by Elsa Kurt
“Mhm. And you don’t think he missed those photos of you and the hunky cop? Please.”
“That’s different, mine was totally innocent. They blew it all out of proportion. By the way—Ryan is a Trooper, not a cop. They get touchy about that, apparently.”
“Does that really matter in this conversation? I swear, girl, you make my head spin. And by the way—what makes you think his pictures with the blonde aren’t innocent? Or at least, not his fault. That chick has some beady eyes if you ask me.”
Katharine laughed a little at that. She’d had the same uncharitable opinion when she first examined the photos. Then she straightened up. “Did you say four days? I don’t have anything to wear. Oh, my God, I haven’t had a haircut in nearly a year. And my nails…oh, Tori, I’m a hot mess!”
“Yeah, you probably look like a miniature Sasquatch after your little isolation stint. Relax, I’ll be coming to charming East Hampton to help my wayward friend. Can’t leave you to your own devices, you’ll show up looking like an eighties Duran Duran groupie.”
“Well first, the term ‘miniature Sasquatch’ might be an oxymoron, second Duran Duran was awesome and third… you are the greatest. When will you be here?”
“Tomorrow, mid-morning. Why don’t you get Janie on board, too? I think this is going to require a team effort.”
Katharine took no offense—it was all true. But then another wave of anxiety rolled through her. “What if Mitch brings a date? What if he brings her?”
“Let’s not worry about that right now, okay? I can put in a call to Justin and see what he knows—after I find us a day spa for some pampering. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
They said their goodbyes and Katharine ended the call with a sigh. Interviews, appearances, a fake romance drama, and now—a gala. Her life had officially moved so far into the realm of the surreal, that nothing could surprise her anymore. Was it good or bad? She had no idea. However, if there was good to be had, Katharine was out of her shell. While she wasn’t excited about the gala—all the people, the dressing up…Mitch Ford and the possibility of him with a date—she also wasn’t terrified by the prospect of it all.
Over the course of one summer, twenty-plus years of anti-social behavior, a chip on her shoulder, and a giant wall had all been systematically reversed, knocked off, and torn down. If someone had told her this would happen, she’d have laughed in their face. But there she was, sitting at her kitchen table anticipating the arrival of her friend. And for a spa day, nonetheless. Well, look at me.
With a grin, Katharine grabbed her phone again and texted Janie.
I’m back on the grid!
Wanna spa day?
One catch—it’s tomorrow.
Five minutes later, there was a knock at her front door. As she walked the short distance from the kitchen to the foyer, Katharine found herself hoping it would be Mitch on the other side of the door. She smoothed her hair and checked her shirt for wrinkles or stains. She put on her most aloof, haughty expression and swung the door open, not bothering with the peephole. It wasn’t Mitch.
“Janie! Hey, hi.” Katharine deflated.
“Great to see you, too. Geez. Let me guess, you were hoping for—”
“Don’t say it. Come on in, there’s still coffee left if you want any.”
Janie followed Katharine to the kitchen and chirped, “Sure, love some!” She clearly knew Katharine well enough to not push her on the topic. “So, anything…new? With you, I mean. Not anything—you know, with…anyone.” She was also distinctly lousy at subtly.
“He’s back in town. But I’ll bet you already knew that, didn’t you?”
“What? I—okay, yes. I went to the gym earlier and passed him on the road. He waved, I waved. So, have you—”
“Nope, don’t want to talk about him. What’s new with you since I saw you last?” Katharine’s voice was an octave higher than her usually low tone—she could hear it herself—so, halfway through the question, she tried to make it sound more normal.
Janie blinked rapidly at her for a moment, then answered. “Oh, well, you know. The usual—boys are driving me nuts. It’s that end of summer antsy-ness. They’re totally ready to go back to school, but they would never admit—”
“I’m sorry, did you say you passed him this morning? On our street? Like, as in he was driving to Genoma’s house?”
More rapid blinking from Janie’s big blue eyes, then a hesitant, “Um, well, yes. I mean, I didn’t see him turn onto—”
“And how long ago was that?” Katharine asked through what was meant to be a casual smile but resembled something slightly more…scowl-ly.
