"Attachment had really subsided into a mere nothing; it was not worth thinking of…"
i.
"I can tell from your expression that you agree."
Lucas Goddard sighed. "Grace, I wish I didn't. But you're staring down a narrowing road. I don't…agree with the delivery of your investors' advice, certainly, but they're not wrong. The steps you've taken, in the current economy…"
"…and with this year's blight problem." Grace resisted the urge to drop her head in her hands. "Alright, listen. I know, I know, Lucas. It's not a good long-term plan. But I'm not going to cut workers' wages, and I'm not going to 'rebrand,' if by that we mean white-washing."
"It's rebranding that started this problem," Lucas said. "Knightley was a known name. Caballero is…less familiar. And no, no, it's not necessarily because of a cultural or ethnic divide, it's just that you're going to get lost in translation." He grimaced. "Pardon, I suppose, the pun."
Grace was the one to sigh, this time. She'd spent the day before being practically berated by her investors and shareholders, who pointed out, rightly, that despite a steady stream of business, Caballero Fields just wasn't turning the profit it needed to be. The suggestions—mainly, that she should replace a living wage with minimum wage, and maybe stop wasting so much time on trying to find whole families to employ—had been offensive. But Grace couldn't afford to be just offended, so here she was, asking a second opinion of Lucas Goddard.
It looked very much like he didn't have one to give.
Grace stood up and paced to the window of Lucas' office, facing onto the main street of Highbury. It was a gray day; almost December. "What about a new class of investors? Ones who actually care about what I'm trying to do here?"
"Bleeding hearts?" Lucas asked, with more cynicism in words than in tone.
The corner of Grace's lips twitched. "Maybe."
"It's a reach. You'd have to find deep-pocketed idealists, Grace. They're in short supply."
She thought of Emmett. An idealist, yes, but only for a moment. Maybe it was easier to live that way, flitting from one ideal to another.
Her head ached. "Thank you for your advice, Lucas. I'll be in touch next week, with the quarterlies."
She showed herself out. She was tired, and it was a chilly day, and—
"Gracia, love. This belongs to you."
She'd wanted to ask if she was old enough, then, and she hadn't. "Thank you, Papa." She'd thanked him, because one should be grateful for gifts.
"Grace!"
"Arthur! Hello!" She swallowed down her weariness, finding a smile instead. "How are you?"
Oh, how Emmett would smirk at what ensued. Jake had caught a head-cold, and that was a topic to which fifteen minutes were devoted without difficulty. Grace switched her portfolio from one hand to the other and then back again.
"It's such a bad time of year for colds," Arthur was shaking his head. "I told that to Francesca the other day. Such a sweet girl, I always say. I'm sure. She's back here for good, isn't she? Thoughtful of her to stop by, though. Very thoughtful."
For one instant, Grace's imagination eagerly reached—Francesca and Jake, what if—and the next she drew back, reminding herself that that way, delusions lay.
She wouldn't wish Francesca on Jake, anyway.
At home, she pored over the books again. There was nothing new to be learned. Or if there was, it was beyond Grace's grasp. She was ordinary, utterly ordinary. She wasn't a visionary or a risk-taker.
Unbidden, she remembered Marnie's constant mention of the Slate article, and cursed.
"Miss—I mean, Grace?"
"Hi, Rosa." Grace lifted her head and tried for a smile. "Is there a problem."
Rosa seemed a little reticent. Finally, she said, "People are talking."
People were always talking. Grace set her jaw. "Yes?"
"I thought you would want to know. Is…are the Fields closing?"
Her mouth was hot and dry. "No, no. I'm just managing business, Rosa. Sometimes it's trickier than others. If there's ever a serious problem, I would let you all know."
Rosa nodded. "I understand."
When she was gone, Grace thought about it crying. Thought about it, and didn't.
Julia wouldn't understand. Julia, after all, had never had any interest in inheriting the family business. Her parents would understand, but only because they were the ones who had left it behind.
Rome wasn't built in a day, though, she felt sure that Emmett would add that it was burned in one.
Emmett.
