A Sister's Promise (Promises) (11 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Trish, I need your help,” Kate said jokingly, even though she actually meant it on a deeper level. She had invited her friend shopping because she was ready to confide in someone. She needed somebody on her side.

Trish walked around the aisle and looked at Kate.

“Should I get the blue one or the burgundy?” Kate asked, holding up two different Etienne Aigner shoes.

“The burgundy.”

Trish and Kate had met the first day of FHS new staff orientation and just clicked. Eager to shape minds and naïve about the politics of schools, they thought they were on the same team. They didn’t know then that teachers and counselors had a subtle rivalry. Some teachers thought of counselors as administration, the authority that created paperwork and rules that interfered with their goal of teaching. Counselors were the ones who put students into their already crowded classrooms and assigned them students who didn’t want to learn. The truth was counselors didn’t have any power. They weren’t administrators and they didn’t have sheer numbers on their side like teachers. They were caught in the middle. And Trish understood that.

Slipping off her shoes and socks, Kate flushed with embarrassment seeing her “Rockin’ Red” polish barely clinging to her toenails. With all of her trips to see Joely, she didn’t have much time for personal maintenance any more.

Quickly she put on the pumps. She just adored them. Hmmm. A little tight in the toes. She slipped one off so she was standing lop-sided, half of her three inches taller than the other. She checked the size. Six. That was right.

Trish scanned the clearance rack as Kate walked around the store in the uncomfortable heels. Trish caught her eye. “Do you like them?”

“Definitely. But I’m afraid I will wear them once and be in such agony I’ll toss them in the back of my closet.” Kate examined them in the full-length mirror. She loved the way they looked. Plus, it would be nice to actually be taller than her students for a change, she thought. She walked around on the gray Berber carpet trying to convince herself that they fit, just like she had been trying to convince herself that a baby would fit.

Trish put her hand on her hip. “Well, they
look
great.”

Kate kicked the shoes off and her feet seemed to thank her. She sighed with disappointment and relief. “I think I’d better pass. What about you?”

“I’m getting these ivory ones for my date tomorrow night with Sean.”

“So, things are going well with Mrs. B’s nephew, huh?”

“You could say that. Did you like how I casually slipped his name into our conversation?”

Kate smiled and nodded.

After Trish paid for her shoes, they headed out the glass doors, hearing a “ding” as they exited. They walked down the sidewalk past Dress Barn. Now that was a store Kate would never step foot into. Dress Barn. Who thought of that name? She couldn’t imagine it appealed to anyone except perhaps the Amish.

Trish put on her sunglasses. “Maybe we can find me a new outfit for my date.”

“Sounds like a plan. So, how long before the wedding?” Kate teased, gladly delaying the purging of her soul.

“We’re not quite that serious. . .yet.” She grinned revealing white teeth perfected by orthodontia.

Braces. Something else her cousin Jonathan had received and Kate was denied. At the time she thought she was the lucky one, chewing gum and biting into apples whenever she wanted to, but as an adult she saw that she was wrong. If she had a kid, they would get braces whether they wanted them or not. “Do you think he could be ‘The One’?”

“I think so.”

“Trish, that’s so exciting. I know I haven’t been around much, but I want to hear all about him. What are his past relationships like? Any divorces? Kids?”

“Nope. No baggage whatsoever.”

At least none that you know of. “Even better.”

“And he’s just so easy to talk to. Sometimes I talk to him for hours before I realize that he hasn’t said much.”

Kate wondered if Trish was going to scare him away. Hopefully she wasn’t talking
too
much. As a counselor, though, Kate had to be careful not to treat her friends like clients. And with Trish it was especially challenging. “I’m really happy for you. When do I get to meet him?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we could double-date sometime, you and Mitch, Sean and I.”

Kate’s heart fluttered at the thought of going out at night instead staying home curled up next to Mitch watching
Antiques Roadshow
or driving to see Joely. “I’d love to.”

As they approached a drinking fountain, Trish looked at her watch. “It’s time for me to take my medicine. Let’s stop for a minute.” She reached in her black Vera Bradley quilted purse and poured a pill out of a bottle Kate couldn’t quite see. With equal discretion Trish tossed the medicine in her mouth and took a drink.

“What’s that?” Kate couldn’t help but ask.

“Zoloft.”

“You’re still taking that?” Kate knew Trish started on anti-depressants when she found out the manager at the local gas station was cheating on her. Kate wasn’t sure she really needed them, but didn’t want to second-guess Trish’s therapist. It seemed to Kate, though, that Trish should have been way over him by now. He wasn’t exactly a great catch.

Should she tell Trish she thought she was over-medicating herself? Should she tell her she thought her psychiatrist was being irresponsible by refilling her prescriptions? What if Trish got mad? Trish was her only friend in town, except for Nancy whose contact had been minimal since the birth of Sammy. Kate didn’t want to lose her. But she felt compelled to say something. “I thought you were going to stop taking that stuff.”

