All Over You, page 21
She held his eye, then reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.
“I guess what I’m trying to say, Mac, is don’t give up on her,” she said.
Mac stared at his desk for a long time after Claudia left. What she’d told him made sense, confirmed so many of his half-formed ideas about Grace.
But he shouldn’t have to rely on Grace’s friends to give him insights into the woman he loved. As much as he wanted to make the world right for her, the next move was Grace’s. Judging by the lack of phone calls, she’d made it.
It was over.
11
GRACE DRESSED VERY CAREFULLY. She’d had all day to recover from her crying marathon. She’d slept in, taken a calming bath, drunk lots of water. She’d also made an appointment with a counselor that Sadie had recommended. There was still old stuff to excavate. She wanted it all out in the open. She didn’t want to be ruled by the past anymore.
It was late afternoon when she stepped back to survey herself in the full-length mirror inside her wardrobe door.
She was wearing her most elegant outfit — a princess-line sleeveless dress with a cream bodice and a black flared skirt. The high neck featured a black collar and the armholes were similarly trimmed with black. It hugged her curves faithfully and paired with a pair of black pumps and a cream clutch purse, she looked damned fine.
She wanted to look great. She wanted to feel utterly sure of herself. Turning to her dressing table, she automatically reached for her glasses. Somehow, though, her hand ended up hovering over them as she stared down at their heavy black frames.
Sadie and Claudia hated her glasses. Her mother did, too. Mac had never said anything, but he always removed them at the first opportunity. Grace considered them briefly. They were thick and dark and chunky. She’d always felt safe behind them, armored.
But it was time to stop hiding.
Before she could rethink her decision, she dropped the frames to the floor and pressed the ball of her stiletto-clad foot against a lens. The crack of vintage plastic snapping sounded in her apartment. Stooping, she scooped the fragments into the garbage. Then she scouted out the contact lenses Sadie had insisted she wear for the wedding-that-never-was to Greg. It took several attempts to get them in but, five minutes later, Grace was sweeping out the door.
It was mid-afternoon and the traffic was reasonably light. She made good time as she traveled to the freeway and got on the ramp to take her south.
Just over two hours later, she exited the 405 and wound her way through the streets of La Jolla. The gleaming towers of the Mormon temple were like a beacon ahead of her as she followed the instructions she’d written down.
Finally, she pulled up in a quiet suburban street in front of an unpretentious weatherboard house. She removed her head scarf, checked her lipstick and hair, then exited the Corvette. Her heels clicked quietly on the paving stones as she made her way to a faded-blue door. A piece of cardboard that had obviously been ripped from a box was wedged in the door frame. She read it in a glance: Johnny, come around the back.
She wasn’t Johnny, but she figured the invitation was good enough for her as well.
She rounded the house to find a large shed sprawling across most of the backyard. Two huge double doors opened onto the small lawn. Inside the shed, she could see canvases piled against the walls, standing in easels and stacked in piles. One easel stood in the center of the sunlight spilling in the doorway and in front of it stood a man with paint-splotched clothes and long, flowing dark hair.
Owen.
He turned his head slightly as he heard her approach, his eyes not leaving his work, his brush busy on the canvas.
“Hi. I’ll be with you in a minute — unless you’re selling something and then I don’t want to know,” he said.
Her heels sank into the lawn as she moved closer. Her stomach was turning flip-flops and her fingers were tingling with adrenaline and unease. Her denial had made him far more important in her life than he should have been. She was here to kick the skeleton out of the closet.
He looked shorter than she remembered, a little thicker around the waist. His arms were tanned a deep brown, probably from working in the sun as he was now.
She stopped just a few feet behind him.
“Hello, Owen,” she said.
He froze for a beat.
“Grace?” he said, pivoting on one foot. His face was twisted in disbelief.
They stared at each other for a long moment, each taking in the changes in the other. His hair had receded a little, but his brown eyes were just as compelling and lively, his lips still as ready to smile. She wondered if he would notice that her hair was longer and darker than when he’d known her and that she’d lost a bit of weight.
“You look exactly how I remember you,” he said after a long silence. “You look great.”
His words and his half smile tugged on a raft of memories, some good, some bad. She took her sunglasses off so she could look him in the eye.
“I came to tell you some things that I should have told you four years ago,” she said.
He nodded, then widened his stance as though he was bracing himself.
“All right,” he said.
She took a deep breath and called to mind the things she wanted to say.
“You hurt me,” she said. “I loved you so much. I believed in you and I couldn’t imagine my world without you. And you betrayed me with my sister. You broke my family as well as my heart, Owen. I want to know why. Why would you be so cruel to someone who had only ever loved you?”
It was hard to get it out without crying, but she’d shed her tears last night. She was proud of the fact that her voice didn’t break and that she held his eye throughout.
He swallowed noisily and went to run a hand through his hair, only remembering at the last minute that he was still holding a paint brush.
“Good questions,” he said, nodding as he dumped his brush in a jar full of turpentine nearby. “You want to go inside to talk? Have a coffee?”
