Chapter 48
The following week buries the both of them under mountains of work. They hardly see one another other than to fall into bed together, usually in the small hours of the morning as Jack frantically tries to cope with the plethora of pet portraits he's suddenly been commissioned with off the back of that stupid little pug and Katherine attempts to get an article past her damn editors despite the fact that she's rewritten it five times and they still aren't happy with it and she's almost certain that they're trying to give her regular column to Johnson, that idiotic little bloke from the sports division.
Thursday, therefore, is the first time all week Jack has managed to leave the office before eight, churning out the last of the cartoons with Daniel and an obscene amount of coffee. He almost falls over Davey as he leaves the office, bleary-eyed from staring at paper and ink all day.
"Dave?" Jack manages as the other boy shoots to his feet from his seat on the bench by the Wall Street Journal offices.
"I wanted to say sorry." Davey bites his lip. "About causin' that fight the other night for you and Kath."
And Jack honestly has to wrack his brains (or what's left of them, after this work week) to figure out what the hell his best friend is on about. When he lands on it – oh, the numbers thing – he almost laughs. It's the truth when he says: "'S forgotten, Davey. We needed to talk 'bout it anyways."
Davey nods, tension draining away and out of his shoulders as he falls into step beside Jack. "Speakin' o' girls, you spoken to that girl yet? Miriam?"
The tips of David's ears turn a little bit red. "I, uh, we're goin' to study together. In the library. Next Tuesday."
Jack shoots him a sideways look, vaguely amused. "You sure knows how to show a girl a good time."
"We're just friends." He says, and Jack thinks that Race would call the expression that David is wearing 'pissy'.
"Oh, sure." Jack snorts. "An' I's the king o' England."
"England has a queen, you idiot."
"You's takin' a girl on a date to the library, I think you's the idiot here."
"Katherine would love a date at the library, shut up."
And Jack can't argue with that. Damn David Jacobs and his lawyerly ways! Katherine would indeed love a date at the library, though Jack knows that it's something they'll never do. (Unless she asks. If she asks, he'll crumble. Always does. He loves that girl too damn much for his own good.) Books aren't exactly his thing, as much as he might have tried to pretend with Romeo & Juliet when the two of them were just starting out. He loves the stories, of course, he likes little better than when Kath sits and reads to him, but the idea of going into a building specifically set aside for books? Not his thing. Not his thing at all. All of those words for him to squint at, to try so hard to piece together, their print so much smaller than the newspaper headlines? No thank you. But…
"So it is a date!" Jack crows, triumphant. David rolls his eyes.
Jack doesn't give over ribbing David about his terrible seduction technique (I'm not trying to seduce her!) until their paths home diverge and Jack claps him on the shoulder and tells him to call round for dinner whenever he has the time.
As he heads home, now alone, Jack decides he's having the night off from portrait painting, as most of the commissions aren't due for another couple of weeks, and spends his walk home debating the best distraction technique to tear his beautiful wife away from her clackety typewriter and into his arms. Despite this day being slightly different from most this week, though, in the aforementioned respects, he doesn't really think that today is much different from any other day until he walks into his house to find his wife sobbing in the kitchen.
"Kath?" He drops his portfolio case in the kitchen doorway and rushes over. "What's wrong?"
"I'm fine," she waves a hand at him and he stops, barely two feet away, hands raised in surrender and completely flummoxed, "I just – I burned it."
"Burned what?" Jack asks, slowly lowering his hands.
"I was trying to bake you a birthday cake and it's an awful mess-"
He can't help it; the laugh bursts from his throat before he can stop it. Now that he looks at her properly, his vision not clouded by abject terror about whatever the hell it is that is making his strong, brave wife cry, he can see that Katherine is covered in enough flour to make at least another two cakes. And there was he, not even having cottoned on to the fact that today is his birthday.
"-it's not funny, Jack." She shoots him a glare.
"I'm sorry, I jus'-" Jack breaks off, chuckling, before schooling his features into something like concern, "I thought somethin' was really wrong, sweetheart." He tilts his head to one side, attempting an expression of coaxing interest. "Can I see?"
"Of course you can't." Katherine grimaces, slumping against the kitchen sideboard. "My shame is already too much to bear."
"An' you calls me dramatic." Jack snorts, reaching out and taking her flour-covered hand. "C'mon, I bet we can jus' scrape the burned bits off."
And, oh, that was the wrong thing to say. That was absolutely the wrong thing to say. Jack knows the look that means that he's in trouble, and that is, without a doubt, it.
"Seriously?" Katherine scowls. "That's what you think?"
Yanking her hand out of his grip, she slides her hands into the oven gloves and produces, from inside of their oven, something that can only be described as a charred lump. It's not even recognisable as cake.
"Oh." Jack's eyes widen.
Sticking her chin in the air, Katherine dumps the blackened baking unceremoniously on the table and stares him down. "I'll get you a knife if you want to scrape the burned bits off."
"Okay." He winces. "Maybe 's a bit worse than I thought."
