They both laughed at her imitation of Mrs. Howard.
“She can’t be that bad.”
“She’s actually worse. I think she is repressing something. You know, she only talks about sex. If you and I were Bonnie and Clyde, she would go on and on about how we were living in sin. The fact that we robbed banks, killed people? Nothing.” Katherine giggled.
“Did she ever say anything about your summer in England?”
“Nothing that I heard, other than that it was ‘not ladylike.’ Her youngest daughter, Trish, was about my age. Wild, even by today’s standards. I suspect she was paying so much attention to Trish at that time that my activities were under her radar. Maybe she was afraid that if she talked about me then people would think about her daughter. I don’t know. Anyway, let me tell you about what she did at the picnic…”
They finished their wine, and Steven cut the cake he had for dessert. Later, he walked her home, and as they strolled, Katherine thought about Steven’s apartment—his books, the furniture, the silver—they reminded her of home. She recalled her mother’s admonition that she should marry someone who would give her the kind of life she wanted. She felt warm and happy.
Steven will give me the life I want. There will be no need to choose between love and lifestyle, no need to compromise.
She smiled and squeezed Steven’s arm.
***
In early October, the nights were cooler than they had been since Katherine had moved to the City. She found them to be pleasant after the sweltering summer and the almost equally hot September. Natives had told her that the weather was unusual—that the winter would meet her expectations—but she had begun to doubt their reports. Tonight, though, she was glad she had remembered a silk shawl to drape around her shoulders.
She and Steven mingled with the others in the lobby of the Alvin Theater, waiting for the doors to open. A new musical, Annie, had opened in April to glowing reviews. Tickets had been impossible to find during the spring and summer, but Dr. Worth, her supervisor, had given Katherine a pair.
The musical was based on the comic strip by the same name, and Katherine had difficulty imagining that the transition from the newspaper to the stage could have been as good as everyone claimed. Still, the reviews were terrific.
As they waited for the interior doors to open, the public address system came to life with a burst of static.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Alvin Theater this evening. The doors will be opening shortly. We want you to know that the NBC television program Sunday Morning is doing a series on Broadway Theater, and next Sunday the show will highlight Annie. A film crew is here tonight. They will be filming during the production, as well as in the lobby before and after the performance. If you see a camera pointed in your direction, smile and wave. Thank you.”
The buzz of conversation grew louder as the announcement concluded. Katherine looked around and spied a camera in a corner, pointing directly at Steven and her. She slipped her arm around his waist.
“Look to your right and smile.”
Steven turned to look and squeezed her shoulder. As the camera turned in another direction, Steven took out his wallet, checking to make sure that he had the tickets.
“You said that Dr. Worth gave you the tickets?”
“That’s right. One of his wife’s clients—she works in advertising, you know—gave them to her. Well, she hates musical comedy. So Dr. Worth asked if I would like them.”
“The seats are really good.” Steven looked at the tickets then put them in his pocket. “Fourth row, center.”
People continued to arrive and in a few minutes, the waiting area was packed. Katherine could not turn without bumping against the woman standing next to her. Worse than the subway at rush hour. Finally, the interior doors opened and the crowd surged forward.
***
As they left the theater after the performance, they spotted the camera again. A woman from Sunday Morning was interviewing people as they passed through the lobby, but she was occupied with another couple when Katherine and Steven walked past.
“That was so good,” Katherine said. “Thank you for going with me.”
“Thank you for asking.”
They strolled a bit before taking window seats in a deli near Times Square. They ate cheesecake as they watched the throngs of people on the sidewalk.
“Can you believe the size of these slices?” Katherine asked. “One piece could serve a family of four.”
“And we each have a piece.” Steven laughed.
She was happy that she’d had the theater tickets tonight. Steven had been taking her to dinner and on “sightseeing” excursions for weeks. She thought it must be expensive, even the cheesecake—prices were just absurd. She decided she needed to have Steven over for dinner. She would be alone next weekend, from Thursday on actually, so she decided she would call Aunt Emma for her recipe for baked chicken, and her mother for her chocolate cake.
“I’ve lived here for over two years,” Steven said, “and I have never become accustomed to the crowds. I was in Oxford for four years. It’s a busy city, full of people during the day, and parking is impossible, but after six o’clock, you seldom see anyone on the street. Here, it seems to be crowded ’round the clock.”
“I think it’s exciting, being here in the middle of things, so much to do, so many opportunities. But I know what you mean. Sometimes I want to run home to Hamilton, just to be by myself for a while. It’s a wonderful place to live, but at this time of night, you can literally lie down in the street without worrying about a car coming along, and if one did, you would see it two blocks away. When everything is dark, headlights really get your attention.”
As she took a bite of cheesecake, she looked through the front window at the automobiles, bumper to bumper as they approached Times Square.
“We did it one time when I was in high school. We went to Main Street and lay in the intersection—Main Street and Richmond Road. It was nine o’clock on Friday night and we lay there for two minutes before someone saw a car. It was a police car. It was parked a block away, and my cousin, Sally, saw it when the officer cranked it up.” She laughed again. “He made us pile in and he took us home.”
