An Invincible Summer (Wyndham Beach) Read online

  “I wish you’d talked to me.” Maggie rubbed Grace’s back to comfort her the way she had when Grace was a child.

  “I don’t know what you could have done. And besides, running to my mom to fix it somehow would only have made things worse.”

  “Well, he’s got to go, Gracie. He and his girlfriend. Both of them. Outta there.” Maggie’s temper was starting to build, but her voice remained calm. Grace knew that the angrier Maggie was, the lower her voice. “Believe me, if I’d known, she’d have been gone long before now.”

  “We can’t out and out fire them. They haven’t done anything that fits the definition of the firm’s grounds for termination. Believe me, I’ve been waiting for them to screw up.”

  “It’s inhuman to ask you to continue to work under those conditions. God, I had no idea he was such a bastard. And I am so, so very sorry that you didn’t feel you could talk to me.”

  “I was too humiliated.” Grace started to cry again. “I’m still humiliated, just talking about it. But that’s why I started this blog. It was my safe place. The one place I didn’t have to pretend I wasn’t angry. It was a place where other women could unload their anger and their humiliation, too. Where we could encourage each other to move on and remind each other that our lives didn’t need to be defined by our divorce. Mom, some of these women were even more depressed and lonely than I was. We started doing movie nights and happy hours—all online—and after a while, it became more than just a place to bitch. Now . . .”

  “Now you’re shutting it down. Get rid of it, preferably some way that no one can dig it up again.”

  “I can delete it, Mom, but I think it can still appear on other people’s computers.”

  “Talk to the IT guy at the office. Timothy? Maybe he knows some way to just make it disappear.”

  “I’ll call him in the morning. I can’t talk to anyone right now. By tomorrow, this story will be everywhere. I don’t think I can take any more embarrassment. When it gets around that I was so pathetic I started a blog under an assumed name to rail about Zach . . .” Grace shook her head. “I don’t think I can face anyone ever again.”

  “Grace, how could anyone have known it was you?” Maggie got up and went to the coffee machine. She dropped in a pod and hit the button after putting a mug in place.

  “I have no idea. I swear I never told anyone—not even Natalie—that I’d set up that site. I didn’t even tell Nat about Zach’s affair with Amber.”

  Maggie paced while the coffee dripped. “And you did all this on your laptop?”

  “Mostly. I used my old desktop in the office a time or two.”

  “Who would know that? That you used it?” She set a pitcher of cream and the sugar bowl on the table.

  Grace shrugged. “I guess anyone who ever saw me working on it.”

  “Zach?”

  “Sure. He used to tease me about . . .” Grace’s eyes widened. “You don’t think he would . . .”

  “Why wouldn’t he?” Maggie handed Grace the mug of coffee, then began to prepare one for herself.

  Grace knew her mouth was hanging open, but it never had occurred to her that Zach would snoop on her computer.

  “Maybe he thought he’d find something relative to the disposition of the firm,” Maggie said. “Maybe he thought there were emails between you and your dad spelling out when you might be taking over.”

  “Maybe.” It didn’t feel right to Grace. “But he already knew where things stood. Dad’s will had made it clear. Remember, we were still together when Dad died. I told him everything. He had no reason to snoop.”

  “How about Amber?”

  “Do I think Amber would hack into my computer?” Grace laughed. “Duh.”

  “So how would we find out?” Grace watched her mother’s wheels turning. Maggie took her phone from her pocket and speed-dialed a number.

  To Grace, she said, “We’re not waiting until tomorrow.”

  Then apparently the call had been connected. “Timothy? It’s Maggie Flynn. Are you still at the office? Good. I wonder if I could ask you to do a favor for me . . .”

  Grace had spent the night at Maggie’s after an ill-advised check of the comments on Philly News and Views Online. She scanned the responses to the article, looking for her name. When she found it, she wanted to throw up.

  Oh God.

