I know damn well it’s Cole, but I haven’t told Kat about that yet. After last night’s squabble, the peace between us feels tentative and precious, and I’m reluctant to do anything to break it. Maybe if I ignore him, he’ll go away.
“Are we expecting company?” Kat asks. “Maybe your parents decided to hang around.”
The knock comes again. It’s a nice knock, polite but firm and determined.
“Reporting for kitten duty,” Cole says, when I finally open the door. “Am I early?”
Kat flashes me a glance part shock, part betrayal.
“No, you’re right on time. Sorry. We were up late. My parents came to visit.”
“Change of plans? If your parents are here . . .”
I’m still blocking the door. Across the street, Thelma Willis is staring. Maybe she thinks I’ve suddenly come by a boyfriend. More likely, given the lack of men going in and out of my house, she knows Cole is a social worker and thinks I’m the one in trouble.
“They’re gone. Or at least leaving. They stayed at Benny’s.” I step away from the door and wave him in.
Even after I close the door behind him, the room seems brighter. I feel my mood lifting, despite Kat’s hostile silence.
“I love Benny’s.”
“I rather doubt my parents will be sharing your opinion. Their tastes are a little more—sophisticated.” Even as I say this, I know it isn’t true. I’m describing the parents I thought I knew, not the adventure-embracing seniors out to seize the day.
Cole gravitates directly to the box of kittens. “So these are the guilty culprits. Damn cute little sleep stealers, they are.” He runs his hand over the tiny bodies before glancing at Kat. “You look better.”
“I’m complying with everything. I didn’t realize you’d be checking in personally.”
“Completely unofficial capacity,” he says, keeping his tone light. “I’m just the kitten babysitter while Rae takes you to your appointments.”
“Well, then. I’ll go get ready.” Kat leans forward and lifts the TV tray to set it aside, freezing in the act with an audible gasp of pain.
“Let me help you.” I start toward her, but she warns me off with a gesture.
“What do you think I do when you’re not here? Or are you spying then, too? Watching on nanny cam, maybe?”
I flinch away from the impact of her resurrected anger, watching helplessly as she gets to her feet and shuffles into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
An awkward silence follows in her wake.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee or something?” My voice is too loud. My brain is split between Kat, angry and hurt, barricaded in the bedroom, and the fact that I’m wearing a giant T-shirt and baggy leggings and once again have failed to comb my hair.
“I’m here to help. No need to entertain me.” Cole has donned the persona of Professional Kitten Wrangler, as if he’s a paid professional like the plumber, or maybe the Orkin man, come to eliminate a plague of spiders.
It takes a lot of energy to refrain from explanations about how I’m a woman who usually showers and combs her hair, but I manage it, figuring there’s no need to draw attention to the obvious. I focus on a short kitten tutorial instead.
We’re standing side by side at the sink, me intent on filling a bottle with a funnel, when I feel his gaze on me. His face is close to mine, so close, his eyes focused on my lips. Heat rises from my toes to the top of my head and on up into the shafts of my hair. I’ll be rocket woman if he keeps this up, flames shooting out of my feet and lifting me off the floor.
If I think there’s a kiss in the works, though, I couldn’t be more wrong.
His finger traces my upper lip. “You’ve got a milk mustache.”
The bottle clatters into the sink, both of my hands flying up to cover my mouth. He catches them in midflight, traps them in his. His touch burns through me, more fuel to the fire. His face is solemn, but amusement lights his eyes. “Every girl should have one. You could start a fashion trend.”
I don’t know where to look. His lips are too close, his eyes too intent. A visible pulse beats at the hollow of his throat. My knees feel weak.
And then it occurs to me how this will look to Kat if she comes out of the bedroom.
“The kittens are hungry,” I croak, pulling my hands away and turning back to the bottle.
