Page 98 of Grace & Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon
Someone is blending something in the kitchen. Michael Bublé goes away, and the music becomes instrumental, and I’m not sure how one asks an adult the following question, so I just ask it. “Did you do…other things?”
“Three years ago, I tried to kiss him.”
I say nothing.
“Actually, I didn’t try. Idid. Kiss him. And I’m sorry for that. He was your husband, and I kissed him, and that was wrong of me.”
Sad Henry told me once that he gets dizzy sometimes when he thinks about Brynn. That hasn’t happened to me until now, like the room is spinning. “How did it happen?” I ask. “Where?”
“A conference,” she says. “It was for administrators mostly, but some faculty was there from different committees. I technically didn’t have to go, but I went because I wanted to seduce him.”
I close my eyes as the caffeine enters my system.
“He stopped me,” she says.
“He stopped you from kissing him?”
Lauren nods.
“Why?”
She seems surprised. “Because of you. Your kids, too, probably. Your family. But you, Grace.”
Even though my hands are starting to shake, I take another sip.
“I loved him,” Lauren says. “Like I said, I’m sorry I kissed him because that was a decision I made. But I can’t be sorry for loving him. I couldn’t help that.”
I’m trying to hate pretty Lauren Maxwell right now, but it’s hard to hate someone when they’re right. She couldn’t help it any more than I could. “Do you think he…loved you, too?”
“Yeah,” she says.
“Jesus Christ,” I say. “You could’ve at least paused first.”
Somehow, we both laugh.
“Sorry,” she says.
I think of my moment with Dom in the wine cellar. If I’d kissed him, would he have stopped me? Worse, what would’ve happened if he’d kissed me? Would I have stopped him? If I’d met Dom when I was single, we would’ve ended up together. If Tim had been single when he met Lauren, they’d have ended up together. But that’s not how it worked for either of us.
“Do you remember being young?” Lauren asks. “Not that we’re old. I mean,youngyoung.”
“Barely.”
“Well, when I was young,” she says, “I thought you could only love one person your whole life. Like bees that can only use their stingers once, then they die. I don’t think that’s true now. For a long time, I loved my husband. And then I didn’t. And then I loved Tim. Tim loved me, I think, and he loved you, too. You can love lots of people, Grace. You can love and love.”
My espresso is gone, and my heart is a runaway thing.
“That said,” she says. “I don’t know if this makes you feel better. I don’t know if it makes you feel anything. But when it mattered most—when it was time for him to decide—Tim chose you.”
“So, are you gonna tell us about your head or should we start guessing?” asks Regina.
“Baltimore’s a rough town,” I say.
The barista, a tall lady in a Dolly Parton T-shirt, drops a little plate of biscotti at our table. “On the house,” she says. “They’re a little stale, but biscotti’s always a little stale, so have at it.”
Regina updates me on some accounts, a few new business opportunities. Win and the team of designers who’ve been standing in for me shot video for Real Love last week. It’ll launch mid-January, a full, integrated Valentine’s Day campaign.
“It’s beautiful, man,” says Win.
