Stolen Grace (10 page)

“In-house photographer on
Image Magazine
. It’s well paid, too.”

“Great, Tommy. Congratulations.”

“How are you faring? Gracie told me you two Skyped.”

“You Skyped her too?”

“Of course. God I love that little minx. She’s just the best and I’m not just saying that because she’s my daughter.”

“Yes you are!” Sylvia joked. “
So
Daddy’s Little Princess.”

“Too right she’s Daddy’s Little Princess. I’ve bought her a mini electric guitar.”

“An electric guitar? What gave you that idea?”

“She’s got a really good ear, you know that. The way she picks up accents and languages. It must mean she’s musical. You’ve heard her do all those different voices and songs for her teddies and dolls. Didn’t you see that music school she set up for them?”

“But an
electric
guitar. Tommy
. Really.
You couldn’t be happy with a regular, classical guitar?”

“It’s
made
for her. A mini, pink, metallic guitar with flecks of gold sparkles, set beneath the paintwork. Designed for a child her size. And it’s good quality, too. It even comes with a little amp.”

Sylvia laughed. “Only in LA would they come up with such a thing. I bet you’re planning to make another video of her and post it on YouTube again.”

“Too right I am. We could get her ready for
America’s Got Talent
,” he teased. “But don’t say a word—it’s a surprise.”

“Well you’ll see her in the morning, right?”

“Yup, can’t wait. How’s it been going with Ruth? Gracie seems happy.”

“Yeah, it sounds as if they’ve been having a ball.”

“Seems very reliable.”

“Absolutely. She’s great with Grace. But I still wish I hadn’t had to leave her behind. I miss her.”

“You did what you had to do. Anyway, it sounds as if she hasn’t even noticed we’re gone. As long as this Ruth woman is genuinely being nice to her and isn’t some sort of lesbian pedophile.”

Thanks Tommy
,
for putting that sweet idea into my head.
“So you’re still both coming to the funeral? You think that’s okay for a five-year-old?”

“If it’s too weird, Grace can have a play-date instead. Have you set a day?”

“Saturday.”

“Okay, good,” Tommy said.

“And then what?”

“Well, the sooner I start at the magazine, the sooner I begin earning. So after the funeral, I’ll head back to LA. I’ll look for an apartment for us, just a two bedroom to start with, and then you and Gracie can come out the minute it’s ready.”

Sylvia would now be dealing with not two, but three homes. “So what do we do with Crowheart?”

“Darling, you told me you were done living there. You said you’d had it with the winters and stuff.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know it would be so sudden, and I’d always imagined we’d go back to New York.”

“New York City is not the best place to bring up a child. You know that. What can be better than LA? Great weather, the sea—”

“The ocean, not the sea.”

“Whatever. I’m British—we always say sea. We don’t get to see oceans in Europe. Get the pun? We don’t get to
sea
oceans in Europe.”

“Very cute.”

“Anyway, LA’s an easy, fun place. There’s loads to do for a child. And for you, too. I mean, hello? It’s far better than New York for script writing. Can you imagine the kind of contacts you’ll make there, Sylvia? If you ever wanted to go back to work as an agent—”

“Listen, I’d love to chat but I’ve got a million things to deal with, and I want to put in an early night and get some sleep. Got a meeting with the lawyer tomorrow. And guess what? I’m going to transfer $247,000 into our account, Tommy. I can do it online. If I can remember that goddamn password. We’ll be able to pay off the credit cards, the mortgage, and get the last bits of plumbing and wiring finished. Finally we can sell! It feels so good, I can’t tell you how
great
it feels. Apart from the fact, of course, that the source of the money does not exactly fill me with joy—I mean, I wish we hadn’t come to it this way.”

Silence. Sylvia heard no more than Tommy’s measured breath. “Tommy?”

“You know I’ll be earning pretty good money with my new job,” he said quietly.

“Honey, I didn’t mean to belittle your job in any way. That’s great. It’s so
great
you’ve got this, I’m really proud of you! Just . . . well . . . just my dad’s money will take away the panic. Let’s face it, the wolf has been clawing at our door for quite a while now.”

“Look, I’ve got to go now. I’ll call you later. I’m driving and I think I see a cop.”

