Busy Woman Seeks Wife (2 page)

“Okay—can you put something in my diary for a meeting? But, Camilla, tell them I haven’t got long or they’ll have me there
all day and I haven’t got time.” Their footwear team put as much dedication into the construction of a sneaker as scientists
had into the Stealth Bomber and talked with such passion about aerodynamics, cushioning and arch supports it was almost kinky.

“Oh, and your Yankee dreamboat called, by the way. He couldn’t get you on your phone—you must have been on the plane—but says
he’ll be landing at Heathrow after his stop-off in Paris.”

Alex felt a tingle of anticipation at the news of Todd’s arrival in the country until she remembered she’d have no bed for
him to climb into. Not when the mattress was in the Dumpster, and there certainly wouldn’t be room for his muscle-bound body
in the tiny single in the spare bedroom where she’d have to sleep. It would have to be the Holiday Inn for him. Ending the
call, she scanned over her notes quickly. Things were looking good for the next few weeks. Product launches always got her
excited: massive buildup, even more massive preparation, then the nail-biting wait to see how the product was received by
press and public.

Bread with some cheese she’d found loitering at the back of the fridge in one hand, and laptop on her knee, Alex now scrolled
through the plethora of e-mail messages, chewing absentmindedly. Everything seemed to be going smoothly in the office. Camilla
had held the fort pretty well while she’d been away and Alex sent her an e-mail saying as much. Then she turned to the pile
of mail on the table. All the envelopes had windows, except for one reminding her of the date of her next dentist appointment—which
would have to be changed. The only other uncontroversial-looking one turned out to be from her neighbor in the flat below
complaining that unless she did something about her leaking shower and the water coming through his ceiling, he’d issue legal
proceedings. Alex stuffed the letter behind the microwave, where she filed everything she couldn’t handle immediately, and
her eye was caught by the flashing light on the front of the washing machine. It was stuck in the middle of the program, and
no knob-twiddling would get it to move on. Damn. She scrabbled in the kitchen drawer to try to find the instruction book.
Where was it? All she could find were “giblets”—plastic bags of Allen keys and screws, the extras from gadgets and appliances
she’d bought when she moved in two years ago. She’d look again later. Then she dialed her mother’s number and with shoulder
scrunched up, phone to one ear, she pulled out bedding from the tiny airing cupboard and began to make up the single bed.

“Hi, Mum, I’m back.”

“Hello, daaarling,” her mother’s sultry tones came down the line. “Good trip? I don’t know how you put up with all that filthy
traveling.”

Alex sighed silently. “ ’Cos I have to. Can’t talk for long, how’s things?”

“Busy busy, you know. And now I’m about to tackle the ivy on the front of the house. It’s gone mad.”

Alex sighed audibly this time, stuffing a pillow into a pillowcase. “Oh, Mum, can’t you wait? I said I’d do it. I’ll come
over at the weekend.”

“Well, sweetie, you’ve been saying that for a while. Do you really think you can this time?”

Ignoring the tone of disapproval, Alex did a mental scan. “Er, hang on, actually I’m off to Toronto on Sunday afternoon but—”

“Quite. I’ll be fine, darling, up my little ladder.”

Alex had a vision of the Bean, as everyone called her, demure little hat on her head and the most elegant and unsuitable of
gardening gloves bought through one of her gardening catalogs, teetering on the stepladder clipping at the ivy. “No, Mum,
wait. I’ll come over on Saturday. I’ll have an hour or so then. That ivy needs a serious assault.”

“Well, dear… I don’t know…” And the Bean went off on some diversion involving her oldest friend Ursula and some
blazered lothario who was wooing her at the Arts Club.

Alex pulled up outside Saffron’s an hour later than planned, and it was already dark. Camilla’s call, which had come through
just after she’d shaken off her mother, had put everything else on the back burner. Apparently Gavin, her boss, could not
now get to Toronto before the key presentation meeting next week. Could Alex do the business for him with the clients over
there? So, with assurances from Camilla that she’d help out with preparing notes and the audiovisual, Alex dropped everything
to begin trawling for information to persuade the skeptical Canadian sales team that the cutting-edge properties of Zencorp’s
new range were vastly superior to anything the industry had yet been able to offer.

