Aging with Gracie

by Heather Hunt

  She glanced at the beautifully decorated tree and knew that it would not be a good enough excuse to get her out of trouble. She grinned to herself as her lips tingled at the thought of the ways he would punish her.

  His face was dark as he entered the room.

  “What in the blazes are you doing up there?” His footsteps echoed throughout the room as he stomped across the hardwood floors. He stopped right below her and grasped her leg. “Are you looking to kill yourself?”

  “I couldn’t reach,” she started to explain, but she recognized from the crease on his forehead that there was no chance that he was buying her explanation.

  She tried to blame his attitude on the construction worker in him...the crew chief always looking out for the safety of his team...but, in her heart, she knew the real reason. He was simply concerned for her welfare. She felt a rush of guilt that she had worried him.

  Jack ran the fingers of his right hand up her leg and rested his hand under the curve of her hip. He was wearing a pair of thick, yellow suede work gloves, and they scraped against her jeans. Grace almost took a nosedive from her place on the ladder at the sensation.

  “Come here, Princess.” He held up his other hand. “Let me help you down from there.”

  “Now that you’re holding me, just let me...” She made one last stretch and positioned the star at the top of the tree. She knew that her defiance would drive him even more crazy, but she could also tell from his tightened grip on her hip that he didn’t mind giving her a little leeway...or a helping hand.

  “Grace,” he warned.

  She looked straight down into his deep blue gaze and grinned. “Thank you, Jack.” She blew him a quick kiss. “You’re a lifesaver.”

  “Um, excuse me,” an irate voice shattered the moment.

  “Susan?” Jack whipped his head toward the voice. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come to see you. That’s what I’m doing here.”

  Grace dropped from Jack’s arms with a thud. She cringed as her weight pressed onto her injured toe.

  “You’re the fiancé?” She turned to Jack with her mouth hanging open.

  “Fiancé?” He sounded confused. “Of course not. I’m not engaged to Susan. What made you think that?”

  “It’s just a technicality,” the lady named Susan announced. “It’s what I’ve planned for years. You know that, Jack.”

  “What I know is that we stopped dating over two years ago.” He looked at Grace as if she would come to his defense.

  She held up her hand and raised her brows. She was waiting for an explanation, as well.

  “You obviously need to clarify the situation, Jack, but don’t drag me into it while you do. Just leave me out of it. Your relationship with this woman has nothing to do with me. If there’s something going on, you need to deal with it yourself. There’s no way I’m going to get caught up in this high-school drama.”

  “How can you say that, Grace?”

  The hurt in his eyes tugged at her heart, but she refused to budge on her decision to remain uninvolved. Whether or not he liked it, he would have to deal with this on his own. He had to find a resolution with this “Susan” person before they could go any further in their own relationship.

  “I’m not mad, Jack, but this lady obviously thinks that you are engaged.” She shook her head as if the image...and the woman...might disappear with the act. “I realize that she might not see things the way they are. After all, I’ve been talking to her for the past five minutes, and let me tell you, she’s a few bricks shy...”

  “Excuse me?” Susan interrupted again.

  “Anyway,” Grace headed toward the exit. “I’ll see you tonight at the party. In the meantime, I think all of us have some soul-searching to do.”

  As she headed out of the room, she came upon Elinor and Marianne huddled behind a large ficus tree.

  “Have the two of you been eavesdropping?” Grace shook her head at their sneaky antics.

  “Oh, no, Grace,” Elinor denied and raised her hands. They were filled with colorful Christmas wrapping paper and several rolls of ribbon. “We were headed to the Activity Room to wrap gifts.”

  “What am I going to do with the two of you?”

  “The question is, my dear,” Marianne touched her cheek, “What are you going to do with Jack Ellis?”

  Grace let the tears flow then, and the women gathered her into their arms. The embrace gave her a quick burst of strength, and she looked back toward the room where Jack was already deep in conversation with Susan.

  “If I knew that, my friends, then I wouldn’t be slinking off to my office.”

  “As long as you work on a plan of battle,” Elinor chimed in. “Don’t give up just yet.”

  “I’ll try,” Grace promised as she turned to head down the hallway toward her office.

  The women peeked back into the room. From where they were standing, they practically had a front row seat. Marianne leaned the rolls of wrapping paper against the wall. The presents could always wait.

  They watched the lady motion frantically with her hands. Jack had moved several feet away from her and was shaking his head as if he could not actually believe the turn of events.

  “I know that you’ve driven a long way in the weather, Susan. Of course you can stay for the party,” they heard him say, “But we are not a couple. We haven’t been a couple for a long time, now. I am in love with Grace.”

  Marianne and Elinor gasped at his revelation.

  “But,” Susan started to argue again.

  “There are no ‘buts’ about it,” Jack held up his hand. “I love her, and I want to marry her.”

  Susan murmured a response, but the sisters could not make it out. Although they itched to hang around and hear the rest of the conversation, they knew that they risked being discovered if they hovered any longer. They gathered up the last remnants of wrapping paper and headed briskly down the hallway.

