chapter 23
HALLIE
“Mommy, higher. Higher.”
I push her again, hearing the ringing bells of her laugh as she gets further and further away from the ground.
“I need a bigger push. Higher!”
She sounds like Eva. That thought fills me with no small measure of amusement. We’ve apparently been spending too much time with agents and producers. How else would a four-year-old sound like she belonged at the head of a boardroom?
“Baby girl, you’re going to fall off the edge of the earth if I push you any higher.”
“No, I won’t. The earth doesn’t end. Everybody knows that.”
Of course. Everybody knows that.
“Gracie, it’s getting late. We should go.”
“One more big push. You haven’t even seen me on the swings in forever and ever. You were in New York and Chicago.”
Great. Now my daughter is trying to guilt trip me. I glance around at the nearly empty playground and sigh.
“Ok. One more big push.”
“You better make it a good one.”
It sounds like something Grace would say, but the voice is too deep and it’s coming from the wrong direction.
I glance around the nearly deserted playground. I blink twice, because my eyes must be deceiving me. Chris is leaning against the seesaw, staring at the two of us. How long has he been standing there? I slow the momentum of the swing with my hands before taking Grace’s hand firmly in my grasp and crossing the playground. She stares up at him with wide eyes before nestling closer to me.
“What are you doing here?”
Grace gasps and turns her face to mine. “You shouldn’t talk to strangers, Mommy.”
“Can’t argue with that logic.” His words are teasing as he crosses over to us, but his voice is strangled.
Damn it. Even the sight of him walking, the most mundane of mundane acts, makes me want to fall down. I ruffle Grace’s hair and take a long, deep breath.
“Gracie, honey, he’s not a stranger. This is an old friend of mine, Mr. Jensen. Chris, this is my daughter, Grace Ellison.”
He kneels in the dirt and offers her his hand. “Hello, Grace.”
“Hello, Mr. Jensen.” She stares at him with wide eyes. “Mommy, he’s not a stranger. I’ve seen him before on the TV.”
“Grace, you know you’re not supposed to watch the TV. We have very strict rules about that.”
“Grandma always lets me watch a little.” She covers her mouth. “Oops. I forgot. She said not to tell you.”
“You should always tell me things like that. Especially if they involve Grandma. Grandmas don’t always know best.”
“That’s what she says about mommies.”
I can’t help but laugh, and when I meet Chris’s eyes over Grace’s head, I see that he’s laughing, too, at least in the instant before his face turns into a mess of confusion. There’s something else there, too, and it looks an awful lot like fear.
I want to explain why I didn’t tell him about Grace, but her watchful eyes are darting back and forth between the two of us. I shake my head almost imperceptibly at him and he nods, once.
“Are you going to come to dinner, Mr. Jensen? We’re making pizzas, because it’s Friday, and that’s pizza day. We were going to the zoo, but I think the zoo was closed or something, because we couldn’t go.”
“Gracie, Mr. Jensen has other things to do besides having pizzas with us.” I look up at Chris with a little grin. “Like being on the TV.”
“Actually, I think my calendar’s all clear. I would love nothing more than to come to pizza night. You’ll have to show me how to make them, though. I’m afraid being on the TV doesn’t help much with pizza-making.”
“I’m a great pizza-maker,” Grace says, just before releasing my hand and skipping over to where her pink backpack is resting against the swings.
“Maybe I’ll let you make mine,” he calls out after her.
He turns back to me and there are a thousand unanswered questions in his eyes.
“Not now,” I hiss, before turning to call out, “Great,” so that Grace hears me.
As she busies herself with putting on her sweater, I fix my eyes on Chris.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Your mother told me where I could find you.” He’s smug. “Told you she would come around.”
“Unbelievable.”
“It is, actually.” He motions to Grace. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
There’s a faint menace underlying his words, and it immediately puts me on defense.
“It’s not like we’ve been having a lot of long heart-to-heart conversations lately. A couple of trysts, platonic or not so much, don’t exactly make for good opportunities to talk about other things. Like four-year-olds.”
Before Grace can reach us, Chris grabs my arm fiercely. He holds me captive, his eyes boring into my own.
“Damn it, Hallie. You should have told me. You have to tell me.”
In an instant, I realize his mistake. I take a step back and shake my head violently.
“No! Chris. No. No.”
I release myself from his grip and look him dead in the eye, and the verdant green almost knocks me onto the ground. I manage to stutter out an explanation.
“She’s not…she’s…she was…Ben’s daughter. She’s not yours. Ours, I mean. She’s Ben’s daughter.”
I can’t read his expression, although I see that the anger in his face has softened.
“I could never do that.” I touch his arm softly. “Do you really think I could have had our child and not told you? That I could have raised our child with another man, without telling you? Chris…”
“I wouldn’t have blamed you.” He releases the breath he’s been holding and looks back at me. “But…” He looks back up at me with a kind of wonder. “You have a daughter, Hallie. A little person who’s a piece of you. You should have told me.”
