“Who?” For a moment, I couldn’t even remember who Angela was. “Oh…no. It’s something else, but I can’t talk about it here. Could you stop over tomorrow sometime? Early afternoon?” Ted would be showing houses and Jenny would no doubt be out with Devon or Grace.

“Can it wait, Em?” he asked. “I’m going out of town tomorrow night and I’m a little swamped.”

I shook my head, and he must have seen the tears beginning to well in my eyes.

He touched my arm. “All right,” he said. “I’ll be there.”

“And please don’t mention it to Tara.” I glanced nervously over my shoulder at the partyers in the room, hoping I wasn’t being overheard.

Ian was frowning. “What’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow.” I stepped away from him, letting myself be pulled back into the throng. There, I thought. A decision. Finally.

Yet I felt no relief at all.



37

Grace


Cleve was different. How could somebody change so much in a month and a half? Seriously. He even looked different. When he walked into the party with Suzanne, I felt like I didn’t know him. I was sure he was taller and his face was a different shape or something. He walked right over to me, though, and gave me a hug.

“You look great,” he said, and the one thing that hadn’t changed at all was the way he smelled. I wanted to hold on to him and just breathe.

After staying at the party for a while, Jenny, Cleve and I all went upstairs and hung out in the bonus room talking. It felt almost like it used to when we were all just friends, except that I was having trouble thinking of things to say. Jenny and I showed him the stuff for the babies program, including the layette bags I’d learned how to make, and he said it was cool we were doing that but I could tell he was bored. He talked about school a lot and he’d totally gotten into basketball and the Tar Heels.

“I want to go to UNC,” Jenny said. “Chapel Hill would be so cool.” She and I were sitting on the futon, our shoes off. My dress was fine for standing around in but definitely not fine for sitting and I kept having to tug the skirt down and the top up. Jenny’s dress was loose and really cute, but she looked terrible. She was getting a cold and her voice croaked and she had a bunch of tissues wadded up in her hand.

“You can’t get into Chapel Hill if you don’t have a clue what you want to do with your life, Jen.” Cleve was sprawled out on the beanbag chair. He’d picked up one of the pacifiers from the baby stuff and was tossing it from one hand to the other. “You’re Miss Popularity, but your grades suck, am I right?” he asked.

“Go to hell.” Jenny laughed. “I could get in if you could.”

“I had a 5.2 GPA,” he said.

“You’re half-black,” Jenny said. “That’s why you got in.”

I kicked her leg with my bare foot. “You’re so rude,” I said. It was practically the first words I’d said since we’d come upstairs. Why did I feel so stupidly shy around him all of a sudden?

Cleve grinned. “It probably didn’t hurt,” he admitted.

“I have time to figure it out,” Jenny said. “All I know is I want to go into a helping profession.”

“What the hell is a helping profession?” Cleve asked. “You mean like a nurse?”

“Or a doctor, you sexist asshole.” Jenny laughed again. They’d always talked this way to each other. “Or a teacher or a counselor. Something that helps people, unlike architecture that only helps buildings.”

“God, you are ignorant,” Cleve said. “Who do you think lives and works in buildings?”

I was watching his hands as he tossed the pacifier from one to the other. I knew how it would feel to have him slide those hands up my thighs and under my skirt. Seriously, if Jenny hadn’t been there I would have stood and unzipped my dress and been all over him. Well, maybe not. But that’s what I wanted.

“At least Grace has some ambition.” Cleve caught me totally off guard by mentioning my name. “How many people do you know who can write as well as she can?”

“Yeah, but it’s hard to make money writing,” Jenny said.

“Hard but not impossible. And she’d be doing something she loves and that’s what matters.” They were talking about me like I wasn’t there, but I didn’t care. He was smiling at me. A really good smile. He’s still into me, I thought. I wanted Jenny to disappear. I could talk to him much more easily if it was just the two of us.

Cleve tossed the pacifier high in the air with one hand and caught it with the other. “Let’s go to the park,” he said, standing.

Yes, the park! We’d spent so many evenings there. We’d had sex there for the first time the night before he broke up with me. I’d always worried there’d been some connection between the two things: sex and the breakup.

“That’d be cool.” Jenny got to her feet.

“I’ll catch up,” he said, heading for the hallway. I guessed he wanted to use the bathroom. I grabbed Jenny’s arm before we started down the stairs.

