Interior Designs (22 page)

She also loved her work. He understood how dedicated she was. And he was proud of what she'd done. Being married to him would preclude such a busy working schedule, he knew, and that would be good for Cathryn. He wanted to persuade her to slow down, to take it easy for a while, just as Judy had been after her to do for so long.

His own work schedule had been drastically altered since Selby arrived, and he felt much better as a result, both mentally and physically. He'd hoped that Selby's presence would promote a slacking off in Cathryn's own determination to work so hard. And now, the perfect opportunity had presented itself, a chance for Cathryn to find out for herself how good it would be to have Selby around for longer than an hour or two at one time.

He cleared his throat. "I have a favor to ask of you, sweetheart," he said. He watched her carefully. Behind his casual manner, he was alert for danger signals.

She absently stroked his fingers. "Anything," she said, with a look that was mellow and full of contentment.

Drew relaxed, relieved at her easy response.
This,
he thought,
is what it would be like if we were married. Every night, knowing each other, being best friends, contented.

"The construction outfit that's building our new Daytona Beach store is having problems. Yesterday part of the roof collapsed, and now there's some question about how it's to be repaired. I have to go to Daytona tomorrow morning, and I need someone to look after Selby. A construction site is no place for a small girl. Can she stay with you for a night or two?"

With a sinking feeling, Cathryn thought of her new projects. Zohra had been out sick for the past week, and Cathryn had taken over handling the details for Zohra's clients. It wasn't a good time to take on a babysitting job, even with as sweet a child as Selby.

But in her eagerness to please Drew, Cathryn didn't hesitate. Somehow she'd manage. She smiled and said, "Of course. I'd like having Selby stay with me."

"I could ask Judy, but we've accepted so much of her hospitality already," he said, giving Cathryn an out if she chose to take it.

"No," Cathryn said firmly. "I want Selby here." She entwined her fingers in his.

He squeezed her hand, thinking how pretty her hair looked at night with the light from the room behind them shining on it. He felt a glow of pleasure at her willingness to accommodate his needs.

"I'll bring Selby over early tomorrow morning so that I can get on the road," he told her.

Cathryn lowered her head just in time to hide her look of sudden apprehension.

* * *

It would have been easier if Drew had been gone only a short time as he originally planned. But on the second day he called to tell Cathryn and Selby with some exasperation that nothing was going as expected and that he'd have to spend the whole week in Daytona.

Selby was delighted. Cathryn, much as she tried not to be, was dismayed.

What a lot of fun the two of them had had for the first two days! Cathryn had called her studio and asked Natalie to take on Zohra's work, and Natalie politely agreed. Cathryn didn't go to the studio at all. Instead, she took Selby to the pet store and bought her not just one parakeet but two. Selby named them Romeo and Juliet after two other famous lovebirds, and they watched entranced as the birds billed and cooed at each other and at the mirror hanging in their cage.

On the second day they curled Selby's hair with Cathryn's curling iron and then, dissatisfied with the look of it, combed all the curls out. They read
Peter Pan
to each other. And they cooked a batch of fudge that never hardened, so that they'd had to scoop it out of the pan with a spoon. Cathryn pulled out her old watercolors and taught Selby a bit about painting. She even started a painting of her own, done from memory, of the spreading oak tree overlooking the dunes at the beach house. She was amazed at how much she enjoyed working with watercolors again.

"I really need to go into the studio today," Cathryn told Selby firmly on the third day after Drew had called and said that he wasn't coming home as scheduled. She planned to ask Judy if Selby could go over and visit Amanda.

"Can I come along to the studio?" asked Selby unexpectedly.

"Well," said Cathryn, but then she thought,
Why not? It would be interesting for Selby.
And so she took her to the studio and handed her a pencil and some paper. Selby sat patiently beside Rita for the first several hours, asking questions, playing with the stapler and drawing pictures. Then she became restless, fidgeting until Rita responded by taking her to a nearby ice-cream parlor. When Rita went home at five, Selby wanted Cathryn to leave, too.

"I can't, Selby," insisted Cathryn, running her hand nervously through her hair while answering yet another phone call.

Selby retreated to Rita's desk, where she managed to amuse herself with the copier for the better part of an hour, and Selby's reproachful look when Cathryn managed to wind things up made Cathryn feel rotten.

Cathryn described one of the interiors she was designing to Selby that night over grilled-cheese-and-bacon sandwiches, and rather desperately asked her for suggestions. But Selby's suggestions weren't usable, and afterward Cathryn sat at her drafting table staring glumly at a set of house plans, wondering how she was going to manage if Drew didn't show up soon.

He texted often, usually when he was rushing from one place to another. "I love you," Drew said when he called every night, but suddenly and inexplicably that wasn't enough anymore. She decided that she wouldn't feel comfortable telling him that she couldn't work, especially since the reason she couldn't work was the presence of his daughter. Each time she hung up the phone after speaking with him, she felt more depressed than before.

One night out of pure exasperation she convinced Selby to go to bed early, hoping to work on a reception-area color scheme for a new high-rise office building in West Palm Beach. But she was so tired from the day's activities, which had included chasing the two escaped parakeets around the apartment and then cleaning up their droppings, that she couldn't think, much less create.

"Are you getting tired of having me here?" Selby asked the next day when Cathryn was distractedly folding one of the many towels that had proliferated alarmingly since the child had arrived in the apartment.

Her eyes met Selby's, which were full of a need for reassurance. She dropped the towels and gathered Selby into her arms, wondering how she could love a child so much yet long so desperately for some time of her own.

She called Judy for relief, and Judy immediately offered to take Selby home to play with Amanda for an afternoon.

