Kat's Nine Lives

by Laina Villeneuve

  “That was so much better! We are definitely walking in that way, right honey?” Evan said.

  “It is much better,” Jeremy agreed.

  “You don’t need me anymore?” Wendy asked.

  “We’ll let you get back to preparing our scrumptious dinner,” Evan answered.

  Wendy excused herself, wishing that she had a reason to ask Kat to return to the kitchen with her. What had that been on the porch? She felt silly for getting swept up in the wedding mood, and she very much wanted to ask Kat what had been going through her mind. Not that they would have been able to talk.

  Wendy found Kat’s mom still seated at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper, a donut in one hand and Diet Coke within reach of the other. Suppressing the urge to ask what effect her diet had on her blood sugar, Wendy got to work on the taco bar for the rehearsal dinner.

  She could feel that Millie spent as much time watching her as reading the paper. Was she thinking of a way to reengage the conversation about open marriages? While Wendy was curious, she didn’t want to make Kat uncomfortable by prompting her mother to share stories that would embarrass Kat.

  Wendy smacked a head of iceberg lettuce against the counter to core it and looked up to find Millie studying her intently.

  “Someone as attractive as you are, who cooks like you do, it’s a wonder you’re still single.”

  Wendy smiled politely, not sure how to respond.

  “Though Kat said that she introduced you to Erin?”

  “We’ve been out a few times.”

  “I thought it would have been so nice if things had sparked between Kat and Erin.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “There was never any spark with her and her ex-husband. You can tell when people enjoy each other, and they didn’t. At least Kat didn’t enjoy being near him. I hoped that she’d find a partner to enjoy, man or woman.”

  Millie’s frankness surprised Wendy. She was taken aback by the level of confidence she entrusted to Wendy and though she was curious to hear more, it felt disloyal to Kat to press.

  Millie took another bite of her donut and sighed. “I worry that her dad and I ruined her by encouraging her to be sexual. I thought I was correcting my parents’ mistakes by being different. Progressive, you know? When I was young my parents believed you only ever slept with your husband or wife. Of course they changed their minds later, after Clyde and I were married. Even before that, it never made sense to me why you wouldn’t test sexual compatibility before making a lifetime commitment. So that’s how I raised my daughter and look where it got her.”

  Wendy grabbed cheese from the refrigerator. “It seems like you did okay to me.”

  “The two of you seem close. I just wish she would allow that closeness to blossom into something else. She has always guarded herself. I’m sure that makes an intimate relationship difficult.”

  Wendy didn’t know how to answer that. It certainly seemed like she was saying she wished Kat was interested in her. Through the window, Wendy could see the rest of the wedding party arriving to practice their parts. Millie followed her gaze, and the conversation ceased while they watched Jeremy and Evan’s friends. It felt like glancing at a muted TV in the corner of a bar when you’re not really sure what to say.

  With the impeccable timing of a server, Kat swept into the kitchen through the back door. “How did it get this late!” She stopped suddenly and shut her eyes, taking a long, deep breath. “It smells fantastic in here.” When she opened them, her hazel eyes landed on Wendy.

  “I’m surprised you think so. It’s full of green stuff.”

  “It smells good enough I might have tried it.”

  Wendy wrinkled her brow.

  “If I didn’t have bell rehearsal.”

  “Oh. I don’t know why I thought you’d be here.”

  “Maybe because normal people come home from work and stay home. They don’t go back out to their place of employ at the end of their day,” Millie offered.

  “Sorry. I really wish I could stay.” Kat gave her a quick hug and whispered only for her to hear, “I can send my mom upstairs if she’s in your way.”

  “We’re good,” Wendy whispered back.

  “That worries me.” Kat hugged her again, said goodbye to her mother and grabbed her purse, waving to them as she ducked out of the kitchen.

