Falling for Grace

by Kate O'Keeffe

  “I’ll tell you what I do understand. I know you work for some dirt magazine. You’ve been following me for days and I’m over it. Leave me alone, there’s no story here.” I try to sound as authoritative as I can.

  Hop, hop, dance, dance.

  She doesn’t respond. Her eyes dart form side to side.

  “Sam Montgomery and I are not in a relationship,” I lie, hoping the truth is not written all over my face.

  She looks back at me sharply. “I don’t care about Sam Montgomery.”

  I’m so surprised I stop my little jig. “You don’t?”

  She doesn’t run away. “No. I don’t.”

  That’s weird.

  If she doesn’t care about Sam and me, then what’s going on? I’m just an ordinary girl from the ’burbs. Sure, I fell off a catwalk into a famous guy’s arms and was humiliated on national television, but I’m hardly headline news for a journalist without Sam.

  “Then why are you following me?” I ask.

  She looks at me intently for a moment, biting her lip. After a beat she says, “Is there somewhere we can go to talk?”

  I raise my eyebrows at her. “Talk?”

  “Yes. There are things . . . things we need to talk about.”

  “There are?” Bewilderment seeps into my brain. She’s meant to be snapping my picture and making her escape, or perhaps mugging me and leaving me for dead—not wanting to talk.

  Can someone please tell me what’s going on here?

  “Please, Grace. I know I might seem like a crazed stalker—”

  I scoff. “You could say that.” My voice sounds bitter even to my ears.

  “I’m not. Honestly. If you give me a chance I’ll explain everything.” Her eyes are pleading with me.

  “Like why you chased me down at the airport and now you run away from me?” I cross my arms and glare at her.

  She looks abashed. “I know it seems weird.”

  “Weird? You can say that again.”

  “Look, at the airport I wanted to warn you about being ambushed. I thought I could help. Please. Let’s go and talk somewhere. I promise you I’m not crazy, just a bit . . . nervous.”

  My heart softens a fraction. “Okay,” I reply with a healthy dollop of uncertainty. “How about the café down the street?”

  There’s no way on this sweet earth I’m taking this woman upstairs to my apartment, that’s for certain.

  We walk the two blocks to the café in uncomfortable silence, my mind trawling through all the possible scenarios: she’s a clone warrior, come to take me to the mother ship for experimentation; she’s a member of some weird cult on a recruitment campaign.

  Both totally plausible scenarios, of course.

  Eventually we reach the café and sit down at a free table.

  “Let me buy you a coffee,” Stalker Girl says.

  “Sure. Latte, thanks.” I sit down at a table and look around the room. There are a handful of other patrons here. That’s good. And Carl, the barrister, knows me. I think he’s a black belt or something.

  Note to self: pay attention next time someone tells you about their martial arts background: it may come in handy.

  Stalker Girl arrives back at the table with coffee for us both. As she places them on the table I notice her hands are shaking.

  “Damn! Sorry,” she says as she spills milky coffee in my saucer.

  “No problem.” I wipe up the mess with a napkin.

  She sits down opposite me.

  I take a sip of my coffee, waiting for her to explain her stalker tendencies.

  She doesn’t.

  Eventually, I say, “Okay, you wanted to talk, so let’s talk.”

  She purses her lips, takes a deep breath. “All right.”

  “How about we start with your name? You already seem to know mine.”

  “Yes, it’s Savannah. Savannah ummm . . .”

  I quirk an eyebrow, shift uncomfortably. The woman can’t remember her own last name?

  I narrow my eyes at her. “Savannah who?”

  She doesn’t respond. She nervously bites her lip, pushes her hair off her face.

  I take another sip of coffee. Wait. Another sip. I glance at my watch. My mother always told me I was the most patient of all her children. Right now, I’m not so sure.

  Finally, after what feels like most of the afternoon, she begins to talk.

  “Okay, here’s the thing. A long time ago, twenty-five years to be exact, my dad had an affair.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Yeah, well. He had an affair with my mother.”

