Sensations rippled through her. The remembered sensations of Grady’s touch on her skin, his lips on her mouth. The imagined sensations of a more complete union. The anticipated sensations of his moving on.
Maybe she should cut the relationship entirely, right now.
Even at the cost of strain among their mutual friends. Even at the cost of missing him dreadfully.
She had the questions down pat.
Now all she needed were answers.
* * * *
“If we work right through, we can get it all done. A few more hours and we could have this wrapped up for good.”
Grady’s words didn’t slow the silver-haired man’s straightening and gathering of papers.
“I told you at the start, Grady. I lost one wife and missed two kids growing up while I was building Burroughs Candy. I’m going to make damn sure I don’t risk doing that with my second family while I’m selling it,” said Jasper Burroughs. “I’m going home to give my son a bath and help put him to bed and to have dinner with my wife. The offer will still be here in the morning. We’ll finish then.”
Grady knew better than to argue. He calmly said good-night, dismissed the secretary, made notes for the next day, read over a memo and wondered what he was going to do with himself.
He’d immersed himself in the Burroughs deal the past three days. By necessity at first, getting up-to-date, researching changes Burroughs wanted in the counteroffer to the buyers, then presenting the counteroffer. In between, he’d caught up on the other Chicago accounts, consulted with his assistant and kept his Washington contacts active by telephone.
Leaving no time to think about Leslie Craig.
But, at barely seven o’clock of a summer’s evening with his desk cleared, that wouldn’t be the case tonight.
He looked at the telephone, and decided against it. He wasn’t sure what he’d say to her, but whatever it was, the telephone didn’t seem the way to do it.
For the first time he could remember, he wasn’t sure what he wanted.
His body had strong opinions on the issue. All he had to do was get near Leslie—hell, just thinking about her did it— and his body made its opinion clear.
And even though she persistently pulled back from the wanting, she wanted him, too. But if he broke through her resistance and they did make love, what then?
He hadn’t worried about the morning after with other women, much less the days and weeks after. He’d wanted, and he’d gone after.
Because he hadn’t known those other women.
Not as friends, not as people. So he hadn’t had anything to lose, With Leslie he did. A friendship he didn’t want to lose, maybe couldn’t afford to lose.
A clatter in the hallway of an early arriving cleaning crew startled him. He was getting jumpy.
Three solid days in the office was too much for anybody. What he needed was a quiet evening at his condo and an early night. He got his car from the office garage and headed north.
When he passed the turnoff to his condo, he was only mildly surprised. He wasn’t surprised at all when he pulled into the driveway of the Monroes’ Lake Forest home.
“Oh, how lucky,” Nancy Monroe said, “I grilled two extra lamb chops. You must stay for dinner.”
“Nothing lucky about it,” said James Monroe, slipping an arm around his wife’s waist. “You always cook extra, but you’re right, he’s got to stay for dinner. We haven’t seen you since Tris and Michael’s wedding.”
“Thanks, but I really can’t stay,” he insisted in turn. “I just stopped by to say hello.”
The Monroes out-insisted him.
Conversation was wide-ranging and unfocused—his business, the Monroes’ impending grandparenthood, the Cubs’ season, the lakeshore’s erosion, Paul and Bette’s new house, Chicago’s politics, James Monroe’s easing toward retirement, Judi Monroe’s summer job as a waitress in Yellowstone Park. He drove away well fed and oddly comforted.
He swung by Paul and Bette’s house on his way through Evanston. The last vestiges of twilight showed the shapes of new evergreens and flower beds. Lights at the back of the house indicated someone was home. Still, he used his car phone to call first. Mrs. M. had said Paul was in Dallas for a couple days consulting on a major appraisal; Grady didn’t want to startle Bette with a knock after nine o’clock.
“We haven’t seen you in ages, Grady. Are you in Chicago?” Bette demanded after the first greetings.
“Not exactly.”
“You’re not calling from D.C., are you? This doesn’t sound like long-distance.”
“No.”
“All right, Grady, where are you?”
“In front of your house.”
Before the clunk of the phone fully registered, he saw Bette at the front door, calling out with an undercurrent of laughter. “You get in here right now, Grady Roberts.”
