“Oh, that.” He shrugged apologetically. “Yeah, sorry. I got held up by a call from an old friend.”
“Would you like to come in for a few minutes before we leave?”
“Yeah. Actually, I bought a gift.”
She closed the door behind him. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Oh, it’s not for you.” He pulled a white rabbit-hair toy mouse from his pocket. “This is for Norman.”
This time her smile was completely genuine. “He’ll like that.”
Mike tossed the toy on the floor in front of the cat. Norman approached the new item cautiously, sniffed it, then picked it up by the tail and tossed it in the air. When it landed, he pounced on it with a meow of victory. He looked prepared to spend the next half hour happily battling the hapless mouse.
“That was nice of you,” Catherine said warmly, apparently having forgotten his tardiness now. “On behalf of Norman, thank you.”
“Norman is very welcome.” Downright proud of himself, Mike made a vow to be punctual next time he had plans with Catherine. Because he did intend for there to be a next time. Of course, he had made promises to himself about punctuality before, and he still hadn’t gotten much better at it. But for Catherine’s sake he would try harder.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked.
“No, thanks. Are you ready to go?”
“Of course. But you never told me where we’re going,” she reminded him, picking up her purse.
He opened the door for her. “I thought we would just wing it. That’s always more fun than planning all the details, don’t you think?”
She stepped out into the night, which was already dark at six-thirty now that fall had settled in to stay. The many security lights posted around the upscale complex spread a bright, if somewhat harsh glow over the parked cars and the closed-for-the-season swimming pool in the center of the compound. Lights burned in many of the apartment windows and in the large pool house, which also contained the workout room. Through the windows of that structure, they could see people making use of the treadmills and stair climbers and stationary bikes. Other residents moved through the parking lot toward their cars, headed out for Saturday-evening activities or toward their apartments.
Catherine paused at the passenger’s door of Mike’s truck. “I tend to be a planner,” she confessed. “Calendars and lists and organizers. I guess it’s a side effect of my work, which has to be planned and timed very precisely.”
He opened the door for her. “Tonight we’re throwing away the lists and the organizer.”
She shot a look upward at him, and he thought that maybe there was just a hint of apprehension in her eyes. Giving her a trust-me smile, he closed the door of the pickup he had washed and vacuumed just for this outing and made a promise to himself that she wouldn’t miss her organizer at all tonight.
Catherine was beginning to believe that Mike Clancy was the most impulsive man she had ever met. Maybe it was because she was used to being around scientists and academics, who pretty much breathed according to their rigid schedules, but she wasn’t accustomed to spending an entire evening just acting on whims.
Mike didn’t even have a restaurant in mind when they left the apartment complex. Instead he asked, “What kind of food are you in the mood for tonight? Steak? Seafood? Italian?”
Assuming he wouldn’t have asked if he wasn’t interested in what she would like, she replied, “Sushi sounds pretty good.”
“Sushi?” He looked at her as if expecting her to admit that she was only joking. “Really?”
“Well, yes. But if you don’t care for it—”
“No, I can find you some sushi. No problem.”
And he took her straight to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet that offered a few California rolls on one of the long buffet tables. Having expected him to select one of the excellent sushi restaurants in the area—or at least one of the Japanese restaurants—Catherine was a bit surprised, but she decided that this was his way of compromising. Obviously, sushi wasn’t one of his favorite dishes.
The atmosphere was rather noisy, and the buffet tables were crowded with adults and children who had apparently taken the “all you can eat” invitation as a challenge. She placed some steamed rice, beef with vegetables and a couple of California rolls on her plate, then carried it to the booth where she and Mike had been seated. Mike joined her a short while later, his own plate piled so high that the egg roll balanced on top teetered precariously. She noticed that most of his food selections were fried, and that he was most definitely a carnivore.
“Great place, isn’t it?” he asked happily. “Something for everyone.”
“It looks good,” she replied, stabbing her fork into a thin slice of beef. Privately she thought that he either had a phenomenal metabolism or he didn’t eat this way very often. Otherwise he wouldn’t still be so slim.
Once again she needn’t have worried about making conversation during dinner. Mike talked enough for both of them. While somehow making impressive inroads into his plate of food, he chatted nonstop about a dizzying array of topics. He pelted her with questions and seemed genuinely interested in her answers, but unlike Bill he was more interested in her past and her personal life than her work.
He wanted to know her tastes in music and movies, but he seemed to have little interest in books or politics. He admitted to a passion for sports, in addition to being unhealthily addicted to television and video games. She responded that she occasionally watched a tennis match on TV and had always thought she might like to learn golf, but she hadn’t played a video game since trying a few arcade classics in college. Even then she had been spectacularly bad at them.
He talked about his parents, a retired plumber and a former elementary school teacher. And his four sisters, Gretchen, Amy, Charlotte—also known as Charlie—and Laurie, who ranged in age from thirty-three to twenty-nine. Gretchen and Amy were married and had two children apiece—boys for Gretchen, girls for Amy—so Mike was an uncle, a role he apparently enjoyed greatly. Catherine talked about being an only child and how she had occasionally wished for siblings, especially a sister.