And then something he doesn't expect happens: her eyes fill with tears again. "I'm a terrible wife."
Bloody hell, doesn't she know that he can't stand it when she cries? It's visceral, somehow, something from back in mankind's caveman days, Jack is sure, this twist he feels in his gut whenever she's upset. So he rushes around the table and hugs her.
"You's a wonderful wife. It was very sweet of you to do this, an' it's your first time tryin' this. My first drawin's were rubbish."
"You did your first drawings as a child, Jack." She mumbles against his chest, but she doesn't sound quite so upset anymore.
He squeezes her a little tighter. "And you's only been married a month. It'll come."
"Making the cake may also have distracted me from making dinner."
Jack resists the urge to laugh. Only Katherine. Considering that she's the smartest person that he knows, he wonders how on earth the thing that defeats her is her inability to follow a recipe.
"C'mon, I's still got the money from doin' that paintin' for Medda last week. We'll go to Jacobi's."
…
This, Katherine has to admit, however begrudgingly, is certainly better than anything she could have cooked, so she pushes down the shame she feels at her culinary/wifely incompetence and tucks into the pie that she's ordered with some vigour. Unless Jack is planning on cooking tomorrow, this is the best she's going to eat for a couple of days. She's glad, too, that Jack doesn't seem disappointed by the fact that they've ended up at Jacobi's rather than him getting a home cooked meal with birthday cake for dessert, or, at least, if he is disappointed, then she's grateful that he doesn't say anything. She knows that she's a bit useless and doesn't need reminding of it. It feels even better, therefore, when Jack leans forward and clasps her hand across the table, saying:
"Let's do this more often."
"Hm?" She looks up, meets his eyes.
"Go out for an evenin'. Say, once a month." He sets his drink back on the table, a glass of whisky that he's been nursing since his finished his meal, only to stuff his free hand into his unbrushed hair and shoot her a nervous smile. "We's both so busy, Kath. I married you 'cos I want to spend time wi' you, not 'cos I want to collapse into bed at the end o' the day too tired to speak to you."
Oh, but her husband is a marvel. "I'd like that." Katherine smiles, sweet and private, and squeezes his hand in return. "Have I told you that I love you today?"
"Twice." Jack grins, unbearably smug about it.
"You're counting?"
He shrugs. "I pays attention when you talk."
She gasps, a sarcastic smile on her lips. "Somebody get the guy a medal."
Jack scrunches his nose and tells her, good-naturedly, to shove off, but he doesn't let go of her hand, his covering hers on the tabletop. Katherine hasn't finished her meal, taking it slower than Jack – whilst he's comfortable enough to eat as much as he actually wants in front of her now, she's still not managed to ease him out of his tendency to scarf his food down at the speed of light – but eating one-handed is a sacrifice that she is perfectly willing to make so that she can keep holding his hand.
And, bless him, it is nice. They should do this more often. Jack has a talent for asking all of the right questions, getting her talking about her latest article, the one that she's been forced to rewrite more times than she cares to recall, until her meal is half-forgotten on her plate.
"I wouldn't be surprised if that editor of mine wasn't related to Mrs. Ross." She grouches, finishing an extended rant about the bane of her life (a.k.a. her editor, Mr. Ross). Jack tilts his head to the side, silently questioning. Katherine sighs. "Same last name, same inability to be satisfied, same lascivious interests –"
"Lass-ivi-what-now?"
"Lascivious. It means that he has excessive interest in… you know." Katherine looks away. She doesn't know quite how she still feels so shy about it, after everything they've done, after everything she told Rose.
"Oh," Jack clearly has no such qualms, leaning forward, smirking, as he props his head on his hand, "do I?"
Katherine gives him a look. "Much like you."
"That hurts, Plumber." Jack laughs, leaning back in his seat and clapping a hand to his chest.
It's Katherine's turn to lean forward, turning their hands over on the tabletop and nodding to them. Her wedding ring is now clearly visible, a dull shine of gold in the low light of the restaurant lamps. "It's Kelly, now."
And it is. Kelly feels like a name that's hers in a way that neither Plumber or Pulitzer ever did. She still writes as Katherine Plumber, of course, attempting to keep hold of the little reputation she'd built up as a journalist prior to their marriage, and she's just fine with that, with keeping who she really is private, just between her and Jack. Pulitzer was never a name that belonged to her, never a name that she could live up to. Plumber was born of a running away, not a running to a career, but an escape from her father and his long arm across the industry. Kelly? That's hers. She chose it, was given it, by the man she loves. Katherine's never felt more like anything than she feels like a Kelly.
"Yeah it is." Jack grins. "So, la – lascivious? What makes him that?"
"He said, and I quote, I thought being a bride might have loosened you up a bit." She feels Jack's reaction as soon as she says it, the way in which his grip on her hand tightens just a little, the way that particular tendon in his neck stands out.
