While We Were Watching Downton Abbey

by Wendy Wax

  * * *

  BY THE TIME SAMANTHA REACHED CLAIRE’S apartment Claire and Brooke were settled on the sofa, an open bottle of wine on the cocktail table between them. Three wineglasses stood ready.

  Samantha had offered to have them up at her place, where she’d done little but pace and think and think and pace, but she was actually glad to be in Claire’s studio apartment. The small space was warm and cozy. Maybe this was why people downsized—to create a space too small to leave room for doubts? “Are you okay?” she asked Brooke as she settled on the chair opposite the couch.

  “Yes,” Brooke replied. “I guess I just wasn’t ready for the sight of Sarah’s stomach. Or the diamond ring on her finger.” She shook her head, still struggling with the reality.

  “Sometimes no amount of forewarning prepares you for the really awful things,” Samantha said. “No matter how carefully you tiptoe or how gingerly you tread. Sometimes shit just happens.”

  Brooke looked up with damp eyes. Her nod was weary. “Zachary never looked at me like he looks at her. That’s what made me sick.”

  “Do you think he looks at her that way because she’s pregnant?” Samantha was embarrassed by the wistful note in her voice. How long had she told herself things would have been different/clearer/better if only she’d been able to have a baby?

  Brooke shook her head. “Especially not when I was pregnant. For one thing I looked like the Goodyear blimp both times. For another he always blamed me for getting pregnant when he was in the middle of his residency and we couldn’t afford it.”

  “As if you got that way all by yourself,” Claire huffed. “What an asshole!” She winced. “Oops. Sorry. Should I have asked permission to call him that?” She filled Brooke’s wineglass.

  Brooke snorted. “Thanks for asking. But I’m guessing his assholiness is pretty obvious to almost everyone?” She looked between them.

  Samantha wasn’t entirely certain what Brooke wanted to hear.

  “Sorry,” Brooke said quickly. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that.” She raised her glass. “To his royal assholiness!” She forced a jovial tone, but tears had begun to squeeze out of the corners of her eyes. They slipped down her cheeks. “It’s just that . . . I can’t bear that he never looked at me that way. And now I know for sure he never will.” Brooke sniffed and finished her glass in one long gulp. “I mean, I knew that when he left me. And I knew it even more when he divorced me. But I don’t know.” She swiped at her cheeks and eyes with the back of one hand. “I guess there was just some part of me that refused to believe I was that unlovable.”

  Claire slid an arm around Brooke’s shoulders. “You are not unlovable. And you’ve already got Bruce Dalton wanting to take you out. Which is more than I can say after sixteen years of being single.”

  “Bruce Dalton is looking for someone to mother his daughter. I happen to be Private Butler’s mother in residence, that’s all.”

  “You’re underrating yourself,” Samantha said. “Just because Zachary, I mean, His Assholiness, didn’t understand your value, that doesn’t mean you’re not worth a great deal.”

  “That’s right,” Claire said pouring them each another drink. “You’re great. And you throw up more neatly than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  The tension in Brooke’s shoulders loosened. Samantha laughed as Claire filled her in.

  “Seriously, it’s a talent,” Claire said. “When you live in a space this size you appreciate someone who can be economical with their movements.”

  There was more laughter, but Brooke didn’t join in. “It’s easy for both of you to joke. You’re the one who chose to end her marriage,” Brooke said to Claire. She turned to Samantha, her brown eyes still filled with hurt and pain. “And you’ve been married to Mr. Gorgeous and Wonderful practically forever. And he apparently still worships the ground you walk on.”

  The observation hung in the air between them. Instinct, and years of practice, told Samantha to simply acknowledge her good fortune, knock on wood so as not to jinx that good fortune, and then turn the subject. No one felt sorry for poor little rich girls.

