“Do you have a boyfriend?” Sister Eugene had asked her once, giggling like a girl, and Grace had laughed at the question. Sister Eugene was curious about her life and Grace seldom offered any information. She was very closed about herself, but she felt safer that way.
“I'm not much good with men,” Grace said honestly. “It's not my forte. I'd rather come here and do something useful.”
And she did. She spent Christmas and New Year's with them, and sometimes she had a kind of peaceful glow on her face after she'd been there. Winnie noticed it sometimes at work and always thought it was a man in her life. She seemed so happy and so at ease with herself. But it came from giving to others, and sitting up all night with a battered child in her arms, crooning to it, and holding it, as no one had ever done for her. She wanted more than anything to make a difference in these children's lives, and she did.
Finally, after they'd worked together for nearly five months, Winnie asked her to lunch on a Sunday, and Grace was really touched but she explained to her that she had a standing obligation on Sundays. She would never have canceled. They met on a Saturday instead. They met at Schrafft's on Madison Avenue and then walked over to watch the skaters at Rockefeller Center.
“What do you do on Sundays?” Winnie asked her curiously, still convinced that Grace probably had a boyfriend. She was a pretty girl, and she was so young. There had to be someone.
“I work on Delancey Street, at a home for battered women and kids,” she explained, as they watched women in short skirts swirl on the ice, and children fall and laugh as they chased their parents and friends. They looked like such happy children.
“You do?” Winnie looked surprised by Grace's admission. “Why?” She couldn't imagine a girl as young and beautiful as Grace doing something so difficult and so dismal.
“I do it because I think it's important. I work there three times a week. It's a great place. I love it,” Grace said, smiling at Winnie.
“Have you always done that?” Winnie asked her in amazement, and Grace nodded, still smiling.
“For a long time anyway. I did it in Chicago too, but actually I like the place here better. It's called St. Andrew's.” And then she laughed and told her about Sister Eugene suggesting she become a nun.
“Oh my Lord,” Winnie looked horrified, “you're not going to do that, are you?”
“No. But they seem pretty happy. It's not for me though. I'm happy doing what I can like this.”
“Three days a week is an awful lot. You must not have a lot of time to do anything else.”
“I don't. I don't want to. I enjoy my work, I enjoy working at St. Andrew's. I've got Saturdays if I need time to myself, and a couple of nights a week. I don't need more than that.”
“That's not healthy,” Winnie scolded her. “A girl of your age ought to be out having fun. You know, with boys,” she scolded Grace in a motherly way, and Grace laughed at her. She liked her. She liked working with her. She was responsible and efficient and she really cared about “her” partners, and Grace. She acted almost like a mother to her.
“I'm all right. Honest. I'll have plenty of time for boys when I grow up,” Grace teased, but Winnie shook her head at her, and wagged a finger.
“That comes a lot faster than you think. I took care of my parents, all my life, and now my mother's in a home in Philadelphia, so she can be with my aunt, and I'm all alone here. My father's gone, and I never got married. By the time he died and Mama went to Philadelphia to be with Aunt Tina, I was too old.” She sounded so sad about it that Grace felt sorry for her. Grace suspected that she was very lonely, which was why she'd met her for lunch. “You'll regret it one day, Grace, if you don't get married, and have a life of your own before that.”
“I'm not sure I will.” She had come to think re-cendy that she really didn't want to get married. She'd been burned enough, and even her brief encounters with men like Marcus, and Bob Swanson, and even her probation officer, had taught her something. She really didn't want any of it. And the nice ones like David and Paul still didn't make her feel any different. They were both good men, but she really didn't want one. She was satisfied to be alone. She didn't make any effort to meet men, or to have any life other than her volunteer work at St. Andrew's.
Which was why she was utterly amazed when one of the other junior partners, who worked in an office near hers, asked her out to dinner one day. She knew he was a friend of the tax men she worked for, and he was recendy divorced and very good-looking. But she had no interest at all in going out with him, or anyone else at work.
He had stopped at her desk at lunch hour one day, and in an embarrassed undervoice had asked her if she would like to have dinner with him the following Friday. She explained that she did volunteer work on Friday nights, and couldn't but she didn't look particularly pleased that he had asked her, and he retreated, looking awkward and feeling somewhat embarrassed.
She was even more surprised when one of her bosses asked her the next afternoon why she had turned Hallam Ball down when he asked her out to dinner. “Hal's a really nice guy,” he explained, “and he likes you,” as though that were all he needed to qualify for a date. None of them could understand her refusal.
“I … uh … that's very nice of him, and I'm sure he is.” She was stammering. It was embarrassing having to explain why she had refused him. “I don't go out with people at work. It's never a good idea,” she said firmly, and the young partner nodded.
“That's what I told him. I figured it was something like that. That's smart, actually, it's just too bad, because I think you'd like him, and he's been really down since the divorce last summer.”
“I'm sorry to hear it,” she said coolly. And then Winnie scolded her and said that Hallam Ball was one of the most eligible men in the law firm, and she was a very foolish girl. She warned her that she'd be an old maid if she didn't watch it.
“Good.” Grace smiled at her. “I can hardly wait. Then no one will ask me out anymore, and I won't have to think up excuses.”
“You're crazy!” Winnie scolded. “Silly fool,” she clucked at her, and grumbled, and when a legal assistant asked her out the following month and Grace turned him down too, and gave the same reason, Winnie went absolutely crazy. “You are the most foolish girl I've ever known!” the older woman railed at her. “I'm absolutely not going to let you do this! He's an adorable boy, and he's even as tall as you are!” Grace only laughed at her reasoning and refused to reconsider, and in a very short period of time, it became well known that Grace Adams did not date men from the office. Most of them figured that she had a boyfriend or was engaged, and a few decided to meet the challenge. But she never changed her mind, and she never gave anyone a different answer. No matter how attractive they were, or how seemingly interested, she never accepted their invitations. In fact, she seemed totally indifferent to all men. And a number of people wondered about her.
“And just how do you plan to get married?” Winnie almost shouted at her one afternoon as they were about to leave work.
“I don't plan to get married, Win. Simple as that.” Grace looked touched but unmoved by the older woman's concern for her. Winnie was livid.
“Then you should become a nun!” Winnie yelled at her. “You practically are one.”
“Yes, ma'am,” Grace said with a good-natured smile, and Bill, one of “their” partners, raised an eyebrow as he left his office and overheard them. He agreed with Winnie and felt that Grace was missing opportunities. Youth and beauty couldn't last forever.
“Fighting in the aisles, ladies?” he teased, putting on his coat and grabbing his umbrella. It was March and it hadn't stopped raining in weeks. But at least it wasn't snowing.