As he stepped forward, bringing those oh-so-persuasive hands closer, she backed away. “You’ve got to be kidding right now.”
“Of course I’m not. This concerns you as much as it does me.” He scowled and shook himself off. “I’m sorry. I meant to do this differently, to say this better. I guess that’s my life story, huh?”
He didn’t wait for a response. “Gretchen, I’ve been a selfish, self-serving man for as long as I can remember. I’ve never put anyone else first, never even felt the urge. I never had to. The world looks at me and sees the things I’ve accomplished, and all in the name of vanity. You look at me and see the man I’ve become in spite of it.”
“Fuck you.”
His eyes flew open, and she took profound satisfaction at catching him so off guard. Of course, that feeling was quickly replaced by one of stone-cold dread.
“What did you just say?”
“I said fuck you, Jared. How dare you ask me that? How dare you put this on me?” He tried grabbing her arms, but she was frenzied, alert. This was so much worse than all his other sins combined. “Through all of this, for all of this time—I never really thought of your conceit as a problem. I thought you were just a little boy who didn’t get told no often enough, and I thought it was fun to be the one to teach you the meaning of that word. I was wrong. I was so very wrong.”
His face grew red, almost as though she had slapped him. “I don’t understand.”
“Exactly.” She backed away slowly. “You don’t understand at all. You’ve been hiding behind this organization for so long, you forgot how to make judgment calls on your own. Instead of accepting your flaws and trying to become a better person after you cheated on Whitney, you thought you could buy your way out of guilt with hard work and sacrifice. And now you want me to absolve you. Or not. You want me to say whether you’ve done your time. Or not.”
The redness in his face disappeared, replaced by an eerie, almost luminescent white. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’m not your goddamn moral compass.” Tears burned hot and ready in her eyes. “I’m not your judge and jury. I might be the only person in the world who sees you for who you are, Jared, but that doesn’t mean you get to sit back, close your eyes and enjoy the rest of the ride. It just means I’ve been a fool for believing you might care enough to see me back.”
Unable to fathom the thought of facing all those people—those kind, well-meaning, important people—Gretchen turned on her heel and ran blindly through the parking lot. She didn’t have her purse or her keys, but this was where that common sense gene came in handy once again.
Carry a rape whistle in the purse. Hook pepper spray on the keychain. And always, always keep a spare key taped underneath the wheel hub.
Chapter Twenty-One
Knock three times...
Gretchen started humming the now abhorrent song before the familiar triad of thumps on the ceiling had ended. She didn’t know if Gran was doing it out of some bizarre kind of concern, afraid that Gretchen had done away with herself using her derby laces, or if she’d simply devised a better method of keeping Gretchen at her beck and call, but it worked. Six times in the past two hours alone she’d been summoned upstairs. Once to open a jar of peanut butter. Twice to change the channel. And three times because Gran felt the need to remind Gretchen that Jared had called. Again.
“Gran, if you can’t operate the remote control, you’re just going to have to watch what’s on,” she said, storming up the steps. She reached the kitchen and stopped. “Oh. Hi, Freddy.”
At least the other man’s presence would keep Gran busy for a few hours. Maybe Gretchen could finally get some studying done.
“Gretchen.” Her name dragged on for at least ten seconds, each one a little more depressing than the last. “You look like you could use a hug.”
“Oh, um...” Too late. His arms, surprisingly firm, wrapped her in a big bear hug until she almost disappeared between them. The longer she remained there, the more she gave in to the comfort of it. Freddy was an unquestionably good hugger.
Or maybe she was just starved for human affection.
It could have very easily been that.
“A fellow on the front porch asked me to give you this.” Freddy grabbed an envelope from the counter and foisted it into her hands. “He was very suspicious—he had a camera and was taking pictures of the yard and windows. Looked like a used-car salesman.”
Gretchen almost asked for another hug. “Oh, crap. Did he have fingers like sausages?”
“Sausage fingers poking around where they don’t belong.” Freddy nodded, as if storing that tidbit up for future use. “I like it.”
“Freddy, you know what’s in here, right?” She waved the envelope at him. Considering the amount of time spent in Gran’s company, there was no way he could have been oblivious to the family drama unfolding all around them. And tearing up the backyard.
“As they’re from that lawyer, I’d guess either a formal, jargon-filled request to look at Charlotte’s finances or a court order for her medical records. Possibly both.”
She could have kissed him. Finally, someone who knew enough about this stuff to talk sensibly. Finally, someone on her side.
“Bah,” he grumbled. “Burn it. Not worth your time.”
Or...not.
“Are you two going to stand down there talking all day, or are you coming up?”
As ignoring Gran’s summons was only likely to end up with heavy thumps on the floor every five minutes for the rest of her life, Gretchen complied. A normal grandparent, sensing that her granddaughter’s life had recently become a black hole of despair, might use this time to lay off a little. Order cupcakes. Uncover hidden treasure.
Gran, naturally, turned her into a slave.