  Except that she’d now spent close to two weeks without anything more than the most basic of communication from her husband—impersonal texts like Heading for Phoenix. If you need anything, call Margaret at the office. And finally, yesterday, En route to Chicago for meetings with Andrew Martin. Not sure how long. She’d been forcing herself to keep her regular appointments, attend her regular committee meetings, and act as if all were well. But alone in the condo she’d done little but pace and worry, neither of which had warded off the fear that her marriage was as over as Claire’s and Brooke’s.

  She thought about her mother-in-law’s warning. What if her insecurity drove Jonathan into the arms of a Sarah, who would know that Jonathan loved her and chose her and who might have no trouble at all getting pregnant? This thought made her sick to her stomach and in possible need of a potted palm of her own.

  “Well, that just goes to prove that how things look and how things are can be entirely different.” Samantha hadn’t fully realized she intended to speak until the words were out. But she was so tired of carrying the toxic mix of guilt, doubt, and fear everywhere with her. There wasn’t a part of her life that wasn’t colored by it.

  “My husband married me out of pity,” she said. “He was only twenty-seven and although our families had known each other forever, we’d never even been on a date when he proposed. Oh, and this was just after my father had embezzled a fortune from his family law firm before he and my mother died. But he married me anyway and helped me raise my brother and sister.”

  They stared at her, saying nothing. Their mouths gaped open in surprise.

  “And he’s stayed married to me all these years because that’s the kind of man he is.”

  The phone buzzed from downstairs undoubtedly to announce the arrival of their pizza. Nobody moved.

  Now she was the one with tears oozing out of her eyes and scalding their way down her cheeks as she laid it all out for them. How she’d been rescued by the prince and lived with him in a succession of castles. And how the prince had recently galloped off with barely a backward glance.

  Brooke looked as if she might cry again as she listened to Samantha’s story. Claire’s expression was harder to read. “What?” Samantha asked finally as the relief at sharing her fears ran smack up against the fear that she’d made herself vulnerable by sharing too much. “Why are you looking at me that way?”

  “I don’t know,” Claire said. “I mean, I’m sorry that you and Jonathan are going through this. I know Brooke and I are here for you.”

  Brooke nodded and reached out a hand to squeeze Samantha’s.

  “I hope everything gets resolved soon. My writing career, such as it is, has been all about happily-ever-afters and I’d love to see you and Jonathan have one.”

  “But?” Samantha asked Claire, needing to hear the rest.

  Claire smiled somewhat sheepishly. “But I guess in a completely selfish and extremely weird way it’s a little bit reassuring to know that even fairy-tale princesses have problems just like the rest of us.”

  * * *

  BY THE TIME THEY’D EATEN AND DRUNK THEIR FILL it was one thirty a.m. Nothing had been solved but whether it was due to her confession, the way it had been received, or the amount of wine she’d consumed, Samantha felt considerably lighter when she and Brooke left Claire’s apartment. The two of them stood in the eighth-floor hallway in front of the elevators, giggling about how they’d each have one whole elevator to themselves. As if this were some decadent use of space that they were about to get away with.

  Samantha poked her head out the elevator doors. “If we press the door close buttons at exactly the same time we can see which elevator is faster.”

  “I doan thin so,” Brooke said sounding oddly like Ricky Ricardo. “Doan you live on a different floor from me?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Samantha swayed a little. Which
was really weird since the elevator door was still open and she was fairly certain they couldn’t go anywhere that way. “Is your elevator moving?”

  “Only a little,” Brooke said. “But it’s mostly”—there was a loud hiccup and a giggle from the other elevator—“just the button.”

  Samantha stepped inside her elevator and mashed her finger onto the button with the outward pointing triangles although she wasn’t sure why. She swayed slightly listening for Brooke in the silence. “Are you still there?”

  “Yeah.” There was another loud hiccup. “I’m thinkin’ ’bout callin’ Zach and tellin’ him I doan ’ppreshiate the way he doesn’t look at me. An that we think he’s a ash hole.” A brief silence then, “What do you think?”

  “No,” Samantha said. She closed her eyes but it didn’t stop the swaying. “It’s not a good idea to drunk dial your ex-husband. I read an article about it in Cosmo.” She hiccupped. “At the beauty salon.”