  —Is there anyone in Philadelphia who doesn’t know this is about Grace Flynn?

  —Everyone knows Grace Flynn’s man left her for something better. But did she give up, bow out grace-fully? Nope. I know someone who works at Flynn Law and she said it was painful to watch how she pretended they hadn’t split up.

  —She should have gotten an Oscar for the way she acted like she and her ex were still together.

  —I checked out the blog. Be careful out there, guys. There are some really sad, desperate women.

  —I’d kill myself before I humiliated myself the way this woman did. Shame on her. She should have just let him go and gotten on with her life.

  —Would you want this lawyer handling your case? I wouldn’t. She sounds unstable. No wonder her old man dumped her.

  And on it went.

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Maggie had come up behind her and read over her shoulder.

  “Well, I guess my humiliation is now complete. I give up. Zach and Amber have won. I am done, Mom.” Grace’s eyes filled with tears. “I can never show my face in Philadelphia again. There is not one courtroom I could walk into where everyone doesn’t know how pathetic I am. My law career is over.”

  “Grace . . .”

  “Mom, you know how small the legal community is in Philly. Who could continue to practice here after this? I can’t. I’ve been dealing with this for months, and I just don’t have it in me anymore.” Grace got up from the table and went into the hall, up the steps, and crawled into the guest room bed. She pulled the covers up to her chin and spent the night staring at the ceiling.

  She meant what she’d said. She was over the entire mess, done with pretending it didn’t hurt and done with ignoring the whispers. She just didn’t care anymore.

  At some point in the morning, her mother came into the room, but Grace pretended to be sleeping. A few minutes later, she heard Maggie leave the house. Grace barely moved for the next couple of hours. It was unhealthy and stupid—she knew that, but she couldn’t make herself get up, and she couldn’t fall asleep.

  She should get up and call George and let him know she wouldn’t be in today—or any day. It was cowardly to resign over the phone, but she wasn’t going anywhere near the office, not after this. From time to time during the night, she’d gotten up and checked the site where the offending article had been posted and found hundreds—hundreds!—of comments, almost all as nasty as the ones she’d read the night before. Shockingly, several were written by people she knew, some she’d thought were friends. She’d taken a peek at her email earlier and found Amy Spinelli, the author of the article, asking for an interview, or at the very least a comment. Grace deleted the email.

  Downstairs, a door slammed, and Grace assumed her mother had returned from whatever errand she’d gone on. But the footsteps running up the stairs were too quick to be Maggie’s, and before Grace could once again feign sleep, Natalie burst into the room.

  “What the hell, Grace?”

  Grace rolled over and put her pillow over her face. The last thing she needed was a lecture from her younger sister.

  “Go away, Nat,” she muttered.

  “Like hell.” Natalie grabbed the pillow and won the tug-of-war, forcibly removing it from Grace’s grip.

  Grace sat up and pushed her hair out of her face. “Mom called you, didn’t she?”

  “Actually, I heard it first from one of my colleagues. He sent me a text this morning.” Natalie sat on the side of the bed.

  “I can explain . . .” Grace sat up slowly and leaned back against the headboard.

  “You don’t have to explain anything to me. I get it. I did ta
lk to Mom. Frankly, I think it was a stroke of genius on your part—the blog?—finding a way to cope with a horrible situation, dealing with that moron you used to be married to.” Natalie paused. “You do realize how lucky you are to be rid of such a two-faced, cheating asshat, right? His little girlfriend deserves him. He does not deserve you.”

  The last thing Grace had expected was such a deeply felt show of love and loyalty from her sister. Fat tears rolled from her eyes and dripped onto the T-shirt she’d slept in.

  “I thought you’d be appalled that I’d done this blog thing. I thought you’d be disgusted with me for being so weak. I thought you’d be embarrassed and . . .”

