Promise Me A Rainbow (3 page)

“I like it. It’s quiet. It’s got a lot of character—French doors, wrought iron flower boxes on the front windows.”

“That bad, huh? I can’t get over you living here with all these old people.”

“They’re nice, and I can afford it,” she said as she set the kettle on the burner to heat. She looked up at him, and his eyes shifted away. He didn’t want to talk about the decline in her standard of living. He sat down at the kitchen table.

“So tell me about the job.”

She leaned against the sink her arms folded protectively over her breasts because he was looking at her so intently. She still found him attractive, much to her dismay, and probably always would. “It’s with the city school system. Technically I’m working as a medical careers instructor, but actually I’m more of a special-needs teacher.”

“For handicapped children, you mean?”

“Not handicapped. Pregnant.” She moved to the cupboard to get down the cups and a jar of instant coffee. “I’ve got five at the moment. One is barely thirteen years old. They didn’t want to put a child that young into a regular classroom, and they wanted something more cost effective than homebound tutoring. So as long as they were setting up a project to handle her, they decided to throw in the rest of them. They expect thirty or more by the end of the school year.”

“Have you got the credentials to teach them the three R’s?”

“They don’t want me to teach them the three R’s. Pat Bauer is going to do that. Believe it or not, they want me to teach them what they really need to know—how to take care of themselves while they’re pregnant and how to take care of their babies.” She could do that whether she’d had one of her own or not.

She turned away as the kettle whistled sharply, lifting it off the burner and handing him the jar of coffee and a cup and spoon. There was a time when she would have fixed the coffee for him herself.

“Pat’s going to come in half days for the academics. The rest of the time I’m going to do prenatal nutrition, early childhood development, how to buy baby food, and anything else I think might help—” She stopped because he was again staring at her. “I like it and I’m good at it, Jonathan.” She didn’t tell him that she’d taken a major pay cut to get the job, or that she’d worked as a volunteer for nearly a month with no pay at all until the program for pregnant students had been funded.

“I know you are. I know how involved you get. It’s one of the things I always liked about you. Pour the hot water, will you? Who held your hand every time you were burned out?”

You did, she thought, but she didn’t say it; she poured. It was true. He had held her hand all the times when she couldn’t deal firsthand with death and dying and disease anymore. It was only when she hadn’t been able to give him a child that he wasn’t there for her.

“I thought Pat was too sick to work,” he said.

“She’s managing the half days all right.”

“Are you . . . sure this is the right thing for you to be doing?” he asked when she sat down at the table.

“The right thing? Because I couldn’t have a child of my own?”

He seemed not to mind her candor. “It’s bound to remind you.”

“Jonathan, everything reminds me.”

Especially you, she thought, but she didn’t say that, either. “Or it did,” she qualified, because she didn’t want to go through the guilt and the remorse again, not when she had no inkling who should forgive whom and for what. She got up from the table. She was tired of being civil and, whatever this visit was about, she had had enough of it. She wanted him to go.

“Catherine, you know I’ll always care about you, don’t you? You know that if you ever need anything, you can ask me.” He reached toward her and would have touched her if she hadn’t stepped away.

She looked into his eyes, thinking only of Pat Bauer, who was seriously ill and forced to depend upon an estranged husband for help, a husband who had made it clear that he was in love with another woman. She had no intention of becoming another Pat Bauer.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to make sure you know that you can count on me if you ever needed . . . things.”

“Why would you want me to know that? What sort of things?”

“Catherine, you really know how to take a man’s goodwill and shove it down his throat, don’t you? I just want things settled between us. I just want—I have to go,” he said abruptly. He got up from the table, leaving the coffee he’d wanted steaming and undrunk.

“Are you going to tell me what this visit is all about or not?” she said, following him into the living room.

“It’s not about anything. I just wanted to see how you were.”

“Bullcrap,” she said mildly. She was barren, not stupid. “You’ve been leaving since you got here. And since I didn’t initiate this visit, it’s got to be something with you. So what is it?”

“Catherine, it’s . . . nothing.”

“You don’t come out into the rain for ‘nothing,’ Jonathan. You stay at home by the fire with your feet up and a copy of
The Wall Street Journal
.”

“You think you’ve got my number, don’t you?”

“I
think
you’re changing the subject. If you need a loan, you’ve come to the wrong place.”

“I don’t need a loan.”

“But you need something.”

“No, Catherine . . . yes.”

But, whatever it was, he wasn’t going to stay long enough to tell her.

“I have to go.”

“So you said.”

He bumped the table lamp in passing, knocking the lampshade askew and sending the box with the gnomes onto the floor. They both stooped to retrieve it, the newspaper-wrapped gnomes tumbling out on the rug.

“Let me have it,” she said, trying to take the sculpture out of his hands.

“What are you up to, Catherine? Buying erotic art?”

The joke was feeble, and she made another grab for the gnomes. He held it away, pulling the newspaper aside so he could see. His face fell at the sight of the gnome mother and child, as if he’d uncovered some terrible secret she had, one he’d rather not know.

“Catherine, I’m sorry.”

“Fine. Now, if you’re not going to tell me what you’re doing here, I’d like you to just go.”

“Catherine . . .” He put his hand on her arm and she jerked it away. She was flagrantly working with young women who didn’t want to be pregnant; she had even bought a mother and child sculpture, but she did
not
deserve his pity.

He helped her to stand up anyway. “I . . . just don’t know what to do.”

“About what?”

He tried to put his hand on her shoulders, but she backed away from him, still clutching the gnomes tightly.

“About you!”

“You don’t have to do anything about me. I’m fine.”

His gaze went to the sculpture. “Sure you are. God!”

He crossed the room and opened the front door, turning back to her before he went out. “It’s not my fault, Catherine. I can’t help the way I am. There are certain things that are important to me. I’m sorry I hurt you, but I can’t help the way I am! I’m . . . getting married again, Catherine.”

“Pregnant, is she?” she shot back, because she needed to think him cruel, needed to think he wouldn’t let himself be burdened with another woman who couldn’t reproduce.

“I don’t deserve that!” he said, his face flushed. “You know how it was with us, even before…”

“Before what, Jonathan? Before you made my having a baby a condition of the marriage? You’re not going to get out of it that easily, because you and I both know better. You know what I remember, Jonathan? Nothing bad—until I couldn’t do what you wanted.” Tears welled in her eyes. She had thought she was through with recriminations, but she couldn’t resist one last one. “I really thought you were my friend.”

“The friendship’s still there, Catherine. We can keep that.”

“No, we can’t!”

“Catherine, I just want you to know that I’m . . . happy. I do love her. I wouldn’t marry her if I didn’t.”

“Congratulations. Does she know what a hard job it is being somebody you
love
?”

He chose to ignore her sarcasm. “Her name is Ellen. Ellen Jessup. She’s a widow. I think you’ll like her. We’ve talked about it, and we want you to come to the wedding. It would help us both if—”

“No, I don’t think so, Jonathan.”

Old friendships ran deep, if not old marriages, and she realized that he wanted desperately to believe that she would like his new wife, just as he wanted to believe that Ellen Jessup really wanted her at the wedding.

“No, really. We want you there. It’s the fifteenth of next month. At her house in the Heights.”

She forced a smile, then lost it. “You are such a fool sometimes, Jon,” she said, pushing him the rest of the way into the hall.

“Catherine . . .”

“I’m not coming to your wedding.”

“Katie . . .”

“Don’t call me Katie!”

She shut the door hard, catching sight of a man on the landing, then a little girl in a yellow poncho standing a few steps above him, both of whom must have heard everything.