Max opened the door. “Hello, stranger. Glad to see you’ve dressed up as usual.” Alex playfully punched his shoulder. “How
vos der trip, ja?”

“Oh tedious.” She returned his warm hug. “Those Germans have no sense of irony and every hotel looks exactly the same.”

“I get it.” He led her through to the bright, warm kitchen. “If it’s Tuesday and the bathroom’s on the right, must be in Baden-Baden.”

“Something like that.”

Max took the bottle of mini-mart Chardonnay from her, looking suspiciously at the label, and, clearly revolted, put it away
in a cupboard to join her other dodgy offerings from the past. “God, I hope you know more about sportswear than you do about
wine,” he’d teased her once, and she now took perverse pleasure in finding a bottle guaranteed to make the affable TV executive
wince. He put a glass of something dark and red in front of her at the kitchen table and she took a deep gulp, comforted now
by the flavor as it ran over her tongue. There was a delicious smell wafting out of the oven. Max’s and Saffron’s kitchen
was like a security blanket to her—the bright, hand-painted mugs on the dresser, the apron on the back of the door, the children’s
pictures on the fridge. To Alex it felt like the home she’d never managed to achieve, the only normality in her mad world.

“Saff ’s just turning off Oscar’s light. There’s been a homework drama but she’s soothing frayed tempers,” said Max. They
then chatted briefly about work; they were both absorbed by the totally different but equally challenging worlds they moved
in—media and marketing from two opposing directions.

Eventually footsteps came down the stairs and Saffron entered the room, her neat little frame in a white linen shirt, green
checked capri pants and pumps. Alex felt herself beginning to relax from the day.

“Hi, good to see you, sweetie.” Saffron kissed her friend warmly on the cheek. “Have you got a drink? How’s the Spanish scrubber?”

“Oh Gawd, Saff.” Alex put her head in her hands. “It’s so vile! I’ve chucked all the bedding into the Dumpster. The nasty
little creep who was giving her one even pulled out some cash to pay her! In front of me! Can you imagine?”

Saffron looked suitably shocked as she bustled about putting on her apron and preparing the green beans to cook. She placed
a bowl of chips in front of Alex. Max, already informed about the day’s outrage and suspecting shrieked outpourings of grief,
scooped up a handful and escaped the room for his study.

“You have to admire the woman’s business acumen,” Saffron said, tying her wavy blonde hair into a ponytail on top of her head.
“With you away so much, she didn’t let the grass grow under her feet, did she?”

“Little slapper,” Alex replied through a mouthful of chips, realizing how hungry she was. “And now I’ve got to get a new mattress
or I’ll never see Todd. Not that we have time to see each other anyway. And my neighbor downstairs is getting nasty about
the leak in my shower. But I just don’t have time to get someone in to sort it. I
can’t
take a day off, and I’ve got a pile of stuff to get to the cleaners or I’ll have nothing to wear in Toronto. Oh, and the
sodding washing machine is on the blink, again, and then there’s the little matter of work. Bloody Gavin can’t make Toronto,
so rather than spending the time I should be to consolidate all the information from the last few days and preparing for the
launch, I’ve got to put together a huge presentation, which is critical—it’s
critical
, Saff. If I get this wrong, it’s going to affect how we are perceived in Canada and then—”

Saff put her hand on Alex’s arm. “Hey! Calm down, love. Stressing isn’t going to help.”

“But it’s
all
stress. There’s just no time to do anything, even to buy milk, for heaven’s sake. And I haven’t managed to see Mum for ages.
And now she’s threatening to—” Alex was cut off by her mobile buzzing in her bag. “Hello?”

“Alex? It’s Letitia, dear. From next door to your mother.”

Alex could feel her anxiety rising.

“Sorry to bother you, dear, but it’s your mother. I think she fell off her ladder. Anyway, I’m here at the hospital with her.”

“Oh, bloody hell. Oh no, is she all right?”

