The Replacement Wife (50 page)

“What happened to Janis?” Elise asked.

“Curtis put his foot down.” Holly shot him a mock glare.

“Judith is a nice name.” Elise turned to Glenn. “Don’t you think so?”

“The only Judith I know is my dental hygienist,” he said. “But she does a good job cleaning teeth.”

Holly rolled her eyes again. “Great. I get clean teeth when I could’ve had rock royalty.”

Curtis bent to kiss Holly on the cheek. “You’ll thank me someday. And I know our daughter will thank me.”

They chatted a few minutes more, until Elise saw Holly’s eyelids start to droop. Then she and Glenn said their good-byes, Glenn joking that Holly needed to rest up for her “press conference.” As they were headed out the door, Holly called after them, “If you want to see the baby, the nursery is just down the hall.”

“You can’t miss her,” said the proud papa. “She’s the most beautiful baby of them all.”

Elise and Glenn found Baby Harte-McBride slumbering peacefully in her Isolette, swaddled in a white blanket and sporting a pink knit cap scarcely bigger than a postage stamp. They stood at the nursery’s viewing window, gazing reverently at her. “She
is
pretty cute, I have to admit,” Glenn remarked finally. “Usually, they all look alike, but this one kind of stands out.”

“She does, doesn’t she?” Elise felt herself go all gooey at the center, the way she always did around babies, especially newborns. It made her think of the child she’d hoped to have with Dennis.

“She’s clearly destined for greatness.”

“Which goes to show, you don’t need to be named after a dead rock star,” said Elise.

“I don’t know. Janis would’ve been cool, or maybe just Joplin—it has a nice ring to it.”

“Sounds more like a boy’s name.”

“You don’t think boys can accomplish great things, too?”

“Sure, when they’re not too busy tooting their own horn.”

Glenn looped an arm around her shoulders. “You know, Osgood, I’ve been thinking. Maybe we should give it a go ourselves. Marriage, babies—the whole kit and caboodle. What do you say?”

“Sure, why not?” She played along. “But since neither of us is in a relationship, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.” If at all. Twenty years from now, she’d be like their school librarian, Miss Appleby, who wore a barrette in her hair, ate the same thing for lunch every day—peanut butter crackers, an apple, two slices of cheese—and kept photos of her three dogs on her desk.

“Yeah, well . . .” He darted her a sidelong glance. “That’s sort of what I was getting at. I thought since we’re both unattached, maybe we could be unattached together. If that makes sense.”

“Glenn Stokowski!” She spun around to face him. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

His cheeks reddened. “Would that be so terrible?”

“You’re not
serious
?”

“Serious as a heart attack.” He caught himself, wincing as if at the thought of Chips Miller. “Sorry. My bad. No disrespect to the old man.” He took her hands in his, looking her in the eye. “Remember that list I made of everything I wanted in a wife? Well, the other day I realized I knew someone who ticked all the boxes. She was right in front of me, in fact, and had been all along.” He broke into a lopsided grin. “The same someone who’s looking at me right now like she doesn’t know whether to believe me or hit me over the head.”

“How do I
know
you’re serious?” she demanded. Even when Glenn was being serious, he was never completely serious. He usually managed to work in an irreverent remark or note of morbid humor. One time, when she was weeping over Dennis, he told her, “Lucky for him your best friend is a schoolteacher.” When she asked why that was lucky, his response was, “I can’t afford to hire a hit man.”

Now he said, “Want me to prove it? Okay, you asked for it.” With that, he took her in his arms and kissed her.

Elise was too dumbfounded to resist. By the time her brain registered the fact that he was kissing her—
Glenn Stokowki was kissing her
—it was too late to put a stop to it. But the most surprising thing of all wasn’t the fact that he was kissing her (technically this wasn’t the first time); it was the kiss itself. It was so completely and utterly
un-
Glenn-like. She had slept with only two men before Dennis, but she had been kissed by many—in high school, she was a popular cheerleader who had spent her share of time behind as well as in front of the bleachers—so she felt qualified to judge, and this was no ordinary kiss. Unlike his previous kiss, which had been more sweet than romantic, there was no mistaking the meaning of this one. It had power and depth and was remarkably self-assured for a man who claimed not to have had much practice lately.

