” She thought about the red-haired woman with the children and the dog that had plowed her down. She'd recognized the harried look in the woman's eyes. Claire had worn one very like it for most of Hailey's toddler and elementary school years.
”Maybe you should go to some activity or something.” There was the sound of fingers clattering on a keyboard. ”I'm on the building's website.” More clattering. ”Hey, the concierge has posted a calendar for residents. He's going to be previewing the first two seasons of Downton Abbey, Mom. There are a ton of people here on campus who are in love with the series. It's kind of an Edwardian England soap opera with really great clothes and cool accents that was filmed in a real castle.”