6.1 Old Dog, New Tricks

September

 “Tracy, she’s absolutely gorgeous! I can’t believe how much she’s changed since I saw you in the hospital,” Caroline gushed.

“Do you think so? Thanks,” Tracy smiled.

Tracy also looked different from when Caroline had visited her in the hospital the day after the birth. Then she had looked weary and puffy-faced and a bit stunned. It had taken all of Caroline’s resolve to resist the impulse to open her makeup bag and give Tracy a quick touch-up.

Now, two and a half weeks later, Tracy still looked a bit tired around the eyes, but at least her hair was combed and she had put on a bit of blush and concealer.

The two women were sitting in Tracy’s living room, the very same room in which Chelsea Louise’s journey from the womb had begun. It certainly looked different now, too. The low, white sofas were covered with cheap cotton blankets from Ikea to protect them from baby Chelsea’s occasional postprandial spit-up. A bright red and yellow playpen, a soft Winnie-the-Pooh baby gym and changing mat, as well as numerous soft toys, muslin burp-cloths and boxes of wet-wipes, took Tracy’s living room out of the running for a centerfold in Modern Homes magazine.

Chelsea was currently sleeping in her Moses basket, her chubby features scrunched in sleep under a shock of pale, sandy hair. It was all Caroline could do not to pick her up. She settled for reaching over and stroking Chelsea’s unbearably soft cheek, remembering the night she was born.

As soon as Tracy had been revived, Nigel ushered her out the door, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, Max and Caroline hot on his heels.

“Stay as long as you like!” he’d called to the crowd, cheerily, “We’re just nipping out to have a baby!”

As Nigel strapped Tracy into the GTR, Max and Caroline hovered over her, giving useless words of advice.

“Take deep breaths!”

“No, take shallow breaths!”

“Think happy thoughts!”

“Clear your mind!”

“I think we’ve got it from here ladies,” Nigel said, sliding into his own seat and tossing the house keys to Caroline. “Don’t worry about the mess, but lock up after everyone, would you, love?”

He peeled out of the driveway and down the road, leaving Max and Caroline staring at each other in the humid night.

Max turned on her heel and stomped up the steps to the villa, slamming the door behind her. She and Thurston had gone home early after spending the rest of the evening schmoozing with the guests, studiously avoiding Caroline and Louay.

Caroline was left to get rid of the other guests, tip the waiters and clear up the mess, while Louay lounged on a sofa, watching Real Madrid beat the pants off Barcelona. It had been well after 2 am by the time she and Louay had returned to the villa to a most unwelcome surprise.

As she opened the door, the smell of cheap pizza and the sound of Eminem greeted her.

“What the hell is going on?” she yelled at the three muscled men slumped on the sofas, drinking Corona from the bottle.

She knew Mimi had gone camping in Oman with some friends for the weekend. Who were these people? And what were they doing in her house?

“Oh, hey Carrie!” a female voice called.

Caroline turned at the sound of the hated nickname. It was Jen, Valerie’s cheerleader-blond replacement. But what was she doing here?

“Surprise!” Jen giggled. She was well on her way to a serious hang-over, swaying where she stood. She looped an arm around Caroline’s neck, inundating Caroline with beer fumes as she spoke. “There was a frickin’ fire in my building, Carrie! My place is totaled. I called up Whittington and she said I could move in here until they fix up the apartment. We’re going to be roomies, babe!”

Caroline just stared at the girl. She was young, fresh out of teacher’s college. She had gotten the job at DIS through her friend Amanda, who taught elementary PE and was a notorious party girl. Caroline spotted Amanda coming down the hall from the bathroom.

“Hi, Caroline. Hi, Louay,” Amanda smiled slyly. She must have met him at their engagement party, Caroline realized. Louay’s face wasn’t one you would easily forget.

“Long time, no see,” he said, kissing her cheeks.

“And I’m Jen,” Jen insinuated herself in front of her friend. The two girls could have been sisters, with their glossy gold hair, hourglass figures and Colgate smiles.

“Jen, this is my husband Louay.” Caroline diverted any more possible cheek-kissing by standing in front of him. “And these are?” she gestured to the young men on the sofas.

“My friends,” Amanda answered.

“Yeah, they like, helped me move my stuff in,” Jen added.

“And they’ll be, like, leaving soon?” Caroline crossed her arms over her chest. “It is two in the morning, you know.”

“Ooooh! Two in the morning!” Jen and Amanda shrieked with laughter.

“Chill.” Amanda giggled. “Have a beer. We don’t have to work tomorrow.”

“Yes, relax, habibti,” Louay said. “They are just having fun.”

“Well, I’ve had enough fun for one evening,” Caroline answered through a tight smile. She started up the stairs but stopped half way.

“I’m going to bed,” she said to Louay, hotly. “Are you coming?”

“Of course, habibtii,” he answered, not moving. “After I have one beer.”

He smiled at the two blondes gazing up at him. Caroline was past caring. It had been a horrible evening and she was ready to see the end of it.

When she awoke the next morning to find Louay, still in his clothes, snoring beerily beside her, she was still angry. Angry at Louay, angry at Jen and Amanda, angry at Max. As she got ready to go to see Tracy in the hospital, she half hoped that Max would be there, so they could have it out.

Fortunately she wasn’t, because as the days passed and Louay slipped back into his old ways, Caroline began to notice her anger with her friend mellowing into something more like contrition. Still, she wasn’t quite ready to apologize. Well, not if Max didn’t apologize, too. Preferably first.

“So has Max been by?” she asked Tracy, now.

“Yeah, a few times. Thurston even came with her once. He and Nigel watched a game while she and I chatted. It’s nice to see them together again.” Tracy reached down and smoothed a tuft of Chelsea’s hair that was sticking up.

Caroline felt a wave of bitter envy wash over her. How was it that Max had been unfaithful and managed to end up with the fairytale romance, while Caroline had done nothing wrong and was beginning to think that her prince was part toad?

“I’m sorry I haven’t been able to come more often,” Caroline said, feeling a bit guilty. “It’s just that the first month of school is crazy busy, and with the holiday coming up…” she said, referring to Eid al Fitr, the celebration that marked the end of Ramadan.

“Oh, sure,” Tracy said, trying to make her feel better, “I know. And you’re a newlywed!”

“Uh, yeah.” Caroline averted her eyes. She hadn’t seen much of Louay for the past week. He was busy with a new ad campaign, or so he said.

“Um, has Max said anything about me?” Caroline asked.

Tracy looked at Caroline, her brown eyes warm with sympathy as she shook her head.

Just then Chelsea gave a little mew, and without even opening her eyes, started crying.

“Oh, sorry, Caroline,” Tracy said, quickly unwrapping the baby and picking her up. “I think she’s hungry. I’m going to have to give her the boob.”

“Oh, right. I should probably go now, anyway.” Caroline got up. “I just wanted to drop by and see how you’re doing. I’ve got tons of marking.”

“Okay,” Tracy said over Chelsea’s cries, unbuttoning her shirt. “Do you mind letting yourself out?”

“No problem at all,” Caroline smiled, backing out of the room. “Say hi to Nigel.”

Tracy nodded and waved, her attention all on Chelsea. Caroline closed the door to the villa behind her and stepped out into the scorching afternoon sunshine, quickening her pace to hail a passing taxi before the humidity threatened to twist her smooth blow-out back into spirals.

“Jumeirah Beach Road,” she told the driver. She hadn’t intended to go home this afternoon. She had her marking with her and was going to do it at Stirbucks with a caramel frappucino to spur her on. But after her visit with Tracy, she just felt like cocooning.

Caroline didn’t expect anyone to be at the villa. Mimi was helping a friend set up her installation at a gallery in Al Quoz. Louay was going to the gym. And Jen seemed to spend most Friday afternoons at all-you-can-drink pub brunches. So when she opened the front door, she was surprised to hear music coming from one of the bedrooms upstairs.

“Hello?” she called. The grinding beat of 50 Cent’s “Candy Shop” pulsed down the stairs. Jen, she thought with mild distaste, probably entertaining one of her drunken conquests. Caroline had to pass Jen’s room on the way to her own. The door was open. Not just a crack, but wide open. Don’t look, don’t look, she said to herself. But as she passed the open door she just couldn’t help herself. She looked and froze, rooted to the spot.

Jen was lying on her back in a tight white t-shirt and panties, with her head hanging off the foot of the bed, blond hair brushing floor, eyes closed in ecstasy. And kneeling at the head of the bed, sucking the pinky toe of her right foot as if he was trying to get the last drop of a milkshake, was Louay.

 

5.6 A Birthday to Remember

Tracy rearranged the candles on the sideboard for the third time and stood back to examine the newest configuration with a critical eye. She made a few minor adjustments and realized she’d put the candles back where she had placed them the first time. She giggled at her own nervous silliness, then turned around and surveyed the room.

The kitchen island had been converted temporarily into a bar. She had hired a bartender, as well as someone to serve the buffet, which was laid out in warming trays along the length of her ironwood dining table. The waiters, neatly dressed in Mughal-style brocade tunics, were chatting quietly in Hindi as they laid out the filigreed china plates the restaurant had provided.

Tidy groupings of ivory candles and dimly lit table lamps created an intimate ambiance, as did the gentle sigh of Miles Davis on the trumpet, playing softly in the background. An enormous bouquet of white peonies, which, embarrassingly, had cost more than the night’s wages of the two waiters, sat in a huge fishbowl vase on the coffee table.

Tracy wasn’t sure who was going to show up. She had sent the email invitations out less than a week before the event, and she knew the fashion hoi pelloi in Max’s rollodex often had their social calendars filled weeks in advance. And as for Caroline…well.

When Max had called Tracy and told her that she had spilled the sordid truth about Louay, Tracy had expected to be asked to play intermediary. What she hadn’t expected was Caroline’s phone call a few minutes later. Caroline had asked one question.

“Did you know about this?”

When Tracy answered a reluctant “Yes, but…” Caroline had hung up on her. And hadn’t answered or returned any of her calls or texts since.

Tracy gripped the back of the sofa as a Braxton-Hicks contraction rippled through her. She’d been getting them on and off for the past two weeks, usually when she was stressed or tired. Right now, she was both.

“Love, are you alright?” Nigel asked, coming down the stairs. In a pale blue shirt that matched his eyes, his brow furrowed with concern for her, he had never looked more adorable.

“Oh, I’m fine. Just one of those crazy Braxton-Hicks thingees. As if we pregnant women don’t have enough to worry about. Our bodies do this ridiculous false-labor thing.”

Nigel hugged her to him, pressing her head gently to his chest.

“Not in front of the help, dear,” Tracy whispered out of the corner of her mouth, cutting her eyes  to the two waiters in the kitchen.

Nigel leaped back theatrically and said, “Ooh! Sorry, sorry! Hugging me own wife in me own house! Naughty me!”

Tracy laughed.

Nigel picked up her hand and held it. “Is this acceptable, madam?” he asked.

“Oh, I suppose,” she sighed, still grinning.

“Are you sure it’s just the Braxton-Hicks? Today is the due date, you know. And you have been having them a lot today.”

“Oh, don’t be such a worry wart, Nigel,” Tracy said, slightly exasperated. Nigel was more concerned about the birth than she was!

Just then the doorbell rang. Tracy waddled down the hall, wondering which one of the fashionably late fash pack would have the audacity to arrive early. When she opened the door, there, dressed in an aqua smock dress and gold gladiator sandals, her hair swept up in a deliberately messy chignon was Caroline.

“Oh, Caroline!” Tracy cried, overjoyed, as she grabbed her friend in a fierce hug. “You are the last person I expected to be here early. I didn’t think you’d be coming at all, after, well… you know. Oh, I’m so glad you came! My god, how high are those heels? I barely come up to your boobs. Oh, you look gorgeous. Come in, come in. It’s disgustingly sticky out there.”

Caroline stepped inside but didn’t close the door. “Just a minute. Louay’s paying the taxi driver,” she said.

“Louay? But…” Tracy gasped and peeked around Caroline. Sure enough, there was Louay, running a hand through his golden waves as he climbed the steps to the villa. Tracy was flabbergasted. What was Caroline thinking?

“Tracy, hello,” he said, kissing her cheeks. “You look beautiful. Soon the baby will come, yes?”

“Uh, yes, uh, thanks,” she stuttered, overwhelmed by conflicting emotions. “Um, please, come in and meet my husband, Nigel,” she continued, recovering a bit. “Caroline, can you come upstairs with me for a sec? I need your opinion on something.” She glared at her friend.

“But I haven’t even seen your new place.” Caroline said, as they entered the living room. “Wow! It’s gorgeous.” She waved to Nigel who was shaking hands with Louay near the makeshift bar. “Let me just say hi to Nigel,” she said, but Tracy grabbed her arm, jerking her back.

“No. Now!” Tracy’s voice was a fierce whisper.

“Okay, okay,” Caroline said, rubbing her arm. “God, you’re strong for such a little thing.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Tracy answered, leading Caroline up the stairs to the second floor. “And believe me, you don’t want to find out.”

Caroline laughed. She followed Tracy into the master bedroom and walked over to the balcony doors, looking down on the garden below, and beyond to the sea of lights speckling the dusk.

