Waiting for Grace

by Oakes, Hayley

  He looked at me, confused, handed them over, and continued his conversation.

  I took my drink and burst into the cool night air. It was still fairly light and thankfully the bench was empty. I took a deep breath, removed my shoes, and padded over to the bench. I lit a cigarette and leaned back onto the table of the picnic bench, taking in the stars as I sat there.

  After a minute or two I heard someone approach and I sat up.

  “Hey, sexy.” Charlie staggered towards me. “You are one sexy bitch,” he stuttered.

  “Erm … you’re drunk.” I smiled.

  “Bloody Banny has to bag the hottest girl I’ve ever seen,” he said, placing his hand on my leg.

  “Err … hands off!” I yelped, jumping up.

  “Ah … come on. You girls love having more than one boy on the go at once. I’d show you a good time,” he slurred.

  “You girls?” I asked indignantly.

  “Yeah, you easy girls!” he barked. “Why else would you dress like you fancy, a bit?”

  I shook my head. “You’re a dick!” I shouted at him. “And with your IQ you’ll be living off daddy’s money for the rest of your life.” I turned to stomp off, and Liv and Jess stood watching me.

  I just shouldered past them, grabbed my shoes, and rushed past Robert out of the house. He saw me and grabbed my arm.

  “Where you going?” he asked.

  “Home,” I said, shrugging him off.

  “Wait, I thought we were having a good time.”

  “You were!” I barked.

  I yanked the large front door open, shoes in hand and stood negotiating the gravel and whether I could walk over it bare foot when Robert burst out.

  “Hey, stop! What are you doing? What happened?”

  “They’re all dicks!” I shouted, deciding to put my shoes back on.

  “Come on, just come back in, who upset you? I’ll sort it.”

  “You can’t sort it Robert. You can’t change who I am, and that’s the only way I’ll fit in with all those toffs.”

  “Ah, Grace.” He laughed, “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Am I?” I shouted, mounting the gravel and walking away. “Then you go and hang around with your precious friends and I’ll go home. I’d rather enjoy the company of my crazy mother than this pile of arseholes.”

  “Hey, these are my friends!” he shouted, following me. “And you haven’t given them a chance!”

  “Haven’t I?” He grabbed my arm again, and I shrugged it free.

  “We’ve only been here an hour.”

  “Well, that was long enough for your snobby, bitchy girl friends to make fun of my dress, and your mate Charlie to tell me I am easy. So I suppose another hour might be a bit too much for me.”

  “Whatever, Grace, come on.”

  “Fine, whatever. Fuck you, Robert. Fuck you for bringing me here. Fuck you for leaving me to chat shit to your mates, and fuck you for not believing me. Just fuck off.” I started to teeter down the street, back to the bus stop and rage filled me from head to toe.

  “No, fuck you, Grace!” he shouted. “Typical Grace, just walk away! Go on and fuck off!” he yelled.

  So I did. I took my shoes off half way to the bus stop and started to cry. I would never fit in with these people. I wasn’t like Robert. I was a fuck up who wore her sister’s clothes from the eighties and who wanted her eyelashes to look like Jordan. I didn’t have money to throw about making sure I fit into the latest fashion trend, and I didn’t have a rich daddy whose house I could wreck getting drunk at the weekend. If these were Robert’s friends then maybe he was more like them than I knew, and maybe it was best I found out now.

  I sat at the bus stop in the dark. The only illumination came from the street lights, and I cried silently as I willed the bus to come and get me home safe. I swung my shoes gently in my hand and twitched my feet to numb the pain of high heels. Just as a massive sob escaped my chest, I looked up and Robert stood there.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I sniffed, wiped my eyes, and looked away from him.

  “What for? Taking me to that awful party?” I asked.

  “That … and I should never have let you walk here alone. For what it’s worth, I followed you all the way.”

  “I don’t care about that!” I wailed. “Your friends are idiots.”

  He smiled and nodded. “The girls can be bitchy,” he said, sitting next to me.

  “And that Charlie is a creep.”

