Love Lessons

by Gina Wilkins

  Had she been asked to define her ideal match back then, she would have described someone very much like Bill. And yet, as she sat here beside him now, she felt nothing except admiration and general liking. He was an attractive man, but she had no interest at all in getting any closer to him.

  There was more to romantic chemistry than similar careers and educational backgrounds, she understood now. She had never really cared what Mike did for a living—but she did insist on being treated with respect in return.

  If Mike couldn’t understand that, then he was as wrong for her as Bill was.

  “So what happened between you and Catherine, anyway?” Bob asked as he lounged on Mike’s rather battered hand-me-down couch with a football game playing on the TV in front of them.

  Mike glared at the screen, though his scowl had nothing to do with the fumble that had just taken place there. “It just didn’t work out.”

  “She dumped you, huh?” Bob spoke as if there could be no other logical explanation.

  “She didn’t dump me. We just split up, that’s all.”

  “I liked her, you know. When you said you were seeing a scientist-professor type, I expected her to be all snooty and dull, but she wasn’t like that. I mean, yeah, she needs to learn how to relax a little, but she’s not a snob. And she has a sense of humor, which is more than I can say for some good-looking women like that. I know me and Brandon gave you a hard time about being all involved with her and neglecting us and all, but I could sure understand what you saw in her.”

  Mike grunted and took a swig of the canned soda in his hand, unable to think of anything to say. Almost two weeks after Thanksgiving, his emotions were still too raw to discuss what had gone wrong between himself and Catherine with any degree of objectivity.

  “I guess she got tired of you always being late and stuff, huh?”

  Mike winced, remembering her last pointed remark to him. “Why do you keep trying to put it all on me?” he complained to his friend—who should be on his side, damn it.

  “Just trying to understand what happened. I hate to see you moping around the way you have been the past few days. Maybe we can figure out what went wrong so you can fix it.”

  “Give it up, Bob. It’s over. I think she’s seeing someone else, anyway. A doctor. A cardiologist. Way more in her league than I ever was.” Picturing Catherine with Bill James had been like acid in his gut ever since Thanksgiving, keeping him awake at night and interfering with his concentration during the days.

  At least he had been spared actually seeing them together. If Bill had been to Catherine’s apartment, Mike hadn’t seen him. Of course, he’d been assiduously avoiding going anywhere near her apartment except when absolutely necessary for his work. And maybe she had been avoiding him just as determinedly, because he hadn’t even caught a glimpse of her in the past couple of weeks.

  He missed her. He even missed her cat, darn it. How incredibly stupid had he been to allow himself to fall in love with a woman who had been destined from the beginning to break his heart?

  “Oh, man, I’m sorry to hear that. I thought the two of you made a great couple. I didn’t think she really cared about the job thing.”

  “She said she didn’t. But when it came to spending Thanksgiving with me or with the doctor, she chose him,” Mike confided bitterly, still stinging over her rejection.

  “No kidding? You didn’t tell me that before. You mean she canceled your Thanksgiving plans to go out with him? I can’t believe it.”

  “Well, no, that isn’t exactly what happened. I mean, I asked her, but she had already accepted an invitation from another friend who had also invited the doctor to dinner. An obvious fix-up, and Catherine had to know it.”

  “Oh. So, when did you ask her?”

  Mike cleared his throat. “The Sunday before Thanksgiving.”

  After a heavy pause, Bob said slowly, “You waited until four days before Thanksgiving to ask her and then you were pissed off because she already had other plans?”

  Scowling, Mike crossed his arms over his chest. “It wasn’t exactly like that,” he said, even though something inside him insisted it was exactly like that. “I didn’t know if I should ask her. I mean, spending holidays with a guy’s family is a big deal. Some women get real nervous about that sort of thing. I wasn’t sure Catherine and I had reached that point, and I didn’t want to scare her off. But we’d had a great weekend, and it seemed like the right time, so…”

  Wincing at the inadequacy of his own argument, he let his words trail off.

  Bob’s silence said a great deal.

  “Okay, so it was probably all my fault,” Mike erupted angrily, throwing his hands in the air in frustration. “I didn’t deserve her. She was too good for me. What else do you want me to say?”

  “Sounds like you’re the only one who believed all that garbage,” Bob observed with uncharacteristic perception. “Maybe you sabotaged it because you wanted to be the one to get out first, before she dumped you.”

  “I did not—” Mike stopped to draw a deep breath. “I’m not going to fight with you about this. This conversation is closed.”

  Bob shrugged. “Whatever, dude. Got any more chips?”

  Even as he stalked into the kitchen to retrieve another bag of chips, Mike knew he would be nagged by the echo of Bob’s comments for hours to come.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Norman, come down from there now!” Catherine had tried pleading, cajoling and reasoning, and she was finally resorting to demanding.

  She had no more luck with that tactic. Norman remained exactly where he had been for the past twenty minutes. On top of the roof of her apartment building.

  Standing on the tiny balcony outside her living room, she craned her neck to gaze up at him with a mixture of fear and exasperation. She was stunned that he was up there, and still not exactly sure how it had happened. She didn’t have a clue how she was going to get him down if he refused to cooperate.

