by Sarah Kleck
In this regard, Grace was different. Her father, who was divorced from Grace’s mother and now married to a New Jersey real-estate agent sixteen years his junior, was more than wealthy. He’d made a fortune on the New York Stock Exchange, so Grace had plenty of financial backing but didn’t rely on it. Her father gladly paid for tuition, rent, books, and whatever else she needed to study, but that was an investment of sorts. Unlike Kyle, Grace saw her studies through—and then some. She had clear goals.
Back then I was sure she’d have a stellar career and nothing in the world would distract her from it. However life doesn’t always take the course one expects . . . but I digress. Back to Kyle and me outside the bathroom door. We had just introduced ourselves when Holden emerged from the bedroom.
“You’re already up?” he asked sleepily, pushed past Kyle with a greeting nod, and put his arm around my hip. “Good morning,” he said and kissed me. “Did you sleep well?”
“Very well,” I said with a smile.
Kyle started to tread on the spot. “I don’t want to interrupt you,” he said pointing toward the bathroom, “but the brown car is honking.”
I watched speechless as he squeezed past us and pulled the door shut behind him.
Holden breathed in deep, raising his eyebrows. “What did I tell you?”
Holden made us scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee for breakfast on this lazy Sunday morning. Black, because Kyle, whose turn it was to go shopping, didn’t get milk.
“Have you got plans for next Saturday?” Holden asked while using a wooden spatula to divide the scrambled egg over two plates.
“No.”
“A few friends of mine are driving to Winthrop. Campfire on the beach, cheap beer, and old stories.” He gave me a tender look. “I’d like to introduce you.”
Oh, wow. He was ready for the next step.
“Your friends?” I was a bit surprised . . . and I was flattered. “Yes, I’d like to get to know them.” I took a bite of my toast. “Have you known them for long?”
He nodded. “Some since kindergarten.”
OK, he was serious. Or, did he introduce all his girlfriends to his childhood friends?
“They’ll like you,” he added, then leaned toward me, took my chin between his thumb and index finger, and kissed me in a way that wasn’t sexual. It was a tender warm kiss. A kiss that gave me the feeling of being sheltered. The feeling of being loved. As I looked at him, I suddenly noticed something I hadn’t seen before.
“How did you get that scar?” I gently stroked the thin white line along his temple, just under his hairline, with my fingertips.
Holden leaned back in his chair, taking his time before answering.
“In a fight,” he finally said. “I was fourteen. The other guy was two years older than me, but he didn’t stand much of a chance.” Holden stopped briefly. “Until he pulled his knife. He barely missed my eye.”
I put my hand on my mouth. “That sounds terrible.”
He grimaced and looked out the window. He drifted off into the past. “Maybe he saved my life,” he said suddenly.
A disbelieving “What?” was all I could say.
Holden took a deep breath before continuing.
“When my mother left my father and me, I lost my way pretty badly.”
“But you were only six then, right?”
He nodded. “First, I cried a lot, kept asking my dad about her, and imagined her coming back one day.” He took a moment before continuing. “But when I reached puberty, my sadness turned into rage—and I had to let it out somehow.”
“So that wasn’t your first fight?”
He smiled bitterly. “No, it wasn’t. I looked for trouble anywhere and everywhere, started a fight with anyone who gave me a wrong look. Just to have a reason to punch someone. I always waited for the other guy to hit first. That was my justification for beating him up. I never got into serious trouble because I never started it, at least not physically.”
I looked at him attentively. I couldn’t help but ask myself what kind of person Holden had been when he was a teenager.
“But if you push it too far, you’ll eventually meet your match.” He pointed at the scar. “If that hadn’t happened I’d almost certainly have continued on a dark path and be God knows where now. Maybe in jail. Or dead.” He smiled. “But thanks to Julien Bedford and his switchblade I’m now studying mechanical engineering at Harvard. And . . . I’m with you.” He kissed my hands and then each of my knuckles.
