by Molly Joseph
“It’s party time,” said Renzo. “I hope you’re hungry!”
She gave the beaming Argentinian a hug. He and Krishna brought more food from the kitchen, trays of appetizers, curry rolls, empanadas, along with sauces and fresh bread. Sam served up cocktails and Fredrik put on music, and they all sat down together to feast and get a little drunk as the snow piled up outside. After an hour or so of merriment and face-stuffing, her friends sang Happy Birthday and Renzo cut into the cake, even though they were too full to eat it.
“Open your presents,” suggested Krishna. “Then we’ll find more room to eat cake.”
Grace’s face hurt from smiling so much. Fredrik was hyper with alcohol. Renzo was slurring his r’s even more than usual, and even Sam had allowed himself a drink—one drink—on duty. Grace had had a couple of cocktails, which was plenty to get her buzzing. She grabbed the smallest present first and read the card. “To the best chess player and the most beautiful person I’ve ever known. Love, Fredrik. Awww.” She gave him a drunken grin and ripped off the paper to find a USB thumb drive with a red silk ribbon for a handle.
“Oh, a thumb drive,” she said. “Thanks. I can always use these.”
“It’s not just a thumb drive.” He bounded over to her, laughing. “Why would I give you a plain old drive? This is a record of all the games we’ve played so far, all the strategies we’ve talked about, here in one place. I’ve been diagramming them along the way. I even coded them with the different endgames. It’s for you to practice with.”
“Oh, wow.” It was a practical gift, but one she appreciated very much. “It’ll be nice to have this as a keepsake, to remember all the stuff we talked about here.” All the hours they’d spent with her, all their selfless efforts... She felt a little teary as she crossed to give Fredrik a hug.
He squeezed her tight. “You inspire me so much.”
She couldn’t hold his gaze as he released her. She didn’t know how to handle all this attention, all this emotion and kindness.
“Okay,” called out Renzo. “Next present.” He handed her his gift, another small box. She tore off the paper and opened it to find a pale green and turquoise-colored bracelet of polished stones.
“Oh, Renzo. This is so beautiful...the colors...” The stones were muted and shot through with almost imperceptible striations.
“It’s agate,” he said. “In Argentina, they say agate attracts strength and offers protection. Also, it helps with bad dreams.” He shrugged, looking a bit shy. “If you have bad dreams, you put it under your pillow.”
“I might lose it if I put it under my pillow.” Instead, she put it on her wrist, allowing Renzo to help her with the clasp. “Thank you,” she said. “Strength and protection are two of the things I need most right now.”
She glanced at Sam, to find him gazing back at her. Later. In private. She turned her attention to the remaining presents. There was a beautiful Indian scarf from Krishna in the same pale blue and green as the bracelet. “Did you two confer on this?” she asked, and they looked at each other and smiled. There were presents from Zeke back in the U.S, a thick, warm beige wool sweater and matching tasseled hat, and a new picture book on Marie Antoinette and the Palace at Versailles.
“I guess you should open mine now,” said Sam, getting up from the table. He went to the closet and brought back a huge garment bag with an oversized bow stuck to the outside. She immediately knew what it was.
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“It was too expensive!”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t.”
“Oh, my God.” She unzipped the bag to reveal the ornate Marie Antoinette wedding gown she’d tried on at the bridal shop.
“Goodness,” Krishna murmured.
“Why did he get you a wedding dress?” asked Fredrik, who was already pretty drunk.
“I got it because she wanted it, and because life’s too short not to have the things you want.”
Their eyes met. They’d certainly been living by that credo lately, at least in the bedroom. He spoiled her rotten with pleasure and orgasms, and now this crazy, wonderful gift.
Fredrik narrowed his eyes as she showed all of them the intricate embroidery. Renzo stood up and crowed with delight. “‘Let them eat cake!’ She said this, yes? Your Marie Antoinette? Go put on your pretty dress, Grace, and then we’ll have cake.”
“I can’t believe you got this for me,” she said to Sam. “I can’t believe you did this.” She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to jump on him, but they’d agreed to keep their thing a secret so she only took his hand and squeezed it. “I’m going to go put it on.”
