She was still wide awake when the tape finally stopped.
And a long time later when she heard Clay get up in the dark and get a drink of water in the kitchen.
Chapter 21
The way they did things the first time usually set the precedent for their routine. Clay used the bathroom first in the mornings; she used it first in the evenings. He got dressed in their bedroom while she was showering, then she got dressed while he put his bedding away. He left the house first, so he opened the garage door; she left second and closed it.
Before leaving that Monday morning he asked, “What time will you get home?”
“Around two thirty.”
“I'll be later by an hour or so, but if you wait I'll go grocery shopping with you.”
She couldn't conceal her surprise—it was the last thing she'd expect him to want them to do together. Crisp and combed, he stood in the foyer looking up the steps at her. He put a hand on the doorknob, smiled briefly, raised his free hand and said, “Well, have a good day.”
“You too.”
When he was gone, she studied the door, remembering his smile, the little wave of good-bye. Juxtaposed against it came the memory of her father, scratching his belly, roaring, “Where the goddam hell is Ada? Does a man hafta make his own coffee around this dump?”
Catherine couldn't forget it all the way to school in her own car, which she kept expecting to turn back into a pumpkin.
It was an odd place to begin falling in love—in the middle of the supermarket—but that's precisely where it began for Catherine. She was still boggled by the fact that he'd come along. Again she tried to picture her father doing the same, but it was too ludicrous to ponder. She was even further dumbfounded by the silliness that sprang up between her and Clay. It had started out with the two of them learning each other's tastes, but had ended on a note of hilarity which would undoubtedly have seemed humorless to anybody else.
“Do you like fruit?” Clay asked.
“Oranges, I crave oranges lately.”
“Then we shall have oranges!” he proclaimed dramatically, holding a bag aloft.
“Hey, check how much they cost first.”
“It doesn't matter. These look good.”
“Of course they look good,” she scolded, looking at the price, “you've chosen the most expensive ones in the place.”
But when she would have replaced them with cheaper ones, he waggled a finger at her and clucked, “Tut-tut!” Price was no object, he said, when he bought food. And she dropped the oranges back in the cart.
At the dairy case she reached for margarine.
“What are you going to use that for?”
“What do you think, not for a hot oil treatment for my hair.”
“And not to feed to me,” he said, grinning, and took the margarine from her hands. “I like real butter.”
“But it's three times as much!” she exclaimed. Then she reclaimed her margarine and put his butter back in the case.
He immediately switched the two around again.
“Butter is three times as fattening too,” she informed him, “and I do have an imminent weight problem to consider.” He made an affected sideward bow, then put her margarine in the cart next to his butter as they moved on.
She spied a two-gallon jar of ketchup up ahead, and when Clay's back was turned she picked up the ungainly thing and came waddling over with it clutched against her outthrust stomach.
“Here,” she puffed, “this should hold you till next week.”
He turned around and burst out laughing, then quickly relieved her of the enormous container.
“Hey, what're you trying to do, squash my kid?”
“I know how you like ketchup on your hamburgers,” she said innocently. By now they were both laughing.
They wandered along behind their mountain of food, and at the frozen foods she chose orange juice and he, pineapple juice. They took turns laying them in the cart like poker players revealing their next cards.
She played a frozen pumpkin pie.
He played apple.
She drew corn.
He drew spinach.
“What's that?” she asked disgustedly.
“Spinach.”
“Spinach! Yuck!”
“What's the matter with spinach? I love it!”
“I hate it. I'd as soon eat scabs!”
He perused the bags and boxes in the display case with a searching attitude. “Mmm, sorry, no scabs for sale here.”
By the time they reached the meat counter they were no longer laughing, they were giggling, and people were beginning to stare.
“Do you like Swiss steak?” she asked.
“I love it. Do you like meat loaf?”
“I love it!”
“Well, I hate it. Don't you dare subject me to meat loaf!”
Warming to the game, she just had to trail her fingers threateningly over the packages of hamburger. He eyed her warningly out of the corner of his eye—a buccaneer daring her to challenge his orders.
She picked up the hamburger, weighing it on her palm a time or two, plotting the insidious deed.
“Oh, yeah, lady?” He made his voice silky. “Just try it.” He grinned evilly, raking her with his pirate's eyes until she stealthily slipped it back where it had come from.
Next he turned on her, ordering autocratically, “You'd better like pork chops!” He took up a challenging stance, at a right angle to the meat counter, feet apart, one hand on a package of chops, the other on the nonexistent scabbard at his belt. The tile of the floor might very well have been the deck of his windjammer.
“Or else what?” she fairly growled, trying to keep a straight face.
He grew cocky, raised one eyebrow. “Or else”—a quick glance to the side, a hint of a smile before he snatched up a different package and brandished it at her—”we eat liver.”
She hooked both thumbs up in her waist, ambled nearer, looked directly into his swashbuckler's handsome, brown face and rasped, “Suits me fine, bucko, I eats my liver rawww!”
He tilted a sardonic brow at the liver.
“More'n likely doesn't know how to cook it.”
