Chapter 5, Lives Anew
Katey awoke the next morning to find Susie at the stove making omelets.
"Morning." she said, without turning around.
"Morning," Katey said. "It's freezing in here." she flopped onto the sofa and pulled the fleece blanket over top of herself.
"I know," Susie said, flipping an omelet on the stove. "Your radiator isn't working. I went down to the super before, and he said he'd send someone up on Monday." Susie slid two omelets out of the pan and onto two plates. Katey got up from the couch, the blanket still pulled tight around her, and opened the fridge and got out the orange juice. She poured some into two tall glasses and began to set the table. A banging sound came from Heckles' apartment. They stomped instinctively.
Later, she and Susie were finishing breakfast. Katey twirled her fork in her long, pale fingers.
"Hey, Suze?" she asked.
"Hmm?" she looked up from her plate.
"You didn't really have a fight with your roommate, did you?" Susie shrugged. "Suze." Susie got up and washed her plate in the sink.
"I came for a reason. I have to tell you something." she said slowly.
"What?" Katey asked. Susie fingered a trailing strand of ivy handing from a pot on the counter.
"This is nice."
"Suze."
"Fine. I wanted to know if I could move in with you."
"I thought Mom and Dad wanted you to stay on campus until your junio--Susie that isn't it. What? Why don't you just tell me?" Katey in turn cleared her plate and silverware and began to wash them. She set them in the rack to dry and turned to face her sister, who was now standing in front of the fireplace, admiring the pictures on the mantle.
"This is nice." she pointed to a Christmas card picture of them and their parents six years earlier, taken in their house in St. Louis.
"Susie." Katey sat on the couch and pulled her legs underneath herself.
"Fine." Susie flopped into a wing-back chair facing Katey, her arms hanging over the side. Katey moved the blanket so that it covered her exposed feet.
"A couple days ago I was visiting Mom and Dad," Susie said slowly.
"And…." Katey prompted.
"And while I was there they got a letter. It was for you."
"From who?" Katey asked. Susie held up one finger and disappeared into her room. A few second later she returned with a slender envelope with familiar, small and loopy hand script on the front, which she handed to Katey.
"from Javier." Susie sat down again.
Katey turned the letter over in amazement. She had never expected…..this feeling. Everything was coming back to her.
"Go." Susie said softly.
"What?" Katey asked.
"Go. You have to go. He wouldn't be writing unless he needed you. And you want to go. I know you do. You love him. Say it."
"I--can't--" Katey said, choked with tears.
"What? You can't what? Go or love him or say it? But you can Katey. You think you can't do things but you can!" Katey, who had been walked toward her bedroom, turned around.
"You don't know, Susie! You don't know! You don't know how much it hurt to lose him. You don't know how much it hurt to lose the baby. You don't know what it's like to have left myself in Cuba! Because you can't! I left part of myself there, and if I go back, I'll have to get it back. I can't do that now!"
"He needs you! He needs your help! Javier is the most cocky guy I've ever know, and it must have killed him to write you, asked for your help. Maybe I don't know, Katey, maybe I've never been in love. But I do know that you cry yourself to sleep at night because you miss him! I know you love him!" she stopped, out of breath from yelling. Katey waited. "You're on your own for this one, Katey. I've tried to help you, but you just push me away. You push everyone away! You have no boyfriend, no friends, and I know that the only people you talk to during the day are your boss and --- and--- Heckles! So fine, Katey. I'm leaving. I didn't read the letter and nether have you. Read it and then go. You have to.
And most importantly, you have to say that you love him. Because it's killing you not admitting it to yourself. I'm going home." Katey ran into her room and slammed the door.
A few minutes later se heard the door of the apartment slam. Katey slowly pushed open the door to find the apartment empty. The silence and the finality of Susie's last words was deafening.
"I need to get a cat." Katey said to the empty room.
It was Saturday, and Katey had nowhere to go.
She and Susie would usually go for lunch on Saturday's between Susie's 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock classes, but today Susie would have nothing to do with Katey.
"She's right," Katey thought to herself. "Maybe I do shut people out. But I don't mean to."
Katey was soaking in the bathtub with the book Wuthering Heights when the phone rang.
"Dammit." Katey said. She got out of the tub and wrapped a towel around herself before reaching for the phone in her bedroom.
"Hello?" Katey asked.
"Katey dear? Oh, I'm glad I caught you. It's Eve Phelps. James told me how you two ran into each other yesterday and I thought that we must get together. Are you free tonight? What about the Liley Bistro at eight, say?"
Katey was taken aback by Eve's fast talking.
"Well….yes, I'd love to." A warning signal went off in the back of Katey's mind. But she had to accept. It would be rude to refuse.
"Lovely! We'll see you then. Bye-bye.
"Bye." Katey said, and hung up the phone.
Her radiator wasn't working again, and it was freezing outside for early November. Her fist instinct was to get right back under her covers again and try to sleep the day away, but instead she decided to go to the coffee house down the street. She dressed in a plain blouse an black skirt, and she wrapped her jacket tight around herself before she left.
She slipped the unread letter into her purse.
In the coffee house she armed herself with a latte and chocolate scone before opening the letter.
But I don't have to open it. She thought. If I do, everything will come back, and my world will have a crack right down the middle. And I'll worked so hard to keep Javier and everything about him separate from my life.
So she put it off. She had finished her scone and drank her latte, and was still debating as to whether or not she should open it. So she gathered up her things and went home again, the letter still unopened.
By this time it was dinnertime, and Katey began to dread meeting James and Eve. At 7:45 she couldn't stand it anymore and called the restaurant.
"Hi. This is Katey Miller. Could you please inform Mr. And Mrs. Phelps that I have fallen ill and are unable to join them this evening. Oh, and that I express my utmost apologies. Thanks." Katey hung up the phone and lay back onto the soft pillows of her bed. She reached for the letter and opened it.