Rom-Com Collection

“You know,” Hester said in her loud, bouncing voice, “I thought about being a vet. But I’m not really fond of animals, and my scores weren’t high enough. Had to go slumming in plain old medical school. Johns Hopkins. Where’d you go?”

“Tufts,” Ian said.

“Impressive,” Hester practically shouted. “Our brother just dropped out of Tufts.”

“How was your seminar?” I asked.

“It was great. All sorts of new hormone therapies, just waiting to plump up Miss Egg for Mr. Sperm. Well, gotta run. See you soon, Callie. Nice meeting you, Owen.”

“It’s Ian,” I corrected, but my sister was already halfway out the door. “She’s a fertility doctor,” I informed Ian.

“I remember,” he said. At my look, he added, “From the DMV.”

“You love to bring that up, don’t you?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Her daughter looks just like her,” he observed.

“I know,” I said. “Which is funny, since both Hester’s kids are adopted.” I looked up at him. “Do you have kids, Ian?”

He shook his head. “No. No, my ex-wife … no. We didn’t.”

There was more to that story, I could tell, but whatever discussion might have ensued was swallowed as the latest batch of mothers came to fetch their Brownies. One of them was Taylor Kinell, Keira the Cruel’s mother. She was clad in expensive, skintight and age-inappropriate clothing … anemic T-shirt with fabric so thin it was basically gauze, low-slung dark jeans, hand-torn by the designer, no doubt. She bent down and opened her arms to Keira, giving us a flash of her tramp stamp and thong. “Hello, baby girl!” she cooed in the general direction of her child, though she was looking at Ian. Ah. Mother of the year parades wares in front of hottie vet. Sure enough, she whipped off her Prada sunglasses and blasted a huge smile at Ian.

“I have paperwork to do,” Ian muttered. With that, he fled down the hall to his office. I couldn’t blame him.

Walking over to Taylor Kinell, I slapped on a fake smile. “Taylor, we had a little problem today with Keira,” I began.

“Mommy! Mommy? Mommy!” Keira began, tugging her mother’s hand. “You said we could go out for dinner! I want to go out for dinner! I hate eating at home! Can we go? Mommy! Mommy? I’m bored! This was so boring! Mommy! You said we could eat out!”

“Yes, honey, I said we could. Where do you want to go, huh?” Taylor said. Keira kept yanking her mother’s anemic arm so hard I was surprised she didn’t rip it off and, being Keira, start gnawing on it.

“Keira, I’m talking to your mother right now,” I said patiently. She was only a kid, after all. Being evil was probably more nurture than nature.

“So? I’m hungry! Let’s go, Mommy!”

“Taylor, Keira made fun of another child today, twice, and as you know, bullying isn’t allowed in Brownies. Or really, anywhere else, right? Keira, saying mean things hurts people’s feelings, honey.”

“I don’t care,” Keira said.

Ooh. I turned to look at Taylor once more. “She won’t be able to stay in Brownies if she doesn’t learn some basic manners. Keira, would you like it if someone called you a dummy?”

“Which no one would, because you’re so smart, angel-love,” Taylor said immediately, shooting me a death glare. “As for Brownies, we were planning on leaving anyway. It’s a little bourgeois. Come on, baby. You can have two desserts tonight. Let’s go.”

My blood pressure bubbled dangerously. Did Taylor think she was doing her child a favor, raising her that way? I almost felt sorry for Keira. In ten years, she’d be the despised popular girl in high school, no true friends, everyone gossiping about her behind her back as she wielded her parents’ money like a weapon.

“Thanks for chaperoning, Callie,” said Sarah, Caroline Biddle’s mother. She held her daughter by the hand, her face bright with the joy of seeing her child again. Now here was a mother.

“Oh, my pleasure,” I said, then paused. “Did Michaela speak to you?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she answered, her eyes speaking volumes. “Please tell Dr. McFarland he’s CNN’s hero of the year, as far as I’m concerned.”

I smiled. “Will do. Sorry I couldn’t … do more.” Once again, the thought of Caroline’s dejected little face made my throat grow tight.

Sarah smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Caroline, thank Callie for the special day, honey.”

“Thank you, Callie!” the little girl said, locking her arms around my thighs and hugging tight. “Bye! I love you!”

“Bye, sweetness,” I said, smiling down at her. “I love you, too.” I watched as they left, Caroline chattering away, beaming, still holding her mommy’s hand, and I couldn’t help feeling a pang of envy at the sight of them, mother and child, so adoring of each other that nothing and no one else mattered. Caroline’s dad was a prince, a builder who thought the sun rose and set on his wife and child. Annie, Jack and Seamus were like that, too. The three of them together—the essence of happiness. Everything else was gravy.

The last of the Brownies left, and the office was abruptly quiet. “Callie?” I jumped. Ian had reemerged from his office, now that the coast was clear. “Can I see you for a minute?”

“Sure! Sure, of course.”

“Ian, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Carmella said. “Great seeing you, Callie. Nice job with the ankle biters.” “Thanks.” I grinned.

I followed Ian to his office, where Angie was sleeping, curled in her dog bed. The room was orderly—that was putting it mildly—but it wasn’t sterile, not like Muriel’s black-and-white blank space. My own office was cheerfully cluttered, occasionally bordering on chaotic, sticky notes and photos scattered hither and yon, coffee mugs and the like. Ian’s, on the other hand, was very tidy. There were his diplomas, NYU undergrad, Tufts for his DVM. Shelves with heavy textbooks, a small sculpture of a dog. On the wall was a rather nice painting of a sailboat, lots of juicy oil and texture.

But most interesting of all was the framed photo on the cabinet behind his desk. It showed a younger Ian and a very, very beautiful woman. Long blond hair, creamy skin, bone structure to rival Natalie Portman’s. They were both smiling, and an unexpected twinge hit my heart. Ian looked very happy in that picture.

“Your wife?” I asked.

He glanced at it. “Ex-wife.”

Not quite ex in your heart, pal, if you keep her picture here to torture yourself every day. “She’s gorgeous.”

“Yes.” He said nothing else.

“Ian?” I said after a minute had passed.

“Yes?”

“You wanted to speak to me, remember? Though this is quite fun, too.”

He closed his eyes briefly. “Right.” He sighed. “I think I might need to hire you. If you think you can really do something, that is.”

“The warm and fuzzy campaign!” I clapped my hands, startling him. “Good for you, Ian. This will be great!”

“Will it?” he asked.

“Oh, come on. I’m not the dentist, for heaven’s sake.” At that moment, my stomach growled.

“Not again,” Ian said.

“Hush. I’m just hungry. I had a hard day. First I taught old women to hip-hop, then I had to herd the Brownies. Want to grab some dinner? We can talk about things while we eat.”

Ian looked wary. “All right,” he said after much deliberation.

“We can go to Elements,” I suggested. “It’s near where I live, and I can swing by and grab my laptop.”