*** *** ***
The party carried on for hours, crazy as any fraternity rager. Sam lounged on the couch enjoying the mayhem and the various ongoing conversations, about chess, about people they knew in common, about the things they missed from their home countries. Grace flitted around in her confection of a dress, laughing and dancing. He wanted to throw her over his shoulder and carry her up to the bedroom, but that might raise a few eyebrows. Later, birthday girl. Anything you want.
She smiled at him, a lovely, flirty smile. She’d changed so much during their last week together. She was less contemplative and more confident, and she gave him everything when they retreated to her bedroom. Body, heart, mind. Words. Grace chattered during sex. It was exasperating and adorable.
Why had he resisted her for so long? Because you’re her bodyguard. Because she’s too young for you. Because things are going to get complicated. Sam silenced his misgivings and went to dance with her, since it was the only sanctioned way to touch her with everyone around. Fredrik scowled and Krishna pretended not to notice. Renzo almost set the kitchen on fire but he emerged victorious with a huge platter of barbeque, seasoned and roasted to perfection.
They’d all needed this break, that was clear. The barbeque and birthday cake disappeared piece by piece. Grace gave a long talk about the fact that Marie Antoinette had never really said “Let them eat cake,” and how misunderstood she was. This was followed by some alcohol-fueled discussion about whether they could turn the ground floor shower stall into a hot tub using caulk and pipe insulation. Krishna and Renzo actually got out some paper to crunch the numbers, muttering about water temperature and pressure per square millimeter.
Sam was sober enough to enjoy all this, and sober enough to realize that—even drunk—the chess players were far, far more intelligent than he was. In the Army, intelligence hadn’t been a big bonus. Intelligence made soldiers question. Intelligence made soldiers analyze their situation and get scared. In the Army, courage and obedience trumped intelligence, and Sam had spent a lot of time with greatly respected men who didn’t have a whole lot going on upstairs.
These people did have a lot going on upstairs, perhaps too much, but in the end their style of partying was very much the same. Drink. Forget. Let go. Fredrik turned up the music while Renzo exhorted him to “drop it low, drop it low” in a broad Hispanic accent. Grace jumped into the mix in her poufy dress. She’d lost her glasses at some point. He suspected she didn’t really need them. They were another form of hiding, another way to disguise herself from the spies who were starting to materialize. Last week he’d seen a couple new faces walking by the house, lingering by the door.
He didn’t think she knew. He didn’t want her to know. He wanted her to be carefree, to dance and drink, and lie under him later, responding to him in her completely abandoned way. She’d ruined him for all other women, with her exuberance and her sultry smiles, and the crazy things she said in the heat of the moment, things like, “I’m floating above the earth. Sex is like space travel!” She didn’t think like anybody else. Why would she have sex like anybody else?
She was the one and only Grace Ann Frasier, and she made a beautiful Marie Antoinette, with or without the glasses. It was a no-brainer, to get her the dress. He’d even had it altered, shortened, with the waist taken in. Marie Pommesfrites, his prete
nd bride. He’d gone back to buy the gown the same day they’d left the shop, and kept it hidden. Since that time, things had gotten a lot more intense between them. He looked at her in the wedding dress now and had crazy thoughts. Ridiculous thoughts. He was no better than Fredrik, pining after her, although Fredrik was a pussy. He danced like a pussy.
“Hey, Sam.” Krishna wasn’t as drunk as the others. He caught Sam’s attention and beckoned him to the table. “Try this. Try this,” he repeated, pointing at a chess board. “Arrange all the pawns so they’re in their own row but can’t reach each other on a diagonal.”
“What?”
“Look at the board and think a moment. Try to line up the pawns so each one is in a different row, and they can’t reach each other diagonally. There’s only one way.”
Sam started moving them around, only because of Krishna’s gleeful expression. “Is this some exercise for beginning chess students?”
“Yes,” Krishna tittered. “To see who has promise, and analytical thought. Chess is analysis, you know. If you cannot analyze, you cannot play.”
