There was no getting around it: time for my monthly lunch with Julia.
I suggested a Christmassy place, the restaurant next to the ice-skating rink at Rockefeller Center. I was counting on her holiday spirit to help her process the bad news I was about to present.
No, I had not yet told her that the wedding was off. For which I felt a little guilty. Dan knew; he had drawn the basics out of me in e-mails and instant message conversations. If Julia ever found out that he knew something about me that she didn’t, it would be a very bad scene.
She was waiting for me at a table that looked out on the ice. She saw me coming in and came around the table and grasped my shoulders. “My God, you look awful! Have you been sick? Why didn’t you call me?”
“I’m fine. I’ve just had a little stomach trouble.”
“Have you been to a doctor?”
“I’m getting better. Really.” She was squeezing my arms, frowning. “Please, let’s sit.”
Julia was radiant in a red turtleneck sweater-dress, big silver hoop earrings, and stiletto-heeled boots.
“You look great, Mom.”
She flushed with pleasure. “José gave me this dress. An early Christmas present.”
“Wow, you two are really going strong.”
“Well, we both see other people, you know. It’s casual.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
She laughed uncomfortably. “I insisted on it.”
The waiter came. She ordered a salad for herself and said to me, “And you’re having a nice buttery, creamy pasta. An Alfredo,” she said to the waiter. “With penne. And extra butter and cream.” He went away and she continued with me. “Not that you want to eat like this too often, once you’ve gained a few pounds back.”
“Of course not.”
She pulled a folder out of her bag and started showing me wedding cake designs. It took me a while to work up the nerve.
“Mom, these all look so good.”
“But what? Too many flowers? We could have them do one with no flowers and just this lacy pattern in the icing.”
“Mom.” I breathed deeply and exhaled.
She started to look worried. “What?”
“Steven and I are not getting married.”
Grim, staring silence.
“What happened?”
“I can’t do it.”
“You’re nervous. That’s completely normal.”
“I don’t love him.”
“You should go home and talk about your fears with him.”
“I moved out.”
“When?”
“About three weeks ago.”
Not good, the look on her face. “Well, thanks for telling me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ve been making calls, pricing menus. I have talked to your father on the phone.”
“I know that was difficult for you. Thank you.”
“And what are we going to do with a three-thousand-dollar wedding dress?”
“Let’s sell it on eBay.”
She rubbed her temples. “Grace, are you sure you’re not being naïve? Marriage is a partnership that demands mutual respect and commitment. Love is nice, but honestly, it’s a luxury. And it can even be a hindrance.”
“How a hindrance?”
“Well, how do you easily leave the marriage if it goes bad?”
“Julia, do you hear yourself?”
She didn’t answer. Our food came. We stared at it.
“It would have been so good for you,” she said mournfully.
“How can you say that?” People were looking at me. I lowered my voice. “Julia.” She looked at me with weary, disappointed eyes. “With what happened between you and Dan, how can you say marriage is a good thing?”
“Is it all right if I imagine things being better for my daughter than they were for me? Would it be all right if I do that? Be an optimist for you?”
She was slightly teary. I hadn’t seen that in years, if ever.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She found a tissue in her purse and blew her nose. “Where are you living?”
“With Peg.”
“Well, at least you have a decent place to live. Do you need money?”
“No.”
“How did Steven take this?”
“Badly.”
We finished our meal in silence. It surprised me, but I was able to eat. And in spite of the penne, the Alfredo, the extra butter and cream, I actually felt much lighter than I’d felt coming in.
I got an interview for the health educator job!
The office was in an older building in the West Forties, about halfway down the block from Times Square. Top floor. The frosted glass on the door read Safe and Sound Sexually.
A young woman at the desk nearest the door greeted me and I told her I had an appointment with Lavelle Hendricks. She led me through a large room with a lot of desks to a small, private office.
Lavelle was maybe a few years older than me, with a flawless, caffe latte complexion, hair pulled back in a sleek bun, and big, direct eyes. We sat down on a worn denim sofa and she told me about SASS. Nonprofit community health education. They needed people to teach safe-sex workshops for the SASS-2 project, which stood for Safe and Sexy Seniors. Because of erectile dysfunction medications, testosterone supplementation, and women feeling more liberated about sex, old people were getting it on in record numbers, with a corresponding increase in HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.
I was thrown for a bit of a loop. “So . . . the job is teaching elderly people.”
“Yes. Teaching them about physical and psychological aging changes and medications that affect them sexually, how they can increase their pleasure, solutions for erectile dysfunction, and HIV and STI prevention.” She looked at my resumé. “We need people who are bilingual. Do you speak Spanish?”
I had some Spanish from high school and reading the ads on subway cars. Oh, and watching Sábado Gigante on Saturday nights, after the double feature of Golden Girls. But I was pretty committed to no one ever knowing about that. “I can understand it and read it fairly well. I wouldn’t say that I am a strong speaker. But I could work on it.”
She looked skeptical, but seemed to be very interested in my writing and editing skills. In a thinking-out-loud way, she said, “I suppose we might be able to send you out part of the time as an educator and have you do our in-house writing.”