She shook her head. She didn’t want to see what kind of life he’d made for himself, whether he was living with another woman. She wanted closure, then she wanted out.
“At least come inside the shed. That fair skin of yours will burn in seconds,” he said.
Wordlessly she followed him into the shady interior of the shed. He unfolded a deck chair for her and one for himself, then gestured for her to take a seat. She did, sitting with her knees tightly together, her eyes fixed on his face.
“Okay,” Owen said, clearing his throat. “First up, Gracie, I want you to know that I have regretted what I did to you every day since you walked into that studio and saw me and Serena. I loved you too, believe it or not. It was only when I’d trashed it all that I realized how much.”
“Then why…?” she asked. She didn’t know if she would be able to understand. But she had to ask.
“You were working on that kids’ TV show, remember?” he said. “Man, I was so proud of you when you were nominated for that award. You were doing so well. I knew you were going to get where you wanted to be. You’ve got that thing, Gracie, that thing that some people have — like you’ve been sprinkled with fairy dust. Gorgeous, smart as a whip, talented. You were always going to get whatever you went after.”
“I only ever wanted you,” she said.
“Yeah. That’s how dumb I am, eh? I looked at you, with your award nomination and all those screen credits piling up and I looked at me and all I saw was shit. Dross. Old ideas, no originality, nothing. I had that show booked and I didn’t have a freakin’ clue how I was going to fill a gallery with the whole load of nothing I had in my head.
“Then I saw Serena at your mom’s place and there was a sadness in her, a kind of desperation that I understood. I asked her to sit for me. And we got talking, as you do when you’re sharing the same space for hours on end. She told me about her work, about how much she hated waiting tables. How she was getting varicose veins in her legs from standing all day, how sick she was of guys hitting on her because they thought she’d be grateful for any kind of attention with such a shit job. She knew she was going nowhere. And I knew how that felt. One afternoon, we both hit rock bottom at the same time.
“We were just looking for some comfort, I guess. And once we’d started, it seemed pointless to stop. The damage was done, right? I felt so low and guilty, going home to you at night, but it was like all the dark stuff turned on something inside me and I could paint again. So I started doing those nudes of Serena. The best work I ever did. And then you walked in and found us.”
Owen placed his hands palm down on his knees and met her eye.
“I didn’t plan it, Grace. I didn’t seduce her. I didn’t intend for anything to happen. It just did. And every time I saw her I knew I was a shit — that I was hurting you, that we had to stop. But I couldn’t give up the painting,” he admitted.
Grace nodded. She could remember how restless he’d been when he’d been given the show, all the nights he’d paced and drunk too much and ranted about having no ideas, no talent, no future. She’d rubbed his shoulders and pulled out his folio and shown him his work, pointing out his strengths, encouraging his ideas. She’d thought that the period of dark intensity following that time had been about his creative process. But it had been guilt. Guilt because he was betraying her and guilt because he knew he should stop but couldn’t, because the painting meant so much to him.
She closed her eyes for a second, reliving that last awful day when she’d walked into the gallery with Sadie and Claudia and seen that despite the fact that she’d decided to stay, to give him another chance, he’d chosen to use his nudes of Serena for his show. Everyone had known, instantly, that he’d been screwing his model. It was in every brushstroke, every shadow, every smudge. Her family had been there. Her friends. Her work colleagues. She’d felt betrayed all over again.
“You’re so selfish,” she said now, shaking her head in wonder. “You knew how I would feel when I walked into that gallery opening, but you chose the work over me. Just like you chose to keep sleeping with Serena so you could keep painting.”
“Yes. If it’s any consolation, I haven’t had a girlfriend since you left me, Gracie. I figured if the work is what’s important, if I can’t put anyone else before it, I’ve got no business getting involved with someone.”
She shrugged. She didn’t care whether he was alone or not. Standing, she brushed off her skirt. His gaze dropped as he scanned her from head to toe.
“You look so good, Gracie. That dress — no one has style like you,” he said admiringly.
She eyed him coolly. She’d come here expecting to yell at him. She’d wanted to. She’d given herself permission to say or do anything, no matter how revealing or embarrassing when she looked back on it in retrospect. But the heat she’d felt last night hadn’t translated to the reality of this meeting. Owen was a man, a friend, a lover who had let her down. But he didn’t define her, she realized. His approval — his betrayal — was not a judgment on her. It was about his failure, not hers. She hadn’t been not funny enough or not sexy enough or not beautiful enough or not loving enough. He had been lacking. He had felt inadequate and reached for the nearest comfort.
“Before you go, I’ve got something for you,” Owen said, jumping to his feet. “I was always going to send it to you, but I could never quite let it go.”
He disappeared into the shadows at the back of the shed. She heard him scuffling around, then he returned holding a small twelve-by-fourteen-inch canvas. He looked at it assessingly for a moment before handing it to her.
“I never could quite get the color of your eyes right,” he said.
