Bird in Hand - Christina Baker Kline [85]
“Kansas.”
“Kansas!”
“What about you?” Charlie said, ignoring Ben’s response. He was used to it; Americans at Cambridge all seemed to be from the East Coast or California.
“New York,” Ben said, confirming Charlie’s generalization. “You’re not a ‘Harvard man.’” He drawled the words with self-conscious irony. “I’d know it if you were—we’re a pretty insular group. I’m guessing—Penn?”
“University of Kansas, actually.”
Ben raised his eyebrows.
“My mother taught there,” Charlie said, hating himself for feeling the need to explain. “Tuition was practically free, so—”
“So you saved your parents a bucket of money and ended up here anyway. That’s the way to do it. You on a Marshall?”
“Fulbright.”
“Law?”
“Philosophy. You?” Charlie said, struggling to regain some leverage in the conversation.
“Mellon. Architecture. I’m auditing Petrovsky’s lectures on ancient Greek philosophy, though. Fascinating stuff. Have you made it to any of those?”
“It’d be a lot less work if you two just exchanged résumés,” Claire said, coming up behind Ben and putting her arms around his waist. “Hi, Charlie.” She smiled a big, open smile. “So nice of you to come.”
He looked at the two of them—Ben tall and lanky, with unruly brown hair and small, round wire-framed glasses, and Claire with those wide-set hazel eyes and high cheekbones and candy apple lips—and suddenly wanted more than anything to be a part of their lives. “Thanks for inviting me,” he said.
“Come on. There are people you should meet.” Claire flashed a smile at Ben and took Charlie’s hand, leading him into another room.
Chapter Seven
Ever since Charlie had returned from Atlanta, several days ago, Alison had been wary and brittle. She clearly knew something was going on, but as long as she didn’t push it there was no reason to initiate a conversation—not yet, at least. Charlie needed time to figure things out. It was funny—when he was with Claire he was certain she was what he wanted: she was the love of his life. But when he was home with Alison and the kids, he felt rooted. He had planted this family here; he was loath to tear it up. He did love Alison—as much as, if not more than, most men love their wives, he thought. And he was crazy about his kids—Annie with her single-minded concentration and pixie chin and a smile just like his, Noah with his mother’s dark eyes and trusting gaze. How could he choose to leave them?
And yet in forming the question he had already supplied a phantom answer.
Sunday afternoon he drove into the city to work for a few hours. What with the accident and then his trip to see Claire, he’d been out of the office quite a bit; several deadlines were looming, and he hadn’t bothered checking e-mail for days. Alison was suspicious when he told her he needed to go in, and it was a guilty pleasure to be genuinely affronted when she didn’t believe he was telling the truth. “It’s just a few hours, honey,” he said. “I’ll be home by six. Let’s do a family dinner, okay?”
There were 316 e-mails in his in-box, half of which were spam and half of which had to be dealt with, one way or another.
Let’s raise the idea at the staff meeting on Tuesday. I’ll get you the proposal by Wednesday.
Delete, delete, delete.
Call my cell phone. We need to talk.
Charlie sat back in his chair. It was an e-mail from Claire, sent a few hours earlier. Why hadn’t she called? He looked in his bag and saw that he’d forgotten his cell phone; it was at home in the charger on his dresser. He hadn’t bothered to listen to the messages on his blinking office phone.
He dialed her number.
“Charlie,” she said breathlessly when she picked up. “I’m so glad you called. I didn’t know what to do. I was considering smoke signals to get your attention.”
“What’s going on?”
“Oh, my God,” she breathed. “I—I got home from the airport and Ben just—assaulted me—”
“Assaulted you?