Katie
“Well, well, well, missy, where have you been?” Penelope teased as I walked in the door early Saturday morning. Her attire told me she’d just gotten in from yesterday as well. Dress askew, high heels on the floor, hair rolled into a bun at the base of her head, and yet her walk of shame still made her look beautiful while I felt like a Cabbage Patch kid.
“I spent the night,” I said sheepishly, like she was my parent, albeit an experienced, wayward one. Patting the couch cushion, she then smoothed over the fabric signaling for me to sit next to her.
“Do tell,” she teased.
“It’s not like you think. It wasn’t a one-night stand. It was more of a…one-night sleepover.” I shrugged, embarrassed at the simplicity of my admission, and yet tingling with the excitement of spending the night in Levi’s arms. He’d meant what he said. We’d kissed a little longer, and then he’d rolled me to spoon against him. I’d never experienced the thrilling sensation of spending the night in someone’s arms, and at first, I’d been too wired to sleep. His skin still heated mine, my body cursing me to take what I needed. But my head overruled, knowing my heart would not survive a one-night stand with Levi Walker.
Penelope brushed back my hair, like a loving mother. The weight of her eyes hung heavy on me.
“Katie Kat, don’t set your hopes on him. I know you want to, but not him.”
My head twisted and found genuine concern in her eyes.
“I’m a little vague on how you know him,” I stated, worried once again that my best friend had some sexual history with the man I’d longed for in my dreams.
“I remember him. His family. It was bad, Katie. His dad wasn’t a nice man, and his brother Trent was friends with Jordan. He was mean, like Jordan could be.” Ten years older than us, there was no other way to describe Penelope’s brother besides evil. As an oops-baby, Penelope and her brother were practically strangers as she grew up, raised independently of one another. Her parents didn’t pay much attention to her, thus giving her a wild spirit. Her explanation clarified why Levi recognized her so easily.
“Trent dated my aunt,” I interjected. “Tricia.” Penelope shook her head, knowing my relationship with my aunt was special. When my mother first left, my aunt came to play parent while my father attempted to finish his master’s degree in engineering. He could have had gone on to bigger things than returning to our small town and working with his brother. The story goes that my mother left. My grandfather decided Tricia could take a year and help her brother. She lived with us while my dad went to school. Then Grandpa had a heart attack and died. We all returned to Elk Rapids. Tricia and I shared a bond from that year while she was acting mother. She didn’t try to make me talk. She held me. She read to me without needing me to speak. When Emily came along, she’d practically done the same thing.
“I’m afraid to think of the things he might have done to her.” Penelope lowered her voice, still pushing my hair behind my ear. “He wasn’t a nice boy. I suspect, he grew into a not-so-nice man.”
I nodded once, concerned for my favorite aunt’s history. “But what would this have to do with Levi?”
“I’m just worried, honey. What if he’s the same? His father was a drunk, like my old man.” I remembered Levi mentioning that his father had been friends with Penelope’s. Levi’s father was the town drunk, but I didn’t know much about that as a child. An image of Levi sitting with a bottle next to him, day drinking, and swearing off his child, filled me with doubts I didn’t want to believe.
“What if he’s not?” I offered, trying to keep the bite from my tongue. The way he touched me. The way we kissed. The way he held me, I couldn’t believe he was anything other than tender.
“The military can change people,” she said. “Remember Jordan.” Dishonorably discharged from the Marines, he’d come home to lead a miserable life just as we left for college.
“I’m sure the military has changed Levi. He lost his leg. He’s had a child. He’s a single parent. His life has had more experience than twenty of mine.” For some reason, Penelope looked down at my boot-covered feet. “My point is, he’s worldly. I’ve done nothing. If anything, he shouldn’t be with me.”
“Oh, no, Katie, no. Don’t idolize him. Don’t make him into a convoluted hero because he’s battled wars and fought a foe. I can see you romanticizing the ideal, but he’s suffered real hardship. Don’t glorify him, or you’ll end up disappointed.” Penelope spoke from experience. Her brother was the Irish Jesus to her parents, constantly praising him, until his discharge dishonored the family.
