“I still can’t believe it,” she whispered. Could it be him, after all those years? Every fiber of her being wanted to believe it, but something—was it reason? fear? love?—held her back.
Then, she saw the bouquet, the prettiest bouquet she’d seen in ages—the lilies and Susans at the height of their bloom. Lightheaded, she inhaled their scent, sweet and poignant as a love song, the flowers Leo gave her in Woodsville and that still brought feelings as intense as years ago. Then, Catherine knew, beyond any doubt, that this was no apparition or joke.
“Catherine,” Leo said, rushing toward her. “My darling.”
But it was too much; the moment she felt his hands around her waist, her vision blurred, her knees buckled, and she slipped from consciousness into Leo’s arms. Ten years later, they were reunited at last.
*
“He lied to me and now it all makes sense about our letters,” Catherine said. “I knew I didn’t trust him. But I never imagined he would do something so... so downright evil.”
She sat with Leo on a bench outside Independence Hall after a walk to revive her senses. Overwhelmed with Leo’s sudden return, she’d left with him immediately, leaving her papers on the floor, missing the one o’clock meeting for the first time in her life. They’d spent hours catching up on everything they’d missed for the last ten years before conversation returned to Josiah.
“He lied to me,” Catherine said, holding back tears. “He cheated me out of the life I wanted.” Leo nodded. “I have half a mind to...” She interrupted herself to take a slow breath.
“No,” she said. “If I get angry now, he wins again. I’m done with him. I’ve been done with him for a while, but this confirms my resolve.”
Leo tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I didn’t know you’d stopped going by Woods.”
“That’s my father’s name, and I wanted nothing to do with him. It was a way of cutting all ties with that life.”
“I can see why. But it did make it hard to find you!”
She laughed and begged him, for the third time, to recount how he’d found her, looping his arm over her shoulders and nuzzling his neck with her forehead. “We found each other, didn’t we?” she whispered.
“I found you.”
“Well, I couldn’t very well find you, could I? When I’ve thought you were dead for ten years.”
He lifted her chin and kissed both pink cheeks as an angry flush rose to her face again. “Let it go,” Leo said, taking her hands in his. “The important thing is that we’re together again. We have the rest of our lives in front of us. And no Josiah Woods to mess things up.”
A shadow passed over Catherine’s face; the day had passed in a blur—she was too deliriously happy to think of much else beyond the fact that Leo was alive. Now, for the first time since fainting into Leo’s arms, she thought of Walter, remembering her promise to him, their engagement, their whole life together, as the feeling of sickness took over.
“Leo,” she said, pulling her hand back and laying it in carefully in her lap. “I’m afraid I’ve done a terrible thing.”
He glanced at her. “You’re not married, are you?”
“No,” she sighed, “but I’m engaged.”
Leo threw back his head and laughed, just as cocky as he ever was. “Is that all?” he said. “That’s not a problem. Who is the guy? Some chump you work with at the insurance company?”
“Not exactly,” she said. “He’s an accountant, nice guy, very reliable, makes a good living...” She stopped, realizing she had run out of things to say.
“But…” Leo said. “There’s always a ‘but’.”
“But he’s not like you. No one’s like you.” She stroked his cheek. “He’s a decent man though, and I don’t want to hurt him.”
“You’ll only hurt him by pretending to be in love with him when you’re not.” He picked up her hand again and kissed her fingertips one by one, as she felt the familiar heat she’d missed for so many years sweep up her spine.
“He’ll get over you,” Leo said.
“You didn’t,” Catherine said.
“I know, it’s different,” Leo said. “That’s us.” He rose, taking her by the hand. “Spend the week with me,” he said. “Let’s get to know each other again. Has it really been ten years? It’s hard to imagine it.”
Yet, as they faced each other, the sun beaming down on them, they felt as if no time had passed at all.
For the next few days, they were inseparable, like the old days. Leo was determined to give Catherine a taste of what life would be like with him. Sure, he hadn’t had Walter’s checking account, but he made up for it with ten times the spontaneity and charm.
