Waking Kate (2 page)

He handed a mug to her, and she gave him a sideways look, like maybe this was a joke.

“Don’t be so skeptical,” he said as he took a sip from his own mug. “Butter coffee is a treat. You put milk in coffee, don’t you? It all comes from the same cow.”

Not wanting to seem rude, she took a sip. It tasted like winter, like a savory, buttered dish from a warm oven. She raised her brows and smiled at him.

“I told you so,” he said.

He led her back to the living room, to a couch covered in a white sheet. She wondered what it looked like underneath. Was his taste in furniture as immaculate as his taste in ties? “Sit down, please,” he said, lowering himself to the couch with a sigh. “It’s such a novelty to me, to sit. I feel like I’ve been on my feet for sixty-eight years. Sometimes I wake up and I find myself standing in the middle of the bedroom and I can’t figure out how I got there. Muscle memory, I suppose.”

Kate took another sip of the butter coffee, then wrapped her hands around the mug. She didn’t know many old people. She didn’t often feel this gap in ages. She almost always felt like the oldest person in the room. “How did you come to work at Valentine’s?”

He thought about it for a moment, like he was considering whether or not to tell her. He sat back and crossed his legs, draping one arm along the back of the couch. “Do you remember your first love?”

No one had ever asked her that before. She could remember an almost-kiss with a boy, a long time ago on a family vacation. She hadn’t thought about him in years. “Vaguely.”

“My first love was the son of the original owner of Valentine’s. His name was Laurence Valentine. Everyone called him Lucky.”

That got Kate’s attention.

“I was seventeen, a day laborer on the Valentine estate. I met Lucky when he was on his way to a tennis match. He was wearing a perfect, crisp white outfit. He looked like a jar of snow in July. I knew then why there was such a fuss about him. He was beautiful. I was trimming the azalea bushes lining the driveway when he and his sister walked out onto the pavement.

“His sister stopped completely and said to me, in a flirtatious way, ‘Well, hello. You’re new.’

“ ‘Yes,’ I said, quite dumbly, as dazzled as I was by them. ‘I am.’

“Lucky laughed and led her away. ‘Don’t pay any attention to her,’ he said, then gave me a glance that meant,
Pay attention to me instead.

“I watched Lucky and his sister drive away, in awe at how comfortable they were with their wealth. I couldn’t imagine the luxury they grew up in. I just knew, at that moment, I wanted to touch it, to be a part of it somehow, in any way they would let me. Have you ever had that feeling?”

Kate hesitated, wondering what he meant by that.

He shrugged when she didn’t answer. “I was seventeen. Lucky was twenty-two. He was seeing a woman named Petal at the time, and she was wearing his engagement ring. But he still invited me in that evening. We had martinis in the living room after his family had gone out to dinner. We talked for hours. Then he took me by the hand to his room, to show me his record collection, he said. He undressed and modeled his suits for me instead, then he showed me how to tie his ties like a valet. He wanted my attention. He wanted my affection. And I gave it to him. All that I had. Because I thought he was the only person in the world who saw me for me. Maybe I could finally be who I truly was in that rarified world. And I thought I was helping him become himself, too. But the truth was, I could have been anyone.”

Kate felt a jolt of something she couldn’t quite explain, like he was aiming for something in her, some reaction, and he’d finally gotten it. That was the kind of wealth Matt had grown up in, too. She had never asked him to leave it. But he’d been looking for an excuse. He didn’t do it for her. She could have been anyone.

“I would eagle-eye the house all day, watching for him, waiting for the sun to dip low enough for the family to finally leave, because then he would invite me in for something to drink. It was the best summer I’d ever had. I didn’t care that Lucky didn’t love me, because I thought I could love enough for the both of us. We would lie on the floor of his closet together, surrounded by his suits and ties, and I would tell him all the things I loved about him, everything that made him so special. That was all he wanted to hear. Which was fine with me. It was all I wanted to say.

“At the end of the summer, two weeks before Lucky and Petal’s wedding—which was something we never talked about—Lucky’s father called me from where I was pruning at the far end of the property. He handed me a check worth seven summers of work. He told me I was fired and to never to speak of that summer again.

