Three Sides of the Coin (Catherine I) (7 page)

             
It was this easy confidence she possessed that made her fun to be around.   On many occasions, due to the need of our clients to be back to their work sooner than we anticipated, or often due to her, or my, quick insight to the client desires, we would find ourselves with extra time to kill before we needed to be back to the airport.   Once you have been to airports as often as we have been, you have no desire to go early.  It is never comfortable, and seldom any more interesting than the average mall.

             
So, one time we found ourselves taking the slightly less onerous destination of a mall, rather than going early to the airport and as we ate a hamburger at the food court, she regaled me with her opinions of the dressing decisions of people passing by.

             
"What is that?  Do you think they belong to a religion where they are not allowed to look in a mirror?  Perhaps they are vampires.  Mike, do you suppose the clothes or just their image doesn't show up in the mirror?"

             
I replied, "You know, every movie where their image doesn't show in the mirror, neither do their clothes."

             
"Well, it is too bad that we have to look at those outfits, but then again, it is better than the alternative.   Looking at them in those hideous garments is better than seeing them naked, I suspect."  She said with a shiver.

             
"And them?" I said pointing to a trio of people exiting a store across from the food court.  All three were somewhat dumpy and had no idea on how to dress around their figure faults.   One, an overweight  teenager had a long light blue camouflage shirtdress over black lace leggings, with black ankle boots, and her homage to fashion was a French foreign legion looking cap that exactly matched the dress.  Her brown hair was straight and cut three inches below the cap.  With her was a younger girl who found red, orange and green clothing items simultaneously acceptable.  The third person was the mother with a black spaghetti strap tee shirt that was losing a battle in containment efforts on her massive cleavage.   Matched with blue denim jeans that fit her, maybe twenty pounds earlier, all three of them were glancing at their phones as they hesitated at the door.

             
"Perhaps a team of synchronized blind texters?  Do you know what is sad?   I have been watching them check out.  That woman just bought the outfits the kids have on.  I watched the clerk undo the magnet ‘thingees’ on their clothes.   Think of how terrifying the clothes in the bag must be!  And they were proud of this!   That woman took a photo of the clerk checking them out."

             
Catherine glowered at the trio.  "That just about qualifies as child abuse.   Mike, go over there and ask them if they just escaped from an Amish farm.   Do you think they are color blind?  Does the store bear any responsibility for letting them walk around in public?  What if someone asks them where they bought those clothes?  Should someone tell corporate that they are taking a public relationship risk?  I need to buy something green.  Do you want to help?"

             
I was temporarily taken aback by this last bit.  "Why, did you see a lime walking around?" I asked swiveling my head around to see what brought about this segue.

             
"No,” she said waving her hand dismissing the trio.  Catherine often rapidly moved from one topic to another with little to explain why.  It was most frustrating when topic two was a continuation of a discussion that was left hanging hours earlier.   Sometimes her mind was two or three statements down the road before I even connected with the proper context.  "Green is the new color this year and I don't have anything like that.  Would you like to advise me?  I am not sure if I can pull off the look.  I hate to spend money without a second pair of eyes on it.  Would you mind?  Do we have time?" 

             
"Sure we have time."  I said and we were off to some women's department.  Banished from her mind were the bad dressers.   She was never malicious in her various tirades.  She was often more baffled then bothered.  "Don't they have friends to advise them?"  or “When they were looking at a rack of clothes, what makes them pull that out?  What makes the manufacturer choose that fabric?  Oh look green and yellow seersucker; let's make some Bermuda shorts out of them.  Perhaps some blind golfer will purchase them."  

             
But all that was behind her now as she was on a new mission, focused on finding something green.   And there were a lot to choose from.   But she quickly computed her way through the racks of clothes.  Not the right size here, a poor sleeve choice here, poor quality over there.  After a fashion she was marching towards the dressing room with me in tow.   At the entrance she looked around for a chair for me to sit in, where I imagined I'd be guarding her purse.  A clerk saw her looking around and said, "It's alright, he can go in the dressing room with you.   We ought to have chairs out here and ESPN on a television.   Believe me; we'd sell a lot more clothes."

