Eight Hundred Grapes (66)

“It had to come from him, though I appreciate you saying that.”

“Still, when we were in Shere last month? I certainly did push him. I told him that we absolutely had to get this all out in the open. That things really would be much better when you knew about us.”

That stopped me. “Wait, where?”

She shook her head, confused. “Surrey. Benjamin came to take care of Maddie while I was filming reshoots for this horrible movie about a bakeshop owner who falls in love with a man who is allergic to gluten. That’s what it’s about. It’s that bad. I play the underappreciated bakeshop owner, of course . . .”

Michelle was still talking, but I was stuck on the trip Ben had taken to London last month to finalize the purchase of our new home. I hadn’t been able to reach him at the hotel, and he had felt badly about it, going on about how busy he was: telling me about a work dinner at our new neighborhood restaurant, telling me he had to stay a few extra days because the sellers were being difficult about the inspection. I didn’t realize he had been telling me a slew of lies.

Ben had claimed to be setting up our home, but he was doing two things, and the other had to do with his other family. Maddie and Michelle, the center.

“He helped on the other side too,” Michelle said.

I tapped back into what Michelle was saying.

“When we got back from Shere. I had a bunch of press to deal with, and Ben was able to help with Maddie then as well. You know, our house being a mere stone’s throw away from where you’ll be living. Isn’t that grand?”

My heart started racing. “Ben didn’t mention that you were nearby.”

“Very. In fact, we have this lovely tree house in our backyard, this tall tree house that Maddie essentially lives in. She likes to have her tea parties there. Really, she likes to do everything there. I spent fifty thousand pounds on the damn thing, so that’s probably good.” She laughed. “Anyway, the last time Ben was visiting, she took him up into the tree house for one of her tea parties, and he showed her his house. Apparently, you can see it clear as day from up in her little tree. The red door and everything.”

I felt like I was spinning, unable to get my bearings. Suddenly, I understood what she wanted me to know. My streets in London were never going to be my streets. My house, never going to be just my house. London wasn’t going to be about Ben and me putting down roots in a new life. It was going to be, at least in part, about fitting around the roots that Michelle had planted.

Michelle jerked forward as if she realized what I realized, looking like she felt badly for saying the wrong thing. She smiled ruefully. “Ignore me, I’m just talking too much!” she said.

The transparency of Michelle’s intention—pretending to be a friend, to deliver this information—was almost so cruel that I admired it. But I also realized it was a means to an end. What she really wanted, what she still wanted, was Ben.

It was the only thing she could see. The way it was the only thing Henry could see when he looked at my mother, the only thing Finn could see when he looked at Margaret. The only thing so many of us could see when we wanted something that we weren’t supposed to have.

Michelle raised her hands in surrender. “I shouldn’t have gotten into all of that. The important thing is that we’re here now. I need to learn to keep my mouth shut! Now I’ve gone and made a mess of things, just when they seemed to be getting back on track for the two of you.”

The tone in her voice was so sweet—but even her tone couldn’t hide her eyes. Her urgency. There was urgency there for Michelle because this was her last chance too. Before the wedding, before Ben made me his permanently. It was her last chance to convince me that we shouldn’t want that.

She leaned forward, performing. “I’m just such an honest person. It’s very hard for me to keep secrets,” she said.

“You kept Maddie from Ben.”

Michelle gave me a wry smile, the gloves off. “Well. Sometimes it isn’t.”

This was when we were interrupted. Five of the older wine club members—seventy-five years old—unable to hold off any longer, surrounded us to ask Michelle for her autograph.

“For our grandchildren,” their leader said.

Then, like a whoosh, Deputy Sheriff Tropper in his pinstripe suit was stepping in to run crowd control. He knocked the old women back. Drawing a two-foot barrier between them and Michelle.

“Ladies, you need to form a line. Ms. Carter only has two hands.”

Michelle laughed, giving the old women a hearty shrug, smiling at Tropper gratefully. The mixed emotion she had been showing to me was gone from her face. Her winning smile back in its place.





A Few Good Men




Ben held two glasses of scotch in one hand, Maddie’s hand in his other, when I caught up to him. He gave me a smile, but I couldn’t make myself smile back.

“We need to talk,” I said.

Ben tilted his head. “Okay . . .” he said.

I took him in—tall and strong in his suit. Michelle could have any man in the world, and yet she was entirely fixated on this man—a man who wasn’t available to her. Was it as simple as that? It would be easier to believe it was—Michelle wanting what she couldn’t have, Michelle thinking she was entitled to it. Though she wanted him also because he was her child’s father, the two things rolling around together, the generous and selfish parts of herself, to make Ben feel like he was her soul mate.