Anne Korkeakivi - An Unexpected Guest

A home, a spouse, children, a vocation if not a real career. She had all of these. Could Niall have somehow, along the way, picked up some version of these things also? A woman who was willing to know nothing about the father of her children? Maybe, a voluptuous forgiving Italian, with a long nose and laughing lips and thick, dark shiny hair, full breasts and hips. Or a young, independent-minded Scandinavian. Or both of the above, and many others?

A surge of jealousy rocked her body, followed by a rolling wave of self-loathing. How petty she was! How foolish!

A church next to the Centre Pompidou….Tomorrow I’m gone. That’s how you want it, you’ll ne’er lay eyes on me again.

He hadn’t abandoned her. Could she now abandon him? Didn’t she owe him if not the money, at least the succor he’d now handed her?

The elevator clinked to a stop.

She remembered her unsent text — Home — and clicked “send.” She opened the front door; the foyer assailed her with its resplendence: the incandescent burst of the crystal chandelier, the gleam of the dark Regency console, a brilliant splash of yellow and green in a vase on top. She closed the door softly behind her, walked over to the console, leaned down to place her keys in the box from Croatia, not in the silver bowl.

“ There you are.”

The broad forehead, the gray eyes, looking down at her, over her shoulder. “Edward!” she cried, knocking against the console in her confusion. She dropped her purse and grabbed for the vase of lilies and bells of Ireland, a massive green-and-yellow shudder in the corner of her eye, just before it fell. Water sloshed around her, on the shining wood, onto the floor.

“I rang the landline,” he said, ignoring the flowers, looking right past the water, gesturing to the BlackBerry still in her hand. “Amélie said you’d be here.”

“I was delayed—” she began.

Amélie appeared from the direction of the kitchen, her thick legs moving swiftly. She blushed and stopped short. “Excusez-moi, j’ai entendu…”

“It’s all right. Everything’s all right,” Edward said, stepping back, rubbing his hands together. Amélie withdrew a cloth from her apron pocket and began to wipe furiously at the spillage, careful to keep her eyes from either of theirs.

Clare slipped her phone into her purse and stuck her purse in the console. “At least the whole thing didn’t fall over.”

“Oui, Madame.”

“How clumsy of me.”

Amélie said nothing, wiped.

“That’s good now.”

“Oui, Madame. Excusez-moi, Madame, Monsieur.”

“For God’s sake, Edward,” she said, once Amélie was gone. “You startled me. What are—”

“I had a call from Barrow,” he said, cutting her off. “You knew? ”

She shoved Niall from her thoughts. All the twisting and turning she’d done to keep Edward from getting involved in Jamie’s mess before tonight’s dinner. She looked around the foyer for telltale signs — a knapsack, a sweatshirt, a bottle of Orangina — abandoned on one of Amélie’s well-polished surfaces. Nothing. “I spoke with them…,” she said.

“Bloody Hell! And you didn’t tell me? Clare!” Inside his jacket, his own BlackBerry buzzed. He withdrew it, read the half-truth she’d sent before entering the front door. “Right,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Did you speak to James?”

“He’s upset,” she said, still trying to figure out how much to reveal about Jamie’s whereabouts. “I told him to come home.”

“As though we have a choice! When will he arrive?”

She turned and busied herself with resettling the flower arrangement. She could tell Edward how Jamie had arrived unexpectedly this morning, how he’d flown over without even telling her beforehand, how he’d written a request in her name without telling her either. But if Edward had no inkling of any of this, to whose benefit would be telling him? Not his own. Certainly not Jamie’s.

“He’ll be here on the weekend,” she said, moving a stem, adding softly, “They’re called bells of Ireland. Do you see? Green bells with white clappers? They’re supposed to bring good luck. That’s probably why so many brides carry them.”

“Clare! Don’t change the subject. What about that girl Barrow sent away?”

She dropped the flower back into the vase and swiveled to face him. “There aren’t any girls at Barrow.”

“There aren’t now. ” That buzzing sound from somewhere on Edward’s person. “Hell!” He withdrew his phone from his inner jacket pocket again and surveyed the text. “The P.U.S.’s car is downstairs. I have to go.”

“What girl?”

Edward stopped putting his phone back into his jacket long enough to look at her. “I thought you said you’d spoken to Barrow.”

Right. She was supposed to know this already. She was supposed to be on top of everything. She nodded and stepped back. “Yes, I meant was there another girl?”

“I’d say, in this case one was enough, wouldn’t you?”

She processed all the possibilities as quickly as she could. In the overall scheme of things, getting caught with a girl was less serious than cheating, although how those two things related she didn’t see. Maybe he’d gotten so caught up with the girl, he’d neglected the lab. Then cheated on it to catch up. “Yes, it certainly is…,” she said.

“Did he give you any explanation? What in all hell happened? What was he thinking?”

Not thinking. Kids aren’t thinking in those circumstances. She lifted her hands, helpless.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “that I got back so late.”

He opened the door. “We need to talk about this.” The elevator was already there, fresh from her arrival. He unlatched the cage, stepped in, turned to face her, frowning. “I can’t keep the P.U.S. waiting.” He clanked the door shut.

“I’m sorry,” she said again as the elevator began descending.

She closed the front door to the Residence. If Jamie had been caught breaking two rules simultaneously, he really was damn lucky he hadn’t been expelled. But how did this relate to the other kid? What was his name — Ryan?

She stopped short under the chandelier. An image came to mind, and she winced. No, the other boy would have been caught cheating with him, not being with the girl with him.

She hurried down the hall to Jamie’s room, flipped the light switch on.

“Jamie? Ssss. Jamie?”

There was no one in there. The pale reflection of her face stared back at her from the window. The sun had almost set now. She pressed her hands together and sank down on the bed. Jamie, hardly more than a baby himself. The hours Clare had spent walking up and down their apartment’s hall in Cairo. He’d cried endlessly any time she surrendered him to the baby nurse. She’d take him back in her arms, and his sweet smile, toothless and trusting, that milky smell. Sometimes she still caught a glimpse of that smile underneath the adolescent hint of stubble and the slogan T-shirts.

She drew off her sweater in the warmth of his room, letting it fall over the length of his bed. Well, Jamie had found his first girl, and lost his head temporarily over her. Maybe he’d enlisted a fellow student to help him get the answers, which would explain why only Jamie was being held accountable. It wasn’t really all that strange. Until now, Jamie had had no experience with girls. Edward had even said, only half joking, when she’d first proposed Barrow, “Maybe an all-boys school wouldn’t be quite the best thing. You know. Things do happen.”

“What are you trying to say, Edward? Honestly. Anyhow, I saw Jamie taking a good look at Amélie the other day while she was leaning over a bed, smoothing the covers.”