Pursued by the Playboy (9 page)

Kate shrugged.  “It’s been a long time coming.”

Marc waited for her to continue.  When she remained quiet, he ran a finger over the back of her hand.  “Hey.  I’m a good listener.”

“I’m fine.”  She withdrew her hand and leaned back, out of range.  How could she explain her dysfunctional family to someone like Marc, who had grown up secure in the love his father and stepmother had for him and his sisters and each other?  How could someone from such a tight-knit clan even begin to understand, when she wasn’t sure she understood the dynamics herself? 

“What about your dad?”

Good question.  She hadn’t spoken with her father, didn’t know if he’d returned from his trip, and what he’d made of the fact that his wife wasn’t home.  Would he call?  And if he did, what could she say?   Kate closed her eyes.  The dull headache that had been looming all morning threatened to blossom into a full-blown migraine. 

“Kate?  Sweetheart?”

She fumbled in her purse for sunglasses.  “I’m sorry.”  Eyes screened by the mirrored lenses, she rose.  Her linen napkin fell to the floor unnoticed.  “I need to get back to the lab.  I forgot something.”

“Wait, I’ll come with you.”  He signaled for the check, but she was already heading for the exit.  Tossing several bills on the table, he rushed to catch up.

She walked quickly, ignoring his towering presence beside her.  By the time they reached her building, she felt clammy and nauseous.

He cupped her elbow.  “About tonight--”

She cut him off.  “I need to go, I’m sorry.  You’ll get me some names?”

“By tomorrow, for sure.”

“Thank you.”  She hesitated, then raised up on her toes and brushed her lips briefly against his. 

Before he could respond, she was gone.

###

Marc was as good as his word.  Within hours, he emailed her the names and numbers of several therapists who came highly recommended.  To her surprise, her mother accepted the list later that night with minimal fuss.

“I could do with a good divorce lawyer too,” she said.  “You wouldn’t happen to have that list handy, would you?”

Kate busied herself clearing the dinner table.  “I’ll see what I can do.”

“He called today.  While you were gone.”

“Who?”

“Your father, who else?  Not a single word of apology.”  She followed Kate to the kitchen, carrying their barely touched plates to the sideboard.  “Here, let me do that.  Where do you keep the dishwashing fluid?”

Kate glanced at the sink.  “I guess I’m out.  I’ll just rinse everything and run the dishwasher.”

“For just a few plates?  That’s a waste of water.  Why don’t you just leave everything and I’ll go shopping tomorrow.  You could do with some fresh produce.  A body can’t live on that crap in your freezer.  And you’re out of milk and eggs.”

Kate took a deep breath.   “I’ll leave you some cash.”

“Save your money.  I can still afford to buy some groceries.”  She rooted through several cabinets for plastic storage containers, transferred the leftovers to the refrigerator, and filled the kettle.  Another search of the cabinets yielded assorted boxes of tea and sugar.  “Don’t you have any saccharine?”

“It’s
probably
carcinogenic, Mom.  I don’t use it, and neither should you.”

“Fine.  I’ll get some tomorrow.”

Kate gritted her teeth.  From the sound of it, her mother was entrenching herself for an extended stay.   “What did Dad say?”

“Nothing intelligent, that’s for sure.”  Margaret slammed the silverware drawer shut.  “He wanted to know where to send the rest of my things.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him I’d come by and get them myself when I’m good and ready.  And I’d better not find that slut of his there.  Half the house is still mine, and just because I’m not living there doesn’t mean I’m willing to just hand it over to him.  It’ll have to be put on the market.  The lawyers can work out who gets what and how much.”

“Lawyers?  What lawyers?  For God’s sak
e, Mom, you just left yesterday.
  Can’t you put
on
the brakes for just a minute?”

“I don’t need to justify myself to you,” Margaret said stiffly.  “Frankly, it’s none of your business how we decide to do this.”

“Then you shouldn’t have dragged me into i
t by showing up here last night.
”

The kettle shrilled.  Margaret turned off the burner.  The silence swelled.

“I’m sorry,” Kate finally said.  “Of course you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need.”

“Thank you.” 

“Look, I didn’t mean to yell.  I’ll get you the names of some lawyers.”  She closed her eyes and massaged the throbbing pulse at her temple.  “I need to get some work done.  If you’ll excuse me. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

###

By the weekend, Kate was climbing the walls.  “There’s a reason I moved out at sixteen and never looked back,” she told Jake over their bi-weekly brunch.

He laughed.  “Lucky you were a kid genius and got into college early.”

“That too.  She’s driving me nuts, Jake.  I can’t kick her out, not when she’s finally taken a stand and decided to go for the divorce.  All those years I kept praying they’d do it, and now, when I’ve finally come to some equilibrium—got the monthly phone call, the ‘gotta go’ and hang up, down pat—it’s typical she  pulls something like this.”  She stifled a spurt of guilt at the thought that it wasn’t entirely her mother’s fault.  If blame were to be apportioned appropriately, her father should get the lion’s share.  Unfortunately, it was her mother that Kate had to deal with, and as always she found the prolonged exposure to her mother’s sharp tongue, passive-aggressiveness, and rapidly fluctuating moods increasingly difficult to bear. 

Even an evening in Marc’s company failed to lift her spirits for long.  She’d broken her own inveterate rule about boundaries by bringing an overnight bag to his house with a change of clothes and some toiletries.  He was careful not to press her for more information than she seemed willing to provide.  But his concern was obvious in the way he studied her when he thought she wasn’t looking, in the way he tried to tempt her appetite with freshly prepared chicken piccata and steamed asparagus, in the way he slowly made love to her well into the night.