“What? You aren’t driving and talking on your cell at the same time, are you? I told—”

But Tommy had hung up. Crap! Whatever she did, whatever she said, it always came out wrong. Damn Tommy’s silly pride. The fact was, they had nearly two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Now they could start afresh.

SYLVIA’S MIND SWIRLED relentlessly as she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Thinking of her father. Of Grace. She had never once been parted from her daughter before, except when they went to England and Sylvia stayed with a friend in London for the night, instead of at Tommy’s parents. The thrill when Grace learned a new fact, or the laughter when she said something funny like, Labradors being “Love Adores,” or, “Puff Adders must be very clever snakes because they’re good at math.” Sylvia had waited her whole life for Grace—she was just a little being with a fragile heart. At least she knew Ruth would be treating her like gold. And Tommy would be home later tonight.

Sylvia’s thoughts wandered back to Melinda. Poor Melinda. The great love of her life, a guy called Mike, had died in a car accident. Since then, Melinda had been unlucky. The boyfriends were a string of disasters, one after another. She opened up too soon and was then deceived by her own high expectations. She’d put on weight, too, and she’d given up dating altogether. The weight didn’t obscure her prettiness though—her thick dark hair and twinkling blue eyes—but her self-confidence seemed shot. Sylvia believed that Melinda should just go ahead and adopt as a single mother. Tough, but still, she’d have a purpose in life, other than her career. Living alone was only letting her sink further into the cushion of her solitary ways. She wished for Melinda to feel her own heart burst with love for a child the way it did for her.

Sylvia’s mind ping-ponged about.

Tomorrow would be jam-packed with things to do. She made a mental list:

* Visit to funeral parlor.

* Pick out songs and readings for Dad.

* Sign death certificate.

* Meetings with lawyer and accountant.

* Call old friends and set up a string of play-dates for Grace.

* Call catering company.

* Transfer money to pay mortgage off from Dad’s and my Guatemalan joint account.

Transfer money . . . . Sylvia’s mind ticked and turned, mental papers piling and jumbling in her head. That goddamn password! Unlike Tommy or Grace, she could never remember numbers or passwords. They drove her nuts! Some with capital letters, others with numbers or signs. As much as she hated the Big Brother spyware threatening to take over the world, she longed for the day when her thumbprint would do, and passwords would be history. They always had to be chopped and changed, and she lost track, forgetting them. They must all be written down in the filing cabinet under P. Or had she written them in her old address book? She’d need to get that transfer done soon. She could move the whole lot, and next week, when things would be calmer, she could concentrate on paying off their credit card debts. She’d do it after the funeral. That reminded her, would her driver’s license be good enough ID to show for the death certificate? She’d left her passport at home. Also in the filing cabinet under P.

Sylvia forced herself to swap all these worrisome problems for images of Grace. She had her in her mind’s eye, sleeping like an angel, her long lashes making shadows on her soft, caramel-colored skin, her little arms clutching her teddy. All that love in such a tiny body. It made Sylvia feel warm just thinking about her.

Tommy

T
ommy had missed the fucking plane. Stopped by that zealous policeman on the freeway and ticketed for talking on his cell while driving. The cop was young, eager, took forever—wanting to see Tommy’s license which, after a whole lot of fumbling about, Tommy found he’d put in the pocket of his suitcase in the trunk. All that “put your hands on the wheel where I can see them” shit. In England you got out of your car. It was the polite thing to do, and expected. But in the States, you were the criminal in every circumstance. They suspected everyone. Shit, men had been shot over cigarette lighters or biros being mistaken for a gun. Usually people were charmed by his British accent, but not tonight. This cop seemed to have had it in for him, and the whole ordeal took forever. A huge fine . . . questions . . . more questions.

He missed the gate by four fucking, lousy minutes.

The last thing he needed was for his wife to berate him for it, or to panic about him being late home for Grace when Sylvia already had enough to deal with after her father’s death. She’d told him she wanted a good night’s rest. There was no point calling her and waking her up. So he texted Ruth and let her know—luckily he’d gotten her number from Sylvia. He sat on an airport bench, getting his breath back after sprinting to try and make the plane in time.

