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Last night at the bar, she'd been so hopeful when his friend had brought up Gray's work. But then he'd changed the topic. Sternly.
The man across the aisle laughed again. “You're right. I probably shouldn't have gotten on my high horse. But the guy was undermining me in front ofÑ I know. Yeah.”
The respect in his voice was hard to hear.
Joy looked down at her lap and realized she'd linked her fingers together and was sitting up straight. It was a pose right out of Grand-Em's old-fashioned playbook. The proper way for a lady to sit.
As if good posture might make her worthy of being Gray's confidante.
How pathetic.
With a series of jerks and shuffles, she tried to loosen herself up and to not dwell on how Gray saw her. The for?mer was a success as she curled one leg under her butt and slouched against the window. The latter was an ab?ject failure.
When she'd pressed him on why he wouldn't talk about his work, afraid that he didn't think she was sophis?ticated enough, all he'd said was no, that wasn't it. Which was not the same thing as, No, you are not hopelessly pro?vincial and incapable of understanding the big bad sandbox I play in. It just meant there was another reason he kept to himself other than her being simple-minded.
Which she knew she was. At least compared to him and the kinds of people he was used to. After all, she hadn't come to him as a woman of the world, but as a virgin from the sticks.
God, when she thought of it like that, what in good heavens had given her the confidence to get into his bed in the first place? Or to stand up to him the following morning? Or to turn him down at Tiffany's?
Certainly she'd done all of those things. It just seemed, as the train got farther and farther from the city, she couldn't remember how.
Maybe there was something in the Manhattan water. Like a mineral that activated the brain's chutzpah receptors.
“About twenty minutes,” the businessman was saying. “Which is a godsend. I'm half asleep as it is.”
Joy pictured the woman on the other end of the call and wanted to be that person in Gray's life. The one he sought out for counsel. The one he called when he was unsure. The one he held at nightÑ
“I love you, Mom,” the man said as he hung up.
Okay, strike that. She didn't want to be Gray's mother.
But she would have loved the opportunity to be his equal. His partner.
Although that wasn't likely to happen anytime soon. He wanted her, but he wasn't willing to take her to bed. He liked her well enough, but affection wasn't love. He felt badly for treating her as he had, but that was hardly a basis for a relationship.
And as she'd told him, fielding his regrets wasn't something she was interested in.
After all, how many romantic movies had the hero and he**ine embracing in the rain, their future finally clear as the man whispers, I guilt you, I truly, truly guilt you.
Yeah, right. Now there was a happy-ever-after.
So the question was, Why was she holding on?
Hope, she thought. Hope and...love.
There was just something that drew her to him. And that pull was making her resent every mile that took her farther north.
She wiggled around, drumming her fingers on the armrest. As the city receded and the suburbs began to dominate the landscape, she thought it was a little bizarre that she now knew how to get around the Big Apple. Sure, she was far from being a native, but she was famil?iar with the basic layout of the streets and avenues and the locations and characters of the different neighbor?hoods.
Heck, the Flat Iron District now meant something to her. And she could actually find it without a map. Al?though why Sixth Avenue had to be called the Avenue of the Americas she couldn't understand. And circumnavi?gating the subway system was still a little scary.
She actually wanted to be pounding the pavement right now, heading to the garment dealers to look at sam?ples. She'd grab a deli sandwich on the run and eat it quickly. Maybe stop later for some Zabar's coffee that she could take out onto the street with her. She'd rush along with the other pedestrians, visions of the gowns she would make for her clients filling her mind.
As night fell, she would meet Gray for dinner at some interesting, out-of-the-way restaurant. And this time, when he took her home, he would kiss her. Come upstairs with her. Stay until morning.
By the time the train pulled into the Croton/Harmon station, and the young businessman got off, she realized she didn't want to go home. At all.
The reticence struck her as a betrayal.
But if she was honest, heading toward White Caps made her feel as though she was strapping on a yoke. Or stepping into clothes that no longer fit. She didn't want to go back to being the younger sister of super-competent Frankie. The sole keeper of Grand-Em. The one who'd missed and now worried so much about Alex. She didn't want to be the good old reliable, never-ruffle-the-feathers, follow-the-rules, Joy Moorehouse.
She much preferred being a woman in the big city. Who was starting up a new business. Who was free to go where she wanted, when she wanted, without worrying about who would cover for her with an elderly person. She wanted to be that person who could tell Cassandra Cutler what would look good and be right about it. Who could find her way around New York and be comfortable in the back of a taxi all by herself.
Most of all, she wanted to go back to being a lover ca?pable of making Gray Bennett burn until he lost his voice.
She buried her face in her hands, feeling selfish. Frankie had given up so much to become a parent after their mother and father had died. Grand-Em hadn't asked to lose her faculties and she deserved to be cared for properly by someone who loved her as Joy did. And Alex needed support now, even if he shrank from it.
Maybe it wasn't that she didn't want to see her family. Maybe she just wanted them to see her in a different light.