  Wendy glanced up to see Kat get in her SUV. It sat with the back-up lights illuminated for longer than Wendy expected, then in a flash, roared in reverse down the drive. She smiled in surprise. Self-conscious, she glanced at Millie, chagrined to find her watching her.

  “Interesting,” she said, her gaze falling back to the paper in front of her.

  Somehow, Wendy knew she was talking about her, not the article she was reading. Maybe because she, too, found what she was feeling “interesting.” Why, when Kat had just set her up with someone beautiful and most certainly lesbian, did she find her thoughts lingering on Kat instead?

  Chapter Fourteen

  What was she thinking? She’d almost kissed Wendy. There in front of Jeremy and Evan, all Kat was thinking about was what Wendy’s lips would feel like pressed to hers. She’d practiced standing at the altar with Jack. She remembered the minister prompting “and then you’ll kiss.” Her eyes were on the minister, not Jack. His repeated “and then you’ll kiss” made her realize that he expected them to practice the kiss. The wedding party had laughed. Jack, always so good natured, leaned in for a chaste peck.

  That wasn’t what she was picturing with Wendy. She had wanted to lose herself in Wendy’s lips. She wanted to press more than just her lips up against her. Her body thrummed at the imagined contact.

  “Should we try it again?”

  Kat couldn’t place the voice. Her eyes were closed, and she could see Wendy standing in front of her, and she very much wanted a chance to try again.

  “Kat?”

  It was quiet. The music had stopped. Her players had stopped. She blinked back to the present. She was at rehearsal. “I’m so sorry. I completely spaced out there. Let’s take a quick break. Get a drink, and we’ll come back fresh. Start from the top…”

  The group of three teen girls pulled off the gloves that protected the handbells from the oil on their hands and immediately pulled out their phones, eyes glued to the screens as they walked toward the drinking fountain and bathroom.

  Kat pulled out her own phone, her thoughts still on Wendy and the way she had looked at her on the porch. She could have approached standing in for one of the grooms like her goofy, carefree teenagers, who seemed never to take anything seriously, but she had been utterly serious. Of course, there was how she’d been thinking about kissing Miranda when she said she’d kissed a woman before. She felt like she needed to explain that she’d kissed more than one woman.

  She had never called Wendy without a business-related question. Her thumb hovered over the green phone icon. She only had a minute before the girls returned. She hit call.

  Wendy answered immediately. “Hi there, sunshine!”

  Her voice was rich and warm in Kat’s ear, and her body reverberated in response like a struck handbell. “I’m sorry I had to leave this evening, especially since my mom was downstairs with you.”

  “I told you not to worry about it, remember?”

  Kat heard the clatter of dishes in the background. “Am I totally interrupting you?”

  “Everyone is eating. I’m plating my amazing brownies. You’re keeping me company.”

  “Oh, good. My mom finally left you alone?”

  “Jeremy and Evan insisted they join the wedding party for dinner. Even though they said to set it up as a buffet, Travis offered to help. They were so charmed, they invited him and your parents to join the party.”

  “I wish you hadn’t told me that. I was already terribly distracted tonight, and that’s not going to help.”

  “What’s on your mind?”

  Kat held her breath for a moment. Could she really say what was on her
mind? “I can’t stop thinking about the whole awkward ‘then you’ll kiss’ thing that happened during the rehearsal.”

  “Oh.”

  The girls came back from their break. Their loud banter came to an abrupt halt when they saw that Kat was on the phone. She waved them in. “Do you think you’ll still be there in an hour?” Kat asked.

  “I could be.”

  “I don’t want to hold you up if you were wrapping up. I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do before the wedding tomorrow.”

  “I’m in good shape on my prep. And…I’d like to see you again.”

  “Good.” Kat turned away from the girls. “Then we’re agreed. Save me a brownie?”

  “I can’t make any promises on that, but I’ll try.”

  Kat tucked her phone in her purse and turned back to the group.

  “Was that your boyfriend?” sixteen-year-old Kristelle asked.