He’d driven her in to work the following morning before heading for the hospital.  Her feeling of well-being lasted until she got home later that day, only to be confronted by her irate mother demanding to know where she’d been.  The yelling match that had ensued ended with slammed doors and Kate’s growing conviction that the situation with her mother was deteriorating rapidly to the point of complete collapse.

The break-point came just a few hours ago, when Kate had returned from her run, only to find her mother standing in Kate’s bedroom in front of an open dresser drawer, holding Marc’s boxer shorts.

She plucked the underwear from her mother’s grasp.  “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Putting away laundry.  You’re not into cross-dressing are you?”

Kate slammed the drawer shut.  “I don’t recall asking you to do my laundry.”

“You don’t have to ask.  I’m here, I thought I’d tidy the place up a bit.  It’s a pigsty.  Dirty clothes overflowing, papers all over, books and magazines and what-not cluttering up the floor.”

Alarm spread through Kate like an oil-slick over turbulent waters.  She rushed to the living room and saw what she’d failed to notice earlier:  a single six-inch stack of papers piled alongside a separate grouping of folders and journals atop a low bookcase.  Her books had been re-shelved according to size without regard for topic, all her painstakingly placed book-marks removed to provide a semblance of uniformity and order.  Gone too were the random scraps of paper on which she’d scribbled notes, and the ragged pages ripped from various technical bulletins that contained material she hadn’t yet transcribed to computer files. 

“I asked you not to touch my things.”  She felt her mother hovering behind her, but refused to turn around.  The effort to keep her voice down had her shaking.  “I’m in the middle of writing a grant proposal.  The deadline is this Wednesday.  Everything was spread out so I could work on it.  I knew exactly where everything was.  How many times do I need to ask that you respect my space and stop touching and tidying and moving everything until I end up not being able to find anything?”

“I’m
only trying to help.”  Margaret replied sharply.

“Well, stop trying!  You’re here in my place under my roof and you’re still doing what you’ve always done, taking over everything and completely disregarding my wishes.” 

“Fine.”  Margaret barreled past her.  “You want chaos, I’ll give you chaos.”  She swept the papers off the top of the bookcase and onto the floor, scattered the folders so that their contents spilled in a haphazard circle around her, and dumped books and journals off the shelves until the floor was littered with them.  “There.  Happy now?”

Kate stood rooted in place, shock and anger robbing her of words.  She could almost sympathize with her father and his search for amiable companionship outside his marriage. 

Finally she looked at her mother, who was standing white-faced and pinch-lipped in the center of the destruction.  “I’m going to go shower,”
Kate
said, her voice deliberately low and measured.  “Then I’m going out for a few hours.  I’d appreciate it if you kept to the kitchen and the guestroom for the rest of your stay.  My bedroom and the living room are off limits.”

Sitting across the table from Jake now, Kate felt her agitation over the morning confrontation slowly fade.   Over the years, Jake had been privy to the insanity of her family life, and had provided a sympathetic shoulder whenever she’d needed it. 

His voice interrupted her musing.  “So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”  She dragged the tines of her fork through a puddle of ketchup and swirled whimsical designs over the remaining eggs and hash browns.  Despite feeling calmer, her stomach continued to churn.

Jake plucked the fork out of her hand.  “If you’re just going to play with your food instead of eating, do you mind…?”

She pushed the plate toward him.  “Go ahead.” 

He wolfed down the rest of her breakfast and signaled the waiter for more coffee.  “Will you be able to finish the grant proposal on time?”

“Maybe.  If I work without sleep.  I have to sort everything out once I get back.”  She took a sip and grimaced at the bitter taste.  “You know that expression about fish and visitors?  Well, it’s been over three days.  If I have to be around her much longer, I may end up killing her.  Maybe I can find her a short-term rental.”

“Any sense of her finances?”

“No.  We never discussed things like that.  Though it turns out her parents were loaded, and disowned her when she got pregnant
with me
.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I didn’t ask for proof, but that’s what she told me.  Apparently they died without reconciling, so she got gipped out of her inheritance.”

“No wonder she’s bitter.”

“Yeah, between that and Dad’s philandering, she apparently didn’t have much to be happy about.”

“So you think it’s true, about you having a half-sibling on the way?”

Kate shrugged.  “I guess time will tell.  Though I pity any child who’s born into this crazy family.”

“You turned out okay.”

That almost made her smile.  “I paid my dues with a miserable childhood.  Wouldn’t wish it on anyone else.”

Jake
’s cell phone
rang
.  He checked the number and grimaced.  “This
shouldn’t
take long
.
”

Kate eavesdropped as he launched into a rapid-fire exchange
about proceeds generated from common stock sales in some recent private placement
and
projected
revenue
figures
from collaborations and license arrangements. 

“Damned accountants,” he said
,
hanging up
.  “You want to walk, clear your head?”

“Too much work.”  She sighed.  “I should head back.” 

“You sure you’ll be able to get anything done with your mom still there?”

“You have a better idea?”

“I always have a better idea.”  Jake grinned.  “Let’s swing by your place so you can grab whatever you need.  You can crash with me until the situation’s sorted.”

For the first time since her mother showed up on her doorstep, Kate felt
a spurt of optimism.
  “You’re sure?”

“It’ll be like old times.  You can have your usual room.”   The room at his parents’ house which she had used during college vacations, when the elder Steins had embraced her into their family.  Since his parents retired to
Boca
, Jake had moved back into their sprawling farmhouse on the outskirts of Horsham.   “Besides, my folks would string me up if they heard I didn’t offer you shelter in the storm.”