Chapter Twelve. Grace
CHAPTER TWELVE
GRACE
The next morning, I am suffering the effects of too much liquor.
It’s easier to tell myself that booze is the culprit behind my sleepless night, not almost stabbing my boyfriend while under the influence of an angry ghost.
(Was it her influence? I want to believe that, but there’s no proof. Maybe I just have a violent streak. Like Dad.)
My head aches something awful. It’s too sunny in the cottage’s cramped eat-in kitchen. I was hoping for a thunderstorm, so that Levi’s annual weenie roast would be postponed. My stomach churns at the thought of facing Stan and my so-called friends.
Barb is such a blabbermouth, gossip will already be all over town how I got jealous of Stan kissing another girl (it was only a game) and drank too much and went after him with a knife. Imagine Grace Harrow doing a thing like that!
No one will believe I wasn’t sauced. Maybe it’s better that way. Girls are still put away for hysteria, aren’t they? Sent to places like the Harrow Home, but for loons instead of sluts.
Across the breakfast table, Magnolia is devouring a stack of toast with strawberry jam. Dad is due back from Mr. Thorpe’s hotel in the Poconos soon. If I skip the weenie roast, I’ll have to stay here. With them.
I would rather poke my own eyes out with this fork.
“Are you feeling all right, Grace?” Ma asks, forehead furrowed. Cooper makes the same expression sometimes. Maybe we are blood related.
Cooper kicks me under the table. He means it as a show of brotherly sympathy, I think.
When Rose and I appeared back in the library, soaked to the gills, Rose said that we were out dancing in the rain.
Either he’s too enamored to ask questions or he figured that’s some whimsical nonsense that rich girls do, but he bought it hook, line, and sinker.
We got home and in bed without Ma being any the wiser.
This morning, she asked what happened to his hand (my fault my fault my fault) and Cooper mumbled something about a dare from the guys, and that was that.
It must be marvelous, being a boy, not being interrogated over every little thing.
“You aren’t eating. You usually eat like a horse.” Magnolia looks at my still-full plate. She’s one to talk about eating like a horse. I think she has jam in her hair.
I shove a forkful of eggs into my mouth. “I’m fine.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Ma scolds. “It’s unbecoming.”
Well, God forbid a girl be unbecoming, even at her own breakfast table.
The telephone rings. Cooper hops up to answer it. “Harrow residence, Cooper speaking … Hey, Stan. Good morning.”
My eggs threaten a reappearance. I’m not ready to apologize yet! Certainly not within earshot of Magnolia. I shake my head frantically at Cooper.
“She’s not available right now.” He’s a champ. No one could have a better brother. “No, she’s … uh … she’s in the bathroom … No … I mean, it could be a while.”
I bury my face in my hands while Magnolia titters.
“Cooper!” Ma squeaks, mortified.
Sorry, he mouths. “You know how girls are. She’s probably curling her hair. Could take ages … Ha. Yeah, I’ll tell her you phoned. Or, hey, you want to meet us at Levi’s? Can you get a ride from somebody in town? We can get your truck after … Yeah. Sure. Okay. Bye.”
As soon as Cooper hangs up the receiver, Magnolia pounces. “Why don’t you want to speak to Stanley? Are you two on the outs?”
I remember the feel of the knife in my hand. “Mind your own beeswax, Magnolia.”
“Grace!” Ma chides. “There’s no call for rudeness.”
I grit my teeth. Why is she always sticking up for that girl over her own daughter?
“I’m sure if you apologize to Stanley…,” Ma starts.
That’s her way, isn’t it? I’ve seen her say sorry to a chair she bumped into. She makes endless excuses for Dad. Tread lightly, honey, Dad had a bad day … Best to steer clear tonight, Dad’s tired … Be sweet, Grace, men don’t like girls with smart mouths.
The worst part is, she’s right. I have to apologize. If Dad hears Stanley and I had a fight, he’ll be livid. In his eyes, Stan is about perfect. He served in the army, so he’s not soft. He doesn’t have any newfangled ideas about women working. He makes sure that I know my place.
Never mind that he isn’t kind. That he isn’t clever or curious, and we have nothing to talk about.
Magnolia gasps. “You’re not wearing his ring!”
Her eyes are fixed on my left hand, which is clasped around my glass of orange juice.
Stan’s class ring isn’t on my finger. In its place there’s a pale band of skin.
“It must have fallen off.” I didn’t see it when I made my bed, though. I swallow my rising panic. “May I please be excused?”
“Of course.” Ma smiles. “I’m sure you’ll find it, honey.”
“I’ll help you look.” Cooper follows me down the hall.
I tear my bed apart, ripping the sheet from the quilt, tossing pillows onto the braided rug, reaching inside the pillowcases. “It’s not here! I have to find it!”
