Good Gracie

by Ines Saint

  Josh had to work hard to keep his features from hardening. He hadn’t accused anyone of trying to influence him, but his dad was putting that into their heads. It was a pressure tactic.

  “I understand, which is why I have absolutely no qualms about my competitors accepting donations from attorneys. It’s not a bias I have. But my competitors don’t have to fight the stigma of coming from a privileged background and being out of touch because of it. This is one of the ways I hope to fight that perception.”

  A chorus of ahs and a few nods followed, and Josh hoped he had gotten through without offending anyone. But William and Linda Konitz, along with one other couple, made their excuses and left shortly after his announcement.

  Talk that Josh should consider running for higher office soon filled the room and his mom beamed his way. The only place Josh wanted to run was out the door. Now not even county prosecutor would be enough.

  As he looked around, smiled, and said little, he realized he preferred his parents’ disappointment. In its own way, it had signaled acceptance, while their current enthusiasm was pressure for more. More power. More money. More influence. More prestige.

  “What do you think of running for the twelfth precinct in four years?” Gary Dean, one of his father’s partners, asked. “Congressman Robert Solomon says this is his last race.”

  And there it was again. Another statement that would force him to answer in a way that would make his parents look like they had sucked a lemon. He could lie and say he hadn’t thought that far ahead, but if word not only got out but became distorted, the general public might think he was merely using the prosecutor’s office as a trampoline. He put his napkin down. “Actually, I’m not interested in politics. It’s not why I’m running for the prosecutor’s office.”

  “Then why are you running?” Gary asked. Gary Dean was one of those he didn’t trust. He was the one who had taken Brad Wolf on as a client when a few other firms had declined to defend his right to keep the secret recording he’d made of Gracie.

  “Justice. It’s why we all went into law, isn’t it?” Josh flashed a smile and everyone was quick to agree.

  * * *

  By the time Gracie parked in front of her apartment building that evening she was owning her rose-colored hair. At first dying her hair had felt more like she was taking a stand against her anxieties rather than truly expressing herself, even though she’d been tinkering with the idea for a long time. But as the day went by and she caught accidental glimpses of herself in windows and mirrors, it started to feel like both. She was taking a stand against her fear of standing out and, in doing so, she was also expressing things she usually kept inside.

  She got out of the car and checked her mailbox, expecting the usual junk mail. Instead, she found a single white envelope. When she read the front, her insides dropped. It was addressed to Gracie Piper.

  Piper. Not Dearborn. She hadn’t received anything addressed to Gracie Piper in years and she hadn’t kept in touch with anyone from school, so in theory, no one was supposed to know she was in town. Gracie opened the front door and shut it behind her before closing her eyes and leaning against it for a moment, telling herself not to be silly. An old friend might have somehow learned she was there. Maybe it was an invitation to a wedding or a baby shower or something.

  She looked down at the envelope, ripped it open, pulled out an index card, and scanned it. The words jumped up at her.

  Are you sure no copies were made of Brad’s recording? After all, he once said you’d pay the piper, Gracie Piper. From a concerned friend.

  Gracie closed her eyes and slid down the door until she was sitting on the floor with her feet under her. Whoever had sent it—and she was under no illusion it was a concerned friend—had hit upon her oldest and most deep-seated fear—that there was another copy of the recording out there somewhere.

  But something had changed during the last few days. The place within where she’d once been drained and wrung dry from fighting was now just as drained and wrung dry from fleeing.

  There was only one thing left for her to do.

  * * *

  It was eight-ten when Josh spotted a car making its way to the Tudor where Gracie was staying. His heart beat sped up. Surely it was just because he was eager to see his soon-to-be home through someone else’s eyes. When a woman with dark, straight, chin-length hair got out of a Mercedes-AMG GT S instead of Gracie, he felt let down. Although the car perked him up somewhat. That was the car he’d wanted when he grew up. The woman turned and Josh furrowed his brow. There was something familiar about her. “Josh Goodwin,” she said with a confident smile. She walked up to him and extended her hand.

