Intrusion: A Novel (9 page)

And surprised me most of all,
Kat thought, but did not say. Sarah’s friendship had caused her life at the school to change in a number of ways. Her status as Sarah’s confidante protected her from the more snobbish, terrifying girls at the school who were in awe of Sarah’s background. But some of the quieter, kinder girls, who had been her friends before Sarah’s arrival, were wary of Sarah’s sharp tongue and gradually drifted away. Both outsiders, they had that in common, but Kat and Sarah were such a mismatched duo that even the nuns occasionally remarked on their friendship.

The two women sat in silence for a few minutes longer.

“I know what grief feels like,” Sarah said eventually, in a quiet voice. “If I can help you through this terrible time, please just ask, Kat.”

“I’m fine,” Kat said. “But thank you.”

Sarah reached into her pocket, pulled out a card, and handed it to Kat. It had a cell phone number in gold lettering but no name, no address, nothing else.

“My private cell,” she said. “Please don’t share it with anyone else, not even your charming husband. It’s for personal matters. Not for work.”

“I understand.”

Soon, a young woman called from the patio that breakfast was ready, and Sarah stood.

“Right. I need to call order. Work to be done.”

Sarah moved to the edge of the lawn.

“Come along, boys,” she called in the direction of the pool. “Let’s carpe this pretty diem. Seize it by the throat.”

Kat shook her head.
Boys?
But Scott and James both turned, grinning, and began to swim toward the edge of the pool. As they climbed out, Sarah turned to Kat and gave a quick, mischievous smile.

“Such a lovely sight, wet men. See that pleasing symmetry?”

Kat turned, looked at her husband and his associate, both attractive in the morning light. Scott, still slender, solid, with his curling chest hair; James, smooth as stone, a gleaming ebony.

“Yes,” she said. Sarah watched them openly, her eyes moving from one to the other, an approving appraisal, before she strolled toward the breakfast table.

Kat turned back for one last look at the view. She experienced a longing then, so intense that she wanted to cry out. A yearning to be by a rough sea, a deserted beach, a wind so wild that it was possible to taste the salt in it. She longed for a sight of the craggy Sussex coast, the high cliffs and rocky promontories, dark sky, constant cloud, rain. A light that was dull or shadowed. Here, the bright light was blinding her.

Later, when they were ready to leave and Scott and James were putting bags into the car, Sarah tugged Kat aside.

“Would you like to have lunch? Perhaps next week? Next Thursday?”

Thursday would have been Chris’s eighteenth birthday. Kat planned to do nothing, talk to no one except Scott, but she did not want to share this fact with Sarah. On Tuesday, she had the interview with Sarah’s editor friend, Mark Tinsley.

“Not sure about next week,” she began.

“Oh?”

“The editor you contacted. Tinsley?” Kat explained. “He’s interviewing me on Tuesday.”

“Wonderful,” Sarah said. “He’s a cocky lad but an easy boss, I should think. Well, call me when you’re ready. I can easily reschedule my plans.”

“Of course,” Kat said.

Sarah waved them off as they began the journey back. James, in the backseat of the car, waited until they began the descent down the hill before leaning forward.

“Compton’s a go,” he said.

“What? You’re kidding,” Scott said. “When did you finalize that?”

“Early this morning. Sarah said she’ll fund the sports center. If we can pick up that piece of land next door.”

“Joseph’s?”

“Yeah. He’s asking too much for it right now.”

“We can get him down. She didn’t seem sure when Miyamoto and I talked with her last night. You certain? She wasn’t just—”

“Nope. She’s sure now. Wants to name it for her late husband. The Sam Harrison Sports Center.”

“She can name it for Homer Simpson as far as I’m concerned,” Scott said. “Damn. That’s good.”

Scott punched the steering wheel, pleased.

“Father O’Connor will be a very happy man. Young Chiller, too.”

Scott turned to James.

“So what did you say, or do, to persuade her?” he asked.

James shrugged, but couldn’t hide his smile.

“Nothing illegal,” he said.

He pulled a file from his briefcase, was hard at work for the rest of the journey.

NINE

A
s she waited in the tenth-floor reception area of the renovated offices on Santa Monica Boulevard, Kat realized how seriously she had miscalculated. She wore a smart fitted suit, silk shirt, polished shoes: the outfit she had worn at Waters & Chappell for important clients. She had thought the clothes suitable for a job interview. She did not want Mark Tinsley to report to Sarah that the woman she had recommended looked like a bag lady, missing only a shopping cart.

The outfit was a mistake. Here, she was surrounded by teenagers in blue jeans and T-shirts. They looked no older than Chris. She watched as the kids moved back and forth, calling out to one another in her son’s language:
hey, man, wassup?
She could not imagine herself here, with all these bright young things. She felt like an anxious mother visiting a summer camp. She took off the jacket and undid the top button of her shirt. It didn’t help.

