Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 157491 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157491 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
“Or as our ancestors like to all it, the good old days.” I inject my reply with forced humor.
“Hey! Keep your hands to yourself.” Holland laughs and then squeals before a door slams. “Sorry about that. Again. What is it about men feeling you up while your hands are busy?”
“I’ve no idea.” Because Tom was never—
I cut off that thought. Tom is dead to me. At least, he’s going to wish he is.
“Taking a phone call, rinsing dishes” Holland continues, oblivious to my dark thoughts, “tying my shoelaces! You name it, your brother loves to creep up on me all handsy.” She does not sound like she’s complaining. Not seriously. “But that’s not what you called to hear.”
“Exactly. As far as my mind is concerned, my brother’s hands only clasp in prayer.”
“Speaking of clasping, how’d your meeting go?” she asks saucily.
“The meeting went well. Good.” If today is some hellish version of opposite day.
“Obviously, I’m interested in that meeting, but I was talking about Van.”
“Oh, ha-ha! Yes, the clasping reference.” Keep up, would you. “ … haven’t seen him yet,” I decide on.
“Oh. Okay. But the other meeting, did they love your designs?” she asks, rolling with this.
“Yes.” The designs. They had them. Designs on my business. Designs on my body. “You could say they liked them.” And that I did not.
“Isla, are you okay? You sound a little odd.”
“Actually, that’s what I called about,” I find myself answering as I grasp another sudden thought. “I had smoked salmon this morning and, well, I’ve done very little but vomit all afternoon.”
“Oh, bummer,” replies the Duchess of Dalforth, making me smile. “Where are you?”
“The meeting was at a hotel, so I booked myself into it,” I add, keeping the details vague. “I don’t think I’ll be in any state to make my flight.”
“Oh, shame. So you won’t get to see—”
“Nothing but the inside of a hotel toilet bowl.”
“Ew.”
“I feel so ill.” Ill for lying to her. For playing on her sympathy.
“Well, you know you don’t worry about the kids. They’re fine here with us. You just take care of yourself.”
“Thank you.” I trust Sandy with their lives, and that’s still the case whatever has happened. And though Holly has been in our lives only a short while, I know I can say the same for her. “I don’t know what I’d do without you both.”
“Not a thing you have to worry about,” she says with a laugh. “You just take care of yourself.”
“How are the boys? How was the school run?”
“Fine, on both counts.”
“Nothing to report?” As in, did you notice anyone taking creepy videos of you all?
“Nothing new, at least. Just the usual complaints about school suckage and from me, the line of traffic to get through those fancy school gates. The boys argued over the radio, as usual, and we ended up listening to something that, I swear, sounded like an inflatable donkey falling down a flight of stairs.”
“I can’t even picture, I mean, imagine what that sounds like.”
“Count yourself lucky. My ears are still hurting. Oh, here comes your progeny,” she adds. “Archie, come talk to your mom.”
Muffled noises follow as I cast my eyes around the kitchen, which is a chef’s dream. Fancy appliances, a fridge you could hang a carcass of venison in and still have space enough to feed an army of teenagers. The countertops are a stylish gray granite, the cabinetry white and sleekly modern. There’s a door to a huge, glass fronted indoor wine cellar, temperature controlled by the looks of things. I glance around imagining this would be where the original Edwardian kitchen was situated, yet this room is bright and airy thanks to the removal of the back wall in favor of glass. Stackable doors, I suppose, allowing a view over the garden, bringing the outside in.
“Mummy!” calls my littlest man. “Geordie made us bao buns for our snack, and they were very, very yummy.”
“Oh!” No sausage rolls? Good for Geordie getting the boys to eat something out of the ordinary. “They sounds very fancy.”
“Bao buns are Vietmanees sausage rolls. They have the same stuff in the middle as sausage rolls.”
“Vietnamese,” I repeat gently. “And I think you mean pork.”
“And salad, but not like that boring stuff you make us eat.”
“Boring?” I repeat with a laugh. “That’s it, iceberg lettuce for you for the next ten years.” I swear, if Archie was a dog, he’d be a beagle. Food obsessed. Ask him what kind of day he’s had at school and settle in to listen to a ten-minute monologue on what was available for lunch in the school cafeteria.
“Hugh wants to talk to you.”
“Wait, Archie. I just wanted to say I won’t be home tonight.”
“Okay,” he answers, completely unfazed.
“Is that okay?”
“Yes, very. Geordie is making pumpkin gnocchi for dinner.”
“That sounds yum. I’ll call before bed, okay?”