Breakfast at Stephanie's

by Sue Margolis

  “No. That’s not it.”

  “Useful? Brilliant? Inventive? Clever?”

  “No. I’ll get there. I’ll get there.”

  Sunnie stood looking at it. “Interuterine! That’s it. It’s just so interuterine.”

  Stephanie invited Albert and Sunnie Ellaye over for a fry-up breakfast on Boxing Day. In the end Sunnie didn’t come because she wanted to catch up on her sleep.

  “What I always wanted to know,” Albert said, tucking into his streaky bacon, “is where a nice Jewish girl like you got the taste for pig?”

  “Ah. Forbidden fruit,” she said. “The smell used to waft into our kitchen from our next-door neighbor’s house. I remember begging my mother to switch the fan onto suck.”

  Afterward they took Jake for a walk on Hampstead Heath. Except Jake spent most of his time on Albert’s shoulders and screaming with delight.

  “So, how’s it working out with Mrs. M.?” Albert asked.

  “Not so good.” She explained.

  “Your mother’s looking after Jake? God knows I love Estelle, but she must be giving you hell.”

  “Not hell exactly.” Stephanie smiled. “But close.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment. “Look, this may sound crazy, but think about it before you say no. I’m not working again until the middle of February. A few things didn’t work out and so I decided to give myself a few weeks’ break. Sunnie is only here for a few days because she’s off to some Reiki conference in Cornwall, then back to L.A. I’d planned to take a trip to Europe, but I don’t have to. Why don’t I stay here and look after Jake? I’m desperate to get to know him. I’ve already missed so much of his growing up.”

  “Oh, it’s a lovely thought, Albert. But I’m not sure it would work. I mean, you love playing with Jake for an hour or so, but what about when he makes a mess, throws temper tantrums? Children this age are so demanding. They need entertaining all the time and you can’t let him out of your sight for a second. It’s exhausting.”

  “But why don’t I give it a try? Maybe there are bits of me I haven’t discovered. I’ve got this feeling I might enjoy it. I’m bound to make mistakes, but I’m not an idiot, he won’t come to any physical harm. I promise.”

  She looked at him. She could see in his eyes he really wanted to do this. And he was Jake’s father. How could she say no?

  “OK.”

  “We’ve got a deal?” he said, starting to laugh. She nodded. He turned his head up toward Jake, who was still perched on his shoulders.

  “Hear that, Jakey? We’ve just gotten ourselves a deal.”

  On New Year’s Eve, Cass had a party. The twins spent the night at Stephanie’s, and since Harry and Estelle never went out on New Year’s Eve on account of all the drunks and tramps, they came to babysit.

  The party was a housewarming as much as anything. Cass had just bought a loft in a newly converted warehouse near Camden Lock. Inside it was all white and steel and installation-type artworks. The first time Lizzie saw it she’d taken one look at the high metal-pronged kitchen stools and blanched.

  “Aren’t they great?” Cass had said, purposely winding her up. “You sit down and get a smear test at the same time.”

  Lizzie’s verdict was that the loft was “all very arty, but not exactly comfortable.” She kept buying Cass huge bunches of lilies, “just to soften the place up a bit.”

  Stephanie, on the other hand, adored it and was quite open about being puce with envy.

  The night of the party, the place was full of stoned advertising types and Sloaney PRs. The eats, which had been done by some übertrendy Thai caterer, were sublime. Cass was wearing a velvet dress in deepest plum, which was thigh high and pretty much backless and frontless—or as Albert put it: “pretty much pointless.” Courtesy of a preparty line or two, Cass was positively brimming with festive cheer. She must have kissed everybody and told them how much she loved them at least half a dozen times.

  Most people were dancing in the “living space,” which was decked out in candles and trendy tubular fairy lighting. The rest were in the kitchen. Here Albert—draped in Sunnie Ellaye (body glitter, fairy queen tiara)—was holding court, telling stories and jokes. He was in particularly good form and everybody was falling about—especially Lizzie. She looked a bit frumpy, though, Stephanie thought—which was hard with a figure like hers. She would have looked sensational in something short and clingy, but instead she was wearing a chain-store floral skirt and little velvet-edged cardigan. It was pretty, just not sexy. Dom, on the other hand, was looking severely cute in a dark navy suit with matching open-necked shirt. But he seemed subdued. When Albert cracked yet another joke, he barely reacted. In the taxi they’d shared on the way over, Lizzie had been rabbiting away, but he’d barely looked at her, let alone responded. His mind was clearly elsewhere.