Until recently, it was as if she'd gone through life as a kite in the wind. Tethered to her family, to White Caps, she'd skated this way and that, never choosing her direc?tion, just responding to the currents. She'd taken business courses in college out of necessity, not because they in?terested her. She'd known the B&B was losing money and a practical major would mean she could get a higher-paying job and help out more. And while she was at UVM, she'd worked those jobs to save on living ex?penses, foregoing all that dating and partying. After grad?uation, she'd come home and cared for Grand-Em because their grandmother desperately needed help and there wasn't enough income to support a nurse.
Put in that context, it seemed like designing a dress for Cassandra was the first thing she'd chosen to do.
Well, that and giving herself to Gray.
Chapter Eleven
When the train pulled into the Albany station, Joy dreaded getting off. Leaving the rail car made her feel as though she were cutting ties with the new parts of her?self she'd discovered down in the city.
But then she looked out of the window and saw Frankie.
Her sister was scanning the passengers as they disem?barked onto the platform. Dressed in a pair of blue jeans and an Irish knit sweater so big it must have been Nate's, she was so achingly familiar, so beautifully the same. She was home and comfort and stability.
Joy felt tears spike her lashes as she jostled her suit?case and portfolio down the aisle. How could she not want to be with her family? How could she even think of leaving them behind?
She blinked quickly, not wanting her emotions to show, but the instant Frankie made eye contact with her, Joy's vision went blurry again.
Frankie came running up, all smiles as she reached out to take some of the luggage burden. “Hey! I'm so gladÑ what's wrong?”
Joy put down her things and threw her arms around her sister. Frankie's hug back was so like her. Strong, se?cure, warm. She smelled like Ivory soap and fresh air.
“Joy, are you okay?”
Oh, God, Frankie. I made love with a man for the first time while I was away. With Gray. I'm scared that I re?ally do love him and I'm going to get my heart crushed.
And I'm learning things about myself that seem to take me away from you and Alex and Grand-Em. From every?thing I've always known.
I fear I don't know who I am anymore. Or where I fit in. Or where I'm going.
“Joy?”
“I'm fine. Just glad to see you.” Joy pulled back and wiped her eyes. “Sorry.”
“For what?” Frankie bent down and picked up the suit?case. “There's nothing wrong with leaking, you know.”
Joy grabbed the portfolio off the cement platform and followed her sister through the terminal. She took refuge in asking familiar questions. “How's Grand-Em?”
“She's doing so much better. I can't believe it. She's able to be still and occupied now for longer stretches of time. She can sit at the kitchen table and leaf through her diaries even while Nate's making noise at the stove. As a matter of fact, he's taken to watching her while he cooks and she seems to enjoy the smells in the kitchen.”
“That's wonderful,” Joy said as they stepped outside. “Are there any side effects yet?”
“She gets drowsy about an hour after she takes the pill. But other than that, she seems to be adjusting fine.”
Joy felt some of her unease lift. If she was going to make those other dresses, she'd need to go back and forth to the city with some regularity. Her absences seemed more excusable if the burden on her family wasn't as great.
“And Alex?”
Her sister grew quiet as they wound their way through the parking lot.
“Frankie? What about Alex?”
“He needs another operation on his leg.”
“Oh...God. When is he scheduled to go in?”
“This week.”
“I'm glad I came back.”
Frankie stopped in front of her old Honda Accord. “So am I. He'sÑuh, he's not doing too well. I've tried to talk with him so many times that he doesn't hear me anymore. Maybe you can give it a shot. He's barely eating anything and I know he doesn't sleep because his light stays on all night. I want to get him to a grief counselor, but he just won't have it.”
“I'm not surprised.”
“He did tell me he was happy you were coming home. I think he misses you. The two of you have always had that special connection.”
They got in and Frankie started the car. “Hey, did I tell you what happened to Stu?”
During the two-hour drive up into the Adirondacks, all sorts of Saranac Lake news was imparted, and as her sister talked, Joy found herself absorbing the landscape. Interstate 87, also known as the Northway, was a four-lane highway running up New York State's vertical flank and it was familiar to her in the way only roads driven over when you were a child could be. She knew all the exits, all the grassy, tree-strewn medians, every mountain and body of water.
The deeper upstate they went, the more the restlessness she'd felt on the train drifted away, especially as they passed Glens Falls, the last enclave that could be consid?ered a biggish town. From then on, the exits got farther and farther apart. And she got closer and closer to home.
By the time they pulled up to White Caps, she was ex?cited to be back. Looking forward to seeing Grand-Em. Eager to give Alex a hug, if he'd let her.
As she got out of the car, she took a deep breath. Cold, clean air shot into her sinuses, burning the lethargy of travel away. And it was so quiet that her soft sigh was loud enough to bring Frankie's head around.
Joy looked to the left, down to the lake. The water was nearly still, the lake-shore breeze only teasing the red and orange leaves of the oaks by the dock.
“You seem glad to be back,” Frankie murmured.
“I am. Although part of me didn't want to leave the city.”
“I can imagine. New York's an electric kind of place.”
“Yes, it is.” Joy glanced at White Caps.
Through the kitchen's picture window, she saw Nate and his best friend and sous chef, Spike, grinning like madmen while arguing over a steaming loaf of bread. All around them, everything in the room was as it always had been. The battered oak table was in the alcove, its matching chairs tucked under its flat back. There was a pile of mail on a counter next to some Macintosh apples in a wooden bowl. African violets were lined up on the windowsills.
