Lone Eagle (28 page)

Joe finished his breakfast silently, and then he looked at her. It was one of those hideous moments in a life that you remember forever, visually and word by word. “I love you, Kate. But I have to be honest with you. I don't think I ever want to get married. I don't want to. I don't want to be married to anyone, except maybe my planes. I don't want to be tied down. I don't want to be ‘owned.’ There's room for you here, if you want to share my work with me. But that's all I can give you. It's all I have to give. Me and my planes. I probably love them as much as I love you. Maybe more some days. I can't love you more than that, I'm too afraid. Kate, it's who I am, and all I have to give. I don't want kids. Ever. I don't have room for them in my life. I don't need them. And I don't want them.” Joe realized with regret that right then, he didn't want her either. She was too big a threat
to him. He wanted his business and his planes, and her after that. But Kate was a twenty-four-year-old girl, and she wanted babies and a husband and a life, not just the opportunity to work for him. What he had just said to her struck her like a blow, and confirmed all of her worst fears.

“I don't want a business, Joe. I want children. I want you. I love you, but I'm going home. I guess I should have asked these questions a long time ago.” She felt like an utter fool. And she felt the same way she had the day her father died. Overwhelmed by immeasurable loss.

“I don't think I knew how I felt when we started the business. Now I do. Do whatever you have to do, Kate.”

“I'm leaving you,” she said simply, as their eyes met.

“Is it worth leaving the business?” He couldn't imagine her doing that. He thought she'd be crazy if she did. Didn't she understand what he was doing here? It was something that had never been done before, and he wanted to share it with her. It was the best he could give. But right then, she didn't care.

“It's not my business, Joe, it's yours.” He hadn't thought about that. That clarified things for him, or at least so he thought.

“Do you want stock?”

She smiled at him. “No. I want a husband. My mother was right, I guess. Eventually, it matters. To me anyway.”

“I understand,” he said, and believed he did. He wanted to. But they both had a lot to learn. Joe picked up his briefcase and looked at her. “I'm sorry, Kate.” After all they'd been to each other for seven years, in one form and another, he had to let her go. He wasn't willing to be
forced into marrying her. He had too many other things to think about. In public life on the exterior, he knew that he had become an important man, but deep inside, no matter how important he was, he was still a frightened, lonely little boy.

“I'm sorry too, Joe,” Kate whispered.

It was like a death scene. Their relationship was dying. He was killing it. He had made disastrous choices about their life without even consulting her. But he felt he had no other choice.

He didn't kiss her goodbye. He didn't say anything. And neither did Kate. He just walked out the door with his briefcase, without looking back, as Kate watched him go.

13

K
ATE'S PARENTS KNEW
she had come home for good, but they didn't know why. She never explained it to them, never said anything about Joe or what had happened in New Jersey. She felt too bruised and broken to discuss it with them. And she was crushed when he never called her. She kept hoping that he would wake up and miss her unbearably, and call to tell her that he wanted to marry her and have children with her after all.

But he meant what he had said. He sent her a small box of clothes a few weeks later, things she had forgotten in his apartment, and there was no note with it. Her parents could see how much pain she was in, but they didn't press her, although her mother suspected what had happened. Kate spent three months in the Boston winter, going for long walks and crying. And it was a painful Christmas for her. She thought of calling Joe a thousand times, and she desperately wanted to, but she wasn't willing to live with him as his mistress. In the long run, it would have made her feel like an outcast. She went skiing for a few days after Christmas, and came back to spend New Year's Eve with her parents.
She didn't reach out to Joe, and he never called her. She felt as though part of her had died when she left him, and she couldn't imagine a life without him. But now she had to. She had taken a brave stand, and now she had to live with it, and make the best of it. She had no other choice.

