Blind Squirrels (10 page)

“No reason to be.  Travis just
needs to grow up.  Besides, Birdie needed to see her boyfriend.”  He winked at
me and turned to go.  I just stood there – anchored to that spot.  Then he
turned back around.  “I almost forgot to tell you bye, Birdie.  Be good for
your Aunt Kat.  I’ll see you later.”

“Bye, Max.  Love ya.”  Birdie was
mellowing out; she was a tired little girl.

“I love you, too, Birdie.” 

Max was walking away, so I
couldn’t tell what he might be thinking as he told her that he loved her.  He
was probably just being kind, but – then again – who knows?  At least I had
something to think about for the rest of the summer, and it had nothing to do
with the turmoil at home.

Could it be that I was making
headway?

Chapter 9

I woke up to someone banging on
my door.  I dropped my yearbook on the table and rushed to peek through the
peephole.  It was Olivia.  She was moving her head back and forth frantically,
so I jerked the door open.

“Kat, you’ll never believe who I
saw at registration.  Never in a million years.”  Olivia had shoved me out of
the doorway and was making a beeline for my sofa.  She stopped when she saw the
yearbook on the table.

I shut the door as she turned to
face me with a raised eyebrow and a cynical sneer.  I rolled my eyes.  “Would
you like some tea – or maybe a soda?  You know I don’t drink coffee.”

“Kat, you weren’t thinking about
Max Savage again, were you?  I thought you were over him.  Way over him.  What
happened?”

“Who did you see at
registration?  This was out at FMC?”  Fort McRee College, our local university.

Olivia wanted to pursue her line
of questioning – just like a lawyer.  “You do remember that he’s married?”

“And – may I remind you – you are
under oath...” I said, laughing at her.

“Kat!  Come on.”

“We’ll talk about him later.  I
want to know who got you worked up enough to come over to my apartment.  You
haven’t been here in over two years.”

I was finally getting through to
her.  Olivia let go of her “this-is-for-your-own-good” tone, and recaptured the
light-hearted manner she had exhibited earlier.  “It was Peter McDermott!  He’s
an instructor at FMC now.  Isn’t that wild?”

“Peter McDermott?  Who???”  I was
teasing.  I knew very well who he was.

“Don’t you remember?  Tenth grade
– Bons Copains?  Peter McDermott was one of the vice-presidents.”

“Master-at-arms.”

“Right, master-at-arms...Wait a
minute!  You knew who I was talking about all the time, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did.  He was all you
talked about for – how long?  Oh, yeah – he’s still all you talk about.”

“Ha-ha, very funny.  I think
you’re confusing me with this clown named Katrina and her fantasies about Max. 
Sure, I liked Peter, but I didn’t obsess over him.”  Olivia was good at
pointing fingers.  She just didn’t want them pointing in her direction.

“And I suppose driving past
Pete’s house ten or twelve times a day qualifies as normal non-psychotic
behavior?”

“We only did that a few times... 
Well, not more than two or three times a week.”  Olivia was blushing.  I guess
we were both a little weird.

“Hey, I’ve got no problem with
it.  I just don’t want you calling me strange either.  Let’s just say that if
we did those things now, we’d be arrested for stalking.”  I burst out laughing
and Olivia joined me.

“We’re two of a kind, I guess,”
she said between giggles.

“Two sick puppies,” I added.

“Anyway, Pete never knew I liked
him back then.  It wasn’t like you and Max.”  Olivia was right.  Pete never had
a chance to get sick of her.  My car could have passed his house 1,000 times a
week, and he wouldn’t have had a clue.  Olivia knew how to keep a low profile.

“So what happened today when he
saw you?”  We’d almost lost sight of what her visit was about.

“He recognized me.  Well, sort
of.  He remembered seeing me somewhere.  I knew him right away – he hasn’t
changed a bit...”

“You mean he’s still
two-hundred-twenty pounds of lean mass and muscle?  Or do you mean his reddish
hair is still in a buzz cut?”

“I guess he’s put on a pound or
two.  Who hasn’t?  He still looks good, though.”  A pound or two?  I picked up
more than a pound or two by just sniffing a plate of brownies.