“If that’s so, we should send Julien Bedford a gift basket, shouldn’t we?” I said ironically.
Holden winked. “He’s on my Christmas card list.”
I smiled at him, wondering to myself what kind of a mother could leave such a wonderful boy.
“And your Mom?” I asked cautiously. “Have you ever seen her again?”
“Sure,” he answered to my surprise. “We have regular contact. She comes to visit me at least once a week.”
I frowned.
“On my nineteenth birthday, she showed up at my door, told me how sorry she was for everything, but she couldn’t see anything else to do back then.”
“Oh,” I said drily. And I had thought I had a bad mother. Mine at least had hung around.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Holden said, looking at me.
I shook my head. “I just can’t understand how a mother would do something like that to her child. I . . . to be honest, I don’t know if I could have forgiven her.”
Holden pressed his lips together sadly, almost resigned and shrugged. “She’s my mother.”
That was all he said, and I let it go.
Chapter 11
“Tell me about your friends.”
We were driving along Addison Street on our way from Cambridge to Winthrop, where Holden grew up, so I wanted to use the twenty-minute drive to prepare a little and figure out what to expect.
Holden looked at me sideways. I had the impression he was slightly tense when he picked me up—maybe a mixture of nervousness and anticipation.
“Well, there’s Mark, with whom I was always up to no good in high school; Dean and Boris, who are fraternal twins and also high-school friends of mine; Craig, an old baseball buddy; Marcia, who I used to secretly smoke with. She’s engaged to Craig now. Oh, Sarah will be there, too.” His eyebrows twitched. “My first kiss.”
What? My stomach contracted. Was he really going to introduce me to his ex right away?
Holden grinned when he saw my expression. “She was five, and I was four and a half.” He took his eyes off the road briefly and looked right at me. “Today she’s in a happy relationship with an up-and-coming fashion designer named Elizabeth Redsteen. Maybe you’ve heard of her.”
No kidding, I had. “She was one of the top three designers at that runway show with Heidi Klum, wasn’t she?”
“Yup, that’s the one.” He chuckled “Sarah made us watch every episode. She’s tremendously proud of her.”
“She has good reason to be. Is Elizabeth coming?”
“No, she’s in Paris, as far as I know.”
“Too bad.” I looked out the window. “What does Sarah do professionally?”
“Sarah is a sous-chef at Le Bernardin in Manhattan.”
I was astonished. “That’s a Michelin three-star restaurant, isn’t it?” Grace had raved about it. When she went to the city, she always ate there with her dad.
“Yes.”
“Wow. And that at . . . how old is she? Twenty? Twenty-one?”
“Twenty-one. Same age as me.”
“Wow,” I said again.
“Yes, but the price she pays is almost never having time off. It’s like a miracle when she’s not working on a weekend. The last time we got together was over a year ago.”
“You’ve got impressive friends,” I said, feeling a little intimidated. Not that I hadn’t done anything with my life, but Sarah came across as, how should I say it, an adult. At least, from what I’d heard so far.<
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Holden laughed. “Just wait till you get to know them. Mark dropped out of school to focus on his band. That was four years ago—they’re still waiting for their big break. In the meantime, he’s delivering pizza.”
I laughed but immediately felt guilty. That, after all, was a failed dream and shouldn’t be ridiculed.
“And the others?” I quickly asked.
“They all have pretty normal jobs. Marcia is secretary to the partners in a law firm. Craig works at a bank. Dean and Boris are salesmen for a wholesale tool company.”
“You’re the only one in college?”
“Yup. And they never miss a chance to give me a hard time about it.”
At that moment, Holden turned into a parking area near the beach. When we got out, he took my hand. “Ready?”
“Ready when you are,” I answered as I gave him a wide smile.