“Katharine, maybe you should go over there and—oh, I don’t know—talk to him once and for—”
“Janie, I told you, I do not want to talk about Mitch Ford. I could not possibly care less about whatever it is he’s doing. It’s, like, physically impossible for me to care, so now what were you saying about the boys and school?” Katharine nodded a few times for encouragement.
“Boys are crazy. I’m going nuts, and Jimmy’s studying for the sergeant’s exam.”
This brought Katharine out of her Mitch spiral. Janie had mentioned on one of their runs that Jim was considering applying for a sergeant’s position and they were cautiously excited by the prospect. With a huge grin she said, “Janie, that is great! When is the exam?”
“Not for a couple months. In the meantime, it’s study, study, study, every possible minute. Keep your fingers crossed and don’t tell anyone. Jim wants to keep it on the down low in case he doesn’t pass.”
“Understood. Hey, did you get my text about tomorrow?”
“Sure did. That’s why I rushed over. I came to say heck yes—I would just about sell an organ for a spa day, thank you—in person.”
Katharine’s phone chimed, and she smiled as she read the text. She waved it at Janie and said, “Well, no need to sell off any body parts. It’s all set, Tori has us in at the Norwich Inn and Spa for ten a.m. tomorrow. Oh, but what about the boys? If Jim is studying—”
“Already taken care of. My dad is coming in from upstate New York to twin-sit. He was a Marine, a high school varsity football coach, and father of four boys—basically, he’s the only one who can handle them.”
“Wow, so you’re the only girl out of five kids?” Katharine shook her head in amazement.
“Yup, and I was the baby. Imagine trying to get a date with all that testosterone? It wasn’t pretty. Jimmy was the first one they sort of, kind of liked.”
“Yikes. Must’ve been fun though. Growing up in a big family like that.” Katharine was wistful. She’d sometimes wondered how different her life would’ve been had she grown up in a family like that. It seemed impossible to be reserved and closed off in such a large group.
As if she were using telepathy, Janie said, “Oh, yeah. Lots of fun—no privacy, no quiet time, no peaceful introspection. Just lots of yelling, a bunch of throwing things, a handful of fistfights. Oh, and tons of food. My mom was forever cooking food for us all.”
Though she sounded as if she were complaining, there was a big smile on her face. Katharine smiled, too. Janie’s upbringing explained a lot about her big, open personality and it made Katharine like her more.
“Speaking of food, do you want to stay for some lunch?”
Janie looked at her watch, grimaced, and stood sluggishly. “Love to, but I have to get back to the brood. If I let them feed themselves, it’ll be junk food and Gatorade. I’ll see you in the morning, though.” They walked to the front door. Janie turned back and said, “Oh, and Katharine? Go talk to him, will ya?”
It was just about the push she’d needed, but as she walked out the back door onto the deck, her stomach growled at her. She couldn’t talk to Mitch on an empty stomach, she rationalized. The vegetable garden still had an over-abundance of small, round, ripe sunburst tomatoes, crisp green lettuce, and plump cucumbers, so Katharine grabbed a basket and made her way over to the fenced-in garden. As she unlatched the g
ate, she glanced over at the forsythia bushes, noting both Brandon’s absence and the newly trimmed back branches. He’d done his work, cleaned up after himself, and left quietly, like he’d been told to do back when Katharine was…the mean neighbor lady.
Unconsciously, every time Katharine picked a few vegetables, her eyes slid back to the line of shrubs. A dozen or so little orange tomatoes—glance. A deep green cucumber—look. Romaine, buttercrisp, red leaf—peek. When she realized what she was doing, she sighed loudly. Then Katharine got the idea in her head that maybe, just maybe, Mitch was peeking through the thick green leafed branches at her. So, she did what any woman would do. She studiously ignored that side of the yard and moved in graceful, smooth steps. She angled her face, so it would be in profile, deftly flicking her long hair over her shoulder and making her expression soft. In short, she was putting on a show.
