Of course she was doing this.
And she'd be the most coveted prize, the child of Arthur and the only Hathaway of the next generation. Not to mention the fact that the light on the stage reflected in every aspect of her shimmering dress, making her already beautifully shaped body seem like rippling water.
“Our next item is none other than Ada Hathaway herself! Imagine our joy when she signed up to this. Who wouldn’t want to share a dance with Ada?”
She stepped up by the podium and gave a wide smile. I hated it; it was the one she reserved for photographs and functions and people she secretly disliked. I knew, because it had been directed at me once or twice.
“We’ll start the bidding at a hundred dollars, same as for every-. Oh! And we’re already started. A hundred to the gentlemen on the far left. What do we have here? Two hundred to the woman in the front!”
Ada was all smiles and bubbly, sparkly personality up on that stage. Several men in the audience were standing, raising their paddles in an intense bidding race and the price went up up and away. It was now in the several thousands.
It was a ludicrous price for one evening, even with the founder’s daughter and heiress. Oh, I’m sure they’d all say it was for charity - but it's a price many are willingly pay for one of her smiles. The air feels thin. The idea that she might turn those luminous, shining eyes on someone, to lean in and whisper in their ear… They didn't deserve her. None of us unlucky sons of bitches did, and I least of all, but I wasn’t about to let her go off with one of them.
At least I had restraint.
“Four thousand dollars to the gentleman in the blue tux,” the auctioneer called out, looking delighted at the flurry of interest Ada has caused. The current highest bidder smiled widely at her, his neat hair just lightly flecked with grey.
Creep.
“Five thousand dollars to the gentlemen in the back,” the auctioneer calls, sounding slightly less enthusiastic. I followed his gaze.
No way.
Ben fucking Harris. He wasn’t invited, and I could tell by the ripple of excitement that rushed through the audience that some recognize him too. This is Hathaway’s yearly Charity Gala. We can make semi-civil conversation at other times, but not here.
Stay on your side of the trench, man.
Ada gave him a little wave and I thought I might just black out from the adrenaline coursing through me. This was a train derailing, an airplane heading towards the ground, and I could think of only one way to stave off a crash.
I raised my paddle high. “Ten thousand dollars.”
The auctioneer gave me a wide, exuberant look. “Ten thousand dollars to the gentlemen we have to thank for tonight. Ten thousand dollars, ladies and gentlemen. Do we have any other takers? Anyone willing to bid above the CEO himself?”
I hear murmurs and flurries of movement, but no one speaks or objects. Ada’s gaze meets mine across the room. I didn’t turn to look at Ben Harris. Let him know that this auction room is my kingdom.
Ada looked entirely shocked. There’s no little wave or wink to me, and I thought I actually preferred this, having surprised her so thoroughly. I thought I could see the thoughts spinning in her head.
Have her spend another evening with me and see how she liked it.
15
Ada
Grant bid on me.
It was all I could think as I walked down the dais and grasped his arm. His eyes were indecipherable, dark and calm like the surface of a lake, but I could feel the tension in his arm.
Was it because he won? Or because Ben was here?
I didn't think I could bear it if he only bid on me because of Ben, to make a territorial point in this stupid war between auction houses.
“Why is he here?”
“I don’t know. He wasn’t invited, but I’m sure he’s here to stir things up.”
We headed towards one of the tables in the back, away from the crowd and the on-going bidding.
“Don’t tell security to throw him out. It’ll only make a scene,” I warned.
“Don’t worry. I won’t.” Grant drained his glass of champagne. “He may be unprofessional all he likes, but he won’t see Hathaway’s indulge him in that.”
The silence between us stretched on and I was thankful we were away from any prying eyes.
“So what do we do now?”
I laughed. “I’m your prize. You decide.”
Grant shook his head. “There must have been some plan. Dancing, perhaps, once the auction is finished.”
I looked back, seeing that there were only a handful of people left up on the dais. "I'm sure it will start soon. Or we could slip away if you're tired of all these people."
Grant slid a sideways glance to me. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
"You're probably right." I forced myself to keep a light tone, to not be intimidated by our recent strained friendship or the fact that my heart raced by his nearness. "Hey, you haven't thanked me for those cookies."
"Yes I did. Right away, even."
“Yes, but you're supposed to mention it later. ‘Thank you, Ada, they were delicious. By the way, here's your pan, washed and clean.'"
"They didn't come in a pan."
“You know what I mean.”
Grant gave me a reluctant smile, eyes lightening. "I do. Well then. Cue background music?" He cleared his throat. "‘Thank you Ada, the home-made cookies were incredibly delicious. Please fax me the recipe.'"
I laughed, delighted. “And the Oscar goes to… Grant Wood!”
"Thank you," he said. "I'd like to thank my acting coach for getting me this far."
“Your acting coach accepts this praise. Also, faxing?”
“I improvised,” Grant shrugged. “Not my best moment.”
I loved it when he was silly, partly because it happened so rarely, and because I felt like a child who'd managed to peek behind the curtain at the theatre. Seen behind the facade and the stage, to the real-life workings behind.
