Four Seasons of Romance (11 page)

Leo stopped cupping her breast and pointed toward the
tangled sheets.
“You, too, apparently.”

Catherine’s face grew hot. “Careful,” she said. “Or you
won’t be seeing me naked, either.” She gathered her clothes. “I’m sure we’ll
make love when we’re married,” she said, a certain edge to her voice, failing
to mention that even then Walter would prefer to do it with the lights out, or
so it seemed. She glanced over her shoulder and saw a stealthy flash of
jealousy in Leo’s eyes.

“Come on,” he said, reaching for his jeans. “Get dressed,
and I’ll show you my new car.”

Through his connections, Leo bought a 1945 MC Midget TC, a
dented but speedy two-seater sports car, and took Catherine drag racing through
the streets of Philly, following up with trips to dingy bars and drinks until
the early morning. For a week, Catherine showed up at work
hungover
from rye whiskey, tired from cigarette smoke, but happy from the feeling of
adventure she only felt around Leo, certain coworkers only too happy to
integrate Catherine with the daily gossip routines.

“It’s awful, isn’t it? She looks like a two-bit prostitute.”

“Since that boy came in with those flowers, she’s been a
lost cause.”

“Poor Walter.
Wonder whether he has
any clue she’s running around.”

Walter didn’t have a clue, as it happened, and Catherine wasn’t
about to tell him. Her affair with Leo was revitalizing but also frightening,
as Leo’s recklessness as an adult seemed more dangerous, from drinking in
public to jaywalking to daring her to run topless through Bartram’s Garden at
noon.

One night, they sneaked into Bartram’s Garden, laid a
blanket on the green grass, and watched the stars, Leo teaching her naughty
French words and composing poems on the spot. Even though Leo hadn’t spent much
time in Philadelphia, he seemed to have an instinctive sense of the city’s
clubs and restaurants, from colorful bars to strange and exotic restaurants,
often tiny, hole-in-the-wall places she’d never heard of. This was the
exciting, nonconformist, carefree attitude she thought she’d lost forever.

After a dinner at
Sof
Omar, their
favorite Ethiopian restaurant known for excellent coffee and deserts, Leo sat
next to her and pressed his lips to hers, infusing them with tingling warmth.
People looked as the lovers sat at the dinner table, kissing all the same.
“This is so different,” Catherine said.

“Different from what?”

“From when I go out with Walter.”

“Why are you even involved with him?” Leo asked. “If you
don’t love him, why bother?”

“Well, he is reliable, honest, and he has a good heart. A
good person to rely on and a good husband,” she said.

“So, he never kissed you after dinner?” Leo asked.

“No, he’s never once kissed me at the dinner table. He’s too
shy to kiss in public.” She pointed at the sphere of spongy
injera
bread they shared. “Walter’s idea of exotic is putting parmesan on his pasta.”

Leo laughed—the full-bodied, soulful laugh she adored.

“I’ve missed you,” Catherine said. “I’ve missed this.
Us.
What we have.
The way I see the world
when I’m with you.”

He tore off a piece of
injera
and
placed it on her waiting tongue. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Not this
time. So, as soon as you’re ready to leave that stick-in-the-mud...  as
soon as you have the courage to tell Walter you’re leaving... I’ll be here.”
Leo gestured at the food on their table—a rich mixture of chutneys, lentils,
and lamb in thick sauce. “And I’ll feed you stuff a whole lot better than
parmesan pasta.”

She laughed, but worry nagged at the edges of Catherine’s
happiness, knowing that Leo was ready to whisk her away for a lifetime of adventure,
but realizing she was no longer the same hotheaded seventeen-year-old she used
to be. What if, at twenty-eight, she no longer wanted a lifetime of adventure?
She looked for it before, and it burned her; of course, Leo was different from
Michael, but the point still stood. And what if she wanted something else
entirely? Something Leo couldn’t offer?

