The Bewildered Wife. Vivian Leiber

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СКАЧАТЬ a steak in the refrigerator to thaw in case he did live up to his promise. She also made him a baked potato and salad, fixed a martini extradry, and got out the Harry Connick, Jr. CDs he liked. For an hour, Connick’s soft and sultry jazz and the smell of home cooking had filled the house.

      Then, around six, she had admitted to herself that he might, just might, not come home early. If she were truly honest with herself, she would know it was a billion to one shot that he would even remember his nanny’s birthday.

      Much less return from work with the promised cake, present, and on time.

      She had started baking the cake while the children ate their dinner—feeding them their hot dogs was a hard concession to reality. But she knew she felt the disappointment in his not coming more acutely than the children. They scarcely missed the successive nights he didn’t come home until they were already in bed.

      Dean Radcliffe shouldn’t be expected to come home early for his nanny’s birthday. Susan sat back in her chair and shook her head at her own naive and heartfelt anticipation.

      She had even worn her best blouse to top her usual sturdy jeans. She had hand-washed the blouse and mended the wrist where the seam was frayed. She had sewn the blouse years earlier from a piece of fine gold brocade she had found on sale at a junk store. She had thought at the time the color would set off her pale blond hair nicely.

      But now Susan didn’t think even a gold blouse could make her hair look all that good. It was damp with sweat from the oven’s heat, held back by a scrunchie and dotted with icing. Even the prized blouse had some speckles of purple, yellow and red food dye.

      She didn’t feel like eating. Pushing her plate away, she took a couple of dog biscuits from her jeans pocket.

      “I didn’t forget you, Wiley,” she said, holding them out to the eighty-pound German shepherd, who had awakened at the telltale sound of Susan rubbing those treats together.

      The children savored their cake for several minutes—Baby Edward eating only the icing and Chelsea making a hash of the fluffy insides—and then Henry asked the question he asked every night

      “Are you going to tell the story of the Eastman bears?”

      “Only if Chelsea gets her pj’s on and all of you brush your teeth.”

      Instant and complete obedience.

      In ten minutes, Henry found his favorite pillow and spread out across the bottom of his elder sister’s bed. Chelsea, in her Barbie doll nightgown, pulled the covers up to her neck. Susan sat at the head of the bed, Baby Edward on her lap. Lit by the golden hall light, the bedroom seemed a gateway into a wonderful paradise.

      A paradise littered with discarded towels, children’s clothes, toys and well-worn shoes.

      A paradise guarded by Wiley.

      A paradise ruled by bears.

      Several times, Susan looked up to see the children’s collection of Eastman teddy bears aligned on the dresser top. And she continued the tale she had told the night before, which was really just a continuation of the story of the night before that.

      In fact, the story she had created about the Eastman bears extended as far back as any of the Radcliffe children could remember—though, in fact, Susan had only started working for the family the year before. A year after their mother’s death.

      Baby Edward’s head drooped to Susan’s shoulder. Henry squirmed, rolled around and finally found the perfect position. Chelsea closed her eyes.

      I wish this were mine, Susan thought, letting herself be selfish for just one final second. And then she realized that she had already gotten her wish. They were here.

      Maybe Dean Radcliffe wasn’t with them, but her crush on him was so excruciating that he’d just make her nervous.

      No, in a life already beat down with reality’s harshness, Susan had a way of seeing the perfection in her day.

      “And then Sister Bear walked all the way to the magic castle,” she continued, finding her place in the story.

      Dean Radcliffe tossed his keys on the hallway console and leafed through the pile of envelopes. Junk mail, requests for money, invitations to flashy charitable events Nicole would have loved. Why couldn’t people just send money to help out their favorite charity—instead of requiring a black-tie event in return?

      He pushed the mail to one side and walked through the darkened living room, carrying a cake box and a dozen roses.

      Nicole was still in this house, though she had been dead for almost two years. He wondered if her death was what fueled his insatiable desire for work—never wanting to face the moment in the day when there as nothing left…but to come home. He raked his fingers through his blue-black hair and strode through the marbled hallway.

      He paused as he reached the dining room. The crystal chandelier cast a faint golden glow on the remnants of a party—paper plates, noisemakers, half-eaten pieces of cake.

      He shuddered.

      Late again.

      He really hadn’t wanted to be.

      Susan seemed like a nice nanny—in fact, she was the only person who would stay.

      So he should make an effort.

      Had wanted to make an effort.

      Had made an effort.

      He had spent a good two or three minutes with his secretary, Mrs. Witherspoon, telling her he wanted a cake, a dozen roses and a present from the jewelers. And Mrs. Witherspoon, who had worked for him since he graduated college and had worked for his father before him since the Jurassic Age, had taken care of everything with her usual pursed-mouthed efficiency.

      He put the cake box down at the head of the table and pulled the small blue velvet jewelry box from the inside pocket of his charcoal gray suit jacket. He opened the box and studied the simple, silverlinked bracelet with three charms—two were silhouettes with Henry and Edward engraved in bold, block letters and one silhouette had pigtails and was engraved with Chelsea’s name.

      Simple. Nice. Festive.

      But nothing a young woman could get the wrong idea about. A decidedly perfect nanny gift. Mrs. Witherspoon had done an excellent job.

      Too bad he had missed the little party, but surely Susan couldn’t expect that he would leave the strategic planning meeting for the Eastman Toy Company takeover just for her birthday!

      No woman could expect that of him, especially not a sensible nanny like Susan.

       Chapter Two

      “And then Brother Bear came up with a great idea,” Susan said. “He thought if they took a kitchen towel and made it into a sail, they could get across the big sherbet lake…”

      “Daddy’s home,” Henry whispered.

      “Daddy’s home?” СКАЧАТЬ