Little Lady, Big Apple

  I blanched.

  ‘But honestly,’ he went on, ‘it’s all an elaborate screen for my inner slob. I mean, I’d be happy for you to come shopping with me, pick out a few things you think I’d look good in.’

  ‘Oh no!’ I said, scrunching up my nose. ‘You don’t need me for that! You just carry on with your own marvellous taste.’

  He pulled a face. ‘I mean it, Melissa. I’m not really as organised as you think, honey. You’re the organiser.’

  ‘Darling, if you want to think that, it’s fine with me,’ I said, stretching out my white legs in the last of the sunshine. My ‘organisation’ was born from panic and an addiction to Smythson’s delicious leather-bound planners. Jonathan’s was too precise to be anything other than pure instinct.

  Braveheart was asleep, his nose on his paws, worn out by his walk through the park. His granddad-white eyebrows flickered as he slept, as if he were chasing other dogs in his sleep, now I’d almost stopped him doing it in real life.

  ‘There’s a dog who knows how to relax,’ observed Jonathan.

  ‘Yes, well, you should take some tips.’ I looked up at Jonathan before he could set off apologising again. ‘I’m not cross about waiting, Jonathan, but you had the afternoon off. You have to take time off. How else will they understand how much they really need you?’

  He sighed. ‘Look, I know. I know. You don’t need to tell me. You think I’d rather be at work when I could be here with you? Huh? But things are really frantic at work right now, and I need to prove myself, what with the promotion and everything.’

  ‘But you did!’ I goggled at him. ‘You flew back from London, you’re working all hours. What more do they need you to do?’

  ‘Justify my salary, I guess.’ He raked a hand through his hair. ‘We’re a big firm, sure, but real estate is a small pool at the top. I know Lisa is lining me up to take over, not now, maybe not for five years, but there’s only one other guy between me and her. And she owns the whole business, all sixty offices. And the ones in London. And Chicago. And LA. And between you and me, we’re looking into buying a Parisian operation too, so . . .’ He shrugged again, but there was a flash of panic behind his studied nonchalance. ‘I can’t screw up.’

  ‘You won’t,’ I said, patting his leg reassuringly. ‘But, honestly, darling, you need the odd afternoon off. I don’t want you having a heart attack or getting high blood pressure.’ I looked at him with my mock-stern expression. ‘I’ve seen what stress can do to estate agents, don’t forget.’

  ‘Melissa, don’t look at me like that. Not if you want to keep this boat stable.’ He loosened his collar. ‘If anything’s messing with my blood pressure it’s you.’

  I blushed, and tried not to let him see how flattered I was. ‘Oh, Jonathan, you’re a workaholic,’ I said. ‘Admit it.’

  ‘Well, actually, no. I’m not, really. It hasn’t always been like this,’ he replied, topping up our glasses. We were drifting a little now, but with nothing to bump into, I didn’t mind. ‘I mean, I’ve always been a hard worker, always wanted to get on, have security. But to tell you the God’s honest truth, when things started going . . . a little awry with Cindy, that was when I put in serious hours at work. And I mean serious hours. Getting in before seven, staying until eleven.’

  I felt the familiar prickling of curiosity and intimidation that Cindy inspired. Sixteen-hour days? Blimey.

  ‘Just because of . . . problems at home?’ I ventured, unable to resist. What was she doing? Throwing plates?

  He nodded. ‘Kind of stupid really, since she wasn’t getting in until eleven herself. Now, Cindy – she is a workaholic. She was the youngest director her company ever had, internationally. She was literally running her department before she was twenty-six.’

  My stomach crept a little as the perfectly coiffed Ghost of Cindy materialised in the boat between us. Her hair, unlike mine, was not frizzing in the humidity. Neither was she perspiring beneath her cardigan. Still, I needed to grasp the nettle here. I needed to show him I wasn’t afraid to talk about her.

  Even though I . . . was, rather.

  ‘What exactly does she do again?’ I asked casually.

  ‘Oh God, Cindy works in advertising,’ Jonathan groaned, as if it were a technicality that he’d argued over too many times to bear contradicting. ‘The sales side, not the creative, but she goes on about it like she’s Van Gogh crossed with Donald Trump. She runs international marketing campaigns, really big money operations. She’s good at what she does, but it’s a very unpleasant industry. If you’re not in by seven, you might find someone else sitting at your desk tomorrow morning, you know? They want complete commitment, especially from women.’

