Mr. Wrong (A Homespun Romance) (17 page)

‘Failing who?  What position?’  Kate picked up the iced water and sipped slowly hoping it would melt the block of rage in her throat

A small squeeze of her hand and then Mrs. Jensen sat back.

“But you’re forgetting one thing, in all this.”

“Oh?” said Kate wondering if the whole thing was only a nightmare.

“Yes,” the rinsed head nodded complacently.  "You’re forgetting that I’ll be behind you every inch of the way.”

Kate felt her eyeballs were going to pop out of her head so she closed them for a second.  The woman surely didn’t believe what she was saying.  Kate opened her eyes.  Yes, she did.

“Mrs. Jensen, the only reason I don’t want to marry your son is that I don’t love him.”

She should have brought her camera along.  Disbelief warred with shock and then gave way to pure unadulterated rage.  Kate had never seen a nose express as much emotion as Marcia Jensen’s did.  It tensed, it quivered, it flared.  If the ice that glazed her gaze could have killed Kate, she would have been in her coffin by now.  Hands clenched in her lap she knew what would happen next.  The best air raid shelter in the world couldn’t shield her from the flak coming her way.

“Miss Katie, how are you?”

Kate stared up in disbelief at Cody’s mother.  A quick turn of her head showed the little boy and his Dad at the cash register paying their bill.  How much had Brady’s sister heard of the conversation?

“We were just leaving,” Karen continued smoothly, “would you like us to give you a lift back to the preschool?”

“Yes, please,” Kate said gratefully.  And Hallelujah!

Putting a bill down on the table to cover her share of the lunch, Kate rose, “Goodbye Mrs. Jensen,” she said regally before following Karen Webb out of the dining room.

“Brady,” Karen said on the phone an hour later, “you are indebted to me.”

“How so sis?  Have you been darning my socks lately or what?”

“Better than that.  I rescued your Katie from a fate worse than death today.”

“What?”  His roar hurt her ears but Karen was too pleased with her news to let the breach in telephone etiquette irritate her.

Quickly she told her story.  The silence at the other end when she stopped made her wonder if she and Mum were  wrong after all.  Maybe Brady wasn’t as serious as they wanted him to be.

“Run that by me again, sis,” her brother’s voice had an oddly pleading note in it, that she found hard to connect to him. 

“What, the whole thing?” she said indignantly, “Brady Gallagher if you don’t have the decency to listen when I...”

“Please sis, not now,” something in his voice stopped her and she stared suspiciously at her mouthpiece for a second.  Did she have the right man on the line?  Brady’s voice had sounded raw, vulnerable, as if he was hurting badly. 

“Just the last thing Katie said to the woman please.”

“She said,” Karen obligingly reiterated, while her nose started tickling, a sure sign that tears weren’t far behind, “she said, `Mrs. Jensen the only reason I’m not marrying your son is that I don’t love him’.”

"Thanks sis.”  Before she could question the pure joy in his voice a little click told her he was no longer on the line.

"Men,” Karen thought, reaching for a tissue to wipe her eyes.  "The tougher they are, the harder they fall... the great big fools.”

Nan Kettle took one look at Kate’s face when she returned to the preschool and said, “You’re having dinner with me tonight.”

Her husband was going to a stop smoking class at the local hospital and Tina their teenage daughter was going over to her girlfriend’s to study.

“I have to work on an end of term paper,” Kate said weakly knowing her state of mind would not allow her to settle to anything tonight.

“You need a break from routine,” Nan Kettle instructed firmly and Kate meekly agreed to be at the Kettle place by seven.

After tonight, term papers and exams would keep her nose to the grindstone till the last week of May when the semester ended.  And she had to share what was inside her with someone or disintegrate.

Knowing she couldn’t marry Harold was one thing but somehow saying it aloud to Mrs. Jensen had brought home the fact that she had slammed that door shut forever.  Was she being very foolish?

“Nan, when you were single did you have any blueprint for the kind of man you wanted to marry?”

They had talked of generalities all through the delicious pot roast dinner.  Now with the dishes washed and the kitchen tidied, the gloaming providing adequate concealment for her face, Kate brought up the matter that whined like a mosquito in her brain.

If Nan Kettle was surprised at Kate’s sudden reaching out, she didn’t show it.  She had waited a long time for Kate to accept the role emotions played in life.  She hadn’t like Harold who never seemed to see anyone else when he’d come to the preschool.  She, like Brady, who always managed to talk to her about something or the other, had seen the way Cody Webb’s uncle and Kate were with each other.  It made her glad.  More than anything else she wanted her young friend to know love.

Now, trying to take herself back in time to the summer she’d been seventeen and her brother had brought George Kettle home, she said slowly, “I think I did.”

“Do you remember any of your plan?"  Kate asked diffidently.

“Almost all of it because George has turned out the very opposite,” Nan Kettle said firmly, settling back into the cushions of her deck chair. 

"But then...?”  Kate paused confused.  How could Nan Kettle be so happy with the complete antithesis of all she had longed for?

Nan Kettle laughed, “How did I fall in love with him?  I don’t know.  I just did.  Woke up one morning and knew he was the man for me.”

There was a silence as she recalled other, more personal, memories.

Loathe to pierce the rosy glow she knew her friend was in, Kate still had to know, “What about money?”

“What about it?” asked Nan surprised.

“I mean, didn’t it figure on your list?”

“Of course it did.  The man I married had to be a millionaire at the very least.”

“And?”

“George had a job in the local garage that paid fifty dollars a week.  I had to keep on with my job at the local store but we got married that Christmas.”

