Chapter Twenty-Five. Grace
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
GRACE
I’m walking Stanley to his truck when we come around the pink crepe myrtle and run into Rose strolling down the pea-gravel path.
Stan and I are still in our church clothes: I’m wearing a mint-green shirtdress with stockings and pumps, and Stan wears gray trousers with a white button-down shirt, the top button unfastened and his tie loosened.
Rose is casual in a blue T-shirt and high-waisted shorts.
She and her sisters probably went to the Church of Brunch. Heathens.
“Grace! Just the girl I was looking for,” she says brightly.
“What now?” Stanley grumbles.
She ignores him. “Would you and Coop like to come to dinner? Auntie’s going to teach me to make her famous b?uf bourguignon. With a creme br?lée for dessert.”
I cackle. “You, cook? I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Stan wraps a burly arm around my waist. “Grace is busy.”
I hate it when he speaks for me. I guess it was rude of Rose not to invite him, too. She avoids him when she can and is barely civil when she can’t.
“I didn’t ask you,” Rose snaps.
“Well, I’m telling you, we have plans!” he barks.
We do not. Stanley drove me home from church and then came in to visit with my folks. He was heading out. But I don’t dare contradict him in front of Rose.
“Do we?” I ask.
“Well, I was gonna ask you to supper. Ma’s making a roast. Wouldn’t you rather have a good old-fashioned roast than cream broo-lee? Whatever fancy Frenchy nonsense that is.” He scoffs.
“What if I come to supper next Sunday?” I suggest. Stan looks at Rose triumphantly till I add, “Your mom will understand. Tell her you forgot, and Mrs. Langford invited me to dinner in the meantime.”
Stan pulls his arm roughly from my waist and steps away, his face darkening. “Now, wait a damn minute. Who’d you rather have supper with: Me or Miss Priss?”
“Stanley!” I’ve asked him a dozen times not to call her that. I turn to Rose. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize!” He glares down at me. I wore pumps today as a small defiance; neither he nor Dad likes it when I wear heels, even though Stan’s still three inches taller. “Don’t act like you’re embarrassed of me all of a sudden! You like me fine till she comes around.”
“That’s not true!” I protest.
(I don’t like him fine. Not lately. Not for a while. But he’s right. When Rose is around, the idea of dating him for another year, laughing at his jokes, letting him make love to me, all to keep Dad off my back and get a job at his father’s drugstore … God, it makes me feel unfathomably small.)
“Rose is my friend, and Coop’s girl, and the boss’s daughter.” I think she’s Coop’s girl. It’s hard to tell. They’ve been blushing and awkward around one another since their carnival date last weekend. “You have to be polite to her!”
“I don’t hafta do anything. You ain’t the boss of me,” Stan growls. I bite my tongue. I should have known better than to phrase it that way. He turns to Rose. “I don’t want you sniffin’ around Grace anymore. She doesn’t need you confusin’ her.”
Confusing me? Does he think I’m simple?
Rose bristles. She doesn’t take well to orders, either. “This is my father’s property. I’ll come and go as I please, and talk to whoever I like.”
“Oh yeah?” Stan swings me around to face him.
He gets right in my face. Too close. “You’re not goin’ to supper, and you’re not goin’ shopping with her.
If she comes down to the pool, you’re gonna get up and leave.
I don’t care if she’s the boss’s daughter.
I don’t care if she’s the damn queen of England! I want you to stay away from her!”
It’s one thing to treat me like a naughty child in front of Cooper, or even Barb and Kitty. But the appalled look on Rose’s face …
I want to sink through the earth. I want to be anywhere but here.
“You hear me?” Stan shakes me so hard, my teeth clack together.
“Yes, but—” My voice is timid, my brain sluggish.
“No! No ifs, ands, or buts. I’m putting my foot down. It’s her or me!”
He’s yelling in my face, spit flying. I cringe and look down at my shoes. Rose must think I’m pathetic for letting him speak to me this way.
What would happen if I said: I choose Rose!
If I told him I’ll talk to whoever I please, too?
I can’t. He’s too worked up.
“Take your hands off her this instant,” Rose commands.
Stan leers. “Gracie likes having my hands on her.”
I’m not one for blushes (not like Coop) but I can feel my face going pink at the insinuation.
I curl into myself, wishing I was a turtle or a snail or anything besides a weak, stupid girl.
I don’t know how to end this pissing match between them.
I can’t agree not to ever speak to Rose again. I won’t.
“You’re hurting her,” Rose says. “Does that make you feel big?”
His grip tightens. She’s making things worse. “Rosie, stay out of it.” My voice is low, and I don’t meet her eyes, afraid to see the pity swimming in those blue pools.