  I could imagine. Just getting groomed to that sort of level in the mornings required a good hour, and that was even before you got to the office and launched into your daily ball-busting. And I thought wearing stockings for work was pushing the boat out.

  ‘You don’t mind me telling you this?’ he asked suddenly. ‘You don’t mind hearing . . . ?’

  ‘No, no!’ I said quickly. ‘I want to know.’

  ‘I’d understand if you wanted to, you know . . .’ He made a walling-off gesture with his hand.

  I shook my head. As my mother was wont to mutter, better to know all than to guess half. ‘No, honestly. Go ahead.’

  ‘OK.’ Jonathan coughed self-consciously, as if he were working out how best to present things. ‘Well, um, at first, it wasn’t too bad,’ he began. ‘We were both working hard to pay the bills, meeting our goals. All our friends are kind of driven, as you’ve no doubt noticed, so it wasn’t like we were any different. But after a few years it got to be like a competition: who was spending least time at home. She was out all the time because she was working, and I was out . . .’ He hesitated. ‘I was out because when Cindy was in, she was such a four-door bitch that I’d rather have been anywhere else than sharing a take-out with her. It was always take-outs, by the way. She doesn’t do cooking.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. The way he said it was rather sad, not bitter. No wonder the poor man got so excited the one time I offered to roast a chicken. ‘Stress can make people say things they don’t mean, though. That’s why you have to relax.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I kind of put the arguing down to the stress of work, but then we argued on holiday too. When we ever got to go on holiday. No,’ he corrected himself. ‘That’s not fair. Cindy didn’t mind scheduling holidays, but they were competitive too – safaris and skiing and God knows what else. I just wanted to go back to my parents’ place in Boston, you know, kick back with a few beers but . . .’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Cindy didn’t do kicking back. Unless it was some kind of new gym class. And my mother never forgave her for the time she gave my entire family dental work for Christmas.’

  I flinched. ‘So your mother must be thrilled she’s lost a daughter-in-law and gained a daughter-in-law right back.’

  That raised a raw smile. ‘Yeah. If it were anyone else, I’d laugh. The only good thing is that Cindy refused to leave New York for Thanksgiving so it’ll be Brendan missing out on Mom’s turkey this year, and not me.’

  ‘Oh, Jonathan,’ I said, taking his hand. It was easy to be generous to Cindy from a distance, but inside I felt very jumbled up. I felt nervous, and out of my depth, and very, very sorry for him. Suddenly I wasn’t sure this was something I could fix. Far from being the hard-done-by divorcee, he sounded sad, as if he’d lost something precious. I wondered why he’d never told me these things before. Maybe he did prefer to keep things neatly boxed away.

  The rowing boat drifted on peacefully. Even though I knew we were in the heart of the city, I felt completely alone with him, sheltered by the trees and the glittering water. I searched my mind for the right thing to say, found nothing, and squeezed his hand tighter between mine.

  Eventually, Jonathan lifted his head and looked me straight in the eye. ‘What I’m trying to say, is that even if we both ended up workaholics, I think only Cindy
was born one. I was made into one.’ He paused. ‘So there’s an outside chance you can unmake me.’

  ‘But she’ll have to slow down now she’s had Parker, surely?’ I said. ‘I mean, on a biological level at least.’

  ‘Melissa, she was back in the office five days after the birth.’

  ‘And Brendan?’

  Jonathan nodded. ‘He’s looking after Parker. He writes screenplays, freelance. I know it’s pointless to torment yourself with “what ifs” but I do sometimes wonder why she insisted that she couldn’t find time in her schedule for childbirth when she was married to me, then . . .’ He didn’t finish but stared hard at a duck paddling past with three ducklings in a line behind.

  If Gabi could see him now, I thought fiercely, she’d never call him Dr No again. He didn’t look so executive now in his bespoke shirt – he looked heart-breakingly vulnerable. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want to have children with this handsome, successful, caring man?

