Testing Kate

by Whitney Gaskell

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Mr. Mallick said, his eyes not wavering from the emergency-exit-route sign.

  “Arthur!” Mrs. Mallick said sharply.

  “Are you just going to pretend that it didn’t happen? Again?” Mr. Mallick said.

  Again?

  “We should go.” Jen grabbed my hand.

  “Bye, Dana,” I said. “Good-bye, Mr. and Mrs. Mallick.”

  “Bye, everyone,” Jen said.

  Dana gave a small wave as Jen led me from the room. Mrs. Mallick didn’t say anything as we left—she just stood at the window, her lips pressed together—although Mr. Mallick said, in a kindly, vague tone, “Nice to meet you, girls.”

  “No wonder Dana’s so messed up,” Jen muttered in my ear, as soon as we were safely outside in the too-cold hallway. I looked for Renee when we walked past the nurses’ station, but she wasn’t there today. Instead, a nurse with a square build and short burgundy-red hair was manning the desk. She had the phone tucked under her chin while she rifled through a pile of folders, and didn’t notice us when we passed by.

  “Did you hear what Dana’s dad said—whether her mom would admit that it happened again?” Jen pushed her heavy auburn hair back behind her ears as she shook her head. “I wonder what the story is there.”

  “Poor Dana,” I said. “I just wish there was something I could do.”

  “I know, I feel…,” Jen began, but then stopped, searching for the words.

  “Helpless,” I offered.

  “Yeah. That’s exactly it. I feel helpless.”

  It was a beautiful night. It was cool and clear, and the spring humidity hadn’t yet descended. Jen had gone to meet the others at study group, but I—for obvious reasons—didn’t go with her. Instead, I sat outside on my little porch, my Property book propped up on my lap and illuminated with a portable book light. Holmes had tried to hop up into the chair with me, but there wasn’t enough room for him, so he finally gave up and sank down by my feet with a grudging sigh.

  I was having a hard time concentrating. I’d be in the middle of a case when an image of Dana’s delicate wrists swathed with bandages would intrude on my thoughts, or I’d see Lexi sitting astride Nick, her head thrown back.

  I was just about to give up on Property when I heard a noise at the back door, which I’d left open for Jen.

  “I’m out here on the balcony,” I called out.

  Footsteps echoed hollowly against the wood floor, and then the French door behind me swung open. But when I looked up, expecting to see Jen’s freckled face and long auburn hair backlit by the lights in my bedroom, I found myself staring up at Nick.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I thought you were Jen,” I said stupidly.

  “I’m not,” Nick said. He smiled uncomfortably. “Although I just saw her at the Rue. She wanted me to tell you that she’s spending the night at Addison’s.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” I said. I closed my Property book. “So I take it you know about those two.”

  “I just found out a few days ago. Add asked me not to say anything,” Nick said. “And, for the record, I told him I thought he was making a huge mistake.”

  “I can see he took your advice to heart,” I said.

  Nick sat down in the other plastic deck chair, his long legs sprawled out before him.

  “He says he’s in love with her,” Nick said.

  “As though that makes it okay.”

  Nick shrugged. “I don’t think he’s thinking about it like that.”

  “You mean he’s not thinking with his brain,” I said. “What a surprise.”

  There was a weighty silence.

  “Something tells me we’re not talking about Addison and Jen anymore,” Nick finally said.

  I looked at the boarded-up Cuban restaurant across the street. Teenagers had spray-painted their names in bubble letters across the front. A group of tourists walked by, the expensive cameras clutched in their hands and fanny packs strapped around their ample waists making them appealing targets for any would-be thieves.

  “The tourists seem to think that the entire city of New Orleans is like an adult Disney World. They come here and lose all common sense,” I commented. The tourists across the street were now standing in a knot, consulting a guidebook. I wondered what clued them in to the fact that they’d wandered off the route for their self-guided tour—the gang graffiti or the neighborhood crack house?

