Uptown Girl (27 page)

Despite his nose for news and Kate's constant exposure to Elliot at school, she had managed not to raise his suspicions or start him questioning her on why her mood was so light. If he wrote it off to relief at her break-up with Michael, it was just as well. Kate and Elliot often fought and sometimes didn't speak for a day or two, but they had never lied to one another and Kate did not want to set a precedent now. A sin of omission, however, was less than a fib. But Kate was afraid it was only a matter of time before Elliot sniffed her out. He was a Hound of the Baskervilles when it came to uncovering and bringing back his prey. Sooner or later, Elliot would discover the reason for her sunny disposition and, when he did, thunderclouds would gather.

Kate stood in a patch of sunshine and watched the kids all around her. She reflected how lucky the children at Andrew Country Day were. Of course, they were lucky to have their material needs so
well taken care of and parents rich enough to send them to a private school. But looking around her, Kate knew it was more than that. Andrew Country Day was one of the few city schools that had been able to maintain an almost campus-like setting. The two original old brick buildings formed an ‘L' along the street and avenue sides of the block and the new extension – not nearly as architecturally interesting but covered in ivy and somewhat in keeping with the general look of the earlier buildings – formed a ‘U' that allowed what would have been the individual buildings' backyards to be joined in a large common garden. Part of it, of course, had been paved, but old trees, including a giant willow, and a beautiful border of manicured lawn gave the enclave the beauty and dignity of a New England college quad.

She felt her first year had been successful, but wasn't quite certain that Mr McKay and the board shared her view. When Michael had assumed she would drop her job it had made her realize her deep pleasure in it. The scene around her was so lovely and her work with the children so meaningful that she felt she couldn't part with them. A small but dark voice within her whispered that she couldn't be this happy in her private life without losing something in her professional one. Of course, she recognized it as superstitious nonsense, an old fear from her childhood that would probably always haunt her when things went well. She put the dark thought away.

Kate was grateful to be part of it – the rambunctious children, the concerned staff, the involved parents. If Mr McKay was somewhat obsessive about the lawn and plantings, rather than the welfare of some of his charges, at least the staff recognized it and worked around it. No one was allowed to step on ‘his' grass, though everyone ignored the rule except in his presence.

The daffodils were long over, but roses and azaleas bloomed against the green of the ivy that covered two of the three walls that encircled the play area. A breeze made the glossy leaves move in a wave up and down the wall, almost like hundreds of green Rockettes doing a synchronized kick. Kate took a wisp of hair from her face and drew it back into her barrette. A group of fifth-grade girls sat on the grass in the sun, as languid and colorful as the women in a Monet painting. ‘Hi, Miss Jameson!' Brian Conroy yelled as he – illegally – ran across the lawn. Kate didn't have the heart to scold him. He looked, at least for the moment, happy as he ran, chasing two older boys who were leading a group of younger ones on a race, blowing off excess energy.

The breeze died down and the sun grew warmer. Kate took her sweater off, tied it around her shoulders and surveyed the schoolyard. Although she, as a psychologist rather than a teacher, rarely had playground duty and while it was usually despised, Kate was actually grateful for it today. The weather was beautiful and she felt too happy
to sit indoors. It was also true that she was afraid to have lunch with Elliot because, knowing her as well as he did, he would easily be able to see her mood: why was it changed and immensely uplifted?

Of course, infatuation would do that and she was definitely infatuated with Billy Nolan. If she wasn't as mature as she was, she might have used another word instead of ‘infatuated'. But she wasn't that much of a fool. It was simultaneously hard to believe that Billy cared about her as much as he seemed to or that he was merely acting. His string of relationships – if you could call them that – certainly didn't bode well for anything serious with him, but the intensity and depth of their conversations and the even deeper intensity of their love-making made her believe there was something special going on. Of course, if she allowed herself to think about it too much, doubts and questions crept in. Was she deluding herself about Billy being the right sort of man for her? Was she in fact slumming? How could she go back to her roots, to everything she had run from? Brooklyn, alcohol, Irish men, dysfunctional families.

