Life Reconstructed: Chapter Thirty-One

Try as she might, Cat couldn’t quite focus. Staring down at the deck of cards in her hand, she felt her lips pull down in wanting-concentration, her fingers grazing over their tips absently as she considered her next move. Reaching forward, she picked up at the stack.

“No!”

Jerking at the sound, Cat almost dropped the deck of cards in her hand. Startled, her eyes met Mary’s across the table. There was no disguising the immediate guilt, the recognition in Cat’s eyes that she didn’t understand…

With disgust, Mary dropped her cards down in her lap. Running her gnarled hands through her messy hair, she glared at her partner. “Do you have any idea how many black threes are in that deck?” she moaned to no one in particular.

Eleanor tisk-tisked, shooting Cat a sidelong glance. “I’ll pray for you, dearie.”

“That’s it,” Mary muttered, shooting her gaze around the table. “That’s it. Next week, she’s somebody else’s problem.”

“Oh Mary.”

“Nope. No way,” the woman said, her thin lips pulling into a wrinkled line. “I’m out. Girl’s even worse than she was last week.”

“Mary—”

“Except last weeks she was all grins and goopy smiles,” Mary said, her gaze settling on Cat finally. She leaned across the table. “But not today.”

Watching this almost as though she was merely an audience member at a play, Cat didn’t bother to comment. She wasn’t interested. Honestly, Mary had a right to be irritated. She wasn’t paying attention. She probably should have called-off for the evening.

Clearly that’s what she should have done.

“Her lips are all smushy.”

“Yeah, but not daydreamy,” Mary said, as if this was an important distinction.

“That’s true,” Erna murmured.

“You know, now that you mention it, Matt was a bit…grumpy this afternoon at the store,” Birdie said, her eyes swiveling to Cat’s in a searching gaze.

Fanning out her cards in a deliberate show of indifference, Cat took a glance at the deck she’d just stupidly decided to pick up. Scratch her earlier thought. Mary not only had a right to be irritated—she had the right to be throwing an all-out temper tantrum. There wasn’t one card in the pile that she could use. Sighing without quite meaning to, Cat laid down a black three.

“See?” Mary said, waving her hand in front of Cat’s face. “Nothing. Last week, the girl darn near passed out at the mention of his name. This week? Nothing.”

“Cat?”

Lifting her head, Cat smiled. “I have no idea why Matt might have been grumpy—other than the fact that it’s one of his favorite moods.” She said this last bit with a lighthearted edge to her voice. “And Mary is right. I’m off my game today. I’m sorry.”

Perhaps it was the too-conversational tone of her voice, but three pairs of eyes looked at her, nonplussed at the words.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes,” Cat said, and she meant it. She smiled. It came naturally to her face. But still—something must have looked off. The other women almost recoiled at the turn of her mouth. “Everything’s fine.”

And everything was fine. Staring down at her cards, she tried to compose her features. Friday night was…special. Especially the night part. And, and, yes, all right, Friday day had kind of sucked but—Cat mentally shrugged, at least she’d learned somethings about Matt.

He didn’t like to be pushed, and he didn’t like to surprised, and he most certainly did not want to start a woodworking shop.

Then again, she’d also learned he didn’t hold a grudge.

That’s where Friday night came into play. Crossing her legs in reaction to the thought, Cat settled into her chair. If Matt’s appearance had been a revelation the rest of the evening had been…a marathon. Biting her lip at the stray thought, Cat felt the tip of her finger playing with the edge of the cards in her hand again.

So really, everything was fine.

Really.

Except.

Except something was missing. In only the span of a weekend, Cat could feel it. Certain subjects had become off-limits. By a silent mutual agreement, neither of them uttered so much as a word about woodworking. The subject was too raw; Cat couldn’t bring it up without feeling conspicuous—like Matt would assume she was only trying to elbow in one more pointed comment. Hell, she hadn’t even felt comfortably asking him about Amelia’s project. And he’d never offered up any information, either.

Even talk about the hardware store felt slightly taboo—almost queasy. Cat had basically avoided any mention of his working life or his one great hobby, which was okay, she supposed, because it left a lot of time to talk about other things—

Cat frowned. The conversation hadn’t lacked over the weekend (and after Friday night, Matt stuck around for most of Saturday, too); in fact, the conversation had never lagged. It had an almost frenetic quality to it. Feeling the silence with white-noise.

Then again, when they eventually did run out of small-talk, well, that left the hours open for other activities.

So yeah, it was good.

Everything was fine.

This time, she wasn’t going to overthink things.

She wasn’t.

Get a grip, she scolded herself. With a forceful shake of her head, she brought her mind back to the present. She was sitting at Julie’s Café, playing Canasta with her eighty-year-old friends. Not an appropriate time for daydreaming.

She just wished he’d listen to her. About the woodworking. She knew what she was talking about—three weeks ago she’d felt like a completely different person than she knew herself to be today. She’d felt vaguely restless. Her friends had moved away. She hadn’t been sure why she hadn’t done more with her life. She’d suddenly realized her job wasn’t as fulfilling as she’d once imagined it would be.

And yet, all of those worries, those questions, one on top of another, had been so overwhelming she’d been paralyzed by indecision.

And then—one broken door and so many things had changed in her life. It’d forced her into the hardware store, broken her out of her safe, boring little routine. It had filled her with anxiety, sure, but also with a sense of excitement and interest, which had expanded into other areas of her life. She had friends. Great friends. And she’d fallen in love with this town all over again.

