Obsessed With You (5 page)

“
You know you can stay up at
the house with me as long as you want to,” Grandpa said. “You
don’t have to come here.”

“
I think I need to come here,
Grandpa. I need to have some solitude to figure my life out.”

“
We’ll get whatever supplies
you need,” Grandpa said. “And all the help you need, too.”

They went back to the Victorian
where Cathy retrieved her suitcase from the spare bedroom and put it
in her car. She kissed her grandfather and drove to the cottage.

Her new life was beginning,
whether she liked it or not.

Chapter
Six

Cathy did nothing over the
following week. She slept long hours, watched TV for long hours, and
went to her grandfather’s house at the end of each day. She wanted
him to know that she was still alive because she knew he was
concerned about her mental wellbeing. Especially after what her
mother had done, in his own house. She cooked him a meal each day,
more as reassurance to him than anything else.

She had been trying not to think
about Saturday, her wedding day. October 20. It was going to be such
a beautiful outdoor wedding in the gardens, with the trees blazing
colors in the background and chrysanthemums of all colors all around
the arch. It would have all been so perfect, her in her perfect
dress, her best friends around her, both families there to wish them
luck in their new life. And such a beautiful cake with sugar leaves
falling from the top.

The cake! She had forgotten to
cancel the cake! Cathy scrambled for her phone and called the bakery.
The wedding was supposed to be in less than twenty-four hours.

“
We’ve already made the
cake,” the bakery owner told her. “It’s paid for.”

“
Then please donate it to the
soup kitchen,” Cathy said.

“
This is very unusual,” the
bakery owner said. “We’ve never done that.”

“
I’m asking if you can do
that now,” Cathy said. “Please.”

“
We’ll do it,” the baker
said with a sigh.

After Cathy ended that painful
call, she went to her grandfather’s and cooked him a spaghetti
dinner.

“
Honey, you don’t have to
cook for me every night,” Grandpa said. “I appreciate the hell
out of it, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t want you to feel
obligated. I go to the B and B a lot of nights. So you don’t need
to worry about me getting my meals.”

“
I know, Grandpa. I guess it’s
given me something to focus on this week. Tomorrow is the wedding
day, you know.”

“
Yes, I know.”

“
I think I’ll spend the day
alone tomorrow. I won’t be much good around anybody. So, I’ll
assume that Eileen will take care of you.”

“
Okay, honey. You’ll call if
you need me, right? I’ll worry if I don’t hear from you.”

“
I’ll call you to let you
know I’m okay,” she said.

Cathy wasn’t okay. She crawled
into her bed in the cottage with a bottle of wine to keep her
company. She drank four glasses before she fell into a drunken
slumber. When she woke up, the sun was streaming through the lace
curtains and she had a hangover from hell. How appropriate, to have a
hangover on this day that was supposed to be the most special day of
her life. She supposed it was fitting, since the day was now a
complete travesty.

Cathy popped three Advil into her
mouth and washed them back with bottled water. She sat on the couch
and turned on the television. Saturday morning cartoons looked good.
She watched the Smurfs for a while, then switched over to movie
channels. She settled on Sleepless in Seattle, which was supposed to
be light and funny. She couldn’t really concentrate on it, though.
She kept looking at the clock. She was two hours from the two o’clock
wedding that was supposed to be. She would already be at the gardens
with her bridesmaids, fixing her hair and make-up, if she hadn’t
called the wedding off.

Cathy ticked off the time while
she tried to occupy her mind with TV. At one point, five minutes
before two, she gave in and started sobbing. And now, ladies and
gentlemen, we do not give you Mr. and Mrs. McMahon. Because their
wedding was never going to happen.

And then it was two-thirty and
the time for the ceremony was past. Just two more hours and the whole
thing would be over and Cathy could start her life. At five, it was
over. No more wedding.

Cathy dragged herself off the
couch and changed out of her gown into jeans and a light sweater. It
was all done now.

She had left her cell phone on
the kitchen table and she needed to let her grandfather know she was
all right. She picked it up and looked at the messages. A text from
Heather checking on her and a voice mail from Aaron.

“
Cat, I love you. I’m never
going to love anyone else. This is the saddest day of my life. I’ll
marry you anytime and anywhere you say.”

The pain at hearing Aaron’s sad
voice went through her body and settled in her stomach. She barely
made it to the bathroom before she threw up.

After she ate a piece of toast,
Cathy called her grandfather.

“
I’m okay,” she said. “It’s
been rough, but I survived it.”

“
I’m here if you need me,”
he said.

Cathy made a cup of tea and
crawled into bed. She took three more Advils and dropped off to a
restless sleep.

Chapter
Seven

Cathy stuck close to the cottage
in the days following the wedding that wasn’t. She stayed in her
gown all day and ate cookies and chips while she watched game shows
during the day and sitcoms at night. She fell asleep each night as
she watched a classic movie and woke up in the middle of the night
with the TV blaring loudly. She turned it off and fell back asleep.
Sleep was really her only escape from the reality of her life.

Grandpa was kind and gave her the
space she needed. One email a day from her was enough to reassure him
that she was coping.

On Saturday, a week after the
wedding date, Cathy threw the covers off the bed. She had to get up
and get going. Enough of the sadness and depression. She showered and
dried her hair. It was getting chillier outside, so she pulled a
sweater out of one of her boxes before she went to Grandpa’s house.

“
I’m just going to the B and
B for a fall brunch,” Grandpa said when he saw her. “Why don’t
you come with me.”