He hung up and did as he was told.
Stopping at the kitchen, Bette brought out a pitcher of iced tea, two glasses and a plate of cookies, then led Grady to the big screened-in porch at the back of the house.
“The iced tea’s great, Bette.” He took a glass and sat at the round table where she was working on a project. Neatly stacked magazines flanked a yellow legal pad filled with notes. A pile of cutout magazine pictures sat to one side, with three cumbersome albums opposite him. “But the cookies—I just came from the Monroes’ . . .”
She smiled; they both knew her mother-in-law’s penchant for feeding anyone who walked in her door. “So you couldn’t possibly eat another thing.”
“What’re you working on?”
“Garden—” She pointed to one magazine stack, then gestured more broadly at the other stack, plus the pictures and albums. “And nursery. I’m getting that organized so I can show the workmen coming tomorrow exactly what we want for the colors and wallpaper.”
A smile pulled at his lips. “Leslie said you’d redecorate the room for the baby.”
Bette gave him a searching look. “She was right.”
Getting up got him away from that look. Pretending a great interest in the pottery candle holders and oil lamps gathered on the windowsills that opened into the house provided an excuse to keep moving.
“We were going to do it ourselves, but organizing’s about all I’m good for these days,” she said with a grimace at her cumbersome body. “Let me give you a word of advice, Grady. If they ever figure out a way for men to be pregnant, don’t plan to be eight months’ pregnant in July, not unless you can spend the time in Alaska. Anyway, Paul wanted to do the nursery by himself, but as many things as he’s good at, wallpapering isn’t one of them.”
Grady picked up an oil lamp, the pottery cool and smooth in his palm, his mind hundreds of miles to the east.
“We tried the powder room, and it was a disaster. He blames Michael. He says if Michael’s renovation on his Victorian down in Springfield had included wallpapering, he would have learned that along with paint stripping, plastering and painting . . . Grady? Grady.”
He snapped his attention back to the screened porch in Evanston, Illinois, and to Bette.
“Sorry. My mind wandered. I’ve got this big deal going. It’s been a long, complicated sale and the commission can make the financial year for us.” A slight exaggeration but a comfortable explanation of his inattention.
Not to Bette.
“You’ve
had big deals before. You love them.”
“Yeah.” He grinned sheepishly. “Don’t know what’s the matter with me.”
“Offhand, I’d say you’re lonely.”
Caught off guard, his grin faltered and he tried to retrieve it. “Hard to be lonely in my life-style.” He let the grin go. “Remember the first time Paul brought you to meet Michael and me?” She nodded, a wealth of memories in her eyes. “I told him then that he was proving he was smarter than me because he saw the value of quality over quantity. And in you he’d definitely found quality.”
Her eyes misted. “Thank you, Grady.”
“Don’t cry on me, Bette.” His panic was mostly kidding, but not all. What did you do with an eight months’ pregnant, crying woman? “If Paul finds out I made you cry he’ll have my hide. Besides, you know how I feel about you."
“I know. But it’s nice to hear it. Everybody needs to hear the words,” she said with an emphasis that made him slightly uncomfortable. In contrast, the gentle tone of her next few words initially lulled him. “But tell me the truth, Grady, you stopped being satisfied with quantity quite some time ago, didn’t you?”
He tried to slough it off with a puzzled shake of his head “I don’t understand what you’re getting at, Bette.”
“Oh, I think you do.” Her bland response didn’t leave much room for denial. “Just remember, Grady, changing takes a lot of patience. Not just with yourself, but patience with your friends, it might take a while for everybody to catch up with you.”
“Now I’m sure I don’t understand.”
She tipped her head consideringly. “I remember that first night I met you and Michael, too. And I remember thinking that you have a knack for accepting people, Grady. As they are, right this moment. Not as they were, not as you’d like them to be. Not everyone is as good at that as you are. It takes them a while to catch up with a friend’s changes. But they will catch up. That’s all.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so.”
He left soon after. In the short drive home, he realized he didn’t dread the night in his solitary condo quite as much as he had when he’d left the office.