They support my claim with a crescendo of meows. My hands are shaking, and I drop the bottle again, this time splashing formula all over the sink. If Cole thinks I’m an incompetent idiot, though, he doesn’t show it. He fills the second bottle and follows me across the room. Steadfastly ignoring my couch bed, which seems suddenly far too intimate, I plunk down on the floor by the kittens. Cole follows suit, sitting easily cross-legged, yoga-style, and accepting the bit of fluff I place in his hands with great care.
“Have you named them yet?”
I shake my head. “They’re so fragile. I get too attached. It’s a little easier if I don’t name them.”
“Does that really work?”
“No. I just tell myself that it does.”
He’s a natural and really doesn’t need much instruction. Doesn’t even raise an eyebrow when I bring up the burping and the post-meal rubdown.
“Makes sense” is all he says.
We settle into quiet, each feeding a kitten, and when I reach for my embarrassment of a moment ago, it has evaporated into a peaceful stillness.
Until the doorknob rattles and Kat emerges. She’s fully dressed, for the first time since I brought her home, in expensive blue jeans and a silky blouse. Her eyes are made up to give her an exotic Eastern look. Her hair is spiked up with gel. She doesn’t smile or make eye contact, just heads for the door.
“You almost ready?” Her voice reminds me of my mother’s, mornings when I lost track of time and was still dawdling around in pajamas when it was time for the school bus. Which is pretty much what I’m doing today, only I’m the driver, and I wouldn’t be dawdling if Kat hadn’t accepted the kittens.
“Give me a minute.”
I hate to leave the two of them alone together, but there’s nothing to be done about it. For that reason, and also because we’re going to be late to Kat’s first appointment, my grooming is minimal. Clean clothes. A splash of water on my face. A wet comb dragged through my hair.
When I come out of the bathroom, Cole is still feeding the kittens. Kat is nowhere to be seen.
“I presume she’s waiting in the car,” he says, in response to my unspoken question. “Either that, or she’s walking to her appointment.”
“Damn it, she’ll hurt herself.”
I grab my keys and head for the door.
“She’s a grown woman,” Cole says behind me. “She gets to make choices.”
I’m already on my way out and pretend I didn’t hear him. Kat sits in the passenger seat, door open. The walker waits on the pavement beside the car. Her face is tight around the lips, and I know she’s hurting. She doesn’t look at me while I fold up the walker and deposit it in the backseat.
“I should have warned you.”
“You think?” She keeps her eyes fixed straight ahead.
“He said he’d help. I didn’t know how else to get you to all of your appointments.”
“Because of the appointments that he said I have to go to. He’s like—the brain police. Or the parole officer for mental cases, and you just invited him over.”
“It’s not like that, Kat. He’s trying to help.”
“Is he? You really don’t think he gets some big jolly out of making people do things?”
“He gets a little intense. But no, I don’t think he gets off on control.” I’m not entirely sure I believe what I’m saying. Cole doesn’t fit into any box or category, and I don’t know where to file him.
Kat doesn’t answer, but she’s thinking plenty. Fortunately it’s not far to the clinic, because by the time we get there the silence in the car is so loud I can’t think straight. Nei
ther one of us says a word while I haul out the walker and Kat gets herself out of the car. I don’t offer to help. When she checks in to reception she asks, “Do you think somebody might be able to run me over to physical therapy from here after my appointment? Rae has other commitments.”
The receptionist smiles. “Of course. No problem.”
I open my mouth to protest, but I’m not quick enough.
“Go home. Hang out with your boyfriend.” Kat’s voice carves through me.
There’s no defense I can muster against her, and I stumble out of the waiting room, feeling like every eye in the clinic is following me, sure that all of the patients and staff are whispering behind my back.
Look at her run away, softhearted little fool. When is she ever going to learn?
Outside the air is heavy and hot, trapped beneath a leaden sky. It feels thick in my lungs, each breath a conscious effort. I can’t sit in my car and wait, because now the tears are falling, and somebody will see me. The last thing in the world that I need right now is pity. And I certainly don’t need to fuel whatever gossip is already circulating about me and my activities. Bernie is out of the question. Home is no longer a sanctuary.
