LITMIR.BIZ

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grabbed her arm again. ‘Careful—where in hell’s teeth did you get that cat? It’s got worse manners than an eight-year-old boy.’

      ‘He got us—he was a stray,’ she said with a watery grin directed at the vicinity of his chest, and sat down hard in the nearest chair. She averted her eyes while Teal wiped the floor with wet paper towel, by which time Scott had returned with a brown paper bag which he plunked on the counter. The brandy was exceedingly expensive. She gulped some down and began to feel better.

      Teal topped up her glass and stood up to go. ‘Call me if there’s a replay,’ he said wryly. ‘It makes a change from legal briefs.’

      The boys had gone outside. Julie stood up as well, and perhaps it was the brandy that loosened her tongue. ‘Do you think I faked all this just to get you over here?’ she asked. ‘One more woman who’s hot in pursuit?’

      ‘You don’t miss much, do you?’

      ‘As a lawyer you deal with people under one kind of stress—as a nurse I deal with them under another. Either way, after a while you get so you can read people.’

      Teal looked at her in silence. There was a little color back in her cheeks, and the tears that she had tried to hide from him were gone. He said slowly, ‘It would be very egotistical of me to assume that you’re pursuing me.’

      ‘Indeed it would,’ she said agreeably.

      ‘You really are scared of rats.’

      ‘Terrified.’

      ‘Tell me why.’

      ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘That’s personal stuff.’

      He felt a tiny, illogical flicker of anger. ‘No, I don’t think you’re pursuing me,’ he said. ‘Despite the message on your T-shirt.’

      Julie had forgotten about ‘Handel with Care’. She flushed scarlet, the mere thought of Teal Carruthers touching her breasts filling her with confusion. ‘It’s the only dark-colored shirt I’ve got,’ she babbled. ‘I always seem to cover myself in mud when I garden.’

      ‘I noticed that... I’m going to round Scott up; I’ve got a couple of hours’ work to do tonight. Goodnight, Julie Ferris.’

      She said awkwardly but with undoubted sincerity, ‘Thank you very much for killing the rat.’

      He suddenly smiled, a smile that brought his whole face to life so that it crackled with vitality. It was as though a different man stood in front of her, a much younger man, unguarded and free. A very sexual man, Julie thought uneasily, and took a step back.

      ‘Just call me St George,’ he said. ‘Take care.’

      Julie was still rooted to the floor when Danny came in a few minutes later. ‘Einstein’s sulking,’ he said cheerfully. ‘He growled at me when I tried to pat him.’

      ‘I think we’ll leave him outside for now,’ she said with a reminiscent shiver. ‘Shower night, Danny,’ she added, and braced herself for the usual protests; Danny had an aversion to hot water and soap. Her best friend in the country had teenage sons who she claimed almost lived in the shower. Some days Julie could hardly wait.

      * * *

      On Saturday Julie turned down a date with the gym teacher, was extremely short with Wayne when he phoned, and went out for dinner with Morse MacLeod, one of the anaesthetists on staff. His wife had left him five months ago, a situation which could only fill Julie with sympathy. But Morse was so immersed in misery that he had no interest in hearing her own rather similar story; all he wanted was large doses of commiseration along with complete agreement that his wife’s behavior had been unfair, inhuman and castrating. By the time he took her home Julie’s store of sympathy was long gone. She was a dinner-date, not a therapist, she thought, closing the door behind Morse with a sigh of relief. But at least he hadn’t jumped on her.

      School ended. Danny and Scott added a new room to the tree house and Julie had to increase the hours of her sitter. The surgeon who had invited her to go sailing on his yacht at Mahone Bay, an expedition she had looked forward to, turned out to be married; his protestations about his open marriage and about her old-fashioned values did not impress her.

      Her next date was with a male nurse from Oncology, a single parent like herself. His idea of a night out was to take her home to meet his three young children, involve her in preparing supper and getting them to bed, and, once they were asleep, regale her with pitiful stories of how badly they needed a mother. Then as Julie sat on the couch innocently drinking lukewarm coffee he suddenly threw himself on her to demonstrate how badly he needed a wife. Julie fled.

      Driving home, her blouse pulled out of her waistband, her lipstick smeared, she made herself a promise. She was on night duty the following Saturday. But if that film she’d yet to see was still playing the week after that, she was going to see it all by herself. No more dates. No more men who saw her as a potential mother or an instant mistress. One bed partner, made to order, she thought vengefully. Just add water and stir. Did men honestly think women were flattered to be mauled on the very first date?

      A traffic light turned red and she pulled to a halt. Not one of the men she had dated since she had moved to Halifax had been at all interested in her as a person, she realized with painful truth. They never got beyond her face and her body. Was the fault hers? Was she giving off the wrong signals? Picking the wrong men? Or was she, as the surgeon had implied, simply hopelessly old-fashioned?

      The light turned green. She shifted gears, suddenly aching to be in her own house, Danny asleep upstairs, Einstein curled up on the chesterfield. She knew who she was there. Liked who she was. And if she was retreating from reality, so be it. She was thoroughly disenchanted with the dating game.

      * * *

      The Saturday after the rat episode Teal had dinner with Janine. He had met her at a cocktail party at the law school, and had then made the mistake of inviting her to the annual dinner and dance given by his firm of solicitors. It was considered bad form to go to the dinner without a partner, and he had rather liked her. Unfortunately she had fallen head over heels in love with him.

      He was not the slightest bit in love with her, had never made a move to take her to bed, and once he had realized how she felt had actively discouraged her. All to no avail. Bad enough that she was phoning him at home with distressing frequency. She had now taken to bothering him at work. So tonight he was going to end it, once and for all. It was the kindest thing to do.

      Great way to spend a Saturday night, he thought, knotting his tie in the mirror. But she was young. She’d get over it. She’d come to realize, as everyone did sooner or later, that love wasn’t always what it cracked up to be.

      Would he ever forget—or forgive himself—that on the very day Elizabeth had died they’d had an argument? Something to do with Scott, something silly and trivial. But the hasty words he’d thrown at her could never be retracted.

      Irritably he shrugged into his summerweight jacket. He should pin a button to his lapel: ‘Not Available’. ‘Once Burned, Twice Shy’. Would that discourage all these women who seemed to think he was fair game?

      This evening Janine had offered to cook dinner for him. He kept the conversation firmly on impersonal matters throughout the meal, told her as gently as he could that he didn’t want to hear from her again, and patiently dealt with her tears and arguments. He was home by ten. Thoroughly out of sorts, he paid the sitter and poured himself a glass of brandy.

      Swishing it around the glass, absently watching the seventh inning of a baseball game on television, he found himself remembering Julie Ferris. Her fear of rats had reduced her to tears. But she had hated crying in front of him, and would be, he was almost sure, totally averse to using tears as a weapon. Unlike Janine. But then, unlike Janine, Julie Ferris wasn’t in love with him. She didn’t even like him.

      He hadn’t been strictly truthful when he had said he didn’t like her. He did like her honesty.

      His hands clenched around

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