Kate kept quiet remembering what Nan had told her about it being five years and two children later that she had got her degree, but her question hung unspoken between the two women as if she had said it aloud and Nan Kettle continued, “Those first years were the best of our lives.  We didn’t have much money but just being together was enough.”

Kate almost hated herself as she said, “You didn’t have any regrets?”

Nan Kettle looked in her direction and in spite of the twilight Kate felt sure her thoughts were as clear as if she had scrawled them in white chalk on the school notice board.

“No, Kate I didn’t,” the older woman said patiently.  “My George is worth more than all the men of my dreams.  They were just figments of my imagination but he is the solid foundation for all my castles in the air.  I never regretted marrying him.  There’s a time to dream and a time to face up to reality and only a lucky few manage to do the latter at the right moment.  Meeting the right person is a gift from the Gods.  Sharing love, raising a family, journeying through life together, knowing you’ll always be there for each other through good times and bad, these are the real riches of the world.”

Kate sat silent feeling as if someone had cut her adrift on an uncharted ocean without an oar.

CHAPTER 8

Kate sat in her armchair gazing out of the window.  It was time to take stock again.

Had that been her voice she had heard telling Mrs. J., she couldn’t marry Harold because she didn’t love him?  Which meant, under pressure, the truth had come out and the fact was that Kate McArthur did believe in love, did consider it an essential pre-requisite for marriage.

So, the blueprint would have to be altered a bit.  Instead of looking for a rich man period, Kate would have to look for a rich man she could love.

Then there was this other business that she really couldn’t believe in.  The philosophy that love alone mattered, and practical considerations like security and money were secondary. 

No, Kate shook her head relegating that thought to a pile clearly marked rubbish.  A girl had to look out for herself, not allow herself to be misled by a few sentimental folk.  It was easy for Brady to say she could create her own security but she didn’t want to end up with a man who wanted her to provide him with that security as well.  It was easy for him and Nan to endorse love.  Neither of them had cut their teeth on poverty.  No, she still had to keep financial security on the top of her list.  With a little care she could have it all.

Next on her list was the problem of Brady.  Even the thought of him brought a warmth to her cheeks.  Her reaction to his presence was becoming harder to hide. 

That useless object, her heart, had given up its sole purpose in her life, that of pumping blood, and was imperiling all her plans and hopes with
its demands.  In addition her brain, the organ she had depended on to lead her through this crisis, had taken to wool gathering and vagueness whenever she tried to remember the reasons for her plans.  On occasions like tonight it turned outright traitor and even went so far to suggest that she forget everything else, marry Brady and make hay as long as she could.

This thing with Brady was purely physical which was only natural in the circumstances.  She was a woman with a woman’s needs and he was a man who made her very aware of them.  Kate had reached a decision about that, though.  She could get Brady out of her system once and for all by going to bed with him.  That would surely cure them both of this obsession.  Everyone did it these days and experience might even enhance her in the eyes of the next rich man she met.

Kate shut her eyes and leaned back in the armchair.  It was as if there were two of her these days.  One, the old Kate, holding on to the vivid memories of a devastating childhood, clinging to the notion that it was imperative she marry a man who could provide her with the security she craved. 

Two, was this other Kate.  Katie.  Had she been born the day she had first set eyes on Brady?  It seemed liked it.  This Kate wanted to forget everything she had ever learned from life and reach out for Brady with both hands. 

`You’re playing with fire.  You’ll get burnt,’ shrieked Kate.

`No I won’t.  I’ll be really careful and it might be the only way to get him out of my mind,’ said Katie. 

`Kate Mc Arthur you’ll get burnt.  It may be experience for other girls but for you it’ll be trouble with all capitals.’

`It won’t,’ reiterated Katie stubbornly.

`With your luck you’ll get pregnant and Brady will insist on marrying you.  What are you going to tell him about your attempt at a one night stand anyway?’

`I’ll explain to Brady that I don’t love him.  That we are two adults who know how to handle these situations.’

`Brady’s not going to like that.  He really cares about you.  You’ll ruin a good friendship.’

`Friendship ha!  If this is a platonic friendship I’m a horse’s tail feather.'

`Kate McArthur you’ll get burnt.  You’ve programmed yourself to make love to the man you marry.   What happens if after making love to Brady once, you fall in love with him?  Don’t set yourself up for a nasty fall.  You’ve made a new plan.  Now stick to it.  Keep on looking for a rich man you can love.  Don’t mess with Brady.  You’re not the kind who can handle an affair.’

And so it went on and on.  Kate knew one thing.  Soon there would be a showdown and only one winner.

If she hadn’t been so preoccupied with all these matters, Kate wouldn’t have let the pain catch her unawares.  She had a prescription drug for it, which when taken at the right time every month, was most effective, but this time she had let dates go clean out of her head and had to pay the price.

Mrs. Wright, the Director took one look at her white face as she walked into the office Thursday afternoon at the end of her tether, and said, “Oh, Kate!”

“I forgot my medicine.”

It had happened once before and she had fainted in the teacher’s lounge so everyone knew about Kate’s problem.

The gynecologist she had been to, said it was caused by nerves and would probably disappear entirely once she became sexually active.  Which solution, had the doctor been a man and a single willing one at that, would have been easily arrived at.  As it was, Kate had to be content with a prescription for strong painkillers and the thought that if it got too much to bear she was to call the doctor’s office and a shot would be administered.

“Go home Kate,” said Mrs. Wright immediately.  “Take tomorrow off.”