Soul Catcher (13 page)

‘Reverend White,’ Patrick addressed the snowman. ‘Will you kindly marry us?’

I laughed. ‘But you don’t want to marry me, remember?’

Smiling, he shook his head. ‘It was a lie.’

I slapped him playfully. He caught my arm and pulled me to him. ‘Well, do you want to?’

‘For real?’

‘Right now.’

So we stood in front of the Reverend White, who glowed silvery round under the dark sky. Patrick looked at me and very gently said, ‘I, Patrick Nevins, promise to love and adore, hold and protect you, Kate, for the rest of my life.’

I looked into Patrick’s eyes: deep blue, intense. ‘I, Kate Steiner, promise to love and adore, hold and protect you, Patrick, for the rest of my life.’

‘I have no ring,’ he said.

‘We have no home,’ I said.

He took my hand and squeezed it. Warmth filled me on that freezing night. A wind rushed over us and then the air settled into a complete calm.

On the morning of December twenty-third, the test results were posted in the first floor of the school building. After breakfast everyone poured into the hallway and crowded in front of the board. Happy voices erupted and a few long-faced kids walked silently away.

Patrick and I darted around, searching out our scores. My heart pounded as I read one pass after another. Seven passes! I had made it! I spun around looking for Patrick. He was sitting on the stairs, elbows propped on knees, staring into clasped hands. His lips were drawn in, buttoned up, defeated.

‘Patrick?’ I said softly.

He shook his head.

There were two one-week sessions during vacation, two more chances to pass midterms. ‘You’ll pass in the first session,’ I said. ‘I’m sure you will.’

He said, ‘I’ll try,’ but he sounded uncertain.

The buses left for the city that afternoon. I tried to cheer him up, but it was impossible. He was settled into the gloomy surprise of having failed, of having to stay behind. The one note of optimism was his determination to see me on New Year’s Eve. He kept saying, ‘I’ll be there, don’t worry, I’ll definitely be there.’ I hoped he
would
be there, but it was scary to really expect him. I was afraid that our New Year’s plans would turn out to be nothing but a fantasy. Patrick was determined, though. He said, ‘We consummate our marriage on New Year’s Eve.’

It was awful saying goodbye to him in front of the buses, watching him walk back up toward the dorms, vanishing into Grove as I prepared to leave. I was so worried about him! Why hadn’t I failed something too, just to stay behind and help him? But it was too late; I was on one list, and he was on another.

He was still moving up the hill when I was herded onto the bus with Gwen.

‘Lookit,’ Gwen said, as we lugged our suitcases I through the crazed holiday crowd at the Port Authority bus terminal. ‘All I’m saying is a little makeup never hurt anyone.’

‘I’m just not that kind of person.’

‘What do you mean
that kind of person?
What am I, some kind of cheap date? Jesus F. Christ, I get knocked up once,’ she shouted, ‘and you act like I’m some kind of street walker!’

People were staring at us. I walked fast, pretending not to know her.

‘Kate!’ She chased me. ‘Kate!’

Finally I said, ‘You could be a little more discreet!’

‘Ha!’ she said — ‘Ha!’ — but she didn’t sound amused. ‘Discreet? But I have a pale complexion, Kate. Did you hear me? Mrs Nevins! My complexion is too pale!’

I dashed through the door to the taxi stand outside, trying to get away before Gwen caught up with me. I had told her not to call me Mrs Nevins. Sharing the experience with her had been a mistake. I should have known better. All information — secrets or not — ultimately became Gwen’s property. At least I hadn’t told her about my plans for New Year’s Eve.

‘Okay,’ Gwen said, racing up behind me. ‘I apologize.’

I didn’t answer, didn’t even look at her.

‘You’re being too hard on me. Give me a break, okay?
Okay?’

A cab drove up, and a man in a grey suit and camelhair coat tried to cut in front of us. Gwen pushed past him, saying, ‘Come on, Kate, get in!’

‘Where to?’ the cabbie asked.

‘Where to?’ Gwen repeated to me.

I pulled the slip of paper from my jacket pocket. ‘989 Park Avenue.’

‘What cross street?’ he asked.

Gwen and I looked at each other. I shrugged. She said, ‘989 Park Avenue. What are you, deaf?’

989 Park Avenue — Mom’s swanky new address — put Dad’s crosstown digs to shame. It was a huge old limestone building with a blue awning perched on brass poles. When a man in a navy blue uniform rushed out and took our bags, I thought he was trying to rob us.

‘Don’t be a dufus,’ Gwen said. ‘He’s the doorman!’