  “Lexi told me why you came over last night,” Nick said abruptly.

  Oh. Shit.

  “What did she say?” I asked sharply.

  “She told me…well…she said that you told her that you’re…sort of in love with me.”

  My entire body went still. My hands lay heavily in my lap, my shoulders stiffened, and my lungs seemed to lose the ability to squeeze out any air. Only my cheeks, which stretched and tingled with a mortified heat, seemed to retain any feeling. I watched the tourists flag down a cab and clamber into the backseat.

  “Kate…,” Nick said.

  “Why did she tell you that?” I’d assumed Lexi had gone back down to Nick’s apartment after talking to me the night before. Now I imagined them lying wrapped around each other in bed, giggling over how I’d tried to throw myself at Nick in desperation, before commencing with their second screw of the evening.

  “Because she thought I should know.”

  “Why, so you and Lexi could laugh at me?” I asked, my voice laced with acid.

  “What? What are you talking about? Why would we laugh at you?”

  “Because the two of you are together now,” I said simply.

  “No, we’re not.”

  “But I thought—” I started, and then stopped. I didn’t know what I thought.

  “Last night was just a one-time thing. For both of us,” Nick said. “Honestly? I think Lexi was just trying to make herself feel better after everything that happened with Jacob. That whole thing with him really hurt her ego.”

  “And you’re how she made herself feel better?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And why did you do it? Is Lexi really as irresistible as she seems to think she is?” I asked. I couldn’t resist the cheap shot. “I thought you’d stopped sleeping around.”

  Nick just looked at me for a long moment. “I did. I had.”

  “So, what, you just fell off the no-sex wagon?”

  “I slept with Lexi, because…well, because I wanted to hurt you,” Nick said simply.

  “Oh. Well, congratulations. It worked,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” Nick said.

  I sighed deeply, and the anger drained out of me. “Don’t be. You don’t owe me an apology. And you had no reason to know that I’d be bursting in on you when you were…well, you know. Otherwise engaged.”

  “But my motivations were shitty.”

  “For that, you should apologize to Lexi.”

  We sat quietly for a few minutes, watching the traffic creep by below.

  “So,” Nick finally said.

  “So,” I agreed.

  “Rumor has it you’re in love with me,” he said. His smile was tentative and full of hope.

  “Nick,” I said softly, and he leaned forward and grabbed my hand. He held it between his, looking down at it as if it were a treasure, and then peeled open my fingers and kissed the scar I’d gotten when I was five and fell off my new pink bike with the banana seat and streamers on the handles and a rock had lodged in my hand. As his lips brushed against my skin, I shivered.

  Nick stood up abruptly and pulled me up with him, and then he lowered his head down to mine. Our lips touched. In that moment, I forgot about everything that had happened over the past two days. All I was aware of was Nick—his touch, his smell, the solid feel of his back as I slid the palms of my hands down over the soft cotton of his T-shirt.

  Nick stepped forward, trying to mold my body against his, but the balcony was so narrow that he’d pushed me right up against the
wrought-iron balustrade.

  “Wait,” I said.

  “Mmm?” Nick asked, as he trailed a line of kisses across the hollow of my throat.

  “I don’t know if this is going to hold our weight,” I said.

  Nick looked over my shoulder to consider the iron railing. “You’re right,” he said, and he turned to go inside, pulling my hand so that I’d follow him through the open French door.

  We stepped into my bedroom and landed on the bed, kissing. Nick pulled off my T-shirt and then shrugged off his own, pulling it over his head in one smooth movement before falling back toward me. I pressed against him, reveling in the glow of his skin and the warmth of his body against mine. Nick’s hands skimmed over my waist and trailed up to my breasts, touching me through the lacy fabric of my bra.

  The next thing I knew, he’d rolled back, pulling me on top of him, so that my legs were straddling his hips. Nick fumbled with the clasp on my bra, before pulling it down and tossing it to the side. He kissed me again, his lips trailing from my mouth down to the curve of my neck.

