Chapter 17

Grace

"Jake had to whip her last night," Shelly said, so matter-of-factly that I nearly mistook her words for something that had to do with the flowers, or a sparkplug in the pickup truck. When I processed what my foster mother had said to my new suitor, a chill went up and down my body, only to give way to a full body blush like I had never experienced—despite having blushed more in Grasskiln already than I ever had in my life to this point.

My fingers were trembling, but I had to do something, move, look busy. The possibility dawned on me that I might be headed for a situation like Cora's with Mr. and Mrs. Davis, where my foster father would decide to show my suitor the proper way to curb my poor behavior. I kept my back to the table, thankful that I didn't have to look at them, and they couldn't see me. I took the jar out of the cabinet at last and moved to the sink, trying to look as natural as I could while walking sideways along the length of the counter.

I thought I could feel all their eyes on me, especially Cal's. I suddenly wanted to see the expression on his face so badly I had to force myself to pay attention to the jar, and the sink, and the water that flowed into the makeshift vase when I turned on the tap.

"Cal," I heard Jake say, "why don't you and I go into the office for a moment to talk about Shelly's and my expectations for your courting Grace?"

The jar had overflowed, because although my eyes remained fixed on it, I hadn't actually paid attention to the water. My pounding heart and my twisting stomach had pulled all my focus.

"Yes, sir," Cal said.

I shut off the tap, my eyes going wide at the easy, utterly un-submissive way Cal had said sir. I couldn't imagine saying it that way myself—asserting my own independence and even my own mastery over my life and my destiny even as I acknowledged another person's authority. I felt my brow furrow hard, and I couldn't help it, then: despite how red I knew my face had become, I had to turn around to see Cal, as he followed Jake out of the kitchen into the little office that lay just next to it.

He had his eyes on me, and I swallowed hard when I saw his lips curve into a smile. When our eyes met, he winked, very quickly—almost too fast for me to catch. My mouth opened, as if I wanted to say something like, Promise to tell me everything Jake says? But of course I stayed completely silent, once again frozen into place, this time with his wildflowers safely in the too-full jar.

"Grace, honey," Shelly said, "that's much too much water. Haven't you ever gotten flowers before?"

My eyes were still locked on Cal's. I saw him notice my immobility and the once-again-increasing red in my cheeks. His smile got a bit wider, and then he turned away to go into the office. Jake closed the door behind them.

"Grace!" Shelly said.

With yet another hard swallow I turned toward the table.

"Yes, ma'am," I said, looking at her. "I'll… I'll pour some out?"

Shelly nodded and then shook her head, a bemused smile on her face.

"Do that. Sometimes I can't figure out whether you're really a handful, honey, or just a girl with her head in the clouds."

I bit my lip as I turned back to the sink and poured out half of the water in the jar.

"Ma'am," I asked, summoning the courage because my back was to my foster mother, "what's Jake telling Cal?"

I turned again, but I kept my eyes lowered, looking at the table as if I needed to find exactly the right spot to put the jar with the beautiful wildflowers my suitor had brought me.

"Wouldn't you like them in your room, honey?" Shelly asked.

My mind had focused so intently on the question of what Jake's almost audible voice had started saying, just through the office door, that I thought at first she meant the men, rather than the flowers. I looked up at her, startled, feeling a deep crease come onto my forehead.

Would I like them in my room? The heat surged in my face, and much worse, down between my legs as well. I raised my eyes to look into Shelly's face. Her smile had given way to puzzlement.

"What?" I asked, and then, with a little shiver of anxiety, "I mean, what, ma'am?"

"The flowers, Grace," she said, a crease appearing between her eyebrows. "Wouldn't you like them in your room, on your dresser?"

"Oh," I said, and my lips stayed in the ‘o' shape as I tried to gather courage to repeat my question.

But Shelly had remembered.

"I expect some of it is what any father tells an older man who's come to take his foster daughter out."

Again, I had to swallow. The answer had led to too many additional questions that began to race in my mind: What's that? and If that's some of it, what's the rest? led the pack, but Why the emphasis on older man? trailed by only a hair.

"But the New Modesty program you're in has those reporting requirements, like you heard about at the meeting today, and they want to make sure that your foster daddy and your suitors stay on the same page when it comes to training you."

My eyes went wide, and my jaw fell.

"So I expect Jake is telling Cal about what we did last night, and maybe making sure he knows you're in training panties."

My breath went raggedly in and out of my parted lips.

"I know it's embarrassing, hon," Shelly said, with a kind smile on her face, "but it's for the best. It's going to help Cal give you what you need, if he's as good a match as the New Modesty folks say he is."