Ah, yes — the doorman. Growing up in the suburbs, then sequestered at Grove, I had never encountered this urban species. Not even at Dad’s; his building was strictly self-serve elevator.

‘I’m John,’ the doorman said. ‘Mrs Steiner said to expect you.’ He smiled, more at us than with us. It was like we were a couple of hicks. I guess we were.

Gwen,
sophisticate extraordinaire,
didn’t like it. She said, ‘Please show us to the elevator,’ and marched into the building.

The large foyer had a polished marble floor and was furnished with four couches, two armchairs and a huge glass vase filled with orange tiger lilies and sprigs of eucalyptus. A sparkling chandelier hung from the middle of the ceiling. John deposited us with our suitcases in front of a polished brass elevator at the far end of the foyer.

We rode up to the eleventh floor. I looked at the paper. ‘11D,’ I said. And Gwen rang the bell.

A tall woman with short grey hair answered. She wiped her hands on a striped canvas apron — which she wore over white slacks and a black cashmere turtleneck — before offering to shake.

‘I’m Ann,’ she said, flashing a smile, ‘your Mom’s roommate. She just phoned to say she’ll be a little late from the office. Come on in.’

The apartment was big and homey, cluttered with antiques, abstract prints, books, piles of unopened mail, and filled with good, spicy smells.

‘I was just cooking,’ Ann said. ‘Your room’s the one next to the bathroom. Make yourselves comfortable. I’ll be in the kitchen.’

We wandered through a large living room with a Persian rug and long blue couch, which Gwen promptly tested. ‘It’s filled with feathers!’ she said, sinking back. An adjacent dining room was dominated by a huge round table surrounded by carved antique chairs. The walls were forest green. ‘What a place!’ Gwen said, trailing me. Our bedroom was sparse and tiny: formerly the maid’s room, now crammed with twin beds, a tall dresser, and a fancy gumball machine filled with multicolored candies. I twisted the knob but nothing came out. We left our suitcases on the beds and went exploring. There were two more bedrooms — Mom’s and Ann’s — and a small study. It was lined with bookshelves, and in the center of the room was an antique partners’ desk. There, on a worn green blotter, was Betty, sitting like a prim feline statue. She looked at me and yawned.

‘Hey, little Betty!’ I scooped her into a hug from which she extricated herself with a war cry. She skidded out of the room.

‘She’s her same old charming self,’ Gwen said. ‘Come on, let’s follow that smell.’

We found the kitchen just beyond the foyer. There was a
square table-for-two tucked in a corner. We sat there, dipping carrot sticks into sour cream, and talking to Ann as she cooked. She said that a ‘special friend’ of Mom’s was due for dinner.

‘Who?’ I asked.

‘I don’t think you know him.’

Gwen mouthed
him
and raised her eyebrows.

I crunched loudly on a carrot stick.

‘I hope you like steak
au poivre,’
Ann said.

‘Steak-o-what?’ Gwen asked.

‘Steak with pepper. It’s good.’

‘I’ll try anything once,’ Gwen said. ‘Are you a chef?’

Ann pounded medallions of steak with a wooden mallet. ‘Just amateur,’ she said. ‘I own a boutique.’

‘No shit!’ Gwen blurted out. ‘I mean,
wow,
I’d love to see it.’

Ann chuckled, and gave the steak one last whack.

The ‘special friend’ was due at eight, and Mom rushed through the door just a few minutes before. She was wearing a big red coat, a furry black hat, black riding boots and fire red lipstick. She looked — I didn’t know what —
young.
There was a flurry of activity during which she dropped bags of gifts by the door, struggled out of her coat, hugged and kissed me, kissed Gwen, and greeted Ann and Betty. She tore around the kitchen making last minute preparations until the doorbell rang at eight, right on the button.

‘Well?’ she asked us, eyes glowing. ‘How do I look?’ She was wearing a tailored royal blue dress of raw silk.

I thought she looked pretty snazzy, but didn’t want it to go to her head. So I said, ‘You look okay, Mom,’ and shrugged.

‘You look like a million bucks!’ Gwen said.

Ann laughed and snapped a dish towel at Mom. ‘Go answer the door!’

We waited in suspense. There was a male voice, followed by silence. Kissing silence, I thought. Then Mom appeared in the doorway, smiling, and dragging a male hand. It was a
mature, hairy hand with a white cuff and a grey sleeve. She tugged, and the rest of the body appeared.

It was Jerry O’Haran!

‘Hi, Kate,’ he said.