He took Catherine to avant-garde museums, galleries, and galas featuring the work of the more independent, eclectic artists Leo admired and always wanted to see. Leo forged fast friendships at the events, turning them into connections who could help him get the needed resources for his work. In a matter of weeks, he was doing pieces in clay and plaster with his paint-splattered bag full of sculpting tools. Inspiration came easy—in Catherine, he’d recovered his model and muse as she posed for him several times.
After they made love in the dappled afternoon light, they lay naked on the bed as he traced the outline of her hips and breasts. “It’s good,” Catherine said, nodding to the mounds of clay. “Just as good as the ones you used to make me in fourth grade.”
“Not just like the ones I used to make,” he replied. “You were wearing clothes then.”
“Here,” he said, leaning across the bed to pick up the sculpture. She admired his smooth skin and the ripple of his muscles, his body indeed different from when she’d last known it—the taut body of a strong man.
“You had many moments like this with Walter?” Leo asked, jolting her out of her sensual reverie.
“Walter doesn’t like to see me naked,” she answered.
Leo ran his hand up her body. “Who wouldn’t like to see you naked?”
“It’s not like that,” Catherine said. “It’s just... Walter doesn’t believe in sex before marriage. He’s very respectable about that sort of thing.”
Leo stopped cupping her breast and pointed toward the tangled sheets. “You, too, apparently.”
Catherine’s face grew hot. “Careful,” she said. “Or you won’t be seeing me naked, either.” She gathered her clothes. “I’m sure we’ll make love when we’re married,” she said, a certain edge to her voice, failing to mention that even then Walter would prefer to do it with the lights out, or so it seemed. She glanced over her shoulder and saw a stealthy flash of jealousy in Leo’s eyes.
“Come on,” he said, reaching for his jeans. “Get dressed, and I’ll show you my new car.”
Through his connections, Leo bought a 1945 MC Midget TC, a dented but speedy two-seater sports car, and took Catherine drag racing through the streets of Philly, following up with trips to dingy bars and drinks until the early morning. For a week, Catherine showed up at work hungover from rye whiskey, tired from cigarette smoke, but happy from the feeling of adventure she only felt around Leo, certain coworkers only too happy to integrate Catherine with the daily gossip routines.
“It’s awful, isn’t it? She looks like a two-bit prostitute.”
“Since that boy came in with those flowers, she’s been a lost cause.”
“Poor Walter. Wonder whether he has any clue she’s running around.”
Walter didn’t have a clue, as it happened, and Catherine wasn’t about to tell him. Her affair with Leo was revitalizing but also frightening, as Leo’s recklessness as an adult seemed more dangerous, from drinking in public to jaywalking to daring her to run topless through Bartram’s Garden at noon.
One night, they sneaked into Bartram’s Garden, laid a blanket on the green grass, and watched the stars, Leo teaching her naughty French words and composing poems on the spot. Even though Leo hadn’t spent much time in Philadelphia, he seemed to have an instinctive sense of the city�
��s clubs and restaurants, from colorful bars to strange and exotic restaurants, often tiny, hole-in-the-wall places she’d never heard of. This was the exciting, nonconformist, carefree attitude she thought she’d lost forever.
After a dinner at Sof Omar, their favorite Ethiopian restaurant known for excellent coffee and deserts, Leo sat next to her and pressed his lips to hers, infusing them with tingling warmth. People looked as the lovers sat at the dinner table, kissing all the same. “This is so different,” Catherine said.
“Different from what?”
“From when I go out with Walter.”
“Why are you even involved with him?” Leo asked. “If you don’t love him, why bother?”
“Well, he is reliable, honest, and he has a good heart. A good person to rely on and a good husband,” she said.
“So, he never kissed you after dinner?” Leo asked.