She admitted now that she had been attracted to Billy from the moment she met him on the terrace at the wedding. All through the spring she had tried to ignore the strength of that feeling as well as the conviction that it was mutual and, though she did not like to think about his relationship
with Bina, not to mention the Bitches, everything had turned out well. Jack's proposal had come. Bina was convinced that it was because of Billy, but Kate knew that Jack must have missed her sweetness and their shared history. And perhaps Max had put in a word or two about Bina's ‘explorations'. Whatever it was, Bina was so busy with wedding preparations that she wouldn't discover Kate's secret liaison.

Kate didn't know whether Elliot really believed that any woman who dated Billy Nolan would, once dumped, receive a proposal of marriage, but what she did know was that she neither wanted to be dumped by him nor proposed to by anybody else.

The school year was coming to a close and while it had been uncomfortably hot earlier in the week, the weather had cooled down and today was as perfect as the weather ever got in Manhattan. Kate kept watch over the children, running and playing in front of her, and smiled. It was almost like watching sea water eddy in tide pools – the children's allegiances, posses and games changed at different rates, making swirls of motion that were faster in one corner, slower in the middle, and stagnant at one side. Kate actually raised her brows at that. Whenever the children stayed clustered in one place, Kate knew from experience, there was the possibility of trouble. Last week they had found a dead pigeon and only Elliot's intervention had prevented the fourth-grade boys
from flinging it at the girls. She walked toward the gathering but before she got close, the group, who had been arranging some game, dispersed and the children ran off in twos and threes. All was well. No decomposing pigeon.

Again her hair escaped from its mooring and blew across her face. As she grabbed it, her fingers brushed her jaw line in exactly the way Billy's had stroked it just hours ago. A little shiver ran down her back and she felt a flutter in her stomach. Sleeping with him had been so extraordinary, so passionate but tender, that thinking about it seemed dangerous – Kate was afraid that she might remember that it was all a dream and have to awake to a much colder reality.

But it wasn't a dream. Her time with Billy seemed to get better and deeper with every encounter. Kate, a survivor of plenty of adversity, not only empathized with the way Billy had coped and overcome his own difficulties, especially his speech disability, but also admired him for it. Underneath the fun and the joking, Kate felt sure Billy was courageous and good-hearted. He had cleverly summoned up or learned the skills needed to survive, but he didn't seem to have been hardened or made cynical by his experiences. She wasn't slumming, she told herself, ashamed she had ever thought that. She wasn't a snob. Billy Nolan was educated, well-read, bilingual and owned and ran a business. Who was she to judge him harshly?

Kate walked over to the willow, but didn't take a
seat on the bench beside it. It was well known that Mr McKay frowned on staff sitting down when on playground duty. So, instead, she leaned one hand against the bench, picked up a tendril of the willow in the other and again lifted her face to the sun. It amazed her how life could change in such sudden profound ways. She felt, for once, like one of the lucky ones, one of the people in the world that things work out for, a being who could simply exist and breathe warm, summer air without struggling. She felt as if everything she wanted would come to her.

Although she wasn't sure she wanted Mr McKay, when Kate turned her head she saw him scuttling toward her on the flagstone path across the lawn. Kate straightened and the bit of the willow wand still in her hand broke off. She hadn't talked to him since she'd called in her absence that morning she woke in Billy's bed. The thought made her blush.

‘Dr Jameson,' Mr McKay began, ‘I've been wanting to talk to you.' Kate felt another flutter, but this one was not nearly so pleasant. Was he going to criticize her for daydreaming, or for neglecting to scold the girls who were sitting on the lawn despite the interdict against it? Worse yet, was he about to reject her contract renewal? Was the small, dark voice the voice of truth?

But Mr McKay looked at her with something approaching a smile and, to her relief, ignored his precious sod. ‘I'm glad I caught you here,' he
said and for a moment his voice sounded almost cordial. ‘Your contract is up for renewal and the board and I would like to extend it.' He paused. ‘We feel that you are becoming an important part of the Andrew Country Day School tradition.'

