“Who wants to order? Oh, should I bring more menus?” Brittany asked.

“You know, Brittany,” I said, chewing, “we need a little privacy.”

“That’s fine! Call me when you’re ready! My name’s Brittany!”

“We know,” Mom said icily, staring at her nametag. Brittany backed away.

“So what’s going on here, Toby?” Tanya said. Mom’s eyes narrowed even more. “I take it you didn’t want to just catch up.”

“Well, see, Eleanor and I…we…well, we’re thinking about reconciling. But she wants a little…closure, might we call it, El?”

“We might,” Mom said. “You see, Tanya, is it? You were sleeping with my husband when I was pregnant with our third child. Which I found quite…unsettling.”

“You gotta be kidding me,” Tanya muttered, giving Dad an evil look. “You cheated on your pregnant wife? You shit.”

“Very bad of me, I realize that. I’m deeply sorry,” Dad babbled.

“Very bad, I’ll say. I would’ve strung you up by your balls,” Tanya said. Dad’s face drained of its last bit of color.

“But let’s not forget your own role in this,” Mom said. “You slept with a married man.” Each word was an acid-dipped razor. “Tobias said you knew he was married.”

“Yeah. I did. So sue me,” she said.

Dad stiffened. Mom stiffened. I grabbed another hunk of bread.

“I mean, I didn’t know you were pregnant,” Tanya continued, “and if I had, I would never have gotten near him. He said he was separated.” She nailed Dad with a look nearly as terrifying as my mother’s reptilian gaze and continued. “My husband died the year before. I was looking for a meaningless fling, had dinner with Toby here once, slept with him, and that was that.” She paused. “It wasn’t my proudest moment, but I was lonely. And I wasn’t married. Your husband couldn’t keep it in his pants. I think you should blame him.”

“Oh, I do,” Mom said. “Believe me, I do.” But she looked slightly daunted, perhaps realizing that the first stop on the Tour hadn’t been quite the trashy slut she’d imagined.

“So.” Tanya looked around the table at each of us. “Anything else?”

I couldn’t help it. I kind of liked Tanya. “Well, now, Tanya’s got a point,” I said. “You wanted to meet her, here she is. Can we be done? Is everyone happy now? Yes?” I glanced at the aging hippie, feeling more than a twinge of pity for her. “I think we’re done, Tanya. Sorry for this.” Then, in my need to make everyone on earth think well of me, I added, “I love your, uh…shoes.”

Tanya stood with great dignity and surveyed the three of us. Very deliberately, she picked up her full water glass and tossed the contents in Dad’s face. Then she snatched up the bread basket and the little bowl of chilled butter and walked out, right past Dave, who didn’t say a word.

My parents sat in silence. Water dripped off Dad’s hair and down into his collar.

“Thank you so much for making me stay,” I said. “I’m getting cheesecake. And you guys are paying.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ON MONDAY MORNING, I came into the office full of my usual sunshine and butterflies (or so I liked to think). I pretty much had the corner on the market for sunshine and butterflies… Pete and Leila were so wrapped up in each other, they almost had their own language, like children raised by wolves or whatnot. Karen was best left alone until after ten…it was only safe to go past her office if you were planning to toss in a hunk of raw meat or a double-shot cappuccino. Damien, of course, felt it was beneath his dignity to be cheerful. Fleur preferred to burst into the office, always ten minutes late, talking about hangovers and weekends in New York City and needing a smoke before she could reasonably be expected to function.

“Right,” she said now, barreling down the hall. “Cheerio, old bean. What’s the news?”

“Not much,” I said. Fleur was much friendlier when Muriel wasn’t around, something I’d noted and filed away. Mark and Muriel hadn’t arrived yet, hence the “old bean” bit. “How was your weekend?”

“Went out with a total wanker, Callie, you’d simply die if I told you.” She then proceeded to slay me by launching into a story about a man, a largemouth bass and a thong, but between her colloquialisms and nicotine buzz, I couldn’t quite keep up. Still, I nodded cheerfully when I guessed it was appropriate.

