Saturday was only a day away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was a tidy little four-room house in a retirement village. Patrick’s father had always been a tidy man, much like Patrick. The furniture was old, shabby, from a long-ago era. Tears pricked Kate’s eyes when she ran her hand over the back of the sofa. How many times she and Patrick had cuddled and necked in the corner. It had to be fifty years old at least, yet it wasn’t junk, nor was it an antique. It was just old, shabby, and full of stains.
In many ways the box of a house was a memorial to Patrick. His pictures were everywhere. Kate wished now she’d done more, but the elder Starr had been a private person and not one to show interest or love for anyone. She’d done her best, sending cards, small gifts on Father’s Day, his birthday, and Christmas. She’d sent the girls’ school pictures faithfully, even though he never responded.
She felt like an intruder as she walked through the house. It was hers now. Maybe she shouldn’t rent it. What in the world would she do with all of her father-in-law’s belongings? Send them off to California? Store them in the basement or the garage until she died herself and the girls had to go through her things? Better to leave the house empty, pay the taxes and insurance, and thank God she was able to do it.
She busied herself then, unpacking, washing the linens for the bed, and dusting. She ran the dishes she thought she would need through the dishwasher. It was eleven o’clock when she pushed the upright Hoover vacuum cleaner back into the closet.
Kate scanned her appearance in the bathroom mirror. She looked presentable enough to go to Pizza Hut for her dinner and to the 7-Eleven for her breakfast. She ate, showered, and was in bed by twelve-thirty, but she couldn’t sleep. The street outside bathed the front bedroom in a yellowish glow even though the white shade was drawn to the sill. Patrick’s picture glared at her from the dresser. She got up, turned the photograph facedown, and got back into bed. Still she couldn’t sleep. She got up again and slid the picture into the top drawer of the dresser. When she got back into bed, she fell asleep instantly and slept soundly, awakening at six o’clock to the sound of birds chirping.
Good Lord, what was she to do with herself all day? At eight o’clock she could go next door and ask to use the phone to call the telephone company to turn on the phone. She could call Della and Ellie and talk to them, call her office and talk to the receptionist. She could go shopping or walk on the beach, but that meant she’d have to get in the car and drive. “You are lazy, Kate Starr,” she muttered as she poured coffee into an earthenware mug.
Patrick had sat at this table for his meals from the time he was old enough to eat with the family until he left for college. The top of the table was badly scarred and gouged. She’d eaten at this same table several times when Patrick had invited her to their old house in Westfield. It was a memory now. How sad that there were no male Starrs to carry on the name. She’d been so sure Ellie was going to be a boy by the way she’d carried her. She’d even managed to convince Patrick of it. How clearly she remembered his look of disappointment at the hospital when he’d learned otherwise. Maybe that was why Betsy was his favorite. Maybe a lot of things, she thought sadly.
“I wonder,” she said aloud, “what it would be like to kiss another man.” She propped her chin into the palm of her hand as she tried to remember what it felt like when Patrick kissed her. It must have been wonderful because the sex was good, at times. She always enjoyed the pillow talk, but Patrick was usually asleep in seconds, and when she chastised him, he’d say, “Honey, it’s a compliment to you. It was great and you wore me out.” A memory, nothing more.
“I’m beginning to wonder, Patrick, if I ever liked you. I know I was in love with you, but I don’t think I liked you,” Kate mumbled as she drained her coffee. “And it’s taken me eighteen years to figure that out.” It was a mistake to come here; she should have stayed in California, gone to the library for rest and relaxation. She didn’t need these trips down Memory Lane. That was all behind her.
In the bathroom she pulled on a pair of jeans that were snug around the waist and a Banana Republic T-shirt. She slid her sockless feet into a pair of Keds. There was something she could do; she could go back to Westfield, buy some flowers, and visit the cemetery where her father-in-law was buried. She’d stop at the first phone booth she came to and call the phone company. This way she wouldn’t have to bother the neighbors.
