Carpool Confidential (36 page)

“Definitely an alibi service,” Humphrey said into my ear at 6 a.m. the next morning.

“Humphrey,” I said groggily, “do I have some kind of sign on me that makes people believe it's all right to call me routinely before the sun comes up?”

He was quiet for a second. “Sort of, yeah.”

“OK. Just wondering. Why would he be using an alibi service?”

“That's the next phase of the investigation. And by the way, he knows Jordan Hallock really well. And if she's redecorating your house? She's not dressed very adequately to protect herself from sharp corners and such.”

Swirling shock once again. Sort of. It's not like it was a surprise at this point, but in
my
house? I almost cared more about her potentially making fun of my taste in IKEA furniture than fucking my husband. Almost. “He's not in Dallas?”

“He's not in Dallas.”

I sighed. “I can hardly wait for the next phase.”

“Hey,” he said in his gravelly voice, “at least you'll know where things stand.”

This conversation made me want to sit down with a box of Mallomars, but as I was having lunch with James Spence, I shelved this idea and hauled my butt out for a run in the freezing cold. I was about halfway over the bridge when my phone started shrilling in my pocket. I veered onto the observation platform, since the bicycle/running lane was about as safe as standing in the middle of Broadway.

“Cassie!” It was Charlotte sounding very hyper. “Why are you out of breath? Am I interrupting something?”

“I was running over the Brooklyn Bridge,” I shouted over the traffic noise.

“Very unexciting explanation for your panting,” she said. “I'm disappointed. Listen, have you heard of Anne Marshberg?”

“Um.” It sounded like a name I should have heard of, but I couldn't place it. “I don't think so.”

“What about Ralph MacKinlop?”

“No, why?”

“They're agents. Ralph is pretty big, Anne's a powerhouse.”

“And?” I was losing my cardio advantage here. I didn't want to look like an idiot by jogging in place while talking on the cell phone, but didn't possess either the coordination or the stamina to run and talk.

“They both called me yesterday.” Pause. “About you.”

“You're kidding me!” For once it was a good heart plummet. I was practically squeaking.

“They love the blog. And they both commented specifically on how much they like the interaction with the readers. As far as agents are concerned, it means you come with a built-in audience. The kind that might be inclined to buy a book.”

If I'd been walking, I would have stopped dead. “You're kidding.”

“Do I do that?”

“No, not really,” I admitted. “I just can't get my mind around the fact that you might not be.”

“Try.”

I did. I'd had enough standing still, so I started walking. “Are you trying?”

“Yes.”

“How does it feel?”

I smiled so broadly that a guy running in the other direction gave me a weird look. “Good,” I told her.

 

I was wondering whether I was going to feel like a seriously different person walking in the door than I had walking out.

I still wanted to eat about thirty Mallomars.

I sat down and, with shaking hands, voice, and heart, called the agents. In both cases, as soon as I explained to the assistants who I was, I got put through. Both were interested, flattering, charming, and convinced they could sell a book by me. I set up lunch dates with both of them and then sat, trying to see if the seriously different person thing had kicked in.

I still felt like a foolish, unloved, dumped wife.

I still felt like I couldn't possibly be enough parent on my own for the boys.

I was still going to lose sleep over M.A.

I called Randy and Jen and told them. Then, with their enthusiasm and congratulations and
We knew you had it in you
s still resounding in my ears, I sat, trying again for the seriously different person thing.

When Sue Moriarty called to find out whether I'd made arrangements with Ken to go visit other school cafeterias, I felt guilty because I hadn't.

When my mother called, updating me on the latest (she and my father were going to attend a 12-step program for sex addicts and their codependents), I didn't tell her my news. I think I was equally scared that she'd be proud of, or disappointed in, me.

And when I looked around my apartment, I still felt like someone who shouldn't be living with so many grown-up things, who didn't belong here. So what did that mean?

I shook it off and went to get myself ready for lunch.

It couldn't have been clearer that my marriage was just waiting to have the life support turned off. So why did I feel guilty about being here?

As I followed the maitre d' to the table, I tilted my head a notch higher—it made me
feel
righteous and, I told myself, probably made me look regal.

James (“Call me Jamie.” “That's a girl's name here.” “I know, but somehow I manage to live with that.”) Spence stood up at my arrival. “Hi.” His smile turned to a frown. “Are you all right? Do you have a stiff neck?”

He reached across the table and flipped my hand over. “Nice manicure.”

“Thanks. I didn't want anyone calling me up and telling me I was surprisingly fat for an anorexic.”

