by Lisa Tucker
“I have to ask you something,” she said. “About Palm Beach.”
Uh-oh. This was going beyond delusional and becoming just weird. “Why don’t we play What If instead?” He pointed to an old man parked in a wheelchair in the hall. “What if you could get out of here right now and feel better, but only if you agreed to cut that guy’s ear hair?”
“Ben said I was wrong about what happened that night.”
“Who cares? It was years ago. But that guy may not be able to hear if you don’t trim down that forest of hair growing—”
“He said it really was the first time you’d done that, and when you told me women like her approached you everywhere, I was the one who jumped to the conclusion that you’d slept with them all.”
Matthew was still staring at the old man’s ears, but he casually let go of Amelia’s hand. Sat back like he wasn’t listening. Wished he could pull an Isabelle and cover his own ears and yell, “Don’t want to!”
“Ben said you’d had enough of my always assuming the worst about you. So you let me believe that, knowing I was looking for a reason to leave you. But he said you never wanted me to go and you were heartbroken when I did.”
Thank you very much, Benjamin. May I offer you my liver to dissect in your next argument with your girlfriend?
“What if you had to live in Antarctica? In an igloo. They still have igloos, right? Global warming hasn’t melted them all yet. But in this igloo—”
“Is it true?”
“Wait, here’s one I know you’ll like. What if Bush calls you for advice and whatever you say, he’ll do tomorrow. Only one thing, and it can’t be resign. Would you tell him to bring home the soldiers from Iraq or change the Medicare prescription—”
“Please, Matthew, I really want to know.”
He told her to forget about it, it was a long time ago, who cared anymore, and so on, but when she just kept pushing him he snapped, “Do you seriously think I’m going to have a heart-to-heart chat with you? After everything that’s happened over the last twelve years?”
“I know, it sounds crazy. It’s just that in the bathroom, and when you were carrying me to your car, you were so gentle. I felt really safe with you. And you’re here now with me, and I really appreciate—”
Safe? Gentle? What the hell was next, shopping together for cute little shoes? And why was she pushing so hard about that night in Palm Beach anyway, when she was living with another man, pregnant with his kid? It was not only tasteless and tactless; it was absolutely infuriating.
He could feel his jaw muscle popping, but he did remember not to say that he hated her. Unfortunately, what he fired off was probably worse. “I’m sorry to break this to you, but I’m only here because of Ben. He’s my friend. You’re nothing to me anymore.”
Thankfully, friend Ben arrived a moment or two later, before she could respond, before it could deteriorate even further. Filled with concern for Amelia. Apologizing for turning off the cell phone; thought it was policy. Eternally grateful to Matthew for taking such good care of his girlfriend for him.
“I’d better get going,” Matthew said, standing. “Get the kids to bed.”
“Thanks again, buddy,” Ben said. “Sorry we didn’t get to talk. Next time.”
Matthew had already breathed a sigh of relief when Amelia delivered the deathblow: “When we’re done here, can we spend the night at your place?” She smiled sweetly. “The doctor told me I’m not supposed to travel tonight, and all the hotels around here are full.”
He strongly doubted that all the hotels were full, but he could hardly call her a liar. Was this her attempt to pay him back for what he’d said? Or was she determined to gather more evidence about Danny and Isabelle? Maybe she was actually trying to make his life a living hell? Probably all of the above.
“Matt doesn’t really have room, babe. There must be a hotel somewhere in this city.”
“But I can’t ride all over looking for one. I’m exhausted. I just need to sleep, and Matthew’s house is right around the corner.”
Ben shot him a please-humor-her look. So what could he do? He said, “Of course you guys are welcome. It’s not that crowded. We’ll get by.”
As he walked back to the waiting room, he decided to talk to doctor no-name and get some Ativan.
He was back in the Porsche with the kids, listening to an angry rap song, when it struck him that he might have made a terrible mistake getting Ben together with Amelia. Yes, he did it for Galvenar, but he also felt sorry for Ben. After Karen left, Ben was freaking out; he couldn’t deal with the PR, and it was the first time he’d been without a girlfriend in ten years. Thanks to his sudden fame, he was being hit on right and left by hot young women, but he didn’t want any of them. He wanted someone who liked him for himself (how Hallmark), someone his own age (no comment), someone who was moral and still believed in doing the right thing (wait, where have I heard that before?).
Which meant, Matthew realized now, that as recently as a year ago, he’d made another decision that was partly based on emotion, a decision that was at least poorly thought out and possibly as stupid as anything he’d ever done. Obviously, he deserved whatever hell it would bring him. When would he ever learn?
He turned the radio up. When the rapper said, “That’s right, she’s a ho,” he said it, too, feeling pissed off all over again.
By the time they were back at his building, he’d decided that the next morning, he was going to call Ginny or Rachel or Christine or one of the others he was still speaking to. Then, after he got rid of Ben and Amelia and the kids and did some work, he could pick up the woman, have dinner, and bring her home with him. This stress was getting unbearable. He needed to get laid.
