The Kitty Committee

by Kathryn Berla

  Then one day we traveled south to Palo Alto. It was finally time for me to meet the parents, at least, according to Nathan. Their home was palatial and, had he not prepared me in advance, I probably would never have gone beyond its driveway, which was lined with magnolia and crepe myrtle trees. Nathan parked his battered Chevy Nova alongside a gleaming white Mercedes sedan. An inner voice hissed a warning, a déjà vu born from the memory of my first steps toward Indian Springs High.

  Nathan’s mother greeted us warmly at the door and immediately instructed me to call her Diane. Fine, silver hair feathered around her face and down the back of her neck. A gold and turquoise necklace swung forward as she leaned to kiss her son on the cheek. Wearing jeans and a fitted t-shirt that shimmered lightly under the chandelier, she looked both strong and fragile. Elegant yet ready for fun.

  Dr. Steinburg was his wife’s male counterpart, tall and stylish but still retaining his dark hair, thick and wavy like Nathan’s. He had an aura of authority, and I didn’t have to use my imagination to envision him commanding a surgical team. Equally relaxed in dress as his wife, he sported sandals on feet that looked too groomed to belong to a working man. He didn’t offer a first name for my benefit like Diane had.

  “You must be Grace,” he said, extending a hand which I knew could examine a heart as easily as bringing a piece of sushi to his mouth.

  Of course, who else would I be? But those words did me the courtesy of not letting my guard down.

  Dinner was grilled salmon and steamed asparagus prepared by Diane. A fresh baguette with olive oil for dipping and chocolate mousse made with avocado instead of cream. When the wine glasses had been refilled two and then three times, tongues loosened, at least Dr. Steinburg’s did. Diane glowed from the wine and proximity to her son. I declined any alcohol, not wishing to put them in the awkward predicament of serving a minor.

  “I’m driving,” I said by way of explanation.

  While Diane’s questions centered around our social lives—how we met, which friends of Nathan’s I’d gotten to know, what we liked to do in our free time, not that she expected we had much of that with Nathan’s busy school schedule. Dr. Steinburg was more interested in my life. My parents. Their current whereabouts. Any other close relatives I might have in the area. How I had been educated. He didn’t try hard to disguise his suspicion, and I thought I knew why. Every parent might be naturally suspicious of their son’s girlfriend coming home for the first time. It was human nature—the desire to protect one’s tribe from outside invaders, stealth or otherwise. This line of questioning was different, however it wasn’t an unknown occurrence in my life.

  Whenever someone heard about my background as a child of missionaries, they seemed baffled by the idea that people would choose to give up all creature comforts in order to impose their will upon those in less developed parts of the world. But of course, I didn’t see it that way because I knew my parents’ hearts and minds. I understood them in a fundamental way, even after I rejected their beliefs. But I didn’t have the ability to convey their goodness and selflessness to others. My parents weren’t trying to impose their will. They felt they were sharing a gift more precious than life itself. So I grew more and more tightlipped as the night wore on until Nathan deftly steered the conversation to other topics—school, his mother’s art projects, his brothers and their goings-on, and mutual friends.

  But it was hard to defend my parents’ absence from my life, even to myself. As a child, I didn’t have to ask to understand where I ranked in my parents’ lives. God was first and foremost. He was above all. After that, my mother and father’s love and allegiance to each other came next. Luke and I were always third, and I accepted that at a subliminal level which I never questioned or doubted. That was the way of the world, wasn’t it? It didn’t occur to me that there could be any other way. And yet, in just a few hours, I’d come to understand that Nathan and his brothers were their parents’ priority. First and foremost. But Nathan bristled against this attention. Burned from the heat it brought to his life, like a magnifying glass focusing the sun’s energy on him like a weapon. He rebelled through his Chevy Nova. Through his work boots. Through his girlfriend.