The word pilgrimage flew into Kate’s mind when she pulled to the curb in front of her old house. She tossed the word away immediately. She was merely a lookie-look, checking out the old neighborhood. The house looked shabby and run-down, grass growing between the cracks in the driveway. The lawn was brown in some spots, bare in others. One of the front windows was cracked, and the paint on the front door was peeling. There didn’t seem to be any curtains on the second-floor windows. She didn’t feel anything when she drove around the corner to Patrick’s old house. She stared at it, thought about Patrick running down the front steps to meet her on the sidewalk under the maple tree. He’d kissed her a hundred times under that maple tree. The sidewalk was cracked now where the roots protruded. She remembered how they used to huddle under the umbrellalike branches where the sidewalk was perfectly flat.
Kate drove away and didn’t look back.
For lunch she ordered a double cheeseburger and a large order of fries at a Burger King. She told herself she needed the fat to fortify herself for the trip to the cemetery. Then she smoked two cigarettes, sipped a lukewarm cherry Coke, and tried not to think. It was a futile exercise. At last, tires squealing in the parking lot, she pulled out onto the road.
The cemetery was small, quiet, and peaceful. Meandering brick paths wound through the closely cropped grass. Kate knew where the Starr plot was because she’d come here with Patrick to visit his mother’s grave when they were both teenagers. They’d sat together on the grass, and she’d held his hand while he cried. He missed her terribly, he’d said, and his father was too busy with his own grief to pay any attention to him. Patrick Starr, Sr., had not been a demonstrative parent in any way. He’d been a stern man, an unyielding man.
“God rest your soul, Mr. Starr,” Kate said, laying the bouquet of pink-and-white Shasta daisies near the headstone. Halfway down the brick path she turned and went back. She bent down and undid the wire holding the flowers together at the stem. She picked out seven of the prettiest flowers and laid them beneath the stone that read CHARLOTTE STARR. WIFE. MOTHER. Suddenly she noticed the extra plot. She’d never seen it before, or had never paid attention to it. Why had the Starrs bought it? she wondered. Did some families always have an extra? Whom were they planning to ... She stiffened. Maybe Patrick was supposed to be buried here. Oh, God!
Kate struggled to her feet, stepping on her shoelace. She ran then, the lace slapping at the brick path.
She crawled into the car, her breathing ragged. A fly buzzed past her nose, exiting the window on the passenger side. With trembling hands she lit a cigarette, choking and sputtering on the smoke when she inhaled. She was shaking. Sweat beaded up on her forehead and rolled down into her eyes. Did she have the guts, the strength, to have Patrick’s belongings dug up and brought here? Did it matter? She tossed the half-smoked cigarette out the window and fired up a second one.
Nervously she leaned out the car window and looked upward, certain Patrick’s parents were there watching her, waiting for her decision. They belonged together, they were family. How many plots had she bought when she’d decided to bury Patrick’s things? One? Two? She couldn’t remember. If she’d just bought one, then there wasn’t room for her when she ... when she ... If she moved her husband’s things, who would lie next to her when her time came? Some damn stranger, that’s who. Oh, God, oh God.
She tossed out the second cigarette. The fly was back, buzzing around her head. She swatted at it, missed. “Shit!”
She stuck her head back out the window and yelled, “Okay, okay, I’ll give him back ... his things
. Maybe I’ll have the two boxes the government sent on dug up and shipped back here for ... for you. I’ll keep the trunk I had buried left there so Ellie and I can ... have a place to visit. That’s fair. Yes, that’s fair.” A cloud rolled by and then another, until there was nothing to see but the summer-blue sky, as blue as Gus Stewart’s eyes.
Kate arrived back at the house a little before four o’clock. She turned on the radio, the television, the stove, the oven, and the toaster oven. A minute later she turned them all off. It was something to do. If there had been anything to eat in the house besides puffed rice, she would have eaten it. She always ate when she was under stress. She made a pot of coffee, and while it perked, she called Ellie at her office.
“Honey, listen to me and don’t say anything until I’m finished, okay?”
“Sure, Mom,” Ellie agreed in her sweet voice.
