Blessing in Disguise (56 page)

But, no. Mother could not have meant Win. Since the other night with Chris, Mother had been noticeably cool toward her former son-in-law. For the past two nights, she’d stayed with Grace.

She’s talking about Jack,
Grace realized. Mother hadn’t changed—she was still trying to run her life, but this time Grace was listening.

“I should be giving you the same advice,” Grace said, smiling. “Tell Mr. Ross I said hello.”

“You can tell him yourself when you see him,” Cordelia said crisply. Her expression softened as she added, “And it’s time you stopped calling him ‘Mr. Ross.’ You’re not sixteen anymore. It’s
Gabe.”

Leave it to Mother, Grace thought, amused. Managing to turn a touchy subject around as deftly as a seasoned politician. As she waved goodbye, she couldn’t help envying the very quality in her mother that she’d once found so frustrating. She only hoped some of it had rubbed off on her—would she be able to turn things around with Jack?

But on the drive home, she and Jack seemed to talk about everything except themselves. They spoke about
Honor Above All,
with bound books due in another month or so, the huge orders they’d gotten from the chains. And her tour, in the throes of being organized by the publicity department. Yesterday, Jack told her, a producer from
Oprah
had thrown Nell Sorensen into an ecstatic frenzy, and the publicist was in the midst of negotiating a date, along with a slew of other Chicago appearances—book signings, radio and TV, even a benefit for a children’s charity.

They were approaching the Holland Tunnel when Jack asked, “What about Chris—will he be staying with Win while you’re on tour?”

Careful,
Grace thought.

“I suppose so,” she said, taking a long, shallow breath. “I know what you must think, but Win isn’t a bad father. He wasn’t a terrible husband, either. Just ... awfully self-centered.”

“How does Chris feel about all this?”

“The three of us sat down last night and talked. I think we sorted things out. I know that Win may have had other ideas ... but I made it clear both to him and to Chris that we’re not ever going to be a family again.”

“I’ll bet that didn’t go over so well with Win.” She heard the bitterness in his voice.

“Oh, I don’t think it came as a huge surprise, not after the way he used Chris.” She kept her eyes on the road, unable to believe she was speaking so calmly with her heart racing ninety miles a minute. “Jack, I want you to know ... that night with Win ... it ...” She’d been on the verge of saying it meant nothing, but that wasn’t entirely true. “It wasn’t what you think.”

Now came the tunnel, swallowing them, filling her ears with the humming of tires. Grace, as she often did, imagined the curved tile walls cracking, rivulets of water from the river above leaking in, slowly at first, then gathering to a thunderous downpour as the entire structure gave way. She shuddered.

Jack’s voice, when it came, seemed to hang suspended in the semidarkness. “This isn’t just about Win.” Beside her, his silhouette flared and receded in the glare of oncoming headlights. “I was hurt, yes, but I’m not blaming you. I know you were upset with me over Hannah ... and you had every right to be.”

He didn’t sound angry—only unhappy.

“Where does that leave us?” she asked.

“Sadder ... but maybe a bit wiser, too.” He shook his head. “Grace, I can’t help thinking something like this would have happened sooner or later, that it was only a matter of time. Whether it was Win ... or someone else.”

“Someone younger, you mean?” Grace felt as if her seat-belt had grown too tight, and was cutting into her chest. “Jack, don’t you get it?
That’s
why we’re falling apart—not because of Win, or even Hannah. Because you won’t see that I love you for what you are ... and
part
of what you are is fifteen years older than me.”

“There’s a lot you don’t understand, either,” Jack said, his voice rising with emotion. “You expect so much—the moon—and you want it gift-wrapped and delivered overnight express. Of course Hannah is going to resent anyone new in my life! But you take everything she says as a personal rejection.”

“How can you
not
take it personally when someone is screaming that they hate you!”

“She’s just a kid, Grace.”

“Well, I’m not a saint, Jack. I can only take so much.”

They were emerging from the tunnel now, the bright winter sunlight stinging her eyes even as she shielded them. Jack took the ramp that circled around onto Hudson, the Volvo bumping over the cobblestones that hadn’t yet been paved over in this section of boarded-up warehouses.