Gretchen trudged up the steps with Freddy springing lightly at her heels. By the time she got to the second floor, he was practically bursting with energy.
“Open it,” he cried.
“Open what?” She turned to find Gran flinging the first bedroom door wide. As it was clear from Freddy’s exuberance and Gran’s pleased flush that she was to investigate said room, Gretchen hesitantly poked her head in.
“What?” She took a few steps forward. Then a few more. Before long, she was standing in the center of the room.
For most people, standing in the center of a room was insignificant. Nothing.
In this house, it was everything.
“I thought it looked emptier than normal a few weeks ago!” Gretchen cried, taking in the room with an openmouthed stare. A desk was pushed along the far wall underneath a large window hung with cheerful blue curtains. Two filing cabinets—a bit excessive unless they were running a medical office—flanked either side, and there was still a huge pile of boxes in one corner, but she understood at once what was going on here.
“You got rid of all that stuff?”
“Well,” Freddy hedged. “We moved most of it, though we did manage to toss out a few of the larger pieces. Baby steps, right, Charlotte? Burn slow and steady?”
“Don’t patronize me,” Gran snapped.
Freddy winked. “I wouldn’t dare.”
“I don’t...” Gretchen walked in a daze to the office chair and sat down. “Why didn’t you say something? I could have helped.”
“What the hell do you think I got a life coach for?” Gran’s voice, gruffer than usual, concealed thick emotion. “Don’t tell me you really think we had to do all that stretching to sit around and talk about my problems. Sorting through this crap takes it out of an old woman.”
“I thought...” Gretchen caught Gran’s eye and decided to keep her mouth shut. What she thought—what Janice thought, the vision of white wrapped up in a fondant bow—was better left unsaid. “So what does this mean? Ooh, do we get to tak
e pictures and shove them under Janice’s door? Because I would be all over that.”
“How many times have I told you not to give that leech a second thought?” Gran gave an exasperated sigh as she and Freddy turned to leave. “Enjoy your office, Gretchen. I’d always planned on having this turned into your study room. Better late than never, I guess. And this time it really is three feet to the right. Turns out I never got around to burying the damn box. It was in my top dresser drawer the whole time.”
Gretchen had no use for an office. Or filing cabinets. Or a desk, for that matter, but it did make a handy surface for her to drop her head in exasperation.
It would have been infinitely better to not look three feet to the right, to show no interest and protest against Gran’s high-handedness by leaving the file drawer untouched, but Gretchen had never been good at playing it cool.
Scooting closer, she yanked on the handle, half expecting there to be a lock or a booby trap catapulting her into another dimension. Instead, all she got was a shoebox. Doc Martens. Size six. The knee-high boots on the side picture were ones she recognized from her Goth period when she was seventeen—not her most attractive phase, but not nearly as bad as the time she’d taken up gangsta rap.
She set the box on her desk and stared at it.
No matter what was in there, it wouldn’t fix things. Nothing that fit inside four cardboard walls could begin to make up for the fact that her life—a silly waste of a thing to begin with—had taken a dramatic turn for the worse.
Jared had made her feel like an idiot the other night. An idiot and a fool and weak in ways she’d never considered herself before. She’d been everything for him—the hard ass, the hot chick, the glamour girl. Herself. And for what? When he looked at her, all he’d ever seen was whatever reflection of himself he needed for that day.
A mirror to bounce off all that excess arrogance.
“Oh, open it already,” she grumbled aloud, slightly horrified at how much like Gran she sounded. Still, the words gave her the courage she needed to open the box. As expected, there was no actual treasure inside. A few slips of paper, nothing more.
But oh, what slips of paper these were. The top was a note, written in Gran’s scrawling hand, the wobbly lines indicative of her age.
Sorry I couldn’t give it all to you. But if I didn’t make arrangements for those kids of Janice’s and Pauline’s, you’d have never heard the end of it. Mary may still make a stink. Too bad.
What came next filled in the rest of the blanks. The family’s money—Gran’s money—no, Gretchen’s money—wasn’t nearly the amount Janice had hinted at. Still. The zeroes were making her woozy, especially since they were attached to a trust in her name, and had been since the day she’d turned twenty-one.
Of course. No matter how much her sisters might grasp and claw, they wouldn’t be able to put Gran in a home and gain power of attorney. Not if the money had been Gretchen’s the whole time. For ten freaking years.
All that time, all that worry—and Gran was untouchable. Gran had always been untouchable. The wily old bat.
Gretchen was going to kill her. Right after she planted a big kiss on her mouth. And maybe locked the door on her brand new office and had herself a good, long, ASPCA-commercial level of a cry.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jared sat with his phone in hand, deleting yet another text unsent.
During their brief relationship, texting with Gretchen had become something of a game. Under the guise of kindly medical advice, he’d found it possible to tell her how he felt without having to resort to telling her how he felt.
Unfortunately, there was no medical euphemism for Even though I’m the worst person in the world and have nothing to offer you, please take me back. Except maybe something about benign growths that had become too vascularized and couldn’t be safely removed without damaging the patient.