“I’m not glorifying him,” I scoffed. “I’m just saying he’s been somewhere. He’s done things. What’s the biggest thing I’ve done? Moved from Elk Rapids to Chicago. Frightening at first, but not overly exciting in the grand scheme of things.”
Penelope narrowed her eyes at me. “Why did you come here, Katie?”
“I wanted to find my mother.” The words were weak, buried deep inside me, but Penelope knew the truth.
“Don’t sell yourself short, then. That was a huge risk for you. For us,” she emphasized, reminding me that she promised to follow my lead. With questions about why my mother abandoned me, we left the comfort and claustrophobia of a small town for something new, something big, something too large for either of us. And I never found the answers I felt I needed.
“But I didn’t find her,” I said, staring back at her. “I don’t have my answers.”
“Katie Kat, you know I believe some questions don’t have answers. Why didn’t my parents love me? Why were they only present, but not accounted for? What did I do to them that made them ignore me? I’ll never know, and I don’t care. I’m free, Katie. That’s all that mattered to me.”
She was right on many accounts. We were free. We were young, and we should live as such, as she often told me, but I couldn’t shake the heaviness of the unknown. I’d led a good life by most standards. I had a loving step-mother who eventually adopted me. She treated me as much her own as Daisy and John, my younger siblings, but unanswered questions still lingered. How could my mother have disowned me? My father constantly tried to assure me that it wasn’t me, but her. She had issues greater than being a mother, but I didn’t understand, especially when a huge part of me wanted to be a mother someday.
“Just promise me you’ll be careful, Katie Kat. I want him to be everything you’ve dreamed of and more.” She looked at me doubtful that my dreams would come true with Levi, but still hopeful for my sake. Her words reminded me of something.
“I received these letters. Remember you put one on my bed? Anyway, I thought they were from him, but he said they aren’t. It’s so strange though because they’re addressed to me as K. I just assumed the L signature was from him, Levi. I can’t think of another ‘L’ who would sign them, can you?”
Penelope stared at me, her mind thinking. “What did they say?”
“One was an apology, asking me to meet him. Another said he understood me, after we had been to the zoo. The last one said we shared history and he wanted me to speak to him.” Penelope looked at me, eyes wide.
“And you say it wasn’t Levi. He isn’t being sly. It sounds fucking romantic.” Her outburst startled me, and we both broke into laughter.
“He swears he knows nothing about them. It’s so strange.”
Penelope’s brow pinched. “Sounds like you have a secret admirer, but it also sounds a bit stalkerish.” Her brow furrowed deeper. “Be careful,” she warned me on a deeper level. I didn’t need to tell her, I worried enough, for my heart.
* * *
“I feel awful about our date and I’d like to make things up to you,” Levi whispered behind me while we waited for class to begin earlier in the week. “Are you free on Friday?”
I nodded too eagerly.
“Let me surprise you.”
My heart raced at the secrecy. I didn’t love surprises, but I loved that he wanted to do something special for me. He told me to dress casually again, so I dressed accordingly in jeans and a skin-tight, white sweater, hoping to subtly accentuate my simple curves and entice him to touch me. I don’t know why I denied him the other night, other than my fear, but Levi was everything I’d dreamed. His physique was perfection, as I’d told him. His voice alone did things to my body. I wouldn’t stop him again, but the afternoon timing of our date put a halt to my wanton desires.
“The Field Museum?” I questioned as we parked in the lot. The air temperature had dropped considerably, and I shivered in my sweater as we walked toward the entrance. Levi’s hand at my back slipped upward to my shoulder, dragging me into him, as we huddled together in the sharp fall breeze. Upon entrance to the museum, Levi handed over our general admission tickets and then the woman directed us to the timing of a special exhibit.
“Fantastical beasts?” My breath caught, squeaking with excitement. I leapt for him without thinking, and then awkwardly caught myself and wrapped my hands around his biceps, tugging him toward me. His chest crushed my breasts. “This is so exciting. Thank you, but why this?” My tone sobered a bit.
“I remembered you saying you slayed dragons with your friend, and you love fairy tales, so I thought…” He shrugged and scratched at his scruffy jaw.
“I love it.” Slipping my arm through the crook of his elbow, I encouraged him to lead me to the exhibit.