It Started in June

by Susan Kietzman

  “A Honda Civic.” Bradley pointed to the silver car at the other end of the lot. “Reliable and manly.”

  “Manly is a reach,” she said, smiling. “I’d describe it as practical and safe.”

  “That’s what my parents said. They gave it to me when I totaled my bike.”

  Grace stopped and looked at him. “Oh, that doesn’t sound good.”

  “It was five years ago,” said Bradley. “I was hit by a car, and yes, I’m fine.”

  Grace rested her hand on his arm for just a moment. “Good,” she said, then continued walking. When they reached her car, she opened the driver’s side door and got in.

  “You don’t lock it?”

  “I don’t leave anything in here that anyone would want to steal.”

  “Except the car itself,” said Bradley, settling into the passenger seat.

  Grace put the armrest down between them, turned the key in the ignition, dropped the top, and then backed it out of the parking space. Five minutes later, she realized that she was showing off her driving skills to Bradley, zooming down the highway with one hand on the wheel, changing lanes as if she owned them both. She asked herself why she was acting this way. Shouldn’t he be the one trying to impress her?

  “Tell me about this car,” Bradley shouted.

  “It belonged to my former father-in-law, who gave it to my former husband, who gave it to me,” said Grace. “Tell me more about your Honda Civic.”

  “It was a gift a month before my twenty-fifth birthday,” said Bradley. “When they asked me what kind of car I wanted I definitely should have been more specific.”

  Grace nodded. “A Honda is a pretty tame car for a young bachelor.”

  “I’m not that young,” said Bradley. Grace smiled at his remark. He was definitely young. Did he want to appear older because he was with her?

  Grace switched on the radio, which, for a fifty-year-old car, worked remarkably well, and for the next half hour, they talked about a marketing idea that had come to Grace in the night, as well as rehearsed the scenarios they had discussed the previous afternoon. When Bradley revealed a couple of details about his personal life, Grace offered nothing similar in return, her upright posture and eyes-on-the-road profile broadcasting that her personal life was definitely personal.

  The meeting with the museum executives was more productive and interactive than Grace anticipated. Because she, like Bradley, thought of the Maritime Museum as a boring, rainy day alternative to the beach, or just about any other fair weather destination one might choose on a weekend, she was surprised by their imaginative exhibits and educational programs, and by their willingness to reinvent themselves, to launch the museum into modern times and current culture. Yes, it was a maritime history museum, but its sphere of knowledge was much larger than the history of the several tall ships it owned. The biggest obstacle to their success was a lack of persuasive and captivating advertising, the dissemination of images and text that would attract not only the boating enthusiast and the maritime scholar, but also families and millennials. Both Grace and Bradley had been unaware, until they had prepped for the meeting, of the museum’s changing business model; that, for example, in the next twelve months, the museum would expand its seasonal schedule to full-year operations. The very next week, ground would be broken for an architecturally stunning new exhibit building that would feature a spacious gallery, perfect for art shows, in addition to exhibitions about the sea and whaling. And because the museum had recently been awarded a seven-figure grant from a heavily endowed family foundation, management was now able to spend the money needed for print, radio, television, and Internet advertising that would help transform the image of the museum as a one-and-done destination to a living American history museum that people would want to visit frequently for its exhibits, noteworthy lectures and presentations, and experiential learning for all ages.

  When they walked out of the building, Bradley made a fist and rocked his elbow backward. “Yes!” he said. “That was an awesome meeting.”

  Grace smiled and said, “I most definitely agree. They know where they are now. They know where they want to be. And they’re willing to part with a serious amount of cash to make it happen.”

  “A boatload, one might say,” said Bradley.

  “You’re funny,” she said. “I think the president is still laughing at your Moby Dick joke.”

  “Had you heard that one?”

  “No,” said Grace. “And I was really grateful the punchline was not what it could have been.”

  Bradley laughed. “That’s the beauty of the joke.”

  “Yes,” said Grace, offering him another quick smile. “You were good in there. I can tell they like you.”

  “They like you, too,” said Bradley. “As do I.”

  Grace turned her head to look at him. “Are you trying to butter me up?”

  “Absolutely.”

  When they got back in the car, Bradley said, “What’s our next step?”

  “I’m confident we can give them exactly what they want and need,” said Grace, starting the car. “Let’s begin with some video that’s hip and upbeat to let people in on this secret.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” said Bradley. “Short videos, two minutes or so in length. With some memorable thematic music.”

  “Yes,” said Grace. “Upbeat music is key; no sea shanties. Shoot me some ideas by the end of the day tomorrow so we can discuss them at our Thursday meeting.”

  When they pulled out of the lot and onto the street, Bradley ran his hands along the dashboard and said, “God, I love this car. Your ex-husband was crazy to give it to you.”

  “Not crazy,” said Grace. “Just kind.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Distracted by paperwork that needed to be done before she could allocate more time to the museum account, Grace didn’t meet with Bradley until late in the day on Thursday. She had rescheduled their 3 p.m. meeting to 4:30 p.m., and Bradley had accepted, telling her that he was available to work late that night. They worked side by side at the cherry conference table in her office, Bradley on his computer, Grace with a legal pad. They worked through five o’clock. They worked through six o’clock. They worked through seven o’clock, when Bradley told her he could use a beer. “What?” she asked, looking up from her notes.