“This is really beautiful. You guys are so lucky.”

“Yeah, yeah, enough with the b.s.” Tracy said, closing the door and leaning against it. “What the heck is going on?”

Caroline turned around to face Tracy who was clutching her belly and grimacing.

“Are you alright?” she asked, concerned.

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just the stupid Braxton-Hicks. Now would you tell me what Louay is doing here?”

Caroline flopped down at the end of Tracy and Nigel’s bed and leaned back on her hands. Tracy lowered herself to the sisal-covered floor and crossed her legs, resting against the wall facing Caroline.

“Well, after I recovered from the shock of my little chat with Maxine, I was so angry. And I wanted answers. I left a message on Louay’s voice-mail saying he’d better come home immediately or I was going to initiate divorce proceedings.”

“Uh, huh,” Tracy encouraged.

“So,” Caroline continued, “he was home an hour later. We stayed up all night talking. It wasn’t pretty, at first. I threw some stuff. We both yelled a lot. Poor Mimi didn’t get a wink of sleep. But we got to the bottom of things. And we made up. He’s been home by 7:00 every night since. So…”

“So? So? He’s been sleeping with your best friend and her secretary and you forgive him and that’s that?” Tracy exclaimed. She knew Caroline was a born romantic, but this was too much, even for her.

“No, no,” Caroline laughed. “He hasn’t been sleeping with Rania. She’s his cousin. She’s been helping him out, getting him work since Max stopped sending him on go-sees.”

“His cousin?” Tracy mulled it over. “Hm, okay. But what about Max, Care? He slept with Max. While you were going out.”

“Well,” Caroline said, looking down at her hand as she ran it over the cool white cotton of Tracy’s duvet cover, “Louay said that she seduced him. It started before he met me. He wanted to stop it, but he felt he couldn’t because she was basically his boss and controlled whether or not he got work. But when he found out I was pregnant, he finished it with her. And as you can see, she was vindictive. She cut him off.”

Tracy stared at her friend. “He told you that, and you believe him?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” Caroline answered, her voice firm with conviction. “Max has a history of this kind of behavior. Remember the bartender at Y? Three nipples? Don’t ask, don’t tell?” Caroline used her fingers to quote the expression.

Tracy nodded, reluctantly.

“There’s a lot that Max has been keeping from us,” Caroline said.

Tracy couldn’t deny it. “So…why are you here? And why the heck did you bring Louay?” She caught her breath as another false contraction seized her.

“God, are you sure you’re alright?” Caroline asked, kneeling down beside her friend.

Tracy flapped her hand dismissively, breathing in short bursts through her mouth. “Fine…go on…” she panted.

Caroline gave her an uncertain look but continued talking. “I’m here because, while I believe Louay, I believe Max, too. I believe that she didn’t know Louay was seeing me, and I believe that if she had known, she never would have done anything with him.”

Tracy looked back at her friend, skeptically. “And Louay?”

Caroline sighed. “Look, Tracy. The fact is, Louay is my husband. If we are going to continue to be friends, we’re all going to have to get past this. The sooner, the better.”

The two women locked eyes, Tracy’s questioning and Caroline’s unrelenting.

Finally Tracy sighed and said, “I guess you’re right. We’re all going to have to move beyond this. I know I don’t want to lose you guys. You’re like my family. Dubai would suck without you. Help me up, would you?”

Caroline pulled her friend up and squeezed her in a quick hug. “Dubai would suck without you, too.”

“We’d better get downstairs. The doorbell’s been ringing like crazy. I’m sure most of the guests are here. And Max will be here before too long.” Tracy laughed, a short bark. “This will definitely be a birthday to remember!”

When the two women got downstairs, sure enough, most of the guests had arrived. Nigel had switched Miles Davis for Maroon Five, and the vibe was heating up. Tracy and Caroline separated and mingled with the guests, nibbling on samosas and onion baji as they chatted. The volume of chatter and laughter was so high that Tracy almost didn’t hear the doorbell ring. She put down her plate and looked up at the sunburst clock. 8:00, right on the dot. It could only be Max.

“Darling!” Max said as Tracy opened the door. She was dressed head-to-toe in bright lipstick red, a complete reversal from her usual champagnes, grays and pale yellows. She looked gorgeous. But perhaps that had more to do with the man on her arm than the color she was wearing.

“Thurston, it is so nice to see you,” Tracy said after she had given Max a hug.

“And you, Tracy.” Thurston kissed her cheek.

Max was craning her neck to see down the hall. It was clear from the noise emanating from the living room that this wasn’t going to be the quiet little dinner party Tracy had promised.

“Darling, what is going on? Have you been naughty and thrown me a surprise party?” Max grinned broadly.

“Would I do a thing like that?” Tracy linked her arm through Max’s while Thurston walked ahead. “And look at you, all in red. After you made so much fun of poor Teresa.”

“But Ta-ta,” Max said, haughtily, “I do head-to-toe red with élan.”

Tracy had to admit that she was right. In her sleek matte satin mini-dress and peep-toe wedges, she looked as if she had stepped right off the runway. No one could ever have said the same of Teresa.

“Oh, my dear,” Max said as they entered the open-plan living space, “This is absolutely divine. What a beautiful home. And oh, are those the boys from Rishikesh? Love! Oh, there’s Karen from Arriba. I must introduce Thurston to her husband. They’re both die-hard Arsenal fans. Funny, that girl she’s talking to looks just like…Oh, my god, it is Caro!” She turned to look at Tracy with tears of joy in her eyes.

“She came,” Max mouthed the words silently, then turned back to the crowd. “Caro!” she yelled, waving as she moved across the room toward Caroline, Tracy following.

Suddenly Max stopped, and brought one hand to her mouth, the other gripping Tracy’s arm. “Is that…Louay?” she breathed, her grasp tightening. When she whipped her head around to look at Tracy, her eyes were filled with shock and anger. Then just as suddenly, she looked down. “Something splashed on my leg.”

Tracy felt it, too. She looked down to find she was standing in a puddle of clear liquid. She grabbed her belly with both hands as a strong contraction ripped through her, taking her breath away.

“Nigel!” she yelled. Then she blacked out.

5.5 Owning Up

Max sat in the back seat of the Top Models Lincoln Town Car, her hands tucked firmly underneath her thighs. She had quit biting her nails the year she moved to Dubai. It had been seven years, and she wasn’t about to start now, much as she was longing to. Quitting nail-biting had been much harder than stopping smoking, probably because she had been gnawing her nails since she was five or so. She’d only taken up smoking at fifteen.

She was on her way to meet Thurston at Fugu. Usually a model of efficiency, Maxine had changed clothes five times before deciding on the outfit that she had on, a grey silk and linen shift, cinched at the waist with a wide black belt and lipstick-red platform peep-toes. Now that she was trapped in the car, moving down the road toward the Palm, she wasn’t sure about the shoes. Red? So frivolous. What had she been thinking?

“Can you turn the radio on, Wilson?” she said leaning forward and speaking to the turbaned driver behind the wheel. She needed something to distract her from her thoughts.

“Yes, of course, Madam.” Wilson obliged, turning on the radio to the BBC World Service, the only channel she listened to.

Of course, it didn’t help. She just couldn’t stop thinking about her conversation with Caroline last night. She clenched her hands into fists under her thighs.

She and Wilson had been parked in the gravel lot in front of Caroline’s villa for just a few minutes when the taxi pulled up.

“Hello, darlings.” Max stepped into the humid evening to meet them  as they emerged from the taxi. “My god Mimi, your hair! With those glasses, well, what a bold statement.”

“Hi Max,” Caroline said, warily.

Mimi just stared at her, a look of incredulous disdain on her face. She turned to Caroline, rolling her eyes. “See you tomorrow morning, Care. I’m going to have an art attack.”

“I always suspected she was a lesbian,” Maxine said sotto voce to Caroline as they walked into the entry hall of the villa and closed the door on the muggy heat outside. Max followed Caroline into the kitchen.

“Max!” Caroline scolded. “She can hear you. And she’s not gay.”

Max raised an eyebrow at her friend and smirked.

“Well, she’s open to the possibility,” Caroline started, then suddenly flushed with anger. “Let’s skip the small talk, Max. What is it? Why are you here?” she demanded.

“Can’t a friend just drop by for a chat…” Max started but Caroline interrupted her.

“It’s about Louay, isn’t it?” Caroline said.

“Yes.” Max held her friend’s gaze and spoke softly. “Look, Caro, sit down. Do you have anything to drink? I think you’re going to want something strong.”

Caroline blanched but didn’t sit down. “Max, for some crazy reason you’re the one person in the world who doesn’t like Louay. I know you weren’t happy about me marrying him. But guess what? We’re married. Deal with it.”

Maxine bustled around her friend, opening cupboards and taking out glasses as she spoke.

“Caroline, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Louay is not the man you think he is. He told you he was working tonight? Top Models doesn’t have a contract with anyone filming a commercial at night. If he’s lying to you about that what else is he lying to you about?”

Caroline averted her eyes, sitting down on one of the stools beside the kitchen island and picking up the glass of clear liquid that Max pushed over to her.

“What is this anyway?” she muttered, tilting back her head to down it.

“Damned if I know, darling,” Maxine laughed. “It looked alcoholic, so I just poured it. Hm. Elderflower cordial,” she read the label. “I guess not.”

Caroline’s eyes bulged and her face turned red. She leaped off her stool and spat into the sink. Rinsing her mouth with water from the tap, she turned to face her friend.

“That was disgusting! Like drinking perfume mixed with maple syrup. Ugh, who drinks that crap?”

“I believe you’re supposed to mix it with water, darling. It’s a British thing,” Max answered, relieved that she had inadvertently broken the tension.

Caroline sat down and examined the bottle. “This thing must have in the cupboard for ages. I don’t even know who bought it. Expires June 2007. Are you trying to poison me, Max?”

“Hardly, darling.”

“Just poison my thoughts about my husband.”

“Look, Caro,” Max said, gently, laying a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “No one wants you to be happier than I do, but…”

She placed the note that she had taken from Rania all those months ago on the surface of the island. Caroline picked it up and examined it.

“What is this? Louay S. 050 332 4598. Bar None 10:30?” She turned the scrap of paper over to see if there was something more.

“It’s a note I confiscated from Rania. It was written during a very flirty phone call. In June.”

Caroline stared at the note, processing the information. When she looked up at Max, her eyes were sad, defeated. “So, you think he’s involved with Rania,” she said quietly.

“Yes. I do. I’m sorry Caroline, I…” Max started to speak, oozing genuine sympathy, but Caroline cut her off.

“If you knew in June why are you just telling me now?” she demanded.

“Well, for one thing,” Max answered, breezily, “I didn’t actually know that you were seeing Louay until the day you two flew off to the Seychelles to get married.”

“Oh, right,” Caroline muttered.

“You were rather secretive,” Maxine said. “And I can imagine why. Louay probably put you up to it, didn’t he?”

“Yes. Well, no. Not exactly,” Caroline rubbed her forehead, still staring at the note. “But Max,” she looked up at her friend, her clear green eyes shadowed with sorrow and confusion, “if you didn’t know about Louay and me, why did you keep this note?”

“Well,” Max said, “to give to Rashed, to use as evidence that his latest pet was visiting other houses for her meals, if she proved to be too much trouble to get rid of on my own. Which, it seems, she is.”

Caroline continued to stare at Maxine. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

Max looked away.

“Oh. My. God. You slept with Louay.” Caroline’s voice was expressionless.

“It was a huge, huge mistake. But if you hadn’t been so secretive, it never would have…”

Caroline cut her off. “You slept with my husband in June and you’re only telling me now?”

“Well, it may have been May,” Max started, then realizing she was not helping her cause, stopped abruptly.

“I want you to leave,” Caroline said, turning away from her.

It was the exact same thing Thurston had said to her when he had found out about her infidelity. And Caroline said it in the same tone of voice: weary, sad, detached. In fact the whole conversation felt all too familiar.

“Caroline, please, don’t let a simple misunderstanding destroy our friendship,” Max pleaded, but Caroline didn’t turn around.

“Now!” she yelled, her shoulders tense.

Max had slunk out of the villa, leaving Caroline hunched over the counter. That had been Monday. Since then she had called and texted Caroline at least twice a day. She had even sent her a fabulous pair of turquoise silk sling-backs she’d seen on sale at Galleries La Coquette and an enormous bouquet of tiger lilies, but she had gotten no response from her. She didn’t hold much hope for her making an appearance at Tracy’s for her birthday dinner tomorrow.

Each time she saw Rania, the bile rose up her throat and it was all she could do to stop herself from unleashing her anger and frustration on the smug brunette, but she restrained herself. Smiled coolly. And waited. Rania’s time would come, but Max knew she would need something more than the message she had shown Caroline.

The Town Car pulled into the cul-de-sac in front of the overblown monstrosity of a hotel that was The Palm Valhalla, and Max did her best to rid herself of all thoughts of Caroline, Louay and Rania. One of the keys to her success in life had been her motto, “One problem at a time”. And right now, that was Thurston.

“Wilson, I’ll call you,” Max told the driver as one of the liveried doormen opened her door. “It may be a couple of hours. Or it could be a lot less.” She laughed nervously.