She was trembling when they finally drew apart. “How long has
this
being going on?”

“Awhile,” he confessed, red-faced. “Not just that I’ve wanted to kiss you. I’ve been thinking about other stuff, too—you, me, us. Little ones with your nose and my mouth, or my nose and your—” He broke off. “Why are you looking at me like that? You’re making me nervous.”

“I’m making
you
nervous? How do you think
I
feel?”

“Like a woman about to accept a heartfelt proposal, I hope.” The impertinent grin was back.

“Wait a minute. Not so fast. When did you decide I was the One?”

“When you were mooning over that one’s uncle.” He pointed toward Baby Harte-McBride. “I was never jealous of what’s-his-name. Maybe because I always knew he wouldn’t go the distance. But I could tell it was different with this guy. Once I started seeing him as competition, I knew.” He took hold her hands, his gaze locking onto hers. “I realize this is probably coming out all wrong, but I love you, Elise. Not just as a friend. I
love
love you. As in . . . well, you get the picture.” He gestured again toward the nursery’s viewing window.

Tears sprang to Elise’s eyes. “You could’ve prepared me, at least.”

“How? Apparently, you’re not very good at taking hints.”

She gave in to a small smile. “We’re not too big on subtlety in the Midwest.”

“Ah, yes. Home of Hallmark and Russell Stover, maker of the ever-popular Whitman’s Sampler.”

“Now you’re making fun of me.”

“No,” he said. His expression turned serious. In his pressed khakis and navy J. Crew sweater, with that swoosh of brown hair dipping over his forehead and his blue, blue eyes searching her face, he looked almost painfully earnest. “I am most definitely not making fun of you. I’m merely using humor as a defense mechanism because I’m actually terrified you’ll reject me.”

Elise smiled and shook her head. “Somehow I don’t see that happening.”

A spark of hope flared in his eyes, and he looked as if he wanted to comment on that. But he must have decided he’d said quite enough on the subject for the time being, so he only said, taking her arm, “Let’s hit it. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Should we do takeout? My place? As an added bonus I have the latest selections from Netflix for your viewing pleasure.”

“As long as I get first pick.”

“Sure. But I didn’t order any chick flicks. Just standard fare, I’m afraid.”

“I happen to like standard fare.” She smiled at him as they strolled arm-in-arm down the corridor on their way to the elevators. “In fact, if you’re up for it, we could even make it a double feature.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“A
ngie, couldya . . . ?”

“Got it!” Angie swooped in to snatch eighteen-month-old Caitlin out of harm’s way. Francine’s youngest had been on a collision course with the swing set, where her two older brothers, Bobby and Little Nick, were at the moment attempting to launch themselves into outer space.

The toddler howled in protest. On the lawn nearby, Rosemary’s eldest, ten-year-old Jacqueline, was stuffing the family’s Chihuahua into an old, pink terry Onesie of Caty’s, Twinkie looking supremely put-upon as he submitted to this latest indignity with only a few token wriggles. Julia’s adopted Korean daughters, Daisy and Lily, ages four and five, were giggling as they looked on, and Susanne’s two boys, nine-year-old Aidan and eight-year-old Patrick (Susanne, whose married name was O’Brien, called them her Irish twins), cracking up like it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen.

Angie set Caty down in the sandbox, where she immediately ceased her howling and grabbed a toy shovel, using it to smack at a Little Mermaid doll lying facedown in the sand. In her quilted jacket, her bottom puffy with a diaper, she looked like a pint-size, curly-haired Michelin Man.

“Good reflexes,” said Francine when she caught up with Angie a minute later, after having offloaded the tray of hamburger patties she’d been carrying. She wore her mom jeans and a faded Northwestern U sweatshirt, her hair in a ponytail, errant wisps curling about her face.

“Don’t forget, I’ve had lots of practice.” Francine arched an eyebrow in a questioning look, to which Angie responded, “Just because I don’t spend my days chasing after toddlers doesn’t mean I’m sitting on my ass. I’ll bet you a week’s pay I log as many miles as you do on average.”

“Speaking of which, this is where we pause for a commercial break and I remind you that you wouldn’t have to work as hard if you had two incomes. Angie,” Francine deepened her voice in imitation of their mom’s. “What’s it all for if you come home every night to an empty apartment? No one’s telling you to quit your job, but why can’t you have both? You want to wake up one day when it’s too late and wish you’d listened to your ma?”

