CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A light misty rain creates a sheen on the windshield. The cab driver turns on the wipers. I scan my phone one more time. The name of the restaurant where Grant is having a business dinner is the last text I received.
“Stop here,” I say when the restaurant La Blanca comes into view on the right side of the road.
The cabbie pulls over and checks his meter tapping on the side rather than giving me a price.
“Can you wait? This won’t take long.”
“Sure, babe, but the meter is running.”
Of course. Story of my life. The meter is always running.
CLARE: I’m here.
I send the quick text and stay in the cab until Grant pokes his way out the front door.
“I’ll be right back,” I say from the cab and make my way across the sidewalk to him.
Taking a play from my own book, I remind myself to stay calm. I need to get the full story from Grant before I jump to any conclusions. The plan was great in the cab, but now with Grant in front of me my emotions war with themselves. I can’t believe my sweet lovable Grant would close down a factory he knows employs a large portion of the families in my neighborhood. The other part of me wants to smack his smug face for being a rich asshole who cares about how much money he’ll make. He fooled me.
There’s no telling which side of me will win out.
Grant stops and tries to give me a hug, but I step back before he’s successful. Touching is not a good idea for him right now.
“What’s up?” he asks stepping under an awning of the storefront beside us. It’s a stationery store with rows and rows of little books and journals for those people with disposable incomes and an intense need to plan.
“What’s up? Why don’t you tell me what’s up? Travis came to the center upset because his dad is laid off. Management at Del Fray told him this morning.”
“Oh man. Travis’ dad works there? I didn’t know.” His left eye squints like the glare from the shop lights bothers him more than what we’re discussing.
“What do you mean? Half the kids who come to the center have parents who work there. I’ve told you this.”
Grant’s lips pinch together. “Yes, but Travis is a good kid.”
“What do you mean Travis is a good kid?” I impersonate his voice. “They’re all good kids.”
“Well of course they are. I just didn’t realize Travis would be affected by it.” His head shakes slightly.
Does he not realize I have a whole center of kids like Travis? “It’s true you’re closing the plant?” I ask, but it sounds more like an accusation…since it is.
“Yes, once we get the technology moved over to one of our other plants. I’m sure we’d be able to find Travis’ dad something new.”
“And what about the other fifty kids whose parents are losing jobs?”
“What do you want me to do, Clare? I volunteer. I donate money.”
“This is their lives!” I throw my hands in the air my voice rising. “It’s more than throwing money at the problem. It’s doing no harm.”
Grant stops, his eyes taking in my full appearance and distraught expression. “Why are you so upset?” he asks with a pinched brow.
“So upset? Grant, this is my life. These kids are in my care.”
“It’s not personal, Clare. It’s business.”
“It’s personal to me!” I yell at him across less than a foot separating us. “It’s personal for Travis. It’s personal to the hundred people losing their jobs.”
Grant unbuttons his suit jacket and then sticks his hands in his pockets. It’s impossible to see the cute funny honorable man I saw yesterday. Tonight he’s the rich uncaring business tycoon I always worried he was.
“Taking the technology from Del Fray and implementing it in our overseas plant where we have top-of-the-line equipment reduced our expenses almost thirty percent. We didn’t buy the company for the workers. We wanted the patents for the technology.”
“So that’s it? You trade lives for a tiny piece of plastic? It’s about the money?”
“Yes.” His eyes open wide like I understand now. It must make perfect sense to him. “That’s what I’m expected to do. It’s why my grandfather put me in this position.”
“I’ve met your grandfather. I doubt ruining the lives of your new workers were part of his instructions. You bought the company. You bought them too. They’re your concern now. I’m expected to keep my kids in school and off the streets. Two things you made impossible.”
Grant reaches out a hand, and I step back twice. Inside I’m torn. My heart splinters. I want nothing more than to run to him and let him embrace me in a hug that will solve my problems.
But this time Grant is the problem. His hands no longer represent comfort, only pain and hurt. He’s no different from the other people who promised to keep me safe in the past.
“Do you care at all?” I try one last time. Fingers crossed he’ll tell me it was a horrible joke or a colossal misunderstanding.
That he knows better. The Grant Moore who played basketball for four hours in my gym would never do something so disastrous to the families I’ve pledged to support.
The reassurance never comes.
His eyes narrow in question and he studies me. Like he can’t figure out what the problem is. My heart cracks and I stare into his blue eyes imploring him to do the right thing.
“Of course.” I suck in a breath at his words. “I don’t want to make your job harder.”
“The kids, Grant!”
With my heart crushed — it couldn’t be worse if he tore it from my chest and threw it on the sidewalk — I give up hope. Grant and I are from different sides of the track. Different worlds. Two completely different existences that so happen to take up space on the same little city on the bay.
“These are people. How will they feed their children?”
The rain picks up, becoming more than the occasional San Francisco afternoon shower. As the cold droplets hit my head and run down my face, I don’t move to wipe them away. They hide the tears tracking beside them.
Grant reaches out once again and waves me under the awning he’s taken refuge under. But I shake my head refusing the offer. When his fingertips graze my shoulder, I bat his hands away and take another step back.
“Why? Why would you do it? Did one of your friends want a new yacht?” I’m yelling again… or still. I’m not sure if I ever stopped.
Through his actions Grant became the exact person he promised he wasn’t. I can’t process the changes happening to my world. Here, on the sidewalk in front of a Mexican restaurant on the east side, I lose hope for Grant and me.
“People get new jobs, Clare.”