Kate explained about her day, ending with, “I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do, so I’m going with my instincts and doing it. Will you make the calls for me, arrange to ship the trunks so they’re here by Monday? I’ll see if I can find someone on this end to pick them up. Maybe Gus will do it for me.”
“Gus who?” Ellie asked instantly.
Kate explained again, saying, “He’s coming down tomorrow. He likes the Jersey shore.”
Ellie laughed. “What’s that I hear in your voice, Mom?”
“Nervousness. Look, don’t be getting ideas, Ellie. How is Donald?”
“The same. Della is so worried. He’s not eating. I spent an hour last night coaxing him just to eat a little soup. He hates being fed, Mom. He told me he feels like he’s losing his dignity, and he absolutely hates that ... that thing Della put on him. Don’t worry, though, we’re taking real good care of him.”
“I know, I know, I hate being such a worrier, but that’s the way I am.”
“If you want to worry, then worry about what you’re going to wear tomorrow for your date. And it is a date, Mom, no matter what you say.”
“Ellie, it’s not a date. It’s a ... what it is is ... it is not a date,” Kate said, flustered by her daughter’s laughter. “For heaven’s sake, Ellie, he’s only thirty or so! I’m a forty-four-year-old woman.”
“Uh-huh,” Ellie drawled. “So what are you going to wear?”
“The same thing I’m wearing right now, jeans and a shirt. It’s not a date. I don’t want you telling Della and Donald, either,” Kate said sourly. “I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“A chance meeting in an airport. I bet they made a movie like that with Ingrid Bergman or somebody,” Ellie said dramatically. “ ’Bye, Mom, I’ll call you when it’s all wrapped up on this end.”
“Thanks, honey, I’ll talk to you later.”
“Mom, remember that movie From Here to Eternity with Frank Sinatra? You know, where that couple, I can’t remember their names, made love on the beach. Well, don’t do that, you know how you hate getting sand in your bathing suit.”
“Ellie!” Kate sputtered, her cheeks flaming. “I didn’t even bring a bathing suit. . . .” But she was talking to a pinging receiver.
Now, why in the world had she ever mentioned Gus Stewart? Because, a niggling voice drawled, you wanted to ... What?
“This is stupid,” she muttered. Damn stupid. It’s not a date. I don’t date. Furthermore, I would never date a man that much younger than I am. Good God, do you think I want people to call me a cradle snatcher? “It’s not a date!” she wailed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Kate was sitting on the front stoop waiting for Gus, coffee cup in hand. Dark glasses shaded her eyes from the sun as she watched couples stroll by in sneakers and pedal pushers, their arms linked either in cozy companionship or to hold one another upright. Kate smiled. The retirement park was a busy one, she reflected as an oldster wearing green-and-white-plaid pants and a nifty white blazer pedaled by on a three-wheel trike, his golf clubs in a wire grocery basket hooked onto the back of his wheels. She couldn’t help but wonder if Patrick’s dour father had participated in the activities provided for the retirement village. She doubted it.
Kate heard people exiting the house next door and glanced in that direction. Her view was obscured at first by an overlarge azalea bush. Then her hands flew to her mouth when she saw her neighbors, three couples, hit the sidewalk dressed in western garb. There was a hoedown at the community center, and obviously they were on their way to participate. How wonderful that these retirees were so active, she mused, thinking about Donald and Della and how they’d devoted their lives to her and her family. How much they missed out on by not joining in things designed for their retirement years. “It’s by our choice, Kate,” Donald always said. “You go to those places when your family doesn’t want to be bothered with you. We have a family, and we take care of them, and we don’t have time for such things.”
Family was what made the world go ’round.
The street was suddenly quiet again. Kate wished she knew how her father-in-law had passed his time. The last time she’d been here, she’d checked out the community center and had been amazed at the activities. Every hour of the day could be filled if one was so inclined. It bothered her to think that Patrick’s father might have spent all his time indoors with the television set. She had to wonder why he’d never invited her or the girls to visit. She gave up further thought when a dark blue Ford Escort wheeled into her driveway. Her guest had arrived.