Maxine smoothed her dress down and put on her most confident smile, though she was quaking on the inside. Striding into the dimly lit lobby, she thought of another personal motto: “Fake it ‘til you make it.”

 

5.4 Something Rotten in the Emirate of Dubai

“Oh my god, Mimi, that was so much fun! That was just what I needed,” Caroline gushed, as they pushed open the door of the ladies locker room. They had just come out of a Zumba class at the Halton Hotel, and both were flushed and sweaty.

“Yeah, I thought you’d be into it,” Mimi said.

Mimi had talked Caroline into to erasing the hours of mind-numbing meetings and professional development sessions that marked their first week back at school by trying out the new Latin dance-inspired class. The school wouldn’t open until next week, but teachers had to be back early to prepare their classrooms and plan the year ahead. As head teacher, Caroline was also responsible for making the schedule, checking the other teachers’ yearly plans and arranging for P.D. sessions. It was quite a change from her summer spent hibernating at the family lakeside cottage, but it was good for her to be busy. It kept her mind off things. Like Louay.

The women showered and grabbed a taxi home, returning to their previous topic of conversation as they squeezed into the backseat with their gym bags, purses and Mimi’s enormous backpack.

“Look, I know the glasses with the new hair make me look kind of dykey,” she confessed. Over the summer, she’d cut her hair into sweet pixie cut that suited her elfin features, but the combination of short hair and Buddy Holly frames did give her an air of KD Lang.

“Um.” Caroline smiled.

“Yeah, I know they do, but that’s exactly the image I’m trying to project.” She was completely matter-of-fact.

“Oh, wow, Mimi, I, uh, I didn’t know,” Caroline fumbled. “Uh, congratulations or, whatever.”

Mimi looked at her friend quizzically. “What?” she said. “Oh, no! I’m not gay. I mean, I’m open to the possibility of a relationship with a woman, but you know, none has ever lit my fire.” She laughed at her friend’s obvious discomfort. “No! No. I’m just trying to, like, focus on my career and my art and not let men get in the way,” she said, loftily.

Caroline squinted at Mimi. “Summer romance gone bad, eh?”

Mimi broke into giggles. “The worst! What a scumbag! And he had the wool pulled right over my eyes.”

“Scumbags have a way of doing that,” Caroline said, looking at her friend sympathetically. As the words came out of her mouth, a little twinge of discomfort prickled at the back of her mind, but she ignored it.

“I’m better off without him. Definitely. Too good for that wannabe-grunge-revival-rocker-dickhead.”

“Aw, Mimi. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.” Caroline gave her friend a quick squeeze.

“It wasn’t serious. But he was kinda cool, you know? Not like the guys you meet here, all money, money, money.”

“So what happened?” Caroline asked.

“He blew me off for some chick with connections to a big record label in L.A.” Mimi laughed.

Caroline started laughing too, and they both laughed until they heard the Pakistani taxi driver making “tsking” noises from the front seat. Then they laughed even harder.

“Ahh,” Mimi sighed, wiping the moisture from her eyes. “So speaking of men, what’s up with Louay? I expected to pretty much have him living at our place. You guys are married, after all. I’ve hardly seen him at all since I got back.”

“What are you talking about?” Caroline asked, the funny twinge returning, stronger. “He’s been over practically every evening.”

“Um, yeah. He sits at the table texting while you cook dinner, shovels it into his face, and is out the door before you’ve cleared the plates off the table.”

Caroline crossed her arms. “Yeah, well, he’s Lebanese. They’re still working on the whole women’s lib thing over there. And he’s got shoots to go to. But he stayed over last night…” Caroline’s voice trailed off, lamely. His excuses sounded pathetic, even to her.

“Yeah. I heard him leave at four in the morning. He’s not exactly quiet,” Mimi said.

“He just thinks it’s better if he keeps his own place while the agency is still putting him up. Just until I can get something sorted out with the school. They don’t have any married accommodations available right now. They’re looking.”

Mimi eyed her skeptically. “You know I don’t care if he lives with us. You’ve got to wonder why he doesn’t want to move in.”

“Well, wouldn’t you rather live at The Governor’s House than in our crummy old villa? Especially if someone else was footing the bill?

“Not if my wife was living in that crummy villa,” Mimi said, exasperated. “Duh!”

“Yeah, I know,” Caroline sighed. She looked out the window to avoid Mimi’s critical gaze.

As Mimi put on her Dr. Phil hat and launched into an advice monologue, Caroline stared unseeing at the passing sun-bleached cityscape, nodding her head reflexively. But her attention was not on what Mimi was saying.

Married life was not exactly working out the way she had expected. Since she’d come back, Louay had been acting differently. He was distant, both literally and figuratively. He claimed to be working on a commercial that was being shot at night, which explained why he had to rush off after eating, but it was more than that. Before she lost the baby he would talk about taking her back to Lebanon to meet his parents and brothers. But now she was the one who brought it up. He always agreed with her saying, “Of course habibti. We will meet them soon. But now is a bad time. Shwaya. Patience.”

Even their formerly passionate lovemaking sessions had tapered off. Caroline had heard married women complain about their sex lives, but she and Louay had only been together a few months. She knew something wasn’t right, but she wasn’t ready to deal with it yet. She hoped that, like an ugly red pimple, if she just ignored it, it would eventually go away on its own. She wasn’t keen to pop it and deal with the yucky stuff inside. Not now anyway, with so much else going on.

The school year was just beginning for one thing, and then there was the matter of those nasty letters she kept getting in the mail from her banks. Caroline inhaled deeply and silently chanted an equilibrium restoring mantra as she exhaled.

“Hey, Caroline, come out of the Zen zone,” Mimi said, nudging her. “You’ve been totally ignoring everything I’ve been saying. And your phone is ringing.”

Caroline checked her caller display, thinking it was probably Louay. It wasn’t. It was Tracy.

“Hi Tracy.” Caroline infused her voice with perkiness she didn’t feel. “How does your baby grow?”

“Enormous! Dr. Nawallah thinks it’ll be an 8 pounder, or as she said, approximately 3 and a hawf kilos.” Tracy mimicked her obstetrician’s posh Indian accent.

“Yikes!” Caroline answered, unconsciously putting a hand on her own flat belly.

“Listen, are you busy?” Tracy asked.

“Nah.” Caroline looked out the window at the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the road around them, all four lanes heading over the Garhoud bridge at a standstill. “Mimi and I are just heading home from the Halton. We’re stuck in traffic.”

“Aw. Sorry. Has the taxi driver started swearing yet?” Tracy asked.

“Well, he’s muttering under his breath, so it’s bound to start soon.” Caroline knew the driver’s English wasn’t good enough to guess that she was talking about him. She did feel sorry for him though. He had probably been fasting all day, without so much as a drop of water to drink, driving in hellish Dubai traffic. It was approaching sundown, when he could finally break his fast, and he was stuck on a bridge with two giggling infidel women.

“I just wanted to make sure you’re okay with having Max’s party at my place,” Tracy said.

“Oh, yeah, absolutely. As long as you’re okay with it. I mean, with your due date so close. Of course I’ll help with anything you want.”

“Oh, thanks, honey. I actually have tons of energy all of a sudden. And I’m going to get it catered. How does Rishikesh sound?” she answered, naming the trio’s favorite Indian restaurant. Their Punjabi samosas and mango chutney were to die for.

“Excellent. And I’m dying to see your new place!” Caroline added.

“I know. I can’t wait for you to see it,” Tracy said.

“Did you invite Thurston?” Caroline asked.

“I did,” Tracy said, “But he hasn’t rsvped yet. But Max texted me that he was taking her out to Fugu the night before her birthday.” That’s got to mean something, right?”

“Oh, for sure,” Caroline agreed. “He wouldn’t end things with her on her birthday eve. He must be taking her back.”

Caroline was distracted by Mimi’s snort of derision beside her. She had told Mimi about Max’s situation. Naturally, Mimi’s sympathy had all been for Thurston.

Caroline’s attention was drawn back to her conversation with Tracy by a strange noise coming out of the receiver.

“Oohmf.”

“Tracy? Are you alright?” Caroline asked, concerned.

“Oh, yeah. It’s nothing. Just a Braxton-Hicks. You know, false contractions. It doesn’t mean anything,” Tracy answered, catching her breath.

“Are you sure you want to do this party, Trace?” Caroline asked, her voice filled with concern.

“Oh yeah. Yes. Just don’t breathe a word to Max, if you happen to talk to her before Friday. She thinks she’s having a quiet dinner with the two of us,” Tracy said.

“Hey! She’s going to be forty. That’s got to be marked with a serious celebration,” Caroline exclaimed.

“Darn skippy!” Tracy agreed, “Okay, I’ll let you go. Good luck getting home. See you Friday.”

The taxi was on the bridge now, slowly passing a police car with flashing lights at the scene of a three car fender-bender. All three drivers, expat Arab men of indeterminate origin, were pacing outside their vehicles, yelling and gesticulating wildly. Caroline barely gave it a passing glance.

“Welcome to Dubai, baby,” she heard Mimi say, lifting her eyes momentarily from her omnipresent sketchbook. The driver sucked air through his teeth and muttered something in Urdu.

Caroline had just put her phone into her bag when it rang again. This time it’s got to be Louay, she thought. Again, it wasn’t.

“Hi Max,” she said, “Tracy and I were just talking about you.”

“Oh really, darling?” Max purred. “Do tell.”

Caroline grimaced. Max’s party was supposed to be a secret, and here she was, ready to spill the beans. “Uh, oh, nothing, just about the fact that you are forty and don’t look it.”

“Almost forty, Caro,” Max corrected. “I’ve still got a few days of my thirties left. Let’s not rush things.”

Caroline laughed.

“Listen Caro, I know it’s a school night and you’ve got to be up early tomorrow, but would you mind if I swung by your place for a little chat?”

“Um, yeah, sure,” Caroline said.

“Or do you have something else going on?” Max sensed the hesitation in her voice.

“Uh, no. It’s fine. Come over. It’s just, um, I haven’t seen that much of Louay, and I was hoping that tonight, um, but no. It’s fine. Come over. ”

Maxine laughed, humorlessly. “Oh, I think he’s going to be busy tonight.”

“Oh, really?” Caroline said, disappointed. “This commercial has been filming all week. But I guess they’ve got to get it just right.”

“Commercial? Oh, that’s what he’s been telling you. Right. Clever.” Max chuckled dryly.

“What do you mean?” Caroline asked, immediately defensive.

“Darling, there is no commercial,” Max said flatly. “I’ll be at your place in 20 minutes. We’ll talk then.” She ended the call.

Caroline stared at her phone, confused. No commercial, she thought? How could that be? Just then a text message came in.

SORRY HABIBTI

HAVE 2 WORK 2NITE

C U 2MORO

5.3 It’s the Final Countdown

“Well, Nigel?” Tracy asked, as they stood looking out the sliding glass doors onto their back yard. “What do you think?”

Tracy had picked him up at the airport in the GTR, wanting to chauffeur him personally to their new home. He had seen it empty, of course, but he had left for Sweden again the night before the big move.

Naturally, not everything was perfect yet. Pictures still had to be hung, some windows still needed drapes, but for the most part, she had done it all. Well, really, the movers had done most of it.

For less than the cost of a suite at a five star hotel, a gang of Indian men in coveralls that said Delightful Movers had descended on their old apartment, and within a matter of hours had packed up everything – from the clothes in her wardrobe to the glasses in her cupboards – while she looked on nervously. They had loaded it all onto a moving van and done the same, in reverse, here in the new villa. If she had had to do it all herself, it would have taken her weeks.

Nigel was uncharacteristically silent while she gave him the tour. Of course that could have been partially down to jet lag and exhaustion, and partially down to the fact that she hadn’t really stopped talking herself, she was so excited. But now she wanted to hear what he thought.

“Tracy, my love.” He did his best to wrap his arms around her middle, looking into her eyes. “I told you before. If you’re happy, I’m happy. I’m just a bloke.”

“Yeah,” Tracy said, smiling, “A bloke who reads Wallpaper magazine.”

“Touché.” He smiled back at her. He nodded his head in the direction of the sliding glass doors through which they could see the newly laid blanket of grass struggling valiantly to grow in the oppressive hundred-degree heat of summer. “It’s brilliant. Can’t you just see junior out there on the grass kicking his little football.”

She nodded. “Or her little football.”

“Right, right,” Nigel corrected, “I meant his or her little football.” He yawned again. “Oh, love, I’m sorry I not more enthusiastic, but I’m completely cream-crackered. Can I persuade you to come up to the master suite with me for a nap? I might have just enough energy left to make you a happy lady before I drift off.” He winked at her. “It has been a while.”

She pulled away. “You go on up and lie down. I have a few things to take care of. Maybe I’ll come up and join you later.” She was thrilled to have Nigel home, but with her varicose veins throbbing and her belly pushing her organs up her esophagus, the last thing she felt like doing was having sex.

“Alright, love. But if you’re not up there in an hour, I’ll come down meself and get you,” he yawned. Tracy was pretty sure that in an hour he’d be out cold, but she nodded her assent, smiling.

Nigel started up the stairs, then stopped and turned. “Do you know what day it is?”