“So, Callie, it must be hard, seeing them together all the time. They’re really in love, aren’t they?” Fleur asked. Before I could find a way to answer that, she went on. “Anyway, I’ve been meaning for us to have a chat. You ever see that bloke? The vet?”

“Um, yes, actually. My niece had a field trip to his office. I might be doing a little work for him on the side.”

“Really? Oh.” Fleur flashed a quick smile, then began reapplying her lipstick, and mussed her short hair. “Right. Seems like a sweetie, yeah?”

“Sure,” I said, though sweetie felt a bit left of center when I thought of Ian. Which I seemed to be doing a lot. Over the weekend, in between sanding a canoe for Noah, trying out some new hip-hop moves while Bronte howled with horrified laughter, babysitting for Seamus and taking Josephine for a kayak ride, I’d started work on Ian’s Web site. E-mailed him a request for a picture of him and Angie and was still waiting for an answer. Called a bunch of people for the pet fair, which would be held in two weeks.

“I saw him as well,” Fleur said. “Down at Toasted & Roasted, yeah? Had ourselves a coffee. He was sending out signals, yeah?”

“Really? He told me…uh, never mind.”

“What?” she demanded.

“Well,” I said hesitantly, “he said he wasn’t looking for a relationship right now. But of course, he may be feeling differently with you.”

She smirked. “Differently, is it? Could be. Well, I’d best get on. Cheerio!”

I definitely could not see Ian and Fleur as a couple. Wondered just what that coffee meant. Knowing Fleur, they could’ve just passed each other on the street—God knew the woman exaggerated her love life. But on a real date? No way. Not the way she talked a mile a minute, always with the crazy stories and… Now, now, Callie, said my inner Michelle. Don’t be catty.

Right. Besides, I had work to do. I set down my coffee and turned on my computer, staring into space as it warmed up. Well, not space, exactly. At a picture of Mark and me at the Clios. My dress had been absolutely adorable…this plum-colored A-line number with lighter purple flowers sewn on the bodice. Lots of great cleavage. I looked so happy. Mark did, too. We had been happy…

Might want to toss that one, Mrs. Obama offered. She was, as usual, right. But not just yet.

I forced my attention away from the photo and smiled. Fake smiling can lead to real smiling, I once read, and real smiling is good for a person. Still, my heart sighed.

Around ten, there was a ruckus in the hallway. “Give me ten minutes, Damien!” Mark snapped. Uh-oh. He rarely lost his cool in the office. Trouble in paradise? Betty Boop perked up.

Mark strode right into my office, which seemed to shrink instantly.

“Hey, Mark,” I said, giving him a big smile.

He didn’t smile back. Instead, he closed the door and put his hands on his hips. “What’s this I hear about you doing some freelance work for some vet?”

“Oh, yeah,” I answered easily. “A little PR for the guy who came on the BTR hike. Not big enough for the agency. Web site, stuff like that. I’ll probably charge him two hundred bucks.” I paused. “I e-mailed you about this over the weekend.”

“I’ll be the judge of whether it’s big enough for the agency, Callie,” he growled.

I blinked in surprise. “You never minded me doing little jobs before, Mark,” I pointed out. “The seniors’ center, the nursery school…”

“Right,” he said. “But…well, you should’ve asked.”

“I did, Mark. I e-mailed you.”

“Right,” he said again. He took a deep breath, then sighed and sat down on my couch, running a hand through his tousled hair. “Are you two seeing each other?”

I nearly choked. “Um…no! No, Mark.”

He looked at me for a long minute. “Are you seeing anybody these days?” His voice was velvety soft. The same voice he’d used in Santa Fe.

I took a quick breath. “It’s…I…it’s not really your business, is it?” My heart rolled.

Mark glanced through the wavy glass wall toward Fleur, who was clicking on her computer and probably straining to overhear us. “No, I guess not,” he said, dropping his eyes to the floor. “It’s just…I’m sorry, Callie. Didn’t mean to be a prick.”