The campfire was already going. Three men and a woman, each holding a bottle of beer, stood around the fire. The closer we got, the faster my heart beat. It felt like an important test. Sand got into my sandals and rubbed against my skin every step of the way. When they saw us, one of them broke from the group.
“Harvard boy!” he shouted as he walked toward us. When he reached us, he grabbed Holden’s hand and pulled him in for a hug. “Mingling with the commoners again.”
Holden turned to me. “Annie, this is Mark,” he introduced him with a laugh, raising his eyebrows as if to say: See what I mean?
I held out my hand. “Hi, Mark, I’m Annie.”
“It’s a pleasure, Annie,” Mark said. He kissed the back of my hand while penetrating my eyes with his own. Suddenly, I knew why he had decided to drop out of school. Mark wasn’t made for a normal job. He was a born rock star. And a heartthrob. I could only imagine what happened backstage at his shows.
“You can let go of her now.” Holden pushed his friend, whose lips were still stuck to my hand, in the side.
“Meet Dean, Boris, and Sarah,” he introduced me to the others when we had arrived by the fire, pointing out each in turn. “People, this is Annie. My girl.”
My face flushed suddenly. He had introduced me as his girl. Not just as Annie. The way he emphasized it. As if he were really proud of it.
“Hi, nice to meet you.” I shook their hands in turns. I took a particularly close look at Sarah. So, this is what a twenty-one-year-old star chef, who’s worked around the globe, looks like. She was pretty. Not in a classical sense—she was tomboyish with her short blonde haircut, button nose, and slim, almost boyish figure. But she was very pretty.
“Where are Craig and Marcia?” Holden asked.
“Should be here any moment,” either Dean or Boris answered—I couldn’t keep them straight yet. “There’s trouble in paradise again.”
The others nodded knowingly. When Craig and Marcia joined us a few minutes later, I knew immediately what Dean or Boris meant. They were bickering with each other all the way from the car to the campfire. And that’s the way it continued all evening. To be honest, for me as an outsider, it was rather amusing watching them. It wasn’t so much a real argument than mutual nagging. Although they were in their mid-twenties, they behaved like an old married couple and never missed an opportunity to needle each other. Yet, I felt they loved each other deeply. Maybe it was their way of dealing with each other.
“Let’s play a game,” Marcia suggested after a while.
“What were you thinking of, my love?” Craig mocked. “I spy with my little eye? Blind man’s bluff? Hit the pot?”
“Truth or dare,” she decided, casting a challenging look at her fiancé. Then she looked at the others, her expression soft. “Like we used to. In the good old days. Remember?” Her voice was soaked in melancholy. It was as if she really missed the good old days. The way she looked at everyone, no one was going to deny her that wish.
Once she saw everyone agree, Marcia enthusiastically clapped her hands.
“I’ll start.” She looked around with narrowed eyes—and finally stopped at . . . “Holden.”
“Oh no,” he mumbled lowering his head.
“Truth or dare?”
He reflected a moment. “Truth,” he said as if he had no choice.
Marcia’s eyes narrowed again as if she were trying to think of something particularly mean.
“Best sex of your life?”
Holden grinned and leaned back relaxed. “That’s easy,” he said, taking my hand. “She’s sitting right beside me.”
“Oh, come on,” Marcia protested. “You’re just saying that?”
He pressed a kiss on my cheek. “My first time with Annie was by far the best sex I’d ever had,” he said earnestly, then grinned. “And it’s gotten better every time since.”
I swallowed. On the one hand, it was embarrassing to lay out something so private before complete strangers, but, on the other hand, Holden’s words set me tingling. I wanted him, and it was incredible to hear those words coming from his mouth. To hear he felt just as I did.
“OK. My turn,” Holden declared the topic done and looked around.
He picked Mark. “How much money did you earn last month?”
Oh, man, those were mean questions. Everybody seemed to know everyone else’s sore spot and had zero compunction about aiming at it. To my surprise, no one seemed offended by it.
