Chapter 12 #2
Kaitlyn almost choked. But knowing it didn’t matter, that Alex wanted her to spend the money, she nodded.
“Thank you,” she replied. “You’ve been so helpful.”
Back in the car, Kaitlyn felt slightly ill. It was an obscene amount of money to spend on an outfit — to spend on anything so flippant. One outfit…
“To the next store, ma’am?” Stephen asked, obviously forgetting their earlier conversation.
“No. I think I’ve had enough for today. I’d like to go to a café somewhere, please. It doesn’t have to be expensive,” Kaitlyn replied.
She was thinking about all the things fifty-five hundred dollars would’ve bought her in her old life: several months’ rent, half a year’s grocery bills, a down payment on a car.
It was awful. The car purred through the streets.
There were people sitting begging on the corners of the blocks or accosting passersby for money.
Think of all the good that money could do. And what did I spend it on? A cardigan I didn’t even like.
Kaitlyn felt angry with herself for allowing the whole thing to get so out of control.
She should’ve gone to the thrift store and picked something she actually liked.
The fashionistas could write what they wanted about her.
But the deed was done, the outfit was bought, and the card was charged.
Alex wouldn’t mind. He made fifty-five hundred dollars while sleeping…
“Shall I pull in here? There’s a café just opposite,” Stephen said, glancing in the rearview mirror.
Kaitlyn nodded. “Thank you.”
The café was a welcome relief from the intensity of the store.
Here, no one accosted her, and she ordered a black coffee and a pastry to eat in.
Sitting in the window, she scrolled through her phone, her finger hovering over Rachel’s number.
Wanting someone to talk to, she pressed call, wondering if her friend would answer.
“We’re just going down for breakfast,” Rachel said, for Kaitlyn had forgotten California was three hours behind.
“Can you talk?” Kaitlyn asked.
“What’s wrong? Have you run out of money?” Rachel replied, sardonically, though there was a sympathetic note in her tone.
Kaitlyn wasn’t exactly sure why she was calling Rachel. On the face of it, she hardly had anything to complain about. She’d spent the morning spending someone else’s money on clothes, which, as Rachel would no doubt point out, was the ambition of many women — and some men, too.
“I know I shouldn’t complain. It’s just… I wish he’d have come with me. It would’ve been fun. It’s Saturday. But he’s at work. He’s always at work,” Kaitlyn said after she’d explained the situation, sighing as she spoke.
Rachel was sympathetic. “You rushed into it. You should’ve gone back and forth for a while and seen what it was like. The two of you still don’t know one another,” she said.
“But we do,” Kaitlyn retorted. “We’ve known each other since high school. I wish he’d realize it’s him I want, not his money. I hope tomorrow’s different. He can’t work on Sunday.”
Rachel told her not to be so sure. She and Sean were returning to Cedarhurst later that week, and she promised she’d call when they got back.
Secretly, Kaitlyn wished her friend had suggested that she come to New York.
It would’ve been nice to have some company.
But she cheered herself with the reminder that tomorrow was Sunday, and, even if Alex wanted to work, surely no one else would.
“Tennis,” Alex said, grinning at Kaitlyn as she emerged from the bedroom the next morning to find him in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, a sweatband around his head.
She looked at him curiously. “You’re going to play tennis?” she asked, but he shook his head.
“No, we are. Don’t you remember playing in high school?”
Kaitlyn did remember playing in high school. Alex had always won. She’d gone along because he was there, not because she’d ever actually enjoyed playing.
“That was years ago,” she protested, but it seemed Alex had made up his mind.
Kaitlyn had envisaged a lazy morning in bed, breakfast on a tray, with croissants, juice, and coffee. They’d go for a walk in the park, and perhaps have lunch somewhere, before catching a movie or going to a museum. But tennis?
“I have a racquet for you,” he said, holding one up.
It had her name engraved on the handle. There was no excuse.
Kaitlyn smiled to herself as she followed him into the elevator.
At least they were doing something together.
Stephen was waiting with the car, and soon they were purring through the New York traffic before taking the freeway in the direction of what Alex described as “the club.” It was a country club in Westchester County, where a drive led through landscaped grounds to a clubhouse that boasted numerous tennis courts located beyond a terrace overlooking an outdoor pool.
It was yet another example of wealth, where the rich came to relax and unwind.
Compared to the country club in Cedarhurst, this was another world.
“I hope you’ll go easy on me,” Kaitlyn said, smiling at Alex as they climbed out of the car.
“For the first few sets,” he replied, winking at her as he slipped his hand into hers.
Here, again, was the contrast. It was as though something in him had shifted.
He was no longer thinking about work. This was what his schedule said, and this was what he was going to do.
While Kaitlyn was pleased, she didn’t want to be scheduled only on a Sunday or one night during the week.