She made an effort to see a few old friends, but she no longer seemed to have anything in common with them. Her life had been too entwined with Joe's for too many years. Not knowing what else to do, and determined to have a life of her own again, she decided to move to New York in January and take a job at the Metropolitan Museum, as an assistant to the curator in the Egyptian wing. At least it called into play her art history studies from Radcliffe, although these days she knew a lot more about airplanes. Her heart wasn't in it at first, but she was surprised to find, once she got there, that she loved her job, far more than she had expected. And by February, she had found an apartment. All she had to do now was get through the rest of her life. The prospect seemed grim and endless and depressing and incredibly empty without him. Night and day, she missed everything about him. Even when she was working, Joe was all she thought of. She read about him constantly in the papers. Seven years ago he had been in the news for setting flight records, and now the whole world was talking about him building fantastic airplanes. And when he wasn't working on them, he was flying them.

She saw in the paper in June that he had won a prize at the Paris Air Show. She was happy for him. And miserable, and lonely for herself. She was twenty-five years
old, more beautiful than she knew, and her life was more boring than her mother's.

She never went on dates, and when people asked her out, she told them she was busy. It was just like when his plane was shot down, she was mourning him, and missing him intensely. She didn't even go to Cape Cod that summer because she knew it would remind her of him. Everything reminded her of him. Talking, living, moving, breathing. Even going to restaurants and eating. Cooking. It was absurd and she knew it, but he had become part of her essence. All she had to do now, she was convinced, was wait a lifetime to forget him. It could be done, she told herself, she just wasn't sure she could do it. She woke up every morning feeling as though someone had died, and then she remembered who. She had.

She had been in New York nearly a year when she was in the grocery store one day buying dog food. She had just gotten a puppy to keep her company, and even she laughed at herself and admitted that it was pathetic. She was checking out the different brands, when she looked up and was startled to see Andy. She hadn't seen him in more than three years, and he looked very grown-up and handsome in a dark suit and a Burberry. He had just come home from work and was obviously buying groceries. She assumed by then that he was married, although she didn't know that for sure.

“How are you, Kate?” he asked, smiling broadly. He had long since recovered from the blow she had dealt him, although even thinking about her had pained him for a long time, and he had thrown away all his pictures of her. But he was fine now.

“I'm fine, how've you been?” She didn't tell him that she'd missed him. Good friends were hard to come by, and it had been a long time since she'd had someone to talk to like him.

“I've been busy. What are you doing here?” He seemed happy to see her.

“I live here. I work at the Metropolitan. It's fun.”

“That's nice. I read about Joe everywhere these days. That's an incredible empire he started. Do you have kids yet?” She laughed at the question. It made an obvious assumption, which was not only incorrect, but now obsolete.

“No. I have a puppy.” She pointed at the dog food, and then decided to correct the assumption for old times' sake. “I'm not married.” He looked stunned when she said it.

“You and Joe didn't get married?”

“No. He's married to his airplanes. It was a good decision for him.”

“What about you?” he asked honestly. He had always been straightforward with her, it was one of the things she liked about him. “How was it for you, his decision, I mean?”

“Not so great. I left. I'm getting used to it. It's been about a year now.” It had been fourteen months, two weeks and three days, but she thought she'd spare him the details. “What about you? Married? Kids?”

“Girlfriends. Many of them. Safer. No heartbreak.” He hadn't changed at all, and she laughed at his response.

“Good for you. I'll see if I can find you some more. There are lots of cute girls working at the museum.”

“You among them. You look great, Kate.” She had cut her hair shorter, mostly out of boredom. Her big excitement these days were manicures and haircuts, and the dog.

“Thank you.” It had been so long since she'd talked to a man her own age for more than five minutes that she wasn't sure what to say to him.

“How about a movie sometime?”

“I'd like that,” she said, as they wheeled slowly toward the checkout. He had bought cornflakes and some soda, she noticed. And he was carrying a bottle of scotch he'd just bought at the liquor store. A bachelor's diet. “Shouldn't you at least have toast or milk with that?” she suggested and he grinned. She hadn't changed either. “Or do you just put the scotch on your cornflakes? I'll have to try that.”

