Blessing in Disguise (57 page)

She was tempted. Part of her wanted to forget last week’s ugly scene. She sat back, rubbing her temples. But Ben wasn’t for her. And she wasn’t responsible for him. Anyway, she had more important things to worry about now. ...

Nola crumpled the message, and tossed it into the wastebasket at her feet. She would miss him in a way—especially at night, when she lay awake, an ache between her legs that wouldn’t quit.

A hard man is good to find,
she could hear Florene quip.

Nola grinned. Maybe so ... but she’d do one better. For now, at least, she’d explore what it was like living with Nola Truscott—the woman whose name she had every intention of engraving on the brass plate that was going on the door of her new office.

THE NEW YORK TIMES, MAY 19. 1992

Grace Truscott to Endow Father’s Memorial Library

Grace Truscott, author of the recently published
Honor Above All,
the controversial biography of her late father. Senator Eugene Truscott, yesterday announced that all royalty income due to her from the sale of her book will be donated to the library to be built in her father’s memory.

“This book is my memorial to my father,” Ms. Truscott said, “and I think it’s only natural that one should flow into the other.”

Ms. Truscott declined to comment on the “secret” life led by the Senator and his longtime assistant, Margaret Emory, with whom he had an illegitimate daughter, Nola Emory, 36, though it was the publicity surrounding this now well-documented relationship that many industry insiders claim as the main reason for the instant success of
Honor Above All,
which rose to the number one spot on the best-seller list within a week of publication.

The library, to be situated on the campus of Latham University, near Blessing, Georgia, is slated to begin construction in August. Blessing is the hometown of the Senator’s widow, Cordelia Clayborn Truscott, who sits on the Latham board, and has been raising funds for the library over the past several years.

“I’m delighted that my husband’s memorial will finally see the light of day,” said Mrs. Truscott. “During his lifetime, he was dedicated to the education and enlightenment of our nation’s youth, and we believe this library will be a reflection of that commitment.”

The Truscott Memorial Library Committee, headed by Mrs. Truscott, recently sponsored an architectural design competition. The winning design was submitted by the architectural firm of Maguire, Chang & Foster, of New York City.

“It’s fitting that Grace should play a role in this library,” said Mrs. Truscott of her daughter’s announcement. “My husband accomplished much in his lifetime, but he considered his greatest achievement to be his children.”

“Grace, are you sitting down?” Jerry Schiller’s voice boomed out at her from the phone.

“Not exactly,” she told him.

She lay on her king-sized bed, on the side closest to the bureau, where Jack used to sleep, and where every morning for the past three and a half months—except the two weeks she’d been away on tour—she had woken to sheets tangled by nothing more than her own restless dreams.

“It’s on
every
list.” Jerry sounded excited enough for both of them, and Jerry almost
never
got excited. “Number one again next week in the
Times,
number two in the
Washington Post,
and Ingram and both chains. Walden alone is reordering another twenty-five thousand. ... Grace, are you there?”

I should be over the moon,
Grace thought.

But what she felt now was ... flat. A leaky tire that no amount of air seemed able to fill up.

“I’m here,” she said, pulling herself together for her editor’s sake. “I thought you didn’t get excited about mere commerce, Jerry,” she teased him, her chapped lips cracking open in one spot as she smiled.

She tasted blood, salty-sweet.
I ought to get out of bed,
she thought.
Call somebody, celebrate.
But she didn’t feel like moving. Usually she was up at the crack of dawn! But lately she’d been sleeping in every morning until eleven or so, as if she had the world’s longest hangover.

She heard Jerry’s raspy chuckle, which made her think of Lionel Barrymore’s nasty Mr. Potter in
It’s a Wonderful Life.
Her elderly editor even looked like Lionel Barrymore, only Jerry was sweet, kind, a bit of a fussbudget.

“Your
book, my dear Grace, is not mere commerce.” He paused, then said, “Oops, I’m being paged. I’ll call you later. With more good news, I trust. ...”