  A cold December wind blew around her, and she shivered in her thin sweater. She wasn’t wearing her coat, but she didn’t want to take her eyes off Norman long enough to go inside for it. It was going to be dark soon— it was already dusk—and she wanted him safely back inside her apartment. The problem was, he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get there.

  “Norman, please,” she said, holding up her arms. “Come inside. I have salmon treats. Yum.”

  Staring inscrutably back down at her, he tucked his tail around his feet and sat without moving.

  She pushed her hands through her hair, growing desperate. Should she call the fire department? The rental office? Who was she supposed to turn to in a situation like this?

  “Catherine? Is everything okay up there?”

  She looked over the balcony railing with a surge of relief. “Mike?”

  He stood on the sidewalk beneath her, toolbox in hand, a heavily lined denim jacket protecting him from the wind. A frown of bewilderment creased his face. “What are you doing? Is everything okay?”

  “It’s Norman,” she said, pointing upward. “He’s on the roof.”

  “He’s what?”

  “He’s on the roof,” she called back down, aware of a few people in the parking lot turning to stare at her. “I can’t get him down. And I’m afraid he—”

  “I’m coming up. Stay where you are. Don’t lose sight of him. I’ll let myself in.”

  Gratefully, she turned back to her stubborn cat. “Did you hear that, Norman? Mike’s coming. You like Mike, remember?”

  Norman meowed, but he stayed where he was.

  Moments later, Mike stepped onto the balcony. Except for a couple of glimpses of him across the apartment compound, brief incidents that had left her aching, this was the first time she had seen him since their breakup. Even as worried as she was about Norman, she couldn’t completely ignore the quiver that ran through her when Mike came to a stop within a few inches of her.

  “What happened?” he asked, staring up at Norma
n. “How did he get up there?”

  “I opened the balcony door to bring out this Christmas wreath,” she said, pointing to a festive decoration at her feet. “One of the grad students in my department made it for me and I thought it would be pretty hanging from the railing with this big, red bow.”

  Totally irrelevant to his question, she realized abruptly. Between her concern for Norman and her nervousness at being with Mike again, she was reduced to babbling. “Anyway, the minute I opened the door, Norman streaked past me, jumped up on the railing, then onto that branch and on the roof. He’s been there ever since, just staring at me.”

  Mike looked from the door to the railing to the low branch of the oak tree next to her apartment, mentally following the cat’s path. “How long has he been up there?”

  “I don’t know. Twenty, twenty-five minutes. I’ve tried everything I know to get him down.”

  She had been unable to prevent a slight tremor from entering her voice, nor a shiver from passing through her when another cold breeze swirled around them.

  Mike stripped off his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Hold this for me. I’m going up after him.”

  “How are you—”

  But Mike was already boosting himself onto the railing, one hand on the wall to brace himself. Now Catherine was frightened all over again. “Mike, be careful. You could fall.”

  “I’m being careful.” Balanced precariously on the three-inch-wide metal railing, he stretched out a hand toward the cat.

  “Come on, Norman,” he said gently. “Don’t make me climb up there to get you, guy. We’d probably end up breaking both our necks.”

  Norman meowed, twitched his tail and studied Mike’s outstretched hand. After what seemed to Catherine like an agonizingly long time, the cat rose, padded easily across the shingles, walked up Mike’s arm and perched on his shoulder. He stayed there while Mike climbed carefully down from the railing, with a little help from Catherine.

  Back on solid concrete again, Mike reached up to peel Norman’s claws out of his gray sweatshirt. “Maybe you’d better take him inside before he decides to go off adventuring again.”

  Catherine gathered Norman to her gratefully. “Thank you so much. I didn’t know how I was going to—”

  “Just take him in,” Mike interrupted gently. “I’ll hang your wreath while I’m out here.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to—” But once again he acted despite her protest, reaching down to pick up the wreath and turning toward the railing with it.

  Knowing when retreat was called for, Catherine carried her pet into the safety of the apartment, scolding him gently as she did so.

  “What on earth got into you, Norman? Don’t you know you could have been hurt? Why is it that you only seem to make these reckless escapes when Mike is around? It makes me look like a very careless pet owner, I can assure you.”

  Norman made a funny sound that almost resembled a snort of amusement. She looked at him suspiciously. If she didn’t know better, she would swear that cat understood every word she said.

  The glass door opened and Mike entered, closing it behind him. His hair was wind tossed and his cheeks were cold reddened. Only then did she realize that she was still wearing his coat.

  Setting Norman down hastily, she slipped out of the coat and held it out to Mike. “Thank you. For everything. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along.”

  “He probably would have come down, anyway. He was just waiting until it looked like his idea.”

  She couldn’t smile in response to his quip. For one thing, she was still shaken over Norman’s stunt. For another…Mike was in her living room again. And having him here brought back all the pain and longing that had been tormenting her since he had stormed out after their quarrel.

  Suddenly self-conscious, she pushed her hands into the pockets of the gray wool slacks she wore with a mint-green sweater set. She’d had a faculty meeting at work that day, so she’d dressed a bit more nicely than usual. “Um, how are things going with you?”

