Promise Me A Rainbow (28 page)

Joe strained to get away from him. “How many times I got to tell you? Don’t do that!”

“You don’t like it?”

“No, I don’t like it!”

“Too bad. You’re my baby brother, and I love you. So sue me. And you pay attention to what I said. You get it together or I’m going to whip your butt.”

Joe grinned. “Yeah, old man?”

“Yeah! Margaret, let’s go.”

But she was already halfway to the car.

Michael gave a sheepish grin. “Looks like I’ll be sleeping cold tonight. See you, Joey.”

Joe switched off the kitchen light and stood at the door watching as Michael backed the big car Margaret had to have out of the drive. Michael had his sympathy. There was nothing pleasant about sleeping cold. He closed his eyes and gave a quiet sigh.

Catherine
.

He missed her. Already. The feelings he had for her were sexual—strongly sexual—but he wanted to
be
with her, too. He wanted to talk to her—about Della, about Margaret. No, he couldn’t talk to anyone about that. Yes, he could. In his mind’s eye, he could see the quietly intent way she’d listen to him and then she’d tell him what she thought—whether he liked it or not. He closed his eyes again, his mind now filled with other things, with the way she’d felt and smelled and tasted. God, it had been good with her.

“I wanted to stay with you tonight,” he whispered, surprising himself that he’d spoken out loud. He had to get himself together. He had to deal with whatever this was with Della, and he certainly wasn’t looking forward to that. He was going to have to make her understand. He liked—maybe more than liked—Catherine Holben.

Maybe more than liked
. There it was. The thing he’d been so afraid of all afternoon. Maybe he was on the verge of something here, something major that was going to upset his life and hers, and his children’s.

What if it isn’t worth it?

He still loved Lisa, and it was so much safer “sleeping cold.”

And so lonely.

He switched on the florescent light over the sink. He stared at the telephone on the kitchen wall, then went to it and dialed Catherine’s number. He’d called so many times today, he knew it by heart now.

She answered almost immediately.

“It’s Joe,” he said quietly, praying like a moonstruck teenager that she wouldn’t say, “Joe who?”

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Nothing . . . why?’

“I just thought you sounded . . . I don’t know. Like something was the matter.”

“No. I was just thinking about you. I . . . wanted to see if you were okay.”

“I’m okay.”

He paused. “Good. Then I just wanted to tell you good night.” He could feel her smile.

“Good night, Joe.”

Good night, baby . . .

“Joe?”

He jumped. “Jesus, Fritz! Am I going to have to put a bell on you? What are you doing up? I thought you were asleep.”

“It’s not easy sleeping around here,” she said, watching him listen to the receiver for a moment before he hung up the phone. Della had been throwing things, but he didn’t like tattling, so she didn’t tell him that.

“So what do you want? You want to get on my case, too?”

“Nope. I want a glass of milk.”

He smiled. “Milk, huh?”

“And I wanted to see if you were mad or anything,” she added, because she wanted to tell him the truth about that at least. She’d been worrying ever since she’d heard about Catherine’s message. She would have to tell her the next time she saw her not to give any messages to Charlie. “I wanted to see if you were mad at Catherine.”

He was opening the refrigerator to get the milk out for her, and he stopped in the middle of it. “Why would you think that?”

“Charlie said she stood you up.”

“She didn’t stand me up. She left me a message.”

“Even if you don’t get it, like when Charlie didn’t give it to you?”

“Even if you don’t get it.”

“Oh. Is Charlie in trouble?”

“About like usual,” he said, pouring her some milk in her favorite
Star Wars
glass, which one of them had gotten years ago at Burger King.

“Oh,” she said, taking the glass from him. She set it down carefully and pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. “You know Charlie,” she said as she sat down. She watched him pour a glass for himself. “I was surprised,” she said when he sat down to join her.

“About what?”

“You let Catherine go to the dinner with you. You don’t let
anybody
go to that.”

“I don’t let kids go to that. And I didn’t
let
Catherine, I just asked her. She couldn’t make it.”

“Didn’t she want to go?” Fritz asked, trying to find out why his plans had fallen through.