His voice, when he finally spoke, was choked. “What’s the use, Grace? We can’t go on like this. We’re only making each other miserable. Is that what you want—for us, and for our kids?”

“Oh, Jack ...” She covered her face. “I wish this
were
about Win. Then I could ask you to forgive me.”

“This isn’t about forgiving,” he said. “Do you really think that’s why you left Win in the first place? Because you couldn’t forgive him for cheating on you?”

“I might have forgiven him,” she said, “but what I couldn’t change was how I felt about him after I found out about Nancy. If you can’t trust who you’re with, then it all falls apart.”

Suddenly, in saying it herself, she understood what Jack had been trying to tell her. Win wasn’t the cause of Jack and her coming apart—he was merely the result. They had been heading in this direction for quite some time ... and now they’d finally come to a stop at a place from which there seemed no turning back. Grace felt a great sorrow smash through her, leaving her weak and trembly.

“Grace, we both need some time ...” he began, and stopped, his throat working.

Jack remained silent all the way up Eighth Avenue. Then he was turning onto her street, braking expertly to avoid hitting a delivery boy on a bicycle who cut across his lane. Only when he came to a stop in front of her building and unbuckled his seat-belt so he could face her did she see the deep lines etched in his cheeks, which hadn’t been there three days ago. She wanted to reach out, run her fingers along those grooves, tell him all the reasons for their staying together, all the things they
did
have in common—his laughing at her jokes and her laughing at his ... their mutual obsession with visiting every bookstore they happened upon ... the hours one could spend absorbed in a book or manuscript without the other’s feeling left out ... the pleasure they took in finding little out-of-the-way gems of restaurants. ...

But not now. Now they needed time to heal.

“Goodbye, Jack,” she told him, feeling as if she ought to be stepping on a plane like her mother, to be borne away somewhere far. How could she bear it otherwise? Knowing he was so close—close enough to run into at the office, or at some publishing party, or even at the opera or the ballet.

Even so, she clung to the belief that somehow ... if they gave themselves some time apart ... maybe they could find their way back to what had drawn them together in the first place.

Nola was at her desk when the phone rang. She picked it up, expecting it to be Ronnie Chang, barking at her because the plumbing mechanicals he’d asked for weren’t quite finished. But a woman’s voice floated out at her, firmly correct, softened by a Southern accent.

“I’d like to speak with Nola Emory, if I may.”

“Speaking,” Nola said, cupping her hand over the receiver, and lowering her voice.

“It’s Mrs. Truscott,” spoke that formal, lilting voice. “Do you have a moment? Can you talk?”

“Go ahead,” Nola told her, praying Randy didn’t poke his head over her partition.

“I’ve thought about what you said, and I ...” The rest was drowned by a loud droning that sounded like a plane taking off.

“What did you say?” Nola clutched the receiver tightly, her knuckles straining.

“What I said was ...” Cordelia’s voice was coming through again. “... I’ve decided to go ahead with your design. And the wonderful news is, it seems that we’ll have the additional funds we need. An unexpected source has come through.” She paused. “But there must be no misunderstanding between us. Do you absolutely agree to keep this confidential?”

Nola was on the verge of reminding her that it had been
her
idea in the first place, but she bit her tongue. Anyway, she was too excited to care. Her mind was already racing ahead, imagining the library already built, casting its shadow across the grassy expanse on which it stood.

“I want this as much as you do,” Nola told her. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to screw it up.”

“Well, then ...” She cleared her throat.

“Thank you,” Nola breathed.

“Oh, they’ve just announced my flight. ... I have to run.”

Nola hung up, feeling dazed. Her mind whirled, like when she’d been staring at a blueprint too long. Was this for real? Had Cordelia Truscott actually agreed to go with her design? And she even had the money for it!

A thing so hugely important—a thing that had been eating at her for weeks, months—and with one brief phone call it was settled. Even with her heart racing, Nola found herself smiling at the irony of it.

Even more ironic was hearing it
now,
after she’d already made up her mind, Cordelia or no, actually to
quit
her job. Crazy? Without a doubt ... but if she didn’t get the decision off her chest, she would go nuts. Nola slipped off her stool, and made her way through the maze of partitioned cubicles. A minute later, she stood outside the open door to Ken Maguire’s office.

