Because of His Past (6 page)

Her mother’s perfume was cloying, especially
this close, with Grace’s nose pressed involuntarily into the older woman’s
neckline.
 
“Mom, you’re crushing
me,” she gasped, pulling away.

“I’m just so happy for you,” her mother
cried.
 
“Tell me all about it.”

“Well,” Grace said, taking a deep
breath.
 
“It’s a pretty big deal,
Mom.
 
I’m going to be an executive
assistant to a very powerful man at an advertising agency.”

Her mother nodded.
 
“Wow.
 
That’s…who?”

“There’s a man named Red Jameson who owns
a big company, and he personally hired me to do this job.
 
It’s going to pay me a lot of money.”

“How did you get hired?
 
You’ve never been one for office work,
Gracie.”

“I know, Mom, but this is different.
 
It’s like—a real opportunity.”

Her mother’s lips pressed together.
 
“You’re not…you aren’t…”

“What?”

“I hope you’re not sleeping with this
man, honey.”

“Oh my God,” she said, turning and
walking away.
 
“Oh my God, Mom.
 
That’s disgusting.”

Her mother rushed after Grace, her short
legs pumping to keep up with the taller girl.
 
“I didn’t mean to insult you.
 
But it just sounded so strange.
 
I’m happy for you!”

“You think I got a job by sleeping with
some guy?
 
Is that the kind of
person you think I am?”

She was offended, but then it occurred to
her that what she’d done with Liam Houston hadn’t been so far off from just
that kind of thing.
 
Maybe that’s
why she was so offended.
 
Because
the truth of the matter was that she was the kind of person capable of such
acts.

“No, I don’t think that of you,
Gracie.
 
I never.
 
I just—I got caught off guard.”

Grace slowed down and laughed.
 
“It’s okay, Mom.
 
I understand how you meant it.”
 

Her mother looked relieved.
 
“Can we start over?”
 
She smiled.
 
“Did I mention how proud I am of you?”

“Yes, Mom, you did.”
 
Grace gave her mother’s fleshy hand a
squeeze.
 
As she did, she thought
about Anne Houston and wondered what would’ve happened if the two women had
ever met.

She believed that Anne Houston would
likely eat her mother alive in two bites and still had room for leftovers.

“So, we need to pick you out some nice
things to wear for your job, is that right?” her mother asked.

Grace nodded, laughing.
 
“That’s exactly right.”

Her mother pulled a hard candy out of her
pants pocket, unwrapped it and popped it in her mouth, putting the wrapper back
in her pocket. “I want to get you that fancy Marc Jacobs bag,” she said.

“No, Mom.
 
I’m making my own money now.
 
I’ll buy it.”

Her mother’s jaw set.
 
“I’m not asking, Gracie.
 
I want to buy you a gift, and you’ll let
me do it and thank me for my generosity.
 
Understood?”

“Okay,” she sighed, feeling badly.
 
Her mother was a simple woman who’d
worked for years at menial jobs, sometimes as many as two or three at a time.

Recently, she’d had some health problems,
making it more difficult to work so many hours, and the last thing Grace wanted
was to take money from her poor mother.

But if she wanted to buy the bag, Grace
wouldn’t stop her.
 
She’d find a way
to pay her back some other way in the near future.

Later on, Grace was trying on a possible
outfit for work—a snazzy pantsuit that fit her like a glove—and her
mother was smiling as Grace walked back and forth in front of the dressing room
mirrors, doing a quick twirl.

“Lovely,” her mother said, smiling
proudly.

Grace nodded, examining her butt from the
side, wondering if this outfit sent the right message.
 
The message, of course, was that she was
a competent, professional woman who could be trusted to manage her employer’s
affairs.

Of
course, my butt does look good, too, which never hurts.

“Does your brother know you got this
job?” her mother asked, sounding casual and almost disinterested.

Grace glanced at her mother in the
mirror.
 
“Not yet.
 
I just saw him yesterday, though.”

“Oh.
 
How was he?”

“Fine.
 
If you’re curious, you should call him
and ask him yourself.”
 
Grace
pivoted and looked at herself in full profile.

“I’m not curious.
 
I just wondered if he knew about your
job is all.”
 
Her mother sucked on
her hard candy and looked slightly perplexed.

Grace knew that the relationship between
her mother and brother had been strained for some time now, ever since Scott
had come out of the closet.
 
But particularly because he’d also stopped going to church at
around the same time.
 

Although Grace had never gone much for
church herself, it was different with Scott.
 
Church had been an activity that her
mother and brother had shared together for many years.
 

And when he’d stopped going, it had hurt
her mother tremendously.

That it had to do with him declaring
himself a gay man was only a part of it, Grace thought.
 
How big a part, she wasn’t quite
sure.
 
All she knew was that things
had gotten quietly colder and colder between the two of them, and now they hadn’t
spoken or seen one another in months.

Grace turned away from the mirror.
 
“I think I’m going to get it,” she
said.
 

“So that’s—what—four new
outfits,” her mother said, approvingly, “and the pieces are interchangeable so
you can wear them in different combination.
 
It’s a nice start to a new wardrobe,
Gracie.”

“Yeah, I think so, too.
 