  “Oh.”

  “And, ah . . . I’m the result.”

  Hoping this is leading somewhere, I nod, resist the urge to glance at my watch. Perhaps she’s an over-sharer?

  “I saw you in the news when you fell off the stage. Although they didn’t say who you were I had my suspicions. I decided to follow you. I know that seems weird.”

  “Uh, yes. You could say that.”

  “Then there was all that stuff about you and Sam Montgomery in the news and your appearance on Wake Up New Zealand. Obviously, I knew it was you then.”

  “What do you mean, you knew it was me?”

  She pauses for a beat. “You and I share something. We’re . . .” She pauses, taking a deep breath. “We’re half-sisters.”

  I laugh. “Sure we are.”

  My eyes dart to Carl. I consider sending him a distress signal. He smiles back at me.

  “No, we are.” Her voice is firm. “My dad is Michael O’Donnell.”

  “But—” I begin, dumbfounded.

  She reaches into her bag and pulls out a worn piece of paper. She unfolds it and slides it across the table to me.

  “This is my birth certificate.”

  I inspect the document. The words dance in front of my eyes. Savannah O’Donnell . . . Yolanda Murray . . . Michael O’Donnell.

  I look up into her face. It’s full of hope—and fear.

  “You see?” she says.

  My mouth drops open. “Oh. My. God.”

  Savannah smiles at me, looking relieved.

  “But… I never… What?” My head spins so fast it could pop clean off my neck and ricochet around the café walls.

  I guess I was too busy feeling stalked by a madwoman to wonder whether there was any family resemblance between us.

  And now it turns out we’re sisters?

  I sit with my mouth open, gaping at her. I’ve just received a crash course in what being dumbfounded is like.

  “Apparently, your mum never knew about the affair, she didn’t know about me. Once the affair was over mum and I moved to Auckland. We never heard from my father—our father—again. I’ve actually never even met him, so . . . well, I guess that’s it. That’s my story.”

  I blink at her. Swallow.

  After a moment she asks, “Are you going to say something?”

  “I . . . ah . . . I’m not sure what to say, exactly.”

  Savannah smiles at me with kind eyes. “I know this a lot to take in.”

  I let out a sudden laugh. “Yes. It is a lot.” I grip the side of the table as the room begins to spin. “I . . . don’t . . . ah . . .”

  Concern clouds her face. “You don’t look so good. Kind of . . . green.”

  Nausea rises. I can taste bile in my mouth.

  Savannah leaps up from her seat, grabs me by the shoulders, pulling my chair out from the table. “Put your head down between your knees.”

  I do as she instructs.

  “Now, take big, deep breaths.”

  I breathe in as deeply as I can muster. The nausea begins to abate.

  Savannah rubs my back, comforting me. “That’s tight. Good, long breaths. You’ll be fine,” she soothes.

  After a few moments, the need to throw up subsides. I sit back up in my seat. Savannah is crouching next to me, concern etched on her face.

  Embarrassed, I say, “Sorry. I felt a bit odd for a moment then.”


  Savannah puts her hand on mine. “That’s okay, Grace. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s a perfectly natural reaction. You were in shock.” She shrugs. “I’m a nurse.”

  “You’re a nurse? Oh,” I manage.

  She sits back down opposite me and smiles. It’s a sweet smile, making her face light up. I’m instantly struck by how much she looks like me. The shape of her face, the colour of her eyes, that smile, is all me.

  I crinkle my forehead. “How old are you?”

  “I’m twenty-four.”

  “Me too.”

  She nods. “I know. I’m three months younger than you.”

  “Oh,” I reply, doing the math.

  “They had an affair while Jennifer was pregnant with you.”

  I think of my dad. The slime ball, screwing around on my mother while she was pregnant! Disgust rolls through me. I push my coffee away.

  Savannah bites her lip. “It sucks, doesn’t it? What he did?”

