Hayley raised her head from the pizza box on her lap to see Dean put something in front of Angel. A tablet. The Globe. Hayley swallowed as she watched Angel make no reaction. She hadn’t touched her pizza either.
‘What’s going on here? This morning, you were super excited to see this,’ Dean commented.
Angel flicked her eyes over the piece of technology. ‘It looks great.’
Dean looked to Hayley then and she shrugged. What could she tell him without giving up her secret life as a cleaner?
‘I’ll look at it,’ Hayley said, reaching out a hand for the tablet.
‘Not with grease on your fingers you won’t.’ Dean snatched back the Globe and hugged it to his chest.
‘Surely it has to go through a grease test,’ Hayley said. ‘Everyday use will involve dirt and grime, toast crumbs and tea… beer spills.’
‘You’ve just told me so much about your diet.’
Angel put the lid back over her pizza and pushed it onto the coffee table. ‘I’m not hungry.’
Hayley watched Dean pay greater attention then. ‘You’re not sick, are you?’ He took a step forward and pressed the back of his hand to Angel’s forehead.
‘She’s fine,’ Hayley stated quickly. ‘It was just full on at the Statue of Liberty, loads of people, an incident in the crown and?—’
‘What incident?’ Dean looked concerned now. She really did need to stop embellishing her lies too much. She talked herself into trouble rather than out of it.
‘Oh, you know, a kid with a giant ice cream, you can imagine the rest,’ Hayley said, sighing. She hoped he could imagine the rest because she wasn’t sure what came next.
Dean scooted down at the edge of the sofa, his head on a level with Angel’s. ‘It’s a shame you’re not hungry, because Vern’s invited us over for dinner.’
Very slowly, Angel turned her head ninety degrees and faced him.
‘Really?’ she asked.
‘Really. He was on about making meatballs,’ Dean said.
Angel’s tongue ran over her lips. ‘And will Randy be allowed out?’
‘I expect so. That mutt rules the roost over there,’ Dean responded.
‘Yay!’ Angel exclaimed, bouncing on the sofa.
Dean stood up again. ‘So how about it?’ he asked, directing the question at Hayley.
She chewed up the pizza in her mouth, the melted cheese singeing her tongue as she chowed as quickly as she could to answer. ‘Can I take a rain check?’
‘Mum! No! I want to go,’ Angel whined.
‘You can go… if that’s all right with Dean. I just… there’s some things I need to do.’ She enlarged her eyes at her brother, hoping he would get her meaning. She needed to call some more galleries about Michel. She’d had no leads since they got here. As discreetly as she could with cheese hanging from her lips, she mouthed the man’s name.
Dean gave a nod of acknowledgement.
‘Can I come, Uncle Dean?’ Angel batted her eyelashes, all depression over what had happened at the house in Westchester disappearing.
‘Sure, with one condition,’ Dean said, pointing at Angel and adopting a serious expression.
‘What?’ Angel asked.
‘No “Alfie and the Toymaker” tonight and you play this game called Rabbit Nation on the Globe and tell me what you think.’
Hayley watched Angel’s concentrated expression, mulling the terms over.
