Wherever Grace Is Needed (28 page)

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Authors: Elizabeth Bass

BOOK: Wherever Grace Is Needed
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She’d been feeling a glow under his intense gaze, but now she froze.
Half?
Half
suspected?
He wasn’t even willing to lay odds?
Her Romeo backed away. “Well. Good night.”
She watched him turn and imagined herself not going to his stupid party. For a brief moment she thought she could send her regrets and stay indoors until she was an old lady.
But before he’d cleared the last porch step, she poked her head out the door.
“555-4692,” she called after him.
He turned.
“You said you wanted it,” she explained. “Should I write it down?”
He shook his head. “No need. Numbers, I remember. They’re the one thing in life I’m good with.”
“I’ll send you Bob’s e-mail,” she promised.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Grace.”
They said good night again and she sank against the door as she flipped the bolt. Her legs wobbled beneath her, and her body felt half weightless, half hopelessly earthbound.
It was probably very dangerous to lose your head over a man who thought of you in terms of not being able to do without you—like a garlic press or a good can opener.
It was even more dangerous when your heart felt it was lost already.
33
T
HINGS
F
ALL
A
PART
T
he day of Ray’s party, bulbous cumulous clouds crowded overhead, gray and menacing. Grace kept peeking out the window to see if they had dispersed. But by noon it hadn’t rained, and she began to suspect it was going to be one of those spring days where clouds hovered overhead and nothing at all happened.
Ray was upbeat. “I think it’s great. Whatever blew in last night has cooled it down a little. It’s only supposed to be seventy-eight today. Perfect!”
The kids all seemed in a good mood too—even Jordan, who was carrying Buns around with her and a large Easter basket that no one, not even Dominic, was allowed to look into.
At one point, Ray tugged Grace into his office. For a breathless moment she thought he was going to kiss her again, but as soon as he’d shut the door behind them he let go of her arm and hurried toward his desk. “I have something to show you.”
He unfolded a piece of paper and handed it to Grace.
It was a “pleased to welcome you” letter telling Jordan she’d been accepted into the art program.
“Jordan left it on my desk last night,” he said. “Probably a last-ditch effort to make me change my mind.”
Or to make you feel guilty.
“I’ve thought it over,” he continued, “and I’ve decided you’re right. I’m going to slip the news into the conversation during the meal. You know . . . if someone brings up summer plans. I can say ‘Well, Jordan’s going to be spending her summer in California.’ Very offhand. She’ll be excited, don’t you think?”
Even though she harbored doubts about making the news a public announcement, Grace couldn’t help smiling. What would a happy Jordan look like? It was difficult to imagine.
The guests began to arrive just after noon. Wyatt brought beer, and he and Ray popped them open and headed for the grill to make sure the coals were firing up properly. Lily appointed herself official greeter and posted herself at the gate to the backyard.
Grace saw Muriel arrive, followed by Truman and Peggy. The two had dropped by the house after they’d returned from Natchez—a visit that felt stiff and formal, like the post-nuptial calls couples were supposed to make in nineteenth-century novels. But it had been a kind gesture, and a few days later while Grace had been out, Peggy had brought over some strawberries that Lou had pronounced the best strawberries he’d eaten in the past twenty years.
Dominic asked Ray and Lou if he could bring Iago over to join them, and soon there was a black-and-white floppy-eared food Hoover winding between guests, picking up dropped potato chips or anything else that touched ground. The smell of charcoal and meat was so strong that when they all finally sat down at the tables, Grace was almost as frantic for food as the dog was.
That was when everyone noticed the origami birds set in front of each place.
“Oh—fun!” Pippa exclaimed, picking up one and holding it in her palm. “A little birdy!”
Grace was seated at the end of the table where Ray was going to be. Lou, Truman, and Peggy installed themselves on the other end. Jordan, who had stowed Buns away for the meal, placed herself in the middle of the long table, facing everyone. She seemed serene. Disturbingly so.
“Who made these?” Muriel asked.
Ray brought more plates with hamburgers. Everyone was about to dig in as he was finally able to sit down too. “I don’t know. Did you do these, Lily?”
Lily, who looked put out to be sitting at the metal patio satellite table—the children’s ghetto, Jordan had dubbed it—stared at her origami bird with suspicion. “No.”