  “Is Dom OK?” Stephanie said to Lizzie when they went out onto the balcony to get some fresh air.

  “Oh, you know, he’s just exhausted. Not really in the party mood. He’s off to Hong Kong day after tomorrow, poor love.”

  “You keep going on about it, but you two really do need to get away together.”

  “I know. And he’s promised we will. As soon as this case is over.”

  A bit later Stephanie mentioned the Lizzie-Dom situation to Cass. She agreed there was something not right. She’d noticed Dom disappearing into the bedroom a couple of times.

  “I’m pretty sure he was making calls on his mobile. Couldn’t hear anything. Probably business, though.”

  “On New Year’s Eve?”

  Cass agreed it wasn’t very likely—even for Dom.

  “You know what I think?” Stephanie said. “I reckon Dom’s having an affair. You remember when we were over there just before Christmas. He seemed off with her then.”

  “I know,” Cass said. “I’ve been thinking the same.”

  At midnight Dom was nowhere to be seen. Albert was at one end of the room snogging Sunnie Ellaye. Cass was at the other end, tongue down some seven-foot hunk. Lizzie and Stephanie looked at each other, shrugged and burst into giggles.

  “Guess it’s just you and me, then,” Stephanie said.

  “Happy New Year, hon,” Lizzie said, hugging her friend tightly.

  “Yeah, happy New Year,” Stephanie said, returning the hug. When Lizzie pulled away she was smiling, but Stephanie was sure her eyes were glistening with tears. A few moments later Cass came over to wish them happy New Year.

  “God, I need a man,” she said. “Maybe having these braces fitted was a mistake. They’re really putting them off, and I need sex. It’s been weeks. I just get so cranky.”

  “But you were just snogging that amazing-looking bloke,” Lizzie said.

  “Oh, that’s just Charlie.”

  “What do you mean ‘just’? He’s gorgeous.”

  “I know. Gorgeous and exceedingly gay.”

  “But he was tonguing your tonsils,” Stephanie said.

  “Only to be polite. He knew I didn’t have a bloke.”

  “Oh, I’ve done things like that,” Lizzie said. “I remember once, just before I met Dom, a chap named Freddie took me on this really romantic weekend to Paris. He wouldn’t let me pay for a thing. On the way home he asked me to marry him. Of course I said yes. I didn’t know what else to do. It seemed rude to refuse. Took me ages to pluck up the courage to tell him I wasn’t really interested.”

  Stephanie got home just after three. She lay in the dark, hands behind her head, daring herself to imagine the excitement the new year might bring: a new agent, new opportunities. Oh, and a man. As she started to doze off, she imagined all kinds of scenarios—giving a brilliant lead performance in a West End show and the queen leading the audience in a standing ovation, bringing the house down at the Palladium. At the back of her mind, though, she couldn’t help worrying about Lizzie and Dom. Christ, if they didn’t make it, what hope was there for everybody else?

  Chapter 7

  By the end o
f the first week of January, Stephanie still had no offers of work. Albert popped in each day to see Jake. As she’d suspected, Albert was less than keen on Jake playing with an iron and ironing board.

  “For crying out loud, Steph, you’re turning my son into a faggot.”

  “Albert, that is nonsense. You can’t turn a person gay. And even if you could, I’m sure the tank and cruise missile launcher will redress the balance.”

  She made it clear that if he insisted on her getting rid of the ironing board, she would also take away the toys he had bought. He didn’t say another word.

  In the afternoons he took Sunnie Ellaye sightseeing.

  “Did you know that some of the dead people in Westminster Abbey were buried standing up?” Sunnie said after one particular outing. “Can you imagine what that does to their arches?”