“I was. I talked to my doctor and he said that I’m feeling better because of the meds. If I stop taking them I’ll get depressed again.”

Kate decided that being Trish’s friend required her to take a risk. Or was she focusing on Trish just to avoid discussing her own problems? She pushed the thought away. “That may be true. But let me ask you this. . .before you started taking them did you ever have trouble getting out of bed and going to work?”

“No.”

“Did you ever think about hurting yourself?”

Her forehead wrinkled in disbelief. “Of course not.”

“Do you really want to be on anti-depressants for the rest of your life?”

“No. But the doctor said. . . .”

“I think you need to be very clear with him that you want to wean yourself off of the medication. If he won’t listen to you, I’ll help you find another doctor.” Kate’s throat dried as she worried about Trish’s response.

“I’ll think about it.” Trish rubbed her jaw with a serious look on her face. “Did I tell you I think I might have TMJ?”

Kate resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

At the next store Trish modeled a cream-colored dress with quarter-size buttons all the way down the front. She twirled in front of a three-way mirror then looked at the price tag. Kate could see she was unsure.

“It takes money to marry money,” Kate joked.

“You would know.” Trish laughed and Kate playfully pushed her shoulder.

Trish didn’t know that during her college years, Kate lived off of Ramen noodles and baloney sandwiches. When she married Mitch, they set up three bank accounts—a joint one from which they would pay the mortgage and all of their bills and two individual accounts for each of them to do with as they pleased. For years Kate wrote a check to Sallie Mae out of her personal account even though Mitch said she didn’t have to. Once it had been paid off, Kate started over-indulging like a dieter released from a fat farm. Instead of gorging on potato chips and candy, she gorged on designer clothes and handbags.

Trish returned to the dressing room and came out with the look of decision on her face. “I’m going to get it.”

“Yea!” Kate pretended to clap.

“You want a cup of coffee?”

They both knew that when she said coffee, she meant Starbucks. Unfortunately, it was but one of many successful franchises that had overlooked Foxworth as a possible location. Therefore whenever they were anywhere near one, they had to go. Ten minutes later they sat at a little round table by the window, basking in the pleasant aroma of freshly ground coffee beans.

To Kate, coffee was an experience that took her back in time. When she was little, her mom used to squeeze a dollop of Hershey’s syrup into her morning java, making a sweet concoction from which Kate loved to sneak sips. Whenever her dad caught her, he would just wink and smile. At Starbucks Kate had discovered something similar called a mocha-white-mocha. Drinking in the chocolaty memory warmed her inside and out.

In between sips of her café Americano, Trish asked how Joely was doing. “I never know if I should bring it up or not. I mean, I want you to know I care. I just don’t want to mention it if it’s going to bring you down.”

“That’s sweet, Trish. She’s doing fine actually. For a long time after her diagnosis I was worried about her, but now she seems back to her bubbly self.”

“Glad to hear it. Is she in a lot of pain?”

“Off and on. She’s on medicine to help with it.” If Kate allowed herself to really think about Joely’s condition right now, it would hurt so much. Especially knowing that Joely refused to date ever since her diagnosis. She had even stopped going to the Starbucks where Drew worked, just to avoid him.

Trish shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” Did Kate want to expose the tender wound again? She took yoga-like breaths in and out trying to soothe her anxiety. “She is really devastated that she probably can’t have kids. She had always hoped to be a mother someday.”

A wave of heat brushed across Kate’s forehead. “I’m thinking about having a baby.”

Trish put down her paper cup and studied Kate’s eyes. “You’re serious?”

“Joely actually asked me to.”

“Whoa. That’s a lot to put on you.”

“I know.” Kate removed her warm, damp hands from her cup and dried them on her jeans. “It really has me freaked out.”

“What does Mitch say?”

Kate hesitated. He had said they would talk more later, but they hadn’t. “He’s not too happy. Not only that,” she lowered her voice, “but he wants to get a vasectomy.”

“Oh no!”

A twenty-something talking on her cell phone looked over.

“Exactly. What am I going to do?”

“Do you want a baby?”

Kate paused, waiting for the loud whir of the coffee grinder to stop. “One minute I think, ‘Being a mom wouldn’t be so bad’ and the next minute I’m thinking, ‘I love my husband and I like my job, so why bring a baby into the mix?’ I just don’t know. But I’m running out of time to decide.” To avoid Trish’s sympathetic eyes, Kate looked down at her coffee and made figure eights with the wooden swizzle stick.

“You know, I kind of went through the same thing with my dad. Do you remember when he started having those chest pains?”

Kate nodded.