And so she went to the B and B
where she feasted on the fall buffet of quiche Lorraine, hash browns,
sausage, pancakes, and biscuits with homemade peach jam. Eileen
joined them halfway through their meal.

“
Eileen, I want to thank you
for taking care of my dirty work,” Cathy said.

“
It’s no problem at all,
sweetie,” Eileen said, pushing her bleached red hair back into its
bun. “I’m just sorry you’ve had to go through it.”

“
Me too,” Cathy said. She
wanted the subject to change and Grandpa obliged her.

“
Cathy’s staying in the
cottage, as I told you,” Grandpa told Eileen. “I think she might
start doing some work on it soon.”

“
It sure needs some work,”
Eileen said. “I thought the paint was peeling off the walls the
last time I saw it.”

It felt a little strange to be
having completely normal conversation when her life was devastated,
but the world did go on. She was going to have to adjust to that.

When they were leaving, Eileen
pulled Cathy to the side.

“
If you want to do some work,
I’ve got some work for you. It’s not glamorous like that magazine
job you had, but it’s work and you get to meet a lot of nice
people. I need a waitress and sometimes cook, if you’re looking for
something to do.”

“
Thanks, Eileen,” Cathy said
with a smile. “I’ll give that some serious thought.”

And Cathy did think about
Eileen’s offer over the next week as she researched paint colors
for the cottage. She had nearly twenty thousand dollars from her
retirement fund at the magazine—she had opted for the
employer-matching plan and it had paid off. She had no rent or
utilities to pay on the bay, so the money should last her for a
while.

It had only been three weeks
since she’d left Aaron and her life in Atlanta. It wasn’t easy,
but she was getting by, letting go more and more every day the
thoughts of her former life. But she didn’t feel ready to start
working at a new place with new people. She just needed to survive
until she felt whole again.

She deleted her Pinterest page
with boards featuring Mission-style furniture, paint colors, and
vintage Arts and Crafts era pottery. She tried not to think about how
she would have been decorating her new house as a newlywed while she
was instead refurbishing the cottage as a broken-hearted single
person.

When she had settled on her paint
colors—creamy white, sand, and subdued greens and blues—Cathy
drove to the paint store in Fort Walton. She was looking at the
rollers wondering which type to get when someone behind her said,
“Here’s the one you want.”

She turned to face a man with
light brown hair streaked by the sun. His blue eyes lit up in
recognition.

“
Cathy?” he said.

“
Neil!” Cathy said. She might
have shrieked a little. “I can’t believe it’s you. I thought
you left the bay.”

“
Yeah, I did. I went to college
in Baltimore.”

“
I know,” she said. “And I
heard you were a big hit and that you stayed there.”

“
Oh, yeah?” he asked. “A
big hit? Sure wish somebody had told me that.”

Cathy chuckled. It was the first
time she’d laughed since the woman called her over a month ago.

“
I came back to the bay a
couple of years ago,” Neil said. “That whole art world scene got
to me after a while, all those phony people, the show openings. Not
to mention, I never knew if I would sell enough to make my rent each
month.”

An image of Aaron flashed through
Cathy’s mind. He was so wealthy that he had paid for their new
house outright. He really had no idea what normal working people went
through just to make a living.

“
I guess being a popular
painter isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Cathy said.

“
Hey, would you like to grab
some lunch and catch up? I could give you some pointers on painting.
It’s what I do for a living now—painting houses instead of art.”

Cathy glanced at the counter
where her cans of paint sat waiting for her to check out.

“
Sounds good,” she said. “I
just need to get the rest of the stuff here.”

Neil helped her choose brushes,
rollers, and pans, along with painter’s tape and a few other tools
to make her job easier. He put everything in her trunk and together
they walked down the sidewalk of the strip mall to The Orchid House.
It smelled rich and spicy when they stepped inside.

“
I haven’t been here in
years,” Cathy said. “I always used to get the yellow curry
chicken and fried rice.”

“
I come here about once a
month,” Neil said.

The waitress seated them next to
a window and Cathy looked out at the highway, visualizing the ocean
in the distance. It wasn’t so bad to be home, she just wished the
circumstances had been different. Her mind started to wander to her
failed wedding, then she forced herself to get back to the present.
Neil was ordering dumplings as an appetizer.

“
I heard you left the bay,
too,” Neil said after the dumplings had been placed on the table.

Cathy took a bite of dumpling,
savoring its delicate flavors.

“
I did,” she said after she
swallowed. “I was working for a city magazine in Atlanta.”

“
Why’d you come back?”

She thought about saying that
she’d gotten sick of the city life and homesick for the bay, but
she didn’t.

“
I was engaged and it didn’t
work out,” she said. It was the first time she had said the words
out loud, and it wasn’t as awful as she thought it would be. “I
just didn’t want to stay after that.”

Neil reached over the table and
covered her hand with his. “I’m sorry,” he said.

If she wasn’t careful, she was
going to start blubbering right there at the table. She was still
ultra sensitive about what had happened.

“
Thanks,” she said. Their
food arrived then and Cathy was glad to stop talking about her sorry
life.

Instead, they talked about high
school and what had happened to everyone they knew. “I can tell you
what happened to Lindy,” Neil said.

“
Lindy? You don’t mean Lindy
McAlister do you?”

Neil grinned at her. “I sure
do. We got back together a few months ago. They say you can’t go
home again, but I’ve managed it and got my old girlfriend back,
too.”

“
That’s wonderful, Neil,”
Cathy said. “You seem pretty happy about it.”

“
Yep.”

Cathy knew what had happened to a
lot of people from Facebook, where you never had to be out of touch
or wonder about anyone. It was right there in daily posts.