Chapter Fifty-Nine Grant
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Grant
I KNOCK ON THE door to Rae’s cabin, listen to a scuffling from inside, and then knock again.
She opens it a crack. “Hey. What’s up?”
“You alone?”
“Yeah. My roommate got fired.”
“Got a second?”
“Oh, um… I was going to sleep.”
“Ah…” I lift blankets and a bottle I pilfered from the open bar. “I was hoping you’d come out. With me.”
“Where?” She sniffles.
“Are you sick?”
“No. No, I’m fine.”
Unconvinced, I watch her for a few seconds. “You see the lake out there?”
“Yeah.”
“Thought we could take a boat out.”
“Now? It’s like midnight.”
“Exactly.”
Her smile is slow to come, but once it’s there, it lights up her entire being.
Hell, it lights me up too. You could power something big with Rae’s smile.
“Give me a sec,” she says, going back inside and reappearing a moment later with her coat, hat, and scarf.
We head along the well-marked paths for a bit and then strike out through a dark, forested area that smells like pine needles. I take her hand. Just to help her navigate the dark, obviously.
At the lake, she settles into a canoe. I take off my shoes and socks and roll up my jeans, walk into the water to pull the thing out, and sputter as I get in.
“You okay?”
“Can’t feel my feet.”
As I struggle to dry my feet with the blanket, Rae picks up the oars and rows us in circles, giggling madly.
Finally, she hands them to me and slides forward to warm my toes with her soft little hands.
A couple of long strokes and we’re away from shore. The cabin lights grow smaller and smaller. A few more strokes, and the night forest noises go faint, the smell of lake water overtaking pines and wet dirt and dead leaves.
I’m sitting in the back of the boat, and she’s facing me on the wooden bottom, my feet in her lap, one blanket covering us both and another around her shoulders.
At about the middle of the water, I set the oars down and just sit. Breathe.
The air is still and cool. “Smells like Vermont,” I say, out of the blue.
“Is that where you’re from?”
“No.”
She doesn’t reply, and I don’t plan to add more, but then I do. “I was born in New Jersey. Summit.”
“I’ve never been there.”
“I don’t remember it. I then moved to Pennsylvania and then back to New Jersey. Boston. For a while. Then Vermont.” My favorite. Calm. Simple. “My mom’s a dentist. Well, she was. She’s retired now.”
“She picked up and moved you that much?”
“Yep.” I don’t bother adding the obvious: that each and every move corresponded to a new husband. “What about you? Always Richmond?”
“Midlothian.”
“Ah.”
“Don’t look like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’ve cataloged me into a Midlothian-shaped life.”
“Okay. So, how was it?”
“Well, you know Midlothian’s kinda fancy. Safe neighborhood. Good schools. Great place to grow up. All the euphemisms.”
“Right.” I envision massive brick houses, huge yards, and tasteful landscaping. Nice, if that’s your thing.
“Yeah, well, ours was the eyesore. A little seventies split-level. The family car was a decade old. And, yes, I said car. Singular.”
“Ah.”
“All around us, it was executive dads, and moms who stayed home during the important years. But my family? Artsy was the nicest description of us I heard. My parents were both elementary teachers, so that should give you an idea of the income divide. Anyway, when I went to college—a state school—it was like I had finally found my people. Artsy and poor.” The way she says this, it is clearly more compliment than insult.
“I got a scholarship, lived in student housing, and rode my bike all over the place. Sam and I went to VCU together.”
“To study theater?”
“I was a theater major. She did art.”
“Wow. VCUarts has a great reputation.”
She considers me for a moment. “And she’s a great artist. She just…”
“I’m sorry, Rae.”
She nods. “I know.”
I grab her hand and hold it tight. “I mean that. I didn’t… When I realized it was Sam, I… Fuck. I really didn’t want to hurt you.”
