“Why did you take your vacation early, Gil?”
“I went out West to be near her and the kids. But she didn’t want me there, and the kids . . . I don’t even know if they wanted me there. So I finally came back . . .”
“And lost your job?”
He nods. “I didn’t clear the time off in advance. I left my boss a message, but apparently, he doesn’t understand. He’s been married thirty years and his kids are grown. What the hell am I going to do now, Peyton?”
“Listen, Gil, you’ll get past this. I know you will. Everything is going to fall into place and . . .” She trails off, spotting Tara standing in the doorway.
“Peyton? Do you have the storyboards yet?”
“Not yet. They should be here any second.”
“They should have been here an hour ago. Can you follow up, please? And if you can’t get this resolved quickly please send me an e-mail recapping this situation. Thanks.”
She nods, glancing uncomfortably from her boss to Gil, who steps forward, hand out, as if he’s suddenly remembered to be civilized.
“I’m Peyton’s friend Gil Blaney.”
“Nice to meet you,” Tara says curtly, not bothering to introduce herself. “Peyton, if you can check on those storyboards. . . ?”
“I’m on it, Tara,” she promises as the boss strides off down the corridor. To Gil, she says, “I’ve got to do that right away or you won’t be the only one without a job.”
“Can you go to lunch with me?”
“Gil, I’m swamped.”
“You’ve got to eat.”
“I’ll order something in.”
“How about dinner?”
She starts to agree, then remembers Rita. “I’ve already got plans.”
“With who? For what?”
The fact that he obviously considers his personal crisis more pressing than her social life shouldn’t be surprising, considering his condition. Nor should it irk her the way it does.
After all, a friend in need . . .
But I’m in need, too, Peyton reminds herself stoically. I can’t deal with a divorced-and-unemployed sob session on the heels of a day like this. I just can’t.
“Sorry, Gil. Maybe tomorrow? Call me and—”
“Come on, Runt. I don’t have anybody else to turn to. I’m falling apart, here.”
Her phone rings before she can reply.
She seizes it gratefully. “Peyton Somerset.”
“Peyton, the messenger just left your package.”
“Thanks, Claretta.” She hangs up. “Gil, I’ve got to go. Come on, I’ll walk you out.”
“Forget it, you don’t have time.” He heads for the corridor.
“I’m going that way anyway,” she says, but he’s already disappeared around the corner.
She stares after him, raking a hand through her hair.
He’ll be fine, she assures herself halfheartedly, wistfully recalling the happy-go-lucky Gil she once knew.
“Peyton Somerset was in today for her monthly,” Nancy mentions to Rita around a mouthful of tuna sandwich. “She looks great.”
“She does, doesn’t she?”
“She wants another ultrasound so she can tell what she’s having. I bet it’s a girl. What do you think?”
“I really don’t have anything to go by.”
“Neither do I. I’m going by instinct. What’s your guess? Boy or girl?”
Rita takes a bite of her sandwich: her usual turkey on whole grain bread with lettuce and mustard. “I don’t really like to guess.”
“Why not? I love to guess. My mother always said that if you conceive on an even day of the month during a full moon, you’re having a girl.” Nancy’s smile betrays the predictable note of sadness.
Searching for a cheerier subject, Rita asks, “How’s your tuna?”
Nancy looks down at her half-eaten sandwich. “Not great. It’s kind of runny. I hate when it’s like that.”
So much for cheer.
For a moment, they sit in silence.
Then Nancy says brightly, “You know, I forgot to mention to Peyton that I was window-shopping down in Soho over the weekend and I saw a painted yellow crib like she wanted.”
“She already ordered a white one.”
“Well, maybe it’s not too late to cancel if she likes this yellow one. It would match the nursery walls.”
“Actually, she doesn’t have a nursery,” Rita gently corrects Nancy. “It’s a one-bedroom apartment. The baby will sleep in Peyton’s room. We painted the walls in there yellow.”
A flicker of envy in her eyes, Nancy asks, “You helped her?”
“I had to. She’s got those high ceilings, and she can’t go around climbing ladders. Listen, I’ll tell her about the yellow crib when I see her later,” Rita promises, to appease her, though she knows she probably won’t mention it.
Peyton has enough to think about these days between her stressful job and her busy personal life. For somebody who claims to be mere friends with two men, she’s been seeing an awful lot of both Tom and Gil, against Rita’s advice.
“You’re seeing Peyton later?” Nancy asks, a bit too casually. “Business or pleasure?”
“Business,” Rita lies, knowing Nancy is prone to inviting herself along. “Hey, want to split a piece of blueberry pie for dessert?”
Nancy shakes her head. “I’m not really in the mood for pie.”
She’s hurt, Rita thinks. She’s hurt, and lonely, and she’s thinking she has no life outside of work.
The sad thing is, she doesn’t.
Rita should come up with some way to lift her spirits. Something other than inviting her to the movies later.
“So tell me what’s going on at the office today,” Rita suggests, and is promptly rewarded when her friend’s eyes become animated once again.
