Promise Me A Rainbow (8 page)

“I didn’t mean to make you mad,” Pat said after a moment.

“You didn’t,” Catherine said truthfully.

“I thought we decided I didn’t have to pretend with you. I thought we decided I could say anything I wanted to.”

“Yes, but we didn’t decide if I’d knock you over the head with a clipboard for it.”

To Catherine’s relief, Pat laughed. “That’s what I like about you, Holben. You don’t care if I’m dying or not.”

The truth of the matter was that Catherine cared a great deal. She had met Patricia Bauer the same place she’d met Charlotte Duffy—in a doctor’s office. In her futile quest for pregnancy, Catherine had been in the waiting room often enough to take up permanent residence, and there had been nothing for women stranded by an impending birth or overbooked appointments to do but talk. She had liked Pat immediately. Pat was blunt and outspoken, and they’d both been abandoned—Catherine because of her inability to conceive, and Pat because of a tumor in her breast.

“That, and a two-breasted floozy half my age,” Pat had once said.

“Jonathan’s got a floozy, too,” Catherine said now. It was that kind of friendship. Neither of them worried particularly about making sense.

“I beg your pardon?” Pat said with appropriate confusion.

“Jonathan. He’s got a floozy,” Catherine repeated absently.

“Face it, Catherine. We both married men who can’t hack trouble and heartache.”

“Jonathan’s marrying his. Next month. The fifteenth.”

“So how do you feel about that?”

“I . . . think she’s probably not a floozy. She’s probably some nice woman who’s crazy about him.”

“A brood mare, you mean.”

“
No
, that’s not what I mean.”

Their eyes met, and they both laughed.

“All right. So that’s what I mean.”

“So are you okay?”

“I’m not surprised. I expected it. He wants children.”

“Yes, but are you okay? You’ve got to be upset, Catherine.”

Catherine got up to try to force a few more windows open, but it was useless. “Well, it does put a kink in my favorite fantasy.”

Pat smiled. “What fantasy is that?”

“The one where I take a dozen lovers—all of whom are rich and famous. I have a baby by each of them and we all go to Jonathan’s inevitable wedding and sit in the front row.”

Pat laughed out loud. “You are crazy, you know that? But your fantasies are vengefully healthy, at least. When Don left I never could get past my coffin being slowly lowered into my grave—and Don throwing himself on it in abject contrition.”

“That’s not funny, Pat.”

“Not funny, but true. I forgot that I’m supposed to ask you on behalf of the front office staff who the guy was who came here looking for you this morning.”

“He’s not anybody. He wants to talk to me about his daughter.”

“Now why do I believe that?” Pat said.

“Because you know I tell the truth—usually.”

“Except to yourself. You just have fantasies, you don’t do anything about them, right? Or didn’t you notice that he was a
very
nice-looking man? Okay, ladies,” Pat said loudly because the girls were coming back, “listen up!”

Catherine sat frowning. She supposed that Joe D’Amaro was what most women would call handsome, and she supposed that she had relegated his now apparent good looks into the same category as the renovations of the old downtown buildings—as something she hadn’t really noticed because she wasn’t ready to participate in that particular aspect of her environment. Perhaps she was still more involved with Jonathan than she’d thought.

No. It wasn’t her enchantment with Jonathan that kept her from noticing another man. It was her disenchantment with herself.

The class ended—finally. Pat was clearly exhausted, sitting down immediately behind the desk. Catherine hovered close by, watching out of the corner of her eye and knowing better than to approach her.

“You know what’s wrong with me?” Pat said after a time.

“Tell me.”

“I had to ask Don for money. I had to ask Don Bauer for goddamn money!”

“Pat . . .”

“Be careful, Catherine!” Pat warned. “You know the deal. I get to say whatever I want.” She grabbed up her books and papers, not taking the time to shove them into her briefcase. She dropped her purse as she went through the doorway, but Catherine made no effort to help her pick it up. She knew the deal only too well, and she meant to keep her part of it. Pat had wanted someone with whom she didn’t have to be optimistic and brave. And Catherine Holben was it. It was a very difficult job.

