perfect end to a perfect dream, and she cannot stop smiling.
“Sustenance. You’ve done a wonderful job, and I thought you could do with a drink.”
“French Martini?”
Adam smiles. “You think I’d forget?”
They exchange a glance, and hold on a second too long. Kit’s heart lurches and she looks down. She can’t do this, it hurts too much. It’s too late for them now, given what happened with Annabel. It’s way beyond the point when she and Adam might have been able to salvage something from whatever chemistry she thought remained.
“This is an incredible party. You’ve obviously worked so hard.” He looks at her gently. “You look tired.”
“I do?” Her face falls. “I thought I’d covered up my shadows expertly. I used Charlie’s make-up.”
“You look beautiful,” he whispers, the smile fading from his face.
Kit’s heart lurches again, and she turns away and sips her drink so he doesn’t see the sudden flush.
“Darling!”
They both swivel to see the familiar figure of Ginny, shimmering in a silver dress, huge diamonds in her ears, her hair piled up, pulling a man along behind her.
“Aha. At last we get to meet the famous Peter!” Kit grins at Adam, the moment broken.
“Darling!” Ginny double-kisses both Kit and Adam. “You two look so adorable together! Are you sure the divorce was a good idea? Honestly, you look like you were made for one another.”
“Oh Mother!” Kits says angrily.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that I love both of you and . . .” She sees the look in Kit’s eye. “Okay, I’ll stop. Anyway, speaking of love, there is someone I’d like you to meet.” She smiles at the man. “This is my daughter and son-in-law, Kit and Adam Hargrove.”
Kit thinks about correcting her, reminding her that Adam is her ex-son-in-law, but she doesn’t. And neither does Adam.
“How do you do?” Adam smiles warmly and shakes his hand. “So nice to meet you.”
“I’m Peter,” he says, turning to Kit. “But nobody other than your mother actually calls me that. Everyone else calls me Plum.”
Plum? Plum? Why is that name so familiar? The clouds of Kit’s memory start swirling as she attempts to place that name, and that face, that tanned, etched face, with startlingly white teeth, a face that somehow she sees as a young man’s, only she doesn’t know how, or why.
“And this is the most bizarre thing,” Ginny bubbles excitedly, “Plum knows Robert!”
Kit looks at him, squinting slightly as if this will help summon the memory.
“From many years ago,” Plum says. “I haven’t seen him since the seventies.”
“Plum Apostoles!” Kit shouts out, as if she is taking part in a game show.
“Yes.” He raises an eyebrow. “That would be me.”
At ten o’clock, Kit finds herself sneaking exhausted glances at her watch. She is so tired, wants to have a hot bath and crawl into bed, but can see no way of leaving this party until the end.
Tracy is ostensibly the hostess, but Kit knows that if there are any problems Tracy will have no interest in sorting them out.
So far tonight, when the ice ran out, and when they needed to rustle up a Band-Aid for a child, it was Kit to whom Robert turned, and while she has welcomed being so busy, now that she is able to stop, she is suddenly shattered, and she knows she needs to take a minute to lie down.
She slips through the kitchen, forcing smiles at the catering staff, who are busy placing tiny jewel-colored petit fours on silver serving trays, through the butler’s pantry and into her familiar office.
She doesn’t bother putting on the lights. All she wants to do is lie down on the sofa and close her eyes. Just for a moment. Just pretend that she is at home in her bed. A five-minute power nap. Her life has been so frenetic of late, organizing this party, that there hasn’t been time to even think about recent events, and there is still so much unfinished business. With Annabel, Steve and, mostly, with Adam.
She needs a five-minute power nap that will replenish her energy enough to get her through the rest of the night, to enable her to pretend she is having a marvelous time.
She lies on the sofa, breathing deeply, trying out a meditation technique she once learned: visualizing a beach, golden sand, turquoise water, palm trees swaying gently in the breeze. She tries, but images of Steve and Annabel keep forcing their way into her mind.
There is so much she doesn’t know. People enter your life and