  Two or three times they took Jake with them on their jaunts. Each time he came back in one piece and perfectly content, which Stephanie found remarkably encouraging. She also noticed that Sunnie Ellaye, despite her dippiness—or maybe because of it—seemed to particularly enjoy getting down on her knees and playing with Jake.

  On the eighth, Sunnie left for her Reiki conference and on the ninth, Eileen Griffin rang with a job for Stephanie: playing the piano in the lounge at the Park Royal Hotel in Kensington. It was weekdays only, from three until eight. Tea to cocktails. Or as Stephanie put it: “Edelweiss” to “Moon River.”

  The hours suited her perfectly. She had the mornings with Jake, and since he was usually in bed by half past six, it meant Albert wouldn’t have too strenuous a day. On top of that, Jake went to playgroup two afternoons a week, which made it even easier.

  Albert arrived every day around lunchtime and went back to his flat every evening. By now Stephanie was confident that no physical harm would come to Jake, but it soon became clear that Albert had a hard time remembering the child was only two and a half. For a start, he let him pee into the loo—on his own. Of course it was much too high for him and when Stephanie got home each night, there were puddles of wee all over the floor.

  “Albert, he has to pee into his potty and you have to hold it.”

  “What? I have to hold his penis?”

  “No, you have to hold the potty. But sometimes he loses concentration, so, yeah, occasionally, you do need to point him in the right direction.”

  “Oh, man!” Albert also couldn’t understand why Jake refused to sit still on the sofa with him and watch American football on Sky. Then he would feed him unsuitable food.

  “I thought we’d have a treat, so I took him to Pizza Express. He didn’t eat much, though.”

  “What did you order him?”

  “Same as me—an American Hot. Except, of course, they’re so small I had two.”

  She didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

  One night when she got home, there was no sign of them. The minutes turned into an hour. Then an hour and a half. She was starting to get really worried. It was hours past Jake’s bedtime and she was convinced something dreadful had happened to him and that he was in hospital. She kept trying Albert’s mobile, but there was no reply. About half past ten she heard Albert’s key in the door. He came in cradling a sound-asleep Jake.

  “Christ, Albert, where on earth have you been? I’ve been worried sick.”

  “Soccer game. West Ham was playing Arsenal, at home. West Ham won by three to nothing. Great match.”

  “Hang on. Let me get this straight. You took a two-and-a-half-year-old to a football match?”

  “Sure. He loved it.”

  “Albert, how could you? And how could he love it? He’s a baby. He must have been petrified. The crowd and the noise, for one thing. And West Ham’s really rough. It’s full of bloody hooligans. God, Albert, anything could have happened.”

  “But nothing did. We ate hot dogs and burgers—”

  “Jake ate hot dogs? From a vendor? Have you any idea of the crap they put in those things? Christ, he could have bloody mad cow disease.”

  “Steph, calm down. He’s fine. We had the best time. Now why don’t you let me put him to bed.”

  And Jake continued to be fine. He displayed neither emotional trauma from having gone to see West Ham nor even the remotest physical reaction to the food. Nevertheless, Stephanie did keep reminding Albert—purely to make him feel guilty—that it can take thirty years for the first symptoms of mad cow disease to appear.

  When Stephanie mentioned to Lizzie that Albert’s parenting skills weren’t quite A-level, Lizzie volunteered to drop in on Albert for coffee from time to time.

  “That way I can give him a few tactful pointers.”

  The transformation was remarkable. Lizzie turned up with her battered Penelope Leach, as well as Fun and Games for Toddlers and Amazing Meals for Kids. Instead of getting offended, Albert devoured the books. By the end of the third week, Albert had built a cardboard Wendy House, in which they would sit reading stories, or doing puzzles, Jake gobbling up Albert’s “faces.” These were organic oatcakes covered in low-fat cheese spread and finished off with smiley faces made from raisins and tiny bits of chopped up veggies. Fondant Fancies were long forgotten. By now Albert also knew Piaget’s theory of child development by heart. One night Stephanie came home feeling especially tired because she’d had to wait nearly an hour for a train. Jake, who’d had a late nap and wasn’t remotely ready for bed, came rushing up to her, desperate for her to do a puzzle with him.

  “Oh, just a minute, Jake, I’m really exhausted. Let me sit down and have a cup of tea first.”