“I thought about marrying Oliver just because I wanted my dad to be at my wedding.” Trish paused. “Fortunately, in my dad’s case, it turned out to be nothing serious.” She made the sign of the cross.

Kate barely remembered Oliver. She thought he was the guy obsessed with ninjas. He told Trish how to walk quietly, like a cat, and scolded her when she didn’t. Thank God she didn’t marry him.

“But you can’t do that,” Trish continued. “You can’t make major life decisions for someone else. You should have a kid only when you’re ready.”

“You’re right.” Kate nodded. “I know you’re right.” It was funny how when you heard the truth, it resonated throughout your body.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

After studying the museum map, Kate headed directly for the exhibit she had to see:
 
Mary Stevenson Cassatt, American Impressionist.

Kate read the artist’s biography on the wall, searching. The sign didn’t mention any.

She walked over to the first picture depicting a mother in a white dress holding a bare-bottomed child. The woman’s dark hair was in a loose bun and her head tilted downward and to the side. Her expression was hard for Kate to interpret. Serious, she guessed.

Joely took off her orange cardigan and tied it around her shoulders. “So, is Mitch excited about having a baby?”

Kate headed to the next picture and pointed at the mother’s cheeks as if she were irresistibly drawn to them. “Isn’t this a beautiful shade? Like a Braeburn apple.”

“Yes. I just love her use of color.”

It was much more subtle than Joely’s color choices today. Kate examined Joely’s gold hoop earrings, pumpkin and fuchsia-colored peasant skirt and leather boots. Kate was amazed at how well Joely’s bohemian style worked for her.

Joely read aloud the next sign on the wall. “Only twenty percent of the students were women at the art academy where she studied. Cassatt dropped out when no one took her seriously.”

Still no mention of any.

They walked to the next painting. In this one the mother tied a blue bonnet on her little girl. Once again, neither subject smiled. Throughout the exhibit Kate studied the mothers’ faces as they held, nursed and groomed their children. Sometimes their expressions were hidden, obscured behind their children, and sometimes their backs were turned.

Glancing up at Joely, Kate thought it wrong that her little sister was actually taller than her. Most of the time she didn’t notice it, but when they stood side-by-side, those extra inches were obvious.

Joely made eye contact. “Seriously. What did Mitch say when you told him that you wanted to have a baby?”

Kate shrugged. She didn’t want her sister to see that she no longer needed to look up to Kate’s marriage, either.

“You did tell him, didn’t you?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kate said, using her I’m-still-your-big-sister tone. When she had asked Mitch this morning not to do anything drastic without consulting her first, he replied, “You mean like you did?” She wasn’t used to a fight lasting this long and it worried her.

Now she walked to the next portrait and allowed a few beats of silence. “What do you think Mary Cassatt was trying to convey?”

Joely hesitated, obviously not happy with Kate’s question dodging. “That women’s roles are important, too.”

“But what are these women feeling? Are they content? Tired? Resentful? After all, this was a time when women were expected to marry and become mothers. It wasn’t a choice like it is now.”

“I think they are fully present, even though they are doing everyday tasks. By attending to their children they show their love.”

Kate reluctantly nodded. There was honesty in the way Mary Cassatt depicted the routine of motherhood. It was not glamorized or sugar-coated, like her former colleague Nancy tried to do. It was what it was. Even though she observed few overt expressions of happiness, Kate sensed tenderness between the mothers and their infants. But this exhibit also proved her theory that being a good mother hindered the accomplishment of other goals. After all, she had read all of the biographical information and apparently Mary Cassatt herself didn’t raise a family. “Don’t you think it’s odd that she never married and had children herself?”

“I think it’s sad.”

If motherhood was the only thing that would make Joely happy, then Kate wondered why she wasn’t pursuing every option. “Have you checked into adoption?”

Joely’s eyes focused on the canvas softly covered in paint. “No.”

“I know you think you don’t have a chance, but why not see if it’s a possibility? Maybe there’s an agency that would consider someone with your. . . condition.”

“I want to be a mom. More than anything. But I want the whole package. I want my baby to have a father.” She paused. “I want what you and Mitch have. Am I deluding myself that it could still happen?”

“No. Not at all.” Kate placed her hand on Joely’s forearm. “You’ll find someone.” Once again promising something she could not deliver.

# # #

With the empathy usually found only in a close friend, Antonio, the guidance secretary, asked Kate how she was doing. She said everything was fine, even though it couldn’t have been further from the truth.

They sat across from each other at a table dusted with crumbs left by a staff member who ate lunch at the regular time. With her hands, Kate pushed the crumbs into a pile and carried them to the trashcan. “Would you let Mr. Mohr know that I won’t be at the curriculum council meeting tonight? I’m going to take some more homework to Michelle.”

“Trust me, you want to be at this meeting,” he said, his thin face somber.