  When we left the Steinburgs’ house that night, I felt Nathan’s urgent need. As though being in his parents’ house had diminished him, made him a smaller person, even physically. I couldn’t understand why their devotion affected him this way, the same way my parents’ inattention affected me. But I wanted to make him whole again the way he’d made me whole that first night. That first kiss. I wanted my Nathan to come back from wherever he’d gone.

  In bed in his apartment, we snuggled and kissed as we usually did. Eventually, Nathan whispered goodnight and turned his back to me. This was our way, with Nathan never pressuring me or complaining. Normally I waited for his breathing to grow quiet and steady before turning around and, with my back pressed against his, allowing sleep to carry me into the following day.

  But that night, I drew close, pressing my breasts against his chest and engaging him in a kiss that neither of us would or could choose to end. I let my hands play lightly down his back and across his hips, until they slipped into the tight space between us and then further still between his legs. It was only then that Nathan, understanding my invitation, pulled my t-shirt over my head and my panties below my knees. I had become his willing partner.

  When I woke the next morning, the world felt like a different place, and I was no longer a virgin.

  In the fall, Luke married a girl he’d only been dating for a few months. When she realized she was pregnant, there was never any question they wouldn’t have the baby, so the handsome rookie cop married the sweet and lovely Linda. Once I got over the shock of becoming an aunt, I prepared myself to become a bridesmaid. Luke invited Nathan to the wedding, which was in Sacramento, since the Templetons were so underrepresented. Our parents would not be flying in from Madagascar and, with our transient upbringing, we had never made permanent friends and barely knew our extended family. Although he didn’t say so, I knew Nathan was happy to meet someone (Luke) who could verify that I really was who I said I was, and not a changeling raised by wolves. Sometimes I wondered if he, like his parents, had his own doubts about me.

  I was happy Luke would have a second chance at the close family life that I believe he always craved. Linda was born in Sacramento and had a vast network of family and friends all within a few miles’ drive. I was envious, maybe even a little jealous, although Linda assured me that we were sisters now, and I was welcome any time. But I instinctively knew that whatever interest I held for her at that exact moment would vanish once the baby came along.

  Indian summer in Sacramento could be hotter than regular summer, and this day in October was such a day. We wilted like lilacs under the intense sun at the outdoor reception. Ducking under the cover of a huge cottonwood on the banks of a murmuring river, I smiled frozenly and made polite conversation with strangers whose names I wouldn’t remember an hour later. Uncles and aunts and cousins and in-laws blurred into a faceless mass of confusion. Nathan stayed firmly planted by my side, occasionally disappearing before reappearing with a drink or some food, reminding me to eat and drink in that daze of a day.

  I stood stiffly in my lilac-colored bridesmaid’s dress which hung loosely, a size too large due to the last-minute notice and frenzy of the event. Luke and Nathan stood behind me while I was being regaled by Linda’s father who’d apparently decided to take it upon himself to catch me up on their family history. I listened politely with one ear while my other ear was trained to the far more interesting conversation taking place just behind me.

  “Take care of her,” Luke said to Nathan. “She hasn’t had an easy time of it, and I worry about her.”

  I whipped my head around, the smile on my face melting into disbelief. Luke had been worried about me? Whatever for? I didn’t think anyone other than Nathan spent serious time t
hinking about me. Luke dropped his eyes, and Nathan stepped forward and took my hand firmly in his.

  “Doing okay, Babe?” he asked.

  “Yeah . . . why wouldn’t I be?”

  Linda’s father chuckled politely before making his escape.

  The wedding was so surreal, a week later I could barely remember what happened. I remember clinging tightly to Nathan, surprising him with my sudden, passionate attention. Perhaps he thought a wedding was arousing my own nesting instincts, but the truth was I felt I was about to be abandoned again. This time by Luke.

  After a week, Nathan brought up his conversation with Luke.