  “Shure?” Brooke asked.

  “Think so.”

  “Okay.” Brooke’s elevator doors closed and the elevator took off.

  Samantha swayed for a few long moments. Then some instinct must have penetrated her mental fog, because her finger zeroed in on and pushed the top number. She made it to her apartment and even managed to insert the key in the lock and push the heavy door open. But the idea of husband calling had taken hold. The warning bells that might have stopped her had been muted. Or at least wrapped up in cotton wool. Without any internal debate at all—or at least none that she would remember later—Samantha pressed Jonathan’s number on her phone then stood swaying in the foyer while it rang. Never once did she try to recall whether the article that had advised against calling your ex had said anything about drunk dialing a man you were still married to.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CLAIRE STOOD ON HER BALCONY AND LEANED over the railing so that she could stare down at Peachtree. It was the beginning of November and the temperatures and humidity levels had obligingly dropped along with the last of the leaves. Although Thanksgiving was still almost three weeks away, holiday decorations had begun to go up. Claire knew this for a fact because she’d spent a lot of the last week writing in her journal and watching this happen from this very spot. And from her favorite bench in the park as well as from “her” table at the corner Starbucks.

  Her laptop, which remained closed on her dining room table/desk and had begun to collect dust, had not joined her in any of these places. She rarely opened it because she was afraid to see her agent’s response to her intentionally vague and misleadingly confident promises to send chapters when she had them and could no longer handle Karen and Susie’s cheerful enthusiasm and motivational quotes. These she suspected would soon turn into threats of much-needed butt kicking, which both of them lived too far away to make good on.

  The highlight of each week had become the Sunday-night screenings, twice-weekly power walks with Brooke, and Wednesday night dinners with Brooke and Samantha. Her only other human contact occurred during the ringing up of a purchase or the placing of an order.

  Claire’s cell phone rang. When she saw Hailey’s number she answered happily hoping that her vocal cords would remember what they were designed to do.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  Claire cradled the phone against her ear and shoulder, which was no easy task given how small her phone had become. In just a few weeks she’d have Hailey back for ten whole days. “Hi, sweetie,” she said, pleased to hear how normal her voice sounded. Apparently talking, unlike dating, was like riding a bicycle and did not require regular practice. “What’s up?”

  “Oh, nothing special,” Hailey said. “But, well, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

  Claire’s heart cartwheeled in her chest at the discrepancy between Hailey’s tone and her words. Could she be ill? Injured? Pregnant? Claire’s brain clicked through every conceivable worst-case scenario in no particular order—all of them chilling and life altering in their own way. “What’s wrong, Hailey? What’s happened?” The words came out in a rush, thick with worry and coated in fear. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, Mom,” Hailey said. “It’s just. It’s just that I don’t know quite how to say this.”

  Oh, God, she was pregnant. Or had an STD. Or maybe she’d been so preoccupied with her boyfriend that she’d lost her library job. Or failed a course. No, Claire quickly rejected this last one. Hailey had been a driven 4.0-plus student since her first day of preschool.

  “You’re killing me here, Hail. Just tell me straight out. Because I’m a writer, remember.” Or at least she had been when she could make herself face her computer. “I’ve already imagined at least eight fates worse than death—and I didn’t even know there were that many.” She paused, trying to calm herself. She’d often panicked in the years of single motherhood, but she’d usually done a far better job of hiding it. Children didn’t confide in parents who freaked out too easily. “You didn’t accidentally switch identities with an international terrorist or anything did you?” There, that was better. “Or join the CIA’s office of clandestine affairs without telling me? They’ve been advertising on the radio pretty heavily down here.”

  “God, Mom. It’s kind of scary in that brain of yours. In an odd, funny, twisted sort of way.”