“And that’s what you did for fun in Hamilton?”
“Sometimes. Actually, we were making a point for our parents. We had evidence, a police officer’s report, in fact, about how absolutely boring Hamilton was.”
“Convince them?”
“Mom gave me a lecture. Dad laughed and agreed with me. Said that was one of the reasons we lived in Hamilton. Said I would understand when I had children.” She shook her head. “I thought he was crazy, but I’m starting to understand his point—now that I’m older.”
“I always hated it when adults said things like that.”
“I did too, but when Dad said it, it came out like a statement of fact, not like a put down.” Katherine laughed. “Mrs. Howard—I told you about Mrs. Howard—she’d decided, for some reason, that I was the ring leader. ‘Mark me. That Katherine Jackson, she’ll come to no good.’”
Steven put his fork down on the empty plate. “So you find New York exciting. Planning to stay?”
Looking into his eyes, she realized that their color changed with his mood. They were dark blue tonight, just as they had been when they’d sat in his apartment, looking at the paintings. “I love my job. I love New York. Especially for the past couple of months.” She looked down at the table and smiled. “I’ll see what happens. I’m feeling a lot of pressure to move closer to home.” She sighed. “Mom tells me that Dr. Nelson—he has a family practice in Hamilton—is looking for a partner. She says that my father would lend me the money to buy into the practice.”
“It might be a good opportunity, if you want to move back.”
“Hamilton is not a bad place to live. It’s close enough to Richmond that you have the benefits of a city. And it’s growing, too. I’d want someone watching if I were to lie down in
that intersection tonight. Of course,” Katherine squeezed his hand, “I have other considerations now too.”
“You know that I’ll be in Richmond in a couple of weeks. Maybe I’ll see Hamilton. Emma has invited me to dinner.”
“You ought to go. Aunt Emma and Uncle John are really nice people. And Emma is an absolutely out-of-this-world cook.”
***
Katherine’s mother called on Sunday night. Her tone of voice reminded Katherine of a time when she was sixteen years old and had come home late from a date.
“Hi, Mom. What’s wrong?”
“What’s his name?” Her mother snapped. “Steven? Steven Richardson?”
“What are you talking about, Mom? Steven Richardson is a friend of mine, yes.”
“Are you, are you sleeping with him, Katherine?”
“Am I what?”
“You heard me. I want to know. Are you?”
Katherine gripped the receiver tightly. “Frankly, Mother, it’s not any of your business if I am, but, no! Why are you asking this?”
“Well, the whole world saw you kissing him on television this morning.”
“What?” Katherine stood and began to pace around the apartment, the phone cord trailing in her wake.
“On Sunday Morning, that television show. You were in that theater, wearing a low-cut dress, your arms all over that man. Kissing him.”
“Mom—”
“Have you no sense?” her mother interrupted. “In the past two months, you’ve managed to appear with him on television twice, in the newspaper. What are people supposed to think? What do you think Betty Howard will say?”
“I was not kissing Steven, Mom, but even if I were, I was doing nothing wrong.” Katherine was becoming angry and her voice started to rise. “Mrs. Howard can, and will, make up anything she wants, and other people will think whatever they want, too.”
“Margaret Smyth called me to tell me about it.”
“So you didn’t actually see me on television.”
“No, of course not. I was in church, but plenty of people did. It will be the talk of the town tomorrow.”
“Mother, I’m doing nothing wrong.” Katherine struggled to remain calm. “If I want to wear a stylish dress and put my arm around my boyfriend, I will. If anyone wants to imagine that I’m doing something wrong, you tell them, for me, to take their dirty minds straight to hell.”
“Katherine!
“Good-bye, Mother.”
Even as a teenager, Katherine had never hung up on her mother, but the click felt good. She walked around the apartment, fuming, arms crossed tightly.
“What’s wrong, Katherine?” She had not heard Sara unlock the door.
“Oh. My mother called. She heard that Steven and I were on TV this morning. I told you about the film crew at the theater last week.” She sighed. “It’s all around town that I was hanging all over him, that my dress was too short, that I’m acting like a tramp.”
“Now, you know that’s not true. You’re not a tramp and you never act like one. And your dress was beautiful, just what everyone else is wearing.”
Katherine let out a deep sigh. “I know, but the way those women talk.” She clenched her fists. “It is just disgusting. I told you about Mrs. Howard?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“I can hear her now. That Katherine Jackson…”
Sara giggled at her imitation of Mrs. Howard.
“And my mother believes it!” Katherine threw a book on the floor. “I don’t even live there anymore and they still try to control my life.”
Steven had asked if she would want to move back to Hamilton. No way!
***
Although Bill Wilson had seen the photograph in the Times two weeks earlier, he had not watched Sunday Morning. He had still been in bed at ten o’clock, recovering. He had dropped by the see Aunt Betty later in the day, though, and he had heard all about it over coffee.