“Come in,” he called distractedly, looking up from a set of blueprints on his desk, held down at each corner by a glass brick.

“I just heard from Cordelia Truscott,” she told him. “She’s given us the go-ahead. And they’re ready for us to start putting together working drawings for construction bids.” She kept her voice low, in case anyone happened to be in the corridor. But her excitement was nonetheless coming through, invading her like a strange virus that left her jittery and fluctuating between flashes of hot and cold.

“That’s terrific! I honestly didn’t think even you could finesse it, Nola. My hat’s off.”

He stepped around his desk and crossed the carpeted expanse to the door, which he closed. There was nothing exceptional about this sharp-faced man in a corduroy blazer except that he was the fairest boss she’d ever known. She hoped that fairness would work in her favor now.

“Ken, we need to talk.”

He smiled, holding up his hands, anticipating her. “All right ... all right. I know what you’re going to say, and no question you’re due a raise. Listen, I’ll have to speak with Chang and Foster. On my own, I’m not authorized to ...”

“I’m not asking for a raise,” she told him.

He stopped, a startled expression on his face. “What
do
you want?”

“A severance bonus. Just enough for seed money—rent on a small office of my own, telephone, supplies.”

He whistled, taking a step back so that he was leaning against a walnut credenza piled with rolled-up blueprints. “You want to go into business for yourself? Nola, do you have any idea ...”

“It’s not going to be easy, I know,” she finished for him. “But, Ken, I have to do this. My designing the Truscott library, it got me to realize that I’m just treading water here.” She picked up a glass brick off her desk, weighing it, feeling its cool surface against her palm. “Oh, it’s not that you haven’t been good to me. But maybe I’m more like my father than I knew—I need something more ... and I’m not afraid of taking risks.”

“We’d hate to lose you, Nola. Look, there’s an associateship coming up in a few months; if you’re interested, I could put you in for it.”

“Thanks, Ken, but, as crazy as it may sound, I’m not going to take you up on that offer.”

He shook his head. “These are tough times. Do you know how many
big
firms are falling by the wayside? How can you expect to make it on your own?”

“Maybe because I’m
not
a Goliath,” she said softly. “Just one of the little guys, with a slingshot and pocketful of ideas.”

Damn if she’d spend the rest of her life just
dreaming
about a better life for herself and her girls.

The Truscott library, it might have seemed like a pipe dream when Cordelia first conceived it, but against every odd the woman had pulled it off.

If she can do it, so can I.

It would hurt, watching from afar while others took the credit for her design ... but after this, she wouldn’t be in anyone’s shadow ever again.

Ken, whom she’d expected to be put out, maybe even angry, startled her with a laugh that was both rueful and admiring. “If anyone can do it, Nola, my bet’s on you.”

“I’ll need that bonus we talked about.”

“How much?”

She took a deep breath. Maybe if she said it forcefully, without lowering her eyes or in any way looking as if she didn’t deserve it, he might not realize what an enormous sum she was asking for.

“Twenty-five,” she blurted.

Ken, to his credit, merely lifted an eyebrow. Maybe it wasn’t so much after all, not to a firm of this size. Or maybe he was just amused that she’d had the balls to make such an outrageous request.

“Ten,” he told her. “That’s all I’d be able to squeeze out of Chang and Foster without them kicking up a fuss.” Before her sinking heart could reach bottom, he added, “The rest I’ll front you. Call it a loan, an investment, a silent partnership, anything you like. I’m not worried I won’t get it back. In fact, I’ll be expecting a good return.”

“Thanks, Ken,” she managed to get past lips that had gone numb with gratitude. “You won’t be sorry.”

They wouldn’t really be in competition, either. Any jobs she landed, initially at least, probably wouldn’t be big enough for a firm the size of Maguire, Chang & Foster to begrudge her.

“Hey, I’m sorry already. But only that you’re leaving.” He put out his hand. “Good luck, Nola.”

Nola felt as if she were gliding back to her work station on greased runners. But as soon as she’d settled back at her drafting table, she saw the Post-it stuck to the mechanical drawing she’d been working on—a message from Ben. It wasn’t the first message he’d left. Her spirits plummeted.