“The plague take you, I do!”
A twitch pulled at the corners of his lips. He tried to get the words out without snickering, but couldn't quite make it.
“Lucky for you, woman, be . . . cause . . . I . . . don't.”
And then the two of them were dissolved in giggles again.
Where Catherine's comic instinct had come from she couldn't guess. She'd never suspected she harbored it. But she warmed to it, found herself lifted in a new, spontaneous way by their levity. Somehow Clay—who she had to admit was charming as a swashbuckler—had given her a glimpse of him that she liked. And a glimpse of herself which she liked, as well. Such bouts of good humor sprang up between them more often after that. She was surprised to find Clay not only humorous, but complaisant and even-tempered. It was the first time in her life that she lived free of the threat of erupting tempers. It was an eye-opener to Catherine to learn it was possible to live in such harmony with a male of the species.
The town house, too, wove its charm about Catherine. At times she would come up short in the middle of some mundane chore and would mentally pinch herself as a reminder not to get too used to it. She would load the dishwasher—or worse yet, watch Clay load it—and remember that in a few short months this would all be snatched away from her. He shared the housework with a singular lack of compunction which surprised Catherine. Maybe it started the night he hooked up the washer and dryer. Together they read the new manuals and figured out the machine settings and loaded the washer with their first bundle of dirty clothes and from then on a load was thrown in by whoever happened to have the time.
She returned home one time to find him vacuuming the living room—the new blankets were linty. She stopped in amazement, a smile on her face. He caught sight of her and turned off the machine.
“Hi,
what's the smile for?”
“I was just trying to feature my old man doing that like you do.”
“Is this supposed to threaten my masculinity or something?”
Her smile was very genuine now.
“Quite the opposite.”
Then she turned and left him and the vacuum wheezed on again while he wondered what she meant.
It was inevitable that they be bound closer by inconsequential things. A telephone was installed and their number was listed under the name, Forrester, Clay. A grocery list was established on a corner of the cabinet, and on it mingled their needs and their likes. She bought herself a tape by The Lettermen and played it on his stereo, knowing full well it would not always be available for her to use. Mail began arriving, addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Clay Forrester. He ran out of shampoo and borrowed hers, and from then on they ended up buying her brand because he liked it better. Sometimes they even used the same washcloth.
But every night, out came the spare blankets, and he made up his bed on the davenport, put on a tape, and they lay in their separate darks listening to his favorite one night, hers the next.
But by now she had grown to expect that last tape of the day, and left her bedroom door open, the better to hear it.
Thanksgiving came and it was disturbingly wonderful for Catherine. Angela had included both Steve and Ada in her invitation, plus all of Clay's grandparents and a few assorted aunts, uncles and cousins. It was the first time in six years that Catherine, Ada and Steve had celebrated a holiday together, and Catherine found herself awash in gratitude to the Forresters for this opportunity. It was a day steeped in tradition. There were warm cheeks meeting cold, cozy fires, laughter drifting up through the house from the game room below, a table veritably sagging beneath its burden of holiday foods, and of course Angela's magical touch was everywhere. There were bronze football mums laced with bittersweet in the center of the table, flanked by crystal candelabra upon imported Belgian linen. Seated at dinner, Catherine swallowed back the sickening sense of future loss and strove to enjoy the day. Her mother was truly coming out of her shell, smiling and visiting. And it was crazy the way Steve and Clay took to each other. They spent much of the meal badgering each other about a rematch at pool as soon as the meal was over, but with the best of spirits.
How the Forresters take this for granted, thought Catherine, gazing around the circle of faces, listening to the happy chatter, soothed and sated as much by their goodwill as by their food. What happened to my notions about the wicked rich? she wondered. But just then her eyes met Claiborne's. She found a disturbing gentleness there, as if he read her thoughts, and she quickly looked away lest she be drawn to him further.
In the afternoon Catherine received her first lesson in how to shoot pool. Was it accidental or intentional, the way Clay crowded his body close behind her as he leaned to show her how to extend her left hand onto the green velvet, crossing her hip with his right arm, his hard brown hand gripping hers on the cue?
“Let it slide through your hand,” he instructed into her ear, sawing back and forth while his sleeve brushed across her hip. He smelled good and he was warm. There was something decidedly provocative about it all. But then he backed away and it was men against women in a round robin that pitted Clay and Steve against Catherine and a teenage cousin named Marcy. But in no time it was obvious the sides were uneven, so Catherine played with Steve as her partner, and they whipped the other two in short order. Steve, it seemed, had been dubbed “Minnesota Skinny” during the hundreds of hours spent at pool tables during basic training and the years since. Eventually pool was preempted by football, and Catherine found herself snuggled into a comfortable cushion between Clay and Steve. During replays Catherine received her second lesson on the sport, explained succinctly by Clay, who slouched comfortably and rolled his head toward her during his comments.
At the door Claiborne and Angela bade them good-bye, and while Claiborne held her coat, Angela asked, “How are you feeling?”
She raised her eyes to twin expressions of concern, surprised to be asked in so point-blank a way about her pregnancy. This was the first time since before the wedding that anybody had brought it up.
