Talking with Dorrie loosened the knots inside, and by the time she hung up, she felt herself softening toward Bradley. He had seemed to shrug off their fight in the car by the next day, and had been kind and sympathetic when he’d found Grace in tears over the letter from Robin. But Grace had secretly continued to stew, and had continued to keep an eye out at work for any interactions between him and Rachel. Now she decided that she had been too hard on him, that she, too, would be pleased with the attention of an attractive coworker. Who wouldn’t?
She crept quietly into Hope’s room, and found her daughter awake and sucking on a pacifier. As soon as she saw Grace, Hope grinned at her mother. Grace reached into the crib and lifted her daughter to her chest. “How’s my big girl? Are you hungry?” Grace walked her back into the living room and sat down on the couch. She was just about finished feeding Hope when her cell phone rang, displaying the main number for Broadbent & Shapiro. Not knowing who was calling, she answered as she would from behind her desk. “Grace Trumbull,” she said.
Bradley laughed. “Hello, Grace Trumbull. This is Bradley Hanover. Who did you think I was, Martin?”
“You could have been Martin,” said Grace. “He is working on some numbers for me, though, so I am actually looking forward to talking with him.”
“He mentioned something about that to me this morning. I think he’s almost done.”
“Good,” said Grace. “So what’s up with you?”
“Just a boyfriend checking in with his incredibly smart and beautiful girlfriend.”
“Hello, boyfriend,” she said, putting real warmth into her voice. “Why are you calling me on the office phone?”
“I can’t find my cell phone,” he said. “I’ve searched my briefcase twice. And then I remembered that I left in such a rush this morning that maybe I left it at home.”
“Any idea where?” asked Grace, tapping the speaker button on her phone and setting it down and then lifting Hope to her shoulder to coax out a burp. Hope’s gaseous emissions cracked Bradley up.
“Check the window over the kitchen sink. It was charging there last night when I was doing the dishes.”
“I’m just finishing up feeding Hope. As soon as I’m done, I’ll have a look and call you from it if I find it.”
“How’s my sweet Hope? Does she miss her dad?”
“She’s beside herself with sadness,” said Grace, teasing him. “But I think she’ll be able to survive until you get home.”
“I wish I were home now,” said Bradley. “What an amazing day out there. Have you guys gone for a walk yet?”
“We’re heading out shortly.”
“Let’s take one when I get home—and maybe follow it up with a swim?”
“We’re in,” said Grace. “Have a good afternoon. And I’ll let you know about your phone.”
Grace finished feeding Hope and then put her into her jumper seat. She then walked into the kitchen, where she found Bradley’s phone, as he predicted, sitting on the windowsill above the sink. She unplugged it from the charger and entered in his six-digit code, so she could call him. The screen lit up, showing two unread texts. One of them was from her. She had sent it an hour or so ago, asking him to pick up a quart of half and half on the way home. The other text was from Rachel. Can the mouse play while the cat is away?
Grace’s heart felt like a kick-started furnace, sending a blast of heat throughout her body. She scrolled up through the messages, seeing the flirtatious conversation between them. It appeared as if Rachel had initiated all the conversations, and that Bradley’s responses, Grace was relieved to see, were short and generic. However, Grace thought that he shouldn’t be responding at all. The best way to let someone know that you don’t want to engage is to ignore that person. Grace continued to scroll, more confident now that Bradley was not interested in Rachel, that he simply had a hard time being rude to her. Grace could talk to him about this, about the subtle ways of letting someone down without hurting her feelings. Grace continued to scroll. Rachel was incredibly persistent. Grace had never pursued, nor been pursued by, someone like this. Good for Bradley for not giving in!
And then she saw the picture of Rachel’s breasts. And the world tipped off its axis. When she was again able to breathe, five, six seconds later, Grace slowed scrolled up, to see how this happened, to find out if Bradley had encouraged it.
Do you want to see more? Rachel had asked.
