Secrets over Sweet Tea (5 page)

“Yep.” Joy put her fork down by her plate, leaned back, and folded her arms. She looked at his plate. “Are you done? Can we go now?”

He glanced at her plate. She had hardly eaten a thing.

“I’m not done.” Lacy pushed her completely clean plate away. “I want dessert.”

Zach wasn’t sure how she could have inhaled her entire order of adobo chicken while half his entrée still sat on his plate.

Joy ran her eyes up and down Lacy. “You don’t need dessert. You need to start running track or something.”

Lacy pushed back hard from the table. “See, Dad. Why don’t you do anything about that?” Her volume was escalating. He was grateful the large dining area was almost full and loud conversations were going on all around. “She does that all the time, and you never say anything.”

Lacy was right, he realized, but he didn’t want to reinforce her whining by saying so. He tried a different tactic.

“Joy, you are way too conscious about weight anyway. You’re only thirteen. You should be eating and enjoying life. I want you to be concerned about your health, not obsessed about your weight.”

“Right,” Lacy huffed. “You don’t enjoy anything. You came into this world with your forehead all scrunched up, and you’ve been that way ever since. How you got the name Joy I’ll never know.”

“Well, it’s hard to enjoy life when I can’t get away from you. You have been breathing down my neck since you came out of the womb.” Joy was two minutes older and loved to remind Lacy of the nuisance that she was to her.

“Girls, that is enough. Lacy, what do you want for dessert?”

She picked up the menu. He was grateful that she was easily distracted. Joy stood and reached out her hand. “Can I have the key to the car? I’m going to wait out there. I can’t stand watching her eat anything else.”

Zach was tired of arguing. He didn’t have it in him. Nor did he want this restaurant to feature entertainment courtesy of the Craig family players. He reached into his pocket and handed her the key. “Don’t turn it on and run down the battery like you did the other night. Just roll down the windows and cut the car off.”

She snatched the key from his hand and left without a word.

Lacy ordered the napoleon while he finished his dinner. “Dad, you seriously need to get some therapy for that girl. She doesn’t eat anything, and she’s always mean and angry—especially to me.”

“I know, baby. I wish y’all wouldn’t treat each other like that.”

“Then why don’t you make her stop?”

He looked at his daughter. “Lace, after a while Dad gets tired of fighting with the two of you. It never stops.”

“You don’t seem to get tired of fighting with Mom. So why can’t you fight
for
me once in a while?”

The words fell hard against Zach as the waiter arrived, distracting Lacy once again with her pastry. He had never been so grateful for sugar. It afforded him one more opportunity to avoid the reality of what his family had become.

A reality that was closing in hard and fast.

Grace pulled the brass handle of the painted wooden door and made her way into the large ballroom of the Franklin Marriott Cool Springs. As the door opened, she caught a waft of some of the South’s finest delicacies: barbecued pork, fried chicken, fried catfish. Puckett’s was catering, and Puckett’s was one of Franklin’s best “meat and threes.” She breathed deep as she scanned the crowd for anything or anyone familiar. She and Tyler ran in such different circles these days, they barely knew the same people anymore.

“Grace.” A hand darted up from the middle of the room. Grace caught sight of Julie’s blonde-streaked head and pushed her way through the crowd to the table where her friend sat.

“Here—you’re at our table.” Julie pulled out a chair. “Best seat in the house—right next to the runway.”

Grace shared hellos with other wives of Tyler’s teammates. The guys did the fashion show for charity each year, and with Tyler’s extensive attention to fashion’s latest trends, this was a perfect place for him.

“I can’t believe you made it.” Julie curled her arm around Grace’s. “You never come to this stuff.”

“I know. But this was so close to home, and I do like to support Tyler when I can. Besides, it’s a great cause.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here. How’s the move going?”

Grace felt a dull throb in her lower back, as if the mere mention of the word
move
made her body ache. “Painful,” she replied, reaching a hand back to massage it.

Julie grimaced in sympathy. “At least you can sleep in tomorrow. How nice will that be?”

Grace smiled. “I could sleep in if I had taken the week off.”

Julie looked at her, stupefied. “You’re working this week? I guess that lets you know I don’t get up early enough to watch you. But seriously, you can’t take a week off to move?”

“Wouldn’t matter. My body would still wake up at two.”

“Girl, you should hang out with me. I can teach you a thing or two about sleeping.” Julie laughed, but her forehead didn’t move with the laughter. Julie had been getting Botox for the past three years, though she was five years younger than Grace. Grace had never quite been sure why her friend would want to do that—or for that matter, whether Julie was really her friend. Sometimes she suspected Julie just wanted to be famous and stayed close to Grace in case the station ever had an opening. Grace had never asked if that was true, though. She wasn’t sure she’d want to know.