  Finally, Josh smiled, too. “Hope Piper,” he said, shaking her hand. “It’s good to see you.”

  “It’s good to see you, too. Are you here to see Gracie?” she asked. She cocked her head and her eyes narrowed. As a lawyer, he knew what that meant. She’d be analyzing the hell out of his answer.

  He also knew better than to reveal anything other than what was being asked. “No and yes,” he answered.

  “Why no?”

  “I’m here to see the house next door again. I made an offer on it.”

  “Why yes?”

  “I ran into Gracie today and I asked her to give me some design ideas.”

  “So Gracie knows you made an offer?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she’s on her way to meet you?”

  He looked down at his watch. It was eight-fifteen and Gracie wasn’t there. He tried to shrug off his disappointment, but he found he couldn’t. The question was why. “Maybe not. I know she had a lot of work. If you see her, tell her I’m inside, but if she’s tired, it’s fine. I’ll get her ideas some other time.”

  Josh mulled over his blue mood as he trudged up to the old judge’s English manor, not at all okay with the heaviness he felt. But the moment he walked into the house, he understood it. The entry was large and impressive, its centerpiece a grand, flared staircase that led to two balconies. It was also cavernous, with dark wood, heavy drapes, and dark wallpaper everywhere.

  He was convinced Gracie could both brighten and warm the place up. Or rather, that her ideas could.

  He made his way up two flights of stairs to reach the attic. Last night he and his Realtor had stumbled upon boxes upon boxes full of files belonging to the old judge, and Josh had been eager to rifle through them.

  He smelled the old file boxes before he saw them. His phone’s flashlight shone on the light cord just as it smacked his face. He pulled on it to see the corners of the attic stacked with at least two dozen boxes. A nerdgasm worked its way up his spine. The old files would make for good company on those nights he had little work and no one to hang out with. Josh pulled out a box, lifted the cover, and explored for a while. Until the power blew out.

  Chapter 8

  Gracie stopped the car. The imposing estate was completely hidden by pine trees and the large, solid iron gates guarding the entrance were closed. An intercom was embedded into one of the stone pillars anchoring the left gate. She stared at it. Odds were she’d never be granted access. The surprising thing was realizing she wanted to be allowed inside. She needed to speak up on their turf.

  She climbed out of her car, pressed a button on the intercom, and counted to one hundred. No one answered. Gracie pressed it once more and started counting again. It kept her thoughts from tripping her up. When she was at fifty-three, a pleasant voice answered, “Hello. What can I do for you?”

  Gracie straightened. “I’d like to speak with Mrs. Wolf.” She hesitated. “Please.”

  “Who shall I say is requesting to see her?”

  “Gracie . . .” Her breath left her. She’d been about to identify herself as Gracie Piper. She hadn’t done that in years. And yet she had to. How else would Mrs. Wolf know exactly who had come to see her and exactly who she’d be keeping out?

  “Piper. Gracie Piper to see Mrs. Victoria Wolf.”

&nbs
p; “One moment, please.”

  Gracie waited, too paralyzed on the inside to think or count.

  “You may come up to the front door,” the voice said moments later.

  Slowly, the gates opened. Gracie got into her car and drove through. There was no time or inclination to rehearse what she was going to say. What she wanted to know was simple enough.

  When she got to the front of the paved, circular driveway, a small, middle-aged woman was standing under the portico, and the large glass doors leading to the enormous, nondescript brick house were open behind her. “Mrs. Wolf will see you in the study. Come this way.”

  Gracie followed, feeling a little curious as to the identity of the woman in front of her. She spoke like an employee and yet she was dressed in dark jeans, low-heeled boots, and a pretty sweater. Not that Gracie knew how housekeepers were supposed to dress but fashionably wouldn’t have been her guess. The house itself was anything but. It was as severely outdated as some of the houses in Spinning Hills. More so, in fact, because the eighties weren’t yet vintage. At least not when it came to interior decorating. Updating a house of this magnitude had to be nearly as expensive as it would be to both buy and renovate three houses on Manor Row.

