“Thank you,” she said quietly, and went out to the kitchen for a bottle of wine for him. He was right. He had warned her about how jealous men would be of her. She had been just nineteen then. Now she was twenty-five. Tim had shocked her with his vicious diatribe and the rage in his eyes the night before. She hadn’t seen it coming. Maybe she didn’t want to. He was angry and he didn’t even know how successful she was. And she didn’t want to give up the secrecy surrounding her books, or her pseudonym. So she’d just have to live with it, and hope Bert was right, and the right one would come along at the right time. And she was fine alone in the meantime. Sometimes she even preferred it, so she could write.
She sat with Bert for a while longer, and then she went to see Brigid and her new baby. She was already at home, and little Steven was careening around the house. He had just learned to walk. Brigid was in bed, perched on an inflatable inner tube because she couldn’t sit down yet so soon after the delivery, and the new baby was asleep in her arms. They had named her Camilla, and she was a beautiful baby and had weighed nine pounds, fourteen ounces, another big one. Brigid was made to breed, as her mother-in-law said, and she was happy with her babies and her husband. He cooked dinner for all of them and tried to keep an eye on Steven, while friends and relatives dropped by to see them. It was like visiting a firehouse after the alarm had gone off for a ten-alarm fire.
“I don’t know how I could forget how bad it was the last time. I hope somebody reminds me before I do this again,” Brigid said as she winced and shifted on the inner tube. “It was worse than last time, if that’s possible, and she was smaller, though only by four ounces.” But the baby had a sweet face, long legs, and beautiful hands with graceful fingers, and Brigid kept looking at her tiny toes with awe.
“Then you remember it before you and Patrick do it again two days from now,” Alex warned her, laughing at her. She felt so much better since talking to Bert that afternoon. What she was experiencing with men went with the territory of success, hard work, and determination, which were not always appreciated in a woman. But she wasn’t ready for what Brigid had either. At least not yet or not for a long time. She wanted to keep writing her books, forever if she could, and trying each time to make them better, with Bert’s help, for as long as he was willing. And for now she didn’t want any distractions, like a husband or children.
Alex left Brigid after half an hour. She looked exhausted and there were too many people there, as she tried to wobble around her room taking care of the baby, and calling out to Patrick in the kitchen, to ask if he was okay and if Steven had eaten dinner yet.
“How’s Brigid?” Mother MaryMeg asked her when she got back to the convent.
“She can’t sit down, she looks exhausted, there are a million people there, Patrick is cooking dinner, and the baby is beautiful.” The superior laughed at the image.
“Sounds about right for a house with a new baby. She’ll be pregnant again in no time. She loves her babies. And how are you?” She had seen Alex earlier and thought she looked troubled about something. “Everything all right in New York?”
“Couldn’t be better. I love it and I’m fine.” Alex gave her a hug and went upstairs to her room. It was good to be home for the weekend. And on Sunday night, she would go back, and fight her wars again.
Chapter 17
Alex was in better spirits when she went back to New York after the weekend. She slept late on Monday morning and decided to take a day off. She was just leaving the apartment to do some errands when Rose Porter called her.
“What are you up to?” she asked her. They hadn’t talked in several weeks.
“I was just going to the supermarket, the hardware store, and the cleaner. I was in Boston this weekend.”
“I’m glad I caught you. I just got a very interesting call from a television production company in England. They have three series on TV at the moment.” She named them and Alex knew them all. They were the currently popular ones on television, and aired in the States too. “They want to turn Hear No Evil into a series.” It was her third book, and one of her biggest sellers so far. Rose wasn’t surprised. “I think they’d do a very good job with it. They have some stars in mind. Big ones. The catch, of course, is that they want you too. They want Alexander Green for script consultation on the set. I told them that wasn’t possible, that he never does that, they insisted, and then I told them about the setup in L.A., and that’s fine with them. They’ve already got a writer, and they think they could put the package together by August, and they would want you there for three months. You could be back here by late October, early November. What do you think?”
Rose also mentioned how much they wanted to pay her, it was a huge amount, and very enticing. “It worked in L.A., there’s no reason why it wouldn’t work in London. They wanted to put you up at Claridge’s, and I said Mr. Green needs a house for himself and his staff, and that was fine with them too. Why don’t you give it some thought?”
Alex didn’t need to. It was three more months of pretending to be Mr. Green’s assistant, but the series sounded like fun, and three months wasn’t too long. She’d have to extend her apartment lease or give it up, but that could be worked out.
“I’ll do it,” she said simply. If she didn’t do things like that now, when would she?
“That was easy,” Rose said with a grin. She had thought she’d have to talk her into it, and was prepared to, because it was great exposure for her work for people who didn’t read the books, and TV would pull women in too. “I’ll let them know.” She did, and called Alex when she got back from her errands. “They’re thrilled. They said they’d find a house right away. They want you there on August first.”
Alex was already thinking about going to the South of France for two weeks before that, as long as she was going to Europe. Tim was right. She led a charmed life. “It won’t air till spring, to give them time to edit.” It was her first TV series and sounded very exciting to her. They talked for a few minutes longer, and hung up. She fixed a light lunch for herself, and made lists about what she had to do before she went, and called her realtor to extend the lease till the end of the year, and they told her at six o’clock that the owner was amenable. So she could leave her things there, and didn’t have to drag it all back to Boston. And she wanted to spend some time in New York when she got back. She hadn’t had much opportunity to take advantage of the city and now she was leaving.
She spent a weekend in Boston in July to say goodbye to the nuns and Bert, and see Brigid again. She wasn’t pregnant yet this time.
“You’re slipping,” Alex teased her and Brigid laughed.
“Give me another month.”
“You’re hopeless.” But both her children were adorable and she was happy.
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