“I realize that.” A long, deep sigh. “I love her as much as I love my sisters, you know? She just… I just… I lost my mom, and still I had the best family I’ve ever known. Sam really, really wasn’t lucky.”
“Well, she had you.”
“Yeah. Yeah, she still does.” After a long silence, she sniffs. “Someone’s having a campfire.”
“Smells good.”
We slip into silence.
After a few minutes, I search for something else to say that won’t hurt and land back on our previous conversation. “Where’d you live when you went to school?”
“Little place near Monument. I loved it. My favorite part of Richmond was the Fan. Still is. There’s this one street I used to ride down all the time.”
I root around in the blankets and pull out the bottle of Virginia bourbon I pilfered from the party. “Yeah? Where?”
“Grace Street.”
“No way.”
“What? Why?”
“That’s where I live.” For now.
“You’re joking.”
I hand her the bottle. She sniffs, takes a tiny sip, and passes it back to me. In the light from the moon, I can just barely make out her grimace.
“Nope.” I take a long swig, enjoying the bourbon’s smooth descent. Nothing goes better with this woodsmoke smell than whiskey. I listen to the very faint song of the season’s last crickets. “My place was abandoned when I bought it. At auction. They almost took it down.”
“You fixed it up?”
I nod.
“I always had this fantasy of living in one of those houses. Picking paint colors and finishes and making it mine.” I can hear the smile in her voice. “Like my very own Barbie Dreamhouse.”
“So, bright pink?”
“No. Although maybe a couple of interior rooms in a classy, demure pink. It was just a daydream. Like one day, I’d save up and make enough to buy a row house with my ex.
” The puffed-out sound she makes isn’t exactly a laugh, but it’s not entirely sad either.
Somewhere in the center of bittersweet. “Never mind.”
“What happened?”
“I thought my ex and I had more in common than we did.”
“That why it ended?”
“I just don’t think we loved each other all that much. I broke it off when it occurred to me that, like, in a fire, I wasn’t sure if he’d come back to grab me or his PlayStation.”
What the hell? “Are you serious?” The desire to hunt this guy down immediately and beat the crap out of him is sudden and shocking.
At her nod, I tamp down the unexpected flash of violence. “I’m sorry, Rae.” I reach out and push a curl behind her ear.
“It’s all right. I’m much better off without him.” She shivers, and I realize how cold it’s gotten.
“Here, move up.”
She scoots toward me, and I edge forward to the middle of the boat, drawing the blankets tighter around us. I bend into the little cave we’ve made and breathe. “You smell so good.”
She exhales. I inhale. Our breath mingles between us, whiskey and smoke and her toothpaste.
“Were you about to head to bed when I knocked?”
“Yeah.” A sigh. “No regrets.”
“Hey. Why’d you leave during my song tonight?”
Her breath catches. I wait for a heartbeat, another.
“It made me emotional.”
“Sinatra?”
“You, Grant. It wasn’t kinky. It wasn’t sexy. It wasn’t work-related. It was just… you.”
I swallow hard, no idea what to say.
“I know you’re moving on soon. I get it.
I mean, given your past and…” Her eyes are shining when they meet mine.
I really hate the idea of being responsible for putting the tears there.
“I didn’t mean to fall in love with you.
I didn’t mean to.” She shrugs those sweet, round shoulders, and I have to fight very hard against the urge to wrap her up in my arms, keep her safe, and give her every last thing she wants.
Even if that thing is me. Not just now, but always. Forever.
And then, she looks up at me, the sheen of tears overflowing into two thin tracks bisecting her cheeks, and there’s this moment…
or realization… or premonition—I don’t fucking know.
Just this feeling that if I don’t take care of this woman the way she deserves…
If I don’t take on the burden and the… the…
the honor of her tears, her emotion, and all that love; if I don’t make them mine, right this minute, then I am not the man I was meant to be. That’s the feeling.
I’ve got no fucking clue how to express it. All I can do is lean in and kiss her.