While We Were Watching Downton Abbey Part 3

Brooke smiled but didn't speak. A glob of sweat ran down the side of her face and dropped near his well-shod feet.

Not at all bothered, the concierge set down the cards he was carrying, retrieved two fresh towels from a cupboard and bottled waters from the small refrigerator. "We keep towels and water stocked twenty-four-seven. If there's anything else you'd like to see in here, please let me know."

"Thank you." Brooke swiped at her face and hung the towel around her shoulders.

"Yes, thanks." Samantha twisted the cap off her water and took a long drink. "What have you got there?" Samantha nodded to the cream-colored cards in Edward Parker's hand.

"It's an invitation to a screening," he replied. "Email blasts seem terribly . . . impersonal, so I'm posting invitations in all the common areas and putting them in resident mailboxes."

"Oh?" Samantha asked as Brooke Mackenzie continued to pedal beside her.

"We're going to be watching the first two seasons of Downton Abbey as a buildup to the start of season three in January."

"Ah," Samantha said. She'd overheard people talking about the British television series but had never seen it. "Isn't that set in an English castle or something?"

"Yes. Highclere Castle in the countryside west of London serves as the fictional Downton Abbey." He gave them one of his dazzling smiles. "I thought it would be fun to have a weekly get-together for anyone interested. We're going to watch the very first episode on the big screen in the clubroom this Sunday evening at eight.

"Interesting." Samantha definitely didn't see herself heading to the clubroom every Sunday night to watch a stuffy British drama with strangers, but there was no need to come out and say so.

"Have you seen it, Mrs. Mackenzie?" the concierge asked, drawing the other woman into the conversation.

"I've seen a few episodes," she said, and Samantha could tell she was trying her hardest not to huff or puff. Not sweating was no longer an option. "But not in order." She fell silent for a moment. "It was beautifully done, though."

He considered them both. "I'd like to create more of a sense of community in the building. The series is a huge hit all over the U.S. and the rest of the world, really, which would make us very . . . current." His voice turned conspiratorial. "And, frankly, I'm up for a bit of home."

He set an invitation on the small shelf of each of their elliptical control panels. "I hope you'll come give it a go if you're around this Sunday evening." He turned and pinned an invitation up on the fitness room bulletin board. "There'll be popcorn and wine to start. And maybe some English-themed nibbles and drinks."

Samantha smiled noncommittally. She was glad to see Parker taking the initiative and relieved that Brooke Mackenzie seemed at least a little less ready to throw herself under a bus. It was amazing what a good-looking man with a devastatingly sincere smile and a gorgeous accent could accomplish.

"Thanks," Brooke said, actually raising her chin and meeting the concierge's eyes. "It sounds like . . . fun." The word came out sounding odd, as if it were unfamiliar on her lips. "I'll have to see what the girls have scheduled."

"Wonderful," the concierge said with a final smile. "I'll cross my fingers and hope to see both of you on Sunday."

Samantha and Brooke watched him go without comment. With a final huff the younger woman stopped pedaling and levered herself off the machine. Brooke's skin shimmered with perspiration, her red hair hung limp around her freckled face, but there was a look in her eyes that Samantha recognized as satisfaction. "Can I get you another water or anything?"

"No, thanks. I'm good," Samantha replied.

Brooke wiped down the elliptical, then took a long drink of water. "Well, I appreciate you getting me started."

"No problem," Samantha replied. "I was glad to help."

The redhead looked at her for a few moments, then nodded. Finally she turned and walked toward the door.

"I hope your day gets better," Samantha called after her.

"Thanks," the younger woman said, reaching for the doork.n.o.b. "I only fudged a little bit and the machine says I burned three hundred calories, so things are already looking up." She smiled a lopsided smile. "But then I guess they couldn't have gotten much worse."

CHAPTER SIX.

BOOK CLUB IN THE NORTHERN ATLANTA subdivision of River Run began that Thursday night as it always did-with shrieks and hugs of greeting, the pouring of wine, and a growing roar of conversation. The book, E. L. James's Shades of Grey, would get its fifteen to twenty minutes of discussion later-possibly more given the t.i.tillation factor-but only once their husbands, ex-husbands, mothers, absent neighbors, and their children had been thoroughly dissected.