In her mind’s eye, she pictured Mitch staring at her with longing, forgetting himself and pushing his way through the bushes to get to her, ignoring the stinging whip of a long branch as it cut his cheek. Katharine was so engrossed—the scene in her mind was so vivid—that she turned expectantly to where she pictured Mitch standing, and…nothing. There was no Mitch. Only her trees and bushes, her flowers and bird feeders. Katharine swore under her breath at herself.
Ridiculous fool. He doesn’t care. He’s probably over there having a good laugh at your expense.
She pursed her lips and snugged her full basket against her hip, then stomped inside the house. Her lunch was made with lots of overly-hard chopping and aggressive tossing and even eaten with some unnecessary fork stabbing. By the time she’d washed and dried her bowl and utensils, Katharine had decided there was absolutely no way she would be the one to make the first move. If anyone were going to break the ice, it would have to be him.
TWENTY-THREE
ANOTHER MISSED OPPORTUNITY
Mitch turned his baseball cap backward and rested his arm against the sun-warm hood of a truck in Genoma’s torn up driveway. He and Sam—along with his top construction guys—had their eyes trained on the large rectangular sheet of the blueprint. There were notes and arrows, and one bold red question mark over the section representing the kitchen. Sam’s camera was propped on his shoulder and Mitch could feel it’s hooded glass eye on him. He looked up, stared directly into the lens, and gave it a ‘this ain’t good’ expression—head cocked, one raised eyebrow, half-smile/half-grimace.
“Alright, Teddy,” sighed Mitch, “what you’re telling me, is we can’t take down this wall?” He poked a finger at the red question mark. Sam’s camera zoomed in on it, then panned back to the group until he found Teddy and zoomed in again. This time on the large, round-faced man.
In a strong Polish accent, Teddy confirmed, “Tak, this is what I tell you. This support wall, no come down.”
“Teddy, come on now. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Vincent Genoma said his wife is a gourmet cook. She needs a gourmet sized kitchen, and we are not going to let her down. Posts. That’s your answer. Make them look stylish but useful. Maybe even build one of them out and give her a spice cabinet.”
Teddy and the others leaned in close over the blueprints, while Mitch stepped back with a small smile. It was silent but for the clanks and clatters from inside the house as the rest of the crew gutted the interior. After few moments, Teddy stated, “This will work. I start now.”
Mitch clapped him on his broad back and said, “I knew you could do it. Never doubted you for a moment.”
When Teddy and his crew walked away, Mitch turned to the camera and spoke. “Without fail, every build has moments like these—when something looks impossible—yet these guys figure out a way to make it possible. They give everything they have to these builds because they know a family is waiting, depending on us to do a good job. Let’s take a look at how far we’ve come.”
Sam gave Mitch the thumbs up signal to let him know he’d stopped taping. He bumped the camera off his shoulder and said, “Nice. We’ll edit the segments either tomorrow or Thursday, once we get some more demo shots.”
“Sounds good, Sammy. Work your magic, my friend.”
Mitch’s words were for Sam, but his eyes were on the tree line. Katharine was likely on the other side of that line. What was she doing? Working on her next book? Maybe she was reading, or gardening or—
“I said, are you just going to stare over at the trees, or are you gonna go over there?”
Mitch slowly turned back to Sam, who wore a knowing smirk. “What? No, I—we have a lot of catching up to do around here if we want to stick to the deadline.”
“Mitch, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but there’s no way we are going to be done that fast. We’re a solid week behind. You know we always give ourselves plenty of cushion, why the rush?”
“I just want it done, okay?” Hearing the harshness in his tone, he added, “For the family.”
“Sure, sure. I get it. I guessed maybe you were—oh, I don’t know—trying to avoid dealing with a certain…situation.”
“No, Samuel. I am not avoiding anyone. Anything. Can we get back to work, please?”
Sam didn’t push any further and followed him around back. They were shooting filler spots to introduce each new segment of the build. He also said nothing when Mitch lost his place repeatedly and needed to start over. Whenever he caught Mitch peering through the bushes, he merely cleared his throat loudly and feigned ignorance. Mitch bought none of it, of course, but they both played their respective games and acknowledged nothing.