  “It’s after seven,” he said. “Can we take a break?”

  As if she didn’t believe him, Grace looked at her watch. “Of course we can. I had no idea it was this late. I’m so sorry. Do you have somewhere you need to be?”

  “Right here,” he said. “I need to be right here. But I could definitely use a break.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “I think we can wrap things up. We’ve accomplished our goals for the meeting. You must be starving.”

  “I’m more thirsty than hungry,” said Bradley, smiling at her. “Let’s go across the street for a beer and a burger.”

  “I like that idea.” Grace stood up, put her hands on her hips, and arched her back. “I never sit for three hours straight.”

  “Me neither. Paul actually gave me permission to order a standing desk. I’m still weighing the pros and cons.” Bradley stood, too, and Grace realized when he did that he and she were just about the same height, five foot, nine inches.

  “I’ve heard good things about standing desks,” said Grace, transferring her notes and several folders to her desk, where she would review them in the morning. “You’ll have to let me know what you decide. Dana raves about his.”

  Bradley nodded as he tucked his laptop under his arm. “Let me run this down the hall to my office,” he said. “I’ll be right back. Dinner is on me.”

  “Dinner is on the Maritime Museum,” she told him.

  Bradley flashed a grin. “I like the way you think.”

  All the booths were taken at Tapped, the unofficial Broadbent & Shapiro office outside the office, where many of Grace’s and Bradley’s colleagues had a beer or two before heading home
for the evening. It was more of a bar than a restaurant. Yes, Tapped offered a dozen kinds of burgers, including two vegetarian choices, but they also served twenty-five varieties of beer, many of them made locally, all on tap. Plus, the bar itself, a large, yellow pine semicircle, dominated the space. Because the daily happy hour that ran from four o’clock to six o’clock was long over, and because it was a Thursday night and not a Friday night, only half of the normally occupied barstools were taken. Grace and Bradley set their briefcases down on the floor and parked themselves on two tall stools that looked like they could have been made in high school metal shop, with their crudely fashioned seat backs and wiggly welding.

  “What can I get you?” asked Bradley.

  “Whatever you’re having,” said Grace.

  “I’m having a shot of bourbon and a Cranky.”

  “Perfect,” said Grace, even though she had not had a shot of anything since her friend Shannon Greene had decided a few months back that getting drunk was more emotionally affordable than getting laid. Their drink that evening had been vodka, a word Grace still had trouble saying without grimacing.

  As soon as Bradley turned to get the attention of the bartender, she was there, with her smoky eye makeup and scoop-neck T-shirt. And while Grace understood the female bartender uniform, worn to generate generous tips, she sometimes wondered how much it mattered. What was more important to customers—attitude and service or skin? She looked at Bradley’s face as he ordered, noting that he looked into the eyes of the bartender, aptly named Brandy, instead of at her chest. Brandy returned his gaze, her pupils increasing in size as he ordered, her lips parting. She looked at him like the younger women at the office looked at him, like she was hungry.

  There were six—no, seven counting the new hire—women in their twenties who worked for the firm. And Grace had noticed that they all changed in Bradley’s presence. They became more affable and alert, focusing on his face, on his magical, multicolored eyes. The good ones could double major, taking in both his face and his words, tucking away details, mentally filing his likes and dislikes for future encounters. Grace was almost two decades older than at least three of these coworkers. At her age, Grace understood their motivations better than they did, better than she understood her own.

  “What shall we drink to?” asked Bradley, handing Grace one of the shots that had been set down on the bar in front of them.

  To us! Grace thought about saying, if only to watch the registration of incomprehension in Bradley’s eyes, if only to ease what seemed to be an awkward moment between two people who could have been on a date but weren’t. Still, it felt like a date. She and Bradley were together after business hours, drinking at a bar, with not a single coworker in sight. Plus, Grace didn’t want to talk about work; they both needed a reprieve after what had been a productive but exhausting meeting. But she didn’t want to talk about herself, either, to bring up a history that she hid from view and conversation. “To working together,” she said.

  “Salute.”

  Halfway through her beer and Bradley’s story about the trials of being potty-trained too young—how had this come up?—Grace reviewed what she had eaten that day, which amounted to a vegan protein bar in the morning with a large coffee from the drive-through and a yogurt and apple for lunch. When Bradley ordered another round, Grace knew she should get something to eat, but she was also enjoying the moment they were in, enjoying being entertained by Bradley instead of entertaining him. When they walked into the bar, Grace thought she might have to do that, as the elder of the two, as the supervisor to the underling, as the woman to the man. But here he was telling her stories that were meant to be heard by close friends and family, the kind of story she rarely heard from a guy. She leaned in to listen more closely. She laughed freely.

  Before the end of the second beer, what started out as a drink with a colleague after work officially became the date it had actually been from the moment they sat down at the bar. Grace didn’t realize this right away, but anyone watching her, watching them would have noticed that the number of times they smiled at each other was on the rise; that they looked at each other exclusively, both appearing to be tuned out to their surroundings; that they lightly touched each other’s hands, arms, and legs as they talked. It was the long, slow kiss, normally done in private, that eradicated any trace of doubt.

