“Do you love Mummy again?”

Frannie’s Letter to Phil Kissing! At my age! Is it allowed? Is it unseemly? I feel as though I’ve broken a rule. I’ve gone full circle and I’m fourteen again.

We had a lovely night at the Chinese restaurant. It’s been so long since I’ve eaten Chinese. (I used to take Elisabeth and Alice when they were little for a special treat. They adored it. Of course now they would be horrified at the thought. Too many calories. Or “carbs” or something.)

We shared a nice bottle of white wine and the steamed dim sums were fabulous. Mr. M. was his ridiculous self. After we paid the bill, he asked the waitress if we could go to the kitchen and “pay our compliments to the chef”!

The little girl looked alarmed. (She probably thought we were undercover health inspectors.) I was saying to her, “Just ignore him, darling,” but next thing, Mr. M. marched out to the kitchen and dragged out three young Chinese men dressed in white. There he was, clapping them on the shoulders, loudly telling them a long story about a meal he’d eaten at a fancy hotel in Hong Kong in 1954, and how this was even better than that meal, while all the other diners put down their chopsticks and stared.

I got such an attack of the giggles watching those poor young chefs with their polite, bemused smiles, nervously bobbing their heads up and down, obviously thinking this man was quite deranged. In the end, Mr. M. convinced the whole restaurant to give them a round of applause. (The food wasn’t that good!)

I giggled in the cab the whole way home until finally Mr. M. said, “I think there’s only one way to shut you up,” and next thing he was kissing me.

I’m very sorry, Phil.

Do you mind?

Well, bad luck if you do. It’s your fault anyway! Why did you need a camping trip “with the fellows” just before our wedding? You were forty years old! You shouldn’t have had any wild oats left to sow. And then you happily, idiotically, dive headfirst into a river without checking the depth first. You silly fool.

Tonight a handsome man (I may not have referred to his handsomeness previously) kissed me and it was heavenly.

Do you hear that, Phil? HEAVENLY.

Am going to bed, my dear. May have drunk a little too much sauvignon blanc at dinner.

Chapter 30

It was the “big day.” Alice felt like a small piece of clothing, a sock perhaps, in a large load of washing, on the spin cycle. People pulled her this way and that. At one point she literally had a person on each arm (neither of whom she recognized), trying to pull her in different directions. Worried faces, excited faces, smiley “ooh, this is it!” faces floated by and vanished. People gathered around her in worried clumps, firing questions, telling her about problems, about things that should have been delivered by now. “Where are the eggs meant to go?” “Where are the pastry ladies meant to be standing?” “The news crew wants to confirm they’ll be here by twelve. They want to interview you at twelve-thirty. Is that still okay? Are we on schedule?”

News crew? Interviewing her?

Cameras flashed like strobe lights. She should have listened more at the Mega Meringue meeting. She hadn’t fully grasped the immense scale of this production. It was . . . mega.

They were in a giant colorful marquee that had been erected on the school oval with a banner proclaiming: “Mega Meringue Day: Watch 100 Mums Bake the World’s Biggest Lemon Meringue Pie! $10 Entry. (Children Free.) All Proceeds to Breast Cancer Research.”

Inside, the marquee had been set up auditorium style, with raised benches around the sides where people could sit and watch. All around the sides of the tent were placards with the names of companies that were “proud to sponsor Mega Meringue Day.” Alice saw one for Dino’s Coffee Shop. In the middle was all the equipment for making the pie. It looked like a construction site. There was huge industrial equipment: a forklift, a concrete mixer, a crane, and a specially created pie dish and oven where the pie would be baked. A large round conference table had been set up with mixing bowls placed at intervals. Next to each mixing bowl was a neat selection of ingredients: eggs, flour, butter, lemons, and sugar. Maggie’s husband, the red-faced man on the treadmill, who appeared to run some sort of manufacturing company, was in charge of the equipment and was ordering around bemused workmen.

“Now, let me get this straight, we bake the pastry without the filling first, is that right?” he said to Alice.

Well, at least she knew the answer to that question. “Yes,” she said, and then more firmly: “Yes. That’s right.”

“Righto, boss,” he said, and hurried off.

People were filing into the tent, handing over their cash to two women from the Mega Meringue Committee sitting at the entryway. The benches were filling up fast. A group of children with brass instruments struck up a tune.

A corner of the tent had been devoted to activities for the children. All the activities had a “mega” theme. They could blow giant soap bubbles, toss around a giant foam ball, and paint on a massive canvas with oversized paintbrushes. Alice had left Madison, Tom, and Olivia to enjoy themselves.

“All coming together?” said someone.

It was Dominick. Jasper was with him, swinging on his father’s hand. Alice looked up, met Dominick’s eyes, and looked away guiltily. She felt like she’d cheated on him, which . . . well, maybe she had.

“I’m sorry about last night,” she said.

“Don’t even think about that today,” he answered. “Oh—but, ah, I wondered if you’d remember about tonight? Phantom of the Opera?”