She was glad to spend time with him, and it would certainly be fun to play together after all this time, but as for it meaning something…
“You never know. I might have gotten better without realizing it,” she replied, smiling back at him, even as a lingering doubt remained in her mind.
Alex was gone when Kaitlyn awoke the next morning. She’d expected as much and had decided to make the most of the day ahead. A wedding didn’t just happen, and she wanted to start making plans, even as that same niggling question remained.
Am I doing the right thing?
Her feelings for Alex hadn’t changed. The more time they spent together, the more she knew he was, and always had been, the one for her.
But the life she was now living — despite its glitz and glamor — wasn’t the life she wanted.
Kaitlyn would gladly have given up the penthouse apartment, the chauffeur-driven car, the fancy restaurants, the shopping, all of it, if it meant having time to spend with Alex.
It was him she wanted, not his wealth. No doubt there were those who’d think differently, that she was a gold-digger, out to get whatever she could.
But Kaitlyn knew the truth, as did Alex.
They wanted to be together. But the doubt in Kaitlyn’s mind came from the terms of that togetherness.
How could she go on competing with Alex the businessman for Alex the high school mathlete?
“Where to this morning, ma’am?” Stephen asked when Kaitlyn got into the car later that morning.
“Could you take me to the artists’ collective in Greenwich Village, please? I could have taken the subway, but there were things I needed to carry,” Kaitlyn replied.
An order had arrived that morning: materials for the ceramic sculpture she’d planned for the wedding.
Kaitlyn had already sketched a few preliminary designs.
The embracing figures, abstract in depiction, would encircle one another in an embrace meant to mimic the movement and flow of water.
While the two figures wouldn’t touch and could be moved apart, when placed together, they’d appear as one, just like a married couple.
“A café stop first?” Stephen asked, glancing in the mirror with a smile.
Kaitlyn nodded. She needed her caffeine fix before facing the other artists at the collective. Having stopped at a café, they arrived at the collective just as several people were entering with a number of large boxes and what looked like canvases wrapped in dust sheets.
“Is this for the exhibition?” she asked, following Mary-Beth, the woman she recognized from the other day, into the studio.
“Haven’t you heard about the drama? Maurice pulled out. He quit the collective. I think he wanted to ruin the exhibition. But this is all from Julia’s second studio. It’s as though he was never here.”
That name again, and the expectation of her being known.
Inside, Kaitlyn found the collective to be a hive of activity.
Julia’s work was being displayed in the open space around the kiosks, and it certainly seemed as though Mary-Beth was right.
Maurice was gone, replaced by a series of abstracts in various colors, with the collective title of Rainbow Fall.
Kaitlyn didn’t think much of Julia’s work.
There was little by way of interpretive merit to it.
The artwork looked like splodges of paint on a canvas.
Multiple canvases. Others were gushing over it, commenting on the style and flow, the resonance of the light, the contrast of the colors.
Kaitlyn only saw splodges. She was beginning to wonder if being part of the collective was really something she aspired to.
The truth was, she didn’t actually like being there as much as she’d hoped she would.
It made her sad to think so, for she’d imagined the studio to be a place of retreat, where her creativity could come to the fore.
“What are you working on?” a voice behind her asked.
Kaitlyn had been busy with the first mold for her figures, ignoring what was going on beyond the confines of her own kiosk. Looking up, she saw a well-dressed woman in a long, red coat and leopard-skin dress, wearing dark glasses and a stylish felt hat. It had to be Julia Wainwright.
“It’s a ceramic sculpture. It’s going to be a wedding present for my fiancée. The figures are embracing one another, as though coming out of the sea,” Kaitlyn replied.
The woman looked at her disdainfully. “You’re putting that in my exhibition?” she asked.
Kaitlyn rose to her feet. “I didn’t think it was your exhibition. I thought this was meant to be a collective,” she replied. “Isn’t the exhibition for all of us?”
The woman sneered. “The parts have to complement the whole. Ceramics won’t work next to painting. It’s just not the right medium.”
“Then luckily for you, I won’t be displaying it,” Kaitlyn replied.
She’d had enough of the collective. Everything here was about the show. It was all so false, and Kaitlyn wanted no further part of it.
“I’m not saying don’t display it, but don’t put it near my work. My work has to be appreciated as a whole,” Julia said.
Kaitlyn smiled. “Oh, how foolish of me. I hadn’t realized that. Perhaps if I look at it properly, I’ll see what it’s meant to be, rather than just a lot of splodges on a canvas. I did something similar in kindergarten. It went on my mom’s refrigerator.”
The woman looked stunned, but before she could reply, Kaitlyn had pushed past her, resolved not to return to the collective or have anything more to do with the likes of Julia Wainwright. Stephen was waiting in the car, and he looked surprised as she climbed into the back and slammed the door.
“Is everything all right, ma’am?” he asked.
“Take me home, please,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes.
It wasn’t meant to be like this, and it upset Kaitlyn to think she hadn’t found the peaceful solace she’d hoped for.