Love Lessons

“No, it’s okay. I’d have been up soon, anyway.” Catherine pushed herself upright, dislodging Norman from her pillow.

“I called to ask you a favor. You know that business trip I have to make to Chicago next week? I really need to do some shopping first. My wardrobe is getting pretty pathetic, and you know how I hate to shop.”

“Yes, I know.” It wasn’t Catherine’s favorite activity, either.

“So will you go with me? I’d have asked Karen, since she’s the shopper of our little group, but she had plans for today.”

“Of course, though I’m not sure how much help I’ll be. You know I’m pretty clueless when it comes to fashion.”

“You’ll be my moral support. And you can keep me from strangling perky salespeople.”

Catherine chuckled. “Well, I can try.”

“So when can you go?”

“I have to run by the lab to check on an experiment, but I can meet you somewhere after lunch. Say, one o’clock?”

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sp; “Great.” They agreed on a place to meet and then Julia hung up with her usual lack of ceremony.

Catherine yawned, stretched and climbed out of bed. If she was going to get to the lab and meet Julia at one, she’d better start getting ready.

Much later that day, Catherine stared in disbelief at the piles of shopping bags on her bed. What had happened this afternoon? She had gone to help Julia buy clothes, and she had ended up with several new fall outfits for herself at the same time. She hadn’t planned to make any purchases, but she had found herself looking at those enticing new clothes, and the next thing she knew…

Watching Norman nosing into the bags with his usual curiosity about anything new brought into his surroundings, she wondered what had gotten into her. She had bought several snug-fitting sweaters, a couple of flirty skirts, two form-flattering dresses, two pairs of trendy jeans and a slim-cut pair of black slacks that had made her legs look about twice as long as they were.

There wasn’t a pair of khaki slacks in the lot. She had even bought a pair of high-heeled leather boots to go with the jeans and skirts. Julia had thought she’d lost her mind, of course. Catherine wasn’t at all sure that she hadn’t.

She supposed she could blame it on the skillful and persuasive salespeople she’d encountered. But she knew that would be unfair. The truth was, she’d been standing there among all those pretty clothes and pretty women who seemed to be having such a good time trying on and accessorizing…and here she was. The owner of a new fall wardrobe that looked very different from her usual, practical style.

Her bank account was much lighter, her closet would be more crowded and her friend thought she’d flipped out. But as she drew a bold red dress out of a bag, brushing a few stray cat hairs from it as she did so, she realized that she wasn’t at all sorry.

Restless. Perhaps that was the word that best summed up Catherine’s mood during the next two weeks. As the temperatures grew cooler and the days shorter, she found herself fighting a constant urge to do something different in her life.

She couldn’t have explained exactly why she was suddenly dissatisfied with her usual work-and-then-home-to-her-cat routine. She didn’t want to believe it had been her thirtieth birthday that had left her feeling that way. She was even less inclined to attribute this new restlessness to her encounters with Mike Clancy. But something had changed….

She had begun to wear her new clothes and to pay more attention to her hair and makeup. Not to impress anyone in particular, she assured herself repeatedly. Simply to make herself feel better.

Her coworkers seemed to notice something different, but no one said anything to her about it. Because she didn’t cut back on her work hours and was as visible as ever in the lab, they probably concluded that she had simply bought some new clothes for the changing season. That in itself was hardly fodder for gossip, even though a change in fashion style was rather unexpected from her.

The graduate school where she taught and researched was part of a larger medical sciences campus that included a busy hospital facility. She didn’t often eat lunch in the bustling cafeteria, generally preferring to take her lunches and eat in her office, but sometimes she stopped into the cafeteria for a sandwich or a salad. She did so on a Tuesday afternoon late in October. She’d had nothing in her apartment to bring for lunch, and since it was after 1:00 p.m., she was hungry.

The usual mix of hospital employees, medical, nursing, pharmacy and other graduate students and hospital visitors mingled through the large room, carrying trays and clattering flatware. Catherine stood in line for a chef’s salad, tossed a packet of low-fat dressing on her tray, then filled a plastic tumbler with ice and raspberry-flavored tea. A moment of weakness made her add a white-chocolate-chip and macadamia-nut cookie to the tray.

Finding an empty table toward the back of the room, she slid into one of the four chairs grouped around it and arranged her lunch in front of her. She pulled a stapled sheaf of papers from the canvas bag she had carried over her shoulder. She scanned the introduction of the scientific journal article as she took the first bite of her salad.

She had almost finished her lunch when a deep voice interrupted her reading. “Good afternoon, Catherine.”

She glanced up at the man who had paused by her table to greet her. “Bill. I haven’t seen you around in a while. How have you been?”

“Busy,” he replied with a matter-of-fact shrug. “Same as usual. And you?”

“The same. Have you eaten?” she asked politely, waving a hand toward the empty chairs at her table.

“Actually, I just finished. But I’ll join you for a moment, if you don’t mind.”

“Please do.”