“That is, if you think he ever
looked good.  I didn’t.”  He was too bulky – too massive – for my taste.

“Uh, yeah.  So, he still has the
buzz cut, and his hair is still strawberry blond.  His face isn’t quite so
babyish anymore, but he’s still cute...”

Cute was not a word I would have
ever used to describe Peter McDermott, but I suppose many girls crumpled over
his baby face.  I thought his eyes were too small and beady for his chubby
face, and I could never warm up to his facial hair – a thin (less than an inch
wide) beard that traveled from sideburn to sideburn down around the bottom of
his chin.  I also never cared for his football player physique or his too short
hair.  He just wasn’t my type.

“...So I told him that I went to WMHS
at the same time he did.  He asked me to have a soda with him in the cafeteria,
and we reminisced about old times.  We even talked about Bons Copains.  I’m
sure he never remembered me, but we still had a really good time.”

“So, when are you going to see
him again?”

“Um…not sure about that.  While
we were talking, his wife came up.”

“Wife?  Oh, crap!  What did she
do?”

“Well nothing, of course.  We
were just talking.  Besides, she recognized me at once.  His wife is Cherry
Trinity.”

“Oh…Sorry Olivia.  I was hoping
you and Pete made a love connection.”

“You are so stupid, Kat.  Only
you would think that Pete would see me after twenty years and then fall madly
in love with me.  You are such a hopeless romantic.”  She rolled her eyes
around indicating that she thought I was nuts.  “But something unusual did
happen.  After Cherry and Pete walked away, this guy came from out of nowhere
and knocked my ass on the floor…”

“What?  Why did he do that?  Were
you hurt?”  She looked fine, but I thought I should be concerned.

“I wasn’t hurt, just dazed for a
second or two.  He offered me his hand and helped me up.  He was rushing to try
and register for some Internet class.  He’s trying to build a website or
something.  He apologized and we started talking.  We walked to the registrar
together and…I really like him, Kat.”

You could have knocked me over
with a feather.  “Say what?”

Olivia didn’t even notice my
shocked expression.  “His name is Lee.  He’s forty years old, and…wait for
it…he’s a doctor.”

“A doctor?  Why is he registering
for an HTML class then?’

“HTM-what?  Whatever – you and
your computer brain.  He wants to make a website for his niece.  She’s trying
to start some kind of sewing business.  Anyway, he’s not the kind of doctor
you’re thinking about.  He’s a veterinarian.  But it still counts.  He’s Dr.
Lee Garrett.  He is so cute.  I can’t wait for you to meet him.”

“I guess that means you are going
to see him again?  I hope you got his phone number…”

“Going to see him again?  Why do
you think I’m just getting over here?  We were together all night.”

“Olivia, you didn’t?  You didn’t
spend the night with him?”

“I did, but we were only
talking.  It was wonderful.  Kat, I think he really likes me.”

I had not seen Olivia this happy
and excited since high school.  Not only was she about to live out her dream of
becoming a lawyer, but she might also be falling in love.  I couldn’t have been
happier for her – but I was also jealous.  She had been able to get over her
high school crush and meet a wonderful guy all in the same day.  I had lost the
man of my dreams long ago, but I still refused to let go of my fantasies.

We spent the next hour talking
about Lee.  According to Olivia, Lee had the waviest brown hair, the bluest
blue eyes, and the sexiest smile she’d ever seen.  He was a little overweight,
but not too much.  He had gone to school and played football for Auburn University
while getting his Bachelor’s Degree, and he’d graduated from their School of
Veterinary Medicine.  Lee now had a flourishing Veterinary Clinic in Foster’s
Bank.  He had never been married, and he’d barely taken time to think about
relationships.  Olivia couldn’t imagine why he’d taken such an interest in her,
but she was tickled pink.

“You two have some things in
common.  You’ve never had time for a relationship either.”  I’d often chided Olivia
about her interest – or lack of – in men.  Her job always came first.  Then, of
course, she was constantly participating in the local theater or volunteering
to work with underprivileged kids and economically depressed families.  It was
time for her to live for herself a little.

“We have a lot in common.  He
likes the theater, and he’s a big brother to a mentally handicapped boy.  On
holidays, he helps at the soup kitchen.”