Attendance varied between ten and fifteen depending on schedules and the chosen book. Most of the members would readily admit that as much as they liked to read they were mostly here for the company. For many it was the only activity in a given month that belonged solely to them. For Claire, who had moved into the neighborhood newly divorced and with a two-year-old, a job, and already aging parents, the River Run Book Club-and the women in it-had been a lifeline. The meeting had always been a two a to three-minute walk, depending on who was hosting. Tonight, one week after her move into Midtown, it had taken her over an hour in traffic to get there.

Dropping her purse in a corner, Claire hugged her way to Amanda White's kitchen, where opened wine bottles and snacks covered the granite-topped island and conversation flowed almost as quickly as the alcohol was poured. This was the first meeting after the summer hiatus and there was a lot of catching up to do.

"I wish you all could have seen Sh.e.l.ley Gordon's face when she told me that Bradley didn't get into the University of Georgia." Lisa Breckenridge snorted as she reached for a winegla.s.s. "After four years of hearing how many Advanced Placement cla.s.ses he took, how high his test scores were, and how many schools were begging him to apply, it's kind of hard to fathom."

"I know!" Marilyn Bender stepped up to give Claire a hug, then reached for a bowl of mixed nuts. "I ran into her at Kendra's lacrosse game and she was going on about how happy he was at Georgia Southern after all and that he might not even want to transfer to Georgia later." She rolled her eyes.

There were t.i.tters of amus.e.m.e.nt as Claire joined a group ogling the sponge and marzipan cake that had been shaped into a four-poster bed with a bare-chested, pant unzipped version of billionaire Christian Grey leaning against it. Black lace panties and a short brown whip hung from the dining room chandelier. Invitations had been short suggestive emails and the signature drink was the Greyhound-a combination of vodka and grapefruit juice. Whether it was chick lit or S and M the River Run Book Club dearly loved a book that lent itself to a theme.

"I know you didn't get that cake at Kroger!" Marilyn said.

"You're right about that," Amanda crowed. "I ordered it online and it arrived in a plain brown wrapper."

"Welcome back to the hinterlands!" Woman after woman hugged Claire and proclaimed how wonderful it was of her to come all this way-as if she'd moved thousands of miles from them instead of in town.

"It's exactly twenty-three-point-four miles," Claire said the fourth time someone commended her on her fort.i.tude. "If it's not rush hour, it's only thirty-five to forty minutes."

"But it's always rush hour nowadays," Amanda said. "I swear you have to be crazy to get on a highway anywhere in the metropolitan area between seven a.m. and seven p.m."

"Isn't it weird to go from a three-bedroom Colonial to a studio apartment?" someone asked.

"Do you really walk to the grocery store?" Lisa asked as if she'd claimed she'd walked on the moon.

"I have. But driving is allowed," Claire teased. "The Publix near me has a parking lot and everything."

"But what do you do if it rains?"

"I'm guessing she gets wet or opens up her umbrella," Amanda deadpanned. "Kind of like we do out here in the 'hood."

There was laughter, but Claire knew that in a place as dependent on the automobile as the Atlanta suburbs completing tasks on foot really was an alien concept. As they plied her with questions they looked at her warily as if the desire to throw off a life and start a new one might be contagious.

"How's Hailey liking it up in Chicago?" Diana Grayson asked.

Claire launched into a story Hailey had told her about getting lost on the El and the group laughed, though she could tell from their expressions that they didn't understand why her daughter had chosen to go to college in the Midwest any more than they understood why Claire had shed life as they knew it for a tiny condo in the middle of the city.

The laughter and conversation flowed around her but didn't quite touch her. She wasn't sure how she could possibly feel so far removed from the life she'd lived for so long so quickly, but the long-awaited neighborhood clubhouse remodel, an email war about the landscaping for the front of the neighborhood, even home values already felt like ancient history. Another gla.s.s of wine or a Greyhound might have helped, but she was afraid of drinking too much, because when she left she wouldn't be cutting through the Graysons' yard and down two houses, she'd be driving two interstates to get back to the Alexander.

"Your eyes are completely glazed over," Kerry Morgan said with a laugh. "It's too tacky of us to bore you with the same old neighborhood s.h.i.t, when you've already shaken the red clay of River Run off those adorable new ballet flats you've got on. Let's go grab those empty seats over there and you can tell us all about your new place." Kerry picked up one of the opened bottles and led Claire and Hannah Simpson to an overstuffed sofa. "I think Hailey told Savannah that your building isn't far from the Fox Theatre?"

"It's about six blocks north," Claire replied. "I walked down there just the other day and had a coffee at the Georgian Terrace." She named a landmark hotel across from the theater.