“Um,”Tracy said, squinting, “Tuesday the 21^st of August. Oh gosh, it’s Max’s birthday on the 28th. I’d better call Caroline and see what we’re doing. Too bad it’s during Ramadan. We won’t be able to do our usual brunch. Yolanda doesn’t open until after sundown.”

“No, love,” Nigel said, “I meant it’s exactly a week until the due date.”

“Oh, right,” Tracy laughed. “I knew that. But don’t get your hopes up. Most first babies are late.”

“I know, I know. Just saying.” Nigel continued up the stairs.

“Nigel!” Tracy called after him as he disappeared around the bend. He poked his head back down.

“Yes, me lady?” he asked.

“You’ll be around, won’t you? No more trips to Sweden? I can’t do this alone, you know.” She looked at him beseechingly.

Tired as he was, he came back down stairs and held both her hands in his. “Tracy,” he looked into her eyes, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’ve told Malek that I’m having a baby in a week, two at the latest, and that if he needs someone to go to Sweden again, he can bloody well go himself. Alright?”

“Alright.” She nodded, heart brimming with love for her tousle-haired husband.

As he headed wearily up the stairs again, the reality of what he had just said hit home. A week. In a week, or two, at the most, they would have a baby. The thought filled her with low-level panic.

At least she and Nigel had worked some things out. They had come to a compromise over the nanny issue. They would hire someone to replace Yani, who had all but stopped showing up for her bi-weekly cleaning sessions anyway. The new girl would clean and do laundry and food prep and basically make Tracy’s life as easy as possible. Tracy could write while the baby napped. And Nigel promised he would be home by 6 every night and swore up and down that he would insist on restricting future business trips to one or two days. It sounded ideal, but Tracy still felt unsure.

She had finally found someone to talk to about her uncertainty about her soon-to-be role as mother, at least. Over the summer, Tracy had pretty much given up on the Boobs, preferring to meet Teresa and her little boy, Jake, at the mall for coffee instead. Before Ramadan had started, they had gotten into a routine; They’d order their coffee in take-away cups and sit on the plush sofas of Stirbucks until Jake grew bored and fussy, then they’d stroll slowly down the mall corridors, chatting and stopping at a bench whenever Tracy needed to rest her legs or Jake needed a bottle.

Tracy had at first been shocked that Teresa fed him from a bottle. The Boobs had all gushed about the merits of breast milk over formula, as had her obstetrician. Dr. Nawallah had basically told Tracy she’d be resigning her child to a fate of asthma, allergies and emotional insecurity if she didn’t breastfeed it until it was two.

“Ah, that’s rubbish,” Teresa scoffed. “Look at me, I was bottle-fed from day one, and I’m alright. I do nurse him when we’re home, but there’s no way I’d whip out my boob in public. Nor am I going to sit in the loo for half an hour while Master Jake has a drink, am I? The odd bottle of formula’s not going to hurt him. Besides, he’s got to get used to it when I go back to work.”

“Your husband’s okay with that? With you working?” Tracy asked.

“Okay with it?” Teresa laughed. “Tracy, we’re both teachers. We don’t really have a choice, not if we want to save up enough money to put a down payment on a house. Besides, I think I’d go absolutely mad if I had to spend another year at home.”

“Really?” Tracy asked, “Why?”

“Well, it’s not exactly mentally stimulating, looking after a baby, now is it?” she said.

“It isn’t?” Tracy asked. “But you’re a teacher. You like kids, don’t you?”

“Tracy, teaching secondary maths and changing nappies have nothing in common. Now, of course I love Jake, and we have some lovely times together. But if I’m honest with myself, I’d have to tell you that most of the time it’s quite boring. Why do you think those Boobs organize endless coffee mornings and ridiculous baby lessons? They’re bored silly!”

Little by little, Tracy had confessed her fears to Teresa: that she’d be a bad mother, that she wouldn’t love her child, or wouldn’t love it enough, that she and Nigel would grow apart, that she’d lose her identity, that she’d made a monumental, irreversible mistake.

Teresa didn’t deny or try to talk her out of her worries. She just listened, acknowledged and shared her own expectations and fears. She basically made Tracy feel that she was perfectly normal. If Teresa didn’t exactly turn Tracy’s emotional tigers into pussycats, she definitely made them seem tameable.

And now she had found out that Teresa was leaving. Such was expat life, she knew. She had been lucky that she and Max and Caroline had been together as long as they had. Dubai had a notoriously high turnover rate. People signed on for a one or two or three-year contract, then moved on to the next job in Malaysia or Qatar or Shanghai.

Tracy sighed, leaning her elbows on the kitchen island. Knowing that Nigel would be around more often was a great comfort, but she needed a mommy friend. Poor Caroline was out of the running for the moment, and perhaps for quite some time if Max followed through with her plan to confess to Caroline about her affair with Louay.

“It’s just you and me kid,” she said to the little person in her belly as she unwrapped another wine glass and placed it on the marble-topped island. Her stomach rippled and stretched as the baby moved inside her, almost as if it had heard her.

 

5.2 Trust Issues

Max sat in her faux zebra office chair, musing over the events of the past few days. She had taken Caroline’s advice and called Thurston. To her surprise, he actually picked up when he saw her number.

“Hello, Maxine,” he said, a bit warily.

“Thurston! Hello,” she answered, unsure how to go on. She had debated trying to reason with him, explain how everything she had done had been perfectly logical and in a court of law she would be found innocent. She had thought about begging him, crying and playing the part of the emotional female. In the end, she just told him the truth.

“I miss you.” Her voice cracked a little when she said it.

“I miss you, too,” Thurston sighed. “But…” He sounded so tired.

“Yes, I know. You have every reason to be angry with me,” she began.

“I’m not angry, Maxine. I’m just disappointed. I really thought we had something special.”

Max was silent. Her heart sank. He was talking about them in the past tense.

He sighed again. She waited.

“Look, you know we English aren’t known for talking about our feelings, and as you must have guessed, in my family that holds doubly true.”

Max tried to picture the icy Lady Wintergreen and the blithely smiling Minty sharing the deepest secrets of their hearts over a pot of Darjeeling. Impossible, she thought.

“The fact is, Maxine, I feel betrayed. It’s as if the woman I loved was just a mask, a costume you were wearing. And now that you’ve taken it off, well…” He hesitated.

“There’s a monster underneath,” Maxine finished for him.

“Not a monster. A stranger. Someone I just don’t know anything about.” He paused. Then his tone became serious and brisk. “Maxine, did you honestly think that we were not exclusive? Did you truly believe that I had slept with Pamela? And all her predecessors?”

Max searched her heart for a moment before she spoke. “I thought it was a very likely possibility. I didn’t know for sure, but then again, I didn’t want to know for sure.”

“And you still wanted to be with me? To marry me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said simply.

“But why ever for?” The exasperation was back in his voice. “Was my mother right?”

“Thurston, darling,” Max answered, a burning anger filling her chest at the mention of Lady Wintergreen, “you should know I don’t give a good goddamn for your money. I have my own money and I intend to earn plenty more before I retire. And as for your title, I’m sorry, Thurston, but I couldn’t care less. Lord. Lady.” She said the wordswith contempt. “What does that prove but that you’re the ancestor of some royal ass-kisser way back when?”

“But why would you want to marry someone you even suspected of philandering?”

Max was quiet for a moment, not certain how to answer. The fact was, she wasn’t quite sure, herself. She loved Thurston, or thought she did. Being with him made her unreasonably happy. But the truth of the matter was that she had never intended to marry anyone, ever. In a dark corner of her heart, she knew that Lady Wintergreen’s violent reaction to Thurston’s proposal, and to Maxine herself, had been a big part of the reason she had initially said yes. It was a challenge, and there was nothing Maxine liked more than a challenge. But now that Maxine was faced with the prospect of losing Thurston completely…

“Maxine?” Thurston prompted.

“Yes, darling…look, to be honest with you, I was perfectly happy with our relationship the way it was. When you were in Dubai, I had you to myself. When you were away, well, I thought that you weren’t lacking for company, and neither was I. Would I have preferred for us to be completely exclusive? Well, yes, I suppose. But what I thought of as our arrangement was a good close second. Then you proposed, and I saw that you wanted to take our relationship to the next level. In my experience, when one person wants that, you had better want it too, or you’re going to lose them. And I didn’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose you.” Max’s voice cracked again at the thought.

“Oh, Maxine,” Thurston sighed. He sounded exasperated.

Max hardened her voice, banishing the tears that were threatening to spill out. “Look, darling, men cheat. My philosophy was, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

“God, Max,” Thurston said. “How can you make a blanket statement like that? Men are not born cheaters. We have will, just as women do.”

“But do you use it? Look at your father,” Max said, scornfully.

“Yes, look at my father,” Thurston responded, anger edging his voice. “He is precisely the reason I have never and will never cheat. Believe it or not, my mother actually used to be kind. And the way my father puts up with all her nonsense, condones it even? I’m sure it is out of guilt, pure and simple. Maxine, the world is not as black and white as you see it.”

Max was silent, thinking. She, too, had seen the effects of cheating on her family, on her mother. Her resolution had been different than Thurston’s, however. Beat them to the mark. Stay detached. Well, that part hadn’t really worked. Despite herself, she had become very attached to Thurston. In trying to protect herself from heartbreak, she’d actually brought it on herself.

“Maxine,” Thurston said gently, “I think we both need some time to think about this. Whatever the explanation, whatever the justification, you’ve broken my trust. And I’m finding out, despite my never having done anything to deserve it, you’ve never trusted me from the first. Do you really want to go forward without trust? I know I don’t. I can’t be in that kind of relationship, like my parents. Can we repair this? Do we want to? I just don’t know, Maxine.”

“You’re right,” Max sniffed. She felt the tears rising again.

“I need more time to think. And you do, too. I will call you Maxine,” he said softly, and hung up the phone.

That had been three days ago. He hadn’t called. But this morning Rania had sulkily handed her a thick, ivory envelope along with the other mail when she walked past her desk – Sophie’s old desk – on the way to her office. Reception was now manned by Emanuel, a perpetually smiling Filipino who had appeared courtesy of Rashed while Max was in London.

“Oh, and the Ritz-Carlton called yesterday afternoon,” Rania said, smirking. “They need the deposit by Sunday. If you still want to book the hall, that is.” Clearly, she had been listening in on Max’s conversations.

Max gave her a long look, but Rania held it without changing her insolent expression. “Thank you, Rania,” she said, at last. “And have you sent the girls to the shoot for Ahkbar?”

“Done.” Rania smiled, coolly. “I’ve set up go-sees for Dalia and Svetlana with River Inlet. And you’ve got an appointment with Mahmoud at Dubai Mall about using them as a venue for Fashion Week. Wilson knows all the pick-up and drop off times.”

“Great,” Max said, not letting the other woman see how impressed she was. Since Rania had taken over Sophie’s old job, she was exceeding Max’s expectations. She still wasn’t too concerned about Max’s personal errands, but that wasn’t a problem as Emanuel had taken over that role with gusto.

Max had originally planned to fire Rania as soon as she found a suitable replacement. However, her call to her shadow partner, Rashed Bin Sultan, hadn’t exactly yielded the results she had hoped for.

“La, la, habibtii.” he had said. No. “This receptionist job,” he made a dismissive noise, “This not for Rania. She is too much clever. You wait one month. If she still being naughty, heh, heh,” he laughed lecherously, “you call me.”

And sure enough, Rania was clever. A little too clever for Maxine’s comfort. She had the feeling that Rania would not be happy as a subordinate to anyone for long. But for the meantime, their relationship was in a holding pattern. Both were icily civil to each other. Rania was professional and efficient. And Max was waiting, holding her trump card – Rania’s scribbled ‘appointment’ with Louay – close to her chest.

Max dismissed all thoughts of Rania as she ran her finger along the edge of the heavy parchment card that had been in the envelope Rania had given her. Of course it was from Thurston. Max had read it already, but she did so again.

Fugu

Thursday the 27^th of August

8:00.

The 28^th was her birthday. Thurston wouldn’t break up with her on the eve of her birthday, would he? He had booked Fugu, her favorite, though he, personally, was no great fan of Japanese food. These had to be positive signs. Signs that he was ready to forgive and forget.

She put the envelope down on the desk, opened the slim drawer beneath the desk top and pulled out a ziplock baggie. In the bag was a narrow plastic wand, entirely white except for a tiny, pink cross. Maxine looked at it and sighed. Then she picked up her Blackberry and texted.

C u @ 8

 

5.1 Ramadan Reunion

August

          Caroline reclined on the red and black striped cotton cushions artfully arranged around a low table in the beachfront Ramadan tent of the Wave hotel.  The cavernous space of the enormous tent was decorated in haute traditional Gulf Arab style.  Dark, woven carpets covered the floor and mini majlis –low sofas, covered with cushions clustered around dark wood coffee tables – formed a ring around the perimeter of the tent.  In the center were proper tables with chairs where men played backgammon and chess and women gossiped and nibbled mezze.  Some parties shared a shisha and those ornately painted water pipes filled the tent with the sweet scent of their fruit-flavored tobacco.  Caroline sipped at her mint tea and fidgeted, waiting impatiently for Max and Tracy to turn up.