“Let’s see,” she says, “Elsa Lang was in with contractions—just Braxton Hix, though. And remember Helen Cantero? She’s having twins.”
Rita pops the last bite of her turkey sandwich into her mouth, thinking what a shame it is that poor Nancy must live vicariously through her patients.
Karen looks up from her magazine as Anne Marie follows the housekeeper into the spacious family room, and blurts, “Oh, my gosh. You look like you’ve been through hell.”
Hell doesn’t begin to cover it, but Anne Marie forces a smile, remembering to act as though it hurts to move her facial muscles.
“How are the kids?” she asks, needing to hold her boys close.
“They’re downstairs eating sandwiches with Barbara,” Karen tells her, uncrossing her barefooted legs and patting the love seat beside her. “I know you said not to give them lunch but you were gone longer than I expected and they were hungry.”
“Thanks,” Anne Marie murmurs, annoyed despite her preoccupation with her two brief telephone conversations, one more disturbing than the next.
Karen, with her full household staff including Barbara and a second nanny, considers herself Supermom and has a way of making veiled disparaging remarks about other people’s perceived negligence.
Anne Marie isn’t going to feel guilty, though. Not today.
“Sit down. Are you hungry?” Karen offers, flashing her southern hospitality smile. “Because I can have Louise make you some—”
“No, I can’t eat for a few hours,” Anne Marie cuts in, adding an explanatory “Novocaine,” to offset her curt tone.
“Oh, right, I forgot. Did they prescribe anything to numb the pain? Because maybe you should leave the boys here for the afternoon. You probably shouldn’t be alone with them if you’re out of it from the medication.”
Wishing there were pills to numb her pain, Anne Marie tells Karen, “No, actually, they said I’ll be fine in a few hours. So I’ll just get the boys . . .”
She’s already walking toward the stairs, needing them.
Needing them in her arms.
Now.
“Want the rest of these?” Rita asks Peyton, of
fering an open box of Snowcaps as they head across Union Square.
“No, thanks. I’ve still got Jujubes stuck in my teeth.” She pokes unsuccessfully at an embedded, sticky gel with her tongue, then asks, “So what did you think?”
“Of the movie? It was good, but I didn’t think they should have ended up together,” Rita says of the star-crossed hero and heroine.
“Why not? I thought they were perfect for each other.”
“It just wasn’t realistic.” Rita tucks the Snowcaps into the pocket of her khakis.
“You know, for somebody who’s been happily married forever, you’re pretty jaded,” Peyton informs her. “You of all people should believe in true love.”
“Oh, I believe in true love. I just don’t think it happens as easily as it did in the movie. Or for me and J.D.”
“You’re probably right,” she says, thinking of Gil. “You know, I’d love to meet him someday. What’s he like?”
“J.D.?” The midwife’s face lights up. “He’s sweet. He’s caring. He’d do absolutely anything for anyone. Especially for me.”
Peyton can’t help smiling to herself, thinking that sounds an awful lot like Tom.
For a few minutes they walk on in companionable silence, surrounded by the square’s typical nocturnal inhabitants: teenagers on skateboards, street merchants, strolling couples, briefcase toters, subway-bound students, hawkers thrusting sales fliers into the hands of passersby.
As immune to the chaos as any seasoned city dweller, Peyton finds her thoughts drifting back to the chaotic workday, to Gil’s crisis, to Tom’s welcome phone call just before she left the office.
“Bad day?” he asked sympathetically.
She told him that would be the understatement of the year.
“What can I do to make it better?” he asked, unaware that he just had.
She can’t help it. Whenever she hears his voice, she finds her heart beating a little faster.
“What’s the matter? You’re so quiet.”
Her thoughts interrupted by Rita’s question, she looks around and realizes they’ve already reached Eighteenth Street.
“Just thinking about work.” Peyton hasn’t bothered to mention what’s going on at the office, knowing the midwife is probably too far removed from the corporate world to offer much more than a sympathetic ear.
Allison would have understood completely, would probably have offered sound advice.
To stave off the melancholy mood that invariably settles over her whenever she thinks of her lost friend, Peyton muses, “I wonder how close Wanda is to going into labor.”
“She’s still a few weeks away from her due date, but you never know. Nancy said she had an appointment late this afternoon to be checked for dilation. I’m sure I’d have heard something if anything was under way.”
“So what do you think will happen if she starts having contractions in the middle of the night? How will her boyfriend explain that to his wife?”
Rita shakes his head. “Who knows? Maybe he told her he’s a volunteer fireman.”
Peyton can’t help laughing at that, adding, “Yeah, or a superhero.”
“Don’t laugh. I have a feeling she’d believe anything Eric told her.”
They arrive at the intersection of Broadway and Twenty-first Street, and Rita says, “Here’s where I turn off.”
“Hey, how about coming back to my apartment for coffee? Tom is going to stop over to put up a bookshelf I bought. You can meet him.”
“Meet the famous Tom at last?” Rita smiles. “That sounds good. But don’t expect me to give you two my blessing or anything like that.”
“Trust me, he’s just a friend.”