“Pudgy,” she answered with a half smile.
“Well, you're looking wonderful,” Claiborne assured her.
“Yes, and don't let female vanity get you down,” added Angela. “It's only temporary, you know.”
On the drive home Catherine recalled their solicitous attitudes, the concern behind their simple comments, threatened by that concern more than she cared to admit.
“You're quiet tonight,” Clay noted.
“I was thinking.”
“About what?”
She was silent a moment, then sighed. “The whole day—what it was like. How all of your family seems to take it for granted . . . I mean, I've never had a Thanksgiving like this before.”
“Like what? It was just an ordinary Thanksgiving.”
“Oh, Clay, you really don't see, do you?”
“See what?”
No, he didn't see, and she doubted that he ever would, but she made a stab at comparison. “Where I came from, holidays were only excuses for the old man to get a little drunker than usual. By mealtime he'd be crocked, whether we were at home or going to Uncle Frank's. I don't ever remember a holiday that wasn't spoiled by his drinking. There was always so much tension, everybody trying to make things merry in spite of him. I used to wish . . .” But her voice trailed away. She found she could not say what it was she'd wished for, because it would seem guileful to say that she wished for a day like she'd had today.
“I'm sorry,” he said softly. Then he reached over and squeezed her neck gently. “Don't let bad memories ruin your day, okay?”
“Your father was very nice to me today.”
“Your mother was very nice to me.”
“Clay, I . . .” But once again she stopped, uncertain of how to voice her growing trepidation. Catherine didn't think he'd understand that Thanksgiving had been just too, too nice.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
But that nothing was a great big lump of something, something good and alive and growing which would—she was sure—be bittersweet in the end.
It was shortly after that when Clay came home one evening with a four-pound bag of popcorn.
“Four pounds!” she exclaimed.
“Well, I'm awfully fond of the stuff.”
“You must be,” she laughed, and flung the bag at him, nearly doubling him over.
That night they were sitting on the davenport studying with a bowl between them when Catherine suddenly dropped a handful of popcorn back into the bowl. Her eyes grew startled and the book fell from her fingers.
“Clay!” she whispered.
He sat forward, alarmed. “What's the matter?”
“Oh, God . . .” she whispered, clutching her stomach.
“What's the matter, Catherine?” He eased nearer, concern etched across his eyebrows.
She closed her eyes. “Ohhh . . .” she breathed while he wondered if she had written the doctor's number down where he could find it fast.
“For God's sake, what is it?”
“Something . . . something . . .” Her eyes remained closed while sweat suddenly broke out across his chest. Her eyes opened and a tremulous smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Something moved in there.”
His eyes shot down to her stomach. Catherine held it like she was getting ready to try a two-hand set shot with it. Now he held his breath.
“There it goes again,” she reported, her eyes closing as if in ecstasy. “Once more . . . once more . . . please,” she whispered invocatively.
“Is it still moving?” he whispered.
“Yes . . . no! . . . wait!”
“Can I feel?”
“I don't know. Wait, there it is again—no, it's gone.”
His hand advanced and retreated several times through all this.
> “There it is again.”
She made room for one of his hands on the gentle mound beside her own. They sat there mesmerized for a long, long time. Nothing happened. Her eyes drifted up to his. The warmth of his hand seeped through to her flesh, but the flutter within remained stilled.
“I can't feel anything.” He felt cheated.
“It's all done, I think.”
“There, what was that?”
“No, that wasn't it, that was probably only my own heartbeat.”
“Oh.” But he didn't take his hand away. It lay there warmly next to hers while he asked, “What did it feel like?”
“I don't know. Like—like when you're holding a kitten and you can feel it purr through its fur, only it lasted just a moment each time.”
Clay's face felt hot. His scalp prickled. He still cupped her stomach with a hand which stubbornly wasn't going to move away without feeling something!
It's good to touch her, he thought.
“Clay, nothing's going to happen anymore, I don't think.”
“Oh.” Disappointed, he slid his hand from her. But where it had been, there were five buttery smudges on her green cotton blouse.
“You've marked me,” she joked, stretching out the shirt by its hem, suddenly too aware of how good his hand had felt.
He caught a glimpse of a zipper that wasn't completely zipped, a snap which wasn't snapped.
“Yes, for life,” he said on a light note, but he had the sudden urge to kiss her, she looked so expectant and crestfallen at the brevity of the sensation. “Promise me you'll let me feel it next time it happens?”
But she didn't promise. Instead, she moved a safe distance away, then muttered something about getting the butter out before it set permanently and headed in the direction of the laundry.
When she returned, she was wearing a pink duster and fuzzy booties, and he had great trouble concentrating on his studying after she resumed her place on the other side of the popcorn bowl.
By now Catherine well knew how Clay enjoyed his morning coffee at the counter. He was there at his usual place, reading the morning paper a few days later when she appeared from upstairs. He blew on his coffee, took a sip, looked up over his paper, and his lips fell from the rim of the cup which hovered, forgotten, in midair.