She checked the clock on her cell phone for the umpteenth time.  8:25.  Caroline had never been known for her promptness, but today, she was actually early, she was so excited to see her friends.

She had arrived at Dubai International Airport at 10:15 that morning after a painful twelve-hour flight from Toronto. Crammed between a hairy, obese man who reeked of cheap cologne and a sweaty, obese man who reeked of body odor and fried onion, Caroline had sat earplugs in, eye-mask on, desperately wishing that the airline had been thoughtful enough to hand out nose-plugs, too.

Needless to say, she didn’t get much sleep. When Louay greeted her in the arrivals lounge, two venti lattes in his hands, she had slumped into his arms and wearily whispered, “Take me to bed”.

“Habibti!” he murmured, smiling. “I been waiting a month for this.”

“No, no,” she protested, laughing weakly, “I mean, to sleep.”

Of course, by the time they had gotten a taxi and arrived at the deserted Jumeirah villa, the caffeine in the latte had worked its way through her veins and she was feeling perky. With Louay’s firm body pressed close to her in the taxi for the 45 minutes while he whispered what he intended to do to her when they got to the villa, quite perky in fact.

Louay roughly shoved her two over-sized silver hardbacks and rolling carry-on into the hall and swung her up over his shoulder, fireman style. She hung limp with laughter and desire as he carried her up the stairs.

Bouncing her down onto her bed and pulling his shirt over his head in one swift motion, he lay down beside her and took her hand, brushing it with his lips.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” He placed a hand softly on her belly and looked at her with concern.

It had been a month since the miscarriage on the day of her reception in Trenton. Louay had gone with her and her parents to the hospital, but he had to fly back to Dubai the following day and had left with her father before she was discharged.

“It’s fine,” she assured Louay, pulling him closer for a kiss. He pressed his lips against hers briefly before extricating himself from the tangle of her arms and moving to the foot of the bed. Caroline repressed a sigh, knowing exactly what was coming next. Louay held one of her legs by the ankle and slipped off the turquoise Haviana she had worn for the flight.

“Um, Louay,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I’m not sure you want to go there. I haven’t had a shower since I left Canada. And I’m in desperate need of a pedicure. The whole mani-pedi craze hasn’t exactly taken root in Trenton.” Louay barely glanced up at her before returning his attention to her foot, stroking the arch, running his index finger between the toes.

“You know I like dirty girls, habibti,” he said, winking as he raised her foot to his lips and started nibbling on her instep. Caroline closed her eyes and tried to feign enjoyment. It wasn’t that Caroline hated Louay’s foot foreplay, exactly, but it did nothing for her. Plus, he always tried to kiss her afterward, and it was all she could to stop herself from running to the bathroom to gargle with Listerine. But she knew that Louay needed it. Besides what came after made the foot fellatio worth enduring.

When at last they collapsed together, sweaty and satisfied, Caroline turning her head to the side to avoid any post-toe-job kisses, her jet lag finally caught up with her. She started to drift off.

“Habibti,” Louay’s voice seemed a long way off.

“Hmm,” she mumbled.

“I have some papers for you to sign from the Canadian embassy.”

“Hmm,” she answered, rolling over.

“I leave them on the table. You’ll sign them, habibti?”

“You’re leaving?” she asked, looking at him through slit eyelids.

“I have a shoot.” He leaned in and brushed her cheek with his lips. “You’ll sign them today, habibti?”

“Yes, of course,” murmured, closing her eyes and easing into a dream.

“Caro!” Max’s high-pitched greeting pulled Caroline out of her reverie. She glanced down at the clock on her phone. 8:30, right on the dot. Caroline had no idea how she did it, especially with the unpredictable Dubai traffic. As Max wove her way a through the tables, elegant as ever in skinny black trousers and an ivory wrap top, Caroline pulled herself off the cushions to hug her friend.

“You look amazing, Max, as always.” She kissed her friend’s cheek.

Max made a face. “Well, thanks, but I’m sweating like a pig. Thought I should cover up a bit more, though, seeing as it’s Ramadan.”

Caroline nodded. The UAE was a Muslim country, if an amazingly liberal one. And while she felt comfortable zipping around town most of the year in short skirts and sleeveless tops, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan she liked to show a little less skin.

“God, you look fabulous, Caro!” Max enthused after they had gotten settled on the cushions and ordered a mezze platter and a selection of juices.

“Thanks, Max.” Caroline looked down at her green Indian-print maxi dress, shoulders covered with a shrug, Steve Madden gold wedges on her feet. “I feel like crap though. The flight from hell. Jet lag.”

Max nodded sympathetically. “I’m sure it’s all made worse by being preggers, too, isn’t darling.”

“Hmm,” Caroline murmured, looking away. She hadn’t told Max or Tracy about the miscarriage yet.

Of course she planned to tell them. They were her best friends, after all. It was just that good news was so much easier to share with them than bad. Especially now that everything seemed to be happening for them. Max was head of the modeling agency in Dubai and about to be married to a member of the English aristocracy. Then there was Tracy. Just the thought of Tracy’s soon-to-be newborn made Caroline choke up.

Caroline realized that she had been drifting when Max sang, “Earth to Caro? Still on planet honeymoon, are we?. Then Max noticed the tears in her friend’s eyes and she lost her joking tone. “Darling, are you all right? I know you’re a big softy, but I didn’t expect you to start crying when I told you about Sophie.”

“Sophie?” It took her a moment to remember that Sophie was Max’s personal assistant.

Max gave her a long look. “I was telling you that she left me. While I was in London for a couple of days, she packed her bags and went back to Slovenia. Slovakia. Wherever. She sent me an email saying the chemo was just taking too much out of her, she couldn’t do her job properly anymore, and she wanted to be with her family. Perfectly understandable, of course, but that leaves me stuck indefinitely with Queen Rania.”

Max drummed her fingers on the table, her head tilted to one side, considering, “Now, if you weren’t getting all misty about that, what is it? And don’t tell me pregnancy hormones, because I won’t buy it.”

At the word ‘pregnancy’, Caroline started welling up again. “That’s just it. It’s not pregnancy hormones,” she sniffed, “because I’m not pregnant anymore. I had a miscarriage.”

“Oh, Caro. I’m so sorry, darling. That’s terrible, but…” she hesitated, biting her lip. She lowered her voice to a bare whisper. “But it might actually be for the best.”

“Huh?” Caroline must have misheard her friend. “What did…”

“Hi, Ladies!”

Caroline looked up to see Tracy, skin luminous, hair full and shiny, her enormous belly giving volume to a black empire-waist sundress. She felt a throb of envy pulse through her.

Tracy put her hand on the arm of the woman next to her, a tall, stocky woman with pale skin and a wild mane of dark curls to rival Caroline’s own. ““I brought a friend,” she said. “This is Teresa. I met her at Boobs. But don’t worry. She’s a good one.

“Hiya.” Teresa said, a bit shyly.

Max smiled at the newcomer, cat-like. “Have a seat, Teresa. I’m Maxine.” She patted the cushion beside her. Caroline noticed that she didn’t hand Teresa one of her business cards, her usual opening move when meeting someone she thought might be of consequence. Caroline guessed that Max, too, had done a quick scan of Teresa’s ensemble and come to the same conclusion that Caroline had.

Teresa’s cheap, matchy-matchy red floral skirt and t-shirt combo said one thing to Caroline and that was: teacher. Being one herself, she should know. Not that she’d dream of dressing like one, of course.

“And I’m Caroline,” she said, more warmly than she felt. She thought that it was understood that it would just be the three of them tonight. She tried to catch Max’s eye to see if she felt the same way, but Max was rhapsodizing over Teresa’s no-name handbag.

“I adore this color! It’s the exact shade of red Marc used on the girls’ lips this spring. I’m dying for a tube.”

Caroline had never known Max to wear anything but nude gloss. Or to be so friendly with strangers who wouldn’t be of use to her business. What was up with that she wondered?

“Tracy, you look amazing. Radiant!” Caroline said, putting her negative thoughts out of her mind, determined to have a good time with her best friends, regardless.

“Sweaty! I feel like a sweaty, beached whale. That’s the curse of being short and pregnant. You’re so lucky you’re tall. You’re not even showing a bit! Look at that flat stomach. You wouldn’t believe there could be a baby growing in there.”

“How far along are you?” Teresa asked Caroline.

“It must be about 3 months, now, right?” Tracy added.

Caroline looked at her hands. Max was making cutting motions at her throat to Tracy.

“Oh, shit. Have I said something wrong?”Teresa asked.

Caroline took a deep breath, the words just not coming.

“She lost the baby.” Max said it for her.

Tracy and Teresa gasped, then cooed in sympathy.

“The same thing happened to me the first time we tried. 8 weeks.” Teresa said, putting a tentative hand on her arm. “I was gutted. It’s not as if you really felt attached to the baby yet, but you were attached to the idea of it, yeah?

Caroline nodded. “Exactly. I hadn’t really started thinking of it as a person yet. Still, it took me a while to get over it. I spent a lot of time sitting on the deck of my folks’ cottage in the Muskokas listening to the loons calling to each other. It was very therapeutic.”

The four women were silent. The melancholy sound of the Arabian oud whined solemnly from speakers strategically positioned around the tent.

“I think it might have happened to me, too,” Tracy added, after a moment. “I had a really heavy period the month before I got pregnant. Dr. Nawallah said it could have been a miscarriage.”

“Yeah, it’s dead common,” Teresa said. “Not that it makes you feel any better about it. But it could have been for the best.”

“That’s what I was telling her, just before you two arrived,” Max said.

“Your body could’ve rejected the fetus because there was something not right with it.” Teresa said.

“It’s definitely for the best,” Tracy agreed.

“Oh, that’s what you meant, Max,” Caroline said, “I wasn’t sure. Yeah, you’re absolutely right. We’ll just have to try again.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard,” Tracy said, with a grin. “You should see her husband,” she said to Teresa. “Seriously dreamy.”

Max opened her mouth to say something, but just then the waiter appeared. As he placed bowls of hot kibbe, creamy hummus and eggplant dip on the table along with a basket of oven fresh flat bread and jewel-toned pitchers of juice, Caroline decided it was time for a conversational segue, otherwise she’d be in tears all night and no one would have any fun.

“So, I just happen to have a couple of photos from the Seychelles in my purse,” she said, coyly, reaching for the pictures the resort photographer had taken of the ceremony.

Between bites of food, Tracy and Teresa oohed and ahhed over the photos and barraged Caroline with questions that she did her best to answer without revealing what had really transpired during her so-called honeymoon. The true stroy didn’t exactly cast her new husband in the dreamiest light, she knew.

“And as for the reception at the Trenton Steel Workers Hall,” Caroline continued, in a posh voice, “the venue of choice for Trenton’s elite, don’t you know, well…” she grimaced. “I made the of asking my brother to be the official photographer. He got so wasted. Aside from some pretty good shots of his feet, they aren’t fit for viewing. He claims they’re artistic.” She raised her fingers to quote the word.

Tracy and Teresa laughed, but Max just managed a wan grin. She had been unusually quiet while Caroline was talking about her wedding, she had noticed.

“So Max,” Caroline said, trying to draw her into the conversation, “we’ve heard all about my wedding. How’s the planning for your big event going?”

“You haven’t told her?” Tracy gasped.

“Told me what?” Caroline asked.

“Well, let’s just say the wedding planning is on hold. Indefinitely. Maybe permanently,” Max said, a forced smile on her face.

“What?” Caroline was shocked.

“Thurston hasn’t spoken to her in three weeks,” Tracy whispered.

“Ta-ta, I’m right here, I can hear you,” Max said, “And I imagine you’ve already told Teresa, here, from the way she’s looking like she’d rather be just about any place else.”

Tracy and Teresa exchanged guilty glances.

“How can you be so calm?” Caroline asked, her voice rising. “What happened? It’s evil Lady Bunny, isn’t it? She has managed to sabotage your wedding plans, hasn’t she?” Caroline’s outrage at her friend’s imagined treatment blossomed. No wonder she’d been so quiet all evening. The turmoil she must be going through.

“Well, she’s absolutely delighted at the turn of events, I’m sure, but I’m afraid it was actually Maxine White who sabotaged the wedding,” Max admitted.

“What did you do?” Caroline asked.

“What did I do?” Max looked up at her friend. Her eyes were filling with tears that threatened to spill out. But they were also filled with anger.

“I stupidly told Thurston about my understanding of our open relationship,” she said through clenched teeth, “completely against my better judgment. Damn his stupid, British, male reserve! If he had only told me that we were exclusive…”

“What?” Caroline interrupted. She was sorry for her friend, but she couldn’t resist feeling some indignation on Thurston’s part. “You would have believed him? You would have curtailed your ‘extracurricular activities’?”

“Well,” Max sniffed, dabbing at her eyes with a napkin, “I suppose…”

“Look, Max,” Caroline said as gently as she could, “I’m really sorry about Thurston. But, I mean, what did you expect?”

“I expected him to be just like every other male I’ve known!” Max spat. “Completely incapable of fidelity.”

“Wow, Max,” Caroline said, “You have some serious trust issues. If you want any relationship to work out, you’re going to have to get to the bottom of those.”

