The Wife Who Knew Too Much(5)
We had more in common than I ever would’ve guessed. The year before, his father had left his mother for a younger woman and now had an infant son. Connor’s parents’ divorce wasn’t yet final. His father was hiding assets and screwing them over on support payments. In the meantime, Connor, his mother, and his siblings were financially dependent on his grandmother. Nell Ford paid for their schools, the divorce lawyer, the mortgage on their house, but her generosity came with strings. His whole family did whatever she said, for fear that she’d cut them off.
People at the club knew there was something between us. How could they not? We’d spend all morning circling each other, hands brushing, heads together, giggling at our inside jokes. At noon sharp, I’d take my lunch break, grabbing a vanilla shake from the grill and heading to the boathouse, where he’d be waiting. It was cool inside after the glaring midday sun, with the sound of water lapping, and dark except for the shimmer of light around the boat launch. Connor would step out from behind the rows of stacked canoes and kayaks. He’d kiss me and lead me up the stairs to the storage loft. We’d lie back against piles of moldy life jackets, sipping the milkshake, kissing. To this day, the taste of a vanilla milkshake evokes the feel of his mouth on mine.
One day toward the end of summer, we were up in the loft when I heard the door open below.
“Tabitha? I know you’re up there,” my boss, Gil, called from the bottom of the stairs. “I need you at the counter. Now.”
We hurriedly arranged our clothes and came down blushing. Gil was my dad’s age, balding and paunchy—not a bad guy, but a stickler. There was nothing he could do to Connor except tell him to get lost. But I was a different story. Once Connor was gone, Gil put me on probation, which meant I’d be fired if I did the slightest thing wrong.
“I’m going to hold off on telling the general manager about the misuse of club facilities. But Jean’s a friend of mine—”
“Oh, no. Please, Gil. Don’t tell her.”
“Of course I’m gonna tell her. I should’ve told her a long time ago. It’s been obvious something was going on, and now it’s gotten out of hand. This is for your own good.”
In the car on the way home that evening, the air was thick as thunderclouds.
“Grandma Jean, Gil said he was going to speak to you. I can explain—”
“Honestly, Tabitha, I can’t discuss this when I’m driving. I’m too upset.”
Grandma Jean’s eyes were red. Had she been crying? I looked out the window, stomach sinking, my eyes prickling, too.
Later that night, I was up to my elbows in soapy water, washing the supper dishes, when she came up beside me. She looked crumpled and soft—wearing a printed housedress and plastic sandals, her iron-gray hair frizzing around her forehead in the humid kitchen.
“Come into the living room. I don’t want Grandpa overhearing this. His heart can’t take it.”
As I dried my hands on a dish towel and followed her, my guilt flowered into resentment. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Having a boyfriend wasn’t a crime. I didn’t need a lecture. But, as she sat down on the sofa and patted the space beside her, the disappointment in her eyes tugged at me.
“Don’t be upset, Grandma. I know what I’m doing. I’ve had health class since middle school.”
Her jaw clenched with determination.
“This isn’t about the facts of life, Tabitha. It’s about the Fords. I know that family, and they’re bad news. You can’t trust them.”
“Connor’s not like the rest of them.”
“My guess is, when push comes to shove, he is. Exactly like them.”
“You don’t know him. You think he’s some kind of entitled, spoiled brat. But you couldn’t be more wrong. He’s not taking advantage of me. He’s wonderful to me. I love him.”
Her faded blue eyes went wide behind her glasses. “Oh, gosh. This is worse than I thought.”
“It is not. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Why can’t you just be happy for me?”
“Because I’m worried about you. I know Nell Ford. She won’t tolerate her family mixing with the likes of us. And she rules those kids with an iron fist.”
“I don’t care what his grandmother is like. I’ve barely said two words to her all summer.”
“Okay, now. Doesn’t that tell you something, that he won’t introduce you to his family?”
That brought me up short.
“He does introduce me. I know his sisters and all his cousins.”
“Know them as friends? Or because you fetch their food and clean up their messes?”
I looked away, flushing. She was right, of course. At six, when the pool closed, the Ford kids would pile into cousin Robbie’s Jeep or cousin Hope’s Land Rover and take off God knows where. I wasn’t invited. That hurt, because wherever they were going—into town, or to the mall, or just home for supper—was sure to be more exciting than anywhere I’d ever been or ever would go. Sometimes I’d pick up extra hours serving dinner in the dining hall. On those nights, I’d look across the lake, see the glow of their firepit and feel the call of everything I was missing. Marshmallow roasts. Beers and joints getting passed around if their grandmother wasn’t at home. Connor and Robbie strumming their guitars. The girl cousins in their cutoffs and Birkenstocks and fishermen sweaters, flipping their broom-straight hair and laughing throaty laughs at the boys’ jokes. The boy cousins deigned to talk to me now that I had something going with Connor. But the girl cousins pretended I didn’t exist.