Blind Squirrels (30 page)

“Well… If you are sure...  I just
don’t want you getting hurt.  I won’t refuse your help because I will do
anything to win Julie back.  She’s my one and only true love.”

We both stepped out of the car. 
“We’ll convince her, Max,” I told him.  “Try not to worry.”

He smiled at me.  “Thank you,
Kat.  I’ll never forget what you’re doing.  No matter how things turn out.  I
guess I’d better go home.  It’s been a long day.  Call me – I’m in the book –
and we’ll come up with a plan.  Bye.”  No worries.  I memorized his number
years ago.

After Max drove away, I suddenly
felt relieved.  I no longer felt pressured to impress Max or win him over.  I
was – in some small way – getting my lifelong dream.  Max and I were going to
be friends.  He would always be a part of my life. 

In that moment, I finally
realized the truth.  I wasn’t meant for Max.  No combination of wishing,
hoping, praying, and begging was ever going to make Max love me.  And maybe
that was why I loved him.  He was my elusive butterfly, my one-armed man.  He
was always hanging there – just out of reach – giving me a goal to shoot for –
not to mention a good reason to avoid commitment.  I still knew that Max would
always be in my heart and I would always love him.  But it was time to move on
– time to let that pony run.

I didn’t call Max on Sunday.  I
wanted to give him time to think, and I didn’t want to seem too anxious.  I did
try to call Olivia, but she failed to answer her phone.

Monday morning, I told Brad all
about my weekend with Max.  He listened intently, but later he told me to be
careful.  Just like Max, Brad feared that I was heading for heartache.  I
assured Brad that I could hold onto my heart.  I even told him about my new
revelations about Max.  They were interesting, he admitted, but he wondered if
I was deceiving myself.  I promised him that I would be cautious.

I had a message from Olivia on my
voice mail.  “If you can find time in your busy schedule, call me.”

She was still steaming from my
selfish behavior on Saturday, but she was recovering.  Otherwise, she would
have never called me.  I made sure Nancy was not around before dialing Olivia’s
work number.

“Olivia McLain.”

“Hi, Olivia.  It’s Kat.”

“Yes, Ms. Bellanova?”  Olivia
sounded hostile.  “What do you want?”

“I don’t know.  You called me.”

“I called so you could apologize
to me, beg me to meet you for lunch, and grovel at my feet once we get there. 
Where do you want to grovel?  Salvatore’s?”  I could almost hear the laughter
in her voice.

“Sure.  I might as well grovel in
a friendly atmosphere.”

“I’ll see you around noon.”

Salvatore’s was always slow on
Mondays.  I slid into the seat across from Olivia and recognized her hurt and
angry expression.  It was an expression I knew very well.  “Hi, Olivia.  How’s
it going?”

“I lost that bet.”  She said this
with a nod towards the kitchen.

“Which bet is that?” I asked.

“Giovanni and I made a small
wager.  I bet him that you wouldn’t show up.  He said you would never miss an
opportunity to eat his lasagna.  I guess he was right.  You sure wouldn’t come
just to see me.” 

It was time for my groveling to
begin.  “I’m sorry about Saturday, Olivia.”

“It’s okay.  You had something
more important to do.”

“No...I should have met you.  I
had promised.  I’ve already waited twenty-five years to have Max alone with me inside
my house.  I could have waited a while longer.  I shouldn’t have broken my
appointment with you.”

“Did you say Max was inside your
house?”  Olivia’s eyes were wide with amazement.

“That’s not the issue.  I hurt
your feelings, and I need to properly atone.”

“You’ve groveled enough.  Now
tell me about Max before I choke every breath of life out of you.”  Olivia
always had a way with words.

I quickly told Olivia all about
Max, Julie, the twin's party, and me.  “You – Katrina Marina Kipling Bellanova
– gave up the chance to have Max – if only for a moment – to help him win his
wife back?  I don’t believe you.  You tied him to your bed, right?  He’s lying
there now – just waiting for you to return and abuse him some more.  Right?  I
know you did not let Max leave your apartment without at least one fling in the
bedroom.  Even if you had to get him drunk.  Tell the truth!”