  “What did he mean by you haven’t had an easy time of it?” he asked one Saturday after picking me up from work. He pulled into a rare parking space near his apartment then reached behind him for his book bag. School was in session so my scholarships had kicked in and I only had to work weekends.

  “Ah, I don’t know. Maybe my parents leaving when I was so young. Not having family around.” The tiny hairs on the back of my neck telegraphed a warning.

  “You should spend more time with Luke and Linda,” he said. There was nothing unkind about those words, but I took it that way. Luke and I had an understanding which didn’t require our physical presence. Nobody in the world but Luke understood what my life had been like. Who our parents were. The mishmash we became because of how we’d lived. I didn’t need Nathan to push me toward Luke.

  “Are you trying to get rid of me?” I asked, trying my best to sound light-hearted.

  He leaned over and kissed me. “Of course not. But . . . it’s just strange. It seemed like there was something more he was getting at.”

  He looked blankly at me. An open face inviting any confession I was ready and willing to make. And I was ready. But I wasn’t willing.

  “I guess Maggie’s whole thing really weighs on me,” I said instead. “I feel awful every time I see her.”

  Maggie was back at the eating disorder clinic. I’d been visiting, but it wasn’t easy seeing her so physically wasted and obviously bent on self-destruction. In that respect, Luke was right. In so many respects.

  “Babe, why don’t you let me go with you? I’d like to meet Maggie, and maybe it would make it a little easier on you.”

  “No. No, I don’t want that.”

  Had I answered too quickly? Too adamantly? It’s not like Maggie and I ever talked about anything meaningful or personal when I was with her. Most of the time her mom was there. I just didn’t want Nathan mixing with that part of my life.

  “Okay. I was just offering,” he said, and I could tell he was hurt. “You know my family and friends. But I don’t know any of your friends. You must have other friends back in Indian Springs. Maggie. There must be others.”

  “No. You wouldn’t want to meet them,” I said, feeling slightly panicked. “They . . . I don’t have any friends there anymore. You wouldn’t have liked my friends in high school anyway.”

  “I’m a likeable guy. I give most people a chance. Why would you say that?”

  I was setting a trap for myself. Or maybe, subconsciously, Nathan was setting one for me. But I knew how I’d feel if he kept me from the important people in his life. Whenever we went out on the weekends, it was with his friends, not mine. I knew, if I were in his position, I’d feel hurt and confused just like he was feeling right then. The interior of the car felt uncomfortably close. It felt like a cage.

  “High school was shitty,” I mumbled. “I was too young. I got involved with the wrong people. Can we get out and go inside or maybe walk somewhere?” I felt the familiar sting of needles of perspiration under my arms. It seemed as though Nathan should be able to see the frantic beat of my heart beneath the thin material of my top. The throbbing pulse in my neck that seemed on the verge of hatching a migraine.

  I hung my head, allowing my hair to curtain my thoughts. It hadn’t been short since my unfortunate pixie cut. At that moment, I marveled that I’d once been a girl confident enough to expose her fully unadorned face so boldly to the world. Nathan lifted my chin tenderly with the tip of his finger, swiveling my face toward his as he did.

  “Sure,” he said as kindly as he did everything else.

  I was unfathomably angry with Luke.

  I should have known, though, that I hadn’t closed the subject. Nathan was only giving me time to rebound in the way he had of taking a step back if it would eventually lead to two steps forward. It came up again one night in bed when we were basking in the after-glow of sex. A glass of red wine in one hand, fingers of the other tracing paths through the lush thick waves of his hair, I was opened completely to Nathan.

  In the dim light of the room, his blue eyes appeared gray, thoughtful.

  “Just so you know,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About your high school.” It was clever, I remember thinking. He hadn’t made it about Luke this time. This time it was about what I’d said. It made me complicit, as though, somehow, I owed him an explanation. A clarification. “The people you said you hung out with in high school . . . in what way were they the wrong people? Was Maggie one of them?”