  I was suddenly struck with the familiarity of the scene.

  Lexi.

  On top of Nick.

  Her back arched, so that her shoulder blades pinched together, and her breasts pushed out. And Nick had leaned forward, just like he was doing right now—

  “Stop,” I croaked. And when Nick didn’t immediately respond, I braced the heels of my hands against his shoulders and pushed him away.

  “Stop,” I repeated, my teeth clenched.

  “Jesus. What’s wrong?” Nick said. His breathing was uneven and heavy, and his eyes had darkened. I climbed off him, off the bed, and grabbed my discarded T-shirt from the floor.

  “You have to go,” I said coldly.

  Nick stood up and looked at me. The zipper on his jeans was undone, and his hair was mussed. I couldn’t tell from his expression if he was angry or confused.

  “What’s going on, Kate?” he asked softly.

  I shook my head and walked out of the bedroom, across my office to the living room, pulling my T-shirt on as I walked. Holmes followed me, his nails clicking on the floor, and when he saw that I was heading for the couch he gave a little yip of pleasure and jumped up ahead of me, turned three times, and then lay down on the middle cushion with a contented sigh. I sat next to the poodle, drawing my legs underneath me, and held a plaid throw pillow in front of me like a shield.

  Nick hung back long enough to locate and put on his T-shirt and pick up the sneakers that he’d kicked off when we fell into bed. He carried his shoes with him into the living room. Now he definitely looked angry. His cheeks were stained red, and his eyes were still and dark.

  “So that’s it?” he said. He sat down on the ottoman and started to lace up his sneakers. “You’re just going to kick me out, without a word of explanation?”

  “Just now, in there…when I was on top,” I said, biting out the words before I lost my nerve. “It reminded me of last night.”

  “Last night? You mean…with…”

  “Uh-huh. Lexi. On top of you. You were—” And then I stopped. Did I really have to go through an anatomical description of what I’d seen? Of her hips rocking against him as he pushed into her? Of his head bent over her breast?

  I closed my eyes, willing the images away. When I opened them again, Nick was staring at me. And I knew then that he’d been replaying the scene too, remembering rolling Lexi onto him and just now realizing he’d used the exact same play on me.

  “How do we get past this?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

  “We don’t,” I said.

  “Kate—” Nick began.

  But I shook my head firmly. “I can’t do this…I just can’t,” I said. “And I’m not going to change my mind.”

  And since there wasn’t anything left to say, Nick stood up and walked past me into the kitchen and out the back door. As soon as he was gone, I got up and dead-bolted the lock behind him.

  I was supposed to have a brother.

  I’d asked my parents for a sibling the way young children do: “I’m going to tell Santa I want either an Easy-Bake Oven or a baby sister for Christmas.” The preferred gender and species of the requested sibling vacillated, depending on what my dad and I were reading for my bedtime story. When it was Charlotte’s Web, I wanted a sister just like Fern. When it was Stuart Little, I wanted a mouse brother.

  By the time I’d reached kindergarten and no brother or sister had arrived under the Christmas tree, I started to go off the idea of being a big sister and instead focused my energy on begging for a kitten. But then my mom started retching and running to the bathroom whenever she smelled roast chicken, and my father walked around looking pleased with himself.

  I can’t remember how they told me, but by the time my mother’s waist thickened and her belly began to swell, I knew. There was a baby in there. Our baby.

  Mom spent a lot of time in bed, first driven there by exhaustion and later sequestered by a strict obstetrician. I’d lie down next to her, and while my mom read to me, I’d press my small hand against the tight drum of her stomach and wait for its mysterious occupant to reach up to me, rippling under her skin like a monster.

  But then one morning I woke up and knew the house was empty. Or, at least, my parents weren’t there, which was really the same thing. I lay in bed, staring up at the horses galloping across my walls (I was in the throes of my horsey phase and had picked out the wallpaper myself), and listened. But I didn’t hear my mom’s heavy footsteps as she made yet another trip to the bathroom, or my father’s whistle as he dressed for work. It all felt different than it had when I went to bed, as though something had happened to shift the very air around us.

