Life and Other Inconveniences(107)

He nodded slightly. “Good. Good.” He looked at me again. “Guess I should kiss you now.”

“Guess you should.”

He leaned in, and the kiss was gentle and warm and solid.

Just like the man.

An hour later, I walked home, turning down his offer to pay for a cab. I was horny, happy and kind of glowing, really (maybe that was the corn oil). I hadn’t felt like this in a long, long time. Jason had always been tainted with the knowledge that he was content to let me do all the hard work of raising our child. The other guys I’d gone out with barely warranted a mention.

But Miller . . . Miller was different.

There was nothing more appealing than a man who loved his child. Especially when that child was as challenging as Tess. The image of him carrying her inside, Tess too exhausted to protest . . . well.

Seemed like I might be a little bit in love.





CHAPTER 31


    Genevieve


The day Emma told me she was pregnant had been, until that conversation, a rather wonderful day.

She had graduated from high school two weeks before with a 3.75 GPA and the award for excellence in French. Her peers had voted her “nicest girl,” which was irritating; I’d have preferred “most likely to succeed.” However, she’d done well, gotten into Smith (I was pleased at the choice of an all-women’s college) and would be close enough to come to Sheerwater whenever she wanted.

During her junior and senior years of high school, I had pictured her future often—Emma, more mature, more independent, not linked to that vapid boy, surrounded by intelligent, dynamic young people who would inspire her. How she and I would get along better because, with a little distance, we wouldn’t grate on each other as much. Perhaps she’d come to admire me a bit more . . . Perhaps her friends would help her with that. “Genevieve London is your grandmother?” I’d imagine them saying the first week of school. “She’s amazing! I read that profile on her in Vogue!”

In my fantasy, Emma would get into the best sorority and be as happy in college as I was. She had mentioned spending her junior year in Paris, and I heartily approved. After college, perhaps an MBA or other advanced degree. She would have a job waiting for her as my protégé or, if design and management didn’t suit her, in marketing. She was clever, unlike her father.

I was proud of her. Yes, she could’ve done better in high school. Yes, her attachment to that boy made me want to grind my teeth. But she was leaving for college (and apparently he was, too, though I tended to tune out his mother every time she cornered me at a function). More than anything, I was relieved. Ten years prior, I had been flabbergasted the day Clark dropped her off and told me he “just couldn’t do this anymore.” I had been fifty-seven years old, expected to raise a shell-shocked, grieving child I barely knew, putting everything else to the side.

Which I had. I had done it, and she was finally going out into the world to find her potential.

I even remember what I’d been wearing that July day—I’d spoken at a Women in Business luncheon in the city and had worn a sleeveless black jersey dress with a lightweight leather motorcycle jacket and a modern garnet and diamond pendant from David Yurman. Tiffany diamond studs. Black and leopard-print kitten heels from Christian Louboutin. A red clutch of my own design.

I’d even mentioned Emma in my keynote, saying how we must be role models for the younger generation, that my own granddaughter was well on her way to becoming a force to be reckoned with and would be attending Smith College in September. At the end of the speech, the women had given me a standing ovation.

In a word, I was feeling fantastic.

Charles had driven me home, and I was looking forward to a drink and dinner and telling Emma about the speech.

Instead, I found her cowering in the front parlor with Jason. “Gigi,” Emma said the second I walked in, “we need to talk to you.”

Those six words told me everything. Just like that, the future I’d carefully built for my granddaughter turned to ash. I put down my bag, slipped off my coat and handed it to Donelle, who was acting like a housekeeper for once, and closed the parlor door.

Took my time sitting down in a wing chair. I crossed my legs and, though I could feel my blood pressure rising, kept my voice calm. “Do go on.”

Jason went first, ineloquent and fumbling. “Mrs. London, we totally didn’t mean for this to happen, but it looks like, uh . . . well, we, uh . . .”

“I’m pregnant,” Emma said, and her voice was firm and steady.

I let that sit for a few beats. Turned to Jason and said, “Get out of this house. You are no longer welcome here.”

He looked at Emma; she didn’t argue.

I’m sure you can imagine the conversation that followed. There was nothing unique about it—a foolish young girl who thought she could raise a child; the older, wiser person crushed with disappointment and betrayal. I pointed out all the opportunities she would throw away. I listed the only two options I saw before her: termination or adoption.

I may have raised my voice to her. I did, I acknowledge that now. I didn’t cry. I didn’t slap her, though I wanted to.

She was so . . . smug! So steadfast, as if having a baby was special and miraculous (which was true, under the right circumstances) and not idiotic and reprehensible, as it was in this case. She was utterly unflappable, and I hated her for that, because I’d given a decade of my life to her, sheltering her, shaping her, creating a path for her, that dirty little motherless girl who’d stood so forlornly in my foyer ten years before. She had been a wreck, confused and filled with mixed messages from both parents, and I’d undone all that! I’d been clear and firm and strong for ten entire years, once again rising to a situation I never wanted.