“I…” I’m searching my brain for an explanation, but I’m saved by Grace’s sudden reappearance. She holds her backpack out to me, and I take it from her and try to place my hand over hers.
She apparently has other plans, because she beams up at Chris and puts her small hand in his instead.
“You know, Uncle Sam is on the radio. But it’s not exactly Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam has bands and they play on the radio. The best one, 4Sure, called me to wish me a happy birthday and they sang the best song ever and Uncle Sam says it’s going to be a big hit, and it’s all because of me. I think the radio is better than the TV, don’t you? But I never met anyone who was on the TV before, so maybe that’s better. Do you want to tell me about being on the TV, Mr. Jensen?”
Chris meets my eyes over my head and whispers, “Oh, she’s yours all right.”
I can’t help it. I start laughing, and I don’t stop until tears begin to stream from my eyes.
“You have a pretty laugh, Mommy. You should laugh more.”
I stop laughing, and the breath catches in my throat. Chris gives me a comforting look before turning back to Grace and bending his head close to hers.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a very smart girl, Grace?”
“Sure. Lots of people. But my teacher says that I’m obstinate.” She stumbles a little bit over the word before jutting her chin out. “I don’t think that means smart.”
He’s matching her, step for step, as they approach the parking lot. I can’t do anything but follow.
“Obstinate is better than smart, even if some people might not think so. You know, people tell me that’s I’m obstinate, too. I like to think it means that you’re absolutely convinced that you can get what you want and you go after them. You should never give up on the things that you want.”
“Then maybe I like being obstinate. See, Mommy? I told you that you should have gotten me that kitten that I want. I won’t give up now. I’m obstinate.”
“Thanks. Really. I mean it.”
“Is that sarcasm I hear, Hallie? Grace, you’re more than welcome to be obstinate, but you should stay away from sarcasm. It’s a very bad habit and your mom has sarcasm in spades.”
“I’m glad I invited you to pizza night, Mr. Jensen.”
“Me too, Grace.”
“Me, three,” I mutter, just under my breath. There’s more than a trace of sarcasm.
* * *
I’m putting the last of the pizza dishes into the sink as Chris and Grace discuss the merits of various pizza toppings, which alternately makes me want to laugh and cry. My daughter has completely fallen under Chris Jensen’s powerful spell and I can do nothing but watch it happen right in front of my eyes.
Grace giggles. “Veggie pepperoni is better for you than real pepperoni.”
“It tastes great, too.” He gags, which makes me spin around.
“Oh, wait. Is that sarcasm I hear?”
“Certainly not.” He spins Grace’s chair so that she’s facing him. “We won’t let her get away with baseless accusations, will we, Grace?”
“No?”
“No.”
Grace tries to laugh again, but it turns into a yawn.
“Okay. Enough of the mockery. Grace, it is already past your bedtime. You need to get to sleep before Mr. Jensen tells you any more of his ridiculous stories.”
“Chris’s stories, Mommy. He told me to call him Chris.”
“We’ll talk about that later.” I shoot him a death stare and lift Grace into my arms. “Say goodnight, Grace.”
“Goodnight, Chris. I want you to come to every pizza night so you can say more stories about the elephants that you saw in the water and the people in the restaurant.”
“We’ll see about that, Grace. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
She giggles. “My daddy used to say that, too.”
My heart falls into my stomach.
“He sounds like a very smart man. And maybe even an obstinate one.” He stands up and does a little bow for her, which takes some of the tension out of the moment. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Grace.”
“You too, Chris.”
“Come on, ladybug. Let’s get to bed.”
Grace protests all the way up the stairs.
“Mommy, I want to stay up to play with the grown-ups. I am four. Four.”
“There will be plenty of time for you to play with the grown ups. Just not right now. Not yet.”
I expect a battle, but the drive from Chicago has worn her out and she’s practically sleeping as I ease her into pajamas and pull the covers up to her chin.
“Kisses?”
She kisses both of my cheeks, all over. I cover her with a few of my own and by the time I’ve gotten enough of staring at how absolutely beautiful she is, she’s drifted off into sleep.
I catch the door softly as I exit and make my way down the stairs slowly. Even though I’ve had a long time to think about what needs to be said, I still don’t have any way of saying it. When I get to the kitchen, I see him barefoot, wiping down the table with a sponge from the sink. Even domesticity looks good on him. Damn it. Again.
He gives me a soft smile before taking the last plate from the table and placing it in the dishwasher.
“She’s a great kid.”
“She is. I think I’ll keep her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Hals? There was certainly time, even amidst platonic and not so platonic trysts, for you to tell me about the most important person in your life. I can only assume that you didn’t want me to know.”
I pick up the sponge and scrub at the nonexistent crumbs on the counter before letting out a long sigh and turning around to stare into his face.
“I couldn’t figure out a good way to tell you.”
“Bullshit.”
“Fine. I couldn’t figure out if this, you and me, was real or not.”
He crosses to me and places a hand on my arm, a fierce look in his eyes. “Really, Hals? You couldn’t figure out if you and I were real? I call bullshit on that one, too.”