"But…" I whispered, my brain whirling so quickly I had no idea which of the gazillion possible objections I could make. Shelly's brow furrowed a little, and my hands tightened on the jar with the flowers as I twitched my hips, instinctively and embarrassingly trying to move my backside as far away from the office door as I possibly could.

I rushed the word out, the one that seemed like it could save me, at that moment.

"Ma'am… I… please?"

Shelly shook her head. "You know it's for your own good, honey. It's just going to take you a little while to figure out why, I guess."

My lip had worked its way between my teeth, and I chewed on it anxiously, my head shaking slowly as my eyes went between my foster mother's face and the closed door that hid Jake and Cal and muffled their words. Suddenly the soft, indistinct murmur of deep voices saying serious words gave way to boisterous masculine laughter, even more worrying from my point of view.

"I'm…" I said, feeling an instant need to get out of there, so I wouldn't see the expressions on Jake's and Cal's faces as they emerged from the office. "I'll put these in my room, ma'am."

I turned and almost ran for the stairs, the water in the makeshift vase sloshing almost over the edge.

"Come right back on down," Shelly called after me, as if sensing that my feelings about leaving my room once I had reached it were decidedly mixed. "Don't keep Cal waiting."

When Cal went to open the door of his truck for me, I didn't understand.

"Wait," I said. "You're driving, right?"

Cal laughed. "Life in the city really is different, isn't it?" he asked. For a moment I thought he might be making fun of me, but in the twilight I could see what looked like a gentle smile on his face. He opened the door and held it wide.

How many fucking times was I going to blush tonight? I hoped that maybe with the sun almost down, and providing a particularly rosy kind of sunset as well, Cal might not notice.

"Oh," I said, feeling my mouth twist to the side. I still had that feeling of detached, floaty observation, but at this point I felt like I might almost be enjoying it, even though it made me wonder whether I would notice if I happened, say, to fall flat on my face before I could get to the door of Cal's truck.

Euphoria. Was that the word? In any case, the revelation that the man who had brought me wildflowers had actually just opened the car door for me heightened the sense of unreality, and the magical glow of dusk over the broad, flat cornfields did nothing to dispel it.

"No one's ever opened a door for you, on a date?" Cal asked, as I started to climb in. He didn't sound like he meant to tease me, or express real disbelief. I felt a frown pass quickly across my face as I understood that he meant to start a conversation. It seemed bizarre, even to me, but I realized that I couldn't remember a guy just starting a conversation with me, any more than I could remember them opening a door for me.

"Nope," I told him, trying to make it sound completely casual, like it didn't matter to me at all, or even like I'd rather have opened the door myself. Cal closed the door with a thunk and walked around to the driver's side. When he opened the door and started to climb in, something in my mind decided that I couldn't really be sure he understood just how casually I viewed this whole thing.

"I mean, like, I guess Jake opened the door of his truck for me yesterday, so it's, you know, not a big deal at all."

That didn't sound right, either. Cal didn't respond; he had his keys in his hand and I watched him insert one of them into the ignition.

"I mean," I went on, suddenly unable to stop the nervous flow of my words, "I guess I never had a guy open a door on a date, but that's because, you know, I've never really been on a…"

I felt like an idiot. How could I have revealed that to Cal, my court-appointed ‘suitor'? I wanted him to think I was a sophisticated urban girl, didn't I? Much too, you know, urban for a small-town mechanic. I needed to change the subject right away.

"So what did Jake tell you?" I blurted out. No, no, no. My cheeks blazed up once again.

Cal turned the key and the truck roared to life. He didn't answer me, but instead did something with one of the control lever things coming out of the steering wheel. It made the truck shudder—I had never driven, myself, so I had no actual idea what he'd done. The size of his hand, though, as it moved the lever thing, made me frown as a thrill of anxiety, mingled with unwelcome need, went through my system.

He reached his right arm over toward me. I opened my mouth, about to cry out in alarm, and I shrank back toward the door with my hands in front of me balled into fists. I felt absolutely sure Cal meant to grab me and teach me a lesson about asking such questions. Instead, he put his hand behind the bench seat so he could twist his shoulders in my direction and look back behind him, through the cab's rear window.

I understood: he had put the truck in reverse. He needed to back up, to turn around and head down the driveway. As if my violent overreaction had startled him, Cal turned back from the rear window to look at me. His face wore a slight frown, as if he felt the need to study me more closely, in order to understand what he had just seen.

"Well," he said, "one thing Jake told me is that you're a handful."