  “Way to ruin the mood,” I said withdrawing my fingers from his hair. I gulped the last of my wine and placed the glass on the bedside table.

  “How were they the wrong people?” he repeated. “And why don’t you want to tell me? Haven’t I earned the right to be curious about your life?”

  How much was I obligated to share now that we were practically living together? I knew I owed him some degree of honesty.

  “Yeah, Maggie and I were friends in high school. She’s fine, but I was young and the four of us, well mainly one of us . . . but we weren’t always so nice, and we did some mean things that I’d rather not dwell on. I just want to forget about that part of my life. Put it behind me.” The sex and wine mixed in my head to make me not exactly eloquent, but more forthcoming than I would otherwise have been.

  “Forget? Have you forgotten?”

  “No.”

  “Exactly. So, tell me . . . what kind of mean things are we talking about here?”

  With the thin film of fermented grapes wrapped around my tongue and my brain, I wondered if I was actually slurring my words or just imagining it.

  “The kind of mean things that kids in high school do to each other. Didn’t you ever do anything mean to someone in high school?”

  “No, not intentionally. Not anything that anyone ever brought to my attention.”

  The way Nathan was looking at me, I felt like a cluster of cells he might examine under a microscope in med school. As though he was breaking me down into more manageable portions, easier to decipher. He was studying me dispassionately instead of watching over me with love, and I hated the way it made me feel. I decided to throw Carly under the bus, and fast.

  “There was this girl. Carly. And she . . . I guess you could say she bullied us into doing things we wouldn’t have done on our own. But maybe not exactly bullied in the physical sense but . . . I don’t know. She had this power over us, and I know that sounds ridiculous, but she had power over me at least. I don’t know why. I guess I was young and . . .”

  “And what?”

  I gulped hard. “And I think I may have been in love with her.”

  Nathan sat up straight and looked at me as though meeting me for the first time. “You’re into girls?”

  “No, no. You see, that’s why I didn’t want to start this. I knew you’d take what I was saying out of context.”

  I felt like crying. What had I just done?

  “Out of context? You said it, not me. You said I think I may have been in love with her. I’m not upset, I just wish you could be honest with me, that’s all.”

  He sounded upset to me.

  “I didn’t mean it that way.” I realized the conversation had taken a turn. Nath
an was no longer interested in the mean things I’d done in school. Now he only wanted to know if I was into girls. This was a far preferable alternative, so I went with it. “A girl crush thing. You know. I looked up to her and she was beautiful and smart and . . . who wouldn’t be in love with her? But it wasn’t a physical thing. It wasn’t what I have with you, nothing has ever been like that. It was an emotional thing . . . maybe it’s hard for guys to understand.”

  He stared at me as though trying to get a read on his truth-o-meter.

  “Where is this Carly now?” he asked, reducing her to an object through the article in front of her name. Reclaiming for himself whatever power Carly might still have over me. His tone was distinctly disdainful.

  “This Carly,” I said carefully with just enough humor in my voice to diffuse while teasing him away from the initial line of interrogation, “is at Yale studying business.”

  “Phew!” He shook his head to acknowledge the power of my statement. “She really is smart. Do you have a picture of her?”

  I thought that an odd and prurient request, and yet somehow it didn’t surprise me.

  “Somewhere, maybe. If I find one, I’ll show you.”

  Nathan leaned over and cupped my face with both hands. He kissed me at first tenderly, and then more forcefully as though he wanted to swallow first my tongue and then my soul.

  “I just want you to always be honest with me,” he said between heavy gulps of passion-laden breath. Even for a dimly lit room, his eyes were blurry. Unfocused.

  He rolled on top of me, and I could feel his hardness against my damp inner thighs. I could feel his desire. We made love, grasping for each other in the way a drowning person will reach out for another. Pulling them under. He went deep, deeper than he’d ever been. And when we finished, which happened quickly, Nathan was asleep before I could even kiss him goodnight.