I hear a soft moan from upstairs and I shake my head and put a finger to my lips. “We can’t wake her. Come into the living room.”
He promptly shuts his mouth and lets me lead him down the stairs into the living room. He draws in a breath as he takes in the full-length windows that look out over the garden and the warmth of the room. I’ve never been much of a decorator, but I’m proud of this room, with its cool blues and overstuffed couches.
“This is beautiful.”
“Yeah. It’s pretty good, isn’t it?”
He settles onto one of the couches and leans back with a contented sigh. “I almost forgot that couches were made for people to sit on.”
I give him a puzzled look. “What?”
“Never mind. Just something Marcus said once.” He fixes his gaze on me again. “Time’s up, though. Answer the question. Why didn’t you tell me that you had a daughter?”
I consider taking the seat next to him, but I think that would be a very bad idea, indeed, so I decide on one of the armchairs instead.
“I don’t know, really. I think I was afraid of mixing my two worlds. Being with you was like being the better version of my old self, before I got all sad and post-traumatic stress-disordery. I was afraid that telling you about Grace would break the spell. I was afraid that letting you infringe on my real life would make me wake up from the dream.”
He searches my face. “Because I’m not part of your real world, right?”
“I don’t know. Are you?” I stare back at him. “Chris, New York was an aberration. I didn’t think I was ever going to see you again. I thought it was just a one-time thing, you know. A way to rewrite history, to forget all of the terrible history between the two of us, a way to end things with something good. I thought that would be it. You would go off to your life and I would go off to mine. And then I saw you in Chicago…”
He cuts me off.
“You cannot be that blind.”
“We didn’t even know each other anymore. We don’t know each other now, Chris.”
“Bullshit again. You know me better than anyone ever has, and you always will, whether you want to or not. And whether you want me to or not, I do know you.”
“There’s too much terrible history here for a future to make any kind of sense.”
“I don’t believe that, and I don’t think you do, either.”
A single tear falls from my one of my eyes. He makes a movement to get up from the couch but I hold my hand out to stop him.
“No.”
“What happened to us, Hals? What’s so terrible that it can’t be fixed?”
“I think there’s a long answer and a short answer. Which one do you want?”
“Both. Short, then long.”
“We had the fight to end all fights. We both said some things that I don’t know if it’s ever possible to recover from. The kinds of things that make your stomach sick when you think about them, even seven years later. I called you a…”
“I know what you called me. I know what I called you. I didn’t mean it, Hals. It was the alcohol talking. You were never a fame-monger.”
I wince, because the words still hurt, even after all these years.
“Or a gold-digging prude?”
It’s his turn to wince.
“I’m so sorry.”
“There were grains of truth there. I lost myself. I lost everything about the person I wanted to be, everything I once wanted for myself. I became so wrapped up in you that I forgot that there were things that existed outside of you. And while I would contend that fame-mongering was never really in my grand plan for myself, and personally, I think the statement was a little unfair, what you said would never have had the power to get to me if there wasn’t some truth there.”
He stands up and takes a step towards me. There’s never been a man who moved so well. I shake my head, because his nearness is too intoxicating and I need a clear head.
“No, we’re not done yet, Chris. You said you wanted the long version.”
He sighs and takes a step back from me. “As you wish.”
“We were eighteen years old.”
“So?”
“So, what do you know about life when you’re eighteen? The rest of your life is nothing but a bunch of big beautiful tomorrows. There’s always time for a vacation in Bali, time to decide that you want to become a rocket scientist. Nothing is out of reach. Hangovers are something that old people get, for chrissakes.”
That manages to elicit a small smile. “There are still a bunch of big, beautiful tomorrows.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, I don’t know that. But I can hope for that. It’s better than wanting to crawl into a hole and die alone, without ever having to risk your heart again. Smart, Hallie, really smart.”
“I’m not afraid of the risk. Not anymore, at least.”
I take a deep breath and give him my last secret, the one I’ve kept locked away.
“I’m afraid that I’m not good enough for you. I wasn’t good enough for Ben. Here both of you are, in possession of these incredibly talented, prodigious minds, great minds who are brave enough and bold enough to share themselves with the world, and here I am, just some girl who managed to have enough good fortune to grab some coattails to hang onto. I’m nobody special. I’m not meant for the bright lights and the cameras capturing every move I make. I mean, I fall down. A lot. Do you know how many pictures they would get of me falling down? Instead of Chris Jensen: Lothario, they could have Hallie Caldwell: Klutz. I live in flip flops. Heels are some gigantic mystery that I’ll never be able to figure out. But it’s more than that.”
He’s staring at me like I really have lost my mind. I look directly into his eyes and try once more.
“Here’s the thing, Chris. I’m never going to be the best painter, or the best screenwriter, or the best candy wrapper sculpture maker. A perfect day for me is sitting in my little cabin and reading books to my daughter as she falls asleep. But that’s not enough for you, and it never will be. You happened to be destined for greatness and I came along for a little while and it was fun, but it wasn’t me. I’m a pretty simple girl, and your life is too big for me.”