“I will not,” she says. “I think you had better leave, Stanley.”
That makes me look up. Rose is using her plummy rich-girl voice, the hoity-toitiest one, and she’s drawn herself up as tall as she can. It’s the same way she spoke to Mr. McIntosh when he insulted her sister.
She’s sticking up for me, the same as she stuck up for Ella.
Like I’m a person who deserves to be stuck up for.
Stan laughs. But he takes his hands off me and steps toward Rose, menacing. Trying to intimidate her. “Who the hell do you think you are? I’m not goin’ anywhere till Grace—”
“Grace doesn’t have any say in this.” Rose doesn’t balk. “It’s my property, and I don’t want you here. If I need to call the sheriff and ask him to arrest you for trespassing, I will. But I trust that won’t be necessary.”
Stanley snickers. “You think Curtis Callaway’s gonna arrest me for trespassing? My dad plays poker with him every Friday night.”
“I’ll bet that my father’s money carries more weight than who your father plays poker with.” Rose gives him a smug smile and turns for the hotel. “But we can test that theory, if you like.”
“You little—” Stanley calls her an ugly word, one I’ve never heard him use before. “Grace, tell her where she can shove her…”
I’m still staring at Rose.
Stanley’s a foot taller and probably seventy-five pounds heavier than her, but she has all the power, and she knows it. She isn’t scared of him.
What must that feel like?
Rose turns. I follow her gaze to Stanley, who has trailed off. He’s staring at me.
I think he’s realized that I’m not going to choose him.
Suddenly, he shoves me. With both hands, and enough force that I trip and fall onto my hands and knees. It knocks the breath from my body.
“You can have her. She’s used goods anyhow … You hear that, Grace? I could have any girl in town like that.” He snaps his fingers. “But nobody else is gonna want you now.”
I stay down there in the dust and gravel. My knees and palms sting, but that’s nothing.
Not compared to the pain of those words. Used goods. He knows I never wanted to. I only did it because I felt like I had to, to keep him, and now he’s thrown it in my face in front of Rose.
It won’t matter that I’m smart, best in my class in math; that I can throw a baseball or a punch better than most boys; that once I love somebody I’d stick up for them through thick and thin. It won’t matter that we can both see the ghost, or that we’ve been investigating together for weeks.
Nothing will matter except that I was stupid enough to let Stanley make love to me.
(That’s what he called it. That seems laughable now. He doesn’t love me. You would never treat somebody you love this way.)
“Really? Are the girls here so desperate that they’d settle for a washed-up high school football hero? Your best days are behind you, Stanley, and everybody knows it. You’re pathetic.” Rose crouches next to me. “Are you all right?”
I nod. She holds out her hand, and I let her help me to my feet. But I can’t look at her. I can’t bear to see the judgment written on her face.
“You really think you’re somethin’, huh. Someday you’re gonna mouth off to the wrong man, and he’s gonna teach you a lesson,” Stanley threatens her.
“Maybe. But it won’t be you. You’re not much of a man, anyhow. Only a real coward treats a girl like this.”
Rose wraps her arm around my waist. I’m shaking, waiting for Stanley to … what? Hit her? Hit me? His face is practically purple, that big vein in his forehead standing out. I bet he’s never been told off like this in his whole life.
“I want you off my property. Now,” Rose says. “And don’t come back, or I will call the sheriff.”
He turns his anger on me. I’m the scapegoat, always. His eyes are narrowed to slits. “You’ll be sorry for this, Grace. I’ll tell everybody how you put out and you loved it. You begged for it!”
“That’s a lie and you know it! You’re disgusting,” I hiss.
Rose helps me toward the house. It feels like turning my back on a rabid animal. But I do. And I don’t look back, because I realize Stanley’s not that bright, but he’s smart enough to know he can’t hit a girl like Rosemary Thorpe and get away with it.
Why is that? Anger starts to bubble through me. Why does he know enough not to hit Rose, but he can grab me, or shove me down into the dirt, or tell me I have to use my hands and my mouth to please him?
What is it about me that says I’m worth so little?
As Rose and I reach the wide front porch, Stanley’s truck door slams. A moment later, the engine coughs as he reverses it down the drive, fast. I slump against Rose. She lets out a big breath. She wasn’t as sure of herself as she seemed.
It’s quiet for a moment. My heart is racing.
What must Rose think of me?
What will everybody think of me?
My entire body goes cold. Stanley will tell anyone who’ll listen that I put out. He’ll embellish the details, make me look like a real slut. I’ll be ruined all over town. Cooper will find out. My dad will find out.
He’s going to kill me.
“What did you do?” I whisper, wide-eyed with horror, as I pull away from Rose.