Life as I Know It (27 page)

He stepped back as if I’d slapped him. “What are you playing at, Lauren? Don’t do this!”

At that moment the door opened behind him, and the young woman who had shared his table stood there glaring at me.

“How dare you make eyes at my husband all evening!” she said indignantly. “Don’t you have a man of your own?”

Looking desperately from one to the other, I dived for the door marked “ladies,” raced inside, and locked it behind me. Standing there trembling with my back to the door, I tried to collect myself. The woman was shouting at her husband now, telling him she’d had enough of his philandering ways. I decided I might as well use the toilet while I was in there. She hammered on the door once demanding I come out and face her, but when I didn’t respond she must have walked off, because the man’s voice came through the door a moment later, thin and wheedling.

“Lauren, come out. She’s gone home without me. Please don’t do this, I love you!”

“Go away,” I said at last. “I don’t know who you are.”

“It’s all out in the open now,” he continued. “Felicity knows about us. You promised to tell your husband. You were going to leave him. Why have you changed your mind?”

“I’ve been in the hospital,” I told him through the door. “I don’t remember anything. I’ve lost my memory, so let’s leave it at that. I’m staying with Grant and the children. They need me!”

“They don’t need you as much as I do,” he countered. “You don’t care about the children anyway, you told me. You said they were driving you mad and that you would come away with me.”

“No. I wouldn’t leave the children. I don’t believe I ever said that.”

Not even Lauren would have wanted to leave the children, I thought angrily. This boyfriend of hers must have misunderstood her.

“You were looking at special homes for that retarded boy of yours,” the man announced suddenly. “As soon as he was taken care of we were going away together. Open the door, Lauren!”

Angry now, I opened the door to face him.

“Don’t call him that! And how dare you suggest such a thing! Lauren would never have put Teddy in a home!”

He stared at me, his mouth dropping open, presumably stunned at my use of Lauren’s name in the third person. “Have you really lost your memory?”

“Yes, it appears she has,” said a voice behind us.

Grant was standing in the open doorway, glowering at the other man, then shooting accusing looks at me. He reached around the young man, grabbed my arm, and pulled me out of the door.

It was almost midnight when Grant parked the Mercedes in the garage and strode around to open my door. We had barely spoken on the way home, but as he helped me out of the car, he suddenly slid his arms around my waist and crushed me against him.

“Tell me it’s over, for good, and I’ll say nothing more about it,” he murmured. “I still love you, Lauren.”

I pulled away from him, afraid he’d go back on his word not to touch me.

“What happened to my mobile phone, Grant?” I demanded. “Did you take it while I was lying unconscious in the hospital? I didn’t even know I had a phone, and all the time you’ve been
watching his calls come in, knowing he was worried sick about me!”

“He had no right to be worried about you. You are
my
wife.”

“No wonder you were so suspicious of me. You’ve known all week that some other man existed. What sort of game have you been playing?”

Grant gripped the tops of my arms with iron fingers. “It is not a game, Lauren. It is my life, the kids’ lives. What did you expect me to do? Was I supposed to give you your phone and say, ‘Oh, by the way, your lover has been ringing you?’ Would you have had me reminding you he was waiting for you to leave us?”

I shook my head and he loosened his grip. “He said Lauren was planning to put Teddy into a care facility. Is that true?” I asked.

“Stop talking about yourself in the third person. You’re so melodramatic, Lauren. And no, of course we would never have put one of our children in a home. You might not be the most maternal woman on the planet, but I don’t believe you ever wanted that.”

We both turned as Karen opened the garage door. “Are you two going to shout at each other all night, or is there any chance I can go to bed without worrying about you?”

“I’m going to bed right now,” I said, stomping past Grant toward the house. He tried to make a grab for me, but I shook him off.

“Don’t go, Lauren. We can’t leave it like this. I told you I wouldn’t hold it against you as long as you promise the affair is over. Tell me you don’t love anyone else.”

I looked at Grant with a pang of guilt at how much he must be hurting, but then I thought of Dan again and realized I
couldn’t promise any such thing. How could I ever consider making a commitment to Grant when I loved Dan with all my heart and soul?