Somehow, Mitch made it through an eight-hour day without losing his mind. Or storming through the bushes and demanding that Katharine speak to him. Later, over dinner at Angelico’s, he tried to continue his noncommittal attitude, but a call from Justin opened the floodgates.
“Hey, Justin. What’s up?”
“Mitch, bro, how’s my favorite hombre? Um, if you have Sam the Man with you, put me on speaker.”
Mitch pulled the phone from his ear and rolled his eyes at Sam as he mouthed ‘Justin’. Once he tapped the speaker icon, he said, “Alright, Justin. You’ve got both of us. Now, what’s up?”
With the phone on the table between them, Mitch reached for his beer bottle and took a swig. Justin—after a few ‘bro’s and ‘hombre’s—said, “Okay, so that gala on Sunday?”
He paused, so Mitch and Sam both said, “Yeah?”
“Right. So, Mitch, dude, you are gonna, like, present Katharine with her award, and Sam, you are gonna film it. Cool, right?”
Mitch stared at the phone as if it had grown arms and legs and was doing the cha-cha. Sam filled the silence. “Uh, award? What, uh, is the award for?”
“Oh, right. It’s for, like, her work raising awareness and advocating for Down’s Syndrome through her books and her charity.”
Mitch finally found his voice. “Why would they have me do it? Why not her brother?”
“Oh, right, yeah. So, like, her brother is getting the award, too. It’s all supposed to be a surprise for her, so don’t, like, spill the beans, or anything, dude.”
“Okay, Justin,” said Sam quickly, “got it. We’ll check in with you later.” Then he ended the call before Mitch could add anything.
“This is a bad idea, Sam. For one—I can guarantee Katharine would not like to be surprised. Second, I’m not the guy she wants handing her an award. Tell him to get the guy she was cozied up with in those pictures.”
“Mitch, you don’t know if she’s seeing that guy, or—”
“I know she’s not seeing me. I also know this whole thing is a bad idea. I made a mistake letting the media create the KatMitch nonsense. If I’d put a stop to it in the beginning, we wouldn’t be dealing with any of this.”
Sam picked at the label on his beer bottle and said nothing for a long moment. Mitch was too busy stewing to notice. At last, Sam spoke. “Listen, Mitch. The media stuff—you can’t control that. It is what it is. Once they get a hold of a story they like, the
y beat it to death. But like it or not, this time it wasn’t some made up thing. It was based on a very real—I don’t know—chemistry thing between you two. Everyone sees it. The camera sees it, man. Now, you know, I’m no romance guy. Heck, I’m basically a beer and football guy, so, this ain’t easy. But, I’m telling you—you let this woman walk away, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
Mitch opened his mouth, then closed it and nodded instead. Sam was right. It was more than a fleeting attraction. It was—well, whatever it was, it was driving him crazy. One more try. That’s what he’d give it. Tomorrow, he was going to march over to her house and ask her again. Only this time, he wasn’t going to act like a bull and demand her answer. He would be gentle and patient with her. Decided, he raised his bottle to Sam’s and clinked them together.
Later that night, Mitch sat at the desk in his room at the bed and breakfast. He opened his laptop with every intention of working, but his fingers had a mind of their own, it seemed. In the search bar, the name Katharine Evans appeared, and within seconds, the arrow hovered over the most recent images of her. Mitch clicked on the first one—her and the dark-haired guy at Angelico’s. He gripped the edge of the desk and tapped the mousepad a little harder than necessary.
After looking through nearly a dozen pictures, Mitch became annoyed with himself. You look like a stalker, old man. Go to bed. So, he did. It took some time before he could fall asleep, and when he finally did, his dreams were a jumbled mess of replayed conversations and bad endings. The next morning, he awoke unrested and irritable. Coffee at ECO would hopefully restore a semblance of his good-natured amiability and fortify him for his planned conversation with Katharine. Only, his plan was foiled by unforeseen circumstances. Katharine wasn’t home.
TWENTY-FOUR
READ ME
“Ah, now this—this is what we all needed. Am I right, girls?”
Katharine sighed her answer, “Totally right.”
