The Love Book by Nina Solomon

Author:Nina Solomon
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2014-10-28T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

FERTILE GROUND

EMILY AND DUNCAN WERE SPENDING the weekend at his agent’s country house in New Hope. It was the first time since the divorce that the thought of an entire weekend without Zach didn’t seem like a bottomless pit. She knew she was way ahead of herself but she tried to imagine where Duncan’s rolltop desk would fit in her apartment, or hers in his. It wasn’t logical. Charles was logical, methodical, systematic, and it had driven her crazy. He read manuals cover to cover. But logic wasn’t always applicable in matters of love.

That morning, she’d just finished her daily blog when the phone rang. She had a moment of panic, thinking it was Duncan calling to cancel.

“Mrs. Andrews? This is Apthorp Pharmacy.”

Her doctor had called in a prescription for birth control. The automated system probably hadn’t recorded her payment information.

“Yes, just a minute,” she said. “I’ll go get my credit card.”

“No need. I’m calling to say your infertility treatments have been approved by your health insurance.”

“Infertility treatments? My doctor called in birth control.”

“This is Clarissa Andrews, isn’t it?”

“No, Emily Andrews.”

“I’m sorry,” the pharmacist said. “Your number is still listed under Mr. Andrews’s account.”

Clarissa Andrews? Since when had Clarissa started using Charles’s name? Had they gotten married? Zach would have said something, wouldn’t he? Suddenly Charles’s snit about her not packing Zach’s blazer a few weeks ago made sense.

She’d already hung up before she could ask if her own prescription was ready.

* * *

Duncan’s agent lived in a stone house built before the Revolutionary War with small paned windows, shutters, and wide plank floors. The walls were painted authentic colonial colors in keeping with historical records—Meeting House blue, Yarmouth Oyster, Shaker red. And lots and lots of pewter. It reminded her of a trip she and Charles had taken to Colonial Williamsburg except for the stacks of manuscripts and books written by Estelle’s clients, most of whom, as in Duncan’s case, were like family to her. Emily’s heart felt full as though a new world were opening up to her. For the first time, she felt she was standing beyond the velvet ropes.

Estelle and her husband Claude made Emily feel so welcome, kissing her on both cheeks and expressing their approbation to Duncan. They sat in the summer kitchen at a long pine table. Claude poured the wine. The meal was lavish, and definitely not period: choucroute, bouillabaisse, cheese puffs (gougères, Duncan corrected her), and a perfect tarte Tatin which Duncan consumed with uncharacteristic gusto, never once asking for the list of ingredients in the crust.

Then began Emily’s very polite interrogation. Where did she do her doctoral work? Had she read Julian Barnes’s novel? Oh, she hadn’t? But wasn’t she writing about Flaubert? When she answered that she didn’t have a doctorate but that she’d seen both of Flaubert’s “real” parrots in Rouen, they tried another tack. What was she reading? When she told them she was rereading Pride and Prejudice, they looked at her as if she was a precocious little child allowed to sit with the grownups for the first time.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.