  I scrambled out of bed and padded downstairs. Gran—my mother’s mother—was in the kitchen, standing in front of the stove, staring down into a smoking frying pan. She was a little woman, short and slight with wispy blonde hair, but as I stared at her, she looked even smaller than usual, as though she’d somehow diminished. I must have moved, because she suddenly looked up, and just before she arranged her face in a careful smile, I saw that she’d been crying.

  “Gran?” I asked uncertainly. I was wearing my favorite nightgown. It had a high neck and long sleeves, and the soft flannel was covered in tiny blue flowers. It was what I imagined a princess would sleep in.

  “Hi, pumpkin,” Gran said. “I made your favorite…pancakes.”

  She set me up at the table with a stack of lumpy pancakes (cooking had never been Gran’s strength), milk, and a sliced banana. I liked the way she fussed over me—making sure I had my favorite glass, the one with the big red flowers on it, sprinkling sugar on my banana slices.

  “Where’s Mom?” I asked.

  Gran hesitated and bought herself time while she sipped a cup of coffee. She always drank coffee from cups with saucers, not out of mugs like my parents did. Whenever I asked her why, she always replied, “It’s a lady’s prerogative.” I poked at my pancakes; they were raw in the middle. Finally, Gran said, “Your parents had to go to the hospital.”

  This didn’t immediately strike me as bad news. After all, The Hospital was the place where babies were born. This I knew from my friend Kimmy Sawyer, who’d had a baby sister of her own a few months earlier. She’d stayed with her grandmother then too, and when she went to visit her mom and new sister in The Hospital, she was allowed to wear Mary Janes, even though it was February.

  “Is it a boy baby or a girl baby?” I asked, hoping then for a little sister, who I could teach to French braid my hair.

  “Oh, honey. The baby…is gone. He’s gone,” Gran said. Her voice sounded weird, like a piece of pancake had gotten lodged in her throat.

  “But where did he go, Gran?” I asked, my forehead knitting into a confused frown.

  Kimmy, who was the resident expert on babies at kindergarten, hadn’t said anything about them going anywhere. My mom sometimes teased me that she and my dad found me in a cabbage patch, and I
suddenly had an image of a Beatrix Potter–esque vegetable patch full of little babies playing hide-and-seek behind enormous green cabbages. They’d giggle and scamper about on fat little baby feet.

  Even at the age of five, I knew this was unlikely.

  And Gran never did answer me.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Why exactly are we here?” I asked Armstrong, when I reached him at the front gates of the Audubon Zoo.

  It was ten o’clock on Sunday morning, and Armstrong had left a mysterious message on my answering machine instructing me to meet him there. I complied mostly because, after spending the past two weeks feeling miserable and only leaving my apartment to go to class or over to Armstrong’s, I needed to get out, to get away from my problems.

  “I went on down to the Audubon Zoo, and they all asked for you,” Armstrong now sang. “Research, darlin’. We’re doing research.”

  He handed the gate attendant our tickets and escorted me in.

  “Research? Research on what?”

  “The mating habits of alligators. Who approaches whom? And from what direction?” Armstrong said, his eyes twinkling.

  “Of course. Because there were alligators all over Normandy when the Allies landed on D-Day,” I said dryly.

  “Everything’s always work, work, work with you. You need to learn how to relax. We’re here because I like the zoo.” Armstrong tucked my arm under his. “And because I’m tired of watching you mope around. I thought it was time to air you out.”

  I smiled wanly. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been a drag lately.”

  “Is that what you call it? You’ve been making Elvis look positively ecstatic in comparison.”

  “Are you comparing me unfavorably to your dog? Because if so, I have to say, you really suck at cheering people up.”

  “You can’t let men get you down. They’re not worth it.”

  “You’re a man.”