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“Thanks for the invite, but I won’t be around. I’ve got my first date with Paige. Since she lives outside of Providence, I thought I’d take her to Newport for dinner and the fireworks. The Providence Symphony Orchestra is playing down there as part of the celebration too.” Before he’d left Providence, he’d made them a reservation at the Spiced Pear. He still needed to call Paige and let her know when he planned on picking her up. Yesterday he’d intended to but lost track of time. Until now he hadn’t thought of it again.
Dylan took the last sip from his glass. “Stop by Sunday, then. Everyone will still be there.”
Perhaps he’d stop in on his way back to Manhattan. “Maybe. If I do, I won’t stay long. I’m flying out to London Monday morning. We’re still having issues with the new Grosvenor Square project.” So far the company’s newest London project was proving to be the biggest headache he’d faced since becoming the head of architecture, design, and construction for Sherbrooke Enterprise in Europe and South America. If it continued this way, he’d consider asking for a position in the mail room instead.
“Gray and I had a video conference concerning it this morning,” Dylan said.
He’d had one with his cousin as well. They’d mapped out the strategy Scott would use to get the project back on track when he got to England. The sooner he got it going again the better. Various setbacks had already pushed the company’s timetable back three months.
“I’m headed over to the club for dinner. Are you interested?” If his wife wasn’t around, Dylan tended to eat out.
“Nah, I’ve got things to finish here.” If he had to make another trip to Providence this weekend and then fly out right afterward, he wanted to leave a clean slate behind. In order to accomplish that, he had several long days ahead of him.
When Dylan left, Scott reached for his smartphone. Before he forgot again, he’d call Paige and give her the specifics for the weekend. Pulling up her contact information, he pressed Call and waited. When her voice mail immediately picked up, he left a short message letting her know he’d pick her up at five o’clock on Saturday. With one more thing done for the day, his thoughts turned back to his conversation with Dylan rather than his work. A cursory Internet search would answer a question or two he had about the woman he’d be having dinner with. And it wasn’t as if it was illegal to look someone up. Paige could’ve spent the weekend searching the Internet for information about him.
Before he changed his mind, Scott went back to his desk and typed the name Michael Foster into his preferred search engine. Numerous sites popped up on the screen, with the Foster Oil corporate website at the top. Since an official company site wouldn’t have the particular information he wanted, he skipped it. Instead, he opened the second link, which brought him to a popular biography site.
The first page talked about Foster’s parents and where he’d attended school. Scott skipped over it and moved on. The second page got him closer to what he was looking for. It opened with a picture of a young Michael Foster and his wife on their wedding day. Quickly, he scanned the paragraph until he found what he wanted.
In 1951, Michael and Lucinda Foster welcomed their first child, Michael Jeremy Foster Jr. Two years later their daughter Mary was born. Iris, their youngest daughter, was born three years later.
Scott continued to read, looking for any further mention of Michael Jr. All he found were details concerning Iris’s and Mary’s marriages and then the death of Lucinda Foster in 1986. After that, it went on to describe the various charities the man supported. Nowhere did it mention his grandchildren, although Scott knew for a fact he had several besides Paige and her brother. One had even graduated from Harvard with his cousin Gray.
With the oil tycoon’s son’s name, he could now do another search and see what he found out about Paige’s father. And Michael Jeremy Foster Jr. had to be her father.
Forget about it. It’s none of my business.
Scott closed the browser before he did anything he’d later regret. If Paige wanted to share her family history on Saturday, fine. If not, that would be fine too. It wasn’t as if they were going to spend their lives together.
***
“O Fortuna”, a song that didn’t fit with the music she usually listened to, but one she loved, erupted from her purse as she turned onto her street. Reaching over she dug blindly through her bag, again cursing herself for not always putting the smartphone in the purse’s side pocket.
Mrs. Wagner, who lived next door, waved as she passed by, and Paige paused in her search so she could return the gesture. Although it didn’t matter much anymore, because she’d missed the call. Whoever had been trying to reach her would have to wait. Before she did anything else, a glass of sangria and a piece of Favre chocolate were in her future. It’d been one of those kinds of days. Once she saw to those two cravings, she’d turn her attention to other matters, like the call she’d missed.
Paige gathered up her purse and insulated lunch bag. As she opened the car door, she spotted Clarissa, a close friend from college and neighbor to the left, walking across the lawn toward her driveway. Even before Clarissa said anything, Paige guessed what the first words out of her mouth would be. She’d been getting the same questions all day, which was why more than anything she wanted to kick back and enjoy a glass of sangria and some ridiculously divine chocolate.
While she doubted it would help, it never hurt to take control of a conversation before Clarissa got going. “Hey, did you and Alan have a nice weekend?” Paige asked when Clarissa stopped near her.
“Fabulous. We had trouble leaving. I would’ve stopped by and dropped this off yesterday, but we got home late,” she answered, holding out a box of Vermont’s best maple candies.
“You’re the best. I haven’t had any of these since the last time you went up to visit your brother.” Was it possible her friend didn’t know about the events at the auction? Could she have merely stopped by to drop off some candy? She hoped so. “Do you want to come in? I made sangria yesterday.”
“Love to. Alan’s working tonight, and I want to hear all about the auction.”
So much for that hope. Paige should’ve known Clarissa would’ve either heard or read about the fundraiser. It’d been all over the Internet and in the society section of the Sunday paper. Perhaps tonight called for two glasses of sangria and Favre chocolate. Some while she answered Clarissa’s questions, and some after her friend went home.
Ryder, her cocker spaniel-pug mix, greeted her the moment she opened the door. After giving him a scratch behind the ears, she let him outside. Then she stopped and dropped her lunch bag and purse on the counter. “Help yourself to anything, including the brownies. I’ll be right back.” Before leaving the kitchen she did a visual search of her purse and located her smartphone. “I need to change.” While her hospital scrubs were comfortable, she’d worn them all day.
As she walked, she logged i
n to her voice mail.
She would’ve known whom the message was from the moment she heard the voice even if he hadn’t started by saying his name. Scott kept the message short and to the point. Other than telling her he’d made their reservation at the Spiced Pear and would pick her up at five on the Fourth, he didn’t say anything else before ending the call.
Man, of all the calls to miss today it had to be his. If he’d called ten minutes later, she could’ve answered. Now what? Should she call him back and let him know she received the message? If it’d been a friend or a family member, she’d finish changing and call them now. Then again, many of them would’ve asked her to call back so they knew the message had been received. Scott hadn’t asked her to. Did he assume a call back wasn’t necessary, or did he think she’d call even though he hadn’t asked her to? He ex-husband would’ve assumed it wasn’t necessary. Benjamin put a lot of faith in technology and never stopped to consider that sometimes messages and e-mails disappeared into the vast emptiness of space. More than once they’d found themselves on different pages because he sent her messages and she never received them.
“Do you want me to pour you some sangria?” Clarissa called from the kitchen.