“I told you Katherine Jackson would come to no good. Living in New York, unsupervised. With two girls, she says.” She took a drink of coffee and wagged her finger. “I’ll wager those girls see very little of Katherine Jackson after the sun goes down.” She shook her head, a small smile on her lips. “Hanging all over that man. Wearing a dress like that in public, leaving nothing to the imagination, showing herself off to total strangers. Mark me. This is just the beginning. We’ll hear more of Katherine Jackson.”
Bill followed her gaze out the window as the puffy white clouds drifted across the sky. “Alice Jackson has never taken a firm hand with those girls of hers. She ought to show up in New York, unannounced. Give that child a good beating and drag her home. That’s what I would do.”
She looked back at Bill. “Marry her off to someone who could control her.” She gestured at him with her tea biscuit, crumbs flying everywhere. “Someone like you.”
Bill didn’t respond to her tirade. He knew how easily his aunt built mountains from the proverbial molehills. He also knew that she was all talk when she described what she would do. She certainly had not been able to control his cousin, Trish, when she was young.
He realized, though, that he had misjudged the situation with Katherine. Apparently, her relationship with this man was more than that of “morning coffee with an old friend.”
Aunt Betty had described Katherine’s dress in quite vivid detail, and it reminded him of the time he saw her at the hospital in Atlanta, over a year ago, running around in those outfits—“scrubs” they called them—that were entirely too loose and showed entirely too much. Well, he’d straighten Katherine out about how she should dress the next time he saw her.
He understood that “Dr. Steven Richardson” would be in Richmond week after next for a reception at the Museum. He would see Dr. Richardson at that reception and he would make it clear that Katherine belonged to him—to future congressman Bill Wilson, not to Dr. Steven Richardson. He would tell him that he should keep his distance if he knew what was good for him—for Katherine too.
Worked into a bit of agitation, Bill left Aunt Betty’s and headed home. The taste of her vile coffee lingered in his mouth. Her coffee tasted worse than what he found at gas stations. He only drank it to be polite. He fished under the seat as he drove away, searching for his flask. As he bent to pull it out, he heard the blare of a horn and he slammed on the brakes. Looking up, he found himself in the middle of Richmond Road, having run through a red traffic light. The gray haired woman in the other car—a friend of his mother’s—glared at him. Bill smiled and waved apologetically then he made an obscene gesture as she drove away.
Opening the flask, he took a swig of whiskey. Much better.
***
On Saturday, Sara and her boyfriend, Will, as well as Becky and her boyfriend, Anthony, walked with Katherine and Steven across Battery Park, heading for the ferry that would take them to Liberty Island.
“We’re going to pretend to be tourists!” Katherine had said when she told Sara and Becky what she and Steven were planning to do that weekend.
Sara said the idea of being a tourist was cute, but Becky just shook her head.
“That’s silly,” she had declared. “Pretending to be tourists, I mean. But I would like to go. I’ve lived here for three years and I’ve only seen the Statue from the airplane.”
“That’s why we’ll be tourists. People never visit sites near where they live. Steven and I talked about it.”
“Right,” Becky said, rolling her eyes, “tourists.”
“It’s not like you’re actually from New York,” Katherine replied.
“It’s not like I’m visiting for three days, either.”
“Stop arguing.” Sara put her hands on her hips in mock anger. “It doesn’t matter. In any case, both of you, all five of you, actually, will be first-timers. Tourist or not, you will have to climb the Statue, all the way to the crown.”
Becky started to object but Sara put her in her place. “It’s tradition. On your first visit, you have to make the climb.
Ask one of the rangers if you don’t believe me.”
Now, as they crossed the park, Katherine saw a crowd milling about, waiting to board the ferry. At ten o’clock, the chain that stretched across the entrance dropped to the ground and people surged forward. Sara and Will were swept away from the others.
“We will be at the bow,” Sara called over her shoulder. “Meet you at the foot of the Statue.”
Becky and Katherine laughed as Sara disappeared in the crowd.
“We’re going up on the top deck,” Katherine said. “You two coming?”
“It will be cold up there. I think we will stay here. See you on the island.” Becky took Anthony’s arm and followed Sara toward the bow, while Katherine and Steven climbed the narrow metal ladder to the second deck. It was chilly and the wind blowing over the water made Katherine shiver. She pulled her coat closed.
Steven put his arm around her. “Becky didn’t want to play tourist, I hear.”
“Oh, she’s fine. She’s just trying to be cool and sophisticated. She is really excited about the trip.”
The ferry pulled away from the dock and they watched Manhattan slip away, the World Trade Center and the other towering buildings growing smaller by the minute. Katherine pulled out her camera and took a picture.
“I’m making an album of the places we visit while being tourists,” she said.
Turning around, they saw the Statue of Liberty growing larger. As they approached the dock, Katherine tipped her head back to look up at the crown.
“It looks a lot higher now than it did even a minute ago,” she told Steven. “Are we are really going to climb all the way to the top?”
The Handfasting Page 10