I drive to the only other refuge I know.
But even my wishing beach looks different. The water reflects back a flat and tarnished sky. A dank, fishy smell of decaying vegetation rises up from slimy rocks at the edge of the water. The stones, usually a varied kaleidoscope of colors and textures, look uniform and gray. When I bend to pick one up, it feels gritty and wrong. I drop it with a little clatter, realizing that there is not a stone in the world that can wish away all that is wrong with Kat, or with me, for that matter.
Facts are facts.
Kat tried to kill herself. She chose me as her weapon, not completely randomly, but because of some expression on my face, something about me, Rae, that fueled her anger. All the time I’ve been believing we experienced this incredible moment of bonding over her almost death, she’s been quietly hating me.
Snowflake princess.
Fragile. Precious. Selfish. Avoiding so much of life out of fear that it will break me.
Well, here’s the news bulletin, princess. Life breaks everybody, long before death comes to sweep up the fragments.
I try to separate the barbs from my heart, but they’ve grown into the flesh, fused with the essence of me. Kat is right. It’s time to grow up, accept the harsh realities, and stop wishing for things to be other than they are. I’m too tired. It’s all too much.
What I ought to do, what I need to do, is move Kat out. Give back the kittens. Maybe even give notice at work and go do something entirely different. Fast food, secretarial. I’m a horrible cook, and I’m hell on electronics, but maybe I could still flip burgers.
The sky weighs on me, and I sink down onto a small boulder to rest.
My eyes drift half closed, and the world shifts back into magic. Colors appear where there were none, dancing on the water. Stones elongate into curious shapes. A tiny puff of wind brushes my cheek. A dragonfly alights on a stone, only inches from my right foot. Its wings are black lace, its body white.
As a child I had a dragonfly pendant with a prism at the center. I loved the way light refracted through that glass bauble, how it turned an ordinary world into rainbows. My heart swells with remembered magic. The dragonfly shimmers through a haze of sudden tears.
Something shifts inside me, a physical sensation, tentative and only half-realized.
Name your emotions, Rae.
There is heat, but it’s not anger. A vein of sadness, but it isn’t grief. It’s elusive and fleeting and slips away before I can grasp it. The dragonfly flutters its wings and darts away over the surface of the water.
Kat is waiting outside when I get to the hospital. Neither one of us says anything while she navigates her way into the car and I stow her walker in the backseat.
We have thirty minutes before her counseling appointment, but I drive her directly there rather than suggesting that we swing through Taco Bell for lunch.
It’s Kat who finally speaks.
“I thought maybe you wouldn’t come back for me. Not that I’d blame you,” she says, before I can apologize for the sin I didn’t know I’d committed. “There I go again, being a bitch. Of course you’d pick me up. Even if you hated me, you’d never just leave me there. You’re not like that.”
My fingers tighten on the wheel while I digest all of this. I’m not sure if it’s good or bad, what she’s saying. Maybe it means I’m a good person. Maybe it means I’m a doormat, prepared to be trampled by a multitude of feet without standing up for myself.
“What was all that?” I ask, finally. “So much hate. Last night. This morning. The switch keeps flipping with you, and I can’t figure out where I’m at.”
“Honestly?”
“Probably lies would be more comfortable. But yes. Honestly.”
“I don’t know. Don’t look at me like that. It’s the truth, Rae. I open my mouth, and the words spill out and part of me is standing back in horror, wondering what the hell I’m doing.”
“Maybe the parts of you need to start talking to each other.”
“Maybe I need to see a counselor or something.” A smile lights her face and vanishes again.
“Good thing I know exactly where to find one.”
“Rae.” Her hand settles on my arm. “Don’t hate me.”
“I don’t hate you. I’m hurt. I’m confused. I don’t know what I am, other than that I can’t go on stepping on land mines every time I turn around.” I pull into the lot outside the counseling building and park the car. “If you don’t want to stay with me, you could ask your counselor about the crisis house they have here.”