“How’s Clay?” she asked Julie.

Julie shrugged. “He’s Clay. As reliable as an old shoe.”

“You have it made, you know.” Grace leaned against the chair, finally allowing her body to relax.

“How is that?”

“That man does anything you ask him to do.”

Julie punched her jokingly. “He does not.”

“Does too. And you know it.”

A mischievous look came over Julie’s face. “I know. It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

Grace scanned the room around her. The place had people as tightly packed as Leo had her morning segments, and the long catwalk down the middle of the room made it feel even closer. “Yes, it is wonderful, and I hope you never forget how wonderful it is. You’d better not take advantage of him, Julie. He’s great.”

“But so is Tyler,” Julie protested. “That man spoils you, Grace. There isn’t a place he goes that he doesn’t come back with some gorgeous handbag or piece of jewelry for you. Clay wouldn’t even think about those things unless I told him to do it. What I would give for him to actually go out and get me something fabulous like that.”

Grace laughed. “First of all, I don’t need more jewelry or another handbag. Second, Clay wouldn’t have a chance to get a handbag to you before you had gone and bought it for yourself.”

Julie laughed loudly. “Well, there is that, isn’t—”

The announcer interrupted their conversation, extending a welcome on behalf of the Friends of Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital and Belk Department Store at CoolSprings Galleria, which provided the fashions for the show. Then a video began to play on the large screens on either side of the runway,
highlighting the beautiful gift that Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital was to families all across the Middle Tennessee area.

Grace couldn’t help but dab at her tears as pictures of sick babies flashed on the screens. Surely the only thing worse than not having a child would be to have one and watch him or her suffer. Or even worse, to lose a child altogether.

When the food service began, Grace found herself relaxing. She hadn’t really been looking forward to the evening, but she was glad she’d come. It felt good to be involved in something worthwhile, to think about something besides work and her own troubles. And good to spend time with friends, she thought with a smile, listening to Julie’s animated conversation with the other women at their table. But she was stifling yawns by the time dessert was served. Ordinarily she would be in bed by now. She just hoped she could keep her eyes open until the end of the evening.

The music woke her up, though—a pulsating rhythm that began as the room lights dimmed and white lights surrounding the catwalk lit up.

“Here they come!” Julie squealed.

Wild applause thundered through the room as the first of Tyler’s teammates took to the runway stage in their Belk fashions. Grace smiled at the awkwardness of Gary, a right wing for the Predators. He stumbled slightly at one point, only to get increased encouragement from the ladies, to whom he made a slight bow at the end of the runway.

Tyler was next, his self-confidence a stark contrast to Gary’s clumsiness. The women clapped loudly as he strode down the runway, his striking good looks undeniable. When he saw Grace sitting near the edge of the runway, he leaned over and reached down his hand.

Her brow furrowed.

“Come here, Grace.” He pressed his hand out farther.

She shook her head. Julie elbowed her. “Go. Are you crazy?”

Tyler’s smile beamed large and bright enough to be seen in the back of the room, without the cameras that already showed his face in larger-than-life prominence on the two huge screens behind him.

“Come up here,” he said.

She took his hand and let him pull her up with him, grateful she had worn slacks and the runway was low. Before she could even get her bearings, he took her in his arms and dipped her, then planted a kiss that made the room go wild.

When he released her, she gave a sheepish smile, raised a soft hand for a hello, and stepped down as quickly as she could. Her face burned with embarrassment. His beamed with pride as he strutted back toward the curtains.

“You are so lucky.” Julie elbowed Grace as she returned to her seat.

“Yeah” was all she could offer, hoping against hope that video footage of that moment wouldn’t turn out. She was taking a sick day tomorrow if it did. She would not endure the humiliation of having that kiss broadcast. Not knowing what she knew, which was that by the time Tyler’s head hit the pillow tonight, he would be as wasted as the scraps on the plates the waiters were collecting. And that the man who had just kissed her ostentatiously in front of a crowded room could barely bring himself to touch her at home.

That was their world—their sad and ugly and secret world. A world of public performance and private emptiness. And she still wasn’t sure how she had come to live there.

Tyler had only been the occasional drinker when they got married—a glass of wine here, a cocktail there, maybe a beer with chicken wings. But alcohol had never really been an issue for him until he started to get older and his body took more of a pummeling on the ice.