"Hey, I went to the Japanese Reading Room at the Met."
He turned to me fully. “You did?”
It was the first time any of us had mentioned the late night phone calls, which felt unreal, almost as if they existed in another dimension, one where we weren't Ada and Grant but just two voices in the dark.
I swallowed. “It was beautiful. Very quiet, like you said.”
“It is a reading room, after all. Did you like it?”
“Yes. Though next time I’ll bring a book or something. You know, actually do some reading.” I’d sat there for nearly half-an-hour, taking in the atmosphere, reading up about the room on the different notification plaques and thinking about him. Not that he needed to know the last part, of course.
“Now you have to go to the Balto’s statue.”
“I’ve already been.”
“What, really?”
He gave a nod. “I stopped there last time I was out running. Read the sign and everything.”
I could picture it. Him in his dark training outfit, his thick hair slightly sweaty.
“And?”
“I can see why you like it.”
“Really?”
“It’s a bit like you,” he said simply. “Crazy, yet makes perfect sense. Come, it’s time to dance now.”
He swept me into his arms and we moved in tune with the crowd, slow and careful movements. I swallowed the flush of desire that rose up in me at his nearness, the strong arms around me. This was neither the place nor the time for that, not with so many others twirling around us and watchful eyes around.
“You’re good at this,” I murmured.
“You sound surprised.”
“No. You’re good at everything.”
He snorted softly, but his lips curled in a surprisingly sweet smile. “You know, half of the time I can’t tell if you’re teasing me or complimenting me.”
“Can’t it be both?”
He leaned in closer, turning me so that we floated to the
back of the dance floor. “I’ve never thought about that before.”
“Think outside the box, Grant,” I said. “I know you can do it.”
The music came to a graceful end, and we swayed momentarily, lost in the moment.
It broke as Adam approached us, his steps long. Grant slowed us to a halt immediately and bent so Adam could speak in his ear.
“Good,” Grant responded. “Keep me informed of any changes.”
Adam nodded and gave me a brief smile before hurrying back to his date. I raised an eyebrow.
“Ben Harris has left,” Grant informed me.
“Without security’s assistance.”
“Without it.” He was quiet for a moment, and we swayed gently on the floor. “Well, I might have sent Elizabeth over there to talk to him, though.”
I laughed. “She can be fierce when she wants to be.”
“I was counting on that.”
“Hey, I was thinking. Have you talked to everyone here?”
“Yes.”
"And the goal of 3 million has been reached." I tilted my chin toward the ticking scoreboard on the corner, where 3.46 million dollars shone in big, white letters.
He stopped momentarily. “So it has.”
“What was the charity honored this year?”
“The New York State Orphanage Charity,” Grant remarked, looking at something over my shoulder. “I introduced it during the opening speech.”
“Right. You were great, by the way.”
“Well, you clearly seemed to have been paying attention.” But he said it with a wry smile and that sly look in his eye, as if we shared a secret. And I supposed we did - that evening in the storage room hung in the air between us, informing our every move despite both of us doing our best to ignore it.
“I was distracted,” I said loftily.
“Oh?”
“It had been a long time since I’d seen you in a tux.”
Grant looked down at me in raw surprise. I smiled and tried to play it cavalierly. "You can still pull it off."
“You’re the one wearing a starlit sky.”
I stared at him in wonder. Who was this man, saying things like that? His eyes widened as he took in my expression. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You’re something else, you know that?”
Grant snorted again, but it was good-humored and soft. “Pot, meet kettle.”
“What I was saying was, that if you’re done, let’s get out of here.”
He stopped again, and I pulled us away from the dance floor to avoid obstructing the other pairs.
“Ada, I don’t think-“
“Just to get some food and talk. You can’t really say you want to stay? And you’ve already spoken to everyone.”
“God, yes. More than I wanted to.”
“And you paid ten thousand dollars for an evening with me. Let me treat you to Asian takeout and teach you how to eat with chopsticks.”
He was quiet for a beat, even as he leaned forward. I could smell the spicy scent of his cologne, see the sharp lines of his tux up-close. I didn’t think I’d ever been more attracted to anyone in my life than I was to this cerebral, complicated force of a man. Maddening and joy-inducing all at once.
“It might not be a good idea,” he said finally, not sounding very convincing, even to himself.
So I touched his elbow. “We’re friends now, aren’t we?”
Grant looked down at me for the span of an agonizing heartbeat. “Yes. We are. Come, let’s get our coats.”
The New York air was cold and crisp, carrying the same weight of possibility and life it always had. I didn't think I would ever grow tired of it, of the way it changed endlessly yet always managed to remain the same. New Yorkers marched on. It was all they knew how to do, and surrounded by that steady pace, I had always found the strength to face the next day too.
We walked side by side towards the small Asian takeout place up the street. His arm brushed occasionally against mine.
As if he could read my mind, Grant spoke first. “Did you miss this place when you were away at college?”
“Yes. New Haven is beautiful, and I miss that too, now. But it was small and only filled with people you knew. There was no anonymity.”