“Pat,” Catherine called before she disappeared down the hallway, and she looked back over her shoulder. “I think you’d better work on your fantasies, too.”

She made no reply, and Catherine could hear the echoing of her heels down the long hallway. She went back to the desk and began to sort through her papers.

“Ms. Holben?”

Catherine looked up. Maria was standing in the doorway.

“You said you wanted to talk to me.”

Maria had her thumbs hooked in the bib of her overalls, and her tone of voice suggested fully the burden she considered this to be.

“Yes. I do.”

“I said I ain’t got nothing I want to talk about.”

“You don’t have to talk. What you do is listen. I want you to lay off Sasha and Abby. Cherry, too, while you’re at it.”

“They get on my nerves.”

“They do
not
get on your nerves, Maria. What gets on your nerves is that you got caught again. You took no responsibility for your behavior, and now you’re pregnant and you’re stuck with it and you want to take it out on somebody who’ll let you do it.”

“I can’t help how my nerves are,” she said sullenly.

“Then why don’t you jump on Beatrice? Somehow she never gets on your nerves, does she? All of you have got a hard time ahead of you, and I don’t want you making it any worse.”

“What do you know, anyway? You ain’t never had no baby!”

“Who delivered your last baby, Maria?” Catherine said sharply.

She didn’t answer.

“Who? A man doctor or a woman?”

“A man.”

“Did he know what he was doing?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“And how many babies had
he
had, Maria? Personally, I mean. How many times had he lain on his back in labor and pushed out a baby? I know what I’m doing—just like he does. I don’t do this for fun, and I don’t do it for the money. You think I stand in this hot place every day for the salary? I do it for
you
. I
know
what you need, and by the time your baby’s born, you’re going to know what I know. Now go home.”

Maria stood looking at her.

“Go!”

She flounced out of the room, and Catherine wiped her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand.

“Damn!” she said under her breath.

“What’s going on in here?” one of the secretaries from the front office said from the doorway.

“Nothing—except I’ve been here too long.”

“We were afraid you might need some help.”

“No, everything’s under control,” Catherine said. She began to gather up her things. She had paperwork to do, but she left the papers on the desk. She’d dealt with enough aggravation in the last twenty-four hours, and she was going home.

She took a different route to the Mayfair, stopping long enough at an old fashioned grocery in one of the downtown stores to buy a few things, but she didn’t look into the front window of The Purple Box while she waited for the next bus. She arrived at her apartment building shortly after six, wilted from the heat and tired in body and spirit. She took her shoes off as soon as she was inside the French doors, walking quietly into the entry hall and savoring the coolness of the wood flooring on the bottoms of her bare feet. She checked her mail and found a heavy, cream-colored envelope inside—an invitation to Jonathan’s wedding that was not addressed in Jonathan’s hand. If she hadn’t seen him yesterday, she supposed she would have found out about his impending marriage like this. No wonder he’d come out into the rain. She tossed the invitation into the flowered wastepaper basket, then fished it out again. She wanted to read it a few times before she burned it, and she wondered if that, too, were “vengefully healthy.”

Poor Pat . . .

If Catherine made up a list of people she was feeling sorry for today, it would be endless—and Catherine Holben would be right near the top.

She didn’t see Mrs. Donovan as she passed her door. Still barefoot, she began to climb the three flights of stairs, juggling her shoes and her groceries and her purse. There was a strong cool draft coming down the stairwell; perhaps there was something practical in Mrs. Donovan’s screen door, after all.

On the second landing she spilled the apples she’d bought out of her grocery bag, and she had to empty the bag and put them in the bottom to keep them from spilling again. She climbed the rest of the stairs, already anticipating a long, cool shower and something equally long and cool to drink.

But—like Jonathan—Joe D’Amaro was sitting on the top step.