Finding Grace: A Novel (25 page)

Before she could say more, he shot to his
feet and took her by the arm, dragging her out as she continued her
rant.

"If you want him, honey, you can have him!
But he’s lousy in the sack, so what’s the point in taking him?”

When he got her outside he shook her, though
it hardly sufficed. What he wanted was to strangle her.

“
That’s what you call
classy? Making a damn fool of yourself?” He gave her a slight
shove…and she shoved him back, enraged.

“
Go to hell, you
self-centered bastard! Who needs you? I’ll go to California and
make my own way in the world!”

"You think so?" he spat. "You think you
stand a chance relying on that crumb, Hal? Well don't come crying
to me when it all falls apart. Women like you are a dime a dozen
out there. You'll probably end up trading favors just to get
by."

Her hand came up and slammed into his cheek,
and he was momentarily stunned. It didn't particularly hurt, but it
shocked him enough to render him still for several moments. In that
time Victoria managed to hail a cab. Moments later it was speeding
away, and he was left standing alone, feeling the eyes of passers
by who had seen the whole thing. All he could do now was gather his
pride, walk to his car, and go home. Alone.

* * * * *

“
This is all my fault,” said
Grace, and she dropped her head into her hands.

“
What do you mean
your fault
?” asked Jack.
“And what the hell did Victoria mean by
you
can have him
? Is there something going on
with you and Henry?”

Grace just sighed, and didn’t answer. She
wanted to crawl under the table and hide and not have to face the
round of questions and accusations she knew would come.
Fortunately, Alice was there with her usual round of support.

“
It’s not her fault,” she
said.

“
Whose fault is it then? Was
it Henry? What did he do?” He turned to Grace. “Did he try
something with you? If he did, I’ll thump his skull.”

As his voice grew louder, Alice rose to her
feet and called for the check. She glared at him, her face flushed
with mortification.

“
Let’s go before you make a
total fool of yourself. We can talk about this in
private.”

Jack was silent just long enough to take
care of the bill and escort the ladies out. But once back in the
car, he immediately jumped back on the subject.

Grace sat in the back seat, listening and
growing irritated at her brother's fatherly rambling. She loved him
dearly, but to have him treat her as if she were a child, to talk
to her as if she were his daughter rather than his sister, it made
her want to reach over the seat and smack him, though Alice was
doing a very fine job of scolding him. She sat back in the seat
with her arms crossed, shaking her head, her voice laced with
fury.

"That's why we didn't want to tell you
anything. We knew you'd act like this."

“
Wait a minute,” Jack said,
and he looked at her with wide eyes, his temper flaring fast. “You
mean you knew about this, and you didn’t tell me?”

“
There’s nothing to tell,”
Alice snapped at him. “Henry’s had his head turned, and Victoria is
green with envy. But your sister turned him down, and that’s all
there is to it.”

His voice grew even louder. “And you didn’t
think I had a right to know? What if he crossed the line or
something?" As the traffic came to a pause, he turned in his seat
and looked at Grace. "And you," he said. "It’s my job to look out
for you, but how the hell can I do that if you’re keeping things
from me?”

Now it was Grace who found her temper
rising, and she told him quite forcefully, “I don’t need nobody’s
protection. I can take care of myself.”

“
Horse-feathers!” he
snapped. “You’re seventeen years old, fresh from the backwoods. You
don’t know a damn thing about the kind of men out there, ready to
take advantage of a kid like you. Hell! Henry Shaw has been my
friend and neighbor for years, and I wouldn’t trust him more than
any other dog out there.”

“
I’m not a kid anymore,
Jack. I don’t need you to boss me. I’m not ten years
old.”

“
That doesn't matter!” he
said. “And I don’t want you to have anything else to do with Henry
Shaw again. You stay away from him.”

The traffic in front of them had come to a
standstill, as they waited for the river bridge to come back down.
Grace sat in her seat, her arms crossed in frustration. She wanted
to scream and shout at him, fight with him and tell him how she was
almost a grown woman, with her own mind and her own life to live.
Then she thought...

He's just like any man. What's the point of
talking to him? It would be like hitting my head against a wall

Suddenly she felt the need to be alone...to
get away from him and his fatherly scolding. She wanted to run away
and leave him stewing in his own juices, so he would know how it
felt to be both furious and helpless at the same time. So just
before the traffic began to move again, she opened her door and got
out, slammed it behind her, and marched off down the street. She
could hear him yelling at her to come back, but she kept right on
walking. Soon she was lost among the crowd, and at that moment,
there was nowhere else she would rather have been.

* * * * *

She roamed along the street for some time,
and her great fury at her brother eventually diminished, though it
did not go away entirely. The little shops along the street were
turning on their lights for the evening, and she took her time
looking in each window, lingering so that with each passing moment,
she was certain Jack would be more and more worried. He deserved
it, tyrant that he was.

It seemed funny to think that at one time
not so long ago, she would never have questioned his lectures. He'd
always been like her second father when she was young, but now that
kind of control seemed stifling, and it reminded her very much of
their father. Lord, if Jack heard her tell him that, he might lose
his mind completely. To be compared to a man he despised, a man
he'd left behind forever and vowed he would never, ever be like.
Jack might never recover from such a blow.

As she ambled along the walk, her thoughts
turned to the scene at the restaurant, and naturally, it sent her
thoughts turning to Henry. She knew she shouldn’t pity him. It was
his own fault, losing Victoria and all, and with that came the
possibility of his losing a great part of his business. He had
brought it all on himself. And as for Victoria, she had to say she
didn't blame her for leaving Henry and trying to make her own way.
Grace knew all too well what it was like to be treated so coldly by
a man.

