“Did you?” she asked at last, unable to stop the question.
“A little, yes. Mostly hindsight, you know.”
She tried for an understanding note as she observed, “You really don't like being a disappointment to your parents in any way, do you?”
“No.”
She didn't want to seem prying, yet she had to know—it had been bothering her for so long. She took a careful breath, held it, and finally asked softly, looking down at her lap, “This other girl you've been going with . . . Jill . . . she's the one they hoped you'd marry, isn't she?”
He turned, saw the way she idled her fingers back and forth across her purse, staring down. She looked up and their eyes met.
“Maybe. I don't know.” But he squared his shoulders and studied the lights on the dashboard again. A muscle in Catherine's stomach set up a light twitching. A little trail of guilt went weaseling its way upward.
“Maybe they'll get their wish when this is all over,” she said.
“No, it'll never happen now.”
They'd talked about it, then, Clay and Jill. Maybe this wedding would be his only chance to be feted in the recognized style. He seemed to be admitting that it bothered him. But just as Catherine came to that conclusion he spoke.
“You make the choice about the wedding, and whatever you want, it'll be okay with me. Mother will just have to accept it, that's all. But she'll be making plans in her head, so I'd like to tell her your decision as soon as possible.”
“It's your wedding, too, Clay,” she said quietly, undone by what she'd guessed about his feelings.
“Weddings are mostly women's doings. You make the arrangements.”
“I . . . th-thank you.”
“You know, it seems like every time I drop you off here, it's to give you a limited time to come to some monumental decision.”
“But I've got plenty of helpers inside to help me with this one.”
He chuckled. “A whole houseful of pregnant, unmarried teenagers. I can imagine how unbiased their advice will be. They're probably still pinning curtains on their heads for veils.”
Catherine thought of how utterly close to the truth he was. The rain pattered on the roof, the windows had steamed up. It was warm and insular in the car, and for a minute, Catherine did not want to get out, back to reality again.
“Whatever you decide is okay, huh?” he said. “And don't let those kids talk you into anything.”
He reached for his door handle, but she quickly insisted that he stay in the car. She could make it to the house just fine. When she reached to open her door, he stopped her by saying, “Catherine?”
She turned.
“It's been . . . well, I was going to say fun, but maybe I should just say better. It's been better, talking without arguing. I think we needed this.”
“I think we did too.”
But, getting out of his car, running to the house, Catherine knew she lied. She didn't need this at all, not at all. Oh, God, she was beginning to like Clay Forrester.
Marie was still awake, waiting, when Catherine came inside, and though she hadn't intended to, Catherine found herself admitting, “I'm going to marry Clay Forrester.”
Pandemonium broke loose! Marie leaped up, hit the light switch, bounded to the center of her bed and bugled, “Wake up everybody! Catherine's getting married!” In no time at all the place was a madhouse—everybody whooping, rejoicing, jumping and hugging.
Mrs. Tollefson called from the bottom of the stairs, “What's going on up there?” and joined the fracas to congratulate Catherine, then offered to make cocoa for everyone.
It took an hour for things to settle down, but during that time some of the girls' undaunted enthusiasm crept into Catherine. Maybe it began while they hugged her and—for the first time—she found herself unreservedly hugging back. They seemed to have given her some indefinable gift, and even now, lying in bed, wide awake, she was not sure what it was.
Marie's voice came quietly from across the way. “Hey, you asleep?”
“No.”
“Give me your hand, huh?”
Catherine reached and in the dark her fingers were grasped by Marie's. There was silence then, but Catherine knew Marie, the always gay, always cheery Marie, was crying.
Chapter 11
The following afternoon Clay called before Catherine got home and left a message saying his mother had invited her out to the house for dinner, so would Catherine please not eat at Horizons? He'd be there to pick her up around six thirty.
Speculation ran rampant among the Horizons residents, who swarmed all over Catherine as she came in the door. When she admitted she was going there to make wedding plans, wide eyes gaped at her from every angle. “You mean they want a real wedding . . . the Real McCoy!”