His fingers hovered above his cell. Tommy suspected that Sylvia might still be awake, though, tossing in her sleep, feeling riddled with guilt for not having been to visit her dad sooner. Feeling guilty, for basically, not having been a mind reader. How the hell was she meant to have known that her dad was harboring suicidal thoughts, and worse, that he’d act on it?

Tommy knew all about that one. The Guilt Trip. He’d been on that roller coaster ride with his own father. Years and years of trying to wean his dad off the bottle, as if he were a baby letting go of the breast. And his mum: neurotic, hysterical, dependent, almost as if every time his father would try to get his shit together, she would unwittingly sabotage his recovery. She hated it when he got too involved with his AA meetings. Felt lonely, she said. Stigmatized, even. The odd one out. She liked the odd hot toddy herself, every now and then.

No, Tommy wouldn’t call Sylvia. Let the poor thing sleep. His mind wandered back to his dysfunctional family. He and his sister weren’t close, either. Nothing dramatic, they just had little in common. What a breath of fresh air it was to have escaped to the States. But the Guilt had followed him there. E-mails, sad Sunday phone calls, and cheap Christmas cards, recycled from the year before. “Come home,” his mum begged every so often. But when he did go home all they did was watch TV, or go to the pub. Not even Gracie inspired them when she and Tommy visited. The opposite. She wasn’t “flesh and blood,” his parents whispered behind his back, and Tommy even heard them refer to his daughter as a “Paki.”

“She’s from India Dad, not Pakistan,” Tommy told them at supper, when Gracie was tucked up in bed. TV dinner, not at the table. God forbid, that would be far too intimate. The TV had always been a reassuring third party. A buffer.

His father just turned up the remote and said, “One minute, son, I need to catch the football results.”

Since then, Tommy had managed to avoid going back again. It was easy to play happy families with thousands of miles between them.

He remained on the bench, and started surfing on his cell for another flight. Because he lived in the middle of bloody Nowheresville, getting a connection to Riverton wasn’t so simple. He had to change in Denver. The 6:15 am was fully booked. Damn, he’d have to wait until 10:40 and wouldn’t arrive until 3:42 pm. He’d ask Ruth to pick him up.

He dreaded admitting to Sylvia why he’d missed the plane. One thing Tommy hated about marriage was the I-Told-You-So factor. It was as if it had become a competition to see who could score the most points. He was losing big-time. He’d be in the doghouse now. Fuck.

He got up and went to sort out his new plane ticket. Texted his friend, Gus, to tell him he didn’t need to pick him up from the airport tonight after all, and Ruth to let her know his arrival time tomorrow. He booked himself into a motel—the closest one, which he could get to by shuttle.

“OH YEAH BABY, right there, that feels sooo good,” Tommy murmured. The girl’s hair swished back and forth over his cock; the soft tickling sensation was driving him wild. “Oh fuck,” he groaned as she took him in her mouth. He could feel how huge he was, how thick, as she sucked hard, not managing all of him because of his size. He laced his fingers through her silky hair, gripping her head, scraping his fingers gently along her scalp. If she didn’t stop soon, he’d come. Hard.

“Get on top of me,” he ordered. “Ride me. I want to feel myself inside you.”

The room was so dark he couldn’t even make her out. Her body was beautiful; long limbs, graceful arms. Yes, she was full of grace, like a dancer. She had a ballerina’s body. Breasts not too big, strong shoulders, a long neck. He gripped her pretty waist to guide her as she slid on top of him. He could feel his rock-hard erection stretch her open and she cried out—not in pain but with pure, girlish lust.

“Fuck me,” he said. “Really fuck me. I want to feel you come.”

She started her ride and it felt incredible, like ocean waves consuming him. Every time their bodies met—him deep, deep, inside her—she mewled, slapping her face on his, kissing him. Softly at first and then lashing at his tongue with hers, tangling, gasping, groaning each time she came down hard on him. She began to circle her hips, grinding herself into him. This woman could really fuck.

And how.

He raised his hips to meet hers and grabbed her ass, pulling her even closer towards him. Her hair flopped over his neck, his face, and she started moaning. He moved his large hands up and down her curvy butt, and felt beads of sweat gather on the small of her back. She was coming. She didn’t even have to say a word. But he could tell.