“Yes,” Max responded, tears receding, an icy smile on her face, “I see. Now that you have been married for all of,” she looked at her watch, “oh, three seconds, you are our resident relationship expert. And psychologist, apparently. No offense, darling, but you swing entirely too far in the opposite direction when it comes to trust.”

“Girls, girls,” Tracy interrupted, putting a calming hand on both of her friends arms. “Let’s not start this again, please?” she pleaded.

“Ooh, would you look at the time,” Teresa said. She had been sitting uncomfortably with Tracy, watching the verbal ping-pong match. Caroline noticed that she wasn’t actually wearing a watch.

“I’ve got to be getting back to me husband. It’s been, um, entertaining ladies. Lovely to meet you both.” She stood up, taking some crumpled ten dirham notes from her purse and placing them on the table. “For my share of the bill. Best of luck to you both. I’ll ring you tomorrow about the yoga class, Tracy.”

“Wait, Teresa,” Tracy said, but she was already walking away.

“Great, guys,” Tracy said, hotly. “You made a nice impression. I’m sure she’ll be wanting to hang out with me again really soon.”

“Some loss,” Max sniffed.

“Max!” Tracy admonished.

“Oh, come on, Tracy. She looked like she got her entire outfit off the sale racks at Marks and Spencer.”

Caroline giggled despite herself.

Tracy looked from one to the other in disbelief. “You two are such label snobs!”

Maxine arched an eyebrow at her. “Labels have nothing to do with it, darling, though they certainly can help. Did you happen to notice that her toenails were painted the exact same shade as her bag, and her top, and her skirt, and her flip flops.”

“And her earrings,” Caroline added.

“No!” Max said, leaning forward eagerly, “I didn’t see the earrings behind that mop of hair. And flip-flops at the Wave? Ok, Havianas with Capri-length jeans for a beach barbecue I can see, but sequined flip-flops? With that skirt? The print of which I swear has been hanging in my Nana Barton’s bathroom window since 1975.”

Caroline laughed. Tracy tried and failed to hide a smile.

“Aha!” Max and Caroline said, catching her. Then they burst into laughter.

“You guys are the worst,” Tracy said, folding her arms crossly, though the smile still played on her lips. “Teresa is really nice. And genuine. She’s good people, you know, no matter how she dresses. You two are as bad as the Boobs!”

“You’re right. I’m sure she’s lovely,” Max soothed.

“Yes, we know you wouldn’t hang out with anyone who wasn’t,” Caroline agreed.

“Oh, what am I going to do with you two!” Tracy said, like an affectionate but exasperated mother, and grabbed them both in a spontaneous hug.

Over Tracy’s shoulder, Caroline gave Max a recalcitrant look. “I’m sorry. I mean, for what I said. And about Thurston.”

“I know,” Max said, eyes welling up with tears again. “You’re right. I do have trust issues. All this time, I thought I was protecting myself, and look at where it’s gotten me. I’ve driven away the one man who actually deserves my trust!”

Tracy and Caroline huddled in, patting her on the back.

“I just can’t believe it’s o-o-ver!” Max sobbed.

“You don’t know that,” Caroline said, handing her friend another napkin. Tracy gave Caroline a skeptical look.

“He, he, hasn’t called me in three weeks,” Max said, clutching the napkin to her eyes.

“Have you called him?” Caroline asked.

“Me?” Max sat suddenly upright. “Call him?” She looked at Caroline as if she were crazy. “He doesn’t want to hear from me.”

“I don’t know.” Caroline was happy that she had at least stopped the flow of tears. “If I were you, I’d be trying everything I could to get him back. Just imagine if the shoe were on the other foot. He’d be calling you every day, sending you flowers, the works. If he wanted to win you back. You’ve got to let him know you love him, Max.”

“Yes, absolutely,” Tracy agreed.

Maxine sniffed, appearing to consider the idea. Then she fixed Caroline in a hard stare. “Would you take Louay back if you found out he had been unfaithful?”

Caroline laughed a little uncomfortably. An image of giggling, bikinied Lebanese flight attendants popped into her mind, unbidden. She forced the picture and the uneasy feeling that accompanied it out of her thoughts.

“Yes. Absolutely. I mean, if he was sorry enough. I’d be mad as hell for a while, probably wouldn’t want to see him for a few weeks.” Her conviction in her words grew as she spoke. “Yes. I love him. So I’d forgive him.” She smiled slyly at Max, who seemed to be pondering her words, and half joked, “But God help the woman who screwed him. I’d have to hunt her down and kill her.”

 

4.6 Forgiven, Not Forgotten

Tracy sat behind the wheel of her Nissan GTR in the lot of Babies Is Us, once again steeling herself to go inside. This time she had a list compiled from a smattering of sources, What to Expect When You’re Expecting and the highly opinionated opinions of the Boobs among them.

She took a deep breath and heaved herself out from behind the steering wheel into the muggy putrid air. Darn flight restrictions, she thought to herself. How she would love to be sitting in a café in Stockholm right now, waiting for Nigel to finish work and join her. Well, if he were actually talking to her. Or visiting her parents’ home in Rochester, being fawned over by her mother and plied with fresh peach pies. Not that she needed any more home-baking. But anything would be better than being trapped, virtually friendless, in Dubai.

The cool air of Babies Is Us washed over Tracy as she stepped inside and grabbed a cart. She held the list, her pen ready to tick the items as she found them. If Nigel could approach their new life with a baby with businesslike detachment, so could she.

Tracy placed a six-pack of bottles in the cart, along with a microwave sterilizer, a manual breast pump and a bag of both silicon and natural rubber nipples, just to be on the safe side. She crossed them off her list and moved down the aisle with more confidence.

Despite the frequent kicks and prods Junior kept giving her, she still couldn’t quite imagine the thing inside her as a real person. Although she couldn’t wait to have the giant watermelon that was wedged under her ribcage gone, she was starting to look forward to her due date with a feeling that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Nervousness? Maybe. Fear? Not quite. Trepidation? Perhaps.

If only there was someone I could talk to about what I’m feeling, she thought. Nigel didn’t want to hear about any emotion that conflicted with his picture-perfect image of their new life with Junior. And Max and Caroline? Well, Caroline had wanted to be a mother from the time she could rock a plastic doll in her arms. She wouldn’t understand Tracy’s ambivalence, while Max was at the other end of the spectrum. Besides, all three of them were in different time zones.

Tracy turned the corner and saw a woman with long, curly dark hair who looked instantly familiar. It was a weekday morning and the vast warehouse of a store was not busy. There was a pair of Emirati women, cloaked head to toe in black, their Filipino nannies pushing their shopping carts while the mothers bounced newborns in elaborate lacy sleeping bags. An Indian woman, bright as a butterfly in her intricately wrapped sari, was giving instructions to her husband in rapid-fire Hindi while their infant daughter sat complacently in the trolley seat, sucking on a lollypop. There were also a few expat-Arabs, hair concealed behind scarves color-coordinated to their stylish outfits. But as far as she could tell, Tracy was the only Western woman in the shop, except for this curly-haired woman making soothing noises to the baby strapped in its removable car seat.

Tracy approached her with a smile on her face, trying to remember where she’d seen her before.

“Oh, what a cute t-shirt.” She pointed to the baby’s tie-dyed top. “Did you get it here?”

The woman looked up at her, and smiled back. “Oh, thanks,” she said in a British accent. “No, one of me friends from home sent it.”

“That’s it!” Tracy said.“That’s where I’ve seen you before. You’ve been to Boo-Boo’s at Tamasin’s, right?”

“Yeah,” the woman answered, her smile faltering.

“I think I saw you there just the one time,” Tracy continued. She remembered seeing the woman slip out the door, her baby tucked into a sling.

The woman laughed uncomfortably and fiddled with the straps on her baby’s car seat. “Yeah. Not exactly my scene, if you know what I mean.”

“Totally!” Tracy enthused.

The woman looked at her, surprised. “Really?” she said.

Tracy glanced down at her Boob-approved uniform of dark maternity jeans, floaty floral top and neatly pedicured toes peeping out of Kenneth Cole sandals. She hid her Coach handbag behind her back.

“I mean, I have gone back a few times,” she continued, “but honestly, only because I quit my job, my friends are busy with their non-baby lives, my husband is always out of town, and I’m going out of my mind with boredom. Besides, I don’t have a clue what this whole baby thing is about, and I’m trying to, you know, prepare myself for it by hanging out with babies, hoping to absorb some maternal instinct by osmosis. And if I don’t get out of my house I’m going to eat myself into gestational diabetes or something.”

The woman laughed.

“Sorry,” Tracy said, “I’m not normally like this.”

“Like what?” she smiled. “Funny?”

“Yeah. No,” Tracy, corrected. “I’m not usually so socially retarded. Or politically incorrect. It’s just that I haven’t spoken to an actually human being, in oh, two days or so.”

The woman gestured to Tracy’s belly. “Don’t worry. When I was at that stage, I was a danger to meself and everyone I ran into. Literally.”  She pushed her belly out and mimed bumping into someone. “Hormones!”

Tracy smiled, relieved. “Exactly!” she said.

“Well, I’ve better get on with this before the little man wants feeding.” The woman started pushing her cart down the aisle. “Best of luck, um…”

“Tracy,” she said, following the woman, list forgotten for the moment.

“Teresa. Good luck with the shopping.” She started to walk away again.

“Wait, let me give you my details,” Tracy called after her. “We should get together for coffee sometime. Decaf, of course.”

“Ah, sure.” Teresa answered, looking a bit taken aback. She got her cell phone out of one of the side pockets of her black nylon diaper bag and entered Tracy’s name and number. Her baby started to make little grimaces and sighs of displeasure, squirming in his seat.

“Alright, alright, mister,” she cooed to her son. “Tracy, I really must be off. I’ll call you, yeah?” Teresa smiled at her, then turned and walked toward the cashiers, talking softly to her little boy.

As Tracy watched Teresa walk away, she felt strangely buoyed by their chance meeting. With a light heart, she began filling her cart with the items on her list, consciously engaging in an internal dialogue with the little person who was kicking her bladder to the beat of the song playing over the Muzak.

Tracy’s purchases filled the entire trunk of the sports car. When she pulled into the underground parking lot of her building, she called Shadi, her favorite doorman on her cell to help her.

Tracy chattered away to the natour as they rode up to her apartment in the elevator, asking him about his wife and children back in India, complaining about the heat, talking about the upcoming Muslim holy month of Ramadan. As Shadi put her bags just inside the entryway, Tracy tipped him, but he didn’t move.

“Thank you, Shadi,” Tracy said, anxious for him to leave so she could put her aching feet up.

“Madam there is delivery for you downside,” he said.

“Oh?” Tracy said, surprised. “Great.” She had ordered a few things online from the States. She hadn’t expected them to arrive so soon.

“I will bring it?” He smiled, wiggling his head from side to side in the affirmative.

“Yes, thanks, Shadi. I might be sleeping.” She mimed taking a nap. “So just leave it outside the door.”

“Yes, madam.”

She shut the door behind him and, leaving the bags and boxes in the entryway, waddled into the living room. There was no denying she was definitely waddling now, despite her best intentions not to. She would move the bags into the study later, she decided. As the packers and movers would be coming in a few days, she wouldn’t even bother with unpacking her purchases. She sank down onto the cool leather of the sofa and put her feet up on the coffee table, grateful that, for once, the urge to go into the kitchen and whip up a batch of double chocolate brownies was not as strong as the urge to remain immobile.

Tracy looked around the spare, white living room, realizing that it would be for one of the last times. The search for a villa had been suspiciously easy. In fact, she had found their new home on her first day of looking. She credited her efficient if mercenary realtor, Jo, who had called the morning after her blow-up with Nigel.

“Hallo, is this Treecy?” she’d said in her perky South African accent.

“Yes, it is,” Tracy answered. She was reclining on the sofa, watching her 3^rd hour of daytime TV, trying not to think about Nigel, or the baby, or her barely started novel, or vanilla sponge cake with butter-cream icing.

“Yis, this is Jo, from Al Dirham Real Estate. Ah’ve got a couple of lovely villas Ah’d lack to shew you.”

Tracy glanced at the numberless sunburst clock on the wall. It was only 9 o’clock. She’d been up since before 6. She didn’t have any appointments or plans for the day, so she knew she’d eventually succumb to her butter-cream craving if she didn’t get out of the house.

“Sure. I can be ready by ten.”

“Great! Ah’ll peek you up.”

She had planned to make Jo work for her commission, but when the bottle-blond realtor had shown her the first place, a modern, open plan villa in Oasis Gardens, Tracy couldn’t help herself. “I love it. It is perfect,” she gushed. She ran her hand lovingly over the cool marble-topped island. “I want to move in tomorrow!”

A rustling sound outside the front door of the flat brought Tracy back to the present. Tracy knew it must be Shadi with the delivery, and she waited a few minutes to make sure he had gone before she hauled herself off of the sofa and shuffled down the hall to get it.

When she opened the door, she didn’t find the cardboard box of baby gear from Amazon that she had ordered. Instead, she was greeted with an enormous bouquet of flowers that came nearly to her chin. Her first thought was that it was from Jo. In this city, where word of mouth was law and high turnover a fact of life, it paid to be grateful to clients who could send more business your way.