  “That one’s a firecracker,” Elinor said as she chanced one more look back toward the room. “She’s going to cause trouble for our Grace.”

  “I’m pretty sure Grace can handle things. She’s got a little fire in her, as well,” Marianne countered.

  “I just hope the place doesn’t go up in flames,” Elinor grumbled. “I’ve come to like it around here.”

  “Sister, I think things will work out just fine.”

  The two of them could only pray.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Watsons

  Two hours after the last guests departed, Grace sat in a rocking chair in front of the fireplace. It was ironic that she was finally getting to enjoy one of the new living room chairs...on her last night at Mansfield Park. The absence of rocking chairs on the front porch had been one of the first things she’d added to her fix-it list on the day of her arrival, and it had been one of the many things that she had fixed during her five-month stay in Manhattan.

  She watched the yellow and orange light bulbs with tired eyes as they flashed in alternating bursts. A hidden device coordinated the upward puff of several short, iridescent silk panels to evoke the image of a fire. On the reality scale, it ranked just below waxed fruit, but on the Mansfield Park ambiance scale, it garnered pretty high marks with the residents. After all, there was only so much you could do in terms of having a fire and still stay within the fire code.

  Grace thought back to the events of the night. In some ways, it had been a great success. The residents had loved exchanging the gag gifts, and the children from church had added a special spark to the festivities. Abby had been in her element, as well. She’d become a truly amazing young lady over the past few months. Her parents had even remarked on how outgoing she’d become since spending time at Mansfield Park.

  Grace had been in her own little world, however. Although the congratulations had been pleasant and had lifted her self-esteem a notch, it had been the looks of joy and pride on the faces of her residents that left the biggest impression on her. She ha
d rarely seen such looks of satisfaction. For many of them, it had been the first time in years that they’d been able to entertain visitors for a Christmas gathering. While Mansfield Park was not exactly like the homes they remembered, it was the next best thing.

  Grace had thought nothing could put a damper on the evening until the cruel hand of reality reared its blonde head and completely ruined her night. Grace closed her eyes on the image of Jack kissing Susan under the mistletoe.

  Grace and the rest of the room had stood with gaping mouths at the display. Jack’s Grandma Alice had even stomped out of the room.

  Later, Jack had argued that it had been Susan’s doing. That she had grabbed him and pulled him into her embrace. But to Grace, his defense had been shaky. After all, she’d told him, he outweighed the woman by close to a hundred pounds!

  She chastised herself for letting her mind get the best of her. She didn’t want to give her anger, or her imagination, too much latitude. She would go crazy if she did. She just wanted to get past the pain that the evening had caused. She knew that she would eventually have to talk to Jack. He’d promised her that as she’d walked away from him tonight.

  Grace flexed her aching feet. When she’d dressed for the evening, she had hoped that, even with two toes unattractively buddy-taped, her rhinestone-encrusted three-inch sandals would have lifted the mood that had been ruined by the arrival of Lady Susan. Not only had the shoes failed miserably at raising her spirits, but they had also left her with a throbbing blister on her left heel. She eased the stiletto straps around her aching feet then snagged them with a finger before climbing out of the chair.

  Out of habit, Grace began her nightly walk. As she wandered through each room, memories flooded her mind.

  What a night!

  For Grace, though, it was not just this night that had her emotions in a blender. It was the whole idea of losing what she had found at Mansfield Park. Not just Jack, although he had certainly been a major part of it. It was much more.

  She looked around the room and realized that her work here was done. Her father had as much as admitted that he had plans for her to proceed to his next project…in Tuscan. She had accomplished what she’d set out to accomplish in Manhattan. She’d passed her father’s test with flying colors. Wasn’t his offer of a new job proof of his faith in her abilities? In fact, he was so satisfied in the way she’d turned things around here that he was expecting her to relocate by early January. Grace was hit by a sudden onslaught of tears at the thought.

  The carols from the night floated through her head as she made her final evening walk-through.

  “Silent night, Holy night. All is calm, all is bright,” she sang softly as she paced the halls.

  Surprisingly, despite the festivities of the evening, it had now become a nearly silent night at Mansfield Park. The churning of the dishwashers and the echo of snores through the walls of the predominantly male wing were simply background music.

  Grace watched Marianne and Theodore making their nightly trek ahead of her in the hall, the quick steps of Marianne’s dancer’s feet reined in to accommodate Theodore’s shuffling gait. Grace imagined the conversation they were having.

  “My beautiful Marianne.”

  “Yes, darling?”

  “My beautiful Marianne. I love her so.”

  “I know you do, Theodore. I know you love her.”

  Grace knew that Marianne would cradle his hand for a kiss before the image even played out. That was just the way with Marianne. She always knew the right thing to do. The right words to say.

  She had played a similar role in Grace’s own life when she encouraged her to share her testimony. For several weeks of Bible study, Grace had felt a conviction to share her fears. Her hopes. With the support of Marianne and the other women in the study, Grace had let God take over the reins of her life. She had publicly talked about her first impressions of Mansfield Park and how she’d been discouraged at the thought of working there. She’d also told the group how God had opened up her heart. How God had taken a flawed, pretentious person and turned her into a servant.