Bradley had typed yes.
Grace wasted no time keying in the office number.
“Broadbent and Shapiro. Can I help you?”
Grace closed her eyes. “Bradley Hanover, please.”
“Grace, is that you?”
“Yes, yes, it is, Trina. How are you?” The automatic question.
“Well, I’m fine, Grace. How is everything going with you? We really haven’t been able to connect since you’ve been back. You’ve been busy, I’m sure. How is the baby?”
Grace wanted to say, Get my cheating boyfriend on the phone! Instead she said, “She’s great. And I will definitely show you some pictures when I’m in the office next week. But I’ve got to talk to Bradley quickly. Can you ring his extension?”
Bradley picked up on the third ring. “Bradley Hanover.”
“I found your phone,” said Grace. “And I see you’ve been receiving nude photos of Rachel. Maybe you can stay with her tonight because you are not welcome in my house—not tonight, not ever again. You lied to me, Bradley, and I will not forgive you.”
“Grace, please, I can—”
* * *
Grace had hung up before he could finish his sentence. Bradley sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. How could he explain what Grace had seen?
As if summoned by him, Rachel approached his cubicle. “I never heard back from you,” she said. “Did you get my text?”
Bradley looked at her and said, “Get the hell away from me.”
CHAPTER 57
As soon as she hung up the phone, Grace reached for Hope and lifted her out of the jumper seat. She held Hope against her undulating chest, trying to find air to fill her lungs that didn’t seem to be working. She walked outside onto the deck and looked at the water, tears gathering in her eyes and then falling onto Hope’s cotton T-shirt. Grace held Hope out in front of her, looking into her eyes, into Bradley’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said to her baby. “I’m sorry I brought you into this.”
This is not the first time Grace had felt this way, that having a baby with Bradley had been a mistake. Of course, everyone else in her life had questioned it, too—Shannon, Kenny, Dorrie, Bradley, and Bruce, in his quiet way. But once Grace had come to the conclusion that she wanted to have this baby, that by having this baby she would somehow justify her existence, there was no turning back. She had been rash and irrational in her quest to prove her mother wrong, to prove that someone who was not anticipating a pregnancy can make it work, can find the internal resources needed to raise and love a child.
Grace allowed herself now to see the differences, to acknowledge the fact that her mother had been seventeen years old when she got pregnant in the back of her boyfriend’s car on prom night. What her mother should have done was have an abortion. She should have confessed her secret to her boyfriend and coaxed him into seeing her through it. Instead, she had let him fly away to the West Coast, leaving her with a germinated seed and at the mercy of two intellectually small and intolerant parents. Robin didn’t have the strength to go through an abortion on her own. And so she did what other scared, helpless, penurious seventeen-year-old girls do in her condition: She confessed to her parents. And they took care of the situation in the only way they were capable of when dealing with what they considered to be an amoral daughter: without compassion, without understanding, without love. And Grace having a baby was going to somehow prove them wrong? She didn’t need to have a baby to do that. Dorrie had come right out and told her this when Grace was pregnant and deciding whether or not to keep the baby.
&nb
sp; At forty-two, Grace should have been able to think more clearly than her mother had at seventeen. She should have been able to see that having an unplanned baby was a ridiculous option for a single woman at her age. She had nothing to prove to the people in the household she walked away from when she was eighteen years old. Hell, two of those people were dead, and the other one wanted nothing to do with her still. Where was the analytical thinking she was routinely praised at work for then?
She looked back at Hope’s face and saw her own nose and mouth. The baby, her baby, was not the problem. Grace loved her as she had loved nothing else. It was impossible to compare the love she felt for Hope with other things in her life because she’d had nothing to compare it with, except for a car or a job. There was Kenny, of course. And Grace had loved Kenny. But not in the heart-aching kind of way that she loved Hope. When Grace awoke in the night, the first thing that came to her mind was Hope. When she was away from her, she wanted to be with her. On the days she worked from home, she was much happier than on the days she had to go into the office. Being with Hope felt right; being without Hope felt wrong. No, Hope was not the problem. Bradley was the problem. Bradley had always been the problem.
