The Starter Wife (46 page)

G
RACIE POUNDED HER SHOES
on the mat on the deck and shook the water from her hair before opening the sliding glass door and stepping into the small den. Joan was in the kitchen, sitting on a stool opposite the counter. Looking out at the late-August storm.

“I can’t remember it raining here this early,” Joan said without severing her gaze. There were pots out on the stove, and two more on the kitchen floor. Leaks. The erratic dripping forming a tinny melody.

Gracie walked over to Joan and put her arm around her. “Jaden’s asleep,” Joan said. Gracie put her head next to her friend’s and they both stared out the window onto the beach. The praying man had left, probably shortly after Gracie had walked away. Maybe the early rain was too much, overwhelming even for a man with clear God reception.

“I saw you,” Joan said. “I just sat here,watched you for a few
minutes. You looked so sad, Gracie, I couldn’t take my eyes off of you—”

“He’s gone,” Gracie said.

Joan took her hand, and they watched in silence as the rain continued to pour down; they watched as thunder rocked the house, and counted the seconds until lightning hit, somewhere in the distance.

“Santa Monica Pier,” Gracie said, guessing where the lightning had struck.

“Palos Verdes,” Joan replied. “Did you hear something?”

Gracie listened.

“Someone’s at the door. I’ll get it,” Joan said as she slid from the stool. “It’ll be my exercise for the day.”

The phone rang. “Shoot,” said Joan as she grabbed the phone and motioned for Gracie to get the door.

Gracie moved around the pots on the floor, just passing the stairs when she saw Jaden curled up at the top of the landing.

“Jaden?” Gracie asked.

Jaden hopped up and leaped from the third stair into Gracie’s arms. “Ooph,” Gracie said, holding her child steady. “What’s this all about?”

“Mama, does it have to thunder?” she asked. “I can take the rain, but does it have to thunder?”

Gracie laughed, and with Jaden’s legs secured around her waist, walked to the front door.

She opened it and just spied the back of a man walking away, in a suit too nice to be worn in a thunderstorm. Wrong address, Gracie thought.

“Hey,” Gracie said, “did you need something?”

The man turned and looked up at Gracie. His hair was
slicked back, the rain was coming down hard, but his dark eyes lit up at the sound of her voice.

“Gracie,” the man said, “I’m back.”

It took Gracie a full second before she recognized the voice.

“Mama, it’s him,” Jaden said, “it’s your friend. But now he’s bald on his face.”

“I know,” Gracie whispered without taking her eyes off Sam. “I’m just getting used to the new look.”

Sam walked back, leaped up the front steps, then suddenly dropped on one knee, and Gracie called out to him, afraid that he had slipped—

Until she saw that he was holding up a ring.

Gracie put Jaden down.

“Mama, it’s a ring,” she whispered.

“What are you doing?” Gracie asked him. Her hands were on her hips.

“I made a promise and I intend to keep it,” Sam said. “I’m asking you to marry me.”

“This is crazy,” Gracie said. “We haven’t even been on a proper date.”

“Mama?” Jaden tugged at her shirt. “Can I hold the ring?”

Sam was starting to look perplexed. “You don’t call what we did the other day a proper date?”

“More like an improper date,” Joan remarked. She was standing in the doorway.

“Jaden,” Gracie said, “go inside.”

Jaden just looked at her. “Not until I try on the ring.”

“Your wish is my command,” Sam said, slipping it on Jaden’s finger. Her face glowed and she gasped.

“Give him back the ring, Jaden, and go inside. Now,” Gracie said. “Don’t make me count to three—”

“Don’t make me count to three,” Jaden imitated, and Gracie made a move toward her. Jaden’s eyes widened and she tossed the ring back to Sam and ran up the stairs and into the house.

Gracie couldn’t see that Jaden had set up shop at the picture window facing the outside landing, watching their every move.

“It’s my mother’s engagement ring,” Sam said.

“My God, it’s beautiful,” Joan said from the doorway. “Did you steal it?”

“Joan,” Gracie said, “inside.”

“I know, I know,” Joan said. “Before you count to three.” She shut the door behind her.

“My mother gave it to me this morning,” Sam said. “It had been my grandmother’s before her. But she never did get along with her mother too much, so there’s not too much sentimental value, to tell you the truth.”

The ring was an antique, of course. A large sapphire mounted in an elaborate platinum setting. The longer she looked at the ring, the harder it would be to refuse.

Gracie looked at Sam. With the beard, he was your typical ruggedly handsome movie-star type. Without it, he was breathtaking. For a brief moment, she thought he might be just too good for her. And then he stood and took her in his arms and kissed her. And she was reminded of all her stellar qualities.

After Sam released her, Gracie looked again at the ring, wondering what it would feel like on her finger. “Keep it. Think about it, take your time,” he said. “I’m not going away. Ever. Just … don’t take too long. I’m not getting any younger.”

And he kissed Gracie again and she realized that she wasn’t
thinking about her thighs or her scar or the way her hair frizzed up in the rain or any of those mean things she could say to herself—all she thought about was the moment, the kiss, their lips together. What was that feeling deep in her stomach?

Hope.

She turned and spied Joan and Jaden in the picture window.

“You see what you’re in for?” Gracie asked. “A house full of women.”

“I’ve lived on a dirt floor for twenty years,” Sam said. “I think I can handle it.”

Gracie turned back and looked at him. His arms were around her waist. She ran a finger along the side of his face, slowly fingering his chin.