             
The next thing stunned me.  "Okay, come on Mike," she shrugged.  So I found myself in a dressing room with her much sooner that I had expected would be possible.  I suppose I should have not have been.   She was always brutally practical.   Since she was trying only blouses and shirts, she would be showing me no more skin than one could see at the swimming pool.  Besides, she knew I was gay, almost one of the gals.   I sat on a bench and she tried on blouse after blouse.   Her bra was a white lacey number and her breasts, from what I could see were soft and symmetrical.  I was careful to keep my eyes on the clothes and my Johnson from getting too excited.  I particularly liked the too small Kelly green number that stretched tight across her bust.  I was concerned about rising to get her a larger size as Mr. Johnson was not being a gentleman and threatened to blow my cover, but I was saved by the clerk who offered to fetch some alternatives.  I was ever so grateful.

  At one point, Catherine unzipped her skirt and slid the shirttails inside it.   I wanted it to be my hands running down her flank and touching her skimpy lace panties.  I love it when a woman matches her underwear, even if it is just for herself.  But all
good things come to an end and we left with a single blouse out of the 10 or so she tried on.   It was not the last time I got to be in the room with her, and not the most erotic, but it is forever in my memory the image of her pursing her lips (Why do they do that?) as she swung herself back and forth to view the fit.   And forever, too, is that glimpse of her hip, that sexy bone in front that I just love to caress.   And how sad too, that I would be relegated to watch her dress for her Steven, to help her dress for her Steven.   I hoped and I suspected that he appreciated her as much as I did.

   But it is fortunate for me, I suppose, that she is not mine.   I would be so jealous of all the other men who looked at her.  I could not share.  I, also, would not want to ever be so bored with her that I didn't care if other men lusted after her.   I know you must think me strange to feel this way.   Even I feel a bit of a thief in this regard.  I would rather steal a tiny piece of a beautiful woman's life than own a majority of it, if it meant that other men would get the least
bit of the minority stake.   I have a theory on this.  I have a theory on everything.   I fear I am really a philosopher in the Greek tradition.  They sat on their porches, called ‘stoas’, and believed that to be a true scientist, they had to be objective.  They could not experience life's events lest they be skewed in their appraisals.  So they sat on the porch and viewed and opined from afar.  Since the porch is called a ‘stoa’, they were called Stoics.   So I am a Stoic.  It may be sad to you, but it is my choice.  If you want to run with the big thinkers, stay on the porch.

Chapter 5:  Steven-2

             
It was perhaps a year later that Steven did something he both regretted, at the time, and was grateful that he got it out of his mind.   But the regret was much worse than the relief and that put him into a bout of depression that was uncharacteristic for him.   

             
He could be accurately described as moody, and often was tabbed that way.   But his down mood swings were invariably linked to problems he had not yet solved.  The operative definition is 'not YET solved."  Because he was, at the heart of him, incredibly creative and resourceful in his solution sets.  Catherine was always impressed that he, like her father, always seemed to find a way to do or fix anything.   And moreover, his solutions were prettier than her father's, who found Masonite board and three quarter inch CD grade plywood lovely enough in their functionality that no paint or stain was necessary.  In this regard, Catherine felt she had, at least, a slight improvement over her father, which is actually saying something very nice. 

             
Once Steven had a path for his solutions, his mood immediately turned better, even cheerful.  In this sense, he and Catherine were incredibly different.   While Catherine worried about all sorts of things like should she buy those shoes, would she be able to retire comfortably, is that cough or ache a sign of cancer? (Something that was not extant in her family), Steven would ask; "I have a pair of shoes, why would I want another? We are saving at a rate that should make us comfortable, but since we really don't know what the economy will do, we can't really take a smarter path, so why don't we just stay with this savings rate?  My mom died of cancer and so did my brother, so I know I am at risk.  So I don't smoke and I eat less processed foods and I eliminate as many other risk factors as I can.  So why worry about it?  Stress is a risk factor, so I shouldn't worry and make myself riskier, should I?"