  “My caterer friend. Let’s start back at the beginning and take it at a slower tempo.”

  “But you wish he was your boyfriend,” Kristelle’s little sister, Jasmine said. “You’re blushing.”

  “I’m not blushing.”

  “You really are,” Kristelle agreed.

  “A boyfriend is exactly what you need!” Sunni said. “Then you wouldn’t have to live with your parents!”

  “I’m not living with my parents because I don’t have a boyfriend. Besides, my caterer friend is a girl, not a boy.”

  “Then you can live with your girlfriend,” Sunni said.

  How easily Sunni switched from boyfriend to girlfriend showed Kat how this generation differed from hers, but though she wanted to move on from the subject, she could not let the dependent jibe slide. “My parents have a huge house. I’m helping them out by living there since they’re getting older, and getting Travis set up for school. I don’t need a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Can we please get back to practice now? I’d like to get out of here before my kid graduates from high school.”

  When she glanced at the music, she could have sworn she heard one of them whisper that she’d be less crabby if she was getting laid. She bit back the urge to tell them that she didn’t need sex to make her happy and was surprised to feel her body suggesting that she might revisit that long-held position.

  * * *

  “Sit down, lady! Have a drink!” Evan hollered after Wendy had delivered the brownies.

  The wedding party was already raving about her triple-chocolate recipe and complaining about how they were not going to fit into their wedding attire the next day if they didn’t stop at one.

  “I know there’s still that beer you left in my daughter’s Frigidaire,” Millie said. “Clyde, grab it for her.”

  He rose and bowed slightly before he walked to the back door.

  “You didn’t have to send him,” Wendy said.

  “That’s what husbands are for,” she said. “Isn’t that why you’re getting married?”

  The group laughed. “Plus, you needed a place to sit.” Millie angled the chair next to her.

  “I don’t want to take Clyde’s spot.”

  “Why not? We’re not new lovebirds. We’re happiest when we’re not right on top of each other.”

  Jeremy coughed on a bite of brownie, and Evan patted him on the back. “We’ve been together for fifty years, and he’s still happiest when I am on top of him.”

  “Stop!” Jeremy said, temporarily silencing Evan with a kiss.

  The look that they shared brought back the image of Kat standing on the porch. She blinked in surprise at the way her stomach fluttered from the memory. She was happy to step away for a moment to grab a chair from the garage as she composed herself.

  “How long have you two been married?” Evan was asking when she returned. Clyde returned at the same time. He handed an opened beer to Wendy and a Diet Coke to Millie.

  “This September, it will be forty…” he looked at Millie.

  “Forty-three,” she supplied.

  “What’s your secret?”

  Clearly enjoying the attention focused on them, Clyde took Millie’s hand and raised it to his lips before he expounded on the things that had kept their marriage strong.

  Wendy was intrigued at the drastic difference she saw between the couple bickering in the kitchen and the one smiling peacefully at each other. Likening them to the public persona Kat wore, she never would have suspected that their life was anything but picture-perfect.

  Millie chimed in with the fact that neither of their families had given the marriage more than a year, yet all this time later, they had proved them all wrong.

  Jeremy and Evan stood and took the opportunity to thank their friends and family for their genuine support. Wendy stepped away, giving them privacy for their goodbyes. To her surprise many sought her out to thank her for dinner, saying that they looked forward to the wedding meal.

  “Don’t tell me I missed the party!” Kat said striding onto the patio.

  “We old men have got to get some sleep before our big day!” Evan said. They embraced, and Evan quickly introduced her to his guests making sure they all knew that she was responsible for their having the perfect place to get married.

  Wendy stepped away to grab a bus bin to clear the dessert dishes. She was happy to have a task as Kat chatted briefly about the music. She stacked the dishes quietly, enjoying the melody of Kat’s voice as she tried to deflect their compliments on her brilliance in helping them pull everything together at the last minute.