Fair enough. Sam played with it a while, placing the pawns in lines and stair-stepping formations. Krishna watched, chuckling at each attempt.
“Let go of me. Let go!”
Sam looked up at Grace’s voice, and saw her squirming away from Fredrik as he tried to kiss her. Rage washed over him, hot and violent fury. He pushed back from the chess board, stormed across the room, and shoved Fredrik away.
The Swede turned to him in a drunken temper. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“Don’t touch her,” Sam said. “Keep your fucking hands off her.”
“All right, boys,” said Renzo in a calming voice. “This is Gracie’s party. Let’s try to get along. Who wants more cake?”
“She doesn’t belong to you,” said Fredrik.
“She doesn’t belong to you either. And while we’re on the subject, I’m pretty fucking sick of you going out of your way to make her feel miserable.”
“At least I care about her.”
Sam’s hands curled into fists. “You think I don’t care about her?”
“I think you don’t care if she wins in Dubai. That’s the last thing on your mind.” He drawled the last sentence with accusatory emphasis.
“Shut up, Fredrik,” said Grace. “Stop arguing with Sam.”
He spun to her. “He started it. He’s dragging you down, Gracie. Bodyguard, my ass.”
Sam wanted to pummel him. He wanted to beat him into a begging, sobbing lump, but Grace looked anxious and Renzo and Krishna were on edge.
“That’s enough,” he said to Fredrik. “You’re drunk and you’re annoying Grace. Time for you to go upstairs and sleep it off.”
“What, so you can have her all to yourself?” He gestured wildly at Grace, then turned back to Sam with his jaw clenched tight. “You fuck her every night, don’t you? I know you sleep with her. We all hear it. We all see. We have eyes. We see how you look at her.”
Fredrik was flushed with alcohol. Sam was flushed with something else. His cheeks burned red.
“That’s none of your fucking business,” he said.
“It’s my fucking business when she’s losing focus on the game.”
“I’m not losing focus,” Grace yelled. “Just shut up, Fredrik. I can sleep with whoever I want.”
“Yeah, you can sleep with whoever you want,” he said bitterly. “Why not me? You wouldn’t even have to pay me.”
Sam grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and glared into his bleary, drunken eyes. He was the bodyguard. He was supposed to diffuse and protect, not attack, but his temper was nearing the edge. Fredrik could argue with him all he wanted, but he wasn’t going to insult Grace. “Apologize,” he said, slowly and clearly. “Apologize to Grace for being an asshole.”
Grace had gone pale when he grabbed Fredrik. Renzo hovered at their side.
“Take him upstairs, Sam,” Krishna said. “I think the party is over.”
“I should be with you, Grace,” Fredrik said, beating a fist against his chest. “He doesn’t... He shouldn’t...” He pushed Sam away and grabbed Grace around the waist. She tripped on the dress and Fredrik fell on top of her. Before she could get up, he pinned her to the floor and grabbed her face. “I don’t get it, you little slut. How come you’ll fuck that half-Arab raghead and not me?”
A second passed, maybe two, while Sam processed the word slut, and saw Fredrik’s fingers grasping Grace’s face. He heard someone, maybe Renzo, gasp. He heard half-Arab raghead, but more than that, he saw the look of terror—the look of recollection—on Grace’s face as she stared up at Fredrik. That’s when he very simply lost his shit.
In that moment, he wanted to kill Fredrik. He wanted to kill him for scaring and hurting Grace. He wanted to kill him because he would never have the chance to kill the other men who’d scared and hurt her. He hauled him off Grace and punched him in the stomach. Fredrik doubled over but came up flailing. One of his fists connected with the side of Sam’s jaw.
“You shouldn’t sleep with her,” Fredrik yelled, punching while Sam deflected. “Fucking towelhead. I know you’re an Arab. I looked you up.”
Sam pushed him away and backhanded him. Grace screamed at them to stop but it wasn’t within Sam’s power. This asshole had hurt Gracie and he needed to be punished. Fredrik went down but popped right back up like one of those vinyl, inflatable clowns. Alcohol and fury had painted his cheeks a florid red.