If ill-at-ease could have had a face at that moment, it would have been Lily West’s. The boys sitting next to her—Dominic, Crawford, and a cousin of Crawford’s who was visiting for the Easter holidays—were making honking and quacking noises with their birds. This was obviously an uncomfortable setup for Lily on many levels.
“I can’t imagine who else could have made these.” Ray sent Grace a barely perceptible wink.
She held her breath, waiting—hoping—for him to make the announcement about Jordan.
“Lends the whole affair a little extra touch of class,” Wyatt observed before flicking his bird to the side of the beer bottle.
Peggy was exclaiming over how beautiful they were when a gust of wind blew up. As one, all the people at the table reached forward to keep the birds from flying away.
“Oh, look!” Pippa said excitedly. “My birdy has writing on it. “Should I unfold it?” Everyone started inspecting their birds again as Pippa unfolded hers and read aloud. “ ‘Having my dad for a father is like having no father at all.’ ” She pulled a perplexed face. “Is that a riddle?”
“I don’t get it,” Muriel said.
“Maybe it’s a game,” Peggy said, prodding Truman to open his.
“ ‘I’m so in love with Crawford I could die,’ ” Truman intoned.
“What?”
Crawford screeched.
Wyatt joined in. “ ‘My little brother is a whiny fatso.’ It’s got a date on it, too.”
A sickening, sinking feeling took hold of Grace, especially when she glanced at Lily. The girl’s face was tomato red, and her jaw hung open in shock. At the other table, Jordan was smiling placidly with her arms crossed, peering over at the piece of paper in Peggy’s hand with satisfaction.
The mystery of what had happened to Lily’s journal had just been solved. Lily had been as accurate as Sherlock Holmes. She just hadn’t guessed her sister’s diabolical plan for it.
Grace longed to snatch up the birds before any more damage could be done—before more feelings were hurt, before Jordan’s big summer plans were irrevocably lost.
But it might have already been too late for that. Judging from Ray’s face, he also knew what had happened.
The boys erupted in fits. “No, she didn’t!” Dominic yelled angrily.
Crawford’s cousin yanked the paper out of his hand. “ ‘Tonight I saw Mr. Carter making out with Grace right in his yard. It was disgusting! January fourteenth.’ ”
“
What?”
Pippa squeaked. She jerked toward Wyatt. “We were already engaged in January!”
Wyatt looked over at Grace, as did practically everyone else.
Grace sank deeper into her chair. If it had been at all possible, she would have crawled under the table. Maybe crawled back to her own house, too.
“It seems odd that none of them are about me,” Muriel said, opening hers impatiently. She frowned, almost disappointed. “No, this is just about Grace’s nasty granola.”
Grace was almost glad when Crawford’s cousin reached over and read Lily’s aloud, if only because it might take the attention off of her for a moment. “ ‘Professor Oliver is the nicest man imaginable, but I worry Grace might be psychotic.’ ”
Grace choked on her tea and looked at Lily, who had tears standing in her eyes.
Lou erupted in a burst of laughter. “You’re not coming out of this too well, are you, Grace?”
She chuckled back, more from tension than anything else.
“Well, is it true?” Pippa demanded, glaring from Wyatt to Grace.
“’Course it’s true!” Truman barked. “I’ve been saying for months now that Grace is nuttier than a squirrel!”
“I meant about the other thing!” Pippa huffed.
Wyatt shrugged sheepishly.
Pippa threw her bird at him. It bounced off his head and whirled away on a fresh gust of wind. The same wind seemed to lift Pippa, who tossed her napkin on the table as she stood. “I don’t know who wrote these nasty little notes, but thank you! I for one am grateful!” She stomped off just as the first heavy drops of rain splattered the table.
“We’d better get out of this before it starts to pour,” Truman announced. “I knew this would turn out badly.”
People jumped up, grabbing plates and glasses and dashing back inside as old leaves and origami birds were whisked through the air. Ray and Grace stayed seated. So did Lily, even as Jordan approached her and bent toward her, close to her ear.
“Oh—forgot to tell you, Lils,” she taunted. “I found your journal.”