  ‘Don’t!’ I said. ‘Whatever you’re thinking, stop it! Because I bet it had nothing to do with you at all!’

  I had to bite my tongue to stop myself saying that Cindy, in my opinion, was exactly the sort of premier league cow who thought she could get away with seeing both Brendan and Jonathan just so long as she kept her diary straight. Getting pregnant by Brendan probably wasn’t so much a romantic decision to celebrate their love as a scheduling slip-up that forced her into an emergency merger.

  I supposed, grudgingly, that at least she hadn’t tried to pass Parker off as Jonathan’s. Whether that was noble or just doubly cowish, I didn’t know.

  Or maybe, added a prurient voice, it said more than I wanted to know about the regularity of their sex life.

  It says everything you want to know, I reminded myself. If you were being honest.

  ‘Well, all I can say is that I’m glad she’s moved on,’ I said firmly. ‘She obviously had no idea what she had.’

  I looked at him closely when he didn’t reply at once.

  In fact, he was staring at Braveheart a bit too hard.

  My heart was hammering in my chest. Frankly, I could have done without Cindy popping up in our lovely romantic rowing boat, like a stingray with perfect teeth, but I had to know.

  ‘Jonathan?’ I prompted him.

  He sighed. ‘Yes. Yes, she’s moved on. But she’s . . . It was OK when I was in London, because she literally couldn’t get hold of me there, except by phone. And you don’t always have to answer the phone. Now, though . . .’ He pressed his lips together. ‘I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m hiding anything. I haven’t told you before, because I saw how you acted when we visited the old apartment. I thought I could contain her. Which was pretty dumb. Cindy is not easily containable.’

  ‘Like small house fires?’

  He laughed mirthlessly and tipped back the rest of his champagne. ‘Like small house fires. Well, no, more like those raging savannah fires that destroy all in their path. She blows hot and cold: first, she wants me to sell the flat, then I can’t get hold of her to sign documents. She makes a big deal about changing her will so I’m not even mentioned, then phones me five times in a day to check I’ve got the number of the best interior designer for Jane Street.’

  I swallowed. Well, you did ask to hear this, I reminded myself.

  ‘She’s a control freak,’ I said flatly.

  ‘You got it. Look at Braveheart. She moved heaven and earth to get that dog and now she’s dumped him on me, just at a time when I really don’t need a puppy around the house, you know? With the decorators, and you here.’ He fiddled with his glass. ‘And the constant calls to check I’m meeting her care guidelines. I mean, Jesus.’

  ‘Calm down, Jonathan. I’m dealing with the dog,’ I said firmly.

  How often had she been ringing him? And why hadn’t he said so? And why was he still so wound up about her – one minute sad, the next livid?

  ‘I know. I know.’ He sighed. ‘But if we could just make a clean break . . . You know, when you’ve been together as long as we were, the hardest things to divide up are your friends? I can hardly ask her to stop seeing Bonnie and Kurt, and God knows it’s pretty petty to start bickering over who’s known who the longest. Or make a rota of parties we can go to.’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ I sympathised. This I did know about. ‘Whenever Daddy threatens to divorce my mother, she reminds him that she’d get the accountant, the wine merchant and the cleaning lady. And he soon backs off.’

  Oops. Their anniversary. I’d nearly forgotten. I only just stopped myself mentioning it out loud. Not a good moment.

  I looked at the empty bottle. I’d drunk half and didn’t feel in the least bit puddled. Ex-wives had a very sobering effect. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to hear much more. But I’d opened the can of worms, so I’d just have to square up my shoulders and finish them.

  ‘Of course, she’s very curious about you,’ he went on. ‘She pretends not to be, but I know she’s pumping everyone for details.’

  ‘Let her think whatever she likes. If I meet your friends they’ll make up their own minds.’ I screwed up the last of my courage, and tried to make it sound casual. ‘Listen, should I meet her? Would that not get it out of the way? For all of us?’

  ‘That’s very sweet of you,’ said Jonathan. ‘But you’re only here for a little while and I don’t want to spoil your visit by letting Cindy create her own mini-series. Besides, you’re so right – let her stew.’ He smiled. ‘Whatever they’re telling her is only half the story.’

  I smiled at the compliment, but inside I was less certain.