But as Tracy bent down to pick up the flowers, she gasped. The arrangement of white roses, fragrant jasmine and feathery ferns was held in a cylindrical crystal vase that Tracy recognized from her last issue of Modern Homes. She remembered pointing it out to Nigel.

She detached the card, smiling in anticipation.

It read, “Tracy, my love, I’ve been a first class git. I’ll be home tonight to apologize properly. Love, Nigel.”

Tracy ran her hands over the delicate blossoms, a soft smile on her lips. She knew it was nearly lunchtime, but for once she didn’t feel the slightest bit hungry.

 

4.5 The Truth Will Out

“Oh, darling!” Maxine gasped. “This is your family home?”

“Mmm. Yes.” Thurston answered, pulling the Jaguar coupe up to tall cast-iron gates, which swung open when he pressed a button on a remote clipped to the sun-shield. “One of them. Of course we have the requisite dusty old pile in Banbury-Upon-Twig, too. But we only go out there for the odd hunting weekend. And New Year’s. And weddings, of course. I haven’t been in years, actually, but I have fond memories of playing James Bond in the woods with my cousins.”

“Roger Moore, or Sean Connery?” Max asked as they drove between the high stone walls and parked in the cul-de-sac.

Thurston looked at her in mock horror. “Really? You have to ask?”

“Well, I suspected Sean Connery, but one never knows,” she teased, checking her makeup in the mirror. “Poor Roger gets such a bad rap. I think he was actually quite cute.”

“Exactly.” Thurston pulled her suitcase out of the trunk. “Bunnies and puppies are cute. James Bond is dashing and dangerous. Not unlike yours truly.” He winked at her and walked up the slate steps to ring the doorbell.

Maxine plastered a smile on her face and waited for the door to open, expecting the frosty blue gaze of one very uncute Bunny.

She was pleasantly surprised to find instead a cheery bald man of about 70, carefully dressed in a neat 3-piece suit. “Master Thurston and Ms. Maxine! We’ve been expecting you,” he said, trying to relieve Thurston of his burden. Maxine thought she detected a light Irish lilt.

“Absolutely not, Jimmy,” Thurston chided. “Mother would kill me if I let you put your back out again. She’s simply lost without you. But my case is in the boot, if you wouldn’t mind.”

While they waited for Jimmy, Thurston whispered to Max, “Have to let him do something. You know how fragile the male ego is.”

“Alright, Jimmy?” Thurston clapped a hand on the butler’s shoulder as he puffed up the stairs, Thurston’s overnight bag in his hand.

“Never better, sir,” Jimmy breathed.

Leaving the bags in the entryway, Thurston and Jimmy chatted amiably as they walked down the long, dimly lit hall. Max followed, peering into the doorways of the rooms they passed. The style was a bit fusty for her, but there certainly was a lot of money put into it. The rooms were filled with heavy antiques, and Max was no art expert, but she was sure she saw a huge Turner seascape hanging over an ornately carved mantle. Maxine was determined not to let the Wintergreen wealth intimidate her. Just because she had been born in the projects didn’t mean she wasn’t as intelligent and witty as any of these so-called well-bred people. Quite the opposite, she told herself. She’d had to rely on her smarts and her wit to haul her out of her circumstances.

Trying not to let her nerves get the best of her, Max thought back to the night before. Over an exquisite dinner at The Ivy, she and Thurston had talked like they never had before about their hopes and dreams and fears for their future together. Naturally, the topic of children came up.

While Max had never kept her feelings about having children a secret, she and Thurston just hadn’t discussed it. Max, for her part, assumed that at his age, Thurston wouldn’t want to have them. And Thurston had just taken it for granted that one day Max would.

But Thurston wanted children. Or at least, a child. An heir.

Max knew the issue was a deal-breaker. So she let him think she was open to the possibility. And perhaps she was. She had recently begun to rethink her hard-line anti-child policy. Of course she needed more time to research it, to weigh the pros and cons. But Thurston needed an immediate show of faith.

As they strolled back to the hotel, Thurston had finally told her the real reason he had asked her to come to London.

“My parents think we should do a little thing here in England. Of course we’ll still have our do at the Ritz, but we can’t break with Wintergreen tradition. Tent on the lawn. Croquette tournament. String quartet. All that sort of thing.”

“Oh, just a little thing then?” Max teased.

“Just two or three hundred people. If you drink enough champagne, it won’t hurt a bit,” Thurston deadpanned.

“Well, I guess you’d know,” Max said, under her voice, thinking of Thurston’s short-lived first marriage. “Just as long as I’m not expected to plan any of this. Getting everything sorted for our wedding at the Ritz is all I can handle right now.”

“You needn’t worry. Everything is being taken care of,” Thurston said. “Mother just wants have a little chat with you. You know, to get your approval on a few minor details. All you have to do is show up on the day, looking as beautiful as you do now.” He stopped walking and gave her a tender kiss on the lips. Maxine smiled. Both the words and the public display of affection were very uncharacteristic of Thurston.

“What’s gotten into you?” she teased.

“You’re sure you’re happy about our decision to have children, then?” he asked, searching her eyes.

“Ah-ha. So that’s it. Darling, if you feel the need to produce an heir, I’m happy to help. Just as long as we’ve got a live-in nanny and the option of boarding school in the future, I’m fine with it,” she laughed, nonchalantly. The truth was a little more complicated.

Navel gazing had never been Max’s thing, but since the whole fight with Caroline and meltdown in the fitting room of Boutique Chic, Maxine had been doing a lot of thinking. She had realized that most of her attitudes toward men, marriage and children were reactionary. Max had seen her mother cheated on and abandoned by man after man, left to raise three children on her own, and Max had vowed she would never be that woman. That realization had made Max change her mind about marriage and, maybe, children. She wasn’t her mother. Though she hadn’t taken to cooing at every passing Bugaboo the way Caroline did, she had started to notice them.

Max put her arms around Thurston’s neck.

“Let me prove it to you, darling. Let’s try something different tonight, shall we? Why don’t we let Big Thurston do his thing without his raincoat tonight, shall we?” She trailed her hand suggestively down to the waistband of his trousers. His face lit up like a little boy’s on Christmas morning.

Thurston didn’t have to know that she had a couple of morning-after pills stashed in her toiletries case, did he? Just in case she changed her mind.

“Lady Wintergreen, young Thurston and Ms. Maxine have arrived,” Jimmy’s voice cut through Max’s thoughts. They were in the conservatory, a glass-enclosed room filled with plants and sunlight. Bunny was sitting on a chintz sofa, feeding one of her Corgis pieces of biscuit from a china saucer while the other sat quivering at her feet.

Maxine infused her voice with as much warmth as she could muster. “My, what a charming room this is.”

“Thank you,” Thurston’s mother answered curtly, without lifting her eyes from the dog in her lap.

“And what lovely dogs,” Max continued, feeling her face freezing into a rictus grin. “What are their names?”

Bunny ignored her, speaking to her son instead. “Thurston, you missed a wonderful lunch. Mary made your favorite.”

“Yes, sorry, mother. I did tell you that Max and I would be here in the early afternoon,” Thurston answered, unruffled.

“Yes, well.” Bunny gently placed the dog on the floor beside his brother. “Napoleon and Bonaparte need to get some air, so if you’ll excuse me…”

“Nonsense, Mother. I’ll take the boys, so you and Maxine can chat.”

Max felt a surge of panic at the thought of being left alone with the hostile Bunny, but she quelled it.

“What a marvelous idea, Thurston. I’m sure your mother and I have loads to discuss. Would you mind asking Jimmy for a cup of tea on your way out, darling? Earl Grey. I’m positively parched.” She sat down in the armchair directly across from Thurston’s mother. Step one in any hostile situation, she told herself – make yourself appear completely at ease.

Step two, she thought, as Thurston left with the dogs, level the playing field. “So, Bunny, if I may call you that…” she began.

“No, you may not,” snapped Lady Wintergreen, her whole being suddenly stiff and rigid.

Max laughed, taken aback. “Well, I certainly hope you don’t want me to call you Lady Wintergreen.

“That will do nicely.”

Max tried to keep the tone light. “It’s a bit unwieldy, isn’t it?”

“Jimmy and the other servants are able to manage it fine, Ms. White.”

Max felt her cheeks flame, but she kept her voice cool. “Maxine. The thing is, Bunny, where I come from, we don’t call members of our family by their last names. So unless you want me to start calling you ‘mom’…”

“I most certainly do not!” Bunny answered hotly.

“Wonderful. Bunny it is, then.” Max’s voice was saccharine-sweet. “Oh, thank you, Jimmy,” she said as the butler brought in a tray of tea things and placed it on the end table beside her. “I can take it from here.” She poured herself a cup of Earl Grey, inhaling the calming aroma of bergamot, and took a sip. She felt Lady Wintergreen’s eyes boring into her.

“I am going to be perfectly honest with you, Ms. White,” Bunny began.

“Maxine,” Max interrupted.

Bunny continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “As I’m sure you’re aware, your engagement to my son came as a surprise, a none-too-pleasant one at that. I had always hoped that Thurston would be reunited with his first wife. In fact, I still hold hopes for that.”

“Excuse me?” Max asked, shocked at Bunny’s candor and rudeness.

The older woman cast her a withering glance. “Oh, don’t think you are anything but a passing fancy, Ms. White. I’m not sure how you managed to convince him to marry you. I always thought he was an intelligent boy. However, this will not last. Water always finds its own level.”

“You were there when he asked me,” Max answered coolly, though she felt a core of hot rage forming in her chest. “I was just as surprised as you were.”

“I know all about feminine wiles, Ms. White.” A hint of a cold smile turned up the corners of Bunny’s mouth. “I know all about making a man believe an idea is his own, when it’s really yours.”

Max stared at her soon to be mother in law in complete shock.

“But that is neither here, nor there,” the older woman continued. “The fact is, Thurston has currently set his mind on going through with this wedding. Far be it from me to stand in his way. Of course, we do have barristers at the ready when he sees the error of his ways.”

Max found herself, for once, speechless.

Lady Wintergreen had no such problem. “However, if expense and, more importantly, embarrassment can be avoided, I would prefer it. So, Ms. White. Maxine. Name your price.”

Max’s jaw dropped.

Lady Wintergreen released a humorless laugh. “Oh, come now. Did you think I didn’t know precisely why you had become involved with my son? Oh, I know. But believe me, our barristers are very good. You stand a much better chance of getting what you want from me.”

Max found her voice, at last.

“Well, Bunny,” she said, sweetly, though she had to grip the armrests of her chair to stop her hands from shaking with rage, “since we’re being honest with each other, I’ll tell you exactly what I want.” She paused, then continued as if she were speaking to a child.

“I want to marry Thurston. Unlike you, I have a career. I don’t have to marry a man for money and status. I got those things the hard way, by working for them. I am marrying your son because I love him. Believe it or not, it is happening. Thurston and I are getting married. December the 14^th at the Ritz Carleton in Dubai. To hell with Banbury-on-Twig.” Max rose to her feet and did her best to keep her walk to a sedate saunter, though what she really wanted to do was run as far away from the odious Bunny as possible.

The cunning old bitch, Maxine fumed. She had orchestrated the whole thing, telling Thurston that she had some party details to go over with her, arranging to have him walk her dogs so that she would be alone with Max.

As Max opened the front door and walked down the slate steps, she pulled her jacket more tightly around her. The weak sun of the early afternoon had become obscured by a blanket of sullen looking clouds promising rain, and there was a clammy chill in the air. She paced back and forth until she saw Thurston, his sport coat collar turned up, returning from his walk with the dogs.

“Hello, darling,” he called to her. “Did you and Mother have a good chat?”

“Oh, you could say that.” Max bent down to pet Bonaparte, who responded by baring his teeth and growling. Max stood up quickly to avoid being nipped at, and laughed. “You are your owner’s dog, aren’t you?”

“Ah. Not so good, then,” Thurston said, resigned.

“Well, darling. She hasn’t exactly welcomed me into the Wintergreen family with open arms,” Max answered.

Thurston’s eyes were soft with sympathy. “Maxine, it may take her some time to get used to the idea of you. The mindset of her generation, well, it’s far from open.”

“Your father doesn’t seem to be having any trouble getting used to the idea of me. Or is he just a better actor than your mom?”

“Oh, no!” Thurston broke into a broad grin, “He’s positively chuffed! He’s always had a thing for American women.” He toyed with the dogs’ leashes, looking off into the distance, his expression unreadable. “Quite a few things, or even flings, actually, if memory serves.”

“Ah,” Max said. That’s one piece of the puzzle of Lady Wintergreen’s hate-on for me falling into place, she thought. If Thurston knew about his father’s taste for American women, Bunny must have as well. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, huh?” she said without thinking.

“You mean my taste for American women?” Thurston laughed.

“No, I meant your taste for flings.” Max was unsure what had prompted her to say it. Perhaps it had been her run-in with Bunny. Suddenly, she wanted to put all her cards on the table.

Thurston looked confused. “I’m sorry?”

“Oh, come on Thurston. We’re both grown-ups. Don’t look at me that way.” She kept her tone light.