Kate returned to her seat. “Why? What do you know?”

“I have a feeling something important is going to happen.”

When Antonio said things like this Kate never knew how seriously to take him. Unlike Trish, whose credibility equaled that of the
New York Times
, getting information from Antonio was like reading the
National Enquirer
. Did he hear something through the secretarial grapevine or was this one of his premonitions that occasionally came true? Like the day he insisted they didn’t have time to grab their coats because the fire alarm was real and not a drill. Apparently an experiment had gone awry in the chemistry lab on the same day a regular fire drill had been scheduled. How did Antonio know? She liked to think he had a really good sense of smell, but he maintained he was just a “tad bit psychic”. Either way, she figured she had better show her face at the meeting.

Since they were the only two people in the faculty lounge, she decided to conduct an informal survey. She looked into his eyes hooded with bushy black brows. “When did you know you were ready to be a father?”

“When my wife told me she was pregnant.” He grinned. Then he forked the pale green lettuce sprinkled with orange cheese that was supposed to pass for a salad.

“Did you always want to have children?”

“For us, it wasn’t a question of whether or not we would have children, it was just a matter of how many.”

She bit into her flavorless cafeteria-issued hamburger. “Weren’t you scared, though, that maybe you wouldn’t be any good at it?”

Walking to the nearby refrigerator, he reached in to retrieve a Rubbermaid container. “Sure. Anyone who takes parenting seriously is scared. Fortunately I have the script of my mother’s voice running in my head.”

“You’re lucky.” Kate’s script was missing too many pages.

Once he sat back down, he opened up the plastic lid and poured homemade salsa on his hamburger. “But even then there are things I want to do differently with my kids.”

“Like what?” He offered Kate some salsa, but she shook her head, knowing from past experience it would numb her tongue.

“When I was young, sometimes my father would keep me home from school to help in the fields.”

It seemed like fathers could be especially hard on their sons. The strained relationship with his own dad was probably why Mitch agreed so easily not to have children.

Antonio used the bun to smear the red and green mixture onto the patty. “I never keep my kids home from school unless they are sick because education is what will save them from the fields. I want them to not only graduate high school, but go to college.”

“That’s admirable.”

“But when you deviate from the script, you can’t be sure of the results. I worry sometimes that I’m pushing them too hard. My oldest will skip playing soccer with his friends in order to do homework for four or five hours. I’m not so sure that’s a good thing.” Kate knew Antonio was especially proud of his son for being accepted on a scholarship to a prep school in a nearby city. “Then there’s my middle child. She maintains a B average, but I suspect that she could do better. Sometimes I think she knows she can’t compete with her brother’s natural abilities, so she does just enough to keep me off of her back.”

Kate’s counselor instincts kicked in. “You’re doing a great job with them.”

He waved away the compliment. “What surprises me the most is how much of their personality was just there when they were born. Even as a toddler, my son would spend a great deal of time meticulously building towers out of blocks when other boys his age just wanted to knock them down. And my youngest daughter was such an easy baby. Hardly ever cried. If her pacifier fell out of her mouth and she couldn’t reach it, she would just pick up her teddy bear and suck on its nose instead.”

The last time his wife brought their three year old in to the office, she’d greeted all of them with a kiss on the cheek. Kate thought she was adorable—until the little girl spilled a stack of 200 alphabetized transcripts onto the floor.

Antonio took a drink of Coke. “She’s very musical, too. She loves to dance and swing her bottom from side to side whenever my mariachi band plays for a quinceanera.” He said he could hardly believe he would be playing for his middle child’s fifteenth birthday celebration next spring, even though his daughter had picked out the white gown and tiara months ago. They both smiled and ate silently for a few minutes before Antonio asked her how many years she spent in college. His expression fell when she said six.

She wiped ketchup from the corner of her mouth. “Why do you ask?”

“I’ve been thinking that maybe I’d like to do what you do. But I’m not sure. I didn’t realize it took so long.”

“Now that you mention it, I think you’d make a great counselor. Kids like to talk to you and you have good instincts about when someone’s really in trouble.”

“You think so?”

“Definitely. Plus you’re bilingual. That’s a real asset. You could get a job anywhere.” In fact, Kate wouldn’t want to be up against him at a job interview. Not only did he speak two languages, but he was a male in a female-dominated field. Some schools felt it important to have an equal representation of the genders in the guidance department. Somehow that seemed more of a priority than hiring a woman to balance out the male-dominated administration.

“But I don’t want to leave Foxworth. This is where all of my family lives,” Antonio explained.

“Well, if there were an opening, I’m sure you’d get it. I’m not planning on leaving any time soon, but Rhonda might retire in a few years.”

“I’m just fantasizing. The truth is I should be saving money for my children’s college tuition. Not spending it on myself. Once you have kids it’s not about you any more. . . .”