  He lowered his head. “Can be,” he said. “I just wanted you to like them all so much. I wanted you all to get on.”

  I looked to him. “Why? Why does it matter? You have them to hang with and then we’ll have each other.”

  “’Cause … I love you, Grace, and I want you with me all the time.”

  “You what?” I sniffed.

  “I love you.”

  “You do?” I smiled through my tears.

  “Do I ever.” He grinned, grabbing the back of my neck and pulling me into an intense kiss. My head swam with emotion and my body was a wreck from the sobbing, but Robert’s mouth, his soft lips and his smell intoxicated me and I melted into him.

  “I forgive you,” I said, pulling away.

  “It was a bad night, but next time …”

  “Oh no, once was enough.” He smiled and wiped my tears with his thumb.

  “Okay, let’s forget about it tonight. Let’s get the bus into town and spend some money getting drunk in cheesy bars, sod this house party shit.”

  I smiled and kissed him. “Yeah, come on then.”

  So we crossed the road and rather than getting the bus home, we got the next bus into Blackpool town centre. We hopped off at the tower and grabbed some cash from the nearest machine, making our way to the cheesy tourist bars where we could get served. Robert ordered two vodkas and we laughed about the night, so far. I told him what the girls said and he said they were jealous because they were all sheep, and I was quirky. When I told him about Charlie he was fuming, and I thought at one point we would be heading back to his house for a fight. The vodkas kept coming and then the shots started. We went from one cheesy bar to the next and before we knew it we were dancing on podiums and ordering cocktails. God knows how much we spent, but the buses were definitely no longer running and so it looked like it would be a taxi home.

  As we jumped around, dancing, laughing, Robert suddenly took my face in his hands, looking down into my eyes, his clear blue eyes so serious.

  “Grace, I do love you so much …”

  I smiled up at him. “Robert, you …”

  “Honestly, Grace, I’ve never felt this way about anyone. It’s like you’re my best friend and my girlfriend. You make me laugh; you make me so happy.” He kissed me so hard that I almost dropped my drink. I clung to him with my free hand and kissed him back. Our tongues intertwined and I could feel him pulling me even closer. I hadn’t really wondered if I loved Robert. All I knew was that he was all I wanted in my life and that without him everything was grey. I had been average. My life had been dull and now with Robert there it just felt … extraordinary. If that wasn’t love then I didn’t know what was.

  After that, we left the club and caught a taxi home. Robert was staying with me but tonight felt very different. Our emotions were heightened, we were drunk, and he had told me he loved me. We kissed the whole way home. When we reached my crumbling house, we paid the taxi and then entered with hushed tones. I decided I needed a drink and so we got pints of cordial, shared the last cigarette in our packet, and sat on the orangery step staring up at the stars.

  “Why haven’t you ever tried to sleep with me?” I asked him. My drunken state allowed me to be honest.

  “What?”

  “Well, you know. We always stop and don’t do it.” I suddenly felt embarrassed.

  “Well it’s not that I don’t want to if that’s what you think, but I didn’t want you to think that’s all I wanted.”

  “Oh,” I said, lookin
g down, inhaling on the cigarette.

  “Do you want to?” he asked, moving my hair off my shoulder and kissing my neck.

  I groaned a little and laughed. “Yes.”

  “You do?” he teased, kissing me more.

  “Mmhmm.”

  “Tonight?” he asked. “But we’re drunk … it should be special.”

  “It will be special,” I said, turning into him to kiss him on the mouth.

  “Grace,” he breathed.

  “Yes?”

  “Upstairs. Now.” He took the cigarette, stubbed it out, and pulled me up into his arms, kissing me more deeply and with purpose. I grabbed my cordial, locked up, and we held hands as we crept quietly up the stairs into my room. Mum wouldn’t hear a thing after a night on the sauce, but it was always better to be safe than sorry.

