Tiger cate, p.18
Tiger Cate, page 18
At fourteen after the hour, Joseph slid into the booth across from her and flashed his wolf grin. How had she ever found that leer appealing?
“Hi, Cate, thanks for meeting me.” He picked up a menu and gave it a token glance, then plopped it down again. “How’s the job treating you these days?”
“Jobs,” she corrected. “They’re great, Joseph.” Cate used the measured tone she always reserved for him. He didn’t care about her new waitressing job or her ongoing window design work. Someone like him, whose “work” was massaging the egos and assets of the well-heeled clients in his uncle’s financial management firm, didn’t care what actual working people did to earn their pennies on the dollar.
It was now common knowledge amongst the Russo family and associates that Joseph had a certified out-of-wedlock son with a baby mama attached. As much as this humiliated her, she couldn’t quite wean herself off the ample child support checks that had begun two years ago and now faithfully arrived each month. And all she had to do was keep letting her son visit the Russo mansion on Long Island twice a month. Aware that Will would never get to meet and know her parents, Cate had a hard time denying him a relationship with his living grandmother, Leona.
Still, that didn’t mean Cate had to listen to everything the man sitting across from her had to say. Time to set some boundaries.
“Joseph, you said you wanted to discuss something. I’ve got about forty - five minutes of my lunch hour left,” she prompted evenly. She’d actually taken the afternoon off, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Okay, then … let’s … let’s get down to it.” He put a hand up to the waiter, signaling he’d like to place an order. “I have a business proposal. An interesting venture, if you’ll indulge me.” She waited for him to go on, but instead he jumped topics. “Will and his Nana have really taken to each other, have you noticed? She often rides into the city when Uri picks him up for their weekends, and that is saying a lot. My mother does not love Manhattan,” he said with a chuckle.
Cate’s fingernails made a small ticking sound as they tapped the table in impatience. The way you chatter on about your family, she thought, as if I was part of your inner circle. She could feel her annoyance swelling to irritation. Get to the point, Joseph.
“Our family and their funny little ways, honestly. For instance, there is this … this clause in my uncle Joe’s estate that says no male relation shall inherit any of his millions who hasn’t produced a male heir by age thirty.” He gave her a conspiratorial look of exasperation. “I mean, crazy, right? Here I have three beautiful daughters, but I’m about to turn thirty and will be cut out of my uncle Joe’s will because Dina can’t seem to get her zygotes or X chromosomes straight, or whatever.”
She felt a smile creep onto her lips and thought, well, aren’t you in a mess. I’m sure it’s all your wife’s fault. Is there trouble in paradise? She took a sip of water and blatantly checked the time on her phone.
“So, what I’m proposing — it won’t really change much,” he said with a reassuring tone. “I would … I would just need to record Will as my child — ”
“What?” She couldn’t have heard that right.
“You know, legally adopt him through the courts and — ”
“Uh, no.” It came out of her mouth reflexively, even as she only half comprehended what he was saying.
“You would still be his mom — ”
“I am his mom. And no.”
Suddenly she got it. She saw how the last two years had been leading up to this conversation. Joseph had “invested” in her child, and now came the payoff … a multi - million - dollar payoff from the sound of it. He was trying to buy Will. She grabbed her purse and slid out of the booth.
“Now, Cate, listen to me. You would be a much richer mom, who could go to art school and not have roommates and, well, enjoy life a bit. You’d be set up. I’d make sure of that — Cate!” But she was already at the exit.
Out on the sidewalk, she was headed for the subway when Joseph caught her arm.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve acting like that in a public place,” he said icily. “My family’s been nothing but kind to you and the kid.”
She wrenched her arm loose and faced him.
“I’ve got nerve? Let me get this straight, Joseph. You want to buy my child. You want to take him and set him on that shelf of playthings you call a family and teach him to treat women like you treated me? In case you’ve forgotten, you drugged and raped me. Why? Why would you do that, Joseph? And were you ever sorry about that? Because I didn’t hear an apology.”
He stood there, his eyes darting around as she went on.
“I’ve seen your wife and daughters at those events. I can’t imagine what you do to make them cower like that in their own home, but well done! So, my answer is no. I’m not handing over to you a human being I carried in my body and lovingly nurtured, just so you can make bank on your uncle’s fortune. Go get a real job.”
She turned and started walking down the street, taking deep breaths to calm herself. The tears were coming, and she wouldn’t let him see that. She and Will would leave New York, travel out west to the ranch in Arizona. Cate would get hold of Margaret and grovel, beg her forgiveness, tell her she’d enroll in business classes like she should have done nearly a decade ago. She would not take any more of this family’s filthy money.
She felt Joseph grab her arm again, and this time he dragged her into a small alley just past the restaurant. His face had gone a deep crimson, and he bit into his words like a savage dog.
“I should have known you’d be too stupid to see what a good deal I’m handing you. Listen, you little redneck whore, I’m — ” Without realizing it, Cate had brought her hand up and it made a smacking sound on the side of his face.
His jaw dropped as if in shock. Then he snapped his mouth shut and she saw what was coming — a raging canine cut loose from his chain — just before his fist came straight for her face. It made a crunching sound, shooting stabs of pain into her sinuses and launching twinkling star patterns before her eyes. The next one knocked her to the ground, stunned. Liberated teeth clinked loosely in a well of blood, which began seeping into her throat and nose. She coughed and spat weakly, trying not to choke.