Her fingers, still resting on my arm, tighten. She shakes her head. “No. Please. I know I’m imposing on you and your kindness, but I can’t. I won’t.”
“I thought we were friends,” I say, very softly.
“We are! I told you, I don’t know why I keep saying hateful things to you.” Her fingers slide down my arm and intertwine with mine, still resting on the steering wheel. I don’t know what to do with this. I want to pull my hand away. I want to hug her. I want to get out of the car and make a run for it.
What I do is sit perfectly still, staring at our interlaced fingers. My skin is brown, tanned by the sun. Hers is pale and lightly freckled. Her fingernails, once manicured, are chipped and broken. Mine are neatly cut and unvarnished. She’s wearing long sleeves, but in my mind’s eye X-ray vision I can see the thin white scars running up her wrists.
“Your parents,” she says, her voice tentative.
“My parents are a force of nature. Like the tides.”
“Have you ever thought about . . . well, about what they assumed. Us. As more than friends.”
Heat rises to my cheeks, my eyes fall, grazing across the curves of her body on the way down. The soft swell of her breast, the narrowing at her waist, the flare of her hip.
Nope. Nothing. None of it moves me to anything but embarrassment. I remember Cole, and the way my knees wobbled when I thought he was going to kiss me. I shake my head. My throat is dry and tight. Her cool fingers touch my cheek, trace the line of my jaw, then fall to her lap when I refuse to look her in the eye. “Me, either. But I think sometimes it would be easier.”
“Was it awful, with your husband?” I ask.
“Not awful—just complicated.”
I do look up now, to catch an even deeper shadow in her eyes. “Did you ever press charges?”
“Me? For what?”
“Well, if he hit you, or—”
“Tom? Lay a hand on me? Where on earth did you get that idea?”
Reality shifts around us. “There were some things you said. And the way you left him.”
“I was too weak to stick around and see how much I hurt him.” Again that swift smile that never reaches her eyes. “I’m a coward. And as a coward, I’m going to ask you to please not make me do
this counseling thing.”
“It’s not up to me.”
Her face hardens. “Right. It’s the mandate of your boyfriend. That Cole person.”
“Actually, it’s up to you. Nobody’s holding a gun to your head.”
“Did you just . . .” She laughs, a short, sharp burst of surprise. “I can’t believe you said that. To a suicidal person.”
“It’s time. You going in there, or coming home with me?”
“If I come home with you, then Cole will know, and he’ll start digging again, and maybe he’ll pack me off to bedlam. I’m going. I’m going.” She takes a deep breath, runs her fingers through her hair, and opens the door.
I fetch the walker.
“Don’t forget to come back for me.”
“I’ll be here. Lunch and an oxycodone and express taxi service from Rae, all waiting for you.”
“I love you, Rae. In the purely platonic BFF sort of a way.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“Do.”
I watch her shuffle into the building before driving away to find us both some lunch, feeling unexpectedly at peace with myself and the world.
Chapter Twelve
Saturday morning dawns clear and bright, calm, with no chance of rain. If the weatherman can be believed, the evening will be perfect for a bonfire and an Oscar Event. Not that he actually mentions the Oscar Event, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. It’s become big enough in my head that I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole town of Colville and half the city of Spokane showed up.
The weather forecast elicits mixed emotions from me, ranging from anxiety through anger and avoidance to expectation and pleasure. Historically, parties have worked out about as well for me as shiny new electronic devices. Horrible weather would be too bad, so sad, but it would also offer me a graceful exit strategy.
I have one last hope of evasion.
Kat. The two of us have spent the last few days in a state of truce, both of us trying a little too hard. If there were a sitcom called The Nice Sisters, we’d be the stars, oozing politeness and consideration until I want to scream unfamiliar curse words at the top of my lungs. The emotional subtext, absorbed through my pores and processed by that internal receptor I’m supposed to have, is a dark mix of jealousy, love, hope, despair, and an indefinable restlessness.
I Wish You Happy: A Novel Page 14