  He shrugged, his expression suddenly hard to read. “Okay, I guess. I finished my classes. Passed them both.”

  “Congratulations.” She didn’t ask if he had registered for the next semester, though she wanted to. It was no longer any of her business—if it ever had been.

  Mike glanced around the room, avoiding her gaze. “Is there anything else you need while I’m here? Any maintenance problems?”

  “No,” she said in little more than a whisper. “Nothing’s broken.”

  Except her heart, of course. And that was something he had shattered, himself.

  Mike nodded and moved toward his door, his coat draped over one arm. She watched as he placed a hand on the doorknob and she braced herself to watch him walk out again.

  Instead he just stood there, staring at the door.

  “Mike?” she said after a moment. “Is there something else you want to say?”

  “Yeah,” he said without turning around. “But I don’t know exactly how to begin.”

  Moistening her lips, she said, “Just say it.”

  “It’s not that easy to admit to being a total ass. My behavior was inexcusable, and I owe you an apology.”

  A huge lump formed in her throat, forcing her to swallow hard. “You said some very hurtful things to me that night.”

  “I know. You didn’t deserve them.”

  “I didn’t go to Karen’s because of Bill. I wasn’t seeing him then and I haven’t seen him since except in passing at the hospital.”

  Still without looking at her, he muttered, “I wouldn’t blame you if you were. He seemed like a decent guy. And I was a jerk.”

  Crossing her arms tightly in front of her, she studied the back of his head. “We both lost our tempers, I guess.”

  “I know. I was jealous. I guess that’s obvious. I didn’t think I could compete with a guy like that, and I didn’t want you to spend the day with him, comparing us.”

  “There was never a competition,” she said sadly. “I’ve asked you to stop doing that. Comparing yourself to my other friends. It’s pointless. And it’s meaningless, since it’s something I would never do myself.”

  “Bob said it was because I never felt good enough for you. He said I was trying to sabotage the relationship before you could dump me and hurt me.”

  “Bob said that?” she asked, startled.

  He nodded. “Sometimes he makes more sense than you would expect from him.”

  There was another tense pause while she thought about Bob’s words. And then Mike said, “I’ve missed you, Catherine. Is there any chance we could try again?”

  She couldn’t count the number of nights she had lain awake, fantasizing about hearing him saying those very words. In those scenarios, she had always thrown herself into his arms and assured him that she would love to try again. And that they would make it work this time.

  So, it was with great regret that she said, “I don’t think that’s a very good idea, Mike. I honestly can’t see that anything has really changed at all.”

  His shoulders seemed to sag just a little. “I thought you might say that.”

  “And that’s the biggest problem between us,” she whispered. “You still don’t trust me. And without trust, there can be nothing else.”

  She simply couldn’t get any more deeply involved with a man who was still convinced that they were destined to fail. It had hurt her so badly when they had broken up before. She couldn’t risk going through that—or worse—again.

  “I trust you,” he insisted. And then he completely negated the statement, in her opinion, by adding, “Would it make any difference if I said I would register for classes next semester?”

  He still didn’t get it. He still thought he had to prove something to her in order to impress her. He was still selling himself short, and in the process he was doing the same to her.

  “I hope you do register for classes, if that’s what you want to do. I h
ope you will pursue your dreams, whatever they are. For your sake, not for anyone else’s, including mine. But, no, it doesn’t make any difference as far as we are concerned.”

  She had never cared from the start whether he had a degree. She had fallen for the man he was, not for what he could become. But he still thought she was no different from that woman who had hurt his feelings at his high school reunion. The one who thought herself too good to date a maintenance man.

  How could she and Mike ever have a relationship of any sort when he didn’t even know her?

  He still hadn’t looked at her. Maybe he couldn’t. He turned the doorknob. “Take care of yourself, Catherine.”

  “You, too,” she choked out.

  Norman meowed. Mike hesitated only a moment before letting himself out.

  There was no anger in the tears Catherine shed this time. Only deep, painful grief.

  Christmas came and went quietly, and somehow Catherine survived the holidays, despite her disinclination to celebrate that year. She hoped she did a credible job of disguising her pain, though she doubted that she fooled Karen or Julia. At least Julia had the compassion not to say I told you so.

  Mike quit his job at the apartment complex. The first Catherine knew of it was when she stopped by the office to pay her rent for January and Lucille mentioned it in passing.

  “It was a real shame, too,” the apartment manager said regretfully. “He was the best we ever had here. Not that I really expected him to stay, a young, good-looking guy like that.”

  “Does he, um, still live here in the complex?” Catherine had asked, struggling to hide her feelings.

  “No. He moved out last weekend. Darn shame,” Lucille said again.

  After that, Catherine threw herself into her work with a vengeance, spending even longer hours than usual in the lab and in her office. She found herself slipping into her old routines, wearing her same old clothes, coming home to sit with Norman and read her science papers in the evenings.

  She couldn’t say she never thought of Mike, but she took some pride in reducing those thoughts to no more than once or twice an hour. She had spent a lot of time replaying their time together, asking herself what had gone wrong. She had come to the conclusion that both she and Mike had been at fault.