“I am.  Max might have peeked
into my bedroom, but that was the extent of his presence in that area of my
apartment.  I’m above that sort of behavior.”

Olivia almost choked on her
food.  “I hope you aren’t buying in to that hogwash.  If you didn’t ravish Max,
it’s because he wouldn’t let you.  I know you too well to believe otherwise. 
You aren’t really planning to help him get his wife back, are you?”

“I have to.  This is the thing
that will get me completely over Max.”

“If I recall correctly, you once
made a similar statement about Elton John.  You said that when he presented his
male lover and proved that he was gay, you’d get over him completely.  It’s
been several years since he did that, Kat, and you still want to believe that
he’s just confused about his sexuality.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is that you never
completely get over anyone.  Of course, you never listen to my advice either. 
So what’s your plan?” 

“I don’t really have one.  Any
suggestions?”  Olivia would help me; I was sure of it.  We would get Max and
Julie back together.  We spent the rest of our lunch hour making plans.

“Are you sure you want to go
through with this, Kat?” Olivia asked as we left Salvatore’s together.

“I have to, Olivia.  There’s no
other way,” I said.

“Okay.  We’ll do it Saturday. 
Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

Julie’s sister, Evelyn, lived in
a small, wood-framed house in the Argosy Cape subdivision.  The house was white
with navy blue trim and a brown shingled roof.  Tall crepe myrtle trees grew
along the front.  A man in cut-off jeans pushed a mower mechanically back and
forth across the green, plush lawn.  Two chaise lounge chairs sat under a
spreading oak.  A fiftyish woman wearing a colorful plaid jumper was lying
across one of the chairs.  She was sipping something from a plastic cup.  The
other chair was empty.

As Olivia and I cruised by for
the fourth time, we saw a younger woman – holding a pitcher and wearing a
yellow halter top and khaki shorts – bound out of the house.  The woman had mahogany
colored hair, and large freckles peppered her pale body.  I knew immediately
that she was Julie.  She joined the woman and sat on the other chaise.  Then
she placed the pitcher on a patio table that was beside her.

Argosy Cape – the same
subdivision Olivia had grown up in – was a small apex of land that the bay
bordered on three sides.  Just across the street from Evelyn’s house was a
narrow stretch of grass and sand that edged into the bay.  The street was wide,
and a car could park on the side near the water, allowing the passengers to
walk down to the water’s edge.  I slowly pulled over, and Olivia and I got out
of my car.

In a booming voice, Olivia
announced, “This looks like a good place.”  Then she added in a subdued
whisper, “So that’s the woman Max is in love with?  She’s not what I expected.”

“What did you expect?” I asked
her quietly.

“I keep remembering that girl he
dated in high school.  She was...I don’t know...more glamorous.”  It surprised
me that Olivia remembered anything about Max.

“I guess guys don’t marry the
glamorous ones.  They are just for show.”

Olivia gave me a pointed look. 
“That’s funny.  I thought guys didn’t marry girls like us.  Except those of us
who marry anyone just to say they are married.”

“Is that supposed to hurt?” I
asked.  “It certainly isn’t funny.”

We removed two lawn chairs from
the trunk of my car.  Olivia positioned them so we could sit and watch Julie
while we appeared to be enjoying the cool gentle breeze and the lapping waves. 
I fished a red-checkered table cloth and a rather large picnic basket out of
the car.  These completed our disguise.  We hoped we looked like two
vacationers enjoying a waterside picnic instead of two snoops trying to spy on
someone.

“This is very pleasant,” I said
loudly.  Olivia and I sat on our lawn chairs.  Julie and the other woman seemed
to be in an animated conversation.

“What did you do all week?” Olivia
wanted to know.