Her thoughts drifted back to Walter, someone who didn’t take
her to the hottest places, write poems, eat delicacies she couldn’t pronounce,
or make passionate love in the pale dawn of morning. Yet, there wasn’t a doubt
in her mind that Walter would be a good husband. Leo, on the other hand, would
give her love and good times, but could he give her security?
A family?
Children?
She didn’t
know.

Leo noticed the doubt in her eyes and took her hand. “Hey,”
he said. “It’s going to be all right, I promise. Trust your heart, and you’ll
never go wrong.”

“I know,” Catherine said. But with her heart pulling one way
and her head pulling another, she didn’t know much of anything.

*

Sensing Catherine’s reticence and doubt, Leo decided to do
all he could to banish it from her mind. So, in the weeks and months that
followed, he established himself in Philadelphia, assisting other artists,
posing as a model, and finding customers for his art. The abstract
expressionist movement was alive and well in the City of Brotherly Love, and as
an artistic, able-bodied young man, he had little trouble finding work in the
city’s many galleries and art studios.

He rented a small room in a rough part of town so what
little money he made could be spent solely on Catherine, showing her that he
too could provide for her. In truth, the sheer volume of activities, fine
dinners, field trips, and extravagant dates put Leo in financial and emotional
turmoil in a courtship that was neither conventional nor easy.

At first, Catherine thought she’d confess her affair to
Walter, too, but something held her back; instead, she saw Leo as often as she
could. They met daily—before work, at lunch, late at night, and pretty much any
time Walter had other obligations and Leo’s odd jobs allowed, which was often.

The romance with Leo bloomed brighter than ever, but
Catherine could not sever the ties with Walter. Slowly, she noticed the subtle
ways Leo had changed through those ten years.

Although he had stopped his drug use from his Paris days, he
liked to drink. Despite Leo’s claims of moderate alcohol use, Catherine had
grown up in a home of teetotalers and what looked moderate to Leo often looked
excessive to her. Yet, she didn’t think she could ask him to stop drinking
altogether; after all, she wasn’t his mother. She was his...

That’s the problem
, she realized.
I don’t know what I am
. She could be his
girlfriend, but she also was about to become someone else’s wife, a wife with a
decent fiancé ready for marriage. What was she doing ratting around town with a
struggling artist who had an unacknowledged drinking problem?

When she was honest with herself, which wasn’t often,
Catherine knew exactly what she was doing. Even after all those years, he still
made her feel the way she felt when they first fell in love years ago, a time
she held special affection for. But could she really go back there? The
relationship today made her wonder about the vague future with a man she wasn’t
sure she could count on.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Leo told her. “I’ve driven fast
cars, lived in France; it’s out of my system now. I’m ready for the life we
dreamed of having.” She nodded but his words did not convince her.

Leo got a steady job as a photographer in Jensen’s Family
Portraits, a portrait studio and sought metalworking clients as he’d done in
France. Before long, he had a steady stream of shop owners ordering shop signs
and other trinkets. As always, he liked working with his hands, letting his
creativity pay the bills, and proving himself to Catherine.

Leo made enough money to support
himself—
Catherine
realized that. But would that be enough to support a family? He was always
changing jobs, and she knew he would never be the type to pursue a traditional
“career” or change his lifestyle.

“Be honest with me,” she told him one afternoon as they
dined at Rock of Gibraltar, a tiny Mediterranean deli with an L-shaped dining
room a few blocks from Logan square. “You don’t ever want a 9-to-5.”

“I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a career. My
art is my career. And I’m logging hours at the portrait studio like any working
stiff.” He tried to keep his voice level but felt the sting of Catherine’s
judgment. Why couldn’t she accept that his chosen vocation was a viable,
respectable way to make a living?

“You know I love your art,” she said. “And you’re
talented.”      

“Would you judge Leonardo
da
Vinci
for wanting to devote himself to his art? Would you judge Michelangelo?” he
asked, tossing his bread back on the plate.

She put her hand on his arm.
“Of course
not.”

“I’m not saying I’ll ever be as good as they were. But why
can’t you understand that this is what I want to do? Make things out of clay,
plastic, metal? It’s what I love.”