But that seemed a touch obscure.
“Dr. Fine.” Paula came out from the office, both hands extended. He had no choice but to take them in his own, shaking quickly before dropping her like fire. “Dr. Ortega is ready for you now.”
The formality of Paula’s demeanor helped put Jared at ease, especially since the Make the World Smile’s DC offices were anything but formal. Cheerfully painted, covered with photos of dazzlingly happy children, buzzing with energy as people went about the work they loved—it was as though the place had been designed to make a man question every choice he’d ever made.
The formality dropped the second the door closed behind Paula.
“Javier,” Jared said, nodding once. And then the old man rushed forward and shook his hand as though they hadn’t seen each other in years.
Days—only days. It felt like a lifetime.
“I’m taking you coming all the way out here as a good sign,” Javier said. Although the man was older and smaller than Jared remembered, he still retained the polish that set him apart from every other doctor he knew. “I warn you, the old ticker isn’t as strong as it used to be. Bad news could push me over the edge.”
“Good thing you work in a building with hundreds of medical professionals on hand,” Jared responded easily, taking the proffered seat on the other side of Dr. Ortega’s sleek desk. “You don’t fool me.”
“Nor you me, I’m afraid.” Javier let out a long sigh. “You’re turning this position down, aren’t you?”
Jared looked at his hands. The past week had to have been one of the most difficult of his life. After Gretchen had fled from the dinner, her words still burning a trail from her lips to his ears, he’d had no choice but to go back in.
Without her there for his eyes to follow, without the constant, reassuring knowledge that he could look over and smile and she’d smile back, everything had gone hollow. The ringing words of praise sounded false and tinny, the handshakes too long and too hearty.
That was when he realized how right she’d been. Without her there to see his success, without her there to adore him and help him plan his future and idolize at the Shrine of Dr. Jared Fine, he felt empty.
It was exactly what had happened all those years ago in Guatemala. The second Whitney stopped thinking of him and actually demanded something for herself, he’d gotten scared and lashed out. Time had passed and he’d done what he could to atone, but nothing had changed. He still needed a woman’s unquestioning adoration to make himself feel complete.
This time, though, the last thing he wanted to do was to be unfaithful, to hurt as much as he was hurting. He would rather give it all up and never enter an operating room again than cause Gretchen a moment of pain. She mattered too much.
“This is about your lady friend, isn’t it?”
Jared finally looked up. “Yes. And no.” With a deep breath, he prepared himself to say all the things he should have said when he first resigned—about his loneliness and desire for something more, about how treating the job as a penance rather than the joy it should have been had slowly worn him down. But he didn’t. Instead, he stood and offered his hand. “I know it probably seems unfathomable to a man like you that I could choose tummy tucks and face lifts over all of this, but I’ve been happier these past few months in Pleasant Park than I ever thought possible. If I took this job, I’d always feel like the best part of me got left behind there. With my lady friend. With all my friends. I’m not martyr enough for that.”
He was only a man.
“I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but...” Javier shook his hand, and that firm grip did much to restore Jared’s mood. “I always told your dad you were too good for this job. I always knew you’d go on to do more.”
He had to laugh. “You think Pleasant Park is more than running the top medical aid organization in the world?”
“After seeing the way you look at her?” Javier smiled. “Yes. I do.”
* *
*
Gretchen found out about Jared’s return much the same time the rest of the town did.
If he’d been a local hero before, he was practically the king now, despite the fact that no one prided itself on ousting the monarchy quite like Pennsylvanians.
Every newspaper, every radio announcer, every Java Rocket customer all had the same thing to say. He chose us over world domination. Pleasant Park over Washington. Our kids over kids in need. It was almost as though this had been his end goal all along. Not a fancy job, not the love of a woman who ought to know better—just the undying and completely misguided devotion of several thousand people who’d never really know him.
“The next person who says the name Dr. Fine to me is getting an espresso in the face,” Gretchen announced to no one in particular. Even though she was, as Mary termed it, dripping with dirty money now, she had yet to tender her resignation at either job. After all, not much had changed. She was still a culinary school reject. Still underemployed and unfinished from head to toe.
Money was no object. Gran was recovering without her. Even Janice had called off the lawyer, swooning over a pair of trust funds that would allow Sarah and Carrie into any college they wanted.
Nothing was holding her back. All those excuses she’d relied on for so long had disappeared, and she still couldn’t walk out those doors and demand a different future.
“There she is.” The front door of the coffee shop flew open, the sound of wood on wood not enough to cover the deep timbre of Whitney’s voice. “You.”
Gretchen held her ground—but just barely. “What? What did he tell you?”
Whitney had clearly come from work, polished and flawless in a tight-fitting skirt and one of the shiny blouses she always wore under her lab coat. “You are my new favorite human being.”
Kendra appeared at Whitney’s elbow, beaming. “We owe you so much right now. Name it and it’s yours. Waxing. Chemical peels for life.”
The Derby Girl Page 27