We stared at each other desperately for a second and then I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Grant. I can’t think about this now. I’m going to bed. Good night.”

I woke up soon after twelve and opened my eyes gingerly, unsure for a brief second which world I was in. Until now, no matter how busy I’d been the previous day in either of my alternate bodies, I had awakened refreshed in the body that had been resting in my absence. Today, however, I felt completely washed out.

It was a struggle to get out of bed. My mind kept returning to Grant and how hurt he’d looked. I shook the memory away and, after showering and making myself a late lunch, I meandered around the flat looking with new eyes at everything I’d seen from Lauren’s perspective half a day ago. The flat seemed so quiet—not quite the comfortable silence I’d grown used to and taken for granted since moving out of Stephen’s place, but the hush of a void that seemed suddenly unfillable. Today, everything about my life seemed shallow and insular. I knew it wasn’t, of course: I had my job, Clara and my other friends, Frankie, and now Dan. Perhaps it was Frankie’s absence that was making me feel morose, I thought, as I picked up her favorite squeaky toy and stared at it forlornly.

Shoving the plastic bone to one side, I grabbed the phone and dialed my parents’ number. Mum answered on the second ring.

“Hi, Mum.”

“How are you, darling?”

“I’m a lot better, thanks. I’ve had a couple of days off work but I’ll go back in on Monday.”

“I’m glad to hear you’re being sensible. Are you sure you don’t want your dad and me to come up?”

I pictured her looking at her diary, wondering if she could fit a visit in between the craft fair and the village jam-making competition. “No, I’m fine. Feeling sorry for myself, that’s all.”

We chatted for a few minutes before she bid me good-bye. “I’d better go, Jessica; your father’s waiting for his lunch. We’re a bit late, what with one thing and another.”

“Okay, Mum, give my love to Dad. Take care.”

As I replaced the receiver, I felt a bitter desolation envelope me. Even my parents seemed to have more going on in their lives than I would normally have, if it weren’t for my other life as Lauren.

The temptation to sit hugging my knees in misery was overwhelming. I told myself I was being silly. The last week had been such an emotional and physical whirlwind that I was bound to be feeling insecure and somewhat drained.

Dragging bedding out of the cupboard, I decided to put clean sheets on the bed. There was plenty to keep me busy, I told myself severely, even without Frankie or the legal work I normally brought home at weekends. After pummeling my pillow energetically and fighting to get the duvet into its cover for ten minutes I felt decidedly better.

My next task was to take the car to the supermarket and load up with a week’s supply of groceries. It took me only half an hour to fill my cart, pay, and have everything loaded into the back of my little car. I’d added six bottles of Guinness for Dan and his father to my purchases, and these I placed carefully on the backseat before heading in the direction of Dan’s house.

As I drew up to his driveway I was disappointed to see that Dan’s car wasn’t there.

I rang on the doorbell anyway, and waited while Patrick shuffled down the hall to answer the door. When I saw him again in the daylight I was struck by how like Dan he looked. He was thinner and slower, and his hair was gray, but the facial structure was the same, and he was still good-looking even for a man in his seventies. The most telling feature, though, was his eyes—a penetrating blue with a mischievous twinkle that probably accounted for him having been married several times.

“Well, hello there,” he said with a grin when he saw who it was. “You’d better come in, so you had.”

I followed the old man down the hall to the living room, where the television set was booming away. He went over and switched it off.

“Take a seat, lass, Dan won’t be long. He’s dashed out to buy dog food. Your Frankie has an appetite on her and no mistake.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve just been to buy some myself. I’ll give Dan some of that to make up for what Frankie’s eaten.”

Patrick laughed wheezily and lowered himself into his chair. “I’m only pulling your leg, lass. He had to go shopping anyway.”

I held out the Guinness. “I thought you might like these.”

The old man’s eyes lit up as he focused on the beer. “Now, I wouldn’t say no to one of those. There’s glasses in the sideboard over there. Be a darlin’ and fetch me one out, would you?”

I watched while he took a deep pull of the dark beer, closing his eyes as he savored the taste of the rich liquid, the froth leaving a white mustache on his upper lip. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like one for yourself?” he offered.