             
Catherine worried randomly and confused Steven as she did so.  It bothered him that she worried about things well outside her control.  It seemed inefficient to worry whether a character on a television show would die in the upcoming weeks.  Steven would worry in advance and have a plan for any occasion.  In fact, he considered it a gift that he was so unlucky.  It forced him to think, 'What could go wrong?  And what could I do about it?'  It always amazed Catherine that her worrywart husband was at his best when bad things happened.   He would worry about having enough money to buy new tires for the car, but didn't blink an eye when the tire went flat.  It eventually dawned on her that the proactive worry paid off in efficiencies during a crisis.

             
In another sense they were similar.  When they could see the future, they both set about doing something about it.  Once she saw and felt a design, she relaxed and moved on to the next project.  He would worry about how to make that window fit in the wall, then come up with an installation technique that he could do at the least cost and effort.  And she knew he could do that, so she didn't worry.  And they both worried about the money.  Their dreams, her dreams, rapidly outgrew their budget and as a result she was forced to wait and he felt disappointed that she could not see her visions quickly.  He knew, in his heart, that she could always out-design any flow of money, but he wanted to provide her with all possible joy.   But that was not his source of anxiety as he knew he had done all within his power to move things along.  He had a very nice paying job, and he did almost every physical act on their designs that could be done.   This made pretty much every project cost half, or less than what it would cost if they had hired a contractor.

             
His anxiety was of a sexual nature.  He had waited all these years for the kids to move out and had expected the focus of their lives would turn back to each other; once the worries of curfews and teenage activities were beyond her worry scope.  But Catherine had routines for her daily activities.   This allowed her to perform boring tasks without thinking about it.  She could design in her head as she prepared breakfast, washed clothes or changed the bed sheets.  If it was not a daily routine, it would force itself into her consciousness and she would find herself questioning the task and why she had to do it.   She would feel both a responsibility to do such tasks and a resentment to be having to do it.   So washing clothes impinged upon her consciousness and bothered her, but like many of these tasks, her ego was such that she believed no one, not even her well intentioned and clever husband could do them to her satisfaction.  It was wise that she chose such a mindset on things like the wash because he was horrible at things like that.  He didn't know much about fabrics and their optimum wash temperature.  He had no memory for where the five different soaps, three bleaches, two fabric softeners and eighteen or nineteen different specialty spot cleaners were, leave alone when they should come into play.  But he could vacuum like a champ, but she had it in her mind, from her mother of all people who had never worked outside the home, that certain jobs were 'women's work' and should not be foisted upon the husband.

             
So despite the fact that the kids were gone, and there was less work to be done with just two sets of dirty clothes and dishes, the number of tasks that she was requiring of herself stayed fairly constant,  even if the volume of the tasks had decreased.  As a consequence, she was about as tired as ever, and when the task of sex came up, she would slip into the routine they had developed.  This is not to say the two of them did not enjoy it.   No orgasm could be a waste of time, in Steven and Catherine's eyes.  But Steven felt that sex should be more interactive and with two creative people, surely there could be something more than routine to something this wonderful.  But he did not know her feelings on the topic.  And this is what depressed him.   After all these years, he was imagining the interaction of her being an imperious queen using her male slave for her enjoyment and then wrenching his man-juice from him, like Delilah cutting Samson's hair on a weekly basis.   But he did not really know what she was thinking.  Was she imagining rainbows and angels singing, was she sleeping with another man, or even a woman?  Or was she, ironic tragedy of all, playing that she was dominating him just as he was imagining.   He did not want to go to his death bed not having the chance for them to be in such perfect sync.