Kate’s breath exploded in a loud swoosh sound when Gus climbed from the car. He wore tattered denim shorts and deck shoes. Hairy legs, just like Patrick’s. As muscular, too. His oversize T-shirt, stretched out at the neck and hanging crookedly at the hem, announced HARD ROCK CAFE, the burgundy lettering faded to a dull rust color. On his head he wore a Mets baseball cap, and the zippered bag he slung over his shoulders read NIKE in bold white letters. “You are a regular walking advertisement,” she said.
“All true,” Gus replied, sweeping off his cap and bowing low. “I like being down-and-out comfortable. You make me feel that way, Kate Starr.”
Her cheekbones felt warm, and she laughed self-consciously. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Love it. Or would you like to go out to breakfast? Brunch?”
Kate thought about it, then shook her head, remembering her midnight trip to the Shop Rite. She had eggs, Canadian bacon, raisin English muffins, freshly squeezed orange juice, frozen home fries, just-right canteloupes, and plum jam. “I’ll make breakfast,” she said.
“Good.” Gus smacked his hands together and followed her into the house. “There’s something about a kitchen that appeals to the kid in me. My apartment has this counter that’s supposed to be my kitchen. I eat standing up, no room for chairs.”
Kid. He was hardly more than a kid now. “That sounds terrible,” Kate said. “We have a marvelous kitchen back home. Every appliance known to man. A center island, pretty tile, cedar beams, and lots and lots of green plants. It’s the nicest room in the house. Our table is long and sort of low, with benches we can move so Donald can sit at the table with us. At least he used to. Now Della feeds him separately and he has to wear a bib and—” Kate began to choke up.
Gus’s hands shot into the air. “None of that now. Today is my day, yours, too. We are going to have fun, lady, just as soon as you feed me. Then,” he said, grinning wickedly, “we are going to scoot out and leave the dishes in the sink. What’ya think of that?” He leered at her.
Kate’s tongue felt thick. She slapped the succulent Canadian bacon into the frying pan. “What . . . what are we—are you planning?”
“I thought we’d drive to Point Pleasant, hit the beach for an hour or so, and then take in the boardwalk. I’m game for some rides, but none of those spinning things. I get dizzy. We can gorge on greasy killer food that always smells so good, play a little bingo, I’ll win you some stuffed animals ... you know, all that great kid stuff.”
Kid stuff. She’d never really done any of those things growing up. S
he and Patrick. “It does sound like fun.”
“Sounds like? Trust me, you’ll have the time of your life. I am the oldest kid I know,” he said proudly. “It’s that very quality that endears me to the opposite sex. Women can’t wait to get their hands on me. They want to coddle me and cuddle me.”
Kate laughed in spite of herself. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“I wish you would.”
Kate whirled at the tone of his voice. He wasn’t bantering now. Confused, she turned back to the eggs she was whipping to a golden froth. “Do me a favor, Gus, in the garage there’s a shelf with paper goods on it. Will you get it for me so I can drain this bacon?”
“Sure.”
He was gone so long, Kate walked into the garage to see what he was doing. When she spotted him, her breathing seemed to stop. “No!” she shouted. “No, don’t touch that!”
Gus recoiled as if bitten by a cobra, his arm stretched out in front of him.
“That‘s—that’s—”
“Patrick’s bike,” Gus said softly. “His father brought it with him when he moved here, eh?”
“Yes . . . I saw it the first time I came here. I couldn’t . . . I wanted to touch it.... He rode me on the handlebars.... The tires are flat.”
“I can fix them, Kate, if you want me to,” Gus said. “I can get a patch kit and pump them full of air. Hell, I can sand off the rust, too.”
“Patrick loved that bike. He delivered papers on it, rode it all over the place, and later, when he got older, he hooked a basket on the back and delivered groceries. He rode it in every parade the town had. He painted it every year. Every year he changed the color. One year he painted it yellow with black stripes. I told him it looked like a long bumblebee. You should have heard him laugh. He called the bike ‘B.B.’ after that.” She started to cry but waved Gus away when he offered her a strip of the paper towel he was holding in his hand.
“Let’s go inside, Gus.”
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