  When we got to my room we kissed each other crazily. It was the vodka and the shots making everything so urgent. I turned my lamp on and the main light off. Robert walked up behind me and kissed my neck softly, brushing my hair away. I groaned. God, he made me feel so good. I turned into his kiss and he pulled me to him. I could feel his excitement through his jeans. I pulled back a little and unzipped my dress, dropping it to the floor in front of him. His eyes were wide and his smile was delicious, so I kissed him again. He pushed me back onto the bed and began easing my bra straps down my arms, exposing me to him. We had been naked in bed together before so this was nothing new, but tonight, with the confidence from the alcohol, this was going to be something different.

  I turned into his body as he lay beside me, still kissing whilst his hands roamed all over my body. They began moving further down. I gasped as he snaked his hand into my underwear and he kissed me harder. He obviously loved my reaction. I didn’t want this to be all and I didn’t want him to change his mind, so I started to pull at his t-shirt and he yanked it off. Then I unbuttoned his jeans and he eased them down.

  “Are you sure about this?” he said breathlessly, staring into my eyes. At that moment I hoped he would never look away.

  “Yes,” I sighed. “I’ve been ready since the moment we met.”

  He smiled at me and began kissing me again. He unhooked my bra and flung it onto the floor whilst I eased my underwear down. He laid on top of me.

  “Wait,” he said. “I’ll just get my wallet.”

  “I’ve got some here,” I said shyly, rolling to open the drawer of my bed side table.

  “Really?” he teased. “Very prepared.” He tickled me as I rolled back to him and then kissed me softly on the lips. “No one has ever meant this much to me, Grace. God, tonight has been the best night of my life.”

  “And it’s going to get better.” I smirked, reaching into his boxer shorts and taking him in my hands.

  He groaned and kissed me again. Then I inched his shorts down his legs. He pushed them all the way and kicked them off, putting on the condom. He then settled himself between my legs, kissing me again as he eased inside of me. At first it hurt as I hadn’t had sex for a long time and even then it had been fleeting, but once we found our rhythm, it was amazing. He kissed me manically and held me to him as we moved together. It felt incredible being so close to him, I was so emotional that I could have cried, but perhaps that was the alcohol. I breathed in his scent and kissed his neck as he rocked into me. It couldn’t have been a more perfect night, and Robert just being here in this room, in my desolate, abandoned wasteland seemed to make everything okay. I clung to him as I came and he followed shortly after, falling onto me, whispering in my ear how much he loved me. Despite the amount of alcohol consumed, as he disposed of the condom and I crept to the bathroom, I suddenly felt very sober.

  When I got back to my room he was lying on his back in my bed and in the light of the small lamp I had in my room, he looked mouth watering. His blonde hair was now sexed up and his face set with a satisfied smile. He reached out for me, and I slid in the bed next to him. He wrapped his strong arms around me and held me to his chest.

  “That was amazing,” he said.

  “Hmmm,” I agreed, lazily. “It was.”

  “You better never leave me Grace Cooper,” he whispered in my ear, “because I don’t think I could ever live without you.”

  I smiled and kissed him. “I’m not going anywhere,” I said, snuggling into him and closing my eyes as he reached to turn the lamp out.

  Twelve

  Now

  Cecily and Robert

  “Who the fuck was that?” Cecily screamed as Robert dragged her out of Grace’s building and into the cool night air.

  “Shush,” Robert barked.

  “No! I won’t shush, you bastard. Why the hell are you at a woman’s apartment in scumsville, running around behind my back?”

  “Cecily, we need to talk, but not here, come on!” He took her arm and she shrugged him away.

  “Yes, here Robert. What the fuck? Don’t treat me like a child. I deserve to know what the hell is going on here.”

  He approached her and stood in front of her, his hands on her arms, trying to soothe her. “Nothing is going on Cecily, okay?” he said softly. “She is an old friend, and I should have told you that I was coming here.”

  “It’s more than that, Robert, don’t think I’m stupid. These past few weeks you’ve been different and she …” Cecily barked, pointing back inside, “is the reason!”

