Free The Night I Got Lucky by Laura Caldwell Page B

she okay?”
    “She’s great,” Hadley said. “She was so nice about the—” she cleared her throat “—baby stuff.” The “baby stuff” was what Hadley cal ed her infertility problems.
    “How’s that going?”
    “It’s not. I think maybe I waited too long.” Her voice was lower now, and it made me sad.
    “God, I’m sorry, Hadley. This must be so hard.”
    “Oh, it’s okay. Nigel mentioned to Mom that we might look into getting a surrogate, since I seem to be the problem, and when Mom heard that, she offered to do it.”
    I cracked up at the image of my nearly sixty-year-old mother with a ripe, pregnant bel y, but it didn’t surprise me that she’d offered to do something scientifical y impossible. My mother would do (or at least attempt to do) anything for us. Particularly since my father had left. At the fleeting thought of my dad, I waited for the usual pang to hit my psyche, the feeling of utter disappointment, a sick wondering of why. But nothing happened. I made myself think of him again. Wonderful y, nothing.
    “So when is Mom heading home?” I asked.
    “Not sure. She’s back in Milan as far as I know. Hold on.” Hadley began talking to someone in her office, rattling off stock prices and cal orders.
    “Hads,” I said, “I’l let you go, but do you know where Mom is staying?”
    “The Grand Hotel. You want the number?”
    I grabbed the pad of paper sitting on our granite bartop and jotted the phone number.
    “Congrats about the promotion, Bil y,” Hadley said. “You deserve it.”
    “Thanks.” But her words somehow failed to register.
    As I dialed the Grand Hotel, Chris came into the kitchen, looking handsome in an olive suit and gold tie. I expected him to dash past me with a kiss on the cheek as usual—especial y after we’d fooled around half the night, both of us only getting a few hours of sleep—but he stopped and hugged me from behind, nuzzling my shoulder.
    “Good morning,” I said slowly, thinking that if I could start out every day with a hug and a nuzzle from my husband, I’d be a very satisfied girl.
    Chris growled. “Come back to bed.”
    I giggled and pointed at the phone. “I’m trying to find my mom. What do you have going on today?”
    Chris nibbled my earlobe, mumbling, “Nothing important,” before he disentangled himself and began taking eggs and turkey bacon from the fridge.
    “What are you doing?” I said as the phone rang at my mother’s hotel.
    “Making breakfast for you.”
    I sat there, surprised. “That’s sweet, but I don’t eat breakfast. I don’t like it.”
    “You just think that.” Chris slipped off his suit coat and turned up his shirtsleeves.
    “No, I real y don’t like breakfast. And you know it, too.” I could eat a big lunch with clients, I could inhale a fat bowl of pasta from Merlo for dinner, I could consume a large buttered popcorn at the movies, but I could not eat breakfast. There was something repulsive about eating first thing in the morning. It was as if my stomach hadn’t yet woken up with the rest of my body.
    Chris shook his head and gave me a knowing smile as he went about cracking eggs.
    I was about to reassert how much I didn’t want breakfast, but cooking for me was such a kind gesture, so Chris-of-old, that I hesitated, and then a cultured male voice answered with a string of melodic Italian words, two of which were “Grand Hotel.”
    “Katherine Lovel ,” I said.

    “One moment,” the man said, switching to English. “I’l connect you.”
    I listened to the tinny ringing of a phone while I watched my husband sauté onions and some kind of exotic mushrooms. I put my hand over the phone. “Chris, honey, seriously,” I said, shaking my head at his culinary goings-on, but he only winked and waved me away.
    “Pronto?” my mother’s voice cal ed into the phone.
    “Mom, it’s me!” I sounded like a seven-year-old.
    “Baby dol ! How are you?”
    “I’m great. How are you? ”
    “Oh, just