But in her heart, Peyton knows he might have been something more, if things had been different.
“How was your day?” Jarrett asks as always, standing in the front hall in his suit and tie, flipping through the day’s mail.
“It was . . . fine.” Anne Marie hovers in the archway, hugging herself against the chill that has nothing to do with the superefficient central air-conditioning.
He glances up at her as if he actually heard her for a change.
She reaches up to touch her cheek. “I had to have emergency dental work.”
Jarrett stares at her. Then he sets the stack of mail on the Stickley table by the door and walks toward her.
Anne Marie forces herself to stand her ground when all she wants is to flee.
But you can’t run away, she reminds herself as she has ever since she got home earlier. You can’t run away from Jarrett, from this life, from the past, from . . . the truth.
“You didn’t have emergency dental work, did you?”
It isn’t a question.
“ No.”
She braces herself for the suspicious interrogation, the bitter accusations.
They don’t come.
Jarrett merely searches her face, then takes another step closer.
She holds her breath, waiting for him to reach out and touch her, to grab her upper arms and demand an explanation, the way he did that night in the bedroom when he found the Bible. She knows that if he does touch her, this time, she’ll fall apart.
But he doesn’t.
He merely looks at her and says, barely audibly, “Anne Marie.”
Her name. The name she hasn’t heard him utter in so long, too long, and it affects her more profoundly than physical contact ever could.
With it, Anne Marie Egerton’s shield of stoic resolve evaporates. At long last, she allows herself to fall apart . . . and into her husband’s arms.
At long last, she tells him the whole truth.
“Is she asleep?” Mary asks, looking up when Javier walks into the kitchen.
“Finally. I think she might be cutting a tooth.”
There is no joy in his voice as he speaks of the milestone, only a quick flash of resentment when Mary tells him, “She’s too young for that.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.”
And I’ve spent years reading everything there is to read about motherhood; every parenting manual, every month-by-month chart, every magazine article under the sun.
Time and time again, she prepared herself to care for the infant that was growing inside her, only to face loss after devastating loss.
Now, at last, she’s a mother. A mother who will have the chance to witness every priceless milestone: first tooth, first word, first steps . . .
They stretch before her, beckoning landmarks on a golden path she can choose to follow . . . or not.
“We should call the rectory,” Javier says quietly. “Find out if there are any arrangements yet.”
She nods, a lump forming in her throat as she remembers the old priest’s kind eyes and gentle spirit.
She’ll never know now what might have happened if she had unburdened her soul to him. It’s too late for that, too late for what-ifs.
Conscious of Javier’s eyes on her, she finishes drying the last droplet of water on the last supper dish and places it carefully on top of the meager, chipped stack in the cupboard. Then she drapes the towel on the oven door handle and turns back to her husband.
“I keep trying to listen to God, trying to figure out what he wants me to do,” she tells Javier. “And whenever I look at our daughter, I think I know. But I’m not sure whether it’s God talking to me, or my own heart. I want her so much, Javier . . .”
“And now she’s ours,” he says, taking her in his arms when her voice breaks. “God wouldn’t take her away. It’s what Father Roberto would have told you. I know it is.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“I am right. Trust me. Even Mrs. Calabrone said so.”
Mary frowns and pulls back to look up at him. “What do you mean?”
“I spoke to her a few weeks ago,” he says, avoiding her gaze. “I called her.”
“Why?”
“Because I needed to speak to her.”
“About what?
” Mary asks uneasily.
“About you, and your doubts. I told her you were going to go to confession because you felt like you had sinned. I said that besides me, the only two people in the world you could possibly talk to about it were Father Roberto and her. I thought, why involve him?”
“Because I trust him.”
“But I figured maybe Rose could come talk to you instead, and make you see that it wasn’t a sin in the first place.”
“But that isn’t her place to—”
“Listen, it doesn’t matter. She said to let you work this out for yourself. She said you would come to realize that what we did wasn’t wrong. She said even Father Roberto would know it was necessary to save an innocent child.”
Mary takes a deep breath, praying she’s doing the right thing.
Then she tells her husband, “I’m going to do my best to believe that. I’m going to pray for guidance, that I might eventually learn to live with this guilt.”
“You’re saying you won’t tell anybody after all?” Javier holds her close again. “You’re saying you’ll forget all that and just move on, the three of us, as a family?”
“I’m saying I’ll try.”
Leaving Tom to hang the bookshelf in one corner of the newly painted bedroom, Peyton turns on the kitchen tap to camouflage her voice, then whispers to Rita, “What do you think?”
“Of the bookshelf? I love it. It’s the same shade of yellow as—”
“Not the bookshelf. I mean him.”
“Oh. He’s nice,” Rita says noncommittally. “You’re making decaf, right?”
“That’s it?”
“Caffeine will keep me up all night.”
Peyton narrows her eyes, certain Rita is deliberately misunderstanding her. “I’m pregnant, remember? I only keep decaf in the house now. I wasn’t talking about the coffee.”
“You mean Tom? What else do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know . . . nice is so . . . I mean, everyone’s nice.”
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