“Monday night, I went over to
Max’s house.  We ordered a pizza, and we were planning to talk about Julie.  He
went to get some of their wedding pictures, but he found an old yearbook
instead.  We ended up talking about old times all night.  Then I fell asleep on
his couch.  He covered me up with a quilt.  When I woke up, he was sleeping in
the recliner across from me.  He looks so sweet when he’s sleeping.”

“Don’t make me gag.  Were you
late for work?  Nancy probably loved that.”

“I wasn’t late.  I woke up around
five, rushed home, took a quick shower, and arrived at work right at eight.  I
worked late Tuesday night on the year 2000 project.  Brad took me out for
dinner.  He’s acting very strange lately.

“Wednesday, Max and I went to
Seville Quarter.  We danced, and I had a few too many drinks.  I woke up on his
couch again.  I called into work and told Nancy I was sick.  Brad called my
house seven times trying to find out how I was.  I stayed at Max’s and spruced
up his house while he was at work.  Then I cooked him pork chops for dinner.  I
managed to get home around ten.

“Yesterday, Max took me to his dad’s
house for dinner.  Max or his dad cooked spaghetti.  Oh, remember his aunt? 
She doesn’t live there anymore.  Moved back to Texas.  Max brought me home
around eleven.  He came in for a moment, and, before we knew it, it was one
o’clock.”

Olivia had a bewildered look on
her face.  “So, just what did you learn about Julie?”

I thought for a moment. 
“Um...She has very dark brown hair.  Oh, and her sister’s name is Evelyn, and
this is Evelyn’s house.”

“He told you all that information
in just one week?” Olivia asked facetiously.

“Well, he told me all of that
this morning.  We didn’t talk about her all week, so I had to call him before
you came over so I’d have some details,” I sheepishly replied.

“I thought he wanted her back,
and I thought you wanted to help him.  It’s not looking that way to me.”

“It’s hard for him to talk about
her.  I didn’t want to pressure him.  I’m letting him set the pace.”

“At this rate, he’ll win her back
around the same time he retires.”

“You should have been a comedian,
Olivia.  I can’t stop laughing at your wry wit.  Now stop with the jokes so we
can concentrate here.”

“Who said I was joking?” Olivia
argued.  “You don’t want them back together, and I’m beginning to think he
doesn’t either.”

“You’re wrong, Olivia,” was all I
said.

We watched Julie while we had our
picnic: fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, green bean salad, and peach
cobbler.  Occasionally, it seemed that Julie was looking in our direction, but
we couldn’t be certain.  She didn’t seem weepy or worried without Max, but,
there again, we couldn’t really be sure.

“Why are we doing this?” Olivia
asked as she placed our paper plates in a plastic garbage bag.

“I guess I just wanted to see
her.  I wanted to see if she was missing Max.”

“And did you learn that?”

“No.  I’m not even positive that
that is Julie.  What if that’s her sister?”

“I was guessing that the older
lady was Evelyn.”

“Maybe that’s their mother,” I
offered.

“She’s not that old, Kat.  That
has to be her sister, and the redhead has to be Julie.”  Then Olivia added, “I
have no idea who that man is cutting the grass.  He seems too young to be the
sister’s husband.”

As if to answer Olivia’s
speculating, the man switched off the mower and walked over to the two women. 
He took the pitcher from the table next to Julie and took a long drink from
it.  Julie stood up and moved over by the man.  He reached up and put his arm
around her as he kissed her on the lips!

If anyone at the little white
house had looked across at Olivia or me, they would have instantly known that
we were watching them.  Olivia’s eyes were wide open in surprise, her eyebrows
rose up into her hairline, and her mouth formed a perfect little “O”.  I must
have looked the same because I felt completely shocked by the scene that was
playing out across the street.

“I think we’ve seen enough,” I
said to Olivia. 

We quickly threw our belongings
into the car and took off.  I took one last glance at the house.  The man had
his arm around Julie’s waist while the two of them chatted with the woman in
the chaise.  They were totally unaware that Olivia and I had been spying on
them.  For some reason, I felt very lowly and despicable.  Worst of all, I
didn’t know what I was going to say to Max.