Francine’s wicked impersonation of their mom—she perfectly captured Loretta’s broad Long Island accent (which she, Francine, had sought to eradicate from her own speech) and even broader hand gestures and her way of thrusting out her chest when making a point—was always good for a laugh. This time, though, Angie only chuckled dutifully. Jokes about her single status no longer seemed as funny.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. Need any help in the kitchen?” she asked as Francine started back toward the house.

Francine paused and shook her head. “I’m pretty sure Ma’s got it covered. When I left her, she was rewashing the plates I’d unloaded from the dishwasher.” She gave a long-suffering sigh, turning her gaze heavenward. “If you want make yourself useful, do something about the potato salad, for God’s sake.”

For every family cookout Loretta insisted on making potato salad from a recipe she’d cut out of a supermarket circular years ago. She was a good cook when she stuck to the basics of Italian-American cuisine. Her spaghetti and meatballs were perfection, as was her lasagna. It was only when she strayed into Betty Crocker territory that the results were mixed. Her potato salad, made with Miracle Whip, was, in a word, dreadful. Her daughters had tried every ploy to get her to stop making it (“Why don’t you relax, Ma, and let us do the work?” Or,
“
Ma, how about we do coleslaw for a change?
”)
or, at least, update the recipe. But she was as intractable about that as she was about her
Dynasty
-era wardrobe or the living room suite from Raymour and Flannigan, with its miles of flocked upholstery, that had been purchased when Bush Senior was in the White House.

“Fine. But don’t blame me if it ends up tasting as vile as ever,” Angie said.

She lingered on the patio a few minutes more after Francine had gone inside, enjoying the sunshine as she watched her nieces and nephews at play. It was unseasonably warm for late November, with temperatures in the mid-sixties, and though not quite warm enough to eat outdoors, they were going to brave it anyway, since Francine’s dining room table couldn’t seat the entire clan.

Angie had almost decided not to come. What persuaded her in the end wasn’t that she didn’t have an excuse not to come—she had the day off for once—or her mom’s twisting her arm. It was that she hadn’t wanted to spend the afternoon alone. Being alone led to obsessive thoughts. Thoughts of a certain someone she’d just as soon forget.

It had been three weeks since the news about Edward and Camille had trickled her way. She was catering an event that evening, a retirement party for some publishing executive at the Puck Building in SoHo, when she was approached by one of the guests, an attractive blonde she recognized from the Harte to Heart meet-and-greets. Normally, she made it a rule never to socialize with guests, but since she knew the woman, if only vaguely (from what she’d already begun to think of as her previous life), she paused to exchange pleasantries. The blonde commented on Angie’s having been absent from the previous month’s meet-and-greet. Angie murmured an excuse, something about Camille’s wanting “a change,” at which the other woman leaned in to confide, “That’s not the only change. I heard she and her husband are getting a divorce.”

“What?” Angie stared at her, dumbfounded.

At the stunned look she must have worn, the blonde said, “I know. I couldn’t believe it, either. I thought she had it all—the perfect marriage, the perfect husband. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

Angie did more than wonder. If the blonde could have done a Vulcan mind-meld on her then, the words flashing in her brain would have looked like those in the subject line of the email Francine had subsequently sent, after Angie had informed her of this latest development in the ongoing soap opera:
WHAT THE FUCK?
What shocked Angie more than the news itself was that she hadn’t heard it from Edward. Shock that gave way to hurt, and then anger, as the ensuing days passed with still no word from him. Obviously, his feelings for her—if he had any—hadn’t factored in his decision. She was of so little consequence he couldn’t even bother to inform her that he’d split from his wife.

How could I have been so stupid?
She’d thought he cared for her. She’d thought the only thing keeping them apart was the ring on his finger. The night he’d told her it was over, she’d felt for him even as her own heart was breaking. But if he’d loved her even a little, wouldn’t he have wanted to be with her now that he was free? Or at least provided an explanation as to why he couldn’t be. Really, he was no better than her loser ex-boyfriends. He was worse, actually. At least those guys had never pretended to be something they weren’t.