Lily’s chest heaved in tortured breaths as the downpour began. She kept her gaze focused on the uneaten, increasingly soggy hamburger in front of her.
“How does it feel to have your secrets out in the open?” Jordan shouted in her ear.
Lily finally turned toward her. “I hate you.”
Jordan grinned maliciously. “I don’t care.”
Grace watched the exchange in horror. Besides herself and Ray, everyone else, even Iago, had already scrambled for the house. She expected Lily to turn and run, too. Instead, Lily launched herself at Jordan, springing on her like something feral. Grace gasped and stood up, but not before Jordan, taken by surprise, had been wrestled to the ground and had her face pushed into the wet spring grass.
Ray jumped up and pulled them apart. “For heaven’s sake—stop it! We have guests!”
Those guests, especially the boys, were watching the whole thing from the other side of the sliding patio doors. Avidly.
Lily looked ready to launch herself at her sister again. Her expression was ferocious. “I hate her! She never has to pay for what she does!”
“You don’t know anything!” Jordan yelled.
“No,
you
don’t,” Ray said, glaring at his older daughter.
Foreseeing his next words, Grace stepped forward to stop him. Too much had been said in anger already. “Ray, she doesn’t deserve—”
He cut her off. “Don’t say anything, Grace.”
Jordan, still wiping dirt and grass clippings off her face, practically snarled, “Oh, she’s probably
dying
to say something—if she hasn’t already.
‘Jordan doesn’t deserve anything. Jordan has screwed-up friends. Jordan’s a thief.’
Right, Grace?”
Grace shuddered mournfully as Ray turned toward her in confusion. “A
thief?”
he asked.
She shook her head, remaining silent.
He pivoted back to his daughter. “For your information, before you pulled this stunt I was about to tell you that you could go to San Francisco. Obviously, you won’t be going now.”
Jordan’s face fell. “What? That’s not true!” But as she looked from Grace to Ray, realization dawned. She’d just blown it. “Oh, shit,” she said, collapsing onto a bench. She repeated the curse again, knowing there was nothing left to lose.
Lily, still wound up, stood over Jordan and yelled at her back. “I wish you
would
send her away! I don’t want to be in the same house with her,” she told her father. “I’m going to live with Granny Kate!”
She spun on her heel and then ran for the house.
 
Grace stayed long enough to get the outside tables cleared and the dishwasher loaded. When that was done, she looked up and noticed that Ray had disappeared. She found him in his study, standing next to the window and looking out on the backyard tables. “Well, you were right about one thing,” he said. “The Chinese lanterns were a waste of money.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He released a sigh. Even though he’d made the little jest about the Chinese lanterns, he seemed as depressed and discouraged as she’d ever seen him. It didn’t help that he was still wearing his wet clothes and that his hair was plastered to his head at odd angles.
“Lily was right about me,” he said. “They’d be better off having no father at all.”
“No. Ray, forget that. You don’t even know why she wrote those words, or when. A teenager’s moods are all over the place. When I was fifteen, I probably hated my parents every other day.”
“The difference is, Lily’s right. I’ve been useless since Jen died. They would have been so much better off if it had just been me in that car. Without me, they would have stayed a family. There wouldn’t be this gang war atmosphere.”
“It’s awful what happened,” she said, “but they’re just working through this. . . .”
He laughed bitterly. “Grace, that wasn’t friendly mud wrestling out there. If we hadn’t intervened, I’m pretty sure the afternoon would have involved an ambulance.”
She didn’t know what to say.
He shook his head. “I never should have taken your advice about today and throwing this stupid party.”
“My
advice?” she repeated, stunned. “I didn’t tell you to do this.”
“Of course you did. I talked to you that night on your back porch, and to me it seemed like you had all the answers.”
“But—”
“And then there’s the matter of you and me. That night when I kissed you—that never should have happened, either.”
She was taken aback. And miffed. “I’m sorry, are you referring to that time when you said you
maybe could possibly
bring yourself to like me?” Being dumped by Ben after two years had been bad enough. But this felt like being dumped from a hypothetical relationship in someone’s head. All the pain without even a nice dinner and a movie. “You’ll be relieved to know that as far as I’m concerned, Ray, there never was a you and me. There was just a kiss. You’ve obviously got your hands full with family matters, and so do I.”

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