you know? If I’d have known then what I know now...”
“...You’d probably have done the same thing.”
He laughs again. “Probably. I was pretty arrogant then. I thought I could get away with anything. But not now.”
“No. Chloe has you on a tight leash.” I’m smiling at the thought of Wade being controlled by another, someone other than me. He loves her and I think it’s real. If he doesn’t screw things up then he might go the distance, at least as far as most.
He grins but looks down, nods to himself. “It means a lot to me that you’re taking my money.”
“Why?”
“I think you may be right. I think that we’re going to part ways with this deal. I don’t like the thought of it, but I’d feel a whole lot better if I knew that you and your family are taken care of. I mean, I was almost part of that family at one point.”
“You still are.”
“What?” he says looking at me with raised brows.
“Like it or not, you’re part of my story, Quinn’s story, and even our baby’s story. Some parts we’d like to erase, but we can’t. And I wouldn’t want to anyway. I have to take the good with the bad.”
“And it was bad for a while there.”
“Worse for some.”
“True,” he says with a grin. “What are you going to do after six months?”
“I’ll think of something.”
We’ve caught up to our wives. They’ve stopped at a particular cot. It’s made of wood, beautifully built and carved.
“This one,” Quinn says, but she makes a face. “It’s a bit expensive.”
I look at the tag, show it to Wade, and we both laugh.
In the next episode of Twenty Four Weeks…
Judd suspects that Wade is about to be unfaithful to Chloe… A new friendship has Judd feeling suspicious… Judd learns some truths about Grant…
Wade leans in, tells her a joke and she laughs, pushes back her hair behind her ear, looks down and smiles. He puts a hand gently on her arm and she doesn’t pull away.
I make my way over to him, stand behind the new intern. “Can I talk to you for a minute, boss?” I ask him.
We’re in his office again, and he’s sitting behind his desk. “What’s up?” he asks me.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“With that girl.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re flirting with that intern.”
“No I wasn’t.”
“Yes you were. I saw you.”
“I wasn’t flirting with anyone.”
“The hell you weren’t.
…
“Well, this is it,” Eric, Wade’s manager, tells us. “I’ve looked it over, and this is the best deal we’re going to get.”
Wade turns over the first page and whistles. “Am I reading this right?”
“You are.”
Wade slides it over to me.
“Seriously!”
“The rest of the contract goes over how the show will be structured, who will do what and when. They don’t guarantee any particular time slot, or that the show will be continued after a pilot run of ten, but I think we’ve got a good deal here.”
I turn over the pages, one by one, and I don’t see anywhere where he can guarantee bringing over his own staff. I don’t say anything about it. I pass the document back over.
“It’s a good deal,” I tell him. “You should sign it.”
…
I’m walking back over to Quinn with a coffee in hand. Once again, instant. Once again, tolerated for the purposes of something to hold while we mingle after the class. She is talking to another couple. The woman looks to be as advanced as my wife. They appear harmless enough, professional, happy. Like us, I guess, but without the baggage.
“Judd,” Quinn says, “come meet Ted and Sarah.”
I shake the husband’s hand. “Ted Wentworth,” he says. “My wife, Sarah.” I shake hers too.
Quinn leans in. “Bathroom,” she says, and retreats, leaving me with the strangers she’s introduced me to. They weren’t at classes last week.
“So, Judd is it?”
I nod.
“What work do you do, Judd?”
I think quickly. “Advertising mostly.”
…
“Have you seen Wade,” I ask Kenny. He looks to the copy room, one of Wade’s favourite rendezvous places. I stand at the door and listen. I know it’s wrong. I know it’s creepy. The realisation has me step away quickly and wait for him to come out. But he doesn’t. One of the new interns does – the girl from earlier this week. She has a smile on her face. Wade follows a moment later, closes the door behind him and turns. I’m in his face.
“Nothing’s going on,” I say, just like he’d told me on Tuesday.
“This is not what it looks like.”
“Really. Because it sure looks like you just slept with that girl. But that couldn’t be right, because you assured me that nothing’s going on. So, maybe you were… what? Talking? Using the copier, perhaps?”
“Just talking.”
“Talking?”
“She’s finding it hard here, so I said I’d give her some advice about surviving in this place.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I’m a generous guy.”
“Real generous.”
…
Quinn comes over to me. Her work colleagues have made their speeches, given their gifts. She looks like she’s had enough. I help her on with her coat.
“Can I ask you something?” I ask her and she nods.
“It might sound like a strange question to ask after we’ve got this far, but I was wondering...”
“Yes?”
“Why didn’t you just leave me before you started with Wade? Why didn’t you just say: look, this isn’t working for me anymore? Then you’d have been free to go with him without all of what happened. And I’d be free to... whatever. You know what I mean? Why didn’t you just leave me?”
She shakes her head but she smiles. It’s a little sad, but here is some deep affection behind her eyes that makes me want to kiss her. “Do you really have to ask that?” she says.
“I’d like to know.”
…
“Did you know that Grant hasn’t been well for a while?” Mary’s sister asks me.
“You mentioned he’d had a heart attack before.”
“The one that killed him was his third.”
“Really?”
“It was the second one that did the damage though. He never quite got over that one. He was supposed to retire after the Maine seminar, spend the rest of his life in quiet contemplation with Mary in this very garden. And then you came along.”
If she’s accusing me of anything she’s keeping it out of her voice. She says it like it’s a fact, simply a step in a chain of events. And here I am, a step, one of many, leading to his third and fatal heart attack.
“I was his last case,” I say quietly, like it’s an honour and not a curse.
“You and your wife. His last lost cause.”
Download regularly the Episode Guide for updates on this series. Additionally there is an Adult version (contains adult themes, coarse language, sexual references, high-level sex scenes and some violence) and downloadable audio books of these episodes (adult version).
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