He doesn’t respond. I glance over. His freckled jaw is tight.
“Look, I’ll only say this once, and then I’ll shut my trap. You don’t have to put up with Stan. The way he treats you—”
“I know. I know, Cooper.” Lord, I know he means well, but I do not have time for this right now. I drop to my hands and knees to search under the bed.
“I’m just saying, I know some nice guys who’d love to have a shot with you.”
I climb to my feet. “Yeah? And what do you think Dad would say about that?”
Folks in town have always looked at Dad a little sideways.
Maybe because of the house full of unwed pregnant girls.
Maybe because he’s mean as a snake beneath that eely, ingratiating smile.
The Harrow name has become a threat. You get yourself in trouble, I’ll send you out to Joe Harrow’s place.
The Grotowskis, on the other hand, are beloved.
Mr. G. runs the Rotary Club and a popular Friday night poker game.
Mrs. G. is president of the Garden Club and half a dozen committees at church.
Since Stan and I started dating, Ma’s been invited to serve on the refreshments committee.
Dad has been out fishing on Mr. G.’s boat, the Maja. That means something in Greeley.
To Dad, it means a sight more than whether or not I’m happy.
“I’ll stand up to Dad for you,” Cooper promises.
I sigh. “That’s sweet, but how do you think that would go for you?”
His fists are clenched. “It went okay last time.”
The first and only time we stood up to him. Dad pushed that poor, pregnant girl and I went nuts. I broke Cooper’s nose swinging for Dad. Later that afternoon, Dad came to my room, limping, his face all scratched up.
I wasn’t proud of myself. I was terrified. I didn’t understand what had come over me. Why I’d done something so stupid.
When Dad came into my room, Cooper stood.
“No,” he said, putting himself between us.
“What the hell do you mean, no? This is my house.” Dad’s face purpled. “She attacked me! She broke your damn nose!”
“Ground her, then. Send her to bed without supper. But you’re not gonna hit her.” Cooper looked placid, but his throat bobbed as he swallowed nervously. Could he stop Dad? I thought maybe he could. He was wiry, but strong from football and track and lugging feed sacks.
They stared at each other for a long, silent moment.
Cooper had a couple inches on Dad. My heart raced, ready for anything.
For Dad to slug him. Or lunge around him and backhand me.
Or kick us both out of the house. Where would we go?
We don’t have any family except Ma’s brothers, and we’ve only met them once, at Pop Pop’s funeral.
“Fine.” Dad glared at me. “You stay in this room until I tell you you can come out. And if you ever raise your hand to me again, girl, you’ll be sorry. You hear me?”
I kept my eyes down. “Yes, sir.”
“And, son, if you ever try to tell me what I can and cannot do under my own roof again, I’ll throw you out on your ear so fast your head will spin. You got that?”
“Yes, sir,” Cooper said.
Dad kept me locked in my room for a week. The first night, I didn’t get any dinner. After that, Ma or Cooper brought food, but they only stayed to talk when Dad was out. I was stir-crazy after two days, but without Cooper’s interference—
It would have gone worse for me. A lot worse.
“He’ll put you out if you talk back,” I say now. “And then what? You have to finish high school to get your teaching degree. We just have to keep our heads down. I can put up with Stan till I turn eighteen.”
Cooper frowns at me, miserable. “That’s still a year away, Gracie. Fourteen months.”
I fake confidence I don’t feel. “I know. I can do it.”
But first I have to find Stan’s ring. I riffle through my pocketbook from last night. No dice.
“I have to tell you something.” Cooper clears his throat, nervous. “I asked Rose to come with me to Levi’s.”
I open my armoire and search for last night’s plaid skirt. “As a date? Did you kiss her again? For real?” I ask, interested. Cooper has no trouble getting a date whenever he wants (he does look like me, after all) but he seems content to pal around with the guys, mostly.
He’s blushing like a fire engine. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”
Imagine dating a gentleman! I know Stan has bragged to all the guys about what I let him do in the back of his pickup. If I broke up with him before I left town, word would get around that I was fast.
(It matters less when everybody thinks you’re going to get married.)
“You should kiss Rose again.” I’m searching the skirt pockets. “She likes you.”
“You think?” Cooper sounds awfully eager. If that spoiled little bitch breaks his heart, I’ll kill her.
“I know you don’t like her much,” he says.
“She’s all right.” I don’t know how I feel about Rose after last night. I bang the armoire shut. “Where in the hell is it?”
“Where’s the last place you remember having it?” Cooper asks.
I remember grabbing Rose’s wrist, demanding she swear on her mother’s grave that she’d seen the ghost. Was the ring on my finger? I don’t know. I did have it in the Blue Room; I remember fiddling with it.