She'd barely seen him, since. Since he opened up and she shut down. At least that was the best way she—no poet, no artist—could classify the turn of events. She had tried to keep her eyes steady and her smiles welcoming, but she couldn't become someone she wasn't in the space of a weekend.
Not that he'd stayed to notice.
It wasn't fair to be angry with him. It wasn't reasonable, either—hadn't her foreboding morning made that clear? Emmett shouldn't be the first or second thing on her mind. Emmett shouldn't—
But it was over a week ago, now. Thanksgiving was days away and Grace should travel to Arizona but really, did she have the time? And if she didn't go to Arizona, where Julia and Ike would be, then wouldn't that mean that—
Thanksgiving with the Woodhouses. It had been…well, it had been since before Emmett was at college. Before Ike and Julia were married. Before her parents—
It would look very different now. Grace had no doubt that Harry would turn up, which she did not mind, and very little doubt that Francesca would make an appearance, which she minded very much indeed. Francesca had settled seamlessly once more into Highbury. Everyone talked of her and Emmett talked to her more, Grace was sure, than he talked to anyone else.
It was another thing that shouldn't be on her mind, jostling for pride of place with the all-too-real predictions of her investors and Lucas. Grace rubbed her forehead again, feeling weighty and paralyzed behind her desk. She had work, and Emmett had Francesca again. Such, after all, was life.
ii.
Harry said, "I think she came back for you."
Emmett had entertained the same thought, failed to be entertained by it, and therefore discarded it. Seeing Francesca was…enjoyable enough. He liked her company. He would always, he was sure, like her company.
He was not in love with her.
More and more, he was certain that he was not capable of such a feeling. Testing the theory by proposing some sort of relationship to her seemed—cruel, in more ways than one. And also, it would be a risk: what if she turned him down?
Emmett was not in the habit of being turned down.
He had decided the day after he got back from the weekend in L.A. that he was not in love. Francesca had come to see him, with Ashley and Noel. He had been flitty and nervous the whole morning—they'd come over for lunch, because Mom had invited them—and then—
And then—
He saw her and she hugged him, slim arms around his neck and all the golden edges of her pressed against him. It should have been perfect. Instead, he had felt the nerves ebb away, like rivulets winking through sand, and just like that, he was only Emmett and she was only Francesca and there could never be anything more than that.
Emmett was not often disappointed, because he avoided disappointing things.
"She's very pretty," Harry mused. He had often said it before, but Emmett couldn't blame him for noticing again.
"You're still coming on Thursday, right?"
"For Thanksgiving?" Harry turned pink, inexplicably. "I'm…I'd like to, I just—"
Emmett lifted a brow. "You have other plans?" He wouldn't be disappointed. He wouldn't.
"The wedding." It was a mumble.
"The wedding?" Emmett was all righteous indignation, all of a moment. "You mean—you can't mean—Marnie and August?"
Harry was fully scarlet. "It's Saturday," he said, sighing. "I thought I should maybe…offer to help. Just…"
"Just what?" Emmett stared at him. How—but Harry was a mystery, at times, for his very denseness. Of course Emmett knew that the wedding was Saturday. He'd been invited—not, he was sure, out of good will, but rather out of whatever triumph Marnie had thought she could derive from it. Grace probably would have advised him to stay at home, but Emmett wasn't going to appear to be affected by Marnie's attempted manipulations. In light of that, he had, after a brief consideration of the available options, decided on going.
But Harry!
"Harry, you need to stay as far away from both of them as possible. You know that, right? We've been over this?" They had been; it was a rhetorical question. But rhetoric was as lost on Harry as most other things.
Harry sighed. "I can't get past her, Emmett. I can't."
Emmett cleared his throat. It was, perhaps, his curse—to find for himself, and to inflict on others, the inability to move on and be useful, even when staying in one place ended up looking ridiculous.
"You absolutely should not offer to help," he said, trying for a kindly tone. "I could use your help here! Really, Harry, it will be for the best, I promise."
He wished he could tell Grace about Harry. She would have some sort of wise advice about steering him right, but seeking it out would be practically an admission that he'd been wrong about a lot of things. Which—yes, he'd been wrong about Marnie, and he'd admitted it, but he didn't want Rosa Martinez brought back into the picture.
