Elin Hilderbrand - The Rumor

“So, McGuvvy wanted to marry you?” Grace said.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Benton said. He stared at the surface of the water.

“You can tell me,” Grace said. “I won’t get jealous.” This was a lie. Grace was already feeling jealous. The instant Blond Sharon said the name Katharine McGovern, the hair on her arms stood on end and her heart grew spikes. Grace knew that Benton and McGuvvy had lived together the previous summer. Grace had even met McGuvvy once, when she and Eddie and Madeline and Trevor were out to dinner at Le Languedoc. The Panciks and Llewellyns had been devouring their cheeseburgers and garlic fries at the bistro downstairs when Benton had walked in with a young woman. Grace had remembered feeling extremely interested. She wanted to get a gander at this curiously named woman.

My girlfriend, McGuvvy, was how Benton had referred to her last summer.

McGuvvy: it was the name of an elf, or a gremlin.

Benton had brought McGuvvy over to the table and introduced her. “Everyone, this is McGuvvy.”

McGuvvy was what people meant when they used the phrase “girl next door.” Her hair was auburn, she had freckles and glasses with black frames. She wore a white blouse with black embroidery over white pants, and black Jack Rogers sandals. Toenails painted turquoise. Was she pretty? Grace couldn’t decide. She was pretty enough, and she was young. She seemed spirited, gung ho, ready for anything. She was probably lots of fun to be with. Grace knew only two things about her: she taught sailing at the Nantucket Yacht Club, and she did not care for gardening at all. When Grace had asked how that was working out, Benton said, “Fine, fine. We have different interests, no biggie.”

Now, of course, Grace and Benton were lovers, and so any mention of McGuvvy was newly loaded.

“She wanted to get married and have kids,” Benton said. He shrugged. “Can’t really blame her. That’s what women her age want.”

“And you didn’t want… which part?” Grace asked. “You didn’t want to get married? Or you didn’t want kids?” Grace had never considered the possibility of Benton wanting children. She thought of Jean Burton asking Grace if she was pregnant. Grace was forty-two years old; she was the mother of teenagers. She hadn’t given any thought to being pregnant in years. She had felt Madeline was nuts to keep trying for another child after thirty-five, after Brick was in middle school.

But now, she wondered… if things progressed and Grace left Eddie and married Benton, would she consider having another child?

“I don’t know, Grace. I guess I didn’t want any of it with McGuvvy,” Benton said.

Grace sipped her wine. She and Benton walked slowly around the other koi ponds, and then they followed a flagstone path that led to a hidden koi pond, one nearly encircled by white ‘Annabelle’ hydrangea bushes.

“Six koi ponds!” Benton said gleefully.

There was a stone bench by this pond, and none of the other partygoers had discovered it, so Grace sat. She wanted to finish the conversation.

“Do you want to get married?” Grace asked. “Do you want to have children?”

Benton regarded her and sighed. “That’s a confusing question for me to answer right now.”

Grace knew what he meant. The whole topic was fraught. She and Benton were having a love affair, which was hot and immediate. And, Grace had thought, evanescent. How do you see things ending? Madeline had asked. The answer, at that time, was that Grace had expected the whole thing to pop like a soap bubble. She had expected to wake up one day and feel back to her normal self, in love with her husband and her girls and her chickens. But now that she was deeper into it, now that she was, most certainly, falling in love, Grace couldn’t bear to think of an ending. And so-if not an ending, a future. And if a future-then the answers to these questions were important.

“Forget marriage for a second,” she said. “Do you want children?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve always wanted children.”

Grace sipped her wine. Tears sprang to her eyes for no reason. Despite the complications with Hope’s birth, Grace could still have children. But she was old. Benton deserved someone younger, someone like McGuvvy.

He wiped the tear from her cheek. “Grace, please. Let’s not have this conversation here. It’s not a good idea.”

“Yes, well,” Grace said. “I wasn’t the one who brought up McGuvvy.”

“I didn’t bring her up either,” Benton said. “Your friend did.”

“God,” Grace said. “That woman is not my friend.” She stood up from the bench and finished her champagne. She was suddenly angry, though she couldn’t say why. She and Benton were having a tête-à-tête, as usual, but it had ventured into uncomfortable territory, and their sensibilities were no longer dovetailing so nicely. Grace should never have exposed their tender new love to the outside world.

