| Chapter Thirty-one |
| Even though she watched him leave and was glad for it, Grace couldn’t stop missing him. She tried to return to her normal life, but she couldn’t help but feel the loss. Even before he’d gone, their friendship had dissolved, but it wasn’t until now that she realized that he was really gone from her life.
As the weeks passed, she started to wonder if it had all been a dream. None of it could be true, could it? It all felt so distant now. The conversations they’d had, the time they spent together, those moments that felt so intimate. It was all over. A part of her knew it was for the best. It was always predetermined that he’d leave. He’d been on a prolonged vacation, but it was never his intention to stay forever. He had to get back to his real life. There was a whole other side to him that she’d never known. Never, not even in her wildest dreams, had she imagined herself fitting into that part of his life. She found that she could track his progress every week as she picked up groceries. As she stood in line, she’d rummage through copies of US Weekly and People Magazine, pausing when she saw his face. In less than a month, his picture had been taken in Florida, New York, London, and Hawaii. She enjoyed the glimpses into his life. It was odd, but she felt comforted knowing that Justin was back in his element. That he was working on his music again. Of course, her goodwill wasn’t always so generous when she saw pictures of him emerging from clubs with two, sometimes three, women by his side. Did he honestly need to form his own harem? She didn’t really believe that he was a gigolo, but it was hard to remind herself of that when he seemed to be acquiring women by the dozen. On rare occasions, her mind would drift, wondering what it would be like if she was with him. Would he have invited her to New York? London? She suspected that he would have. He would have taken her with him everywhere. They would have had fun too, but that awkwardness would have never gone away, and eventually, she’d be forced to pull the plug. She could never be the type of girl who left things up in the air. She would always want to define their relationship and know where she stood, which Justin never seemed to be able to do. During the month and half period when Grace was unemployed, thoughts of Justin ruled too much of her time. She couldn’t fight the memories of his crooked smile, his sometimes overly loud laughing, and sarcastic humor. Most of all, she thought about the way he looked at her. Occasionally, when they spoke, he’d get this odd look on his face as if she surprised him, and every once in a while, he’d look at her as though she really meant something to him. Grace probably would have grown old trying to figure out what those looks meant if her own life hadn’t intervened. In the weeks after she’d left her job with Lynn, Grace sent out resumes to countless event planning firms, but her lack of a degree or experience made it nearly impossible to find work. She was beginning to panic until one miraculous evening she received a call from one of the most prestigious firms in the city. It turned out that Lynn, who often used the company, had called the owner personally and talked his ear off for a good thirty minutes about Grace’s qualifications. The main selling point had been Justin’s birthday party, which as the owner later told Grace, was quite a feat for someone with no experience. Although it was usually against Grace’s principles to allow others to help her in this way, she was so desperate for work and immediately took the job, promising to buy Lynn lunch every week for the rest of their lives. When she later discovered that Justin himself had put in a call, she asked Lynn to pass along her thanks. Her official title was “assistant to the head planner”, but in reality she was an apprentice. She shadowed the head planner, Sandra Morris, as she met with clients and service providers. She took copious notes about everything Sandra did, and as she’d done for Lynn, Grace took care of all the grunt work that Sandra was too busy to bother with. This included submitting checks and bills to the accounting staff. It was there that she met Eric Ross. She walked into his office one afternoon with two rather obscenely large checks from the two weddings the week before. It was because of the sheer amount in each check that she was delivering them in person. Eric sat at his desk, hunched over his almost comically large calculator, jabbing a pen into the back of it. She would discover later that the calculator was a gift from his mother who believed he’d go blind staring at smaller keys. “Damn it,” he groaned when he accidentally jabbed the pen into his hand. Grace cleared her throat in an effort to gain his attention, but he didn’t respond. She reached up and knocked on his door, “Mr. Ross?” His head popped up quickly, a blush on his cheeks. He set the pen down and pushed the calculator to the side. He motioned for her to come closer. “Can I help you?” “The checks from the Dunbar and Shelton