“Yes, of course! Whatever you’d like.”
She looked at me a long time, mulling me over. I tried to look as bright and as exactly what she was looking for as possible. I am not a person with gigantic relationship failures and a broken heart. I don’t cry myself to sleep every night. I am smart and cheerful! I am normal and healthy! I have eaten more today than five Tootsie Roll Minis and a bowl of Top Ramen!
“Tell me something about yourself, Grace. Something that’s not on your resumé.”
She had such a quietly compelling face.
“Well,” I said. “I just ended my engagement.”
“To be married?”
I nodded. “Know anyone who could use a Vera Wang wedding dress for cheap?”
She shook her head. “There’s a shop downtown where you can donate it, and if they sell it the money goes to foster care programs.”
I wrote down the name of the shop.
She asked me why I wanted to make such a drastic career change. I told her about Healthy Teen, how working on it felt like a moral compromise I didn’t want to be asked to make again.
She nodded. Looked over my resumé again, poker-faced. Stood and offered me her hand.
I left with absolutely no clue how the interview went.
Bill called an end-of-week meeting about the U.S. history book. He’d read through the page proofs and, it seemed, found it lacking.
“This,” he thumped the thick folder of pages, “is the dullest thing I’ve ever read.”
“Oh, is it?” Ed said. “We hired
the freelance writers you recommended.”
“I know that. We need to go back to them and tell them to punch it up.”
“Bill,” I said. “Could you please explain what you mean by ‘punch it up’?”
“Tell them to make it more . . . I don’t know, sexy.”
“Sixth-grade U.S. history. Sexy.”
“Yeah. As in: more exciting?”
I gripped the edge of the conference room table. It was such a good thing that I didn’t have super powers.
“I see,” I said, with uncontrollably increasing volume, “and Bill, when those sixth graders get all excited from reading this sexy U.S. history, are we going to tell them they have to be abstinent? Or would it be all right if we mention the word CONDOM?”
Ed patted my shoulder. I shrugged his hand away.
“Well,” Bill said, “I think we’re all done.”
“Oh, good,” I said. “Because I was just about to HURL all over this big, shiny table!”
“Grace,” Bill said, “you’re really flipping out. Calm down.”
“Okay, will do, Bill!”
“Grace,” Ed said. He looked worried.
“Grace,” Bill said, “you’re really not happy here, are you?”
I laughed. Not happily. “Not really, Bill, no.”
“So I’ll expect your resignation on my desk in the morning.” He got up and left the room.
I looked at Ed.
“Congratulations,” he said bitterly. “Now who will drink-to-forget with me during the workday?”
gray
So I moved back into my former bedroom, the one I’d lived in right out of college when I was new to adulthood and autonomy and so certain about what I wanted to do with my life.
And when the call came to say that I got the job at SASS, it felt like I was being allowed all kinds of major do-over. Now if I could just manage not to mess it all up.
I was glad to vacate Peg’s room, after living there with her for a month. She was seeing a guy, Jim, this cute hippie dentist she met in the vitamin aisle at Whole Foods, and they’d had no privacy. Now they were on a romantic trip upstate for a week to celebrate the winter solstice. I was planning to spend Christmas on the couch in my underwear watching CNN, but Peg made me promise to leave the apartment. I went to my mom’s.
When giving Julia news, the timing is crucial. So, after she tossed back several eggnogs, and while we were watching the pope, I casually mentioned my impending job change. She had an anaphylactic reaction to the word nonprofit.
“I can’t believe you’re giving up your editing career!”
“I know.”
“You’ve worked so hard for it!”
“I know, but it’s over. I might do some writing for SASS.”
“I think you’re being naïve. Grace, I think you’re making a huge mistake.”
I got quiet. I was learning, you can’t always make people understand you. And that had to somehow be okay.
Christmas Day, her behavior was unusual. Several times she randomly patted my shoulder. She tucked my hair behind my ear and smiled at me. That evening, when she was driving me to the train station, the Julia Barnum Christmas Miracle fully incarnated.
“Grace, that thing I said about you being naïve. I’m sorry. I’m such a cynic, you know. I think the new job is great. I do want you to care about your work.” She reached over and squeezed my arm. “I’m going to give you some money. How much do you need?”
“I think I’m okay right now, Mom. Thank you.”
“All right. You’ll tell me if you need help, won’t you?”
“Of course. You’ll be the first.”
It was my last week at Spender-Davis and I didn’t have any work to do. I watched old Kids in the Hall on YouTube, cleaned out my files, and packed the little that I was taking with me in a box.
I emptied my desk drawers. Jeez, the crap that accumulates! Mangled paper clips. A United Way brass lapel pin, missing the back clasp. Open, leaking sugar packets. Red pencils with no remaining eraser. Sticky pennies. An earth-painted marble that was in the drawer when I moved in. I decided I might take it with me; it was kind of pretty. I tried to slip it in the pocket of my jeans but dropped it under the desk. I went after it.
