Four Seasons of Romance (9 page)

“Yes,” she said, clasping her slender fingers around his
steady hand as he slipped the ring on her. “Oh, yes.” 

Catherine leaned in and placed her lips gently on his, but
she heard no fireworks, felt no familiar lightheadedness that usually came at
such moments. Even the violin music had ceased, and she heard only the metallic
scrape of knives against plates—the soundtrack of the nearby restaurant
patrons.

She didn’t love Walter the way she loved Leo, but Catherine
was no longer a schoolgirl, and Leo was not coming back. She felt ready to make
peace with the dreams she had once harbored; she craved stability, and the wild
life of a brazen twenty-something in Philadelphia held no further appeal.
Catherine was now engaged to Walter Murray. They would settle into a tranquil,
comfortable engagement—just as tranquil and comfortable as their courtship had
been. Catherine’s life had changed in an instant, though she couldn’t shake the
feeling that it was the same.

*

Far across the Atlantic Ocean, Leo’s life was anything but
tranquil. In the last seven years, he had reinvented himself so thoroughly that
he sometimes didn’t recognize himself in the warped mirror hanging from the
wall of his Paris apartment.

“
Bonjour
,” he
would say to the face staring back at him.

“
Bonjour
,” the
face said at the same time, mocking him with a sad knowing smile.

His relationship with Nicole had ended in early 1947. She
left to study art history at the Sorbonne, and they parted on friendly terms,
plans of marriage abandoned as their infatuation wore off. By then, Leo had
found considerable work in construction as post-War France was rebuilt. He
discovered many teachers on the bustling streets of Paris, gifted sculptors who
worked with him to refine his art. But, in truth, he spent more time perfecting
his racing skills than he did molding clay and plaster.

By 1949, he was twenty-four and one of the city’s most
eligible bachelors, handsome, and unmistakably American with his shock of curly
dark hair and broad shoulders. The French women loved him—and he loved the
French women. He was always in a relationship—usually more than one—but none of
them eased his heartache over losing Catherine.

As the abstract expressionist
movement took off in France, Leo’s sculptures became more avant-garde—the
beginning of his lifelong affair with the abstract. As a wave of industrialism
swept France, Leo also became fascinated with a different medium. He struck up
a friendship with an industrial worker who taught him how to weld, ushering in
a new era in Leo’s creative life as he worked with metal to make unique,
imposing, twisted art. His broken dreams’ brittle pieces were reflected in his
new sculptures’ jagged, hard, and rusted metal outlines.

Leo ran a trade selling small pieces to tourists, and he had
a wealthy patron or two, usually an older woman bored with her stale marriage
and drowning in ennui. Leo lived the wild and chaotic life of an artist—an
artist with a latent dream of becoming a racecar driver. Eventually, he had
established a good enough reputation in Paris to make a living from his art.

But he also struggled with long, dark spells of depression,
his growing drug use and insatiable sexual appetite limiting his creativity.
Leo spent long hours staring at the blank walls of his bedroom, waiting for
inspiration to come, and, had it failed to do so, searching for it at the bottom
of a bottle. The green absinthe fairy, who had been his muse in the early days
of his Parisian love affair, visited him less and less.

By 1950, Leo rarely left his bas-de-Montmartre apartment but
to go to the Moulin Rouge. Most days, he puttered around in a burgundy robe,
smoking hash and sketching plans for sculptures he never made, his savings
spent, his only income an occasional welding job from a wealthy Frenchman he
met at the track.

One morning, one of the coquettish tarts he brought home
shook her head. “
Tu
es
ignoble
,” she said, getting dressed.
Ignoble
.
Without honor.
A disgrace.

“In English, please,” he said, knowing exactly what she
meant.

“You are a hazard to yourself.” She grabbed her purse and
looked around the room, disgusted at the filth. “You won’t be seeing me again.
Au
revoir
.”