weddings,” she said, laying them on his desk, “Sandra sent me.” He nodded, “I was expecting you.” He pulled a ledger from his desk and began writing something. He took the checks and placed them in an envelope. “Sign here,” he said, handing her a sheet of paper. When she did, he took the paper back and wrote something else. Finally, he set everything in his mail sorter. With everything finished, he looked up at her and smiled, “I’m Eric Ross, by the way. You can call me Eric.” His smile was infectious, and she found herself grinning back, “I’m Grace. Grace MacGregor.” He stood up and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Grace.” “You too.” She left his office without another thought, but when she delivered a check a few weeks later, she was surprised to discover that he was actually younger than she’d originally thought and was actually quite handsome. He wasn’t handsome in a conventional sense, but handsome in his own right. He was tall, almost 6’2, with a lanky frame that bordered on gangly. His skin was pale, a clear indicator that you wouldn’t find him at the beach. His dark brown hair was always in disarray, looking as though he’d just stumbled out of bed. Her mother would have called him sloppy, but Grace thought he looked more like an absentminded professor. In fact, he dressed like a professor with a constant stream of turtlenecks and sweaters. But the thing she loved most about him was his smile. The entire lower half of his face would vanish, engulfed by his wide smile, and his face crinkled up, showing deep lines around his eyes and mouth. He smiled a lot actually, and each time she grinned in return, caught up in the happiness that radiated from him. During a particularly busy month, they spent a lot of time together as she acted as a go between for Sandra and accounting, and by the end of the month, he surprised her by asking her out. “I mean, if you want to,” He said, fumbling with the pen holder on his desk, unable to meet her eyes, “We could do dinner or a movie. Both maybe. It’s just an idea.” She sat stunned, clutching her purse. It was the first time she’d truly been asked on a date. She thought about all the things she liked about him. His awkward jokes, his perfect smile, his quiet laugh. Most of all she liked the way he looked at her as if she made him too nervous to speak. “I’d like that.” He visibly relaxed. “Great.” They had dinner the next night and went to a movie the night after. He was funny and charming, and Grace never once wondered if he liked her. They had so much in common and spent hours talking about work, movies, books and anything else that popped into their heads. He was a homebody too, he admitted on their third date, and so after that, they alternated between his and her apartments. Staying in, renting movies, and ordering takeout. It became their routine. By the second month, she already knew what he ordered from each restaurant and what movies he would pick. “It’s like you found your twin,” Mindy said one night after coming home to find them at the kitchen table working on a puzzle. Grace was inclined to agree. Talking to Eric felt like talking to herself. He understood everything about her, sometimes before she even said it. He’d never had many girlfriends and admitted one night that he’d asked her out because he sensed that they were alike. They fit together easily. Everyone remarked on it. Over the Memorial Day weekend, she took him home to meet her family and wasn’t the least bit surprised to find that he fit perfectly. He discussed World War II history with her father, helped her sister and brother in law with their finances, and played with her niece. As far as Grace’s mother was concerned, Eric was practically part of the family. Of course, her mother was just so happy that Grace might not end up a shriveled old spinster that she would have welcomed anyone. After they’d been dating for about six month, Eric told Grace that he loved her. He did it while they were watching Wrath of Khan, his pick, and at first, she wasn’t sure she’d heard him. “I love you,” he repeated, this time taking her hand. Her heart pounded, and she felt faint flutters in her stomach. She kissed his cheek and laid her head on his shoulder. They watched the rest of the movie in silence. He said it three more times over the next two weeks, and each time she smiled at him and kissed his cheek. He never pushed her to say anything back, but she knew that even as perfect as he was, Eric wouldn’t wait forever. Something was holding her back. He was everything she’d ever dreamt of. He was the embodiment of the Prince Charming, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. She was almost too comfortable with him. When he kissed her, it felt nice, but it didn’t send chills up and down her spine. When she looked at him, she didn’t become breathless. He didn’t make her feel both anxious and relaxed just by being near, and in her heart, she feared that there was only one person in the world who could make her feel that way. The one person she couldn’t have. |