  ‘I just don’t want you to feel . . . I don’t know, intimidated by her,’ he went on.

  ‘I’m not!’

  Ding!

  The truth was that International Ad Queen Cindy was so far out of my orbit that I wasn’t even jealous, merely awe-struck.

  He fiddled with his watch, as if he were searching for the right words. ‘Believe me, I have moved on.’ He looked up so I could see the sincerity in his grey eyes. ‘And I hope – for Brendan’s sake, for Parker’s sake – that she has. But I can’t help worrying that she’ll just carry on meddling in my life – our life – because she can. She’s that sort of woman. So what I guess I’m saying is . . . Melissa?’

  I was still tingling at the way he’d said, ‘our life’. Our life.

  ‘Mmm?’

  He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, and smiled. When Jonathan smiled, the worry lines vanished and his eyes glittered with boyish mischief. They would still look boyish when he was seventy. I melted inside, and temporarily forgot about Cindy.

  ‘Melissa,’ he said. ‘Here we are in Central Park, talking about my nightmare of an ex-wife, when all I want to do is sit here and look at you. Maybe get you to say something every now and again, in your sexy accent.’ He took my hand again, turned it over and traced the lines on my palm with a ticklish-light touch. ‘Sometimes I look at you, and I can’t believe you’re really mine.’ He raised my hand so he could press my palm against his lips, and looked over the top of it. ‘Lucky me.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ I said in a wobbly voice, ‘because I frequently have the same thought.’

  We smiled, and the bright light made us both squint.

  ‘Don’t fly away when your job here is done, Mary Poppins,’ he said unexpectedly, in a very bad Dick Van Dyke cockney accent.

  ‘Gor blimey no, guv’nor.’ I kissed the tip of his nose. ‘Plenty of work still to do here. Now, shall I row us back, or would you like me to summon some cartoon animals to take the oars?’

  Jonathan sat back with a laugh. ‘I am more than happy to watch you, Miss Mary.’

  ‘Fine!’ I said. ‘Prepare to be impressed.’

  We went round in one huge circle for about twenty minutes, during which time Braveheart deigned to wake up and started getting feisty with the ducks, so Jonathan took one oar, while I took the other, and together we ro
wed the boat back.

  It took a long, long time, but I think it was the happiest hour’s exercise I’ve ever taken.

  14

  My parents’ wedding anniversary was in three days’ time, which I reckoned was close enough to risk buying a card. I was in Kate’s Paperie, a vast temple to stationery-based politeness, staring at a ‘Wow! You Made it to Your 35th Anniversary, Parents!’ card and wondering if it was sarcastic enough, when my phone rang, and I discovered I needn’t worry about posting it in time. I could deliver it by hand.

  ‘I need you back here in London,’ announced my father, without bothering to enquire about the weather or the state of the exchange rate. ‘Tout suite.’

  ‘Daddy, I might be busy,’ I tried.

  He snorted rudely in response. ‘I’m not asking as your father, I am summoning you as your employer.’

  I wrinkled my brow, trying to work out what he meant, then I remembered about the Olympic etiquette stuff.

  ‘I thought you’d forgotten about that,’ I protested. ‘I mean, I haven’t had any acknowledgement from your secretary that you even got it.’

  ‘My secretaries are very . . . busy,’ he said evasively. ‘They don’t have time to waste on trivialities.’

  I stared longingly at a huge display of thank-you notes. Manners were so much easier when you could just buy a year’s worth of polite sentiments, and despatch them at intervals. I wondered if I could place bulk orders for my family.

  ‘I need you back here for Friday lunchtime,’ Daddy bellowed. ‘So you’d better get cracking.’

  ‘But that’s the day after tomorrow! I can’t just—’

  ‘For Pete’s sake, Melissa, you’re on holiday! What have you got to rush away from? An urgent appointment with a bagel? If you weren’t prepared to take this assignment seriously, you should never have taken it on,’ he reminded me censoriously.

  I didn’t remember being given much of a choice. Besides, why did he need me there at all? Surely I just had to do the research for him?

  ‘I didn’t budget for two sets of return tickets,’ I countered, as a last-ditch effort. ‘I don’t know if I have enough money in my account.’