  Natalie moved close quickly to grab Grace’s face and make her look into her eyes. “I will never be embarrassed to be your sister. And I don’t think you’re weak at all. I think you’ve shown remarkable strength, and I’m proud of that. I don’t know if I’d have been as strong. I hate that someone has found a way to turn that against you. Believe me, when we find out who sold you out to Philly News and Views Online, they will feel the full force of the Flynns.”

  “What did Mom say?” Grace wiped her face with the back of her hand, which she then wiped on the blue comforter. “Wait, where is Mom?”

  “She said she had something she needed to do this morning and asked me to keep you company.”

  “Did she say what?”

  “Nope. Just that she might be gone for a while.” Natalie leaned over and grabbed the box of tissues from the bedside table and handed it to Grace.

  “You don’t think she left town in a cloud of humiliation, do you?” Grace was only half-kidding.

  “Not a chance. But I’ll tell you this: she sounded really pissed off.”

  “Oh God,” Grace groaned. “She went into the office. She called Timothy yesterday . . .”

  “The IT guy at the firm?”

  Grace nodded. “We’re pretty sure someone hacked into my office computer, and that’s how they found out about the blog.” When she saw Natalie’s frown, Grace hastened to add, “I didn’t really use that computer to post on the blog, but there were some references to it. Like I kept my passwords in a file.” She sheepishly added, “And I did use it to work out the initial introduction to TheLast2No, so if someone had my password . . .”

  “. . . this someone would know that you set up the blog in the first place.”

  “Yup.” She wiggled her fingers. “My prints are all over it.”

  “And do we have any thoughts on who this someone might be?”

  “The obvious is Amber. She’s the sneaky type.”

  “You don’t suspect Zach?” Natalie asked.

  “I thought about that, but the truth is he’s too over me to do something like that. He’s not interested in what I’m doing. Plus he wouldn’t care. I’d be willing to bet big money that Amber’s behind this, and when she told Zach, he laughed and said something like, ‘Yeah, my ex-wife’s a loser,’ and promptly forgot about it.” Grace shrugged. “He just doesn’t care enough to get worked up over something like this.”

  “But you think she does?”

  “No question about it. She can’t dig her claws in deep enough or often enough. It’s her, not him.”

  Natalie appeared skeptical. “You don’t think he’d use something like this to urge you out of the firm?”

  “Well, if he did, he’d have been right.”

  “What do you mean, he’d be right?” Skepticism turned into indignation. “That’s your firm.”

  Grace shook her head. “Not anymore. I can’t go back there. I just can’t take any more, Nat. I’ve been dealing with this shit for months. Got myself to a place where I tried to let it all roll off my back, but that sanctuary is gone now. I just don’t want to do it anymore. You can’t imagine what it’s been like.”

  “I get it. At least, I think I do. But still . . .” Natalie’s voice softened.

  “Put yourself in my place. Imagine being publicly betrayed by the man you loved. Your husband of ten years. Well, almost ten years. He’s having an affair right under your nose, and you refuse to see it while everyone around you knows what’s going on. Humiliating enough?” Grace’s laugh was harsh and held no touch of humor. “No, of course not. You try to cope by looking for a safe place where you can howl and gnash your teeth, and when you don’t find one, you make one and invite other women to join you and do their own howling. And it helped, that community, that sense of not being quite so alone. I had no idea there were so many people hurting.” Grace stopped, remembering she had to shut down the blog, the sooner the better. “And then someone finds out that you’re behind this and makes sure the entire world knows that you—who have spent your adult life building an admirable, I’m even gonna say respected, career in a professional field—you are a pathetic whiner who can’t get over the fact that the man you love dumped you and turned you into someone who couldn’t handle the rejection and you had to band together with a bunch of other losers.”

  “Stop saying ‘loser.’ You’re not a loser.”