As she hung up, thinking of
Honor Above All’s
success, Grace felt a moment’s elation. It
was
wonderful ... better than she’d ever dreamed. And she felt proud of herself—for not giving up, for writing the book
she
had wanted to write. In every city she’d hit on her tour, she’d been besieged with reporters, requests for additional TV appearances, photographers asking her to smile for one more shot. And at every signing, hundreds lining up ...

All right, the book is going strong. But what about ME?

Grace sat up, and started to get out of bed. But her head was spinning, as if she really did have a hangover. She had to stop staying up half the night. It wasn’t fair to Chris, making him eat breakfast all alone.

Chris. She felt her spirits rise. These days, he seemed more at ease with himself, and with her. And just in the last month or so, seeing him arrive home from school with an occasional friend in tow, she was so happy for him that she didn’t mind their vacuuming out the refrigerator with their bottomless appetites.

Yes, Chris was definitely happier. But what about her? Was she ever going to get over Jack?

First you have to stop pretending there’s still a chance.

It
was
over, she told herself, hoping that this time she’d believe it. They hadn’t seen one another, except at business meetings, and the publication party Cadogan threw for her, for almost four months.

The trouble was, she still loved him. She
missed
him—his voice calling to her from the next room, his wet toothbrush next to hers over the bathroom sink, his arms holding her in the night. ...

Right now, this minute, if Jack were here in bed with her, he’d be hooking one long leg about hers, drawing her close to him, her head nestled in the crook of his arm while he played with her hair, ruffling it and combing it with his fingers until her scalp, her whole body, tingled.

God, if only he
were
here.

Suddenly she was remembering the time they’d stopped at the Carnegie Deli after seeing
Me and My Girl.
They’d been seated at one end of a long table filled with boisterous out-of-towners. It was late, she was tired, all she’d wanted was a cup of tea and to share an order of
rugelah
with Jack. She’d excused herself to the ladies’ room, then returned to find Jack translating the menu to the people at the adjacent table, a rapt audience of Rotarians from Minnesota.

Gefilte fish? Well, it’s sort of a cold fish dumpling. A little bland but, with a dab of horseradish, really delicious. But, a night like this, you’ll want something hot. Try the mushroom-barley soup. ...

That was Jack. Even late at night, when he was tired, and surrounded by the come-and-go anonymity of New York, he would take time to be nice to a bunch of strangers in a restaurant. ...

“Mom! Are you up?” Through the fog of self-pity and longing she’d wrapped herself in, Grace heard her son banging on her bedroom door.

She rolled out of bed, and tugged on her terry robe.

“It’s open!” she called.

He kept banging.

When she opened the door, she saw
why
he’d been knocking. He was balancing a breakfast tray, containing a plate with fried eggs that looked more like hard-boiled, a piece of slightly blackened toast, a glass of orange juice flecked with bits of pulp.

Her heart turned over, as if in slow motion, one of those
ABC Wide World of Sports
“thrill-of-victory” moments, a diver tumbling over and over in mid-air. She wanted to hug him until he yelped.

“Definitely
DOA,” Chris said, looking down at the tray in disgust. “But I figured, if you were sick, you probably wouldn’t notice.”

“Hey, buster, what’s this about me being sick?” She caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror on the back of her closet door, and thought.
My God, I
do
look sick.
Puffy-eyed, greasy-haired, pale.

A corner of Chris’s mouth twitched. “Either that or you’re just lazy. And I
know
that can’t be it.”

“Speaking of which, why aren’t you in school?”

“Staff-development day.”

Today was ... what? It had to be Friday. She’d lost all sense of time.

“In that case, what do you say we hit the town?” She took the tray from him, planting a kiss on his cheek, not caring whether he would try to pull away from her or not. “Hey, my book’s still on the list and, come to think of it, we never celebrated. Hamburgers at the Hard Rock ... or how about bicycling around the park and a sundae at Rumplemeyer’s? I hear the Met has this great exhibition of—”

Chris was shaking his head, looking sheepish. “Mom, I can’t. Me and some of the guys, we’re going out.”