The Real McCoy, it seemed, was exactly what Angela Forrester had in mind. From the moment Catherine put herself into Angela's hands, she sensed what Angela had called an “intimate affair” was destined to be an extravaganza.
Yet it was hard to resist the charming Angela, with her laugh like the song inside a Swiss music box and her constant striving to put Catherine at ease and her unaffected touches, especially for Claiborne. From the first Catherine noted how the two touched, lovingly, without conscious thought, as her parents never had, and how Angela always called him darling and he called her dear. “Isn't it wonderful, darling, we'll have a wedding here after all,” Angela fairly sang.
Though the details made Catherine's head swim, she drifted along with Angela's irresistible tide of plans for caterer, florist, photographer, even engraved invitations.
There were times during the following days when Claiborne thought his wife guilty of bulldozing. But Catherine gave Angie full sway. Sometimes he met the girl's eyes and read in them a hint of helplessness. Maybe it was this, and the fact that she understood what the wedding meant to Angie, which began to make Claiborne look at the girl differently.
The subject of the guest list was the first at which Catherine assertively gainsaid Angela by refusing to have Herb Anderson included.
“But, Catherine, he's your father.”
“I won't have him here,” Catherine stated vehemently, and stuck to it. The Forresters were surprised when Catherine said she wanted her brother Steve to give her away. They hadn't known she had a brother stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas.
In her turn, Catherine was surprised at Angela's lack of compunction in inviting the residents of Horizons.
Catherine stammered, “B-but they're all pregnant.”
Angela only laughed and inquired charmingly, “Are they too big to fit in my house?” That issue settled, Angela suggested Catherine call her brother immediately, using the phone in the study.
Catherine sat in the deep leather desk chair. Dialing, waiting for the phone to ring, she felt the empty longing which always overtook her at thoughts of Steve. She thought of the photographs he'd sent over the last six years, of how, during that time, he'd grown from a lean boy into a full-grown man, and she'd missed it all.
A crisp voice answered her ring. “Staff Sergeant Steven Anderson here.”
“S-Steve?” she asked, a little breathlessly.
“Yes?” A brief hesitation, then, “Who's—Cathy? Babe, is that you?”
“Yes, it's me. But nobody's called me babe for a long time.”
“Cathy, where are you?” he inquired with undisguised eagerness.
She glanced around the shadowed, private study, knowing Steve wouldn't believe it if she described her whereabouts fully. “I'm in Minnesota.”
“Is anything wrong?”
“No, nothing. I just wanted to call instead of writing.” Phone calls were costly and rare; Catherine reminded herself to thank Mr. and Mrs. Forrester.
“It's so good to hear your voice. How are you?”
“Me?” She was close to tears. “Oh, I'm . . . why, I'm in clover.”
“Hey, you sound a little shaky. Are you sure nothing's wrong?”
“No, no. I just have some news that couldn't wait.”
“Yeah? Well, out with it.”
“I'm getting married.” As she said the words Catherine smiled.
“What! A skinny, flat-chested sack of bones like you?”
She laughed shakily. “I'm not anymore. You haven't seen me for a long time.”
“I got your graduation picture so I know you're telling the truth. Hey, congratulations. And you're in college now too. Lots of changes, huh?”
“Yeah . . . lots.” Her eyes dropped to the rich leather of the desk top.
“So when's the big day?”
“Soon. November fifteenth, in fact.”
“But that's only a couple weeks away!”
“Three. Can you make it home?” Catherine held her breath, waiting.
The line hummed momentarily before he repeated skeptically, “Home?”
She said pleadingly, “You wouldn't have to stay at the house, Steve.” When he didn't reply, she asked, “Is there any chance of you getting here?”
“What about the old man?” A coldness had crept into Steve's voice.
“He won't be there, I promise you. Only Mom and Aunt Ella and Uncle Frank and Bobbi, of course.”
“Listen, I'll try like hell. How are they all? How's Mom?”
“The same. Nothing much has changed.”