I shook my head, smiling. “No, I’m okay, Mr. Brennan, thank you.”

“I told you to call me Pat,” he said.

“Do you think Dan will be long?” I asked.

“Now, what if he is? You and I will have the time for a nice chat, so we will. I think Dan rates you somewhat highly, so I’ll tell you all about him while we’re waiting. Aye, there are plenty more saucy stories to tell about that boy, so there are.”

Patrick’s stories proved to be highly entertaining.

“Did I tell you about the time he dated twins?” he asked with a snort of laughter.

I shook my head, wondering if I should listen while Dan wasn’t there to tell his version of the story.

“They were completely identical, and pretty girls—well proportioned, if you know what I mean. Well, he didn’t know they were twins. He met the first girl in one of the clubs while he was working on securing an account for Brennan’s Bandits. He went out with her for about two weeks before realizing that the reason she was so vague about what they’d done or talked about on each previous date was because the girls were taking turns with him; sharing him, like they apparently shared all their other possessions.”

“I would have thought most men wouldn’t have minded,” I ventured with a smile.

“Aye, but he didn’t like the dishonesty… If he’d known from the outset he’d have been in heaven, that’s for sure, but he didn’t appreciate being taken for a fool.”

I thought about the secret I was keeping from Dan and quavered inside. “What did he do when he found out?”

“He ended it. Told them he wasn’t prepared to two-time either of them. He’s an old-fashioned guy at heart is my Dan; a one-woman man.” Pat turned twinkling eyes on me and gave a theatrical shrug. “I can’t for the life of me think where he gets that from.”

I listened to more stories, including one about how Dan had
once been pursued by a female weight lifter at the wedding of a friend and how he’d used the bridegroom’s car as a getaway vehicle.

“He was always being pursued by some female or other,” Patrick said as he took a satisfying pull at his beer. “He just didn’t seem ready to be pinned down by any of them.”

By the time we heard Dan’s key in the lock and the scrabbling of the dogs’ claws on the wood block flooring in the hall, Pat and I were laughing together like old friends. We both looked up when Dan appeared at the living room door. He gazed from his father’s rosy cheeks to the empty beer bottles on the hearth and raised an eyebrow questioningly. By then I was sipping at a mug of tea I’d made in his kitchen, and I put the mug down guiltily and rose to greet him.

“I’m sorry to have left Frankie with you for so long,” I said. I ruffled Frankie’s silky head as she tried to leap up into my arms. “Your dad and I have been having a chat.”

Dan groaned. “What’s he been telling you?”

“All sorts of things,” I said with a grin. “You seem to have had a very interesting life.”

“Don’t you believe the half of it,” he said, kissing me on the cheek. “And the other half you should take with a pinch of salt.” I sat down again as he helped himself to one of the bottles of Guinness, not bothering with a glass. “Did you bring these?”

“She knows the way to a man’s heart does that one,” Pat said happily. “Now, if the two of you will excuse me, I’m going upstairs to have my afternoon nap. If you go out, take the dogs; they’ll only get bored and wake me up, so they will.”

We watched the old man make his way unsteadily from the room, then Dan came over and pulled me back to my feet, encompassing me in a bear hug.

“I was beginning to think you’d abandoned your dog and left the country,” he murmured into my hair. “You sure slept late!”

“I am sorry, but I did need the sleep, and I’ve managed to do my weekly shop as well.”

“Glad to be of service,” he said, laughing.

He held me at arm’s length and seemed to study my face minutely before reaching out and drawing me toward him. I thought of Grant squeezing my arms the previous night, how he’d asked me to promise I wasn’t seeing another man, and I felt a tremor of apprehension run through me.

“What is it?” Dan asked, frowning. “That’s the second time you’ve looked frightened when I’ve touched you.”

“It’s nothing,” I lied. “I’m a bit cold, that’s all.”

Leaning into him, I rested my head on his shoulder.

He held me and stroked my hair, and I relaxed in his warm embrace.

“What would you like to do?” he asked. “Stay here, go to your place, or walk the dogs?”

“Let’s walk on the Downs,” I suggested. “Before it gets dark. I’d like to go back to the spot where we met.”