“Which way is that? Like the woman I love and intend to marry has gone completely mad? Maxine, am I mistaken, or are you accusing me of cheating?”

“Oh, Thurston,” Max laughed, “It’s hardly an accusation. Don’t get your boxers in a twist. It’s perfectly natural. Really,” she continued, standing close to him and smoothing down the lapels of his jacket. “How could any hot-blooded male work so close to a complete hottie like whats-her-name and not be tempted?”

Thurston took a step back from Max. “You think I’m having an affair with Pamela? My personal assistant?” he asked.

“My, you really are a good actor. You must get that from your mother. You’ve gone completely white.”

Thurston let go of the dogs’ leashes and sat down on the slate steps while Napoleon and Bonaparte milled around his feet, sniffing the ground.

“Maxine, where is this coming from?” Thurston asked.

“Oh, darling.” She sat down next to him and put a hand on his arm. “I’ve seen your revolving door policy for personal assistants, each one more delicious than the last, each one not lasting for more than a few months. I have to say, it reminds me a bit of Rashed ‘s endless cycle of busty brunette receptionists. At least you’re a bit more eclectic. You’ve had blondes, red-heads, even an Asian or two to mix it up.” She chuckled.

Thurston went very still. Though his expression had not changed, she could feel the anger radiating off of him in icy waves. He removed her hand from his arm.

“Maxine, my revolving door policy, as you call it, exists because until Pamela, none of my personal assistants proved herself up to my exacting standards. No innuendo intended. Much like you, I expect a lot from my employees, and none of Pamela’s predecessors could deliver. Yes, they all happened to be attractive women, but what of it? You are surrounded by attractive men, and you don’t find me accusing you of having affairs.”

Maxine averted her gaze.

“Oh, my God!” Thurston stood up suddenly, recoiling as if she had slapped him. “Now I understand.”

He laughed, humorlessly. “Ah, it is all becoming crystal clear. It’s that same old story. The guilty one sees guilt everywhere and accuses the innocent of the crime she herself has committed.”

“But darling, we had an understanding. When we first started dating, you made it clear that we were not exclusive.” Max kept her voice low and even, trying to ignore the horrible sinking feeling in her stomach.

Thurston stared at her in disbelief. “But Maxine,” he said slowly, but with rising heat, “that was three years ago!”

“Yes, but…”

“I thought it became pretty bloody clear that we were exclusive when we started spending nearly every bloody weekend together!”

Thurston’s face had lost all its pallor and was livid, almost purple. She had never seen Thurston anything but cool, even when Arsenal lost a match.

“Thurston,” Max said, quietly. “We never discussed it.”

“Oh for god’s sake! You bloody Americans have to discuss everything ad infinitum, don’t you? Even when it’s as plain as the nose on your face!” Thurston was practically yelling now. He looked at her, red-faced, quaking. Then as suddenly as it had sprung up, the fire of rage deserted him. “Good God!” He slumped down on the step again, elbows on knees, head in hands.

“Thurston,” Max said, as she sat down beside him, “I’m not seeing anyone. I…I…finished things right after you proposed to me. And I have no intention of becoming involved with anyone again.”

Thurston made a noise that could have been a laugh, or a sob.

“I am completely committed to you. I hope you know that.” She was aiming for sincerity, but her words sounded hollow, even to herself.

Thurston looked at her for a long time, the expression in his eyes shifting from disbelief to anger to resignation. She held his gaze, silently, sincere but unrepentant. At last he looked away.

“I want you to leave,” he said, wearily.

“But Thurston…”

He interrupted her, his voice firm. “I will have your things sent to Claridge’s. I trust you will make your own travel arrangements for your return to Dubai.”

“Thurston, I…” she tried again.

Thurston cut her off. “I love you, but I just can’t be around you now, Maxine,” he said, standing up, his eyes downcast. He walked resolutely up the steps with Napoleon and Bonaparte scampering after him, their leashes trailing behind them.

“I love you, too!” Max called.

Thurston opened the door and hesitated.

“I’ll call you,” he said without turning around, his voice barely a whisper. He shepherded the dogs inside and shut the door behind him.

Max stood staring at the door, shivering. How could something that had started so well have gone so desperately wrong, she thought? The tears began to well up in her eyes. She was about to slump down on the stairs and give in to the inevitable flood, when a movement at one of the windows stopped her. What she saw froze her tears in place. Just before the velvet curtain was pulled shut, she caught the satisfied smirk of Lady Wintergreen.

4.4 Silver Cloud, Black Lining

“That’s right peee- pole! Cut the air! Uh. Uh. Feel it, feel it! Whooo! Everybody do it! Come on, Auntie Marg. So you got a cane. Use it! Get up-up on the dance floor!” DJ Boy E a.k.a. pimply cousin Shane chanted, giant earphones around his neck, baggy jeans slung low to reveal smiley-face boxers.

Caroline glanced over at Louay, who was dancing with her mother. He winked at her and rolled his eyes, but sliced the air with his hands anyway, shimmying his hips. Even in his cheesy rental tux, he still managed to look hot, thought Caroline. She, on the other hand, looked like an extra from Happy Days. Caroline glanced down at the white satin dress with its fitted bodice and full skirt and patted her shellacked up-do. She laughed and cut the air enthusiastically. Despite the fact that his reception was nothing she would ever have planned for herself, she was happier than she’d ever been in her life.

So what if the cinder-block basement of the Steel Workers Hall wasn’t exactly the Ritz and the butter-soaked vegetable medley and freezer-burned cod weren’t up to Gordon Ramsey’s standards? So what if Uncle Roy’s hug had been uncomfortably long, and Aunt Louise was passed out at her table having consumed an entire bottle of wine before the first course was served, and DJ Boy E had been alternating between The Black Eyed Peas and Lady Gaga all evening? So what if all the ‘friends’ that her mother had invited had been the girls who had called her Carrot-line in junior high? Caroline was having the time of her life. The most handsome, charming man in the room had chosen her to be his wife and everybody knew it.

Everything had gone pretty much perfectly since Caroline had met Louay at Pearson Airport in Toronto a few days before. He had walked out of baggage claim pulling a small suitcase and carrying a huge bouquet of lilies, her favorite.

“Oh, my God, Louay,” she said, her face buried in his shoulder. “How did you get those through Customs?” Only Louay could still smell good after the 14 hour flight from Dubai, she thought, inhaling.

“No problem,” he grinned. “My cousin works in there.” He smoothed down her freshly blown out hair with one hand. “You look beautiful, habibti. Yallah, let’s go and meet this crazy family.”

The two-hour drive to Trenton had flown by, as if the Seychelles disaster had never happened. Caroline didn’t even mind that Louay prattled on about a jewelry campaign he had shot and a camping trip he’d gone on without so much as asking her how she was. She was just happy to bask in his glow.

As they passed the Welcome to Trenton Home of the Fried Bologna Sandwich sign, Caroline had interrupted him. She had to prepare Louay for the onslaught ahead.

“Now, my family is awesome, don’t get me wrong, but they are a little…” she started.

“Habibti, relax.” Louay put his hand on top of hers. “It will be fine.”

And mostly, it was. Though the first night at dinner had been a bit awkward.

“Louie, it’s so great to meet you and welcome you into our family,” Caroline’s dad said as they tucked into their Baked Creamy Vegetable Curry.

“Thank you, Mr. Mulligan,” Louay answered. “It is my pleasure.”

“Ron, please,” Caroline’s dad said, cuffing him playfully on the arm.

“Okay, Ron. Really, I am very happy to be here, to be welcome in your beautiful home and married to your lovely daughter. I know it was very short notice for you.”

“Ha! Ha!” Ron laughed. “You can say that again. But our Caroline’s always been full of surprises, hasn’t she, Betty?”

“Oh, yes,” Caroline’s mum answered with a strained giggle. “All good ones, of course.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d call picking up and moving half way around the world good, exactly. But God works in mysterious ways, right, Louie?”

“Yes, sir.” Louay agreed.

“Ron, please,” Ron insisted.

“Yes, of course, Ron.”

“If she hadn’t of moved to Dubai, she wouldn’t of met you, Louie, and not that she’s not a great catch, because you know she’s the best, but Betty here was beginning to give up on ever having any grandchildren.”

“Ron,” Betty interrupted, sensing the conversation moving into dangerous territory. “Let Louay eat. Louay, go ahead, take a bite. I’ve never made a curry before, but you eat a lot of curries where you’re from, don’t you?”

“Mum, you’re thinking of India. Louay’s from Lebanon,” Caroline answered for him.

“Yes, but we eat a lot of curries in Dubai, don’t we, habibti. Take-away. Too many Indians in Dubai.”

“So tell, us Louie,” Ron said, seriously. “We’ve never met a lesbian before. What do you guys eat over there, anyway?”

Caroline nearly spit out her mouthful of casserole.

“Ron!”

“Dad!” Caroline and her mother shouted simultaneously.

“What? What?” Caroline’s dad held up his hands. “I just asked Louie here what lesbians eat. What the hell is wrong with that?”

“Dad,” Caroline giggled. “They are called Leb-an-ese. Lesbians are like, girls who like girls.”

“Oh, sheeyit,” Ron sighed, putting his craggy face in his hands. “So now you know your father-in-law is a first class idiot, Louie. Sorry about that, guy.”

“Don’t worry, er, Ron,” Louay said, trying to conceal his smile. “The sound is very similar. You know, English is not my first language. When I was first learning, I was always making mistakes. Like the words guy and gay. To me, they sound very similar. I would say, ‘Hey you gays!’ and they would come and beat me. I couldn’t understand why.”

Ron laughed out loud and Betty tittered. By the end of dinner Louay had charmed away any doubts her parents had about the marriage.

And now, two days later, here he was ballroom dancing with her mother to Beyonce.

“May I have this dance, Princess?” Caroline’s father asked, interrupting her thoughts.

“Of course, Dad.” Caroline smiled. She was used to seeing him in navy slacks and his Supersump work-shirt or sweats.  He looked handsome and almost dignified in his tux. She told him so.

“Well, thank you, sweetie. Of course, you know I’m dying to get out of this monkey suit, but I can’t let my girls down.” He wiggled his bushy eyebrows at her.

“Aw, Dad, you’ve never let us down.”

“And you’ve never let me down either, Precious.” He looked at her, suddenly serious. “Your mother and I are proud of you for making the right choice. You know what I mean, right?”

“Yes, Dad, I know what you mean,” Caroline answered, averting her eyes.

She had debated not telling her mother that she was pregnant, but she figured the truth would come out eventually. Her parents were not crazily religious, but they did go to church every Sunday without fail. And though hot topics like abortion were never discussed in the Mulligan household, Caroline knew exactly which side of the line her father stood on. That was why he didn’t know about The Accident.

“And Louie seems like a pretty stand-up guy. I mean, he must be, not to run out on a sticky situation.”

“Mm-hm,” Caroline agreed. Louay had actually been thrilled when he found out she was pregnant. He had immediately proposed, never even mentioning an alternative option.

“I don’t know about his job, though. Come on! Modeling? How much money can the guy make?”

“Dad…”

“I’m just saying, there’s a place for Louie at Supersump if he wants it.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Caroline smiled picturing Louay in coveralls waist-deep in a septic tank.

“Dad, I’m just going to go talk to Shane for a minute.” Caroline squeezed her father’s hand, hearing the first few notes of The Black Eyed Peas, ‘My Humps’.

“Hey, Shane.” She approached the table-cloth-draped card table that was his makeshift DJ booth.

“Cuuuuzin!” Shane hollered back, opening his arms. “Give DJ Boy E some sugar.”

“Uh, okay.” She awkwardly hugged him as fleetingly as possible. He was Uncle Roy’s son, for sure.

“Uh, listen, Shane…” she began.

“DJ Boy Eeeee to you, my sistah,” he interrupted. “Man, this gig would be way sick if I actually had my own decks.” He was using the hall’s circa 1995 state of the art stereo system. It only had a CD player.

“Sure,” she agreed. “Hey, would you mind laying off the Peas for a bit, and playing something a bit softer and more weddingy?”

He looked at her, eyes shaded by enormous mirror sunglasses, head tilted to one side, arms crossed gansta-style, considering. Suddenly, a smile split Shane’s pimple-splotched face. “Word. I think I have just the platter.”

“Thanks, Sha – DJ Boy E,” Caroline sighed with relief. “Later.”

“Lay-tah!”

As she walked across the room toward the dance floor, stopping to greet all the guests sitting at the tables, she began to feel decidedly queasy. A sudden stabbing pain pierced her abdomen, so intense she had to sit down.

“Are you alright, dear?” someone whose name she couldn’t quite remember asked her. She peered at Caroline over her bifocals, hair done in a tight perm. Caroline heard the familiar accordion strains of ‘The Chicken Dance’ start up and felt a flicker of annoyance before she doubled-over, struck by another wave of pain.

“Mm-hm,” Caroline answered as the pain subsided. “I think I just need some fresh air.”

“Okay, dear.” The woman patted her hand.

Caroline rose gingerly to her feet, smiling wanly. She took a few unsteady steps and crumpled to the floor, dizzy and nauseous, unbearable pain shooting through her belly.