Nothing against her. But Emmett couldn't be wrong about everything. Couldn't.
Ashley and Noel and Francesca were all coming for Thanksgiving, as were Arthur and Jake—that was, if Jake recovered from whatever ailment he had. Mom had insisted on Arthur, and Noel had said, come on, Emmett, it's a holiday about being nice to each other.
Which wasn't strictly true, but Emmett didn't argue (much).
And as for Grace? Emmett hadn't seen much of her since L.A. She'd been working and he'd been figuring out whether he was in love with Francesca and all of it had meant that almost two weeks slipped by with barely a conversation. Then he remembered that Ike and Julia were going to Arizona for Thanksgiving and then he wondered if he'd been wrong in assuming that Grace would too.
"I have to go," he announced briskly to Harry. "I'll be back."
He never invited Harry to come on visits to Grace. Grace was part of a different galaxy, all told, one whose orbits Harry didn't understand.
Francesca didn't understand her either.
She doesn't like me, does she, Em?
She's just quiet. He had sounded defensive, and it had made her laugh.
Was she your first crush?
Nah. That would be Alicia Silverstone.
Ah. Naturally.
"That's OK," Harry said, though he was pretty accustomed to hanging out at Hartfield on his own from time to time. "I promised Mr. Goddard I'd do some filing for him tonight."
Emmett tucked his hands in his jacket pockets on the way to Caballero Fields, wondering why Harry could be simultaneously so complacent and so abjectly miserable over Marnie. Abject misery didn't seem to have as much weight as it should have.
Harry had been disappointed, and he had kept living.
He started up the walk to the house, and almost collided with Rosa Martinez.
He knew her by sight, of course. Investigation on Harry's behalf—what felt like a long time ago, now—had ensured that.
Emmett found himself utterly silent.
She stared at him for an uncomfortable moment. Then she nodded and said, "Mr. Emmett."
"Hello," he said. He was known, but not just by name. He could feel it clearly. "I—uh. I came to see Grace."
"She's inside." Rosa hadn't dropped her direct gaze. It made him want to squirm, but he wasn't going to. "She's had a long day."
He lifted the corners of his lips in a smile that looked, no doubt, as forced as it felt. "I'll keep that in mind."
His ears heated up when he walked away. That, of course, meant that he would look like he'd been blushing when he saw Grace.
Just great.
He refused to contemplate guilt.
She answered the bell after the second try. She was wearing jeans and an old flannel shirt. He imagined painting it in watercolors, soft, aching. The tendril of hair twisted around the button on her collar would be accomplished by a single drag of a brush.
"Hey, Em. What's going on?"
"Thanksgiving."
"You're welcome." She smiled, but her eyes were tired.
"No, uh—" and dammit, it was unlike him, not to have a quip. "You're not going to Arizona?"
"I'm not." Her gaze was different than Rosa's. At least, he hoped it was. He hoped that after all this time, Grace knew some good things about him, along with all the bad.
"Then—you should come to Hartfield." The words were tumbling out, now. "I would have invited you sooner, but I thought you had already left. Anyway, we're having Noel and Ashley and Francesca and Harry and Jake and Arthur. A regular assortment of Pilgrims. You know. Hopefully better fashion sense. Don't care for the buckles."
Grace dropped her head. "Full house then." She looked up at him again. "I think I might be in the way this year. Thanks, though."
He swallowed hard. "In the way? Why?"
"It's—it's nothing. I'm just…not very much fun."
"You're not supposed to be the life of the party, Grace. You don't have to be. No one expects it." He tugged at his collar. "That wasn't supposed to sound insulting, by the way."
"You never sound insulting, Em. You just are." But she laughed a little. "No, really. I'll come and visit the next day, when it's a little quieter."
He felt deflated. "OK. We are thankful for you."
"Me too."
"For me?" God, why was he always so desperate?
She smoothed her hair back over her shoulders, so that the tendril wrapped around her button tugged free. "Yes. Yes, of course."