Kate wasn't sure about any tradition she fulfilled but she was sincerely delighted by the offer. ‘Thank you,' she said. ‘I'm very happy here and I hope I'm making a contribution.'

McKay nodded, his face once again poker-straight as if he had lost all his cordiality chips. ‘Good. Vera will have your renewal contract.' As he walked away, Kate watched his narrow back and managed to feel some affection for him, even when he waved the fifth-grade girls off the lawn.

The bell rang, the children began to line up and Kate was freed to go back to her office. But on the way down the hall, Elliot appeared at his classroom door.

‘Are you trying to avoid me?' he asked.

‘No, of course not.' She lied like a rug.

‘Look, I figured it out. I know who your mystery man is and why you're embarrassed to tell me.'

‘Shh,' Kate said. For God's sake. They were in the hallway of the school. Anyone could hear. ‘Come into my office,' she told him, but she was filled with dread. She was going to be busted and Elliot would tell everyone, and Brooklyn would be abuzz with the news that she, Dr Katherine Sean Jameson, had stooped to a Brooklyn bartender. Worse, that she was taking him seriously. Once
in the office, Elliot closed the door and she turned to face him.

‘I figured it out,' Elliot repeated, complacently. ‘It's Max. You're sleeping with Max and you're embarrassed. But there's nothing wrong with him. I've always thought he was kinda hot, myself. It might be a little awkward after you end it since he lives just upstairs, but any port in the storm.'

For a moment Kate was tempted to agree with him. But she simply couldn't lie to a friend as close as Elliot was to her.

‘Okay. What is it?' Elliot asked.

‘Mr McKay wants to renew my contract,' Kate told him.

‘That's not what I'm talking about.' Elliot stopped her and looked her over. ‘You're seeing
him,
aren't you?' he said accusingly.

Once again Kate felt her complexion betray her. As the blush flooded her cheeks, she turned her eyes away from her best friend's. ‘Yes,' she said.

‘Oh, for God's sake. You really are a masochist,' he cried. ‘Kate, is it like childbirth or something? Don't you remember the pain Steven put you through? Don't tell me you're sleeping with him again. You promised me it wasn't him.'

Kate looked him straight in the eye. ‘It isn't,' she said. ‘I wouldn't dream of it. I'm sleeping with Billy Nolan.'

For a minute, Elliot was stunned into silence. Then he shook his head. ‘You little sneak. I should
have known you were up to something,' he said. ‘I thought, well, I suspected you might be thinking of that idiot, Steven. But no, you have to sniff out worse trouble. And I didn't think there could be worse trouble than Steven Kaplan.'

Kate, who thought she was prepared for Elliot's anger, was taken aback. ‘You don't even know Billy,' she said. ‘To you he's some kind of magic charm, some statistical improbability.'

‘And what is he to you? A good bonk? Because that would be all he is good for.'

Kate felt herself go livid, and the blood that, for once, drained from her face actually made her almost dizzy with anger. ‘I appreciate your concern,' she said, her voice cold. ‘But I don't think you know what you're talking about.'

‘Right! I haven't been around for the last ten years to witness and dissect every bump and curve in your so-called love life. You forget who you're talking to, Kate.' He pointed to the drawings on her walls. Many of them new – farewell gifts from children who would not see her until the autumn. ‘You want to mess up your life?' Elliot asked, his voice lowered. ‘I've watched you grow in the last year. Michael might not be right for you but he was stable and a professional and probably a good father-to-be.' He moved closer to her but Kate pulled away. If he touched her, she was afraid she might slap his hand away.

‘You're being unfair and horrible,' she said and realized she sounded like a child. She took a deep
breath. She knew she owed a lot to Elliot: his loyalty, his friendship, his help in graduate school and his assistance in getting her this job that she loved. But it didn't give him the right to judge her and judge Billy in this way. ‘You don't understand,' she said.

‘Oh, yes, I do. I know masochism when I see it. And I'm staring at it right now.'

‘Shut up,' Kate told him, her voice lowered to a hiss.