Page 29 of The Housekeeper

Chapter Thirteen

Enter Roger McAdams.

Handsome, successful, charming Roger McAdams. Early forties. Recently divorced, new to the city, and in the market for a place to live. He breezed into my life like a soft, warm wind.

But wait.

We’re not there yet.

First comes Wren.

“Where’s Harrison?” Tracy asked as we were sitting down to dinner one night—salmon, of course. The kids had already eaten and were upstairs playing video games before bed. It was mid-August. Harrison’s course had two more weeks to go.

I poured my sister a glass of white wine. “He had a faculty meeting.”

Tracy checked her watch. “Kind of late.”

I checked my own watch. She was right. It was after eight o’clock. I poured myself a glass of the pleasant Chardonnay and took a sip, feeling the chilled liquid coat my throat like a salve. “He said the meeting might run long.”

She shrugged. “I saw him today, you know.”

I’d spoken to Harrison earlier, when he’d called to tell meabout the unexpected meeting. “Really? He didn’t mention seeing you.”

“Probably because he didn’t.”

“Oh?” I asked, almost afraid to say more, although I wasn’t sure why. Tracy’s classes were in the same building on St. George as Harrison’s. It wasn’t surprising that they would occasionally run into each other.

“At Bar Mercurio,” Tracy continued, naming a popular luncheon spot on Bloor Street, close to the university. “A group of us went there for lunch and he was outside on the patio. Place was packed, so we had to sit inside. Probably why he didn’t see me.”

“You should have gone over to say hello.”

“No. I didn’t want to interrupt him.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded.”

“I don’t know. He looked pretty busy.”

“I take it he wasn’t alone,” I said, regretting my words the second they were out of my mouth.

“No,” Tracy confirmed. “He was with this girl. They were pretty deep in conversation.”

“Probably one of his students.”

“Probably.”

“Probably going over an assignment.”

“Probably,” Tracy said again, a word I was starting to dislike. “She was young,” she continued, unprompted. “Pretty. Long brown hair. Big boobs.”

I tried to block out the image of Wren that sprang immediately to mind. “What are you getting at?” I asked, taking another sip of my wine. This was Tracy’s preferred operating procedure. She always played the innocent, coming at things obliquely, so that she could never be accused of deliberately trying to stir things up.

“Me? Nothing.”

“You make it sound as if there was something going on.”

“Really? I didn’t mean to.”

“I’m sure it was perfectly innocent,” I told her.