  “Tell me about it,” Claire said. An imagination came with positives and negatives attached. Like when you were in an airplane at twenty thousand feet and a spot of turbulence became the beginning of a death spiral. Or a dorsal fin off in the distance when you were swimming in the ocean cued the opening music for Jaws in your head. “But you can’t tease me like this. We’ve always been a rip-the-Band-Aid-off kind of family. Not a wussy easing-it-off kind. Just tell me what it is right now. And I promise I’ll try not to stroke out.”

  Hailey laughed. “I have a feeling my news is going to sound really tame compared to everything that brain of yours has come up with.”

  Claire sincerely hoped so, but she would be the judge of that. She kept her mouth shut and waited.

  “The thing is . . .” Hailey hesitated again. “I’m . . . I’m wondering if you’d be okay if I didn’t come home for Thanksgiving.”

  There was silence as Claire tried to process this.

  “It’s just that Will asked me if I could go home with him. And, well, I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone on a holiday.” Hailey swallowed; Claire could actually hear the sound. “But . . . I’d really like to go, Mom.”

  Claire’s heart stuttered. Between its earlier cartwheeling and pounding over her worst-case imaginings, it didn’t seem to have a whole lot of beat left in it.

  Since Claire’s parents had become infirm and then died ten years ago it had just been the two of them. Thanksgiving had been a cobbled-together affair—cooking a turkey, inviting other “strays” to join them. Then Hailey would leave to be at her father’s while Claire confronted how alone in the world she was. The next morning they’d get up at dark-thirty to hit the day-after-Thanksgiving sales.

  Hailey was all she had. And this year she wouldn’t even have her.

  But as exhausted as it might be, her heart knew that it didn’t really matter what Claire thought or how she felt. Despite Hailey’s attempt to tamp down her excitement in order not to hurt Claire, it was clear just how much Hailey wanted to go home with her boyfriend.

  “Of course you’ll go,” Claire finally said. “I can’t think of a single reason why you shouldn’t.”

  “I don’t know, Mom,” Hailey said. “We’ve never spent a Thanksgiving apart.”

  “I know. But we’ve never lived in different places before, either, and that seems to be going okay.” She noticed that she’d been pacing the tiny balcony and forced herself to stop. “It’s all part of it, Hailey. I want you to go. And I’ll expect to hear a full report.”

  “But what will you do?” her daughter asked.

  “I’ll have turkey and then I’ll have the whole day and holiday week
end to work.” Claire clamped down on panicked images of the starkness of a holiday weekend completely alone with a computer she couldn’t even bring herself to open. “You know, now that I think about it Brooke will be on her own too—her kids are going to be in Boston. I’ll bet she’d be glad to share a turkey or go out for a holiday meal or something.” She cast about for anything else that might reassure Hailey. “Plus I’ve told Edward Parker I can be available to do some occasional jobs if he needs someone. I’m working a party next Saturday that Samantha’s brother has planned.” She stood and leaned against the railing. “Seriously, Hailey. Don’t worry about me. Go with Will and have a great time. I’ll miss you, but I’ll be perfectly fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “I’ll pay for the cancellation fee, Mom,” Hailey promised. “I think for a hundred dollars I can just change the ticket to fly home at the end of the semester.”

  “Sounds good, Hail. Honestly.” Claire smiled at the excitement now evident in her daughter’s voice. “And I’m really glad you didn’t join the CIA without discussing it with me first.”

  “You’ve got such a warped sense of humor.” Hailey laughed. “Maybe you should be writing comedy instead of historical romance.”

  Claire’s laughter joined Hailey’s. “I’m not sure there’s a huge audience for my brand of neurosis.”

  “I don’t know,” Hailey said. “Woody Allen’s had a pretty solid career.”

  That was true. “Maybe I can find a way to do both. What do you think of neurotic Highlanders in kilts?” Claire teased. If she could find a way to work in some former Navy SEALs transported back to seventeenth-century Scotland, she’d be golden.

  “Sounds good, Mom. Way better than naked neurotic Highlanders without them.”

  “I’ll talk to you later, sweetie,” Claire said. “And when my Twisted Kilt series hits the New York Times bestseller list, I’ll be sure to let everyone know that you were the one who came up with the idea.”