Chapter 51
51
DEAN WALKER’S APARTMENT, DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN
Hayley couldn’t believe he’d walked out. Was her mother right? Was that what would have happened if she’d told him ten years ago? She was hurt and disappointed. Yes, she’d only known him one night back then, but he’d been kind and decent and hadn’t behaved like someone who was going to run the second something unexpected happened. This was all her fault. From beginning to end, it had been a disaster and now Angel was going to be bearing the brunt of all those mistakes. It was even worse that Angel had actually met him. Now she would think he didn’t want to know her. She had meant to protect her from that.
She wiped at her tear-stained eyes and blew her nose as she heard sounds from downstairs. Angel, Dean, Vernon and Randy were back. She had no idea what she was going to say. She couldn’t tell Angel the truth. What was the truth anyway? Michel had just been told he had a nine-year-old daughter. You didn’t get over that in a New York minute. He couldn’t leave things how they were, could he? He would come round. He had to.
Hayley rushed to the sink, splashing cold water on her face and rubbing it dry with the Union Jack tea towel. She had this situation.
And then the door opened and Randy burst through it, his claws skittering over the wood floor towards her, bow tie shining from his furry neck. The dog leapt up at her knee and she stroked its head.
‘Hey,’ Dean greeted cautiously.
‘Hey! Did you have double waffles and hot chocolate?’ Hayley asked like she was an excited children’s television presenter.
Angel was already pouting, her eyes roving over the empty lounge room. ‘Where’s Michel?’
‘Michel?’ She put a question mark at the end of his name which was an instant mistake. She wet her lips and tried again. ‘He had to go. He had an exhibition to get ready for tomorrow.’ More lies .
‘Why don’t we read Randy your favourite Christmas story?’ Vernon suggested to Angel.
‘Did you tell him about me?’ Angel asked.
The look on her daughter’s face was killing her. So much hope was written there, so much love too. This meant everything to Angel and she wasn’t about to rip that apart until absolutely necessary.
‘Yes,’ Hayley said, eyes shining with more tears. ‘Yes, I did.’ She swallowed. ‘It’s a big thing… a really big thing to take in and… he’s doing so well with his art and he’s really busy right now.’ She paused. ‘We just need to give him a little bit of time.’
It sounded lame and nowhere near enough.
‘So we just need to sit tight and wait a little bit longer, OK?’ Hayley asked Angel.
Angel nodded. ‘OK.’ Her voice was soft, lacking in any real emotion.
‘OK?’ Hayley checked .
Angel nodded again. ‘His eyes are just like mine, aren’t they?’ she stated.
Hayley smiled. ‘Yes, they are.’ She said a mental prayer in the hope God was watching this and that he could send a team of disciples to give Michel a kick up the backside.
Restaurant Romario, Greenwich Park
‘So, what are you thinking of doing on this sabbatical?’ Cynthia asked. She slipped an olive into her mouth and watched Oliver from across the table.
‘I have no idea. Try and stay alive long enough to enjoy it, I guess,’ he responded, grinning.
‘That isn’t funny, Oliver.’
He took a swig of his beer. ‘I need to sort out the unholy mess at the company first. Peter Lamont’s dismissal, the Regis Software episode…’ He looked at his mother then, wanting to gauge her reaction. She had been stronger than he could have imagined over Andrew Regis and he knew how much it must have hurt to have her trust and loyalty betrayed.
‘Cole is quite capable of stepping up to the plate,’ Cynthia said.
‘I know,’ Oliver replied. ‘I’m just not quite ready to hand over the reins just yet.’
‘And if you had another focus? Something else to concentrate on in the meantime?’
Her last sentence made him realise where this was heading and he was shaking his head with a whole lot of certainty. ‘No.’
‘You don’t even know what I’m going to say,’ Cynthia said, picking up her wineglass.
‘I definitely do know. ’
‘I want you to speak at the McArthur Foundation fundraiser, Oliver.’
‘Mom, we’ve done this before. I don’t want to get into another fight about it.’
‘Neither do I,’ Cynthia responded, putting her glass back down on the table. ‘So, why don’t you tell me about Hayley Walker?’
Oliver fumbled with his beer bottle and it slipped from his hand, spilling some of its contents on the red and white tablecloth. He reached for his napkin and began to mop up the fluid. His mother had thrown him. He didn’t know what to say. Had Hayley told his mother about them? How else would she know?
‘Oliver, I still come here with Janice and Linda.’ She reached across the table and lay a hand on his arm. ‘Anna told me you brought someone here, how you were with each other… Tony filled me in on the rest.’
Oliver’s eyes shot to the bar area where Tony was making drinks for other tables.
‘Don’t worry, he didn’t give you up easily. I did have to threaten every bad teenage photo I have of him, blown up to poster size and put on the windows of his new restaurants.’
Oliver blew out a breath. ‘There’s nothing to say. We had one date and then I realised it wasn’t going to work.’
And he’d been reliving every moment of their time together ever since. Her laugh, the way she talked at a hundred miles a second, her enthusiasm for life. And there it was. How could someone so full of life be forced into his pity party?
‘You know she’s helping me organise the fundraiser?’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, she told me.’
‘She’s doing an excellent job.’
‘She’s an excellent person.’ He raised his eyes to his mother then. ‘Very capable. ’
Cynthia let a sigh leave her lips. ‘It doesn’t have to be this way, Oliver.’
‘It doesn’t have to be what way?’
‘Running from your feelings doesn’t make them go away. All it does is make you sad and the person you have feelings for even sadder.’
He picked up a slice of pizza from his plate, thought about eating it, then dropped it down again. ‘I can’t do what you did with Dad and Ben.’
‘What did I do?’ Cynthia asked. ‘Except love them unconditionally?’
‘There! That. Exactly that.’ He wiped his fingers on the napkin. ‘How can I expect someone to care for me unconditionally when the truth is I could die at any time?’
Cynthia shook her head. ‘I was in a very dark place when we lost Ben. We all were. But your father, he held us all together as best as he could, knowing his number could be up at any time.’ She placed the flats of her hands on the table as if she was garnering strength from its solidity. ‘He told me that everybody in this world could die at any time and he was right. All of us are dying, Oliver. I could get run over in the street, or be gunned down by that gang over in the housing project; there’s risk just getting up in the morning.’ She smiled then. ‘But we can’t all stay in bed. Netflix wouldn’t cope with demand.’
‘Mom…’ Oliver started.
‘You need to stop being so afraid and contact the consultant, Oliver. And then, tell Hayley everything.’ Cynthia paused. ‘If she’s the person you think she is then it won’t matter one bit.’