I didn’t know what to say. I already knew I liked him, but I hadn’t expected to see him attached to my mother’s hand. In my mother’s new apartment. The special guest.

‘Kate,’ Mom prodded, ‘say hello to Jerry.’

I got up and shook his hand. ‘Nice to see you,’ I said, and sat back down.

‘And it’s very nice to see you again,’ he said.

After dinner, as we cleaned up the kitchen, Mom asked me what I thought.

‘It’s not that I don’t like the guy,’ I said. ‘But Mom, you’re married.’

‘Separated,’ she corrected me, ‘and getting divorced.’

‘What about Dad?’ I asked, though I knew how lame the question was. He had Lisa.

Mom said, ‘Kate, I’m very happy and I was hoping you’d accept that. If you can’t, then you’ll just have to get used to it.’

‘I
want
you to be happy, Mom.’

‘Thank you, sweetheart. This isn’t easy for Jerry, either. Or for me.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’ And I was, and I wasn’t. More than anything, my feelings were a jumble. I
did
want Mom to be happy — but with Dad.

Then Mom said, ‘Why don’t you think about inviting Patrick for New Year’s?’ and I understood that, despite separation, we were not all that distant. I was a girl at the beginning of love, she was a woman in the middle of it. To love a man — boy, male — outside the family would take invitations and diplomacy. She knew the value of an occasion like New Year’s Eve. We were a little more like sisters now; consciously or not, she was becoming my conspirator. That obliged me to conspire with her, too: in return for her understanding, I owed her my own. I recalled the debt of
reciprocity I sensed when Dad first brought me to Lisa. Now, Mom needed my approval too and was willing to reciprocate with hers. They were like lobbyists and I was Congress. They were giving me power over them, for the first time in my life. I liked it, in a way; but it didn’t compete with the luxury of being a kid.

Dishes done, understandings struck, Mom and Jerry moved to the living room while Gwen, Ann and I sat at the dining room table stringing cranberries for the tree. Through the wide archway connecting the living and dining rooms, I could see them dancing. Jerry had taken off his tie and rolled up his sleeves. They had both kicked off their shoes.

Later, we all trimmed the tree. Jerry, a Catholic, crowned it with the Star of David I’d made from tin foil eight years ago. I liked him, I really did, but I could tell he wanted more, to be integrated into our lives. I didn’t know if I could do it yet; it was still too soon.

He came back on Christmas Eve, then on Christmas Day. He gave me a gold chain necklace. I wore it out to dinner at a local restaurant,
Sun Foo Hunan.
It was Ann’s idea to go Chinese. Ever since her own divorce, she said, she did something non-traditional on holidays. Plus, Chinese food was cheaper than going to a regular restaurant. It was one of the bylaws of divorce that budgets tightened when single mothers paid.

Gwen was wearing all eight Indian bangles I had given her, and every time she picked up her chopsticks, it sounded like the percussion section of a band. She had given me a makeup kit, and I had it all on my face. I felt bad about our argument in the bus station, now that I knew what it was all about.

Midway into the Hot and Spicy Chicken with Peppers, I became aware that Gwen was giving me a deadly look.

‘What?’ I said.

She noisily twirled cold noodles around a chopstick, and said nothing.

‘Your mascara’s running, dear,’ Mom told me.

I touched my face and black came off on my fingers. Ann handed me a tissue and I wiped desperately.

‘You look a lot better without makeup,’ Jerry said. ‘Some women just don’t need it.’

Now, that was what I wanted to hear. I smirked at Gwen, and thanked Jerry. He was the first person to refer to me as a woman. I hoped Mom took note.

I called Patrick at school and invited him to join us for New Year’s Eve. I also happily relayed Mom’s message that he could stay with us for a few days. We were both excited about our rendezvous. I asked him if he was going to pass the exam this time. His answer was: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll see you New Year’s Eve.’

Plans for a quiet New Year’s escalated into a party, and all of a sudden we were busy getting ready. We shopped and ate and cleaned and laughed. Mom, Ann, Gwen and I were like roommates. It was fun. Then Ann told Gwen and me that we could choose any dress from her boutique and borrow it for the night.

Ann’s last name was Smith and her boutique, on Madison Avenue between 84th and 85th Streets, was
Smithereens.
She had two storefronts, with the adjoining wall knocked down. The walls were painted peach. Three glossy white pillars punctuated the open space. Track lighting sent dramatic shafts of light onto full-sized antique mirrors and vases of exotic paper flowers. Otherwise, it was all clothes.