“She's still living with him, huh?”
“Yes, still.” She rested her forehead on her knuckles a moment, then picked up the letter opener from Claiborne's desk and began toying with it. “I gave up trying to convince her to leave him, Steve. He's the same as he ever was, but she's too scared of him to make a move. You know how he is.”
“Cathy, maybe if I come back there the two of us together can get her to see some sense.”
“Maybe . . . I don't know. Nothing's any different, Steve. You might as well know that. I don't think she'll ever admit how she hates him.”
Steve injected a false brightness into his voice. “Listen, Cathy, don't worry about it, okay? I mean, this is your time to be happy, okay? So, tell me about your husband-to-be. What's his name, what's he like?”
The question disconcerted Catherine who had never tried to put Clay into a nutshell. Her first instinct was to answer, “He's rich.” But she was startled to learn there was much which mattered more. “Well . . .” She leaned back in the tilting desk chair and considered. “His name is Clay Forrester. He's twenty-five, and in his last year of law school at the U of M. Then he plans to go into practice with his father. He's . . . well . . . smart, polite, well-dressed, and not too hard on the eyes.” She smiled a little at this admission. “And he has a very proper family, no brothers and sisters, but his father and mother, who want to have the wedding at their house. I'm at their house now.”
“Where do they live, in the old neighborhood?”
“No.” Catherine tapped the letter opener against the tip of her nose, leaning back and looking at the ceiling. “In Edina.”
There was an expressive pause, then, “Well, well . . . what do y' know about that? My kid sister marrying into Old Establishment. How did you manage that, babe?”
“I-I'm afraid I managed that by becoming slightly pregnant.”
“Preg—oh, well, it . . . it was none of my business. I didn't mean to—”
“No need to sound so embarrassed, Steve. You'd find out sooner or later anyway.”
“I'll bet the old man had plenty to say about that, huh?”
“Don't mention it.”
“Have they met him yet, the Forresters?”
Catherine recalled the small scar that still showed above Clay's eyebrow. “I'm afraid so.”
“I suppose the old man thinks his ship came in this time, huh?”
“Your memory is right on target. It's been hell around here. I moved out of the house to get away from him.”
“I can just imagine what he was like.”
“Hey, listen, he's not coming to the wedding, understand? I won't have him there. I don't owe him a thing! This is one time in my life that the choice is mine, and I intend to exercise it!”
“What about Mom?”
“I haven't told her yet, but she's next. I don't know if she'll budge without him. You know how she is.”
“Tell her I'll do my best to be there and take her, maybe that way she'll go.”
“When will you know for sure if you can get leave?”
“In a few days. I'll put in for it right away.”
“Steve?”
“Yeah?”
Catherine came forward on her chair, blinking dangerously fast, her lips compressed with emotion until at last she stammered, “I—I want you here . . . s-so bad.” She dropped the letter opener, spanned her forehead with her hand, fighting tears.
“Hey, babe, are you crying? What's the matter? Cathy?”
“N-no, I'm not crying. I n-never cry. We agreed to give that up long ago, remember? It's just so damn good to hear your voice and I miss you. After six years I st-still miss you. You were the only good thing around that place.”
After a long, intense silence Steve said shakily, “Listen, babe, I'll make it. One way or another, I'll make it. That's a promise.”
“Hey, listen, I've got to go. I mean, I don't want to run up the phone bill here any more than I have to.” She gave him the number at Horizons.
Just before they hung up, he said, “God, I'm happy for you. And tell Mom hi, and tell Clay Forrester thanks, huh?”
Catherine wilted back against the high leather chair; her eyes slipped closed and she rode the swells of memory. She and Steve, childhood allies, sharing promises of never-ending support. Steve, a freckle-nosed boy of thirteen, standing up to Herb for her, regardless of his fear of the man. Steve and Cathy, children, huddling together, waiting to see who the old man's wrath would be turned on this time; Cathy's tears when it was Steve's turn to take a licking; Steve's tears when it was Cathy's; their trembling, tearless terror when it was their mother's turn; their mute agony of helplessness. But as long as they had each other they could bear it. But then came the day Steve left, the day he was old enough. She relived again her dread sense of desertion when he was so quickly gone for good. She felt again the desolation of being the one left behind in that house where there was only hatred and fear.
