Bird in Hand - Christina Baker Kline [9]
“It’s at the top of my pile,” Jim Oliver said, taking a swig from his glass. He held it aloft and squinted at it, as if contemplating a toast. “So what’s with the blue martinis?”
Claire held up a copy of her book and wagged it at him.
“Well, that clears it up,” he said. Jami, whom Claire had gotten to know well over the past few weeks, elbowed her in the side.
“It was my mother’s drink,” Claire said. “Curaçao is like heroin to her.”
“And she was—you know—depressed,” Jami interjected with a meaningful nod.
Claire looked across the room at her mother, Lucinda Ellis, there in the flesh, chatting amiably with Martha Belle Clancy, the safety blanket she’d hauled up from North Carolina. The two of them, wearing floral dresses and beige pumps and Monet pearls, looked like stage props for Claire’s book. Every now and then Ben would bring someone over to meet Lucinda, and she’d gush in a way that tended to startle New Yorkers but that came as naturally to her as breathing.
As she looked around, Claire’s gaze fell on Alison, standing at the drinks table, accepting a blue martini from a boy with a tattoo of thorns ringing his forearm, and looking around for someone to talk to. She seemed unsure of herself, out of place. In Claire’s former role, the role she’d played all her life, she would have rushed over to introduce Alison to someone, but now she decided to let her be. Claire’s therapist was helping her to separate, to stop feeling responsible for other peoples’ feelings at the expense of her own; it was part of her decision to write the book, to put off having kids, to take time to figure out what she wanted in her life.
To get involved with Charlie.
Claire glanced at her watch: 8:44. “Will you excuse me for a moment?” she said to Jami. “I’ll be right back. It was nice meeting you,” she added to the People guy, who tapped the book and grinned.
In the bathroom, with the door locked, she pulled her cell phone out of the little bag she was carrying and pushed number nine, speed-dialing Charlie’s cell phone.
“Hi,” he said, picking up after several rings. “This is a surprise. Aren’t you—?”
“I escaped,” she said. “I’m in the bathroom.”
“Who’s that, Daddy?” she heard a child say, and Charlie replied, in a muffled voice, “Nobody, honey, just—work.”
“‘Nobody’?” The word stung, even though Claire knew she was being irrational. She sighed. “You’re not here.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should’ve called. At the last minute—”
“I knew you weren’t coming.” He didn’t say anything, so she continued. “It’s okay. It’s just … boring without you.”
“I don’t believe it. This is your moment.”
“It doesn’t feel like my moment. It all feels very—removed, somehow.”
“It’s a damn good book. You know that, don’t you?”
“What book?” Claire could hear Annie asking in the background.
“Nothing, sweetie,” he answered, his voice muffled again. “Just something I read. Go help Noah with the train tracks. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“You finished it already?” Claire asked.
“Just this afternoon, on the train.” He paused, and Claire guessed he was waiting for Annie to leave. Then he said, “It’s an incredible story. It makes me—oh, never mind. We’ll talk about it later.”
“Tell me.”
“Honestly—it makes me like you even better.”
“Oh.” She smiled into the phone.
“So relax. Enjoy this.”
“Urrr.” She groaned. “I’d rather be with you.” She held the phone to her ear, listening to the static between them. “When can I see you?”
“Soon.”
“When?”
“It’s the weekend,” he said. “I don’t think I can get away.”
“Before I leave on tour? Monday?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Charlie … ”
“What?”
“I just … I want to be with you.”
“Yes,” he said again.
When the call was done she clicked off and held the warm phone to her chest for a moment, as if it were a piece of