  As the couple made the turn toward their suite, Grace headed in the opposite direction toward the dining room. The lights on the trees twinkled in the darkness, and the windows of the tiny houses on the large oak buffet glowed.

  The image of the town brought to mind her home...her Atlanta home. But really, it was hard for Grace to consider it home now, for as crazy as it sounded, Grace couldn’t imagine a home anywhere other than the small mountain town she’d come to love.

  She unplugged the lights and leaned against a polished cherry table.

  She was driving back to Atlanta tomorrow to celebrate the holidays with the rest of her family. Tonight was her last true night in Manhattan. Ironically, the work she’d been prepared to despise at the beginning of her assignment had become her life’s blood.

  Now, it was complete and she must move on.

  She just hoped that she could find another cause to champion at her new job. She certainly didn’t want to waste away in an office. God had better plans for her than that. Her heart ached, though, when she realized that a life with Jack did not appear to be in that master plan.

  When she’d seen him with Susan tonight, she had known that she needed to let him go. It was the mature thing to do. As hard as it was to see them together, Grace had known that it was the right image. The kiss had cemented that in her mind. Susan, just as beautiful as Jack was handsome, was the best option for him. Any onlooker could see that they were a perfect fit. There was no way, with all of her idiosyncrasies, that she could ever make Jack as happy as the beautiful Susan could. After all, didn’t he tell her on a regular basis that she drove him crazy? It should have been obvious from the beginning that there could be no future for her with Jack. He’s always been larger than life to her.

  And anyway, she asked herself. When does the sheltered, mousy intellectual ever get the guy? Never. That’s when.

  As she reached down to unplug the last of the lights, she caught a glimpse of something through the window, an eerie orange glow at the far end of the building near the ice cream parlor.

  Fire!

  She rushed into the hallway and pulled the fire alarm. In less than a second, a piercing whine resounded through the building.

  She ran from room to room, rousing the residents from their beds and ushering them down the hallway to the safety of the parking lot. By the time she reached the second wing, she heard the sound of sirens approaching the front of the building.

  Thank you, Lord.

  The night staff executed the fire escape plan as if they had practiced it the day before, and within minutes, all of the residents were huddled in the safety zone of the front parking area. As the Manhattan Voluntary Fire Department headed toward the building with their equipment in tow, Grace looked toward her residents to take another mental roll call.

  Thank you, Lord. Everyone is safe.

  She looked toward the group again and stiffened in fear. Where was Theodore? He’d just been there a minute before!

  She scanned the crowd for his thick white hair, but she only found Marianne frantically rushing from person to person.

  “Theodore!” Grace heard her friend cry. “He was standing right here only a second ago! I have to find him. I have to find my husband!”

  Grace caught her as she headed toward the front door.

  “Marianne, you can’t go in there!”

  “He’s my life, Grace. I have to find him!”

  Grace was struck by Marianne’s words in a way that cut deeply into her heart. She tried to put herself in her friend’s place, and at that moment, realized what must be done.

  “Stay here,” Grace told her. “I’ll find him.”

  And with that, she threw caution to the wind and headed back into the burning building.

  “Miss! You can’t do that!” Grace heard the call from behind her, but she was already inside before the fireman could detain her.
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  Surprisingly, there was not much smoke in the building, and she was able to follow the path Theodore might have taken without having to crawl down the hallway.

  She felt the door of the recreation room and, finding it cool, decided to take her chances. She opened it but found no one. She turned around and headed toward the other end of the building. She knew that the fire was in that area, but she really had no choice. It was the only place Theodore could have gone in such a short span of time.

  Before she made it halfway down the hall, she spotted him. To her surprise, he was not alone. Richard Watson and Agatha North were standing between him and the exit.

  “What’s going on here?” Grace asked.

  “Duh,” she could imagine Abby’s voice ringing in her head. It was more than obvious what was going on.

  “Merry Christmas, Miss Woodhouse,” Richard Watson flashed his coffee-stained teeth in an evil grin straight out of a bad horror movie. “Glad you could join us. We’re having a little barbeque to celebrate the holidays.”

  “And you forgot to invite me?” Grace moved closer to Theodore. “That wasn’t very nice. And after all I’ve done for you.” She knew that it would only incite him further, but she couldn’t resist. She figured that she was toast anyway.

  “Precisely, you prissy little─”

  “─Now no name calling.” Grace was beginning to sweat. “Of course, I suppose I could call you an arsonist and a murderer.”

  “We haven’t killed anyone...yet,” he dragged out the word. “Too bad old Theo here couldn’t follow directions and stay with the rest of those meddlesome drains on society.”

  Grace reached Theodore’s side and, careful not to frighten him, gently grasped his hand.

  “Marianne! I found you!” he exclaimed.

  “And now we have to leave, dear,” she whispered.