“Where?” I scream the words, thankful no one else is on the sidewalk in this rain. “With five, ten, fifteen years’ seniority? Benefits? You’re blind to the world around you.”
“You’re the one having trouble seeing how life works.”
“You’re right.” I take another step back, my head shaking in disbelief even with the evidence in front of me. “You definitely had me fooled.”
He blinks twice and shakes his head in slow motion. It’s like I see the wheels of his brain turning when he figures out exactly what I’m here to do. “What are you saying?”
“It’s over.” Raindrops hit the pavement louder, each one sounding like small doors slamming closed on our relationship.
The door to my possible future with Grant. Slam.
The door to Travis’ college education. Slam.
The opportunities for this generation and next in Hunter’s Point. Slam.
“Don’t do this, Clare.” Grant’s face pinches together. His lips squeeze tight, forming a straight line as his head continues to shake back and forth.
“It’s already done.” My body doesn’t want to force the oxygen from my lungs, but I say the words breathlessly. “I can’t do this.”
Grant takes a step toward me as I step back. Our own choreographed dance of death. “Don’t leave me. Not like this.”
No longer covered by the awning, rain collects on his ever perfect hair as it beats against his head. His black suit jacket darkens with the wet stain. The words circle around in the air between us and Grant’s face pales.
Anger and sadness swirl around in my stomach. At war with what I have to do and what I want to do. “This is who I am Grant. If I don’t protect them, who will? Why didn’t you see that?”
How could he not have anticipated this outcome? The actions he makes in a board room have consequences for me and others in the city after he heads home for the day.
“I’ll fix this. Let me fix it.” With both hands held out he takes two more steps toward me.
My red, tear-filled eyes meet his — also wet with more than simply rain. I step back, but don’t have the strength to force another. I refuse to break down totally. I’ve already tried harder for Grant in the last two weeks than I have in a lifetime of relationships. If I want to continue breathing tomorrow, I can’t give him another tear today.
“This is never going to work. This is who I am.” I pull on my rain soaked sweatshirt.
“Clare…”
With a deep breath I deliver the final blow. “I would never be with someone like you.”
I use all the air in my lungs to rush the sentence out, which leaves me gasping for my next breath.
Holy shit. I’m breaking up with Grant.
And he’s letting me.
He steps forward again, “I love you.”
“Don’t be crazy.”
“This is me being very not crazy.”
In my moment of confusion, he latches on to my hands squeezing tightly, but I shake them away. “You just met me.”
“I’ve known since the first night I saw you. I’ve been waiting for you to catch up.”
“Stop!” My heart races and I brace myself with my palms on my knees. I close my eyes as the rain beats on my back.
“No. Not until you open your eyes and see.”
I sniffle, the first sign I’m losing my grip. “I see you,” I say standing again. “That’s the problem. I see a man who laid off over one hundred hard-working people to raise his stock a few pennies.”
Grant’s soaked jacket weighs down on his shoulder. His hair falls across his forehead almost in his eyes. The rain continues dripping down his face, but he doesn’t wipe it away.
“Did you think of me?” It’s too late, but I want him to grab me and kiss me and promise me when I wake up tomorrow we can be together.
“You’re always on my mind. You always come first.”
“Don’t lie. You didn’t think of me at all.”
“The choices I’m making now will build a future for us.”
My forehead pinches together creating those wrinkles I hate. “You think I want a future built on the back of someone else? Someone’s pain and misery? You don’t know me.” My hand covers the left side of my chest where a heart used to be. “Not here. Where it counts.”
Grant’s mouth falls open, but he’s silent.
“It’s over.”
He wobbles toward me, his legs shaky. “No. Please no,” he begs.
Lost in my own sorrow, Grant catches up and wraps his arms around my middle, but they’re cold from the rain and not filled with the lifesaving heat I seek. “Let me fix this.”
I push him away, angry he isn’t the man I need or want and sad I’ll never become the girl he’s looking for. “There is no fix. It’s too late.”
“But I need you, Clare.”
I take another slow breath worried about how many more I have before I give in and regret it. I need Grant too, but I can’t have him. If I sell my soul tonight, I’ll never be able to buy it back.
Some of us are not meant to have the perfect happily ever after. Some of us must learn to love those small flicker of moments when you’re happy. Those are all we get so we must make do.
“It’s over, Grant.”
He grabs at me and I rip my arm away. “What can I do?”
I’ve backed up enough I rest against the cab door. With my arm extended behind me I hold the door handle ready to make a quick escape. “Go back to your life. Meet a nice girl. Be happy.”
“There is no happy for me without you.” A tear, or a raindrop moves over the curve of his cheek and down the side of his face. Grant reaches out and wipes it away. It’s my time to go.
He reaches for me one last time, but I move to the side and open the cab door. “I’m sorry. I’m not the girl for you.”
I slide into the seat of the cab, my clothing sticking against the fake leather. My stringy red hair clings to my cheeks and forehead. I brush it away and turn around in my seat to look out the back window.
Grant stands beside the sidewalk, his hand outstretched as if he could reach me. We leave the parking lot and he falls to his knees in the rain. A clap of thunder shakes the cab and Grant braces himself on the cold wet sidewalk with two flat palms. The rain falls around him and sooner than I’m ready, my view is obliterated by the distance as the cab carries me off to the safety of my home.
With my arms wrapped against the chill, I lower my head so the cabbie doesn’t see me cry, although there’s no way to stop the silent sobs that escape.