But he was not a bad person—he truly wasn’t. He was a good person, and Grace loved him. It was a different, more tenuous kind of love than what she felt for Hope. But this was her fault more than it was his. She’d had a hard time trusting him, letting him in. And yet she’d pushed him into being a father. She could see that clearly now. He hadn’t been ready; he wasn’t ready now. He had tried and, at times, appeared committed. But he had agreed to help Grace because he felt guilty about what happened. And this guilt was not desirable or sustainable, and it certainly did not yield happiness. Bradley, Grace thought, felt unhappy and trapped in the relationship. Flirting with Rachel had been an escape. Rachel was his open window in an otherwise locked-up house. Grace had to let him go.
Feeling the urge to take a walk, Grace walked back into the house for the backpack carrier. She eased Hope in, secured her, and then hoisted the carrier onto her back. She buckled the strap at her waist and headed back outside to the beach. It was still low tide, so she could walk on the hard, wet sand at the water’s edge. By the time she reached the breakwater, she had come up with a plan.
* * *
When Bradley hung up with Grace, he went into the men’s bathroom and splashed water on his face. He looked at himself in the mirror over the sink and said, “You have just lost the best thing that will ever happen in your life.” He walked back to his desk, grabbed his things, and walked out the back door. He had no planned destination. His watch indicated it was four in the afternoon. He crossed the street, walked into Tapped, and ordered a beer.
* * *
Two hours later, Bradley had consumed four pints, and the bartender, a friend of sorts, had refused to pour him a fifth. Rather than beg, Bradley decided he would simply go to another bar and drink there. He reached for his briefcase and then spun around on his stool, coming face-to-face with Rachel. “I’ve been texting you all afternoon,” she said. “What in the world is going on?”
“You want to know what’s going on? I’ll tell you what’s going on,” said Bradley, careful not to lose his balance as he went from sitting to standing. He rested a hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “Grace found the pictures you sent me on my phone.”
Rachel’s hand covered her mouth. “Oh no,” she said through her fingers.
“Oh yes,” said Bradley.
“I can’t believe you didn’t delete them.”
“I’m not that calculating,” he said. “I had forgotten about them.” He had not forgotten about them. He had looked at them more than once.
“I’m so sorry.”
“No, you’re not,” said Bradley, moving past her slowly and erratically, as if he were walking through a foot of snow. He ambled toward the front door, but it was not the straight shot it had been when he walked in. The door appeared to have been moved. He veered sideways in an attempt at following the new route to the outside, but found himself standing in front of an empty booth. Bradley sat down. A minute later, Rachel was sitting across from him, the mug of coffee she had brought to the table was in front of him. “What’s this?”
“It’s coffee,” said Rachel.
Bradley looked at the coffee and then looked at her. “I didn’t order coffee.”
“I did,” she said. “Drink it.”
“But I need to get home,” he said. “I need to get home to Grace.”
“Not now,” said Rachel. “You’re too drunk to drive.”
Bradley fell back against the booth cushion. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s too late now. She won’t take me back.”
Rachel listened as Bradley talked about his inadequacies, about his failings, as a person and as a father. And then Rachel told him what he needed to hear, what he wanted to hear. “You are where you are now not because you are a bad person, but because you are a very good person.”
“I don’t know how you can say that.”
“Because a bad person would have left Grace the moment he knew she was pregnant,” said Rachel, leaning over and covering one of Bradley’s hands with hers. He kept his hand where it was, underneath hers. “Because you took responsibility for your actions, you got yourself into a position that you didn’t want to be in. And now you are trapped.”
Bradley continued to look at Rachel but said nothing for several seconds. He then said softly, “Sometimes I do feel trapped.”