Scuffed black boots darkened my doorway. I experienced instant, mindless recognition of a particular scratch across the toe of the left boot and became very still and quiet, crouching in my particle-board cave like a terrified bunny.
He came in and rapped on the desk. “You okay under there?”
I leaned out just enough to peek over the top. “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”
“The girl at the front knew me from seeing me play. She let me back.”
“Why?”
“Would it kill you to say hello?”
I slid out from under the desk and sat awkwardly in my chair. I didn’t know what to do with my hands. Or any other part of me. Everything felt suddenly alien. “Hello. . . . Why?”
“I’m taking you to lunch.”
I stared at him. He stared at me. I blinked first. “I guess I could go for half an hour. Friday is my last day here and I’m packing.”
“Okay. Meet me downstairs.”
He left and I exhaled and laid my head on my arms on the desk. Tried to regroup. I grabbed my bag and jacket and on the way to the elevator stopped in the ladies’ room.
I looked awful. No makeup. A red spot developing on my chin. Hair in two farm-girl braids. Does it matter? I asked myself. No. Still, as a courtesy to my lunch companion, I brushed and rebraided my hair.
I got off the elevator and spotted him laughing with the building security guys. Typical.
He saw me coming and smiled as if nothing weird or bad had ever happened between us. In spite of myself, I soaked him in. Black jeans, gray T-shirt, black leather coat. His hair that thick and waving auburn, and his eyes—brown and green and gold, and warming me again, after such a long, chilly absence. Up close I saw that he was wearing the pewter rune on the short leather cord around his neck. And he had a small cut from shaving, on the tender place under his jaw.
I wanted to hear him sing again.
He took me by the arm and we walked a couple of blocks to a falafel place on Fifty-third.
Ty ordered the deluxe falafel platter with extra sides of pita and babaganoush. I ordered rice.
He frowned. “That’s all you’re gonna eat? You want some chicken? A gyro?”
“Just rice, with butter,” I said to the waiter. “And a Sprite.”
He eyed me critically. “You look skinny.”
“I’ve lost a little weight.”
“Have you been sick?”
I nodded. “Stomach problems.”
“Are you gonna try to gain it back? Your elbow felt knobby.”
“Thanks. I’m working on it.”
The waiter brought cans of Red Bull and Sprite, and glasses of ice.
“So, I’m going to L.A. on Sunday.”
“Finally, huh?”
“Finally.” He popped open my soda and poured it for me. “I paid off that appendectomy bill,” he said casually.
I looked at him. “All of it?”
“Yeah.” Now he poured caffeine into his glass. “And I got health insurance.”
“Wow, Ty. That’s really great.”
The waiter brought our food. His took up three-quarters of the small table. I buttered my rice and added salt and nibbled a few bites. Mostly I watched him eat. He had always been a bit rude and voracious about it. He ate like he sang. Like he had touched me in the woods.
“Is your family well?” I asked. “Did you spend Christmas with them?”
“Yeah. They asked about you.”
I nodded.
“I went to your apartment. But your name is off the directory. Peg said you don’t live there anymore.”
I shook my head.
“She said you’re not getting married.”
“No.”
He waited fo
r me to say more. I ate some rice.
“Where are you going to work now?”
Best to be nonspecific. “For a nonprofit. Doing community HIV education.”
“All right! Way to go, Grace! You’re finally putting yourself to good use.”
I beamed back at him. I couldn’t help it. It was ridiculous, how satisfying his approval felt.
The waiter came and took away the plates. Asked if we wanted to try the baklava. Gave Ty the check. Good, we were wrapping things up.
“I have something for you.” Ty reached into a pocket and brought out a small box, tied with a bow.
I took it slowly. “What’s this for?”
“Christmas. And I missed your birthday, didn’t I, in September?”
“I—I don’t have anything for you.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
I untied the bow and lifted the lid.
Earrings: delicate, silver, with dangling, pale rose-colored tear-drop crystals. Exquisite.
“They’re white gold,” Ty said. “And pink diamonds.”
He was watching me closely. It took a moment to think of what to say, and it came out too bluntly. “You shouldn’t have done this.”
He shifted impatiently in his chair and crossed his arms. “Why shouldn’t I?”
I put the lid back on carefully. “They’re too much.”
“Actually, they’re not. I have a lot of money now.” His tone became ironic. “I’m incorporated.”
“Well, that’s awesome,” I tried to joke. “Now you won’t have to mooch your marijuana off your mom and dad.”
He laughed, a little, but mostly he looked angry. And hurt.
“Sorry,” I said. “I was—that was a joke.” I set the box on the table in front of him.
“No.” He pushed it back across to me. “Goddammit, Grace. Keep them.”
“It’s better if I don’t.”
“Why is it better?” He put his hands together on top of the table and cracked his knuckles unbelievably loudly. “Just so I know,” he said calmly but pointedly, “how long are you gonna keep running from me?”
Okay. My heart was pounding. Ask . . .
“Ty. Why are you doing this?”
Grace Grows Page 17