And with that fancy new handbag you’re
getting me, I’ll be the hit of the agency, I’m sure.”

“That’s right.
 
I bet you will.”

Grace’s mother collected the other
outfits and folded them over her arm, while Grace changed back into her old
clothes.
 
Then they walked down
front to the registers and paid.

When it was done, as they headed out to
the parking lot, Grace looked at her mother’s sad, thoughtful face and decided
she needed to speak about the elephant in the room.

“Mom, you and Scott shouldn’t be estranged
like this.
 
It’s not right.”

Her mother’s expression seemed to freeze
in place.
 
“It’s not up to me,
Grace.”

That wasn’t good.
 
Grace instead of Gracie meant she was
pissed.

“You could at least call him, Mom.”

“I don’t want to hear it.
 
He stopped going to Sunday church with
me, stopped coming to dinner—“

“Did you say something to him?” Grace
asked, stopping in front of her mother’s car and waiting with the bag of
clothes in one hand.
 
“Did
you—I don’t know—make a disapproving comment about his lifestyle?”

Her mother’s brow lowered.
 
“Why would I do that?
 
You think I disapprove of him?”

“I don’t know.
 
Do you?”

Her mother shook her head.
 
“This isn’t my fault.
 
He’s the one who changed, he’s the one
who stopped wanting to see me.”

“It seems more complicated than that,
Mom.
 
I think you should just call
him already and end this ridiculous standoff.”

“I’m glad for you,” her mother said,
arching an eyebrow.
 
“Congratulations on your new job.”
 
She leaned in and gave a quick, perfunctory hug, and then opened her car
door and got inside.

Grace stared, blinking, as her mother
drove off without another word.

“Now you’re mad at me too?” she called
after her, but it was too late.
 
Her
mother was gone.

***

She hadn’t expected Easton Rather to be
at the office that morning.

In fact, she specifically recalled Red
Jameson telling her that Easton was returning home early from his honeymoon,
but that he wouldn’t be in the office right away.

And yet, as she was just sitting down at
her desk (after having been let into the office suite by the woman from human
resources that had escorted her there), Easton Rather came inside.

He walked in briskly, wearing a finely
tailored blue suit, a mauve tie, and shoes polished so brightly that you could
see the light reflecting off them.
 
When he saw Grace sitting at the desk with the human resources person
standing next to her, he stopped cold.

“Hello,” he said, cocking his head
slightly to the side.
 

“Mr. Rather,” the woman said, “this is a
new hire.
 
She’s starting as your
executive assistant today.”

Easton Rather turned his attention to
Grace and she felt as though she might melt into a puddle of nerves under those
steely eyes.
 
“I wasn’t aware anyone
had been chosen for the position.
 
So that’s news to me,” he smiled, although his smile wasn’t very
cordial.

“Yes, well—Mister Jameson intended
to make you aware of it this morning, but then you surprised all of us by
coming in early.”
 
The woman now
wore a strained expression on her face.

“I have work to do,” he said
gruffly.
 
His eyes glanced away from
Grace and to the woman.
 
“I’m only
here part of the day today, and then I’ll be leaving to take my wife to the
doctor’s.”

Grace suddenly realized she hadn’t even
introduced herself yet.
 
She’d been
paralyzed by fear.
 
So now she stood
up and extended her hand outward.
 
“Hi, I’m Grace Knowles,” she said.
 

Easton shook her hand, and it was such a
tight grip that she actually almost hissed in pain, but instead she forced a
wide smile.
 
He quickly withdrew
from the handshake.
 
“Glad to have
you on board,” he told her, but his eyes didn’t meet hers when he said it, and
she realized it wasn’t true.

Not even a little bit.

Great.
 
He hates me on sight.

“Well, I’m just getting Grace up to speed
on our forms and policies—all that fun stuff,” the woman said, laughing
politely.

“Don’t let me get in the way,” Easton
told them, making a beeline for his office door.

After he opened it and went inside, the
door shutting closed with a bang, Grace exhaled.
 
“Yikes,” she whispered under her breath.

“I think you’ll find that working for a
man like Easton Rather has its…umm…challenges,” the woman told her,
softly.
 
“You’ll get used to it.”

Or
I won’t
, Grace
thought.
 
And I’ll be fired faster than it takes for Easton to snap his
fingers.
 

“Thanks,” Grace said.
 
“I’m really excited for this opportunity,
it’s just a bit overwhelming.”

“You’ll be an old pro in no time,” the
woman responded, leaning over the desk and starting to pull out forms and
explain them in miniscule and dull detail.

Her perfume wafted to Grace’s nostrils,
as Grace turned and looked at how well put together the human resources woman
was—everything from the cut of her blouse, the glimmer of her earrings, to
even manicure of her nails, was perfectly tasteful and elegant.

Everything about the woman screamed
professional.
 
By comparison, Grace
felt shabby.

She’d been so proud of her new clothes
and designer purse, but the truth was, she was a piker.
 
She was small-time, a hick from the
‘burbs, and it showed.

Easton Rather had spotted her a mile away.

You
don’t know that
, Grace
thought.
 
Red Jameson himself thought you had what it takes, and he’s Easton’s
boss.