“No, he’s never once kissed me at the dinner table. He’s too shy to kiss in public.” She pointed at the sphere of spongy injera bread they shared. “Walter’s idea of exotic is putting parmesan on his pasta.”
Leo laughed—the full-bodied, soulful laugh she adored.
“I’ve missed you,” Catherine said. “I’ve missed this. Us. What we have. The way I see the world when I’m with you.”
He tore off a piece of injera and placed it on her waiting tongue. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Not this time. So, as soon as you’re ready to leave that stick-in-the-mud... as soon as you have the courage to tell Walter you’re leaving... I’ll be here.” Leo gestured at the food on their table—a rich mixture of chutneys, lentils, and lamb in thick sauce. “And I’ll feed you stuff a whole lot better than parmesan pasta.”
She laughed, but worry nagged at the edges of Catherine’s happiness, knowing that Leo was ready to whisk her away for a lifetime of adventure, but realizing she was no longer the same hotheaded seventeen-year-old she used to be. What if, at twenty-eight, she no longer wanted a lifetime of adventure? She looked for it before, and it burned her; of course, Leo was different from Michael, but the point still stood. And what if she wanted something else entirely? Something Leo couldn’t offer?
Her thoughts drifted back to Walter, someone who didn’t take her to the hottest places, write poems, eat delicacies she couldn’t pronounce, or make passionate love in the pale dawn of morning. Yet, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Walter would be a good husband. Leo, on the other hand, would give her love and good times, but could he give her security? A family? Children? She didn’t know.
Leo noticed the doubt in her eyes and took her hand. “Hey,” he said. “It’s going to be all right, I promise. Trust your heart, and you’ll never go wrong.”
“I know,” Catherine said. But with her heart pulling one way and her head pulling another, she didn’t know much of anything.
*
Sensing Catherine’s reticence and doubt, Leo decided to do all he could to banish it from her mind. So, in the weeks and months that followed, he established himself in Philadelphia, assisting other artists, posing as a model, and finding customers for his art. The abstract expressionist movement was alive and well in the City of Brotherly Love, and as an artistic, able-bodied young man, he had little trouble finding work in the city’s many galleries and art studios.
He rented a small room in a rough part of town so what little money he made could be spent solely on Catherine, showing her that he too could provide for her. In truth, the sheer volume of activities, fine dinners, field trips, and extravagant dates put Leo in financial and emotional turmoil in a courtship that was neither conventional nor easy.
At first, Catherine thought she’d confess her affair to Walter, too, but something held her back; instead, she saw Leo as often as she could. They met daily—before work, at lunch, late at night, and pretty much any time Walter had other obligations and Leo’s odd jobs allowed, which was often.
The romance with Leo bloomed brighter than ever, but Catherine could not sever the ties with Walter. Slowly, she noticed the subtle ways Leo had changed through those ten years.
Although he had stopped his drug use from his Paris days, he liked to drink. Despite Leo’s claims of moderate alcohol use, Catherine had grown up in a home of teetotalers and what looked moderate to Leo often looked excessive to her. Yet, she didn’t think she could ask him to stop drinking altogether; after all, she wasn’t his mother. She was his...
That’s the problem, she realized. I don’t know what I am. She could be his girlfriend, but she also was about to become someone else’s wife, a wife with a decent fiancé ready for marriage. What was she doing ratting around town with a struggling artist who had an unacknowledged drinking problem?
When she was honest with herself, which wasn’t often, Catherine knew exactly what she was doing. Even after all those years, he still made her feel the way she felt when they first fell in love years ago, a time she held special affection for. But could she really go back there? The relationship today made her wonder about the vague future with a man she wasn’t sure she could count on.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Leo told her. “I’ve driven fast cars, lived in France; it’s out of my system now. I’m ready for the life we dreamed of having.” She nodded but his words did not convince her.
Leo got a steady job as a photographer in Jensen’s Family Portraits, a portrait studio and sought metalworking clients as he’d done in France. Before long, he had a steady stream of shop owners ordering shop signs and other trinkets. As always, he liked working with his hands, letting his creativity pay the bills, and proving himself to Catherine.