“I was aghast. Heartbroken. And strangely embarrassed. I tore up the check in front of him and ran away. I was going to speak of it, all right. I knew exactly what I was going to do. I was going to stop the wedding. At night I would stare out the window of my attic room and I would imagine just how it was going to happen. I was going to creep into the church. No one would notice me. I would wait until the preacher asked if anyone knew of any reason why the bride and groom should not be joined in marriage. That’s when I would call out. Lucky would turn and stare at me. He would finally see that I loved him more than anyone else in the world. That only I could make him happy. The entire congregation would begin to mumble. Several people would even stand up to get a look at me. Lucky would kindly pat Petal’s hand and tell her he was sorry but he couldn’t marry her. Then he would walk up the aisle to me, smiling.”

He paused to take a sip of coffee. He didn’t speak for a few moments. Kate asked, “Is that what you really did?”

Mr. Donbeet took a deep breath and stared into his mug. “I did go to the church. I stood in the back, waiting for my moment. When the preacher asked if anyone knew a reason why the bride and groom should not be joined in marriage, he said to speak now or forever hold your peace. And I couldn’t say a word. I just stood there and cried and held my peace, like peace was something you could really hold and be comforted by, something solid and smooth and round. His father met me in the back and asked me what I wanted. I told him I wanted a job. A proper job. A job at his store. And that,” Mr. Donbeet said with a wry smile, “was how I came to work at Valentine’s.”

Kate didn’t know what to say. She finally asked, “What happened to Lucky?”

He shook his head. “He’s gone. Almost thirty years now. Lung cancer. He and Petal had a good life together. They had seven daughters.”

“You don’t regret it? The choice for him to be happy, even though you would never be happy again?”

He gave her a quizzical look, before he suddenly laughed. “Oh, I see.” He uncrossed his legs and set his mug on the coffee table. “You think I made a great sacrifice for someone I loved, and then never loved again.” The thought seemed to amuse him, and Kate was vaguely offended, because it hit too close to home.

It happens,
she thought.
It happens all the time.

He went to the far side of the room and opened a box. He didn’t have to rummage for what he was looking for. It was obviously there on top. “There’s no pain in the world like loving someone who doesn’t love you in return. But it disappears, almost like it wasn’t there at all, the moment you find the person you were really meant to be with.”

He handed her a heavy silver picture frame. In it was a photo of a middle-aged Mr. Donbeet standing next to an affable-looking blond man of the same age. They were wearing matching camp shirts, and posing in front of a lake.

“That’s Olsen, the love of my life, my partner for nearly thirty-eight years. I met him at Valentine’s. We were together until he passed away twelve years ago. That photo was taken at Lost Lake, a tiny place just south of here. It was our first vacation together.”

“Lost Lake?” Kate repeated. “I know that place! My great-aunt Eby owned that place. I went there, years ago.” She stared at the photo thoughtfully, trying to remember. So much time had passed. “I almost kissed someone there.”

“I did kiss someone there.”

That made Kate smile as she handed the photo back to him.

“Lucky was my path to him,” Mr. Donbeet said, putting the frame back in the box. He looked at it fondly. “It’s hubris to think you’re the only person who can make another happy. Some people simply have the ability to make it seem like they need you. All they really want is the attention.”

“Matt is a good person.” She didn’t know why she said it. They weren’t even talking about Matt. Mr. Donbeet didn’t seem surprised. “So was Lucky. But just because he’s good, doesn’t mean he’s good for you.”

“We have a great life. I helped Matt open a bike shop. It’s doing really well. And we have an amazing daughter who’s fun and creative and knows herself so well. She’s a lot like I used to be. I hope she never loses that.” What was she saying? She had no idea. She set her mug down and stood. “Thank you for the butter coffee. I should go.”

“I’ll walk you out.”

“No, that’s okay. I hope you have a good life in Miami, Mr. Donbeet. I’m sorry I didn’t come see you before now.” Embarrassed, she hurried to the front door and was already outside and down the pathway toward the sidewalk before Mr. Donbeet finally made it to the door.