  I nod. “Yes, it does. Some men can be total assholes.”

  My mind instantly turns to Sam. Thank God he’s one of the good guys.

  After a moment I ask, “Tell me something, Savannah. Why did you follow me? Why not just knock on my door or something?”

  “I was so nervous about telling you. When I saw you in the news I knew who you were, even when you were referred to as a ‘local model’. It was kind of like looking in the mirror. Well, one of those ones that distorts you and makes you look tall and skinny.” She laughs, and then bites her lip again, betraying her nerves.

  I nod at her, trying to wrap my brain around everything. Savannah’s right: it’s a lot to take in.

  She continues. “I’ve been following you because I wanted to know what sort of person you were. I didn’t want to approach you with all this if I thought you would knock me back. I’ve fantasised about meeting you since I was a little girl. I guess I wanted to make sure you didn’t take after our dad.”

  I let out a disdainful laugh. “‘Our dad’.”

  “For the record, I don’t think you do, although I would seriously consider switching out your roommate, if I were you.”

  I snort. “You must mean Tiffany.”

  “The one with the short skirts, always flicking her hair?”

  “That’s the one.”

  She shakes her head. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw her selling you out to those journalists. I felt so bad for you.”

  I smile at her, this woman sitting across from me. My sister. This is going to take some getting used to.

  “You’re sweet. It sucked. I’m okay now.”

  “And making up that story about you sleeping with Sam Montgomery when everyone knows he’s dating that gorgeous Vanessa Howard? What a bitch.”

  “Yeah,” I laugh. It’s a little shrill. I hope my new sister doesn’t notice.

  She twists her coffee cup in its saucer, looking down. “So . . . do you see Michael?”

  “Not much. He and Mum broke up when I was just a kid. He lives in Brisbane. I used to see him every couple of years. He married someone else, had a new family. I didn’t feel like I fitted in much, you know?”

  She raises her eyebrows at me.

  “I guess you do.” I look down at my hands.

  “What’s he like?” Her voice is tentative, halting.

  I shrug. “I could have told you all about him before this conversation. Now I feel like I don’t know him at all.”

  How could he have kept not only an affair but a child from my mother? A child born three months after me?

  “I guess he must look like us?” she asks.

  “Yes, he does.” I study Savannah for a moment, head to one side. “I think we’ve both got his shaped face and perhaps the same eyes.”

  She smiles. “Do you have a photo of him? My mum only had one and it was taken before I was born. She held onto it, hoping one day he’d come back to her. I guess that’s why she gave me his last name. She never got over him.”

  My heart goes out to her. Michael might have left us when I was only two, but at least I’ve had a relationship with him my whole life, even if he is a poor excuse for a father.

  I feel an immediate surge of love for my stepfather, the man I’ve called Dad since I was five.

  I pull my phone out of my bag and start to scroll through my photo file. “I haven’t seen him for a couple of years. I think I’ve got one he sent me a few months ago. Ah, here it is.”

  I hand her the phone. I watch as she studies the photo, wondering how it must feel to be in her position.

  “I searched for him online, but couldn’t find him. This—” she looks at the photo again, shaking her head, “—is quite surreal.”

  “I bet it is.”

  Savannah looks up again and hands me back my phone. I notice her eyes glistening.

  “Exactly how many more half-siblings are you telling me I have?” she asks brightly.

  “Two more: Charlie and Theo. At least, that’s what we know of.”

  We laugh together. It’s short lived as it dawns on me the very real possibility Michael spread his DNA much wider than we know.

  “To be honest, I don’t even think of him as my dad. All I have is his DNA. He was never a father to me. I have one of those, my stepdad. Roger, that’s his name. And he’s the best.” A smile spreads across my face.

  “I can tell you love him,” she remarks.

  “Yeah, he’s pretty cool,” I reply.

  Her face creases into a broad grin. “You’re nice. I can’t tell you how relieved I am.”