  The doors to the study were open and the woman motioned Gracie in before leaving and clicking the door shut behind her. Victoria Wolf stood from one of two armchairs facing the fireplace. She extended her hand and Gracie walked over to shake it, and she wondered which of their two hands had trembled. Maybe both.

  For the first time since she’d been told to come up to the house, she allowed herself to feel surprise that Mrs. Wolf had decided to see her. No words were spoken; Mrs. Wolf simply gestured to the chair in front of her and Gracie sat on its edge. They studied each other. The years had not been unkind to Mrs. Wolf. The woman had gorgeous bone structure and beautiful skin. Her chin-length chestnut hair was impeccable. But the face of the woman in front of her wasn’t a happy one. There was no mistaking it. The lines on her brow and downward creases at the corners of her eyes were deeper than the laugh lines around her mouth. Eyes that had once met hers with cold outrage were now filled with sadness.

  Unsure what to make of it, Gracie extracted the letter she’d received from her purse. The idea had been to use her own outrage to accuse Mrs. Wolf, her family, her son, and her crooked lawyers, but now that she was there, all she wanted was to keep her peace and her dignity, and that was up to her, not Mrs. Wolf. Gracie extended the envelope to the older woman. “This arrived at my home today. I came here to find out if you knew anything at all about it, or about what it says.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Mrs. Wolf reached for the envelope. When she extracted the index card and read it, the older woman’s spirit seemed to slump. Her shoulders and back remained straight, but the small breath she released, the momentary shuttering of her eyes, and the slight shake in her hand told Gracie part of what she needed to know. But nothing could have prepared her for the first words out of the woman’s lips. “I’m so sorry, Gracie.”

  Gracie merely stared, not sure what the woman was sorry about but no less shocked to hear the words.

  Mrs. Wolf stared at the index card. “I understand why you’d come here to ask me about this, but I promise you I know nothing about who sent this or—or about an existing copy of the recording.” She lifted her eyes, and Gracie could tell it took great effort on the older woman’s part to meet her own eyes. “I can guarantee the two I knew about—the one on Brad’s phone and the one on his computer—were deleted. I supervised it myself after the court order came down.”

  Gracie nodded and slowly began to get up, her hand reaching for the envelope and index card Mrs. Wolf was holding. Inside, she had frozen.

  Mrs. Wolf handed them over, saying, “Please don’t go yet. I’m sorry you received this; it must cause you great pain. But now that you’re here, I’d like to take the opportunity to apologize. It’s a long time coming.” Her words sounded rehearsed yet also sincere.

  Gracie sat back and blinked. “Why?” she asked. Heat infused her, and tears prickled at her eyes, chipping away the iciness she’d settled into. Words and tears began to flow. “Why now? Why not then? He was your son, but you didn’t have to insist on keeping the video. You could’ve made him delete it. It didn’t have to go as far as it did. The case gained national coverage. My life was never the same!”

  Gracie watched as Mrs. Wolf’s own eyes watered. “I know. You’re right.” Her fist clenched and unclenched. “I made a mistake, Gracie. A big mistake. Many mistakes,” she said breathlessly before looking down at the floor.

  Gracie swallowed past the lump in her throat. “All that time we spent fighting about it, your son could have downloaded the video onto someone else’s computer or onto a USB or anywhere.” She had to squeeze the words out and they hurt, but she couldn’t stop. She’d been holding them in forever. “I’ve always wanted children, but I’m too ashamed because I would wonder what I’d tell them if that video is out there and they discovered it. Your son did that to me. I did that to me. But we were young. You did that to me, too. And you were an adult.”