"Wonderful," breathed Cathryn. That day she sat down, and feeling uninhibited for the first time since Selby's arrival, she zipped through three of her assistants' design plans and with a sigh of relief marked them with her approval.

* * *

When Drew returned from Daytona at the end of the week, he found a harried and exhausted Cathryn.

His heart sank. He hadn't expected this. He'd been so sure that everything would go well and that both Cathryn and Selby would thrive on full-time togetherness. It hadn't been his fault that he'd had to stay in Daytona longer than planned, and he'd come home as soon as he could.

"Tell me what's wrong," he insisted, expecting Cathryn to pour out her feelings so that he could soothe away her insecurities.

She couldn't tell him that having Selby around had made it difficult for her to work. "It's the new office building," she lied, remembering when she'd found it so difficult to lie to him. When you loved someone, was it always difficult to lie? Did it get easier, or did the act of lying imply a loss of love? She tried to forget these concerns in their lovemaking after Selby had gone to bed.

But this time her passion was muted, and she drew no peace from Drew's body. Her own body was left tense.

Afterward Drew said quietly, holding her close, listening to her even breathing, "It wasn't good for you, was it?"

When she didn't reply, pretending to be asleep, he knew that it hadn't been, and he felt a sharp stab of despair and remorse. He'd made a mistake in leaving Selby with her so long. He should have acquainted Cathryn with full-time caretaking duties more slowly, as he had planned to do in the first place. But he had thought it would be all right. And it wasn't.

* * *

He called Cathryn the next night, wanting to see her.

"I can't tonight," she said, her voice sounding curiously remote, almost as it had the first time he'd met her, when she'd withdrawn completely.

"You're still planning on that banquet with me tomorrow night, aren't you?" It was the biggest event of the year for the sales leaders and managers in the Sedgwick Department Stores empire. Every summer Drew hosted a dinner dance for them at the Whitecaps, and he'd been looking forward to attending this one with Cathryn on his arm.

For a moment she didn't speak, and then she said, "I don't think so, Drew. The new office building..." Her voice trailed off. "Please forgive me. I have so much to do."

A numbing coldness swept over him after saying goodbye, and he hung up feeling desolate. He now knew without a doubt that she was deliberately avoiding him.

Cathryn sat beside her telephone, tears streaming down her face. She hadn't wanted to hurt him. She loved him.

But at the moment she needed space and time away from him and Selby. She had to think about what marriage and the stepmothering of a little girl would mean to her career and to her life.

* * *

"What's wrong with marriage?" asked Judy when Cathryn confided her fears. "I think you and Drew would be very happy. You're ideally suited, you enjoy being together, and you're in love."

"You know my work has always come first," replied Cathryn unhappily. "I love Drew, but I've got so many new contracts. Ever since I've been seeing Drew, my work has suffered. I was four weeks behind schedule on the architect's office, and if he hadn't been understanding, he could have done my business a good deal of damage."

"Is that all you think about? Even now that you have Drew and Selby?"

"It's not all I think about, no. But I'm used to thinking about such things first. Everything else always came after my work."

"Even people?"

"Even people. Well, most people, anyway. But when I have more time—"

"When you have more time, I hope Drew's still available," Judy said tartly. Seeing the crestfallen expression on Cathryn's face, she sighed and said, "So when do you get some free time?"

"Soon, I hope—in a month or so, the first week in October when I go to New York for that conference where I'm going to be the banquet speaker." That was another thing—the speech she had to make. She'd committed to it last year before she'd even met Drew. Giving the speech was the last thing she wanted to do, but the League of Interior Designers was counting on her and she had turned them down last year. She was an award-winning designer, and she had an obligation. She couldn't bow out again. Not at the last minute, anyway.

"Cathryn, make time to spend with Drew. He made time for you when you needed it."

This pointed reference to Drew's understanding of her needs only made Cathryn feel worse. Drew had comprehended exactly how she felt when he'd shut her out. Now she was shutting him out, rejecting him, and she hated herself for it.

But it was different now. When Drew first entered her life, he'd been a well from which she replenished her energy. He had sparked creativity in her in some strange, inexplicable way. But now that both their lives were arranged around a child, she was distracted and tired.

Cathryn sensed that both Judy and Drew thought she was being selfish and dooming their chances to marry. And she couldn't shake the conviction that if she and Drew couldn't work things out it would be her fault. The guilt trip was staggering.

"I don't know what to do," she said bleakly, feeling torn.

"Some things are more important than work and money," Judy said sagely.

Cathryn didn't reply. It seemed to her that if she married Drew and gave herself over to him and to Selby, she would be losing the very thing, her career, that made her who she was.

Judy, dedicated wife and mother, would never understand. The only person Cathryn could expect to understand was Drew, and he was part of the problem.

* * *

"Cathryn, come with Selby and me out in the canoe." Drew and Selby had showed up unannounced at the studio after five o'clock in the evening when everyone but Cathryn had gone home.

She tried to smile. "I can't, Drew," she said carefully. "I have too much to do."

"Please, Cathryn," Selby chimed in. "I can't paddle hard enough to make any difference. Daddy wants to go all the way up the coast of Lake Worth to Palm Beach Inlet. If you don't go, we'll only be able to go as far as the bridge."

"I wish I could, Selby," she said, hardening her heart to Selby's persuasion, "but I'm waiting for an important phone call."

"Oh." Selby's face fell in disappointment.

"Let me talk with Cathryn alone, Button," Drew said gently.

"Okay." Selby whirled and skipped down the darkened hallway, peering curiously into the room where upholstery samples were kept.