  Jake started to whine.

  “Jake, give me a break. Please, poppet.”

  Albert picked him up, took him to the kitchen table and started doing the puzzle.

  “You see, Steph,” he said, “Jake is still at what Piaget calls the preoperational stage. As well as not yet being able to conceptualize abstractly, he remains totally egocentric and incapable of taking the perspective of the other person.” Albert smiled at her. “I, on the other hand,” he continued, “am not quite so egocentric. As a sensitive adult, I am able to appreciate you’ve had a crappy journey home and am happy to make you a nice cup of tea.”

  “You’re really enjoying this whole daddy thing, aren’t you?” she said after he’d finally put Jake to bed.

  “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “You don’t know how happy that makes me,” she said.

  “Me too.”

  Then, out of the blue, he kissed her, briefly, on the lips. She stood there blinking with surprise, aware that if he’d put his arms around her and kissed her properly, she probably wouldn’t have pushed him away.

  Each night she came home to a perfectly contented Jake, but the kitchen and living room were always a complete mess. Albert never tidied up the toys and it never occurred to him to scrape dirty dishes and pans and put them in the dishwasher. He was now preparing Jake’s supper each evening—chicken casseroles, vegetable moussaka. Wonderful as his food was, the chaos he managed to cause was staggering. Being an Italian son, he’d never cooked in his life. Back in L.A., he ate out. He put his newfound talent down to his mother.

  “I guess it’s in the genes.”

  Stephanie was desperate not to let Albert think she was ungrateful, but one night she came home to a particularly spectacular pickle, which she knew would take ages to clean up. She decided to say something. She was tactful, but firm.

  “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. You see, Jake and I made cupcakes this afternoon.” He nodded toward the counter. There were two lopsided cakes left, sitting on the wire rack, covered in runny blue icing and sprinkles. “Jake saved them for you. I did mean to tidy up, but then he asked me to play a game. And I think the playing is more important than a tidy kitchen.” She looked back at the wonky cakes and her face broke into a smile. She could hardly believe that the man who couldn’t bear the thought of his son owning an ironing board was now baking cakes with him.

  “If Jamie Oliver can
bake cakes, then I guess I can too,” Albert said when she started pulling his leg about the cupcakes. “Start to worry when you find me and Jake bonding over our embroidery … Look, there’s plenty of lasagna. Why don’t we get Jake to bed and have a quiet dinner, just the two of us. I bought a bottle of Chianti.”

  “OK. Sounds good,” she said. The food was delicious. After dinner they went into the living room. They sat there, finishing the bottle of wine and talking about Jake.

  Eventually he said he ought to get going.

  “I guess,” she said. By now the wine was making her feel distinctly mellow.

  They both stood up. A couple of beats, then: “We had fun in Verona, didn’t we?” he said.

  “Oh, yes,” she said softly. “We had fun.”

  Then he put his arms around her. There was no kiss, just the hug. She found herself hugging him back, running her hand up and down his spine.

  “You know, I sometimes wonder …” his voice trailed off.

  “What? What do you wonder?”

  “Oh, nothing. It’s nothing … Listen, I’d better go. I’ll tidy the kitchen tomorrow.”

  “You bet you will,” she smiled.

  By now she’d had five rejections from West End theatrical agents. They’d all sent identical “not-quite-for-us-regretfully-we-will-be-passing-wishing-you-every-success-in-the-future” letters. There was one she still hadn’t heard from, but she wasn’t holding her breath, since Ossie Da Costa was London’s top agent.

  “Oh, you never know,” said Lizzie, ever the optimist. “Just hang on in there. No news is good news.” In Stephanie’s experience, the very opposite was true. When people had good news to impart, they imparted it, on the whole, by phone—not in writing—and very quickly.

  Then, one lunchtime, just as she was about to leave for work, the phone rang.

  “I’m calling on behalf of Mr. Da Costa,” the female voice said. “He has asked me to tell you that he loves your CD and would like you to come in and see him. He was wondering if next Monday would suit you?”

  “I’ve heard of Ossie Da Costa,” Albert said when she told him about the call. “He’s pretty big, isn’t he?”