Part 21 (1/2)
”Why is that?” Claire asked.
There was a silence while Samantha debated how much to divulge. The emotional mess she'd been yesterday morning was just one more aspect of the problems with Jonathan that she didn't want to think about. But that didn't mean she regretted setting the doctor straight. ”Well, we did run into each other in the elevator yesterday,” Samantha said.
”And?” Brooke asked.
Samantha shrugged. ”And I may have called him out on forgetting the girls Wednesday night.” She turned her attention to the wine. ”Do you want red or white?”
Brooke laughed. ”Fine. I guess I don't need all the details. I'll have red.” She steadied a gla.s.s while Samantha poured. All three of them held up their gla.s.ses. ”To Samantha, who apparently shamed Zach into spending time with his daughters and who made this evening possible,” Brooke toasted.
”To Samantha!” They clinked and drank.
When the pizza arrived, they filled paper plates with slices and carried them into the family room, which was also a sophisticated contemporary showcase built around a ma.s.sive big-screen television. They settled on the Roche Bobois cream leather sectional and chowed down.
”Wow,” Claire said. ”Zach must have hated leaving that television set behind.”
Brooke smiled somewhat grimly. ”If he hadn't had it so completely built in, I'm sure it would have been the first thing he moved upstairs. It's way too big. Even Winnie the Pooh looks scary at that size.” She looked around and sighed. ”Everything about this place is too polished, too cold, and too uninviting.”
Samantha was very careful not to react. She saw Claire doing the same.
”I know,” Brooke said. ”Just like Zach.” She held up her slice of pizza. ”I have to confess sometimes I get this almost irresistible urge to mess everything up. You know, rub a greasy finger on the leather. Drop a pepperoni in the carpet. Is that childish?”
Samantha edged the gla.s.s of red wine she'd set on the c.o.c.ktail table a little closer to the center. The carpet was a plush pile in a very pale cream.
”When Daniel and I got divorced, I maxed out my credit cards redecorating when I definitely couldn't afford it. Just to feel like I was starting over,” Claire said. ”Which was not only childish but stupid. It took me years to pay off that card.”
Once again Samantha's thoughts turned to her absent husband. ”When Jonathan and I got married I was only twenty-one and he was twenty-seven. And we had my brother and sister to raise. There wasn't a lot of opportunity for childish behavior.”
”I guess I could have let Zach buy the condo for him and Sarah,” Brooke said. ”But as much as this place isn't me, I couldn't bear to think of them in it. Plus I had no confidence that we'd be left with enough to buy something else.” Brooke wrinkled her nose again. ”Sorry. That's probably too much information.” She finished off her gla.s.s of wine. ”I know you didn't come here to hear all about my ex-husband.”
”Well, I'm happy to hear whatever anyone wants to share,” Claire said. ”As long as I don't have to stare at a blank computer screen while I do it.”
”What does that mean?” Samantha asked.
Claire shook her head. ”It means now that I have my editor and agent's full attention, I can't seem to think straight enough to figure out the book I thought I was going to write.”
”You mean like writer's block?” Brooke asked.
”I'd have to have started writing to be blocked,” Claire said. ”I can't even seem to get my idea solidified.”
”That doesn't sound good,” Brooke replied after chewing thoughtfully.
”It's not. I was a lot more productive when I was working full-time and taking care of a child by myself,” Claire said. ”It's kind of like winning the lottery and then not being able to figure out what to buy with the money. I have all this time now and I can't seem to stop squandering it.”
Their shoes off, they padded through the deep pile carpet and into the kitchen to refill their plates and gla.s.ses.
”How about you, Samantha?” Claire asked, flipping open the pizza box. ”We're both p.i.s.sing and moaning over here and you haven't said a word of complaint.”
”That's because she's married to a gorgeous and successful man who is willing to read Stellaluna multiple times to small children he's never met before,” Brooke said topping off their gla.s.ses and reaching for a slice of pizza. ”How many years have you and Jonathan been married?”
”Twenty-five,” Samantha said. ”Almost twenty-six.” Once that might have been a boast. Now it sounded long and hollow.
”Wow!” Brooke said.
”You certainly seem to have hit the matrimonial jackpot,” Claire agreed.
”Like I said,” Brooke crowed. ”Twenty-five years and no complaints. Maybe we should call Guinness World Records.”
”Or Ripley's Believe It or Not!” Claire added, looking at Samantha sharply. ”What do you say to that, Samantha?”
Samantha smiled and kept silent, which was what she'd always done when Sylvie and Lucy complained about their spouses or their marriages. Even when her mother-in-law had gotten in her swipes at her dearly departed husband. Of course Samantha had nothing negative to say. Because she was too d.a.m.ned grateful to Jonathan for marrying her in the first place.
Claire Walker and Brooke Mackenzie weren't Sylvie and Lucy. Both of them watched her and waited for her to say something.
Samantha felt the oddest urge to tell the truth. To confess that she hadn't heard from her gorgeous and successful husband in a whole week and that she was afraid that calling him would only make things worse. But a lifetime of holding her fears as close to the vest as she did her feelings smothered that urge. ”Are you kidding?” she finally said. ”I say it's time to open another bottle of wine and let the Downton Abbey marathon begin.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.
BROOKE WOKE ON SUNDAY MORNING AND PADDED into the kitchen to turn on the coffeemaker. Her head throbbed slightly from the wine they'd drunk the night before, her stomach felt unpleasantly full from the steady stream of junk food, and her mouth was as dry as a patch of the Sahara. But while her physical reactions to the late night Downton Abbey marathon were negative, they were accompanied by an unexpected and unfamiliar sense of well-being.
With a yawn she wandered into the family room and found Claire and Samantha still asleep on the ma.s.sive sectional they'd nodded off on. Claire lay on her stomach, her face buried in a silk pillow. Samantha lay on her back on the opposite end of the ”L,” her arms thrown out in abandonment, her dark hair hanging off the side. A steady and not exactly ladylike snore escaped her open mouth with each rise and fall of her chest.
Without comment Brooke dropped onto the nearby club chair, propped her bare feet on the ottoman, and drank her coffee while she contemplated the room. Empty wine bottles and gla.s.ses littered the c.o.c.ktail and end tables. The pizza box sat open on the carpet, its lid propped up against a floor lamp. The bakery box, from which every delectable crumb had been sc.r.a.ped clean, lay on the floor near one of Samantha's hands.
Morning light slatted in through the shutters. Brooke sipped her coffee and considered the mess; she couldn't help smiling when she imagined leaving the room this way so that Zachary would be forced to see it when he brought the girls back.
They'd watched five of the seven episodes on the Downton Abbey DVD, pausing only for food and potty runs. Somewhere around three a.m. Samantha had fallen asleep. Shortly afterward Brooke had returned from the bathroom to discover Claire curled in a ball with her back to the television. Seeing no reason to wake them Brooke had turned off the TV and the lights and gone to bed.
Claire rolled onto her back but her eyes remained closed. ”Where am I?” she asked.
”On my couch,” Brooke replied.
”What's that awful noise?” Claire yawned.
”Samantha.”
”You're kidding.” Claire's eyes opened.
”Nope.”
Claire sat up and rubbed sleep from her eyes. ”Is it wrong of me to be so tempted to get out my phone and shoot a little video?”
”It is since we promised that 'what happens while watching Downton Abbey stays with Downton Abbey,'” Brooke said.
”We're not actually watching Downton Abbey right now,” Claire pointed out with another yawn.