  “You’re relieved? I thought you were a stalker journalist intent on making my life hell.” I laugh. “I’m glad you’re not, by the way,” I add with a grin.

  Savannah laughs.

  “Although I think it’s going to take me a while to digest all of this,” I add.

  She shrugs. “I get that. My mum, Yolanda, told me about you from as young as I can remember. I’ve had twenty-four years of knowing you exist. You’ve had about—” she glances at her watch, “—seven minutes.”

  My thoughts turn to my family. “Does my mother know about you?”

  She shakes her head. “My mum never told her and I sincerely doubt Michael would have.”

  “Yeah. You’re right there. Wow.” I shake my head, knowing this may affect my mum deeply. “Can I tell her? I mean, I assume you haven’t met her. She would have told me about it, I’m sure.”

  We’re a close-knit family. This kind of bombshell out of nowhere would definitely get raised in our family dinner discussions.

  “No, I’ve never met your mum. I wanted to meet you most of all. I kind of liked the idea of having a sister.”

  She grins at me. “But yeah, I’d like to meet her sometime.”

  I smile at her. I’ve had another sister for my entire life and never known about her. We could have seen each other in the school holidays, at Christmas, over summer. We could have been friends.

  We stay talking in the café until Carl has stacked all the chairs on the tables and has finished sweeping the floors.

  “Sorry, Carl. We’re going now,” I say to him as we get ready to leave.

  “No problem, ladies. It looked like you had a lot to catch up on.”

  Savannah and I glance at one another, smiling. “I guess you could say that,” I reply.

  Outside the café, we hug and make plans to meet again.

  “Should I set something up for you to meet my mum, Jennifer?” I ask.

  “I guess.” She sounds unsure. “Maybe you tell her about me first and see if she wants to.”

  After saying our farewells, I walk slowly back to my apartment block. I can barely believe this afternoon I lost a stalker and gained so much more: a new sister.

  Chapter 17

  LACK OF GRACE.

  The headline screams at me from my laptop screen as my phone chirps with message after message.

  My stomach lurches. How can this be?

  The headline is
accompanied by a grainy photo of Sam and me as we kiss outside the restaurant.

  I read through the article, sicker with every line.

  She seduced him . . . Has he left America’s Sweetheart for her? . . .Poor Vanessa has run away to hide . . .

  My anger sparks. We’ve been so careful: not going out in public, using the back entrance to the hotel. Kissing outside the restaurant is the one time we’ve been out in public without a disguise.

  “Tiffany,” I say, not taking my eyes from the screen.

  No response.

  “Tiffany!” I repeat, this time louder.

  Still no response. “Tiffany!” I yell.

  “What?” she calls from her bedroom, irritated.

  “I need to see you. Now!”

  She stumbles into the living room in her nightdress. She blinks at me, looking dishevelled. “Do you know what time it is? Way too early for yelling.”

  I glare at her, pointing at the screen. “Did you do this?”

  She rubs her eyes. “Do what?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me. Did you talk to the media about Sam and me?”

  She lets out a breath. “Let’s not go over this again. I explained my reasons to Sam and he understood. I want to put it behind me now.”

  “You want to put it behind you?” I’m incredulous.

  I should have kicked her out with her first betrayal.

  She pads into the kitchen, fills the kettle with water. “Yes. Things are going well for me at the moment, and I have that meeting Sam got me coming up tomorrow. I need to focus on that, not who you are or are not sleeping with.”

  I let out an irritated grunt. “Tiffany.”

  I wait until she looks at me. Once I know I have her attention I continue. “There is a new story about Sam and me in the news today. Did you or did you not talk to the media?”

  “There is?” she asks, surprised.

  She comes over and peers at the screen. “Huh. There is too.”

  I narrow my eyes at her.

  She puts her hands up in the air as though surrendering. “Nothing to do with me, I promise.”

  “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “Grace, I did not do this. And quite frankly, I’m offended you could think I did. Does my word mean nothing to you? I’m a woman of principle, you know.”