He laughed. “How many apologies will that take?” He was still looking at the back of my hand. “You're going to have a tiny scar from that dog bite.”

It had been a long time since I'd been touched by a male who was either not Rick or too tall to wipe his nose on my leg. It felt…odd. Not bad, just odd.

He let go of my hand and leaned back in his chair. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you.”

“It's not that”—I smiled at the waiter as he handed me a menu—“I'm flushed with the anticipation of the lawsuit. Does this count as admission of malpractice?”

He opened his menu. “If you tell me that up 'til now you've been supporting your family by working as a hand model, I'll be completely gutted by my own incompetence.”

“Yes,” I started laughing. “That's exactly it. Don't tell me you recognized my hands.”

“I did, of course, but I was playing it cool. Did you notice how the waiter was staring at them?”

“That happens a lot.”

The waiter came back and asked if we'd like to hear the specials, recited a movie script, and left us to think about it.

“Notice how disciplined he was in not staring at your hands?” Jamie put his menu down. “I'd never thought of blueberries and calamari together before.”

“That's because you haven't tried them with a reduction of aged balsamic vinegar di Modena and a splash of Absolut Citron.”

He picked up the menu again. “I think I might have the burger.”

“Probably a wise choice.” I picked my menu up too.

We looked at each other in that awkward way of people who are essentially strangers sitting alone together across a small table. I decided to be forthright for about the first time in my life. “So what's this about?”

“I don't care how unsophisticated it sounds, I don't like fruit and seafood together.”

I laughed. “Lunch, together, us.”

He put his menu down, again. “Does it have to be complicated?”

“I find life usually is. I am.”

“Why does that not surprise me, considering that the first time I met you, your mother-in-law's vampire bat was hanging off your hand and since then you've sworn at me on the phone, invited me to a sex club, and turned up trailing an adolescent in distress?”

I laughed again. “You're an intuitive guy?”

The waiter appeared, which felt like an unnecessary interruption. Jamie, true to his word, ordered the burger. I almost said to bring me whatever so we could get back to talking, but I was deeply afraid of the squid. I ordered black cod.

“If this is going to be complicated, shall I order some wine?” He leaned back a little.

“The last time I drank at lunch was with Letitia at Esta and look how that turned out.”

“I don't know.” The corner of his mouth moved a little, which I was starting to know meant he was going to smile in a second. The light was already going on in the window—dimly, but enough for meaning to begin illuminating his face for me. “It could have been the only thing that saved you from dire infection.”

“Red,” I said.

“You're having fish,” he reminded me, “unless you've changed your mind.”

“I'm learning to live on the edge. So thanks to the blog, you already know an unfortunate amount about me.” And then about twenty minutes later—why do people have to make a production about wine?—I took a sip and felt the wine trace a zigzag of warmth under my ribs. “But I know next to nothing about you.”

“All right.” He turned the stem of his glass in his fingers. “I'm thirty-six—”

“Thirty-six!” I was horrified. “You're younger than I am!”

He laughed. “I grew up about an hour outside London. I've two older brothers, one younger sister, my mother's a barrister, my father's a horse vet. I went to university at Cambridge, came here for medical school. I met my ex-wife here—we got married our second year of med school. She's a surgeon. We've been divorced two years.”

“And?”

“You want more than that? Let's see. I ran the last New York marathon, but I doubt I'll do it again since it required a bit too much discipline. I like sailing and reading. I almost never like well-reviewed independent films. I play rugby, but I'm a winger since I dislike getting hurt. I think American sports are insipid. Oh—and I'm not, despite years of forced piano lessons, particularly musical, which, given your current situation, I should think you might find comforting.”

“Believe me, neither is Rick,” I muttered just as my phone rang. Damn it! Why couldn't it ever ring when I was bored completely to death, like waiting for Cad to choose a tree for the fortieth time in a twelve-hour span? The caller ID taunted me with
unavailable
, which, of course, meant it could be anyone about anything.

Jamie took a sip of his wine. “Go ahead.”

“Hello?” I mentally recited my new prayer,
Please, God, make this not be Sue Moriarty. Amen
.

“Hey, Cass. Where are you?”

So, since it was Rick, did that mean my prayer had been answered? I mean, yes, God had followed my request to the letter, but honestly, did He really think this was better? “Having lunch,” I said casually.

“Out or at home?”

“Out.”

“Great! Could you do me a favor and pick up some Advil? I'm on my way home and I've got a killer headache.” I resisted the urge to ask if Jordan carried them.

“Sure.” The answer was a combination of habit—I'd been saying
sure
to him for fifteen years—and wanting to get off the phone.

