bar fridge, even Quinn.
I wonder how we got here, but I guess I know. I walked into his office after one of the darkest periods of my life, offering help that only I could provide. Then, over the next few months, the two of us changed and moulded the program into something so much better. And the fruit of that has shown itself today. I prayed that Josh Banks would get the help he needed, that he would find his wife and kids again. He needed a win just as much as I had, and I prayed for that too. I'm starting to believe in prayer, maybe I'm even beginning to believe in God. I don't know. Someone has been listening.
Wednesday
Quinn is frantically moving about our apartment, picking up things, straightening things, setting up things. I'm in the kitchen, checking on the oven, hoping that my slab of beef will be as good as anything Chloe could cook up.
I hear the mellow tones of Miles again and the lounge room lights go out, replaced by the flickering of candle light. She adds a flame to the tall white candle on the dining table. She makes last minute adjustment to the settings. She exhales deeply, then holds her seven month pregnant belly. Our baby has been kicking more and more and she getting indigestion and the constant need to pee all at once. I don't envy her that. At least the morning sickness is a bad memory.
And there are other bad memories here. I'm aware that Wade has been here to take my beautiful wife away from me. I'm also aware that it will never happen again. I forgive them both again and again.
The intercom buzzes and I let them in. "They're here," I yell to Quinn. She's down in our bedroom making last minute adjustments. Five minutes later and the elevator doors open. Wade and Chloe are kissing.
"Hey there, love birds," I say, just like Wade had done to me many months ago, on the night I decided to speak life in their marriage. I'd like to think that it's my doing that love is so obviously blossoming in front of me, but I think I'm just one line in the rich story of their lives.
"Are you ready for tomorrow?" he asks me as we sit at our table. The diner is perfect and I'm pleased more than I can say.
"I'm okay," I tell him. "You're the one that has to do all the talking."
"True."
"You've read through the questions they're going to ask?"
He nods. "How do you want me to play it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Should I do the old 'man up' thing? Maybe act cool? Maybe I could be all wise?"
"Just be yourself," I tell him.
"No one needs to see that," Quinn says with a smile.
"Thanks for that," Wade replies with a grin.
"I think you'll do great," Chloe says, putting a hand on his arm.
"I do too," Quinn says.
"Can we not talk about work?" Wade asks us. "There's more to life than work."
"It is pretty exciting," Chloe says. Quinn nods, murmurs her agreement.
"But I want to talk about you guys," Wade says, motioning to Quinn and I. "I want to know how you're going."
"And the baby," Chloe adds.
"I think the baby is your department, Quinn," I say.
Quinn smiles warmly whenever we talk about our little girl and I see something of the Quinn that I knew before, when she was carrying our boy. She's smiling now and reaches out her hand for me to take, which I do.
"She's going so well," Quinn says. "We had a sonogram a few weeks ago and everything is right where it should be."
"That's wonderful," Chloe says. "How is the baby room coming along?"
I cough and Quinn turns to me. "That's your department, Judd. Do you want to fill them in?"
"It's on my do-list," I tell them.
"I'd like to help you, if you'd let me," Chloe offers.
As we sit there it strikes me how surreal this situation is. Around this table are four people that are intimately connected. I've slept with Quinn. Wade's slept with both women. Chloe has grabbed me. But it goes deeper than that. Wade cheated on Quinn with Chloe while she cheated on me with Wade. And around it goes. It's bizarre that we're all here, talking like friends, when really we should be fighting, yelling, screaming at each other for the hurts and betrayals that stand between us. But none of that seems to mean anything. Not anymore.
Later the women are sitting on the lounge sipping wine and talking like old friends. Wade and I are clearing up in the kitchen. He's gone quiet for a change.
"You okay?" I ask him.
"What?" he says like he's broken out of a trance.
"What's up?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Damn," he says. "I don't know. I was thinking how our lives could have been so different. How we could have ended up in other places, had Quinn not had that trouble in the hospital."
"I suppose."