Leo was unperturbed—she was just one in a long line of
one-night stands with women he quickly forgot, but after checking the jar under
his mattress where he stowed his dwindling cash, he realized she was right—for
the first time, he didn’t have enough francs to cover his rent.

Fortunate for Leo, providence again played a hand in his
fate, which came from the wealthy Frenchman for whom Leo had been working from
time to time. “I’ve decided to purchase half interest in a Talbot-
Lago
racing team,” the Frenchman said, rubbing his hands
together, face radiant with boyish glee. “You said you wanted to be a racecar
driver? Well, now’s your chance. I want you to head my team.”

While Catherine was living life in the fast lane with
Michael Snell in Philadelphia, Leo was literally living life in the fast lane,
honing his skills as a racecar driver in France. In weeks, Leo overcame his
spiraling addiction to drugs and alcohol, though, he’d only switched to a more
powerful drug; the speed and danger of racing was the quintessential jolt of
adrenaline he’d been looking for.

He won several circuit races in France, distinguishing
himself as the hot-blooded American driver for whom no turn was too fast, and
went on to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, just as he always dreamed.
Although he never won, he participated in the contest for four consecutive
years, placing fourth in 1951.

The highlight of his career came in 1952 when he raced in
the French-run
Méditerranée
-le Cap, a 10,000-mile
road rally from the Mediterranean to South Africa. The team placed second, but
Leo drove the final leg, rallying his team from sixth place to earn more money
than he earned in his whole life, which he, of course, spent in just weeks.

At twenty-eight, Leo triumphed over his addictions, living
the romantic life of an artist and surviving many thrilling moments on Europe’s
finest racetracks; yet, a void remained in his life.

Then, on a warm and quiet Sunday, he received a letter
telling him that his mother had passed away. Didn’t such news deserve a more
personal delivery than a letter already a week late?

Only then, did he realize that no one at home had his
number; he hadn’t spoken to either of his parents in years. In light of his
itinerant, untraceable lifestyle, it was a wonder they could track him down at
all.

Deborah had suddenly died of influenza. The letter came from
her second husband, and he told Leo that he need not come to the funeral. “She
hoped you were happy,” he said. “That’s all she wanted.”

Leo received the letter on July 19, 1953. It was Catherine’s
twenty-eighth birthday, a symbolic coincidence the way Leo saw it—a signal he
should return home. France had been good to him; he pursued his dreams and
committed every sin in his quest to move on. He’d succeeded in all but one—he
could never forget Catherine. So once again, he’d disobey her father and
venture to discover just how happy she was with someone else.

So, he packed what few belongings he cared about and used
the remains of the
Méditerranée
-le Cap winnings to
buy a one-way ticket to Boston, sensing that this time, he would not return.
Leo bid good-bye to Paris, the liberated city that had welcomed him with open
arms and a kiss.

In Massachusetts, he visited his mother’s grave at the Mount
Hope Cemetery and paid his final respects, staying with Deborah’s widower and
their children for a few days, plotting his next steps; but he knew exactly
what he wanted—to return to Woodsville and find the love of his life.

He knew Catherine had children and did not intend to divert
her life path. The judge’s harsh words still rang in his ears, years later:
If
you ever loved my daughter, stay out of her life forever. Do not destroy the
joy she has found.

Leo was certain he loved Catherine, did not intend to
destroy her future,
yet
wanted to confirm she was
happy. And that would give him closure he had been denied.

What he didn’t know, of course, was that he’d find something
entirely different by seeing Catherine again.

It was August 1953 in Woodsville, and the peach trees lining
Main Street were in full bloom, the fruit so plump and pink they bent the
branches. The pear trees were equally fecund and much loved by those who
preferred the taut white pears to the pulpy peaches that inevitably oozed
delicious nectar down one’s chin. 

The summer was hot that year in New Hampshire, with only the
rivers’ cool water providing a temporary relief. Salmon and cod filled the
Ammonoosuc
, sating themselves on the succulent insects that
dropped on the water’s surface. The air stayed sticky with nectar, and the heat
drew all creatures, animal and human alike, out into the fields. There was no
better time to return to Woodsville and no better time for truth to emerge.