“Yes, I think she did, but something came up.”

“What?” Fritz asked. She watched him closely. He’d either tell her or he’d say it was none of her business. She was hoping for the former, because she didn’t understand the way “things came up” for grown-ups at all. A kid couldn’t get by with that kind of reason in a million years.
Where’s your homework, Mary Frances? Oh, something came up.

He was thinking about it. She could tell he was thinking about it.

“I’d like to know, so I don’t worry,” she said. That was the truth, but telling Joe that was like something Della would have done, trying to make him feel bad so he’d do what she wanted. She sighed. She really didn’t like doing things that way, even if she did want to know about Catherine really badly. “You don’t have to tell me,” she decided.

“Have you been worrying?” he asked. He got up from the table and found the box of vanilla wafers, letting her reach in for a handful first.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want you to be mad at her.”

“Fritz, I’m not mad at her.”

“You were mad when you came in.”

“That was Della’s doing.”

“Della?” she asked, and she turned down the corners of her mouth for a moment to consider that. “What did Della do?”

“I have to talk about that with her.”

“Oh,” Fritz said. She didn’t mind that he wouldn’t tell her. She really liked the way Joe did those things. When you were in trouble, he didn’t spread it around.

“Didn’t Catherine want to go to the dinner?” she asked again.

“She was at the hospital with one of her students.”

“Did one of them have a baby?”

He frowned. “What do you know about that?”

“Catherine told me she only had students that were having babies.”

“She did? When?”

“When we were walking on the beach. I asked her what she did to get money. She said she helped students that were going to have a baby so they wouldn’t have to leave school.”

He smiled. “One of these days you’re going to ask one question too many.”

“I do that now,” she said. “People just tell me to butt out. Can I go see the gnomes tomorrow?”

“I’m not sure about tomorrow.”

“Why? Catherine said I just have to call first.”

“She’s . . . kind of sad, Fritz. It may not be a good time.”

“Why?”

“Because she is.”

It wasn’t the usual kind of answer she got from him. She looked up at him for a moment, then decided to press her luck. “Why?” she said again.

“The baby died, Fritz,” he said quietly, handing her another vanilla wafer.

She took the wafer. The baby died. Catherine probably liked babies. No wonder she’d be sad and couldn’t go to the dinner with Joe. Fritz looked up at him again. He was sorry he’d told her, but she wasn’t. When she knew things, even if they were bad, it was better than guessing.

“Sometimes those things happen,” she said, hoping to make him feel better.

“Yes,” he said.

“It’s not anybody’s fault or anything.” She knew better than to say it was God’s will. Joe didn’t believe God wanted anything dead, and that kind of thing really made him mad. “Like when Lisa died,” she added, because she thought it would be all right to say that.

“Yes.”

She sat for a time in silence, thinking about Catherine and the little baby.

“Is there anything you want to ask me, Fritz?” Joe said.

“I just hope the baby had a name. Sister Mary John said babies who die are angels, but—” She broke off and sat drumming her fingers on the table.

“But what?”

“In the cemetery. On the little tombstones. Sometimes it just says ‘baby son’ or ‘baby daughter.’ That’s not much of a name for an angel.”

She waited for him to comment. “Is it?” she asked when he didn’t.

“This baby had a name,” he said. “Her name was Treasure.”

She smiled. She liked the name a lot. She’d heard somebody say one time at a PTA meeting that life was strange. Maybe this is what they meant. Here was a mother without her baby, Treasure. And here she was, without a mother. Sometimes things just didn’t match, no matter how much you tried, and it made you miserable, wanting to sit in the dark, the way Joe used to do. She looked at him. He wasn’t miserable now, but he was worrying.

“Catherine won’t be sad for long,” she said.

“We can’t bother her tomorrow, Fritz,” he said, and she realized that he still thought she wanted to visit, and that wasn’t what she meant at all. “Catherine won’t be sad long,” she said again. “She can’t be.”

“Fritz . . .”

She looked into her father’s eyes, a little surprised that he didn’t understand. “Because,” she said earnestly, “Catherine has the gnomes.”