  Mrs. Wolf began nodding compulsively. “I know. You’re right.” She closed her eyes. “I just—I didn’t look at the video until the day it was deleted. I couldn’t. He was my baby, and the idea that he had recorded himself in any kind of sexual act was abhorrent to me. Up until I supervised the deletion, I had believed him completely. That you had initiated the entire thing.” She stopped and took a few breaths. “But before it was deleted, I forced myself to watch it. So I could myself be a witness if the time came and you accused him of something else. And what I saw sickened me. The things he said to convince you. Your doubts. The shame in your eyes. The coercion he tried when you refused to go further. His laughter . . .” She looked down at her hands then and squeezed them together. “Even then it took me a long time to come to terms with it. But there was no way to look at that video and not know.” Her voice cracked. “You were the victim. And it seems to be more common nowadays. These cruel boys who film horrible incidents. It makes me wonder what we’re teaching our boys. . . .”

  Her voice trailed away and Gracie was glad she was done. The reminders were too much. She didn’t want to relive it. “I believe you’re sorry” was all she could honestly say before she got up. She needed to leave. There was too much anger and pain. Still, she couldn’t seem to move beyond standing up.

  Mrs. Wolf again nodded her head too many times for Gracie to believe the woman was in any more control of her emotions than Gracie was. “I am. But it’s more than that. I had to look at myself to see why he would do something like that. I thought I had raised him right, but I’m no longer proud of the way I raised him.” She got up, too, and for the first time their eyes locked. They were silent for a few moments, each studying the other, until Mrs. Wolf spoke again.

  “I saw you at the mall a few months ago. You were with your family and with your grandmother’s friends. It felt right that you are all still so close, while my son and his wife forget I exist unless they need something. But you didn’t look like the Gracie Piper I remembered and I felt responsible.” She reached out and touched Gracie’s hair. “I was relieved to see you looking more like yourself today. I’ve wished for a long time there was something I could do to make things up to you and I still hope someday I’ll have the opportunity. All I can do is tell you not to be afraid to have children, Gracie, because unlike me, you will raise a boy to be a good man.”

  Somewhere inside, she knew she appreciated Mrs. Wolf’s words, even though it was all too much to take in. “I don’t know that I forgive you, but I do accept your apology. Knowing that you truly believed your son helps. Knowing that you saw what I really felt ... helps. Knowing you saw me so many years later and were able to see how much it still affected me helps. But I’m also glad you see I’m healing.” The last word was barely a breath.

  Gracie drove home in a zombielike state. She took a long, hot sh
ower, fixed herself some tea, and sat on her reading chair with the index card in her hand. Years of hiding and avoidance had brought her to Spinning Hills and this index card. In a way, she’d been blackmailing herself. And blackmail only worked if the victim was afraid of the consequences.

  For years her job and her family had been her happiness. She knew her family would never abandon her. And now she was aware that her boss knew about her past and said her job was safe. Only Gracie could sabotage it. So she looked at the index card and allowed herself to imagine what would happen if a copy of the video was posted on the internet for everyone to see.

  In her mind’s eye she saw her naked body, Brad groping it, and the shame Mrs. Wolf had been talking about. Being naked in public was a common nightmare for a reason, after all.

  Other words Mrs. Wolf had said came back to her. And it seems to be more common nowadays. These cruel boys who film horrible incidents, and it makes me wonder what we’re teaching our boys . . . You will raise a boy to be a good man.

  Gracie was tired of feeling naked all the time. She was tired of picturing her future kids telling her she had no moral ground for teaching them about pride, dignity, and making good choices. It was time to accept herself and her past and to realize she had a lot to give and even more to teach because of it. Isn’t that what Mrs. Wolf had also meant? How odd that the healing words she hadn’t even known she needed to hear had come from the person she’d thought least likely to offer them.

  And Josh had told her that her case had changed the course of his career and that he was thankful for it. The many victims he’d helped obtain justice were doubtlessly grateful that Josh was in the position he was in, too. Maybe things did happen for a reason. Maybe many reasons.

  With a tinge of shame, she realized it was also time to move past her own experiences and realize that boys, girls, and women and men everywhere were going through even more terrible, life-changing humiliations through the misuse of technology and social media. Could her experience be used to teach prevention of the abuse in some way? Maybe she could speak out. Maybe she should speak out. Again.