“It’s okay,” I said, my voice cracking a little. My stomach felt hot, my knees tingled.

I heard Muriel’s voice then, and the sound of her office door closing. Swallowing, I took a breath—seemed like I’d forgotten to for a few minutes. “Anything else, Mark?” I asked in a normal tone.

“Actually, yes.” He looked down at the floor. “I just took a look at your idea for Hammill Farms. I have some problems with it. You need a new concept.”

My mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. You need to rethink it.”

“I…I… Really?”

“Yes, Callie,” he said in a harder tone. “Really.”

Hammill Farms was one of our biggest accounts, second only to BTR. They’d made syrup here in Vermont for 150 years and wanted to do for syrup what Grey Goose had done for vodka—have people appreciate the good stuff, basically. They were also willing to fork out the cash to do so. The owner, John, was obsessed with syrup—he’d nearly gotten Mark and me drunk on the stuff when we’d visited. That was the week before Muriel came. The week before my birthday.

We were showing John the concept this week, and honestly, I thought it was one of my best campaigns. In the television spots, we’d hear the narrator say: John Hammill is a man obsessed. Then we’d show John, like a master winemaker, holding up a glass of syrup to the light as he waxed poetic, extolling the thickness, the clarity, the grade, the subtleties of flavor. Then we’d go to footage of John in action, tramping through the woods, kissing his maples, talking about ideal conditions and the tradition of syrup-making as he checked the sap lines and boiler, talking nonstop. We’d end with him pouring syrup onto a stack of pancakes, taking a bite of pancakes and, as he did when we visited, practically falling out of his chair in near-orgasmic pleasure. The voice-over would say: It takes a guy like that to make syrup like this. Fade out to a picture of the farm in winter, the newly designed label and the words Hammill Farms Maple Syrup: Six generations of perfection. The print and Internet ads would echo that theme, as would the radio spots.

The pièce de résistance and my huge home run was the narrator—Terry Francona, the manager of the Boston Red Sox. When we first visited the farm, I’d seen a picture of Mr. Francona in John’s office. Apparently, he’d visited with his family last fall just before the post-season. So I wrote to Mr. Francona’s agent, sent a huge basket of Hammill Farms goodies…maple syrup, maple sugar, gourmet pancake mix, T-shirts—the whole shebang—and said what an honor Terry had bestowed upon the farm with his visit, expressed the importance of family farming here in Red Sox Nation, yadda yadda, and the upshot was that Terry said yes. Every Red Sox fan in New England would recognize that voice.

The concept was fantastic.

“It’s just not what we’re after,” Mark said in the face of my stunned silence.

“Well, what…what are you looking for, Mark?” I asked. This was the first time ever that Mark had disagreed with a concept of mine. He’d tweaked, made suggestions, sure…but he’d never rejected anything of mine before. Well. Any of my work, that is. He’d rejected me just fine.

“I think we’re looking for something a little more…whimsical,” Mark said now.

“Whimsical?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t meet my eyes.

My heart raced sickly. There was another word he used that gave me pause. “And who’s ‘we,’ Mark?”

His expression hardened just a little. “Well, Muriel pointed out that…she thought it was a little… It just wasn’t what we wanted.”

Muriel. “Well, I stand by it. I think it’s a really good idea.”

“That’s fine, Callie, you’re welcome to think that.” His mouth tightened. “But I want something else. We have a meeting with John on Friday morning.”

“And did you and Muriel have anything specific in mind?” I asked.

“Look!” Mark barked. I jumped. “You’re not infallible, okay? You do great work, Callie—we all agree on that—but could you just give us another concept? I need something by Thursday afternoon, if it’s not too much of a problem, okay?”

I swallowed hard. “Yes, of course, Mark. I just…I’m on it.” I paused. “What time’s the meeting on Friday?”

“You don’t need to come,” he said harshly, and with that, he left my office, the door gaping open so I could see straight into Muriel’s black-and-white splendor across the hall. She was on the phone, but she gave me a nasty smile.