“I like the gel coated caplets,” he reminded me. “They're easier to swallow.”

“I know. Bye.” I hung up and smiled at Jamie.

“Are there no drugstores at all in his vicinity?”

“I don't know, he just doesn't—things like this, I do them,” I admitted.

“Ah, then how about a small act of rebellion? Buy the round ones.” He lifted his glass a fraction. “You either need to hold the phone tighter against your ear or turn down the volume.” His face looked…
tight
was the best way to describe it.

“Are you angry?” I asked.

“No.” He looked down for a second and then back up. “Disappointed that you didn't tell me the situation had changed, I guess.”

I stiffened. “I didn't think I had to. I didn't know this was a date.”

He gave me a level look. “Really?”

Since I'd blogged about it being a date to the entire universe, I didn't have much of a leg to stand on. “OK, I sort of did, but I didn't trust myself that it could be. It seemed incomprehensible to me that you could want a date with me, so I convinced myself that it probably wasn't. And the intentions of lunch are so hard to read.”

He laughed. “And here I was trying to be subtle.”

The waiter put our food down.

“I didn't blog about him coming back because we were worried it would blow my anonymity,” I explained.

He smiled. “I have a confession.”

“What?” I was not at a point in my life where those were words that made me happy.

“I stopped reading after I asked you out.”

“You did? Why?”

“Because I didn't want to make it lopsided. And because it's part of the fun of dating, unwrapping someone else, getting to know them slowly, don't you think?”

“I wouldn't know,” I confessed. “The last time I dated it pretty much boiled down to
Your dorm room or mine?
But I have to say, that's some pretty stunning self-control on your part. If you had a blog, I'd have read it.”

“Once,” he said. “I'm not that interesting.”

“I don't know,” I looked at him. “You seem pretty interesting. In fact, I keep wondering why on earth you would want to date me anyway. I'm, well, to put it bluntly, an accident in progress.”

“To put it bluntly back, it tends to be sort of a complex thing, figuring out the mysteries of attraction or the lack of it, but I thought you were funny and sarcastic when you saved that horrible dog and screamed curses at me on the phone.” He paused to take a bite and chew it. “And I like the way you are about your niece. Is that enough?”

“I don't know.” Although maybe it was, because I felt warmed all over. “But it's nice anyway.”

“I can come up with more. Just give me a sec.” He took another bite. “I thought you looked wrung out but still attractive in Esta, and I think you look a whole lot more than that right now.” He gave me a frankly appreciative look. I'd forgotten how good that could feel. It had been a long time. Rick's grope in the closet had clearly been lust of some variety but in the end hadn't felt like it was much to do with
me
. “So I think it's safe to assume there's some chemistry, on my part anyway.”

Oh, mine too. “I like that you're a man who knows how to deal with an almost certainly rabid animal bite.”

“So that's as good as it's going to get for me?”

I laughed. Despite his flattering words, I could not understand what anyone could possibly see in me at this point in my life. “I'm not supposed to meet someone normal who likes me so soon,” I said. “Dumped middle-aged women are supposed to spend years dating losers before meeting anyone else, if they ever do.”

“I guess I didn't realize quite how recent it all was,” he said, leaning over and helping himself to a bite of my fish. “It's too soon. I'm sorry. I know you need to spend some time dating married losers posing as single guys on match.com.”

Don't say that
I wanted to wail but, of course, did not. “So, um, you know the basics about mine, what happened with your marriage?” As soon as I'd said it, a knot of depression and anxiety tied up my stomach, replacing the fizzing almost-lust of a moment ago. Rick and I went so far back, it just wasn't possible that I'd ever again know a man as well as I knew him. Everyone I met from here on out would know a smaller piece of me.

“My marriage,” Jamie said slowly, and I wanted to turn away before he could tell me how broken life had left him.

I wasn't necessarily right, I told myself fiercely. Knowing Rick long hadn't added up to knowing him well. If it had, I wouldn't be sitting here now.

“We shared a passion for our jobs.” Jamie looked sad, too, and I wondered what was really going through his head. “And not enough else.”

“You screwed around.” Disappointment in him sunk through me.

“Why would you assume that? Maybe she screwed around?”

“Did she?”

“No. But maybe our interests diverged. Maybe she hated the kind of mattress I liked and maybe I got tired of living with someone whose idea of dinner was a poached egg white and some steamed broccoli.”

“I'm a newly minted cynic,” I said. “Or maybe a newly out of the closet one.”

“All right. I had an affair,” he said as he met my gaze.

“What happened?”

“She left me. She's remarried and very happy.”