Would she do it now, if he asked?
When he put the question to his buddies—was it typical for the passion to wane around year five—they assured him that he was experiencing the “baby blues.” “We’ve all been there, dude,” his friends commiserated with him. Things would get back to normal soon enough. “By the time Benjamin’s five, at the latest,” his buddy Tom joked. Rob couldn’t imagine a five-year stretch of sleep deprivation and next-to-no sex. Sometimes he felt as if Lanie had forgotten he even existed, and then he felt even smaller, like a petulant child hungry for attention.
“It’s natural. She’s fallen in love with your son. Give her time. Once he hits the terrible twos, she’ll remember what a well-mannered guy you are and how much she loves a man who doesn’t throw his peas across the table.” Rob tried to take what comfort he could from those words.
“Good morning to you, too,” Kate tried again.
“Sorry. My mind’s somewhere else.” He brushed the snow from his overcoat, then rifled through the mail laid out on the ledge above her desk for his review. “Let it snow, let it snow, huh?”
“I said to Mark yesterday, it smells like snow. I bet it’s going to snow.” She took a sip of her coffee, leaving maroon lipstick marks on the rim. “I can always tell. So, do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
Rob sighed. “There’s already both?” He glanced at his watch. It was only eight thirty.
She nodded. “Bad?”
“Okay. The bad news is that Eli doesn’t like your latest tweaks to the west wing. Says it feels old-fashioned. He wants something more ‘in tune with kids today,’ whatever that means.” She rolled her eyes.
“Shit,” Rob said under his breath. Kate had lost no time in telling him what she thought of Eli a few weeks after she’d been hired. “He’s a chauvinistic pig. Looks at my boobs every time he talks to me.” (Rob had stared intently at Kate’s face when she said this.)
“It would be one thing if he was hot, but he’s just a nerdy guy.” Rob had wanted to ask how it would be different, how that would make it okay. But he bit his tongue.
True, Eli was a little pathetic in the way those kids in school who never quite fit in were. He imagined Eli wearing button-down shirts in high school, no date at the prom. But Eli was also the kind of guy who was going to end up with a boatload of money, and he’d caught Hobbs’s eye out of the gate. Rob agreed he was a smart architect, anal in his calculations and drawings, but he lacked what Rob liked to think of as architectural intuition. No sense for how the space would work once people were actually in it. Their team had been struggling to refine the plans for Madison’s new art institute for weeks. Every time it seemed as if they were in the home stretch, Eli threw them a curve ball. “Let’s get Walter on the phone, shall we?”
“I’ve already got a conference call set up for ten thirty.”
Rob smiled. “Figures.”
“Now for the good news: Lanie called. She says court is shutting down early today, and she’ll be able to pick up Benjamin from day care this afternoon. So you’re off the hook.”
“Oh,” Rob’s heart sunk just a bit. Why hadn’t she just called his cell? Then he remembered he’d forgotten to charge it last night. It was dead in his pocket.
“Not good news?” Kate asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I was looking forward to cutting out early myself today, with this crap weather.”
“Well, I’m not stopping you.” She turned back to her computer. “Don’t worry. I’ll cover for you, like I always do,” she added, her nails clicking away at the keys.
“Your boss is such an ass. I don’t know how you stand him.”
“You and me both,” Kate said matter-of-factly. Then, when Rob paused for a moment: “Well, are you going to do any work today?”
“Probably not.” He grabbed his coffee and walked into his office, directly across the way. He dropped his briefcase on the cluttered desk, hung his coat on the hook behind the door, plugged in his cell. The snow outside the window was blowing hard now, almost horizontally, and when he touched his finger to the pane he pulled it quickly back from the cold. He sat down at his drawing board and retrieved the plans from the drawer. Etching upon etching detailed all the modifications they’d already made to the west wing, meant to be devoted to a children’s museum. He’d see what he could do to appease Eli without redrafting it completely. As with so much in life, it was a matter of two steps forward, one step back. Eventually, he had faith that they would get there.
Then he remembered he’d meant to call Lanie, make sure she and Benjamin had made it in all right. He picked up his desk phone and started punching the numbers.
When he heard her voice, he smiled. “Hey,” he began.
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WENDY FRANCIS is the author of Three Good Things and a former book editor whose work has appeared in The Huffington Post and The Improper Bostonian. She lives outside Boston with her husband and son.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Wendy Francis
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First Simon & Schuster trade paperback edition July 2015
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Francis, Wendy.
The summer of good intentions: a novel / Wendy Francis.—First Simon & Schuster trade paperback edition.
pages; cm
1. Sisters—Fiction. 2. Family secrets—Fiction. 3. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PS3606.R36535S86 2015
813’.6—dc23
2014040902
ISBN 978-1-4516-6642-7
ISBN 978-1-4516-6643-4 (ebook)
The Summer of Good Intentions Page 31