Leo made enough money to support himself—Catherine realized that. But would that be enough to support a family? He was always changing jobs, and she knew he would never be the type to pursue a traditional “career” or change his lifestyle.
“Be honest with me,” she told him one afternoon as they dined at Rock of Gibraltar, a tiny Mediterranean deli with an L-shaped dining room a few blocks from Logan square. “You don’t ever want a 9-to-5.”
“I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a career. My art is my career. And I’m logging hours at the portrait studio like any working stiff.” He tried to keep his voice level but felt the sting of Catherine’s judgment. Why couldn’t she accept that his chosen vocation was a viable, respectable way to make a living?
“You know I love your art,” she said. “And you’re talented.”
“Would you judge Leonardo da Vinci for wanting to devote himself to his art? Would you judge Michelangelo?” he asked, tossing his bread back on the plate.
She put her hand on his arm. “Of course not.”
“I’m not saying I’ll ever be as good as they were. But why can’t you understand that this is what I want to do? Make things out of clay, plastic, metal? It’s what I love.”
“I would never want to take that away from you. It’s just...” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “It’s not the most dependable way to earn a living.”
“It never bothered you before.”
Leo was baffled by this change in Catherine. When they were young, she’d encourage him to pursue his sculpting, telling him he’d be a famous sculptor one day, appreciating how free she felt with him—and that was what she didn’t like about him ten years later.
Unknown to Leo, that unflagging support had been replaced by what Catherine wanted more than anything at the moment. She loved Leo but also knew he was content to work jobs at odd hours and live their life without children forever. Leo wanted Catherine to himself, and she wanted something Leo’s nature was not suited for—children and a family.
Then, in the early fall of 1953, Walter’s mother fell ill with tuberculosis. Walter was working more hours at the Sun Oil offices and counting on Catherine to help take care of his mother. Catherine knew and adored Mrs. Murray—she was a sweet lady who always had a kind word and a plate of freshly baked cookies for every visitor. So, when she heard of Mrs. Murray’s
illness, she spent more and more time with the ailing woman, even missing her dates with Leo when her presence as a nurse was required.
Sometimes, Catherine sat beside Mrs. Murray’s bed and cried, stroking the ailing woman’s withered hand. Walter had been wonderful to Catherine; she didn’t want to hurt him. Both he and Mrs. Murray treated her like family. And how had she repaid them? Walter was a generous, giving man who made up for what he lacked in passion with kindness and stability.
As Mrs. Murray grew weaker, the reality of the situation became increasingly apparent: Walter stood to gain a significant inheritance once his mother passed, while Catherine cared far more about keeping Mrs. Murray alive than about the words in her final will and testament. But as his mother’s time grew shorter, Walter spoke more openly about life after she was gone and their move to The Liverpool Mansion, the family’s four story Victorian mansion in Fox Chase.
“It’s where I grew up,” he told her. “I want my children to grow up there too.” Walter’s wish to have a large family touched Catherine, but she was torn in more ways than she had ever been before. So, in November, with the date of her nuptials looming only three months away, Catherine made a bold move.
She was having lunch with Walter at The Bell Garden, his favorite restaurant near Fitler Square, where she’d been trying unusual entrees, inspired by her forays into exotic food with Leo. Walter, however, always ordered the same thing—a turkey club, hold the tomatoes, soda water with a lime.
Catherine poked around her salad, avoiding eye contact, and then opened her mouth to speak. “I was thinking maybe we should postpone the wedding.”
Walter’s turkey club was halfway to his mouth when he stopped, calmly put down the sandwich, and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. “And why is that?”
She pulled her cashmere sweater closer. “It’s awfully cold outside. A February wedding would be such a dreary affair.”
“But Valentine’s Day has special significance for both of us.”
Four Seasons of Romance Page 8