* * * *
Monday she wasn’t ready. Tuesday and Wednesday Tris was out of town. Thursday Leslie went to Tris’s office.
“Busy?”
“Not too busy to talk.”
“Good.” She closed the door, ignoring Tris’s questioning look, and sat on the low bookcase by the window, twisting her watch so she could see the time. If this did not go the way she wanted, she was not above creating an appointment to cut it short. But she would start by assuming it would go the way she wanted, which required being direct. Very direct.
“I don’t suppose for an instant that you’re not aware that Grady’s been taking me to some historic sites around the area.” Tris opened her mouth, but Leslie held up a forestalling hand, and she shut it. “If you didn't know it through Grady, I am absolutely positive the grapevine would tell you since he called here once or twice.”
So far, so good. Tone light; Tris listening.
“I told you from the first, Tris, that I am not one to fall for the Grady Roberts charm, even if he plied it. And I’ll tell you again. But—” She leaned forward and spoke each word with uncustomary precision. “If I did decide to fall, it would be my decision and my concern alone.”
Even as she relaxed her pose, she stopped another imminent protest by talking on. “But that’s not an issue. The issue is that I saw you and Grady when you ran into each other here last week, Tris. It made me want to cry. And then it made me want to knock your heads together. First you for being so cool to him, then him for pretending it didn’t hurt him and then both of you together.” She looked at her friend. “Don’t do that to him, Tm.”
“I’m just looking out for you,” Tris said stiffly.
“I know, but I can look out for myself.”
“I’ve known Grady a long time and I know—”
“Yes, which is exactly the problem.” Tris looked skeptical, but she let Leslie continue. “I’ve been thinking about this awhile. Before you all got together again last summer for Paul and Bette’s wedding, you didn’t see Michael for who he really was, but only as a buddy. When you did open your eyes to him last August, you fell in love with him. I think you’ve been nearly as blind about Grady. For a long time you saw him as a hero. You long ago outgrew that, and last year you had a chance to accept him for who he really is, flaws and all—the flaws you’d never allowed yourself to see in your hero.”
“You see flaws in him?” Tris asked s1owly, as if not quite believing it.
“Of course I do.” She also saw strength that no one else—including Grady himself—gave him credit for. “But it seems like that’s
all
you’re seeing in him. Grady is your friend. Don’t judge him so harshly. Don’t cut him out of your life. He needs your friendship.”
The regret and a bit of guilt in Tris’s eyes both relieved Leslie and made her sad. Without her, neither Grady nor Tris would have anything to feel bad about.
“I just don’t want you to be hurt.”
“I know you don’t.” She couldn’t add the words to assure Tris that she wouldn’t be hurt. “But in the process, you’re hurting Grady. Nobody wants that.”
Leslie sat utterly still, letting Tris study her for signs of unhappiness. She wasn’t unhappy, not really, because she’d accepted her life a long time ago. So there could be no signs to see. Could there?
Tris hesitated so long that when she finally spoke, Leslie let out a silent sigh of relief.
“Leslie, you’ve always been there for me. Right from the start, when you let me—no, you
made
me—talk my way through the aftermath of that foolish marriage I made right out of school. And with Michael . . . Well, I don't know what would have happened if you hadn’t thrown us together during that snowstorm. I don’t know if I would have had the nerve to confront him otherwise—”
“You wouldn’t have.”
Tris made a face, but kept on. “And I don't know if I would have recognized some of the things you spotted about our relationship.”
“Now, that you would have done—eventually.”
“But you’ve never let me help you. You’re my friend. I love you. I want to be here for you, too. Won’t you let me?”
Fighting the urge to lean on that offered shoulder, Leslie dredged up a humorous drawl, though she didn’t feel the least amused. “But that’s just the point. There’s no need. Besides, that’s not the way it works. You can’t reverse the roles. Bless your heart, I’m the older-woman confidante. I’m supposed to provide the comforting shoulder and the guiding word. I’m way past the point of needing them myself.”
She exited before Tris could make the protest Leslie saw forming on her lips.
Reaching her own office, she softly closed the door, then leaned against the wall, eyes closed, trying to hold onto the reality of what she had to give to the world, the only role left to her.
Please don’t take that away, too.