She could see the same rut wrapping itself around Matt.

“…Cat? Cat, it’s your turn.”

Snapping back to reality, Cat looked up at Mary apologetically. Then she picked up a card. Biting her lip, she carefully scrutinized her hand, then her team’s board before discarding.

Hell, maybe Matt had been right. That she was using him as a distraction, because she certainly felt that way lately, distracted. And she was starting to realize why, too. It all came back to that damned black binder. Which made it another thing on an alarmingly growing list of things she wasn’t sure she felt comfortable talking about with Matt.

 

 

 

Canasta had just finished for the evening, with Harriet carefully gathering up the cards, when Cat felt a hand settle on the back of her chair. Looking up, she blinked in surprise at Mary’s frowning face. In the bustle of movement, she hadn’t seen the older woman rise to her feet.

“Walk me to my car,” Mary said. It wasn’t a request.

“Uh, sure,” Cat replied, a questioning note in her voice. All the same, she quickly vacated her seat, shooting Birdie a nervous glance as she said a hurried goodbye to the group. Turning around, she saw that Mary was already at the door, her rubber-soled shoe tapping impatiently. Gaining the outside walkway, Cat hunched her shoulders up in preparation for the scolding she undoubtedly deserved.

“About tonight. I’m sorry—”

Waving off the words, Mary huffed out into the chilly evening air. The sun was hanging low in the sky now, with only a weak light of warmth. “He’s a good one.”

“Huh?”

“Matthew McBoy. He’s a good catch.”

Opening her mouth, Cat caught a breath of cold air against her teeth. Slowing to a stop, she looked at Mary. “I’m not sure I’m following you.”

“Last week you were practically dancing on the table. It was nice to see.”

“It was?”

Mary shrugged. “Of course it was. Don’t screw it up now.”

“Me?”

Mary gave her a searching look. “Why else would he be grumpy to his grandmother on the same day you look like a deflated rag doll.”

Cat chuckled. “You’ve certainly got a way with words.”

“Don’t try to butter an old lady up,” Mary said with a small chuckle. Slipping her arm through Cat’s, they presumed walking. “And don’t pretend that nothing’s wrong. You don’t have a good poker face.”

“Guess it’s a good thing we don’t play that card game.”

Mary harrumphed.

“Nothing’s wrong. We had a fight last weekend,” Cat said, hearing the words with something of a shock. She couldn’t begin to understand why she felt the need to explain herself to this woman. “But it’s over now.”

“Doesn’t seem like it.”

“And how would you know?”

“Don’t you get smart with me,” Mary said, her fingers curly a bit viciously around Cat’s forearm. “I was happily married for thirty years. I know when emotions get the better of reality.”

Cat was quiet for a moment.

“It’s easy to get caught up in the feelings at the start,” Mary continued as they reached the end of the block. Crossing the street, she continued: “The buildup of anticipation, the foreplay of flirting, and then the almost letdown when you get what you want.”

Cat frowned. She wasn’t following. “The let down?”

“Like the after-Christmas blues, you know?”

“I mean, I know the saying.”

“We expend so much feeling to get to that moment—the one you were reveling in last week, all glazed-over and excited.”

Cat wasn’t sure what was the more troubling, her own preoccupation with Matt or the fact that Mary had somehow become a love expert.

“And it’s weird—almost like sometimes then, once we’ve finally gotten what we wanted, we don’t know what to do with those residual feelings anymore. There still there, squirming away at our insides, fighting for expression. So we find something to focus on. Sometimes it’s good,” Mary says, her voice carrying a faraway sound. “And sometimes it’s not.”

“And you think that’s what’s happening? Because I seemed a little distracted today?” Pulling up to Mary’s small black car, Cat waited while the older woman fished the keys out of her pants pocket.

“You didn’t seem surprised to hear Birdie say that Matt was grumpy.”

Cat shrugged one shoulder. “He kind of always is.”

“Not with her.”

“No,” Cat sighed. Mary had a point. “I guess not.”

“Nor did you seem altogether interested in the subject.”

“Well, someone was already blasting me about my level of attention to the cards.”

“Oh hell,” Mary grumbled. “That’s not it. You didn’t want to ask any leading questions.”

“No?” Cat knew she was acting like a snot, but she wasn’t all-together sure she appreciated Mary’s sudden nosiness.

“No, and you didn’t want anyone else to ask any, either.”

Cat clenched her teeth.

“Listen, it’s none of my business, and I’m sure I don’t care much one way or another,” Mary said, sounding a bit like her usual self once more. “But I like you.”

“Ah, thank you?”

“And I love that boy. So figure your shit out and then let it go.” Cracking open her car door, Mary carefully lowered herself in the seat. Looking up at Cat, she offered one final piece of advice. “I don’t know you well, but you play cards like you’re always imaging the worst-case scenario—so focused on what the other teams’ strategies might be that you don’t take time to figure out your own. And once you do figure it out, you always go for the biggest extreme. The move that’ll make it or break it for your team.” Mary nodded quietly to herself. “It’s got promise, but it’s also got pitfalls.”

Cat’s mouth was open in response but she never got the option to speak. With those words hanging eerily in the air, Mary shut her door in Cat’s face. With a quick motion, she started up her car and, without even waving goodbye, she turned out onto the street.

“Well, hell,” Cat said, unintentionally repeating Mary’s own words.

 

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