“Kate,” he called.

She stopped, but didn’t turn around.

“Kate,” he called again.

She turned to see him standing in the doorway, the frosty air from his house crackling around him like ice breaking as it hit the heat. He smiled at her with such sympathy. She felt tears come to her eyes.

“Wake up, Kate.”

* * *

Kate suddenly opened her eyes.

The only light in the house was coming from the streetlights outside.

She felt disoriented, the way sleep that crosses from daylight to darkness always seems to confuse you, making you wonder what time it is, what day, what year.

She must have fallen asleep here on the couch, waiting for Matt. She still had the remote control to the television in her hand.

She got up and looked out the living room window. The neighborhood was still and quiet. Mr. Donbeet’s house was dark. The For Sale sign in his untidy yard was creaking slightly in a sudden breeze. Her encounter with him had a smoky edge to it, like it hadn’t happened at all, like she’d dreamed it, leaving a buttery taste in her mouth.

Confused, she walked to the kitchen and tuned on the light, squinting against it as she looked at the sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, now sitting in a pool of tepid water. The bread she’d set out for summer sandwiches was now hard. The candles she’d planned to put on the back patio were now pliable from the heat.

“Matt?” she called.

No answer.

She took her phone out of her pocket. Still no message from him.

He wasn’t here, even though she’d told him it was going to be a special evening.

He didn’t call, even though she’d said that this meant something to her.

Her hair was sticking to her neck with sweat. She went to the junk drawer near the dishwasher and rummaged around until she found a rubber band. She pulled her long dark hair up and secured it in a tight bun on the top of her head.

Something had changed, though it wasn’t quite clear to her what it was yet.

She found herself wondering if, sixty years from now, she would speak of this moment the way the old man had of spoken of that day in the church, that day that had changed everything.

As an old woman, would she turn to the man who loved her, this future mystery man, a man who wasn’t Matt, and ask, “Did I ever tell you about the day I finally let go of him? That day that led me to you?”

Turn the page for an excerpt from

Lost Lake

by Sarah Addison Allen

Available January 21, 2014 from St. Martin’s Press

Paris, France
Autumn 1962

The wet night air
bounced against the electric streetlamps, giving off tiny sparks like flint. Almost tripping again, Eby Pim laughed and looped her arm through George’s. The uneven sidewalk was buckled by old roots of lime trees long since gone. George’s large flat feet made him sure of his step, but she was in heels and her gait was unsteady, the tick-tick-pause-and-sway making her feel quite drunk or like she was dancing to music that was out of tune.

George leaned in and whispered that he loved her, that she looked beautiful tonight. Eby smiled and buried her face in his shoulder. They had such an easy sense of themselves here. And the longer they spent away, the longer they wanted to stay away. They wrote short notes on postcards to their families, and George regularly sent home crates of extravagant furniture and antiques, but to each other they never spoke of going back.

Paris was the perfect place to disappear, with its dark, sinewy streets. The first week of their honeymoon, they got lost here in the fog for hours, ending up in strange intersections and alleyways, tripping over feral city cats, who would sometimes lead them to warm cafés and restaurants if the cats were feeling generous and full of tasty sewer rats. More often than not, George and Eby wouldn’t get back to their hotel until daylight, then they would sleep in each other’s arms until the afternoon. George paid the owner’s young son to bring coffee and pastries made with cheese and spinach to their room at dusk. They would enjoy the food in bed, curled in wrinkled sheets, watching the sun set and discussing what direction to head in when darkness fell and made everything a game of hide-and-seek again.

Tonight they walked aimlessly, trying to get lost. But they failed. For four months now they had been traversing these streets. Even in the dark, they were beginning to recognize some neighborhoods by a vague scent of char from the war. And there were various points along the river they knew just by the tone of the water. Over dinner, a meal that had consisted wholly of mushrooms simply because they felt like it, they still couldn’t bring themselves to talk of home yet. Instead, George brought up the young couple they’d met the other day, the ones from Amsterdam.