“You like it?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

They kissed again, holding it long enough for him to slip the ring on her finger.

 
EPILOGUE

M
RS.
K
ENNICOT
passed away a week after Sam’s mother died. Sam was thankful that he’d had the opportunity not only to say good-bye to his mother but to talk about her, finally, to Mrs. Kennicot.

She’d gone in her sleep. The kind of death that we should all hold out for, Sam thought. One morning she just didn’t wake up. No bells, no whistles, no fuss. And she’d already made the funeral arrangements. The Colony planned to plant a tree in her honor, after the memorial service. Lavender, who was back at work and feisty as ever, had informed him of the service shortly after her death.

He’d sure miss her.

Sam met with her two sons, who were young men the last time he’d seen them. But then, so had he been. They were going to sell the property. They wanted to know how much Sam thought it could sell for. Sam was up on all the Colony
real estate deals—he seemed to be the filtering device for pertinent Colony intelligence.

Max, the baby of the family, now a college professor at Berkeley, had more of a sentimental heart. “Do you think we should sell it, Sam?” he’d asked more than once. The older one, Jim,was a businessman in San Diego. There was no question in Jim’s mind at all—the luxury of a man who thinks only in equations.

Sam gave them the numbers. He knew they could get a good price. He and Max shared a coffee at the local Starbucks before Max caught his plane back to Berkeley.

“You’ll be sure to check out whoever buys the place, right, Sam?” Max said. “Mom wouldn’t want just anyone living there.”

Sam nodded. He knew this was true. As ramshackle as it was, she’d loved that old house.

“You know someone who’d be interested?” Max asked. “Someone nice? With a family,maybe?”

Sam shook his head. “Anyone who buys it would probably tear it down, Max.”

“I know,” Professor Max Kennicot said. “But it doesn’t seem right. It could be fixed up, you know. Hey, Sam. What’s this about you getting married?”

Sam smiled. “It happens to the best of us.”

“Sometimes the worst of us, too.” Max nodded, sipped his coffee. He had been married several times, Sam knew. “My mom loved you, you know. I wish there was a way …”

“Yeah,” said Sam.

“She would’ve wanted it that way,” Max said. “She’d want you to stay there forever.”

Sam had been sitting on something for a while. He looked at Max with his owlish face, the granny glasses. For a moment,
in his wistful expression, he saw the boy he knew, smoking pot in his room, crying over a girl, waving good-bye as he went off to college.

“Max, my boy,” Sam said, “I’ve got a little something to tell you.”

S
AM,
G
RACIE,
Jaden, and Joan moved into Mrs. Kennicot’s house three weeks later. J. D.,Tariq, and Lavender, who sported a bandage around her head on which Jaden had colored a rainbow with Magic Markers, had assisted with the move. The escrow had been especially short, as it had been a cash offer. Sam thought about the look on Max’s face when he informed him that his mother, richer than Croesus, had passed away, and against his wishes had left him just enough money to buy his dream house with a little padding for his dream future. Her daughter, her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and various charities had received the bulk of the estate—just as Sam had hoped.

Sam and Max had made the deal that morning at Starbucks, based on a handshake. And then Sam had dropped him off at the airport.

“I still can’t believe it,” Max said, shaking his head as his feet hit the curb at LAX and he popped his head back in the old station wagon window. “Why would a guy like you spend all that time sleeping outside?”

“You ever try it?” Sam asked.

Max just laughed, shook Sam’s hand, then turned and trudged toward the terminal, dragging his suitcase behind him.

T
HE FIRST NIGHT
in their new, old home, Gracie and Sam curled up to sleep in what they laughingly referred to as the “master” bedroom, Sam’s arms and legs curved around Gracie’s body.

“What’s wrong?” Gracie asked finally. She knew Sam’s eyes were still open, staring at the dark.

“Nothing,” he said. He stroked her hair, leaned up, and kissed her earlobe.

“Go ahead,” she said.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“God, I love you,” he said as he kissed her, relishing her warm breath, the slightest taste of her tongue. Her eyes were still closed as he got out of bed.

“I love you, too,” she said as she felt him leave the room. “Side closet!” she called after him.

Sam went out to the front porch, loaded down with his old sleeping bag and a pillow, where a familiar face was waiting for him. Baxter.

“It’s just you and me, Bax,” Sam said. The dog wagged his whole body, then sniffed around his ankles while Sam laid out his sleeping bag. After a good, long stretch, Sam slipped into his sleeping bag, secured his hands around his head, and stared up at the stars until the familiar, rhythmic sound of the waves lulled him to sleep.

The End …

Or is it?

 
EPILOGUE TWO

A
WEEK AFTER
G
RACIE,
Sam, Jaden, and Joan had moved in, Will and Cricket dropped by, separately, on a typically foggy Sunday morning. Cricket’s three thousand kids stormed through the house like a swarm of African killer bees, with Cricket scurrying behind them bestowing psychobabble such as “Rudy, what are you feeling when you hit your sister over the head with that vase? Are you feeling frustrated?”

Gracie was thankful that Sam was still out on his morning swim—going from sleeping alone on a bed of sand and rocks to a house full of screaming kids would likely have given him the bends.

“Now, it’s not quite ready yet,” Gracie said to Will as he pushed past her five minutes later into the wood-paneled living room, which resembled the inside of the boat in that George Clooney movie where all the cute guys drowned. The life preserver on the far left wall didn’t help matters.