“Catherine?”
Her eyes flew open at Clay's soft question. She sprang forward as if he'd caught her rifling the desk drawers. He stood in the doorway, one hand in the pocket of his trousers as if he'd been studying her for some time. He came into the dim room, and she spun to face the shuttered window as two tears scraped down to her lashes and she covertly wiped them away.
“Couldn't you reach him?”
“Y-yes, I reached him.”
“Then what's wrong?”
“Nothing. He's going to put in for leave immediately.”
“Then why are you upset?”
“I'm not.” But she could barely get the two words out. She was uneasy knowing Clay studied her silently. His tone, when at last he spoke, was concerned and gentle.
“Do you want to talk about it, Catherine?”
“No,” she answered stiffly, wanting nothing so much as to turn to him and spill out all the hurtful memories of the past, to exorcize them at last. But she found she could not, especially not to Clay Forrester, when he was only passing through her life.
Clay studied her back, recognizing the defensive stance, squared shoulders and proud set of head. How unapproachable she could make herself when she wanted to. Still, he wondered, if he crossed the short distance of the room and touched her shoulders, what would she do? For a moment he was tempted to try it, sensing her utter aloneness in whatever it was she was suffering. But before he could move, she spoke.
“Clay, I'd like to make my own dress for the wedding. I'd like to provide at least that much.”
“Have I given you the impression I'll object to anything?” He couldn't help but wonder what had brought on
this abrupt defensiveness again. She turned to face him.
“No, you haven't, you've been more than compromising. I only want to make sure I don't shame you before your guests in a homemade dress.”
She saw questions flit through his eyes, knew he was puzzled, but how could she explain to him her need to lash out sometimes, when she didn't fully understand it herself? What was she challenging? His place in society? His safe, secure, loved upbringing? Or the fact that he'd caught her with her defenses down a moment ago?
“You don't need my permission,” he said quietly, and she suddenly felt sheepish. “Do you need any money to buy things for it?”
She felt the red creep up her neck. “No. I have some saved for next quarter's tuition I won't be needing.”
Now it was his turn to feel slightly uncomfortable.
Although the days before the wedding were interrupted by these emotional point counterpoints, on the whole, Clay and Catherine grew increasingly comfortable with each other. There were even times when their moods were undeniably gay, like the following night when they called Bobbi and Stu to ask them to be attendants at the wedding. Clay had settled comfortably on the loveseat in the Forrester study, to eavesdrop, he admitted. Dialing the phone, Catherine grinned, glanced up and couldn't resist revealing, “Bobbi considers you quite a catch, you know.” He only smirked, stretched out comfortably with both hands locked behind his head and settled down to listen to one side of the conversation.
“Hi, this is Catherine . . . No, everything's just fine . . . No, I'm not . . . as a matter of fact, I'm out at Clay's house . . . Yes, Clay Forrester”—The corners of Clay's mouth tipped up amusedly—”Well, he brought me out to have supper with his parents”—Catherine's eyes met his—”what do you think I'm doing? . . . Yes, a few times . . . He ran into me on campus and followed me there . . . You might call it that . . . No, he's been very polite, nothing like that”—Catherine wanted to wipe the smirk off Clay's face—”Bobbi, prepare yourself, you're in for a shock. Clay and I have decided to get married and I want you to be my maid of honor”—Catherine covered the mouthpiece, made silly eyes at Clay and let Bobbi rave on a moment—”Well, I am, I mean, I called as soon as we decided . . . Stu . . . Yes, he just talked to him . . . Steve is going to try to make it home, too . . . In three weeks, on the fifteenth . . . I know, I know, we'll have to find a dress for you . . . Listen, I'll talk to you tomorrow. I just wanted to let you know right away.”