CHAPTER TEN
The City of Brotherly Love
Amelia had always hated being sick, but it was different with Danny there. He was such a gentle boy; he’d even followed her into the bathroom to hold her hair back while she knelt over the toilet. He told her he liked taking care of sick people and he knew how because his mother had been sick a lot. Amelia told him he was very kind. She also promised him, at the hospital, that she would come back to finish their talk as soon as they made her all better. The next morning, watching him with his sister, she was struck again by how unusual he was. She’d never met a child like this.
Ben and Matthew were sitting at the table, drinking their umpteenth cups of coffee, talking about genetics and trypanosomiasis and blah, blah, blah. Amelia was sitting on the floor with Danny and Isabelle—and refusing to see this as some kind of gender division of labor. She’d rather be with the kids than those two even if they weren’t nerding out. She was still mad at Ben for yesterday, though she’d learned her lesson. She would never again tell him any of her suspicions about Matthew. The whole lousy day would never have happened if they hadn’t had that argument when she’d insisted that Matthew was lying about starting a family. Now, of course, Ben was convinced he’d been right all along. He’d swallowed the ridiculous story about Danny and Isabelle without hesitating. Men could be so gullible.
Even men like Matthew, as it turned out. He’d really believed that she was pouring her heart out to him the night before; he even thought she meant it when she said how safe she felt with him—as if his despicable treachery in Paris hadn’t just happened. Admittedly, when she asked Matthew to come into her room in the ER, she was feeling alone and a little scared. And yes, she was somewhat confused by how gentle he’d been with her back at his apartment. But when it struck her that he might be pitying her, the idea was so revolting that she immediately decided to use the chance to get him to admit that he’d lied to Ben about Palm Beach. Unfortunately, she discovered he hadn’t lied to Ben; he’d lied to her. She’d suspected this when he’d refused to answer, and she knew it for sure when he got mad at her for pushing him. Matthew only got angry when he was losing control. He’d always been very transparent that way.
When she woke up in the morning, she was still thinking about
how he’d let her cry and cry about his infidelities without saying a word. The excuse he’d given Ben for doing this was at least unethical and possibly self-deceptive. He claimed he wanted to give her a reason to leave him—as though sex with one woman wouldn’t have been enough. As though she couldn’t have come up with excellent reasons all on her own, without his help. The entire business was patronizing in the extreme. How could Ben see this as noble, for Matthew to act as if he knew what she wanted more than she herself did? To sacrifice the truth in service of a unilateral decision about their future?
Of course she didn’t buy the brokenhearted part, not for a minute. If there were even a grain of truth to that, Matthew wouldn’t have set her up with his best friend. Yes, he’d obviously done it for his damned drug, but Matthew was still a human being, she assumed, and a man, undoubtedly. No man would hand over a woman he’d ever really loved to his best friend. It was about as likely as Matthew truly caring about these children.
Amelia had one goal before she and Ben left for New York: to find out what Matthew was really doing with Danny and Isabelle. She had to know.
When she’d taken Danny into the bedroom the day before, she’d found it very suspicious that he called Matthew “Dr. Connelly.” She asked him if Matthew had told him to use “doctor,” but he said not at all. “He told me not to call him Doctor Connelly, but I keep messing up. My teachers said it’s not polite to call a grown-up by their first name.”
“What did he say to call him?”
“Dad,” he said slowly. “But I can call him Matthew if I want.”
“Do you like him?”
Danny nodded. “He’s funny, even though he gripes a lot.”
“What does he gripe about?”
“Being tired and having a headache. Those are the main things. But also that the jelly jar wouldn’t open and the bread loaf got crushed and Isabelle’s jumper was missing a snap. He gripes about all kinds of stuff. It’s like the way he talks.”
“Poor Matthew.” Her voice was a little snotty.
“I don’t think he wants people to feel sorry for him. He works all the time and he never gripes about Astor-Denning.”
She was losing track of the topic—and beginning to feel nauseated. She told Danny she had to lie down. Then she said, “Tell me the truth: Is Matthew really adopting you?”
“Sure he is. If he can. He said his lawyers are working on it now.”
“Do you want him to adopt you? I thought you had a mom.”
“My mom’s a drug addict. She can’t really take care of us. She signed a paper to make Matthew our guardian.”
Amelia had to throw up then, and every few minutes for the next hour. In between, the only thing she got out of Danny was that Matthew was good with Isabelle.
“Whenever Isabelle smiles at him, even if he’s in the middle of griping about something, he always smiles back. And it’s not in that phony grown-up way. It’s like he can’t help it, like he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.”
“He probably doesn’t,” she said, before running back to the bathroom. From that point on, she stayed kneeling in front of the toilet. And Danny stayed with her, to help. No one had done that for her since she was a little girl.
Before she got dizzy, she told Danny that she wanted to help him in any way she could. He said he didn’t need anything, but she could tell there was something he was thinking about. Now, while Matthew and Ben were busy with their endless science talk, she repeated the offer to Danny.
“Why do you want to help me?” Danny said, retying Isabelle’s shoe. “What would I have to do?”
The little girl’s shoes were too big and a little worn out. Could Matthew really be so cheap as to buy these kids used clothes?