“I would never want to take that away from you. It’s
just...” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “It’s not the most
dependable way to earn a living.”

“It never bothered you before.”

Leo was baffled by this change in Catherine. When they were
young, she’d encourage him to pursue his sculpting, telling him he’d be a
famous sculptor one day, appreciating how free she felt with him—and that was
what she
didn’t
like about him ten years
later.        

Unknown to Leo, that unflagging support had been replaced by
what Catherine wanted more than anything at the moment. She loved Leo but also
knew he was content to work jobs at odd hours and live their life without
children forever. Leo wanted Catherine to himself, and she wanted something Leo’s
nature was not suited for—children and a family.

Then, in the early fall of 1953, Walter’s mother fell ill
with tuberculosis. Walter was working more hours at the Sun Oil offices and
counting on Catherine to help take care of his mother. Catherine knew and
adored Mrs. Murray—she was a sweet lady who always had a kind word and a plate
of freshly baked cookies for every visitor. So, when she heard of Mrs. Murray’s
illness, she spent more and more time with the ailing woman, even missing her
dates with Leo when her presence as a nurse was required.

Sometimes, Catherine sat beside Mrs. Murray’s bed and
cried,
stroking the ailing woman’s withered hand. Walter had
been wonderful to Catherine; she didn’t want to hurt him. Both he and Mrs.
Murray treated her like family. And how had she repaid them? Walter was a
generous, giving man who made up for what he lacked in passion with kindness
and stability.

As Mrs. Murray grew weaker, the reality of the situation
became increasingly apparent: Walter stood to gain a significant inheritance
once his mother passed, while Catherine cared far more about keeping Mrs.
Murray alive than about the words in her final will and testament. But as his
mother’s time grew shorter, Walter spoke more openly about life after she was
gone and their move to The Liverpool Mansion,
the family’s
four story Victorian mansion in Fox Chase
.

“It’s where I grew up,” he told her. “I want my children to
grow up there too.” Walter’s wish to have a large family touched Catherine, but
she was torn in more ways than she had ever been before. So, in November, with
the date of her nuptials looming only three months away, Catherine made a bold
move.

She was having lunch with Walter at The Bell Garden, his
favorite restaurant near
Fitler
Square, where she’d been
trying unusual entrees, inspired by her forays into exotic food with Leo.
Walter, however, always ordered the same thing—a turkey
club,
hold the tomatoes, soda water with a lime.

Catherine poked around her salad, avoiding eye contact, and
then opened her mouth to speak. “I was thinking maybe we should postpone the
wedding.”

Walter’s turkey club was halfway to his mouth when he
stopped, calmly put down the sandwich, and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin.
“And why is that?”

She pulled her cashmere sweater closer. “It’s awfully cold
outside. A February wedding would be such a dreary affair.”

“But Valentine’s Day has special significance for both of
us.”

“Yes, that’s true.” Instead of looking at him, she
rearranged the dessert fork, putting it by the other forks. Even though she,
too, was raised by wealthy parents, Catherine never understood why rich people
needed so many forks.

“I’d rather have a summer wedding,” she said, keeping her
voice cool and nonchalant. “The weather will be much better, and more people
will be able to come. Or maybe a September wedding, so I’m not drenched with
sweat in my wedding gown. Or even an October wedding, when the leaves are
changing. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Walter smoothed the napkin in his lap. “So, what you’re
saying is that you want to postpone the wedding to an undetermined date in the
future.”

Catherine swallowed. “Yes.”

Walter shrugged.
“Very well.”

That’s it?
Catherine wanted to scream.
That’s all?
He didn’t seem affected in the slightest by her change of plans.
Maybe Leo’s
right, and he’ll get over me
, she thought. Then, she realized that, true to
his character, Walter was simply deferring to his fiancée’s wishes, without the
slightest suspicion that she was seeing someone else.

*

It was February, the snow was heavy on the ground, and
Catherine’s original wedding date came and went. Leo was drinking heavily, the
liquor needed only to regain feeling in his fingers if you asked him. How else
would he make his art?