"Are you just having the best time?" Hannah asked. "I admire you so much for starting fresh this way. I swear I'd never have the nerve to just pick up and move myself into a whole new life."

"I know," Kerry added. "I keep picturing you all dressed up like an adult all the time. Picking up lattes at the corner cafe. Eating in restaurants that don't ask if you want fries with that, whenever you feel like it."

Wendy Madden came over and joined them, dropping onto a kitchen chair that had been placed next to the sofa. She was a recent divorcee whose husband had finally admitted to a long-standing affair with their daughter's tennis coach. "I'm so jealous. Are there cute men in your building? Do you meet people in the streets? Do you go to the clubs?"

"My goodness, let the woman breathe," Hannah said.

Claire smiled in grat.i.tude. The answer to all of Wendy's questions was no-at least so far. She'd been in her new home for a week and except for when she'd been mowed down in the lobby and said h.e.l.lo to the security guy at the building entrance or thank you to the girl at the Starbucks counter, she'd barely looked another human being in the eye.

She looked at the wine bottle with real longing and tried not to stare when the others tilted their goblets up to drain their gla.s.ses. It sucked being the only completely sober person in the room, and although everyone who chimed in on their conversation professed envy of her new life, it was clear that none of them would ever actually consider trading their life for hers.

"So how's the new book coming?" Elsa, who had lived two doors away from the time Claire and Hailey moved into the neighborhood, asked. "It must be incredible to have all that time just to write."

Claire smiled. "I've been unpacking and getting settled all week," she said. "I'm taking the weekend to get my head in the right place and then I intend to get down to work first thing Monday morning." She hadn't even had time to review her notes or look at the character sketches she'd roughed out after the contract had been signed. She felt an odd little stutter in her stomach, which she a.s.sumed was antic.i.p.ation.

Still, she was almost relieved when Amanda clapped her hands together like the kindergarten teacher she was and ordered everyone to find a seat so that they could discuss the book. It was nine fifteen. The meeting would end somewhere around ten p.m.

It wasn't until Claire had started writing and trying to be published that she'd paid attention to how much more time was spent drinking and talking than discussing the book. It had taken her two and a half years to research and write her first historical romance and another year after that to find an agent to represent it. Highland Kiss had come out to strong reviews and modest sales a year and a half after that. The River Run Book Club had thrown a great launch party to celebrate and each and every member of the club had bought at least one copy. But the meeting at which they were to discuss it had been no different than all the others; lots of fun followed by a discussion of her book, her process, and her inspiration that lasted for exactly 20.5 minutes.

Claire's watch read ten fifteen when they began to carry gla.s.ses and plates into the kitchen.

"Maybe we could have a meeting down at my place one month," Claire said once she'd located her purse.

"That would be so cool!" Amanda said.

"You can show us around," Elsa added.

"Maybe we could go to a book event at the Margaret Mitch.e.l.l House-it's only a few blocks away-and then come back to my place for dessert or something," Claire offered.

There was a lot of excitement and chatter over the idea until someone pulled out her phone to calculate the mileage.

"We could draw straws for who would be the designated driver," Wendy said.

"Drivers, you mean," said Amanda. "If we all went, we'd need more than one vehicle."

They looked at each other calculating their odds of not only having to stay sober but drive home in the dark on unfamiliar roads.

"I'll send you all a link to the Margaret Mitch.e.l.l website and we can put something on the calendar," Claire said as if she thought this might actually happen.

"That sounds perfect." Amanda gave her a hug and handed her a plastic-wrapped slice of cake. "Drive carefully."

"I will."

There were more hugs and some halfhearted promises to come into town for lunch or shopping. She said good-bye and couldn't help noticing that others who had said they were leaving hung back in twos or threes to talk about the next day's carpool or some event at the middle or high school-just as Claire once would have done. She walked out to her car alone.

All was quiet in River Run. On a whim she turned left instead of right and drove slowly past their old house; the one she'd worked so hard to hold on to. There were lights on in the back family room and in the master bedroom upstairs. Out on the gra.s.s a tricycle lay on its side. A plastic orange-and-yellow coupe sat "parked" at the top of the driveway, its door hanging open. It was so strange to think of others living in their house.

She felt like a disembodied spirit with one foot in the old life and one in the new but belonging in neither. She picked up her cell phone and called Hailey, who had anch.o.r.ed her life for so long. Even if she'd stayed here, without her daughter to revolve around, her life would have been permanently altered. She would have still felt the emptiness that yawned at her center.