Leo arrived in Woodsville in
midafternoon
and headed toward Catherine’s house, hoping to find Mrs. Woods at home and
avoid the judge altogether. Unfortunately, instead of Mrs. Woods, he found the
judge sitting on the front porch with a pipe.

“You again?
Are you deaf?” he spat.
“I thought I told you to stay away from my daughter. She doesn’t want to see
you.”

“I just want to wish her well,” Leo said. “If you’d just
tell me where she’s living…”

“West of the Mississippi,” the judge answered.
“Far from here and far from you.
Her husband’s a successful
attorney out West. They have four children now. I’m warning you, Leo; stay away
from her.”

Leo left the house with nothing. But this time, unlike his
visit in 1946, he didn’t head straight back to the train station and ventured
into town instead.

He looked up a few people from the lumber mill—the guys he’d
lived with briefly before being drafted. One had been killed in the war;
another had moved to California without leaving a forwarding address; and
others vanished without notice.

No one left?
He shook his head.
I really am
getting old.

For old time’s sake, he went to the Woodsville Drugstore
where Catherine used to work and noticed Samantha Fletcher standing at the
counter with a baby on her hip. Though she had rounded out considerably and
looked more matronly now, he immediately recognized his former classmate. When
he approached her, her jaw dropped. “Oh, my,” she said, switching her baby to
the other hip. “I don’t believe this. Leo Taylor? It can’t be.”

“It’s me,” he said. “How are you, Samantha?”

“In a state of shock, that’s what I am.” She gave him a
one-armed hug. “You’re alive!”

“It looks that way, doesn’t it?” he said.

Samantha kept staring at him. “Catherine said you were
killed in Normandy.”

Leo didn’t know what to say. Was this Catherine’s way of
moving on? Perhaps it was easier to tell her friends he’d died than that her
love for him had faded, and she planned to marry another man. If true, he
couldn’t blame her—all anger he felt had faded many years before, leaving
nothing but his earnest hope for her well-being.

“I fought in Normandy,” he said, “but I’m alive.”

Then, a more sinister thought seeded in his consciousness.
What if Catherine’s father had had something to do with this? “I’d love to see
Catherine,” he told Samantha.

“She’ll be delighted to see you!” Samantha said. “I’d go
with you on a road trip, but as you can see, I’m a little tied down.” She
nodded toward the gurgling baby on her hip. “Last I heard
,
she was working at an insurance company in Philadelphia. I have her home
address. Here, let me write it for you.” And suddenly, she was writing the
address of Leo’s beloved, the set of numbers and letters he had ached for,
daily and nightly, for nearly ten years.

“Is her husband good to her?” he asked. “That’s all I hoped
for—that she’s happy with him.”

Samantha shifted in her seat.
“Her
husband?”

“The attorney, right?
And four
kids…” Leo’s voice trailed off. “It’s difficult to imagine Catherine with four
kids.”

Samantha laughed aloud. “It sure is!
Especially
because it’s pure fiction.
She’s still single, as far as I know.” The
feeling that struck Leo was relief mixed with rage and effusive, intense,
unbridled joy.

He spent the evening in The White Mountains Tavern, the
story now as clear to him as the crystal shot glass he was drinking from.
Catherine’s fictional family had been a fabrication that cost him many wasted
years without her. How many years of her life had she wasted? But he still
didn’t understand why she stopped writing.

Leo thought about confronting the judge at the Woods home
but, despite the liquor, which usually made him volatile, decided against it.
Last thing he wanted to do was to get in another physical confrontation with
Catherine’s father. Besides, Josiah’s daughter was a grown woman living an independent
life; it didn’t matter what her father thought of him anymore.

Leo knew where Catherine lived, her address tucked away in
his pocket with a ticket for the early-morning bus. Soon, the deception would
fade. Soon, Josiah’s hopes would be ruined. Soon, they’d be united—and, this
time,
never
part again.

*