When Tinsley came out into the foyer and the receptionist waved a hand in her direction, Kat saw him pause, momentarily uncertain. Tinsley appeared to be barely thirty. He shook her hand, though, in a friendly way and led her to a corner office. A confident, cheerful young man, he chatted to her about the newspaper as if he were selling it to her. He gave her résumé a perfunctory glance, saying that Sarah had told him her job history, and then apologized for the low salary.

“I’d get you more if I could, but the fucking board here puts caps on salaries. Pathetic. That’s as high as they’ll go for features.”

He looked at her curiously, waiting. She nodded.

“That’s fine,” she said.

A number of toys littered his desk, and stacks of video games were piled by his computer. He played with them for a while, as if trying to think of other questions to ask. Kat couldn’t imagine him as her boss, as anyone’s boss.

“You got any questions?” he asked.

“I think you’ve answered them all,” Kat said.

He leaned back in his chair, placed his fingers together as though imitating a grown-up executive he had seen in a movie, and said, “You’re from England, too, huh?”

“Yes. But I’ve been here quite a while.”

“That it? You sound different. Different from Sarah Harrison, I mean.”

“Well, we don’t really have the same background. Sarah is—”

He nodded impatiently, as if he knew what she was going to say.

“She’s an aristocrat, right?”

Kat did not want to disillusion this young man, who was after all doing her a favor by seeing her, and who might one day be her boss, so she smiled.

“Yes. I suppose that’s it.”

He nodded again.

“Thought so. You got kids?”

The question felt like a hard punch to the gut. Kat sat forward, gripping the edge of the seat with tight hands. She knew that he was simply making conversation; it was not a question that should be asked in a job interview in California. She could not answer it. Her heart thumped in her chest. He stared at her, frowning slightly.

“Yes,” she said at last. “A son.”

“Oh. Right.”

The frown cleared. He waited for her to say more.

“How old is he?” he asked, finally.

“Eighteen. Almost. He’s been accepted at Berkeley.”

“Berkeley? Pretty smart, then.”

“Yes. He is.”

Was, was, was
—that one word like a stormy echo in her head. Kat felt as if her limbs had liquefied, and she reached to the floor for her bag.

“Just the one?”

She stared, not comprehending.

“Kid,” he said. “Just the one kid?”

“Oh,” she said. “Yes. Just the one.”

He stood up then.

“Okay,” he said. “When can you start?”

Kat’s mouth was so dry that she ran her tongue over her upper lip before answering and tried to swallow.

“A month? About a month.”

“A month? You can’t start sooner?”

“No, I’m afraid I can’t. I have some commitments,” Kat said. Her voice sounded whispery. She coughed, tried to take a deep breath.

He looked bewildered.

“I thought . . . well, Sarah gave me the impression you could come on board right away.” He shrugged. “Well, I guess a month. You got a definite date?”

“I’ll call with the date,” Kat said, moving toward the door. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

He walked her to the elevator. When he leaned forward to shake her hand, Kat tried to smile and knew that her mouth trembled. She imagined that her eyes were sparked with fear. He seemed not to notice, waved to her as she stepped into the elevator. She rested against the elevator wall as the doors closed slowly. The claustrophobic sense of suffocation began immediately. The doors took too long to open, and then closed so very slowly, as young people stepped in and out, their bright white shirts blinding her. Kat could not breathe. She felt the panic starting, growing like a prickly ball in her chest.

By the time the elevator reached the ground floor, Kat’s silk blouse was sticking to her and a cold sweat soaked her back and shoulders. Her hair felt damp on the back of her neck.

In the lobby she began to tremble and gasp for breath. Only seconds later, her heart started to pound so hard and so loudly that she was certain she was about to have a heart attack. At the edge of this conviction, circling her fear, was an absurd embarrassment: these young people would see her and think she was a crazy person.

Kat stumbled to the front of the building and rested against the wall, concentrating on slowing her heartbeat, trying to take deep breaths. But the more she tried to breathe, the harder it got. She was hyperventilating. She remembered something about breathing into a paper bag, or if that was not possible, talking out loud. She pulled her cell phone from her bag, gasping.

I can’t do this,
she thought.
I can’t do this. I can’t live like this. I just cannot go on this way.
She dialed Scott’s number out of habit, out of need. He was not available on his cell phone. She dialed his office fast, her fingers fumbling and trembling over the numbers, and at last his secretary answered.

“Nettie?” she whispered. Too quiet. She must try again.

Nettie’s voice, so familiar, repeated,
Mr. Hamilton’s office.

“Nettie. It’s Kat.” Her voice was audible. Nettie heard her.

“Kat? Is that you?”

“Is he there?”

“No, Kat. He’s not. Have you been running? You sound out of breath. No, Mrs. Harrison called another meeting and he and Glenda headed out to Malibu—”

Kat whispered a thank-you, clicked off the phone, and closed her eyes. Then, she called Martha Kim.