The call went to voicemail and Claire pressed the phone tight to her ear the better to hear her daughter's voice. "Hi, sweetie," she said after the tone. "I'm just on my way . . . home . . . from book club." She hesitated. "Everybody asked about you. And it was great to see them. But weird, too, you know?"

She drove south on Alpharetta Highway and took the Northridge ramp onto Highway 400 South. "I'll be in the car for the next thirty minutes or so if you want to call back. Or we can talk tomorrow." She swallowed around a ridiculously large lump that rose in her throat. "I love you. And I miss you."

Merging onto the highway, she was surprised as she always was by the amount of traffic that whizzed by. She wondered where all these people were going and had the horrible feeling that every single one of them was going home to someone. Everyone but her.

Quietly, she disconnected and set the cell phone in the empty cup holder. Carefully, she arranged both of her hands on the wheel and clasped it tightly, trying to hold on to some small part of herself-and her life-that still looked familiar.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

BROOKE WAS HALF OUT OF HER CHURCH CLOTHES Sunday when the doorbell rang. She was trying to yank the zipper of her dress back up when a key sounded in the lock. The girls' shrieks of joy and the happy yips that Darcy began to emit explained the lack of a call from the security desk. Although Zachary no longer lived here, he had decided the fact that he paid the mortgage ent.i.tled him to keep and use his key. She didn't like the idea that he could simply "pop in" any time he felt like it, but since his interest in the three of them hovered around zero this rarely happened. The key had become one more thing that wasn't worth fighting for.

Unable to get the zipper back up or her one remaining shoe off, she limped out to the foyer with her arms clasped across her middle to keep her dress from falling down. He, of course, looked attractively windblown, which meant he'd come over in his new BMW convertible, and casually elegant in khakis and a polo she didn't recognize, which probably meant his socialite girlfriend was now dressing him. Natalie, whose Sunday-school dress bore evidence of every crayon and snack she had touched that morning, had her arms around her father's hips and her head buried in his stomach. Ava, who had managed to shed her Sunday dress and everything else except her underpants and one frilly sock, had had to settle for clasping her chubby arms around his thigh. Darcy rubbed her sausage body against his pant leg like a cat. Her long dachshund nose sniffed the air around him happily, despite the fact that Zachary had never wanted, fed, or cared for her.

The excitement on their faces made Brooke want to cry. So did the irritation on his.

"You didn't answer my text." He looked her up and down dismissively.

"We were in church," she replied quietly and she hoped, with more dignity than her half-dressed state might indicate. "I had my phone off."

"I guess you didn't check messages on the house phone when you got home, either." His words were clipped.

"We just walked in a minute ago," she said although the truth was she probably wouldn't have checked since there was so rarely a reason to. "What do you want?"

"I came to pick up the girls." Given how little time he'd been spending with them, Brooke was not the only one who started in surprise at this. "If you can pack them each a small bag and their school uniform, we, I mean, I can drop them off in the morning."

There were more shrieks of joy, but the girls didn't let go. Which just went to show that while they both might have gotten her short, chunky build, red hair, and freckles, they had grasped certain truths about Zachary that she had not; namely that their father was someone they would have to make noise to attract and then cling tightly to hold on to.

He started to move toward the living room with the girls still attached, which produced a straight-legged, clunky, Frankenstein-monster sort of gait. The girls giggled as if he were playing the game he used to where he pretended to not even know they were there as he moved from room to room, but Brooke could feel the desperation in how tightly they'd locked their arms around him and the hysterical note of their laughter. She hurried after him, praying-as she hadn't been able to find the energy to do in church-that he wouldn't hurt their feelings or disappoint them yet again.

"So what made you decide on today?" Brooke asked as she pried first Natalie and then Ava off of him. Last weekend, which had been his scheduled weekend, he'd called barely ten minutes before she was supposed to have them waiting down in the lobby, to say that he wouldn't be able to make it; something that had happened so many times in the last six months that she was more surprised when he showed up than when he didn't.

Zachary hesitated and she could practically see his brain ducking and dodging, considering and rejecting possible answers. Which meant he feared the truth might prevent him from getting what he wanted.

"Go pack your bags, munchkins," he said, spearing the girls with a false smile that matched the jolly tone. As if he actually expected a five a and seven-year-old to pack an overnight case with everything they might need without a.s.sistance.

"Yes," Brooke added. "Go get started and I'll be there in a minute to help you finish up."

They raced to their rooms without further prompting, which was something that she'd often dreamed of but which was almost frightening when it actually happened.