  “You say that, but Wendy has done way more of the heavy lifting on this one,” Kat said. Wendy looked up and found herself caught in Kat’s gaze.

  “You two are both so amazing,” Evan agreed.

  Jeremy pulled at Evan’s elbow, leading the party toward their cars. Kat walked with them, and Wendy gathered the last of the plates. Wendy was agitated, anxious to be alone with her. She glanced up, impatient for everyone to leave and give her a chance to discuss what Kat had meant when she had begun to ask how Erin had known she’d kissed a woman before.

  “Allow me to assist,” Clyde said.

  “Oh!” Wendy’s hand flew to her chest. “You startled me.”

  He carefully placed some plates in her bin. “I do apologize. Millie sent me out to help.”

  “There’s not much to do at all.”

  His smile revealed the crooked eyetooth that Kat said her sister had been proud to inherit. “Perhaps she thought if I offered aid, you could be persuaded to leave some of those brownies here.”

  Wendy laughed. “I’d be happy to. I was going to leave some for Kat, too. I wondered if she’d eaten.”

  “I imagine not. She gets lost in the tasks of the day, much like I do. When I met Millie, I insisted that I did not need her. She did not listen, and she would not take no for an answer. I did not think I would ever have a life mate, but she showed me how much sweeter life is when your heart has a companion. I fear that my daughter is much like me, and I don’t know that there is anyone as patient or persistent as Millie to convince Kat to open her heart.”

  Kat gave her final hugs and crossed the patio to Wendy and Clyde. “Sounds like everything went smoothly and that everything is set for tomorrow.”

  “Indeed.” Clyde picked up Wendy’s bus bin. “Shall I take this to the kitchen?”

  “That would be great. And I’ll get you more brownies for Millie.”

  “Brownies! There are more brownies? Everyone was talking about how great they were.”

  “I have more of everything if you’d like some dinner first.”

  “Trying to take care of me? Hello, by the way.” She hugged Wendy and whispered into her neck, “Thank you for staying.”

  Unsure of how to respond, Wendy headed for the kitchen, Clyde’s comments about Kat mixing with what it felt like to have Kat’s arms around her.

  “Do you trust me to put together a few tacos for you before you get into the brownies? I can do something pretty close to your bean and cheese wrap.”

  K
at scrunched up her face. “I guess I should eat something nutritious since I had a bag of chips for lunch.”

  Wendy placed several brownies on a clean plate. “A bag of chips? Maybe Travis is right about you needing me around to cook for you.” She handed the brownies to Clyde.

  He tipped his head toward her in a slight bow as he accepted the plate. “Thank you. Unless you require my assistance, I believe I shall retire.”

  “We’re good,” Kat said without looking at him.

  He appeared to accept the dismissal. He raised his eyebrows to Wendy and bowed again before he took his leave.

  “I’m guessing chicken, not beef, for your taco.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “The reunion. You had the rubbery chicken, not the petrified beef.”

  That brought a slight smile to Kat’s lips. Wendy could practically see the thoughts spinning in Kat’s head and would have loved for her simply to say everything she thought instead of playing the game of saying only what she thought was appropriate. But remembering Clyde’s words, she focused her attention on making two chicken tacos wondering if she could sneak in more than meat and cheese. She could wait for Kat. She had the feeling it would be worth it.

  * * *

  “So I have a question.” Kat swallowed a bite of Wendy’s amazing taco. Kat eyed what looked like roasted pepper and reluctantly left it in place. She put on a ton of grated cheese and a healthy dollop of sour cream, and took a bite. She had to agree with Travis that Wendy’s food was more flavorful than her bean and cheese burritos.

  “Oh, good. Because I do too.”

  They sat across from each other at the kitchen table. “I figured, but I asked first.”

  “You haven’t asked yet.”

  Because Wendy was teasing her, Kat took an enormous bite of taco and made Wendy wait while she chewed. “This is delicious.”

  “Glad you like it.”

  “I saw what you put in, by the way.”