Benton pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to Grace so she could dry her tears.

“My grandmother would have loved you,” Grace said.

“You think?” Benton said. He held one of Grace’s hands and gazed down at her with that look he had. She thought, He’s going to…

But at that moment, Blond Sharon came clomping down the flagstone path with Jody Rouisse in tow.

“Oh, there you are!” Blond Sharon said. “We were wondering what became of the two of you.”

Jody said, “Are you okay, Grace? Have you been crying?”

“I’m fine,” Grace said, sniffing, shoring herself up to smile.

“We’re going to hit la grande table,” Benton said. “I’m starving.”

“I love the stinky cheese!” Blond Sharon said.

As Grace and Benton strolled out of the hidden koi pond, Grace said, “I want to get out of here.”

“You read my mind,” Benton said. “That woman is stinky cheese.”

“They all are,” Grace said. Suddenly, Grace felt like Eleanor must have when Grace introduced her to the henhouse. Hillary and Dolly had nearly pecked her half to death.

Grace found Jean Burton and made their excuses.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving so soon,” Jean Burton said. “I haven’t made my speech yet.”

“I’ll send a check,” Grace said, giving Jean a hug. She hated to go, but she couldn’t stay another second.

As soon as they were out on the street, Benton said, “Where to…?” The sun had finally set, and darkness was closing in.

“Should we go for a drink?” Grace said.

“We could,” Benton said. “Or we could drive to the beach?”

“That seems risky,” Grace said. They climbed into Grace’s Range Rover, and Grace started the engine. She didn’t want the evening to end-she never wanted it to end-but neither did she want to get caught in a compromising situation. She turned off Fair Street, onto Lucretia Mott Lane. The only reasonable thing to do was to take Benton home.

“Stop the car,” Benton said.

“What?” Grace said.

“Stop the car.”

Grace did as she was told. Her headlights shone down the length of the narrow lane. Nobody was around. Benton got out of the car.

“Where are you going?” Grace asked.

“Come with me, please. Shut off the headlights.”

“I can’t just block the road,” Grace said.

“Nobody uses this road,” Benton said.

Grace switched off the lights and got out of the car. It was dark now, and Lucretia Mott Lane was lined with ancient, leafy trees, trees that had known the Wampanoag Indians, and the Quakers, and the whaling widows.

Benton gathered Grace up in his arms and kissed her right in the middle of the street. It was thrilling but terrifying.

She said, “Someone is going to see us.”

He said, “I don’t care. I don’t care who sees us. I love you, Grace. I love you.”

She stared at him; tears stood in her eyes, making everything sharp and clear. “Yes,” she said. “I love you, too. I have never loved anyone the way that I love you.”

Grace drove Benton home, and when he told her that Donovan and Leslie were off island, seeing Lyle Lovett at the Cape Cod Melody Tent, Grace followed him upstairs to his apartment.

How do you see this ending?

She didn’t.

Love the way she experienced it with Benton Coe was dramatic and urgent and all consuming. It was LOVE in capital letters, boldfaced, underlined. It made what she felt for Eddie seem like some other emotion entirely. She liked Eddie and had been charmed by him. He made her laugh and offered her what she so desperately needed: a way out of her house with her stifling parents and overbearing brothers. Eddie had presented her with an opportunity to create a home and raise children the way she wanted. He had let her be the boss and run the show. He had provided her with every material thing she could ask for. She was grateful to Eddie for that, but she did not love him the way that she loved Benton.

When Grace got home, the house was dark and quiet-everyone was either out or asleep-and she was grateful.

She ran right up to her study, to call Madeline.

Grace went to her little garden-club party, and Allegra was out as always, leaving just Eddie and Hope at home. Grace hadn’t made any dinner, which was unusual; she was too consumed with her dress and hair and makeup, Eddie supposed. She looked so beautiful that Eddie almost wished he were going with her. But the garden club… no. He’d rather stick his hand in a nest of killer bees.

What was he supposed to eat? He could scramble some eggs, he supposed. There were five fresh cartons on the counter.

But he could do better than eggs, he thought as Grace drove off in the Range Rover. He knocked on the closed door of Hope’s room.