"I'd offer to soak him for you, but I knows you wants to handle this yoursel'." Jack says, forcing his body to relax and giving her hand a little squeeze, reaching for his whisky. "But, 'f you ever want him to trip over, like, real hard…"
Katherine smiles. She's so bloody lucky. "I'll bear that in mind."
…
They don't leave Jacobi's until Mr. Jacobi himself kicks them out, well after the ten pm closing time he operates on weekdays. They're both a little bit buzzed, not drunk, just tipsy, something Katherine's never felt before in company. Her mother always taught her never to drink more than one glass of wine when in public, or risk disgracing herself in some manner, and it's a rule that Katherine has stuck to for her entire life. Until now, she supposes. But Jack had two glasses of whisky after their dinner, and he was laughing and undone, and his eyes were crinkling at the edges and soft, and when he'd poured her a second glass of wine, and then a third, she didn't have the heart to say no. And why should she? Jack's seen her, he knows her, she has nothing to hide from him. And he's kept some part of her touching some part of him all evening, knees and feet under the table, a hand on the small of her back, her fingers interlocked with his. She's safe. She's with Jack, so she's safe.
The pleasant fizzing in her belly and the giggles in her throat that come with too much good wine burst out of her, though, and, as they start walking back, she takes hold of Jack's hands and pulls him out into the middle of the street, spreading her arms wide and twirling, before throwing herself into his embrace and starting a clumsy slow dance. Jack cottons on, and then he's laughing too, spinning her around and cradling her close, smelling of whisky and aftershave and paint.
"This is one of my favourite memories." She tells him, tucking her head against his shoulder, revelling in the feeling of his hands on her, so much more confident than they used to be, knowing exactly where to hold her, exactly where to touch. He knows her, she realises, as he hums his assent, every part of her, can play her like a violin.
"I fell in love with you, then, y'know." He murmurs back, voice dark and soft and close to her ear, close enough that he finishes his sentence by pressing his lips to the shell of it.
"You'd told me that you loved me before then." She squints up at him, the stars that she knows must be behind his head obscured by the glow of the city's streetlamps.
Jack looks down at her, fond in the way that makes the inside of his chest ache. "Y'think I don't fall in love wi' you over again each day?"
Katherine doesn't know exactly what to say to that, but she thinks that she might just melt if he keeps looking at her like that, so she buries her face in his neck and presses her lips to his jugular, hoping that's enough to tell him that she feels the same way. Doesn't he know how disarming he is? He steals all of the words that swarm around in her brain straight from between her lips, leaves her speechless, breathless.
Eventually, they part, warm from wine and one another, and wander home. The night is cool, autumn drawing in, a sly wind stealing across the city, but it's not enough to make Katherine shiver. She almost wishes it was, just so that Jack would take off his jacket and slip it around her shoulders again. She's grateful, though, too, because she knows that Jack hates the cold. Blue fingers. It's become an invasive thought whenever cold is mentioned, now, and whilst every time it sickens her, she's glad of it, glad of the reminder of how precious Jack is, how lucky she is to have him here with her. As they near their street, she grips his hand a little tighter.
"Is that Mrs. Ross in the window?" She asks as they round the corner, squinting up at a square of yellowish light set into the black shape of number forty-four.
Jack follows her gaze. "Yeah." He nods down at their entwined hands with an amused smile. "Probably scandalised at our public display of affection."
Katherine tilts her head back and laughs, loud and bright in the evening darkness. Then, when they reach the pavement in front of number forty-four, she puts her hand on his chest to stop him in his tracks, swinging herself around to face him, a wicked smile playing across her lips. She leans in close, so close that Jack can hardly breathe – and he's spent the last month in this woman's bed, how does she still have the capacity to steal all of the oxygen from his lungs? – and whispers.
"Let's scandalise her some more then, shall we?"
With that, she pulls him into a kiss. It's warm and messy and Jack can taste the wine on her tongue, sweet and tart and it's the best thing he's ever tasted in his life and he wants more, he wants more of her, more of this, wants this life, this dream-like existence that he's somehow stumbled into living never to end. So he kisses her back, her hands coming up to tangle in his hair, nearly knocking that cap clean off his head, and she tugs just a little, and he can't help it, he lets out a little moan into her mouth, and he can feel her smiling, proud of herself. He'd be proud, Jack thinks, if he were a woman like Katherine. Smart, strong, independent, kind. Beautiful, the kind of beautiful that scars and wrinkles and age don't wear away. Jack is perfectly certain that he's still going to be admiring her face every morning when he's eighty.
He pulls away, breathless, and tells her so. Or, at least, as close as he can get. "Hell, but I love you, Ace."
And she's always the one who has all the words, always has been, and he's always been better with actions, so he sweeps her up and into his arms like he did that first night they walked into their house as a married couple, and he carries her inside.
By the time the church bells toll nine the next morning, Mrs. Sanchez down the street, incidentally a close friend of Mrs. Ross, has been reliably informed that the new Mr. Kelly from number forty-two had his hands up under his wife's skirt in the middle of the pavement the night before.