And yet, it was Henry she kept thinking of
more and more as she walked along. She should have thought him a
beast for the way he treated Victoria. And she should have, if she
had any sense at all, been condemning him for the common sinner
that he was. But somehow, all of that now seemed like a weak
flicker of light in the back of her mind. She knew it was wrong,
and she knew it would probably be the ruin of her very soul - but,
God help her, she adored him.

There, she had admitted it. It was like a
weight lifting from her shoulders. And much to her own surprise,
she felt no shame. What was so wrong about liking someone? And
Henry was all the things she desired in a man. He was intelligent,
and clever. He was devilishly charming when he wanted to be. She
smiled to herself a little as she thought of him at supper. The way
he held his glass with a light hand, and the way he ate casually
and with small bites. He possessed manners. How wonderful it was to
see a man who didn't shovel his food in his face as if it were his
last meal. But of all the things about him, perhaps it was his
honesty that most endeared him to her. He said just what he felt
and what he was thinking, without wearing a false face or speaking
too many pretty words. In a strange way, they were very much alike,
the two of them.

In thinking of the things that she found so
dear in him, she could not help but remember how he had looked at
her that night at the lake, and how wonderful it had felt to know
his kiss - the first kiss she'd ever had. How could she forget it,
when she had lived it over and over again in her dreams at night?
And she was beginning at last to understand that burning look in
his eyes. The way it melted her will, and took her breath, she knew
now it was a look of passion. She'd only read the word on paper,
but until now she'd never known its all-consuming power, and
somehow she was beginning to understand why human beings could
succumb so easily to it's temptation.

But in thinking of it, she began to wonder
how often he'd looked that way at Victoria - a woman he had shared
so much of his life with.

A cloud of doubt came hovering over her
then, and words came into her head to counsel her. She thought of
Mr. Rochester, and how he talked to Jane of the mistresses he no
longer cared for. How his feelings for them had dissolved into
nothing. And then she thought of Jane, torn between the man she
loved and the risk of a broken heart…

If I were so far to forget myself and all
the teaching that had ever been instilled into me, as--under any
pretext--with any justification--through any temptation--to become
the successor of these poor girls, he would one day regard me with
the same feeling which now in his mind desecrated their memory…

What if, someday soon, Henry would treat her
as he had treated Victoria? What if this fancy of his just up and
faded away?

She shook her head at her own romantic
musings. What did it matter if his feelings faded away? Those
feelings, she was convinced, were not of the intensity that
Rochester had for his beloved Jane. No man would ever love a woman
that way. And so, what was the danger in being a friend to Henry?
Friendship was not love, not passion - not commitment. It was just
two people who enjoyed being in each other's company, and where was
the harm in that?

Soon it was growing dark. But with the
lights of the shops blazing, so warm and inviting, she decided she
wasn’t ready to go home just yet. So she slipped into a pretty
little shop on the corner. It was a place of polished wood and
shining glass, with leather booths and small tables, and a long bar
that took up nearly one whole side of the room. It was an ice cream
parlor. She could see that from the man behind the counter, who was
filling a glass with chocolate soda, and the several people sitting
around the place with their bowls and cones. But it wasn't the ice
cream that drew her away from the door - it was the sight of a
telephone on the back wall.

She may not have wanted to go home, but her
conscience told her that she should at least call Alice and let her
know she was all right. Alice could always relay the message to
Jack, and then she wouldn't have to talk to him. She requested the
use of it from the man at the counter, who smiled and nodded. When
she called, Alice answered, and sounded quite concerned. It seemed
Jack was still out looking for her, and he had called the house
several times hoping she had come home. Grace assured Alice that
she was well, and that she would be home soon, but would not say
exactly where she was. She hung up the phone with a little sigh.
She turned around and went to a seat at the bar, and the soda jerk
came over to her.

"Is there something I can get you?" he
asked.

She smiled shyly, unsure of what to do.
She'd never been in a place like this by herself. "I don't know,"
she said. "I've never been here before. What would you have?"

"Try the banana split," said a familiar
voice. "It's a classic."

She turned her head, and saw Henry sitting a
few stools down. He must have come in while she was on the phone.
He didn't look her way. He didn't get up and come to sit beside
her. He just sat where he was, sipping a bottle of something. She
looked at the soda jerk and nodded, and she waited as he went to
prepare her dessert. She sat for several moments, wondering if
Henry would come to her side, as he had before. She wondered if he
would speak to her, as he had before. But he did nothing. So after
several quiet moments alone, something within her drew her out of
her seat. She knew in the back of her mind that she should not do
it, but she found herself making her way down toward him, and the
next thing she knew, she was standing beside him. Part of her
wanted to flee, as she had before. But something made her stay. I’m
not a scared little bird, she told herself. It’s time he learned
just how brave I can be. And as if to prove it to him, and herself,
she took a bold stance and posed a question.

"Do you mind if I sit here?"

She couldn’t believe she’d
just invited herself to a place at his side. She’d imagined them
forming a bond, but now it seemed she was telling him what she’d
only had as a thought a few minutes ago. And she wondered,
Gracie Langdon, what are you getting yourself into
now?

Chapter 13

“
Confessions
”

He watched as she came his
way, and his mouth cracked in a tiny smile. It wasn’t so much that
she was walking towards him, but it was the
way
she was doing it. He could read
the tension in her face. And yet her chin was lifted…her shoulders
were set, as if someone had dared her to approach him and she’d
accepted, just to prove herself. When she came to stand beside him,
asking to sit down, he couldn’t help but tease her.