“No blending in.”
“No. And then, there were memories everywhere.”
Grant gave a nod. “I can imagine.”
There was something about his steady, calm assurance that soothed the knot of pain in my throat. “I’d walk past the ice cream parlor and think about how he’d always order mint chocolate chip, not because he particularly liked it, but because I hated it. The track field where he’d run in the mornings. The small college bar where I’d occasionally pick him up after he’d had too many beers.”
“Yes. He liked that, didn’t he?”
I swallowed the usual defensiveness that rose when anyone criticized Max. It wasn't helpful, for one, and there was no real judgment in Grant's tone. I owed both myself and Max the truth.
"He did. He was always popular and enjoyed spending time with people. He seemed to care in a way that I rarely can, care about everyone. Maybe that makes me sound awful."
“It doesn’t.”
“Where I was content with a handful of friends, he wanted everyone to love him. And they did. I didn’t approve of some of his friends towards the end. They weren’t bad people, don’t get me wrong. Just… shallow. Focused on more superficial pleasures.”
We ducked around a group of student performers, singing outside of a subway stop. Grant reached into his pocket and tossed a twenty into their open guitar case as we passed.
“Always supporting the arts,” I said.
He gave a small smile. “Someone has to.”
The conversation lulled, a small breather in the story I was telling. It allowed me to gather strength.
“You didn’t run in the same circles, then?”
“Sometimes,” I said honestly. “Quite often, as a rule. It’s hard not to when you shared a condo, even if we studied completely different things. But I didn’t like some of the idiot guys he hung out with, so I often stayed home when they started going out.”
“How’d it happen?”
“You must know?”
Grant looked at me steadily, a calm island in a sea of storms. “I do,” he said. “But I haven’t heard it from you.”
And I hadn’t told it to anyone in a long, long time. I’d quit therapy after the second time because of all the incessant poking at wounds. But maybe it was time to try again.
“He’d gone out for drinks with some of the boys. It was a normal Thursday evening, nothing special. I’d had my nose in a book on Botticelli, of all painters, because I had an essay due two days later. ‘Don’t strain yourself now, Ada’ he called to me before the door slammed behind him. He always did that, slammed doors. As if he had too much energy to be contained.”
I swallowed, playing with one of my rings, turning it around and around. We'd slowed in our walk, a snail's pace in a city moving a mile a minute.
"He took our car, the one Dad had given us for our twenty-first birthday. We shared it, but we lived by the school and didn't really need it much. Max used it most of the time. I'd told him off for driving when he'd had too much to drink before, but it had never been a lot. He'd shrugged it off and promised not to do it again.”
My breath was coming fast; I could feel the pain and tears clawing their way up my throat. Grant didn’t say anything. Somehow his calm, steady presence made it possible to continue.
“I was listed as his emergency contact in his phone. A paramedic called me just after midnight.”
Is this Max Hathaway’s sister? An authoritative voice had asked and dread had gripped its claws in me.
“I learned later that he had died on impact. I think they expected that to soothe me somehow, make it easier. At least he didn’t suffer, one of the nurses said. At least. As if that made it better. What did it matter, if he’d
died in a minute or in twenty? He was twenty-one years old and gone, just like that, snuffed out on impact.”
We had stopped entirely. Grant reached up and touched his fingers to my cheek; they came away wet.
I swallowed. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“Our father shut down immediately. I don’t think he processed it. I don’t think he could, for a long time.”
“I’m not sure he has now.”
I didn’t really hear Grant, memories swallowing me up. “Do you know what he said? ‘Thank God he didn’t kill anyone.’ I know what he meant. But it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours yet. I lost it in the emergency room. He killed himself, I remember screaming. What could possibly have been worse?“
I shook my head, trying to escape the feelings threatening to resurface. I’d lost my family that day, the last tether. Dad was doing the best he could without Mom by his side, but it had never really been enough.
Grant put his arm around me. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Truly.”
“Thanks.”
“Come on,” he said. “The takeout place is just up ahead. Pork and Moos, right? I have chopsticks to master.”
I gave a small, shaky laugh as we crossed the street. There’s something special about people who can listen to difficult things without becoming awkward or uncomfortable. So many of my friends had shied away after Max died, unable to stand my grief. They’d say I’m sorry after bringing up anything death-related, afraid to trigger my sadness. As if it was possible to remind me about something I carried with me every minute of every day. The worst had already happened. You’re allowed to use the word dead, I’d once said to a childhood friend. That’s what he is, and no pretty euphemism in the world can undo that.
She’d stopped calling after that, and I’d found other ways to numb the pain.
Grant didn’t shy away. He just steered us to a corner table and asked the waiter for menus and a large bottle of sparkling water.
“What did you buy for us last time? When you brought it to the office?”
“Red curry and Pad Thai.”
“Right. The Pad Thai was good. I’ll have that again.”
I smiled as I perused the menu, eyes unseeing. Spending time with him could be effortless. It had been a long time since it had felt that way with anyone. “So adventurous.”
Look But Don't Touch: Enemies to Lovers Page 11