“I drink it neat as a chaser.”

“What do you do with the soda?”

“I use it to clean my carpets.”

They were enjoying the banter that reminded them both of the old days at school, and he insisted on paying for her dog food. He had always been generous with her, and chivalrous and kind.

“Are you still working for your father?” she asked as they walked out of the store.

“Yes, it's worked out pretty well. He gives me all the divorce cases, he hates them.”

“That's cheerful. Well, at least I was spared that.”

“Maybe you were spared more than that, Kate. Men like that are never easy. Too brilliant, too creative, too difficult. You were so in love with him, I don't think you saw it.” She had, and she had loved it. Much as she had
loved Andy as a friend, he had never seemed exciting enough to her. Joe was like a shining star, just out of reach, and always what she wanted, perhaps all the more because of that.

“Are you suggesting I look for a dumb one?” She was amused by the implication, but he was serious when he answered.

“Maybe just someone a little more human. He was hard to measure up to, and a tough act to follow. You deserve better.” She was grateful for Andy's kindness in reassuring her. He was such a wonderful, kind man, she was surprised he hadn't married. “I'll call you,” he said as they started to head in opposite directions. “How do I find you?”

“I'm listed, or call the museum.”

He called her two days later, and took her to a movie. And then ice-skating at Rockefeller Center. And out to dinner. They had been together almost constantly by the time she went home for Christmas three weeks later. She didn't tell her parents she'd seen him, she didn't want her mother to get excited. But she answered the phone when he called her in Boston on Christmas morning. And she was happy to hear him. It was almost like the old days, except she liked him better now. He was comfortable and easy and kind to her. He had none of Joe's brilliance, but he cared about her. Just as she had never gotten over Joe, he had never gotten over Kate completely.

“I miss you,” he said when she answered. “When are you coming back?”

“In a couple of days,” she said vaguely. She was disappointed
that she hadn't heard from Joe for Christmas. He could have done that much. It was as though he had forgotten her completely, as though she'd never existed. She had thought of calling him, but decided it was better if she didn't. It would just depress her, and remind her of everything they'd had, and then lost.

“When did you start seeing Andy again?” her mother asked with interest when she hung up the phone.

“I ran into him a few weeks ago, in the grocery store.”

“Is he married?”

“Yes. And he has eight children,” she teased her mother.

“I always thought he'd be good for you,” her mother said.

“I know, Mom. We're just friends. It's better that way. No damage on either side.” She had hurt him badly three years before. And she was still wounded. And suspected she would be for a long time. Maybe forever. It was impossible to forget Joe. They had had too much together. And he represented a third of her lifetime.

She went back to New York after two days, and was happy to see her puppy. She had left her with a neighbor. And Andy called her almost as soon as she walked in the door of her apartment.

“What do you have? Radar?”

“I'm having you followed.” He asked her to a movie that night, and she went. And they spent New Year's Eve together, drinking champagne at El Morocco. It seemed very glamorous to Kate, and very grown-up, as she said to Andy.

“I am grown-up,” he said with amusement. He had gotten very sophisticated, and she couldn't help but compare him to Joe. Joe who was unusual and beautiful and sometimes awkward. But she had loved that about him. Andy was smoother, in ways that Joe didn't care about at all.

“I skipped the grown-up part,” Kate confided after her third glass of champagne. “I went straight to old age. Sometimes I feel older than my mother.”

“You'll get better. Time. It heals everything,” he said wisely.

“How long did it take you to get over me?” she asked, feeling slightly tipsy. But he didn't seem to notice.

“About ten minutes.” It had taken him two years, but he didn't tell her that. And he still wasn't over her, which was why he was spending New Year's Eve with her. There were half a dozen women he'd been seeing who were furious about it. “Should it have taken longer?”

“Probably not,” she said sadly. “I didn't deserve it. I was rotten to you.” She was getting slightly morose from the champagne she'd been drinking. And in spite of herself, she kept wondering where Joe was, what he was doing, and with whom that night.