She knew that was hard on him. Older players on professional hockey teams faced exceptional pressure. But instead of working out harder or playing smarter or simply planning for a second career, Tyler had begun self-medicating. From a bottle.

At first he hid the extent of his drinking from most people. It had simply been their private issue. But lately he didn’t seem quite as desperate to conceal it. Grace lived in fear of the truth somehow getting out. And nothing she had tried seemed to make any difference.

She’d asked a couple of his friends to talk to him. That enraged him, and he left her for two weeks.

She’d begged him to come to counseling with her—something that, honestly, they had needed for years. But Tyler wouldn’t hear of it. He had his pride. He wasn’t about to see a head doctor.

Now, in these brief few weeks he had off between the end of the regular season and gearing up for training, she was planning to reach out to him yet again. She’d been hoping that reduced job stress might make him more open, more relaxed. But the way he’d looked this morning when he got up made her suspect that hoping was all that would be accomplished.

When they married ten years ago, they’d both agreed they would wait to start a family. They were both young and career-oriented and assumed there would be plenty of time. But about the time Grace was ready to try, the drinking escalated, and
Grace learned something she didn’t know about heavy drinking. Yes, it could lower sexual inhibition, but it also lowered testosterone levels. Which meant it got in the way of normal marital relations.

The first night Tyler couldn’t perform, he was mortified. After all, Tyler was the ultimate performer. She assured him it was okay. But the embarrassment drove him to drink more, and the drinking just made things worse.

It happened four more times that same month. After that, he never touched her that way again.

She had wondered at first if Tyler was having an affair. But there was no evidence of that—at least not when it all began. These days, for all she knew, he could be having a hookup with a different woman in every city where the team played. But when it began, at least, it was all about the liquor. And that was bad enough.

Over time, the situation got worse and worse. The late-night calls for her to pick him up at bars. The explosive rages—though thank goodness he never actually hit her. The secrets from her parents. The excuses to friends. The call-ins on days when he needed to be training but couldn’t get out of bed. She had told more lies for Tyler than she had ever considered telling in her life.

Then came the traffic stop. Tyler had clearly been drinking and driving. But the arresting officer happened to be the brother of one of Grace’s close friends. So instead of actually arresting Tyler for DUI, the officer simply called Grace to come get her husband.

She considered letting Tyler go to jail, maybe learn his lesson. But the prospect of all that negative publicity led her to
accept the officer’s gracious offer. Maybe, she thought, the near arrest would motivate Tyler to try counseling or rehab.

It didn’t. He refused to even admit he had a problem.

Finally, desperate, she left him for four months—long enough to shock him into getting some help. He confessed his drinking problem to the counselor—the first time he’d ever gotten honest with anyone. He checked himself into a good rehab center the counselor suggested. And when he got out, he begged Grace to come home.

Encouraged, she agreed. But he looked at her that first night they were back together and said, “Don’t expect me to just go right back to making love to you.”

Though the words shook her, she still held on to hope. They were at a different place than before. Tyler was being honest, working on his problem. They were at a place of possibility.

Two months later Tyler was drinking again. Their place of possibility turned out to be just another a bastion of false hope.

The kiss Tyler had just given her in front of a watching crowd was the first time he had kissed her like a husband in years. Oh, he kissed her—the obligatory small kiss at night, sometimes even a kiss that was soft and kind, but nothing that would allow him to go to any place of desire. He would not fail in front of her. If he was going to be judged by people, he was going to make sure that what they saw put him in the best light possible.

Even if the whole thing was a sham.

“Here comes Clay.” Julie interrupted Grace’s thoughts. “Oh, my word, he looks ridiculous. He should have taken lessons from Tyler before he got out there.” She hung her head. “I can’t look. Maybe no one will realize we’re married. If he even thinks
about pulling me up on that stage, he will sleep on the sofa for the next year.”

Clay came near the end of the runway. His expression quickly registered that he had seen Julie’s hidden face. Grace gave him her biggest smile. He looked handsome and kind. He gave her his best in return.

“Tell me when he’s done,” Julie whispered.

“He did wonderful,” she reported. “That man is a treasure.”

“What he is, is a nerd. You would never know that man slams people into acrylic partitions for a living. I wish he could bring some of that energy to our life.”

“You need to cut him a little slack, Julie,” Grace said as the houselights came up. She yawned, grateful the charade was over. She remembered now why she rarely came to events. She had spent the majority of the last ten years sleep deprived. She wasn’t too keen on willingly putting herself in situations that drained her more.

People began to drift out into the lobby and head home. Tyler and Clay made their way to them.