“A panic attack,” said Martha an hour later. “It’s not uncommon for these to occur during grief or depressive episodes. Did it begin to abate after you talked to me?”

“Yes,” said Kat, remembering the gradual slowing of her heartbeat, the ability after a long interval to take a real breath.

“But it was so terrifying. I thought I was going to die.”

Martha nodded.

“Yes, that’s common, too. But you won’t. No one dies of a panic attack.”

Her dismissive tone disconcerted Kat, and Martha, noting Kat’s expression, raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not minimizing the discomfort you were in,” she said. “Those attacks can be very scary.”

“Why is this happening now, though?” Kat asked. “Wouldn’t this happen right afterwards?”

“You were in shock then. Numb,” said Martha. “It’s possible that you are now emerging from shock into a different stage of grief.”

They sat in silence for a minute. Kat felt exhausted, as if she had run a marathon. Martha gave a small cough.

“When do you begin your new job?” Martha asked. “That will be a new beginning for you.”

“A month,” Kat said.

Martha nodded her approval. She shuffled her papers as if already preparing to see her next patient. She had given Kat just thirty minutes, an emergency session. Kat stole a glance at the clock. Martha was right; she was out of time.

“What should I do if that happens again?” she asked Martha. “That panic?”

Martha actually stood.

“The most important thing to remember is that it’s simply a panic attack. You are not having a heart attack. You are not going to die. Do your very best to stay calm and wait for it to pass. You will come out of it quite unharmed.”

She walked to the door. Kat followed her.

“Call me if necessary,” Martha said.

Kat stood in the doorway, hesitated.

“He asked if I had children,” she said. “I said yes. A son.”

Tears, like the early tears, springing up from nowhere, were on her cheeks.

Martha pulled Kat’s elbow gently, slowly tugged her back into the room, and then closed the door. She remained standing, did not indicate that Kat should sit. Instead, she reached for the box of tissues and handed one to Kat.

“You wanted to save him embarrassment, perhaps?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know!” Kat’s voice rose. “What do I say? What can I say? I had a son. He’s dead. I was a mother once. Does that mean I’m not a mother now? Does it? Am I?”

Martha took a breath.

“You were a mother. That will never change.”

Tinsley’s tactless questioning still echoed in Kat’s head.
Just the one?

“I didn’t know what to say to him,” she said.

“Let’s make an appointment for next week,” Martha said. She consulted the little red book she kept on her desk and then looked up at Kat. “On Friday? That’s convenient?”

Kat nodded dumbly, not caring.

“Eleven a.m. If you feel it’s necessary, then please call me before then.” Her voice was softer than usual; there was something in it Kat had never heard before. It could even be sympathy.

At home, Kat made tea and took it to the old chair by the window to wait for Scott. The fear she had felt earlier had abated except for a small curling uncertainty, a sense of being vulnerable and in danger. She longed for Scott to come home, longed for his solid presence.

Two hours later, realizing that he was very late, she began to pace, going from window to window, constantly watching the road. When his car finally pulled into the drive, Kat hurried to the front door, watched her husband walk up the path, briefcase swinging. He was so preoccupied that he kissed the top of her head, barely glancing at her, before striding inside. The tension of the day erupted in Kat. She was so angry that she could barely close the door before she said in a harsh whisper, “You’re late. Why are you so late? Why?”

He shook his head, bewildered, glanced at his watch.

“Am I? Didn’t realize.”

“Where have you been?”

“Out at Malibu? Why? What on earth—?”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“Kat, for Christ’s sake—”

“I called you. Your cell phone was off. And I called your office. Didn’t Nettie say? I needed to talk to you and—”

“I didn’t go back to the office.” He came toward her, held her shoulders. “Why? What happened?”

“I had a panic—I had that interview.”

“Right.” He nodded, relieved. “Okay. How did it go?”

Kat pulled herself from his grasp.

“Oh, you don’t have to pretend. Forget it. Forget it.”

“Kat, please.”

“It was an interview. That’s all. And then I had a panic attack. While you were out at the beach.”

“I wasn’t
out at the beach
. I was working. Did you get the job?”

“I had this panic thing. I had to see Martha Kim.”

Scott’s face finally registered his concern.

“And you’re okay now?”

“Yes. Yes. It doesn’t matter. I’ll get dinner.”

Kat poured a glass of wine, gulping it as she grilled the chicken and prepared the salad. She called to Scott when it was ready, took the bottle of wine to the table. Scott, clearly hungry, took a few mouthfuls of food, then looked over at her.

“Better, sweetheart?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’ll get the job,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

She looked into his anxious face and felt the anger and the fear abating.

“I did get it. He already offered it to me. But he asked me these questions, if I had children. If I had more than one. I didn’t know what to say to him.”

Scott nodded slowly.

“It’s awkward,” he said. Kat wondered how Scott answered casual questions about children, whether he simply avoided the subject.