“Of course you do,” she said. “You are such a noble, selfless man. This is why I am so drawn to you, why I have such strong feelings for you.”
“Really?”
“Of course, baby. I love you, Bradley.” Rachel slowed scooted her bottom around the horseshoe of the booth until she was sitting next to him.
“I can’t remember the last time Grace told me she loved me.”
Rachel put her arms around Bradley’s chest and kissed his cheek. “That’s because she doesn’t love you like I do. With me, you could be free.” Bradley kissed her lips, and she responded immediately with a barely audible groan. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again and then again. She broke away for a moment to whisper, “Let’s get out of here.” She said, “Where’s your car?”
“It’s out back,” he said. “I was late this morning, so I had to park in the dirt lot.”
“Surrounded by trees, so no one will see us. I love it.”
Rachel pulled Bradley out of the bar, across the street, and up the path to the lot. Bradley’s car was the only one there. She asked him for his keys, clicked open the lock, and then pulled him into the backseat. Ten seconds after they shut the doors, she was sitting on this lap.
In only a matter of minutes—they had been in the backseat of Bradley’s car long enough to have their tops but not their bottoms off—Bradley wheeled backward, breathless. “I can’t do this, Rachel,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I led you on. But I love Grace, and I need to get home to her.” He reached for his shirt, lying in a heap on the rubber floor mat.
“Don’t fight this, baby,” said Rachel. “You want me, and I want you. It’s time for our bodies to do what our minds have been dreaming about.”
“I need to go, Rachel,” said Bradley, searching for a sleeve for his arm.
Rachel reached over and put her hands on both sides of his face. “Don’t go, Bradley. You want this as much as I do.” He put his arm into one of the sleeves but couldn’t find the other sleeve. Rachel put her hand on his arm. “Really,” she said. “If you didn’t want to be with me, you would have shut me out a long time ago.”
“The only thing I want is for you to get dressed and get out of my car.”
“Look, honey, you cannot drive home. You can stay at my place, on the couch, if you want.”
“I haven’t had a drink,” said Bradley, looking at his phone, “in almost an hour. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. Stay
with me.”
“I’m not going to tell you again, Rachel. Get out of my car.”
She slowly grabbed her shirt from the seat and buttoned it up, all the while looking into Bradley’s eyes. “If you do this to me now, it’s over,” she said. “I will no longer put up with your erratic behavior. I will no longer be available to you.”
“Good,” said Bradley, without hesitation. “Without you shoving your breasts in my face all the time, I can be with Grace like I’m supposed to be with Grace.”
“You’re not supposed to be with Grace,” said Rachel, her soothing cadence replaced by a sharp staccato. “If you were supposed to be with Grace, you never would have pursued me.”
“As if I were ever the pursuer. Pick your bra up off the floor and get out.”
Rachel snatched her bra up off the floor and stuffed it into her leather tote bag. “You will be sorry!” she said, angry now. “You’ve just lost your chance to be truly happy!”
“No,” said Bradley. “I just lost a chance to fuck someone I don’t love or respect.”
Rachel shoved the door open and worked her way out of the car, then slammed the door shut. Bradley watched her scuttle across the parking lot. If she had been wearing sneakers instead of heels, she would have been running. Bradley buttoned his shirt and tucked it into his pants. He buckled the belt Rachel had unfastened, and then, exhausted, sat back against the seat. Assessing his condition, he knew he could use more coffee. He decided he’d drive through the McDonald’s on the way to the highway and then sit in the car in the lot until he finished it. Thirty minutes from now, he’d be able to drive home.
He pushed himself out of the backseat and into the early evening air. Standing, he felt better. He took a deep breath and then opened the driver’s door and sat down behind the steering wheel for a moment before he put the key into the ignition. He turned the car around, drove down the steep slope out of the lot, and onto the main street. He was just about to pull into the McDonald’s lot when he noticed in his rearview mirror the rapid approach of a police car behind him with its blue and red lights flashing.
It Started in June Page 28
