Page 12 of In This Together

And there it was, her old friend,panic. She didnothave time for this. She had a dress to pick out, documents to finalise, emails to send, talent agents to contend with.

‘This is ridiculous. I can assure you he’s fine.’

‘Nevertheless, he’s going to have to stay home for forty-eight hours. I’m sorry.’

‘Two days! Are you kidding me?’ Hannah checked her watch. There was no way she could end the day at this hour. ‘I can’t come back to Jersey, I’m at work.’ She sighed. ‘I’ll call my husband and see if he can do the pick-up.’

She hung up the call and immediately called Rod. And called. And called.

On the third attempt, he picked up.

‘Hey, babe. What’s up? I’m kinda in the middle of somethin’.’

‘Well, me too, but TJ’s acid reflux is playing up. He’s been sick and we have to collect him from nursery.’

‘Yeah, okay. Let me know how he is later, babe.’

‘W-wait. Rod? Rod, I have too much on. You have to go.’

‘Babe, I can’t, I’m seeing a guy about another coaching job. I told you about this. Head coach, babe, more money.’

Had he even told her about this? ‘Okay, so what timecanyou get there?’

‘Babe, I’m in Queens. Oh, he’s here, gotta go.’

‘Rod? Rod? Are you there…?’ The line went dead.

In her mind, she threw herself on the floor of Saks and screamedMOTHERFUCKER!

In reality, Rosalie set a jacket she had been considering back on the hanging rack and said, ‘I could pick up TJ for you.’

In that moment, Hannah wished she was in her bathroom at home because that was the only place she allowed herself to cry.

‘Are you sure?’

Rosalie shrugged and gave the kind of smile that suited her angelic soul. ‘Of course. I can pick him up and if he’s really not sick we can come back into the city and pick out a dress for Andi to wear to the concert, then you can get on with whatever else you need to do.’

‘Ros, I could kiss you,’ Hannah said, meaning every word.

5

ROSALIE

As it turned out, Hannah’s five-months-old son hadn’t been suffering from acid reflux when the nursery had called her yesterday and Rosalie had agreed to come to her friend’s rescue. Almost as soon as she had picked him up from daycare and got him safely buckled into the mind-puzzle that was his car seat, TJ had proceeded to throw up all over the back seat of Rosalie’s top-spec Porsche Cayenne.

Her plans of heading back into the city and choosing a dress for Andrea to wear to the Presley John tribute concert had been thwarted by the thought of TJ potentially vomiting on Oscar de la Renta’s finest evening wear in Saks.

So she had tied up her long locks of glossy brown hair, rolled up the sleeves of her jacket and dropped her car at the nearest valet service. Then she had caught a cab to Hannah and Rod’s home in New Jersey.

TJ slept most of the afternoon, which was incredibly dull. So dull, in fact, that once she had exhausted the two men’s fitness magazines that were lying around the modest lounge – the photography skills wereexcellent–and made herself a mug of coffee, she had decided to tidy a few things that looked out of place.

Hannah and Rod’s home was nothing like Rosalie’s modern, on-trend-styled space in the city. They had an old town house with three bedrooms that they had spent years improving. Where Rosalie thought solid rose-wood floors would have been wonderful, they had a light grey rug that was getting worn from three kids wreaking havoc on the threads.

Where Rosalie would have placed succulents on floating shelves around the walls, they had family pictures in mismatched frames. Their sofas had lost their shape from being jumped on and lain across. The soft furnishings were decorated with what looked like chocolate fingerprints.

As TJ had started snoring – she hadn’t known kids snored – she had looked around the space and decided she could take it no more. Then she did something she never did… She found one of Rod’s hooded sweaters, pulled it over her own clothes, and cleaned and tidied Hannah’s home from top to bottom.

She was pooped by the time the older kids had come home from school, barely keeping her eyes open as she snuggled TJ on the sofa. They had hardly registered her presence as they headed straight to the kitchen, banging and needlessly shouting as they raided the food cupboards, leaving boxes and wrappers on every surface that she had slaved away cleaning hours before.

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