“I have a new pet theory, theory du jour, about the two of us. I think it’s right. Do you want to hear it?” she asked me. She was in a good mood, in spite of the harrowing and frustrating investigation. We both were.
“Nah,” said the wiseguy in me, the part afraid of too much in the way of emotions. Lately, anyway.
Kate wisely ignored me and went on with her theory. “I’ll start… Alex, we’re both really, really afraid of attachments right now in our lives. That’s obvious. We’re both too afraid, I think.” She was carefully leading the way. She sensed this was difficult territory for me, and she was right.
I sighed. I didn’t know if I wanted to get into any of this right now, but I plunged ahead. “Kate, I haven’t told you much about Maria…. We were very much in love when she died. It was like that between us for six years. This isn’t selective memory on my part. I used to tell myself, ‘God I’m unbelievably lucky I found this person.’ Maria felt the same way.” I smiled. “Or so she told me. So yes, I am afraid of attachments. Mostly I’m afraid of losing someone I love that much again.”
“I’m afraid of losing someone else, too, Alex,” Kate said in a soft voice. I could barely hear her words. Sometimes she seemed shy, and it was touching. “There’s a magical line in The Pawnbroker, magical to me, anyway. ‘Everything I loved was taken away from me, and I did not die.’ ”
I took her hand and kissed it lightly. I felt an overwhelming tenderness toward Kate at that moment. “I know the line,” I said.
I could see anxiety in her dark brown eyes. Maybe we both needed to take this thing forward, whatever was beginning to happen between us, whatever the risk might be.
“Can I tell you something else? One more true confession that doesn’t come easily? This is a bad one,” she said.
“I want to hear it. Of course I do. Anything you want to tell me.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to die just like my sisters, that I’ll get cancer, too. At my age, I’m a medical time bomb. Oh, Alex, I’m afraid to get close to someone, and then get sick on them.” Kate let out a long, deep breath. It was obviously a hard thing for her to say.
We held hands for a long time in the restaurant. We sipped port wine. We were both a little quiet, letting powerful new feelings wash over us, getting used to them.
After dinner we went back to her apartment in Chapel Hill. The first thing I did was to check around for uninvited houseguests. I had tried to talk her into a hotel room during the car ride, but, as usual, Kate said no. I remained paranoid about Casanova and his games.
“You’re so damn stubborn,” I told her as we both checked all the doors and windows.
“Fiercely independent is a much better description,” Kate countered. “It comes with the black belt in karate. Second degree. Watch yourself.”
“I am.” I laughed. “I’ve also got eighty pounds on you.”
Kate shook her head. “Won’t be enough.”
“You’re probably right.” I laughed out loud.
No one was hiding in the apartment on Old Ladies Lane. No one was there except the two of us. Maybe that was the scariest thing of all.
“Please don’t run off now. Stay for a while. Unless you want to or have to,” Kate said to me. I was still standing in her kitchen. My hands were awkwardly jammed into my pockets.
“I’ve got nowhere I’d rather be,” I told her. I was feeling a little nervous and keyed up.
“I have a bottle of Château de la Chaize. I think that’s the name. It only cost nine bucks, but it’s decent wine. I bought it just for tonight, even though I didn’t know it at the time.” Kate smiled. “Three months ago when I made the purchase.”
We sat on Kate’s couch in the living room. The place was neat but still funky. There were black-and-white photos on the walls of her sisters and her mother. Happier times for Kate. There was an amazing picture of her in her pink uniform at the Big Top Truck Stop, where she worked to pay her way through school. The waitressing job was part of the reason medical school had meant so much to her.
Maybe the wine made me tell Kate more about Jezzie Flanagan than I wanted to. It had been my only attempt at a serious attachment since Maria’s death. Kate told me about her friend, Peter McGrath. History professor at the University of North Carolina. As she talked about Peter, I had the disturbing thought that maybe he was one suspect we had glossed over too quickly.
I couldn’t leave the case alone, not even for one night. Maybe I was just trying to escape into my work again. Still, I made a mental note to check out Dr. Peter McGrath a little more carefully.
Kate leaned in close to me on the couch. We kissed. Our mouths made a perfect fit. We had both done this before, kissed, but maybe never as well.
“Will you stay tonight? Please stay,” Kate whispered. “Just this one night, Alex. We don’t have to be scared about this, do we?”
“No, we don’t have to be scared,” I whispered back. I felt like a schoolboy. Maybe that was okay, though.
I didn’t know exactly what to do next, how to touch Kate, what to say, what not to do. I listened to the soft hum of her breathing. I let everything take its natural course.
We kissed again, as gently as I ever remember kissing anyone. We were both needy. But we were so vulnerable at that moment.
Kate and I went to her room. We held each other for a long time. We talked in whispers. We slept together. We didn’t make love that night.