"I mean, think about it. She'd be here with me. Chloe and you would be someplace else. Or maybe I'd be still sleeping with her behind Quinn's back. That certainly sounds like something I would have done before. They'd have canned the show and I'd be doing I don't know what. Where would you be do you think?"
"Maybe still in my mother's basement."
He laughs.
"I'm serious," I tell him and he stops. "Or maybe still in Maine someplace, working radio up there, maybe seeing some local girl. I'd come down every second weekend to see my kid. I guess Quinn and I would still be fighting, or maybe not, maybe we're getting on for the sake of our girl. I don't know. I don't think I'd have forgiven her - or you - and I suppose that bitterness would eventually give me cancer."
"You've thought a bit about this."
"I've had a fair bit of time on my own to imagine all sorts of outcomes. But none of that happened. Here we are."
"Here we are. I'm glad it turned out this way."
"Me too. But there's plenty of time for us to screw this up. Don't underestimate either of our abilities to mess things up spectacularly."
"I never do," Wade says with a laugh.
Our guests have gone and all evidence of our dinner has been erased. I'm turning out the lights in the lounge room, turning off the music, closing the blinds. Quinn stands there in her dress, her baby sticking out front, her hair out and he face wearing an easy smile.
I know that look and what she wants.
I walk back to the dining table, where she stands, leaning up against it. She kicks of her heals and jumps up on the table, crossing her legs at the ankles. She motions for me to come to her and I do as I'm told?
After, I lean down and kiss her between her breasts that struggle to remain contained in her beautiful dress. There I lay my head, listen to her heart begin to slow.
"That was good," she says with a sigh. "I've wanted to do that all night. I thought they'd never go home."
"If you told me that sooner, I'd have kicked them out long before now."
She laughs and I kiss her breasts again, savour the taste of her sweat. She starts to sit up, pulls me out and away. She kisses my lips, this time with affection and heads back to our bedroom so she can shower and get dressed for bed. She leaves me to clean up after our fun and turn out the lights and follow her to bed.
Thursday
We sit in the guest rooms behind the studio. Wade is pacing, nervous. I'm not so much. I'm not going on screen. I just get to watch. A little after four they call for us and we wait just out of shot while the host, Jerry Jones, announces him, asks the audience to welcome Wade Beaufort. Wade rides in on the applause.
"So," Jerry begins, "the Man Up Show. Big changes this year."
"Sure have been, Jerry," Wade replies with a smile.
"Why don't you run through that with us?"
"Well... we've been kind of transitioning into a different format for the last few months, trying to tone down the way we were doing things before, trying to bring in a new... atmosphere, if you like."
"What was wrong with the old format?"
Wade laughs a little. "It's no secret I was maybe as little harsh with my callers and guests a while back. I don't know, I guess the show no longer fitted with what
I wanted to be doing."
"And what's that?"
"I still want to tell people what I think, tell them maybe the truths that they're not hearing from the friends, the things they need to hear. But I want to tell them in a way that will get their attention. If that means I yell at them a little then so be it. But it's the content, man. That's the difference. Man Up means more than it did before. Being a man means more than what I presented it before."
Jerry sits back in his chair. "And that leads us to the caller you had two days ago."
"Josh Banks, yeah."
"He had a grievance with you, I understand. Something about what you said to him when he called in earlier."
"Sure."
"Anything you want to tell us about that?"
Wade shrugs. "He rang in a few months ago. I gave him some advice, I guess you'd call it. It was bad advice, and he should have ignored it, but he didn't. Apparently his life went to... can I say 'crap' on air?"
"You just did."
Wade chuckles. "Yeah. And I guess that's the problem with people like me giving out advice for free, because there's a real possibility that it's going to be bad advice - crap advice to be exact. And I don't want to be dishing that out any more."
"And you talked him down."
"I guess that's just part of what we're doing. We want to make some kind of difference to people's lives. You can see what that is, because the old format just gave people pain, the new... well, you can see for yourself."
"I wanted to ask you about what you said to him, how you spoke about yourself."
Wade stares at Jerry Jones. He's gone off the range of topics. I feel my stomach knot up.
"You're going down that line?"
"I think people want to know about the real Wade Beautfort. If