Sam grappled with him, wrapping his legs around him to take him down. It was like wrestling with an octopus. Sam punched him whenever he could get some leverage, mauling him for frightening Grace, for bringing that terror back into her world.
“Stop it. Stop!” Grace screamed as Fredrik struggled to overtake Sam. Renzo circled them, exhorting both of them to calm down. Fredrik landed another punch to his jaw and Sam kneed him in the groin, then backhanded him with his elbow just hard enough to knock him out. Fredrik went still. Grace burst into tears.
He turned to her and held up a hand. “It’s okay, baby. Are you okay?”
“Did you kill him?” Her lips trembled and her face had gone white.
“No. I didn’t kill him.” He stood up to try to soothe her but she backed away.
“You hurt him. You beat him up.”
“He was trying to take my head off.” She was angry at him? “Gracie.” He reached for her hand, but she took another step back. “Gracie, listen to me—”
“It hurts when you get beat up,” she interrupted in a breaking voice. “You hurt him.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
She grabbed her skirts and spun, and fled up the stairs. Sam turned to Renzo and Krishna, both of whom looked as traumatized as Grace.
“He attacked her first,” he said. “You saw, right? He was on top of her, yelling at her.” He glanced down at Fredrik, out cold on the floor. He leaned to check his pulse and his vitals. He was fine. Drunk and knocked out.
“Go to her,” Renzo said. “We’ll take care of Fredrik.”
There was something in his voice, some accusation. “He scared her,” Sam said to both of them. “No one’s allowed to scare Gracie. No one’s allowed to hurt her.”
Neither of them replied.
“Go to her,” Renzo said after a long, excruciating silence. “She needs you now.”
*** *** ***
Grace didn’t know where to go to feel safe. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to get away from the memories. She couldn’t erase the violence of the fight from her mind, the sickening sound of their fists.
Fredrik deserved it. Fredrik had behaved like a jackass, but Sam had punched him really hard, and Fredrik had punched him back, and then they were beating on each other and Grace felt taken right back to the time she’d been beaten up. She heard the same sounds, the same grunts and hisses, and thuds of fists on skin. She ran behind the couch, to the frosted-over window, and crouched into a ball. She huddled into the gown’
s full skirt and put her hands over her ears. A moment later, Sam was there, but it was too soon for her to be around him. She shot to her feet and ran for the bedroom.
“Grace, wait.”
“No. I want to be alone right now.” She fled into her room and locked the door.
His voice carried through the wood, deep and insistent. “I need to talk to you. Let me in.”
“No.” Cunt. Feelthy American slut.
“Let me in or I’ll break down the door.”
“Go away,” she yelled.
There was a crack and a pop, and the door swung wide as the frame splintered. Her sanity splintered too. She launched herself at him, arms flailing. “I said go away! Don’t come near me.”
He caught her arms and trapped her wrists, and not even her Jiu-jitsu could free her then. “Stop it,” he said, clinching her around the waist. “Let me talk to you.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.” She didn’t realize how much she was shaking until he hauled her against his chest.
“Shh, it’s okay.” He stroked her hair and rubbed her nape. “Calm down, baby.”
“You scared me. You scared me so much!”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She pushed at him, at the strong, powerful man who was so much more violent than she’d ever imagined. She hadn’t really known what he was capable of until she saw him knock Fredrik out.
“Why did you fight with him?” she cried. “Why did you do that?”
“He was on top of you, Grace. What was I supposed to do? Let him terrorize you, let him paw you without your consent?” He pushed her chin up so she would look at him. “You ask me to take you to the coffee shop in Arctic weather, and I take you. You ask me to make love to you and I make love to you. But don’t ask me not to protect you, Grace. I can’t.”
“I didn’t need your protection. It was just Fredrik. You flipped out because he called you a raghead.”
“That’s not why I flipped out.”
She studied his beautiful, brown-green eyes. Fredrik was a racist, and raghead was a nasty word. “Are you really half Arab?”