  Grace looked into his warm hazel eyes and whispered, “God, you taste good.” He kissed her again, liquefying her insides. Seconds later he was paying the bill, and then he and Grace were rushing out of the restaurant as if they were running through the airport for an imminent flight. Holding hands and carrying their briefcases, they ran across the street laughing. Grace hadn’t felt this free since she left home at eighteen. If Bradley picked up his pace just a little bit, she could be airborne! They ran around the building to the dark parking lot, occupied by Bradley’s Honda and Grace’s Cadillac. They chose the backseat of the Cadillac, unzipping, unbuttoning, pulling and pushing, breathing and sweating, until they lay still.

  Lying on her back, Grace kept her eyes closed, even though she could sense that Bradley’s were open, that he was on his side looking at her. She needed a moment to process what had just happened, but also to linger in its sweet aftermath. He did not attempt to sit up, or to reach for his shirt or his pants. He seemed content to lie beside her, with his arm wrapped around her waist. Grace had never wanted to stop time, until now.

  CHAPTER 5

  “Hold on. Stop right there.” This was Shannon Greene, Grace’s close and only friend, who still worked at the agency Grace had left after ten years to work at Broadbent & Shapiro. “You did what?”

  Grace repeated herself. “I had sex with a coworker in the backseat of my car.”

  “When?”

  Grace looked at the clock on the microwave. She had showered and was sitting at her kitchen table in her cotton pajamas with a cup of tea. “About an hour ago.” Grace patiently waited the five seconds Shannon took to respond.

  “I’m processing.”

  “I understand,” said Grace, who could picture Shannon sitting at one end of her couch—where she did everything, from talking on the phone to eating her meals to weekend napping—with her shaved-daily legs stretched across the adjacent cushions. She would be dressed in loose cotton shorts and an oversize T-shirt, what she called her summer jammies, eating vanilla ice cream, her shoulder-length blond hair gathered into a ponytail. She wore it down in public, but the minute she got home from work or a social engagement, her hair was up and out of her way. In the eight years Grace had known her, Shannon had annually considered a serious haircut, an edgy pixie. But she routinely came to the conclusion that she wasn’t pretty enough to pull it off.

  Twenty seconds passed. “Is this a good thing or a bad thing?” Shannon finally asked.

  Another ten seconds passed. “Both.”

  “Okay,” Shannon began, “let’s start with the good.”

  “Good because I haven’t had sex in four months—and that’s just too long,” said Grace. “Good in the sense that the sex was fantastic.”

  “Sex with anyone after four months is fantastic,” said Shannon.

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re warming up to a lecture?”

  “I don’t know. Do you need one?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Keep going,” said Shannon.

  “Good because Bradley is a very good-looking young man and very eager to please me.”

  “Well, you’ve got to like that after Tom.”

  “Yeah. No more dating anyone old enough to be my father, whoever and wherever he is.”

  “Let’s move on to the bad,” said Shannon.

  Grace could see that her friend didn’t want to talk about Grace’s father at that moment. This was okay because Grace didn’t want to, either. The reference to him had simply fallen out of her mouth, and she was glad Shannon hadn’t taken the bait.

  Grace sipped her tea and looked out the window at the wa
ter. She couldn’t see it in the dark, but she could hear it through the screen, hear the waves breaking against the sand. She never tired of this sound, of knowing she lived a hundred yards from its origin. The house was small, comprising just a kitchen, a living room and dining area, two small bedrooms, and a bathroom, but it was all Grace had needed and wanted after her divorce. And her luck eight years ago in finding this place at the end of a quiet dirt road surprised her still. The best part was the back deck, with its panoramic view of Long Island Sound. Grace got out of her chair and walked out the sliding screen door to stand on the wood planking. “I work with him,” Grace said to Shannon. “We’re working together on a project, and I’m his supervisor. I’m the one who’s supposed to know better than to get involved with someone at the office. I could get in serious trouble for it.”

  “You’re his boss all the time, or just on this project?”

  “Just on this project,” said Grace. “He reports to Paul and Dana, just like I do.”

  “That’s good,” said Shannon.

  “Is it?” asked Grace. “I mean, could this be construed as sexual harassment?” She sipped her tepid tea to ease the tightness in her throat.

  “So far, it sounds crazy consensual.”

  “And the condom broke.”

  “Oh,” said Shannon. “That’s definitely bad.”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me how the sex happened,” Shannon said. “Give me the lead-up.”

  Grace walked to the edge of the deck, dimly lit by her kitchen light, and set her mug down on the railing cap. “Like it always happens,” said Grace, “quickly and without a whole lot of warning. If you’re asking if I anticipated having sex with Bradley when I went to the bar with him, the answer is no.”

  “I wonder how he’d answer that question. The man did have a condom.”

  “Everyone carries condoms, Shannon. I do.”

  “Well, I don’t,” said Shannon. “That’s a guy thing. It’s his responsibility.”