Free While We Were Watching Downton Abbey by Wendy Wax Page A

age.”
    “I’m not that old,” Claire protested.
    “I get it, Mom. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you off the hook,” Hailey said with finality.
    “Hailey. I . . .”
    “Gotta run, Mom. But I’ll expect a report about the screening tomorrow.”
    “I . . .”
    “And no Cliffs Notes or Internet watching. I want to hear who was there, what the concierge had to say, and whether he served anything ‘British’ like the description says. Maybe you’ll have tea and crumpets.”
    “Hailey!”
    “I’m not kidding, Mom,” the steamroller formerly known as Hailey Walker said. “I’ll call Edward Parker myself and ask if you were there if I have to.”
    Claire couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. She began a last sputtered protest, but Hailey cut her off.
    “It’s
Downton Abbey
screenings on Sunday nights,” Hailey said. “Or Internet dating. The choice is yours.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

    S AMANTHA DIDN’T EXACTLY TRY TO OUTRUN Edward Parker on her way from the parking garage to the elevators that Sunday evening. But she might have moved a little more quickly than necessary when she saw him crossing the lobby in her direction and realized where he was headed.
    She’d had the most amazing weekend. With Jonathan unexpectedly delayed out on the West Coast, her mother- in-law laid up with a head cold, Meredith in New York, and Hunter up at the lake house with friends, Samantha had had the entire weekend to herself; something that had happened less than a handful of times in the last twenty-six years.
    Feeling a bit like a soldier who surprises himself by going AWOL, she’d blown off all kinds of things before she’d even realized she intended to. Yesterday she’d skipped a symphony guild committee luncheon in order to have lunch at the Varsity instead. There, she’d pulled up to the curb of the seventy-five-year-old institution near the Georgia Tech campus, let a carhop deliver her chili cheese slaw dog, frozen orange shake, and fried peach pie, and devoured every bite.
    Last night she’d dodged a formal fund-raiser in order to stay in and watch a
House Hunters
and
House Hunters International
marathon on HGTV. Today instead of stopping by Bellewood to check on her mother-in-law’s health, Samantha had spent a delicious afternoon at IKEA where she’d covered every inch of every floor of the massive showroom, studying each inexpensive accessory and stick of space-saving furniture with the same fascination she’d once displayed at the Museum of Modern Art, the pyramids at Giza, and the impressionist wing at the Louvre.
    She’d dawdled happily for hours, confident she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew, hemming and hawing over a $9.99 desk lamp and a $2.00 mouse pad shaped like a stiletto. Famished from all the delectable dithering, she stopped in the cafeteria where she bought and consumed a huge helping of Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes buried in cream sauce.
    When Jonathan got home tomorrow, their “schedule” and the parameters of their life would snap back into place. But for these last remaining hours she really, really wanted to do more—or was that less—of the same.
    “Mrs. Davis?” She’d made it to the elevators and pushed the call button when the concierge’s voice sounded somewhere behind her.
    She liked Edward Parker and was genuinely glad that he had been awarded the concierge contract. She was also wholeheartedly in favor of his ideas for enhancing the sense of community in the building. But she was having far too fabulous a weekend flouting her obligations to give in to one now. She didn’t turn around.
    The elevator arrived and the door opened with a ding. Samantha stepped on.
    “Can you hold the elevator?” Parker’s voice had drawn closer.
    Samantha moved a finger toward the “door close” button. Hesitated. Aimed it toward the “door open” button. Pulled it back. She’d already begun imagining lying around the condo in her oldest, most comfortable