She took it automatically. Her own face gazed back at her from a boldly colored portrait. He’d captured the tilt of her eyes, the curve of her cheek, the pout of her lips. She was smiling, a far-off expression on her face. She looked happy. And beautiful.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I’m sorry I hurt you. It was the last thing I ever wanted,” he said.
The sound of approaching footsteps announced another arrival, and a tall, gangly man entered the yard.
“Owen, you prick, have you got that portrait done yet?” he asked jovially.
“Be with you in a minute, Johnny,” Owen said.
Her cue to leave. She was ready to go, anyway. She eyed Owen steadily.
“Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Grace.”
She made her way down the driveway and lay the painting on the backseat of her car. She supposed she ought to hate it, because Owen had painted it. But she didn’t. The woman in the painting was the old Grace, the woman she’d been before she’d isolated herself. The painting was her map back. She wanted to be that woman again.
Pulling out from the curb, she turned for home. She’d started the healing process. She was ready to talk to Mac, to apologize, to explain. To tell him she loved him. To hope.
Sliding her sunglasses on, she stepped on the gas.
IT WAS DARK by the time Mac turned into his driveway on Saturday night. He’d spent most of the day in the house, but Claudia had called him out to the studio in the late afternoon so he could go over his plans for the wedding episode. The studio shoot started on Monday and he was confident he had all his ducks in a row, but that hadn’t stopped Claudia from asking him to parade each and every one of them in front of her. He’d figured she was nervous and had humored her, but he was glad that she’d finally announced herself satisfied.
He frowned as he pulled up in front of his house. Every light was on, the windows glowing with golden auras. He might have left one light on, or two, but not the whole damn house.
Then his headlights picked up the dull glint of the not-so-pristine fender of Grace’s Corvette in his carport.
So.
No phone call for the past two days, but now she was here.
Locking the Corvette, he strode toward the house. He’d shown her where he kept a spare key hidden in the garden for emergencies and she’d obviously made free use of it.
Opening the front door, he stepped into the foyer.
“Grace?” he called when she didn’t appear to greet him.
He waited a moment, but still she didn’t appear. His frown deepening, he ducked his head into the living room. No Grace. She wasn’t in the kitchen, either. It wasn’t until he reached the staircase that he saw the sheet of paper taped to the wall.
It had an arrow on it pointing upwards and an old photograph was glued in the center of the page.
He tugged it free and studied it. Grace stared back at him, a toddler in denim pants and a bright-purple top. Her eyes were wide and guileless, her grinning mouth displaying a mouthful of baby teeth.
He glanced up along the stairwell and saw that a new sheet of paper beckoned him onward every second step or so. He stepped up.
The second sheet was just a note: Things you should know about me: I snore when I’ve had too much to drink.
He tugged it free and shuffled it beneath the first sheet.
Another step, then another.
A photo this time. Grace was probably ten or eleven. She was standing with her three sisters, all of whom were sporting finalist’s ribbons for a shopping-mall beauty pageant. Grace’s gaze was tortured as she stared at the camera and hunched her shoulders.
He tucked it beneath the others and took another two steps.
A note: I sometimes drink the milk straight from the carton. And I put the juice back when there’s only an inch left.
He added it to his growing pile and moved to the next sheet.
Grace at a Halloween party, age maybe fifteen. She was wearing a ridiculous pumpkin costume and bobbing for apples, and the photographer had captured her in a moment of pure joy, her mouth open wide with laughter, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
The next note read: I need to learn to love myself more and to trust other people.
He was at the top of the stairs.
He turned into the corridor and found another photo of Grace, this one from her university days. She had adopted the big black glasses and retro fashion, but hadn’t quite perfected the look yet. She posed with younger versions of Sadie and Claudia, both of whom sported their own embarrassing fashion faux pas.
There was one last note before he reached his bedroom doorway.
I am afraid to love, but even more afraid of what will happen if I don’t take the risk. I want to be brave. I want to be worthy of you.
He stepped into his bedroom.
She was standing in the middle of the room, naked. She met his eyes bravely.
“This is me. No more secrets. No more hiding. I want to know you and I want you to know me. I love you, Mac. And I hope you still love me,” she said.
Words crowded his throat, but they weren’t even close to being adequate and there was something he had to do first. He closed the space between them and pulled her into his arms. It had been way too long since he’d held her. He cupped the back of her head and pressed his cheek against her hair, just absorbing the fact that she was there.
“I love you, Grace,” he said. “It would take a lot more than what happened the other day to stop me loving you — but I knew you had to want to be here as much as I wanted you to.”
She lifted her head so that he could see her eyes.
“I do. I want it more than anything,” she said. “I’m sorry I’ve been such hard work. But the bad old shit is on the way out and I want to replace it with good stuff.”
His reached out to rub a thumb along her cheekbone. She smiled at him. Then, as if they had a mind of their own, his eyes dropped to her breasts.
Man, was he the luckiest guy in the world or what? He got to spend the rest of his life making love to Grace.