“Oh, God!  It’s meant to be.  Go
for it, Olivia.  You are two peas in a pod.  Who’d have ever guessed?”   I
tried to sound enthusiastic but I was becoming bored with Lee.  I admired Olivia
– and Lee, for that matter – for being able to give their time so freely.  It
was something I could never do.  But Lee was sounding too much like a saint,
and I was losing interest fast.  Even with all her generosity, Olivia wasn’t a
saint.  She was bubbly, silly, and unpredictable.  She gossiped and cussed and
got catty right along with me.  She could be vindictive and bitter and
spiteful, not to mention bossy, authoritarian, and arrogant.  She was human –
with just a hint of martyr thrown in for good measure.  Lee sounded so perfect
that it made me want to throw up.  I finally decided that Olivia was just
trying to convince me that Lee was a good catch.  No one outside of Jesus was
that perfect.

Just as I was about to heave,
Olivia said, “Enough about me.  Let’s get back to Max...” 

“Let’s don’t.  Let’s talk about
old times.  Remember when...”  Diversion time.  Knock Olivia off track.

“No, no.  I have something to
say...”  I guess she wasn’t buying my diversion.  “I was just thinking about
how we became mixed up in Bons Copains to begin with.  Do you remember?”

I guess I was better at diversion
tactics than I thought.  “Remember?  If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t even
know about Bons Copains.  You would have never even met Pete McDermott.”

“You’re right.  Why don’t you tell
me how you first learned about the club?  I don’t really remember how you came
to join.”

I took a deep
breath and thought back to the beginning.  The beginning of Bons Copains, that
is
.

Chapter 10

School was back in session.  I
felt like my summer had vanished before it began.  Too soon it was time for a
new year with new teachers and new classmates.  I was a sophomore.

The bus stop wasn’t the same. 
Max was driving his car – an old brown Rambler – to school, so I soon tired of
catching the bus with Erma, Tracy, Terrance, and Mason.  Amos had moved to a
new house in another neighborhood and Travis had vanished to somewhere.  I
suppose Tracy could have explained his absence since she always knew the local
gossip, but I didn’t want to talk to her.

Before long, I was walking to Aurelia
and Dominique’s stop to catch the bus.  This involved a walk of about half a
mile – and it was still dark at six a.m.  Still, I preferred the walk to the
company at the Heritage Street stop.  Besides, Aurelia and I were very good friends
by this time, and we were assured of sitting together if I walked to her stop.

I still saw Max every morning. 
He’d stand near the spot that Aurelia, Olivia, and I always occupied after
getting off the bus.  He looked even better than before – he was now sporting a
thick black mustache, and it was very becoming.  Aurelia and Olivia even said
he looked better, although they still thought he was ugly.

Homeroom was similar to the year
before.  Most of the same people were still there.  Our class was in one of the
ROTC rooms and Captain Kennedy was our teacher.  The captain carried a
reputation as a diehard and a strict taskmaster among the ROTC geeks, and he
was no pushover as a homeroom teacher.  Every morning, he’d stand up and
command complete silence while he ran his fingers through his sparse white
hair.  Then he’d bark out each of our names – expecting to hear a rousing
“Present!” – and stare at us with his intrusive little pellet eyes.  Never once
did I see him smile or hear him speak kindly to anyone.  He just proudly wore
his Navy uniform on his short pudgy frame and dared one of us to disobey.  A
trip to the principal was a nonconformist’s reward.

First period would be World
History – at least for the first semester.  Mr. Blake – as tall and sinister
looking as Boris Karloff – would be my teacher.  I was the only sophomore in
this class, and, as such, I was very much alone.  Mr. Blake’s long winded
lectures soon bored me, and I used his class to catch up on my note writing –
notes to my friends.  Even as I sat on the front row in the center of the
class, I easily bluffed Mr. Blake.  He rarely called on anyone in class, so I
never had to be paying attention.  His tests were so easy – the questions came
straight out of the book.  I breezed through his class making A’s and B’s the
whole semester.  During the second half of tenth grade, I would take Driver’s
Ed, and I would have to pay attention.  But in the meantime, I would write my
notes and fictional stories while Mr. Blake droned on.