  “Come on.” He put his arm around her. “Let’s go home and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  They drove home in a convoy. Cecily drove behind Robert all the way in her matching BMW, but in red. Cecily gave into her emotions cocooned in her car. She didn’t cry in front of other people, that would be a weakness, but here, in her car, and the dark night setting in, she could remain unseen, and so she let it engulf her. She sobbed and screamed and let her anger out. She would be calm when she faced Robert again at home, and she would get to the bottom of this. There was no reason for things to change between them. She loved him, desperately, but she wanted an explanation, and she didn’t want him seeing old friends that looked like that woman.

  Cecily was sophisticated, every part of her coiffed, manicured, carefully chosen and put together. She was designed by other people to look good, and she took advice from the experts who did her hair, her make up and chose her clothes. However, this woman, the one Robert was laughing with when he pulled the door open, she was something else. Cecily had been brought up in the most bitchy, competitive, and exclusive city in the world, New York. She was a product that her parents showcased and she knew how to fight. However, this woman, Cecily knew, didn’t have to try. This woman had her own style, her own beauty that shone through from somewhere that didn’t need to be designed. Cecily was worried. She hadn’t known normal until she met Robert, and she definitely wouldn’t give that up without a fight. Despite his protests, Cecily knew, she had known enough of infidelity and lies throughout her life to see that Robert had been distracted whilst she was away recently, visiting her parents in New York. This other woman was the reason.

  Robert took deep breaths as he drove home and prepared for what would happen when they got back to their home. Cecily was fuming. He could tell that she would not accept what he was about to tell her. She may have accepted a child and an ex girlfriend if he had gone to her straight away, but after her having to follow him to be told, she would be furious. She would consider that he had embarrassed her by excluding her and would think that he had dismissed their relationship and belittled her in front of Grace. Of course she would be right. He should have told Grace. He wanted to tell her and he should have made Cecily a part of meeting his daughter because she was going to be his wife. However, he didn’t want to. From the moment he knew where Grace was Cecily was the furthest thing from his mind.

  Two weeks ago when Owen rang for a casual chat about the football results and their next joint trip home, Cecily was definitely not on his mind. Owen didn’t remember the pain that Robert felt after he lost Grace, or the weeks and months of re
covery, and so at 10 pm on a Wednesday night, he had no idea what he was telling him.

  “Oh, by the way, I saw that girl you used to go out with today, Grace Cooper. She looks good,” Owen sighed. Robert froze. “Right, I’ll see ya next week then one night.”

  “What?” Robert barked. “Wait, what?”

  “What? Grace, yeah I saw her.”

  “Owen, where? Where did you see her? Jesus, you’re only just telling me this? When?”

  “Tonight. I saw her earlier. She was working at this American diner place in Leicester Square. Good burgers.”

  “Shit, Owen. What is it called? Shit, you saw Grace?”

  After that conversation Robert couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think. His head was scrambled. He’d spent seven years looking at every brown-haired girl in London, hoping to see her, to bump into her. He had almost given up hope. So the very next morning he was up with the dawn. He rang work to say he had a car emergency and he found the diner. He asked for Grace as soon as he got there, and they told him she would be in at 10. He couldn’t leave. He wouldn’t dare step away from that place just in case it was all a dream. He wasn’t thinking of Cecily or his responsibilities at work. Nothing mattered except laying his eyes on Grace. Then when she walked in, he watched her from behind. Her hair was so much darker than when he knew her, piled on top of her head. He could tell it was she straight away by her walk and her demeanour. He watched her speak to her colleague and his body ached to jump up and grab her. Yes, Cecily was his fiancée, he loved her, she had saved him from being alone, and she deserved better, but there was a damn good reason why he hadn’t told Grace about her. He didn’t tell her because from the moment she turned to face him in that diner and her eyes met his, the only thing that Robert wanted was to rewind, to go back seven years and make everything right. He’d tried to live without her and it was miserable. He still loved Grace.

  They walked inside and Robert could tell that Cecily had been crying, but they did not discuss that.

  “Spill!” Cecily shouted as she grabbed a bottle of wine from the fridge and poured herself a glass.