“A whopping six hundred and forty dollars,” Mark answered, putting his self-consciousness on display.
Mark picked Craig, who had a question for Boris or Dean—I still didn’t know who was who—and finally Sarah had to say who took on the male role in bed in her lesbian relationship.
“Me,” she said, totally unabashed. Then she added lasciviously, “Beth is very feminine.”
For a moment, she let the words hang in the air. You could literally see the guys picturing Beth’s femininity and Sarah’s dominance.
“Now it’s your turn, Annie,” Sarah suddenly decided.
I was almost frightened, hesitated briefly, then pulled my lower lip between my teeth. Holden cast me an encouraging glance. “OK,” I agreed.
Sarah rubbed her hands.
I became nervous. What embarrassment would I have to lay bare before Holden and his friends?
Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “I know,” she said with a grin.
Oh, man. Have mercy, Sarah.
“Ready?”
I swallowed, then nodded.
“At what moment in your life did you start to become an adult?”
My eyes widened with surprise. I hadn’t figured on anything like that. That I’d have to lay out my entire sex life, yes. But this? I realized my back was ramrod straight. I immediately let go of the tension. I leaned against Holden’s chest to reflect.
“At what moment did I start to become an adult?” I mumbled Sarah’s question back, letting my gaze drift into the distance. The moonlight was reflected in the waves. Suddenly, an episode from my childhood came into my head. I smiled, then started to talk.
“I’d been in first grade for a few weeks and had just learned to read.” All eyes were turned to me. They listened eagerly. “My Aunt Jane gave me a book for my birthday. It was big and blue, and it was called 1001 Questions and Answers. You know, one of those early reader books with huge letters.” I smiled remembering it. “One day I was sitting in my room, reading—it took me an incredibly long time to read one sentence, and I probably spent half the afternoon on this short section. In any case, there was a picture of a unicorn at the top of the page, and it immediately caught my eye.”
“Of course,” Sarah and Marcia agreed in unison.
I grinned. “The picture came with a description, and at the end of the page it said: Unicorns only live in legends. My pulse must have shot up to one hundred and eighty. I ran downstairs screaming to my mother. Mommy, I shouted, Mommy! We have to go to Legends NOW—they have unicorns!”
Holden started to laugh while pulling me to him. “What happened?” he wanted to know, stroking my hair empathetically. I
was almost certain his tender, comforting touch was not meant for me but the six-year-old girl I once was.
“My mother explained what a legend was. That you can’t go there and that there are no unicorns.”
“Ooh,” the group exclaimed, pity written into their faces.
“That’s probably the saddest and, at the same time, sweetest story I’ve ever heard,” Sarah said.
I shrugged. “Yes, I think that’s when I started to grow up.”
Chapter 12
Holden and I had been a couple for almost three months when, just before my junior year and his senior year began, we decided to move in together. We found an affordable apartment near campus and signed a lease on the spot. I’m not the type who normally makes hasty decisions, but this place was just right. Except, now I had to tell Grace.
I was nervous walking into the kitchen.
“We have to talk,” I started.
She turned, sizing me up. She gave the muffin dough she’d just mixed another two turns, then let the spoon drop. Suddenly, her eyes widened, and she clasped her hands over her mouth. “You’re pregnant!” she burst out.
“What? No.”
“No?”
“No!”
For a moment, my mind blanked. She’d totally thrown me off track, I didn’t remember what I was about to say. I quickly recalled how I’d wanted to ease in—I’d prepared after all, but then I cast everything aside and simply said, “Holden and I are moving in together.”
Grace blinked a few times. Opened and closed her mouth. “When?”
“Next month.” From the look I got, I immediately wished I’d been gentler.
“Holden found this apartment in the paper. We looked at it, and it’s perfect. A lot of others were interested, so we signed the lease right away.”
Grace gave me a cold look. She didn’t seem to know what to say. “You didn’t even want to take one night to sleep on it?”