“Oh, anywhere in particular?” Her heart did a little flip.

He shrugged. “I don’t know yet. The Village, maybe.”

Honestly, what could be more normal than a bunch of teenagers without a clue in the world as to what to do with themselves? And now Chris was making friends at school; he was “one of the guys.” Wasn’t that reason enough for celebration?

She wasn’t certain what had made the change in Chris ... whether it was just that he was growing up, or if things finally coming to a head with Win and her had taken some of the pressure off him. And kids, they were so self-centered—even though it broke
her
heart, Chris was probably thrilled that Jack was out of her life. Whatever the reason, she couldn’t help feeling grateful for getting her son back—even if it meant his spreading his wings and eventually leaving the nest.

“Well, then, another time,” she said lightly, carrying the breakfast tray over to the bed, and scooting back against the little hill she’d made of her pillows and mohair spread. “I’d better eat this before it gets cold.”

“It’s already cold. But it wouldn’t have tasted any better hot.” Chris shot her a smart-alecky grin.

“Chip off the old block,” she told him. “Face it, we’re just not cut out for kitchen duty.”

“I’ll bet Darryl Strawberry couldn’t make Jell-O.”

For no reason at all, that struck her as hilarious, and she began to giggle. Then Chris was laughing, too, and she saw that the sun, which was shining straight down through her skylight, had formed shimmering pools of reflection on the grease-coated eggs Chris had made for her.

She remembered something her mother had once said:
Raising children, it’s like being blind and deaf and having to conduct a symphony.

Grace thought she knew what her mother meant, but right now she felt as if she were hearing that music. Swelling, ebbing, lyrical, and sweet.

If only Jack were with her, hearing it, too.

She thought about inviting him to lunch, to toast the book’s success, which she owed as much to his canny marketing as to the book itself. But, no, chatting about business over a plate of pasta and listening to his hearty congratulations would only make her feel worse.

So this is how it ends, she thought.

Two people who love each other, but who can’t live together. Not a symphony after all, but one of those cowboy love songs where hearts are always breaking and people forever disappointing one another.

She ate her eggs and toast, not tasting them, thinking of the day—what was left of it, anyway—that stretched ahead of her like an endless parade without the ticker tape or the cheers ... and with only herself to march in it.

Hannah looked at the poster for next week’s GET With It rally
(GET
for Green Earth Teens) that she’d been working on practically the whole day.
SAVE OUR PLANET
, it read in twelve-inch script that she’d drawn to look sort of raggedy, as if half eaten away by acid rain and pollution. Between the letters, like a sort of collage, she’d glued origami animals representing endangered species. It was turning out pretty well, she thought. So why didn’t she feel any sense of accomplishment?

She stared at the Magic Markers spread over the rugged old kitchen table in the cabin. Almost dinnertime, she realized, glancing at the grease-spotted clock above the ancient stove. Her stomach felt funny, sort of on the verge of a cramp. But she wasn’t hungry.

“About done?” Jack had wandered in from the living room, where he’d been building a fire, and now stood looking over her shoulder.

Weekends, when the two of them got up here, first thing he did was make a fire. Then it seemed like he’d spend pretty much all day Saturday and Sunday tending it, poking at embers, rearranging logs, to make them burn brighter, as if the fire could never get him quite warm enough.

The day was more than half over, and Daddy hadn’t been outdoors except to bring in more logs from the woodpile.

“Just one more elephant to go.” Hannah let her head fall back so it was resting against her father’s stomach as he leaned in close to get a better look. “Does that look like an elephant?” She held up her origami creation.

“I thought elephants had tails.”

“This one’s a mutant. Probably as a result of the destruction of its natural habitat.” She was hoping to get a laugh out of him.

But Dad remained silent.

Come to think of it, she couldn’t remember the last time he’d let loose with one of his rip-roaring belly laughs. It wasn’t like he went around moping, but as if he were mulling over some sticky problem without being able to come up with a solution. She thought of that stupid hamster she’d had as a kid that used to wake her up in the middle of the night going around and around on that wheel of his.