  “I am in the opinion of the Philadelphia legal community. Have you seen the comments on Philly News and Views Online? Everyone knows I’ve been hiding behind a fake name. Everyone knows I did not deal with the end of my marriage in a mature fashion. If you read some of the comments I made on my blog, you’ll think I’m unstable. Last night I read some of the things I’ve written, and I cringed. I don’t sound intelligent or rational. Anyone reading that shit will know I’d lost it for a while.” Grace shook her head slowly. “I’m done in Philly, Nat. How can I look anyone in the eye after this? No one will ever take me seriously again. Not my clients, not the judges, not my fellow lawyers—a bunch of whom were among the commenters, by the way.”

  When Natalie opened her mouth to speak, Grace shut her down. “Don’t bother. There’s nothing you or anyone else can say that would change my mind. I’m moving on. I’m leaving Flynn Law.”

  “You’re letting Zach win.”

  “Zach has already won.” Grace grabbed a tissue and blew her nose. “I’m finished.”

  Chapter Eleven

  NATALIE

  By the time she’d picked up Daisy from day care on her way home from Maggie’s, Natalie was exhausted. Her sister had gotten herself into deep waters—not for the first time in her life—and the bailout had apparently just begun. Their mother had returned home around four in the afternoon, and when Grace had asked Maggie where she’d been, she’d just said, “Not now,” and gone upstairs. They’d heard the shower running in the master bathroom for what seemed like a long time, then . . . nothing. Before leaving to get Daisy, Natalie’d stood outside Maggie’s door for a moment, then, hearing nothing from the other side, knocked softly. When there had been no response, she cracked the door just a bit and saw her mother sound asleep, lying crosswise on the bed, a pillow under her head, her favorite soft throw covering her to her shoulders. Natalie’d closed the door quietly and crept down the steps.

  “She’s dead to the world,” Natalie told Grace. “Out cold.”

  “I doubt she slept last night. She was really agitated.” Grace looked remorseful. “I really did it this time, didn’t I.” It wasn’t a question. She started to say something else when her phone buzzed on the kitchen counter, and she sighed. “Someone else wanting to know if it’s true: Am I really Annie Boleyn? And for all the years I’ve practiced in this city, not one person has called or emailed to offer support.”

  Natalie picked up the phone and turned it off. “If you want to speak to anyone, you can call them. In the meantime, it’s just more aggravation. Leave it off.”

  Grace nodded as she walked Natalie to the door. “Thanks, Nat. I don’t say it often enough, but I love you. I don’t deserve a sister as good as you.”

  “Shut up.” Natalie gave her a hug. “I love you, too, and neither of us say it enough.”

  “Give Daisy a big hug for me.”

  “Will do. Now get some sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow about wh
at comes next. For the rest of the day, and tonight, let’s just take a very deep breath and let it all go for a while, okay?”

  Grace nodded, standing in the doorway as Natalie made her way to her car. She stopped midway along the path and called back over her shoulder. “Yoga.”

  “You think it would help?” Grace called back.

  “It couldn’t hurt.”

  Natalie took her own advice and rolled out her mat on the family room floor after she got home and started dinner. Daisy had her own little mat from their mommy-and-me yoga classes last summer, and she rolled it out next to Natalie’s and managed to keep up for all of ten minutes before her wandering eye settled on a stuffed llama she’d left on the sofa, and she decided he should be doing yoga instead of her. Natalie continued her own routine while Daisy chatted happily nearby with her silent friend.

  Once they’d gotten through dinner, bath, and story time, Natalie tucked in her sleepy girl and tiptoed down the stairs. It had been an emotional day, and while thirty minutes of yoga had helped, she was still a little hyped from spending the day with Grace. She cleaned the kitchen before turning on her laptop and reading first her emails, then, belatedly, her horoscope for the day.

  “The trials of the morning will extend through the next several days, all of which will have their own challenges.”

  “Swell,” she muttered. “Like I couldn’t have figured that out on my own.”

  “There will be a break in the clouds, but you might not like what you see at first. Trust the universe to bring you what you need and keep faith that decisions made by others will eventually lead you to your destiny.”