“Nothing,” she told Danny. “I believe in giving away my money and time to people who need it.” Then she told him the story of sponsoring children when she was Danny’s age. “My grandma taught me that everyone deserves a home and food and medical care. No one should ever go without these things.”
He paused for a long time. Maybe he was waiting for Ben to laugh at another thing Matthew said, so they couldn’t possibly overhear. “I might need a ticket from Florida to Philadelphia.”
“If you do, let me know. I’ll get it for you, no questions asked.”
“Thanks,” he said, and smiled. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Sorry we took your bed.”
“It was okay. We started out on the floor, but we ended up in Matthew’s bed.”
He was putting a dress on one of Isabelle’s Barbies. What other boy would do that for his sister when a tub of Legos and a Game Boy were a few feet away?
“That must have been interesting,” she said.
“When we woke up, Isabelle was upside down, with her foot against Matthew’s nose. Plus, we were out of diapers and she peed in the bed.”
“I’m sure he wasn’t happy about that.”
“He griped a lot, but he wasn’t mad at Isabelle. He never gets mad at her.”
“Does he get mad at you?”
“Sometimes. But he’s teaching me stuff, like if he was my real father.” Danny handed the doll to his sister, who handed him another one and a skirt.
Before she could ask what this meant, Ben called her over to the table. It was time to make their announcement. They’d discussed this last night, and Amelia had accepted it. She was dying to hear how Matthew would take the news.
“I’ve decided to work at HUP with Richard Langer,” Ben said. He was smiling, holding Amelia’s hand. “This means we’ll be in Philly for a while. We just have to find a place and get our things from Amelia’s apartment in New York.”
Matthew sputtered, “Wow. That’s. Excellent.”
“Tell him the other part,” Amelia said.
“We were talking last night about this apartment,” Ben said. “We both love it. And since you’re moving anyway, we were wondering if you’d let us sublet it from you.”
Actually, Amelia didn’t “love” the apartment, and she really didn’t love the idea of asking Matthew to give them a break on the sublet price, as Ben was planning to do. She thought it would be a conflict of interest, but she knew Ben would say the same thing he’d said about their trip to the Caymans—which Matthew had paid for, as it turned out, though Amelia certainly didn’t know this until Ben told her during their fight. But Ben said there was no conflict of interest because it wasn’t AD money, it was Matt’s, and Matt was a friend.
“I don’t know when we’re moving,” Matthew said. “We have to find a place.”
“Don’t you own several houses?” Amelia hoped he was surprised she knew about this. She’d gotten a copy of his tax return last year. She had her sources, too. “Why not move into one of them?”
He flashed her an indulgent smile. “They’re all rented out. I can’t just kick out my tenants. It wouldn’t be fair, not to mention the pesky detail of the leases.”
“Richard knows of a place in Wayne,” Ben said. “He told me about it, but we want to be closer to the lab. Why not look at that house, Matt? It might be perfect for the kids and you since it’s closer to Astor-Denning.”
“The problem is I really can’t move right away. Work is too intense right now. I think you guys should find another place, at least temporarily.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Ben said. A moment later, he smiled. “At least we’ll be in the neighborhood. We can drop by anytime and talk.”
“Won’t that be great?” Amelia said, though it sounded horrible. But she was watching Matthew, waiting for him to squirm his way out of this.
“It would be great,” he said. “But…”
“But?” she said. “What is it, Matthew? Don’t you want to live near your friends?”
He swallowed and looked at Ben. “Can I talk to you privately for a moment?”
Ben said, “Sure.” He turned to Amelia. “Are you feeling up to watching Matt’s kids for a few minutes while we take a walk?”
&nb
sp; “I’m fine,” she snapped. She was keeping down fluids and feeling much better. The ER doc had told her yesterday’s episode had probably been triggered by exhaustion. She went back to sit by Danny, which was where she wanted to be anyway.
A few minutes after they left, Matthew’s phone rang. She thought about whether what she was about to do was ethical, but not for long. She answered it and said, “Doctor Connelly’s residence.”
“This is Rachel. Is Matthew there?”
“He just ran out. I’m his housekeeper. He asked me to take a message from you.”
Rachel, who sounded about twenty, said, “Tell him I would love to go out tonight. I’m glad he’s back in town.”
“Will do, though I don’t know if he’s found a babysitter.”
The woman giggled. “A babysitter? What for?”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen him?”
“Last weekend,” she said, sounding so defensive that Amelia knew she was lying. “What are you talking about?”
Amelia tried not to laugh. “Then you’ve met his children, obviously.”
“Sorry, housekeeper chick, but you’ve confused him with some other person whose toilets you scrub. Just tell Matthew to call me, okay? And be sure to clean the bedroom.”
She went to Danny, who was on the couch, helping Isabelle put in the earbuds for an iPod. “I was just wondering,” Amelia said, “who takes care of you when Matthew isn’t here? I know he works constantly, and he’s always traveling.”
“We have a babysitter.”
Isabelle was singing along, but Amelia couldn’t make out the words or the melody. Probably some children’s tune.
