Kiss the Girls Page 0,58

suddenly asked. “I’d like a tequila, a mug of beer, and some brandy,” she told Verda. The waitress-philosopher grimaced and wrinked her nose at the order.

“I’ll have the same,” I said. “When in collegeville.”

“This definitely isn’t therapy,” Kate said to me as soon as Verda departed. “We’re just going to bullshit some tonight.”

“That sounds like therapy,” I said to her.

“If it is, then we’re both on the couch.”

We talked about a lot of unrelated things for the first hour or so: cars, rural versus big-city hospitals, slavery, childrearing, doctors’ salaries and the health-care crisis, rock ‘n’ roll lyrics versus blues lyrics, a book we’d both enjoyed called The English Patient. We had been able to talk to each other right from the beginning. Almost from that first moment at University Hospital, there had been some kind of bright sparks between us.

After the first blitzkrieg round of drinks, we settled into slow-sipping—beer in my case, the house wine in Kate’s. We got a little buzzed, but nothing too disastrous. Kate was right about one thing. We definitely needed some kind of release from the stress of the Casanova case.

Around our third hour in the bar, Kate told a true story about herself that was almost as shocking to me as her abduction. Her brown eyes were wide as she spun her tale. Her eyes sparkled in the bar’s low light. “Let me tell you this one time now. Southerners love to tell a story, Alex. We’re the last safekeepers of America’s sacred oral history.”

“Tell me the story, Kate. I love to listen to stories. So much so that I made it my job.”

Kate put her hand on top of mine. She took a deep breath. Her voice got soft, very quiet. “Once upon a time, there was the McTiernan family of Birch. This was a happy group of campers, Alex. Tight-knit, especially the girls: Susanne, Marjorie, Kristin, Carole Anne, and Kate. Kristin and I were the youngest goils—twins. Then there was Mary, our mother, and Martin, our father. I’m not going to say too much about Martin. My mother made him leave when I was four. He was very domineering and could be as mean as a stepped-on copperhead sometimes. To hell with him. I’m way past my father by now.”

Kate went on for a bit, but then she stopped and looked deeply into my eyes. “Did anybody ever tell you what a terrific, terrific listener you are? You make it seem like you’re interested in everything I have to say. That makes me want to talk to you. I have never told this whole story to anyone, Alex.”

“Well, I am interested in what you have to say. It makes me feel good that you’re sharing this with me, that you trust me enough.”

“I trust you. It’s not a very happy story, so I must trust you a lot.”

“I have that sense,” I told Kate. It struck me again how very beautiful her face was. Her eyes were very large and lovely. Her lips weren’t too full, or too thin. I kept being reminded why Casanova had chosen her.

“My sisters, my mother, they were so great when I was growing up. I was their little slave, and I was their pet. There wasn’t much money coming into the house, so there was always too much to do. We canned our own veggies, jelly, and fruit. We took in washing and ironing. Did our own carpentry, plumbing, auto repair. We were lucky: we liked one another. We were always laughing and singing the latest hit song off the radio. We read a lot, and we’d talk about everything from abortion rights to recipes. A sense of humor was mandatory in our house. ‘Don’t be so serious’ was the famous line there.”

Finally, Kate told me what had happened to the McTiernan family. Her story; her secret came out in an agitated burst that darkened her face.

“Marjorie got sick first. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Margie died when she was twenty-six. She already had three kids. Then, in order, Susanne, my twin Kristin, and my mother died. All of breast or ovarian cancer, That left Carole Anne, me, and my father. Carole Anne and I joke that we inherited my father’s snarly mean streak, so we’re destined to die of nasty heart attacks.”

Kate suddenly swung her head down and to one side. Then she looked back up at me. “I was going to say, I don’t know why I told you that. But