“Don’t fret. It’s not too serious but they think it’s her arm. The thing is, she won’t be able to go home tonight. They said
something about having to reset it, and I’m afraid I’m off on a cruise to the fjords tomorrow first thing or I’d gladly help.”

“Oh, thank you, Letitia. Please don’t worry. You’ve done more than enough. I’ll be right there.” Finding out exactly where
her mother had been taken and thanking her again profusely, Alex clicked off her phone and looked across at Saffron’s concerned
face.

“Is she okay?” she asked cautiously. “What do the doctors say?”

Alex relayed what Letitia had said, her heart sinking at the implications. “Oh, Saff! What the hell was she doing cutting
back the ivy at this time of night? She was bound to fall! I told her I’d do it. I should have been more insistent. Oh God,
what am I going to do?” Alex rubbed her eyes, smearing the remaining mascara over her cheeks. “Who’s going to look after her?
I can’t have her come and stay with me. I mean, how can I? I’m never there…”

“Well, it might not be for long. She might be able to go home again by the time you go to Canada. At least you’ll be there
at night and she can watch TV—”

Alex sat bolt upright. “But there’s no bed for her!”

“I’ve got a camp bed.” Saff tried to look helpful.

Alex stood up. “Bless you. Can I let you know? Oh, why couldn’t she have waited for me?”

Saff looked up at her friend and laughed ruefully. “Come on, Alex, you know how stubborn she can be. She’s always done exactly
what she wants. Why don’t you have some food before you leave?”

“Thanks, Saff, but I’d better go and see her straightaway— much as I’d love your yummy supper. I seem to have had nothing
but airline meals and packet soups lately. Soon I won’t be able to cope with anything that doesn’t come on a plastic tray.
All I wanted to do was talk to you.” She suddenly felt very weary.

“What you need,” said Saffron, standing up and rubbing Alex’s arm comfortingly, “is someone to take away your worries, someone
to cook you lovely meals and deal with all the boring details of life.”

“But I’ve got a bloke already,” protested Alex. “When he’s in the country at least.”

“No, no!” replied Saffron. “I mean, what you need is a
wife.
”

S
affron climbed down from the ladder and admired her morning’s work. The turquoise-blue paint had definitely been the right
choice. She glanced at the swatch of purple-blue floral fabric draped over the chair, the result of a wonderful hour and a
half at the interiors shop trawling through the sample books—her favorite pastime second only to having her nose in a cookbook.
Millie would love it. What nine-year-old girl couldn’t? How excited she’d be when she came home from school.

Absently pushing away the hair that was tickling her nose, she wiped the excess paint from her brush onto the edge of the
tin. Slipping off her flip-flops on the dust sheet so as not to risk walking paint over the new landing carpet, she carried
the brush downstairs, careful not to touch the newly stenciled walls. She looked at them with immense pride as she passed.
Who needed Jocasta Innes when, with a two-week course and the right kit, she could do it herself?

She’d washed the brush and was putting on the kettle and thinking about what she could do for the next few hours, and what
to make for the children and Max for supper, with half an eye on the dramatic purple tulips in the tubs outside the back door
bobbing about in the brisk wind, when the phone rang.

“Saff?” Alex sounded breathless. “Look, I’m about to go into a meeting but—”

“And hello to you too!” Saff smiled.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m a bit rushed.” Wasn’t she always? “I’ve been thinking about what you said last night—you know that wife
thing you mentioned? We didn’t really expand on it. Did you mean like a housekeeper?”

“Well, I don’t know really. I was sort of joking.” In Alex’s haste to leave to see her mother, Saff had thought her ridiculous
remark would have been forgotten. “It just seems to me that you needed someone like—well, me, really. Someone who does all
the things Max doesn’t have time to do. Making dentist appointments, letting in the washing machine man, taking clothes to
the cleaners, cleaning the loo. Oh, I don’t know.” The more she thought about it, the more stupid an idea it sounded. “I don’t
suppose there’s really enough that you need doing to keep one person busy. Not when you are away such a lot of the time.”