“Could you stay here, Jen?” I asked. “Please? I’m sorry. I just need to talk to him alone.”

She looked surprised, but only for a second. “No prob,” she said. “I feel like crap, anyway. Tell him my mom asked me to help with something.”

“You’re the best,” I said, hugging her.

“Just—” she wrinkled her nose “—don’t get hurt, okay?”

I was already halfway down the stairs. “I won’t,” I said. The thought of getting hurt wasn’t even on my radar.

I waited for him on the front lawn and saw him walking down the driveway. He’d come out the back door, probably to avoid all the people in the living room.

“Jenny’s got to help Emerson,” I said when he was close enough to hear.

“Cool,” he said, but I could tell by the way he said it that he meant “okay,” not “that’s great.” We headed toward the park, walking in and out of the pools of light from the streetlamps. “Jenny should probably be with us, though,” he said after a minute. “Why?”

“Just…not a good idea for you and me to be alone together.”

I laughed. “You think we need a chaperone?”

“Actually, yeah. Especially with how hot you look tonight.”

Oh, God. “Thanks,” I said.

“Seriously. I was looking at you tonight thinking what an asshole I was for breaking up with you.”

Did he want to get back together? I nearly asked him, but I was afraid of pushing my luck. “Yeah,” I said. “You were.”

“It was the right move, though, Grace,” he said. “I mean, you look amazing tonight, but I’d only hurt you if we got back together. I’m three hours away and I want to be able to get to know people without feeling guilty about it.”

“Other girls, you mean.” We’d had this conversation before.

“Girls. Guys. New people.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I just need to be free for now.”

“I know all this,” I said. “Let’s not talk about it.” Talking about it now only reminded me of how much it hurt when we discussed it the first time. “I get it. We don’t need to go all over it again.”

“Good,” he said. Neither of us said anything for a couple of minutes. We’d gotten to the park entrance and headed toward the playground as if we were on autopilot. I was honestly having trouble thinking of things to say to him that had nothing to do with us getting back together. Before everything fell apart, I could talk to him pretty easily and now I couldn’t think of a single thing to say to him that wouldn’t end up with me crying.

He sat down on one of the swings, and I took off my shoes and sat on the swing closest to him. “I didn’t care if we had to be long distance,” I said before I could stop myself.

“Grace,” he said, “don’t start.”

“You could even go out with other girls, as long as you didn’t…you know. I know you need to make friends and stuff.”

“Look,” he said, “who knows what’ll happen in the future? But for now, we really need to experience the rest of the world. Both of us. Until we get to know lots of other people, how can we ever know who’s the right one for us?”

I was speed-reading between the lines. I heard him say, You’re the one I want, but I need to be able to say I’ve gone out with other girls so when I come back to you, I know for sure.

Neither of us was swinging on the swings. We were just holding the chains, pushing ourselves around a little with our feet in the sandy pit beneath us. Suddenly, I couldn’t stand the physical distance between us any longer. I stood and walked over to his swing. I knew how to do this. I knew how to change everything in less than a minute. I held on to the chains right above his hands and leaned forward to kiss him. He didn’t resist at all. I knew he wouldn’t, and when I finally lifted my lips from his, it was only to reach down and touch his hard penis through his pants. He caught my hand, more to hold it there than to pull it away. But I stepped back, hiked up my dress and slipped my thumbs under the top of my panties.

“Oh, Gracie, don’t,” he said, but he didn’t mean it, and when I climbed onto the seat—onto him—he was every bit as lost as I was.



38

Grace


“I don’t want to go to church today,” I told my mother as we ate breakfast the morning after the party. At least, she was eating breakfast. Oatmeal and bananas. I was too wired to eat the toast on my plate.

“Oh, come with me, honey,” she said. “I have a solo today.” She was already in her church clothes—tan pants, white blouse, blue jacket with white-and-blue-checked scarf around her neck. I was still in my pajama bottoms and T-shirt.

“I’m really tired,” I said. “I just want to stay home, okay?” She looked disappointed—maybe even hurt—but I never really liked going to church. I hated afterward when you were supposed to stand around and talk to people. Of course, that was Mom’s favorite part. The only thing that made it okay was that Jenny was usually there. I was sure she’d be staying home today because she was sick, plus I needed to wait for Cleve to call. I wanted to get together with him before he left. Even though it was a three-day weekend, his friend needed to go back tonight and Cleve had no other ride, so he was stuck.