Someone else was yelling and pulling at Joseph, whose weight she could feel. Still, the blows came. One knocked her jaw loose. A hard fist found her right cheekbone, a cracking sound, and her head rotated left sharply. Humming rose up in her ears and the sound of voices under water. And still the thudding blows came, until she blinked out like a burnt lightbulb.
Chapter 38
One week later
And then the light bulb blinked on again. Under a veil of gauze, in a bed, in a room, machines beeping. Intense throbbing, through the haze, a face coming close in soft focus, eyes that smiled at her. Then back to a dreamless sleep.
The third or fourth time, she stayed awake longer. A cup with a straw came near, some liquid to drink. Throat so sore, but too thirsty to refuse. The face came near again, a nurse saying her name … Sarah. Halo of sandy hair and freckles, with sad blue eyes.
Cate’s eyes stayed open longer now, but her vision blurred after a moment. In a while, men came into the room and wheeled her down a hall, through a door, and into a place where light shone out of a wall. A window.
She was alone again and wanting to sleep before the throbbing returned. Sarah came in, chatty now, supplying answers to questions she couldn’t yet ask.
What happened? “Apparently you were in a car accident.”
Where am I? “You’re at Tisch Hospital.”
How long? “You were three days in an induced coma due to a brain bleed. So much trauma to your head, my goodness. You woke up four days ago, but kind of in and out.” She leaned in and smiled reassuringly. “S’normal.”
Cate squeezed Sarah’s hand to thank her and then gestured with her fingers for something to write on. She had no memory of what had happened to her, but she did know she had a child, a son. Willis Daniel Finley. Will. She scribbled weakly as Sarah held the pad for her.
date
“It’s May tenth.” Cate heard fast and loud beeping on the monitors next to her.
will
Sarah frowned, confused. Then she turned and fiddled with the machines. Cate scribbled again.
son birth day where he is
Sarah gave her sad smile again. “I … I don’t know anything about that.”
find out
Sarah looked at her for a moment, then nodded and left the room. She was gone a long time. Then the door opened, and a man walked in. He did not look like hospital staff, but he did look vaguely familiar as he came close to her bed. Middle - aged and stocky. Bushy blond eyebrows. Ocean-colored eyes. Deep creases in his cheeks.
“Hullo, Ket, you do not know me so well, I tink.” Thick Slavic accent. “I am Uri, Missus Russo driver. I drive boy to see her, twice month, yes? Sometime drive Mister Joseph.” He stopped talking and snuffled his nose. Was he crying?
“You ver so lovely. Then the … accident. Now look et — ” He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose.
Her mind was slowly clicking along.
Driver … accident — has something happened to Joseph? I was in a car with him? Where were we going?
“I must go beck Ukraine now. He get med I try to stop—to pull him off blub - bub — ” the words were turning into underwater sounds again, “blub bub … no way to trit woman. I have dotters.”
Cate felt like she was going under an ocean wave. She grasped at his hand and held on weakly and tried to make sound, to speak her son’s name through her wired jaws. Uri leaned closer, trying to hear.
“Hm? Ah, Vill. He stay at Grandmama’s. Safe, good, no problem.” He patted her hand. “I … I em sorry, Ket.”
Was he apologizing for getting them in a car wreck? “No way to trit woman.” Why had he said that? She let go of his hand and felt him slip out of the room. Too much effort for her throbbing brain. Sleep now.
#
The next time she woke, curiosity guided her hands over her injuries. The damage started at her neck, in a brace, or was that for her jaw? Jaw wired shut. Stitches in lips, broken nubs where her front teeth were. No food coming her way for now. Then her fingers crept upwards to something that felt like a house roof over her nose. Gauze wrapped around her skull, probably an inch thick, with holes for her eyes. Head shaved?
How had she gotten so injured? Slammed face first into the privacy window of a town car she didn’t remember getting into? And if that were true, why wasn’t Uri — the driver — injured? Was Joseph also in this hospital?
The next day, orderlies came into the room, unlocked her bed and rolled it out into the hall. Nurse Sarah waved to her as she was loaded into a small chamber amid hydraulic sounds of an elevator. She drifted off and awoke in a different hospital room with new bandaging on her jaw and face.
A different nurse came in, followed by a small man in a doctor’s coat. He looked like a handsome elf. Dark hair with gray at the temples, and finely chiseled features offset the fact that he barely came up to the nurse’s chin.
“Well, hello. It’s great to see your eyes open. I’m Dr. Stuart Littleton, and I’m the one responsible for your fancy grillwork and the nose tent, ahem.”
Cate thought of a book that she and Will had read together, Stuart Little. Will … her son. She ached to see him. A choking sob came up from her throat, alarming the munchkin doctor and his nurse.
“Oh, not to worry, Cate. You’re on the mend. Now, we’ll let you rest a day and then remove the bandages to see how it’s going, shall we?” Then an edge to his voice. “So hard to believe a car accident did all that damage.”
#
Later in the week, Cate was elevated in her bed dozing when she awakened to the familiar scent of Chanel No. 5 and saw a silver-haired woman seated uncomfortably in the visitor’s chair. Cate had raised her hand in greeting and tried to smile, but the muscles of her face weren’t prepared to cooperate yet.
“Hello, Cate, my dear,” Leona Russo said in her familiar clipped cordiality.
“Oo - eh’s Oo - ill?” Cate asked through her caged teeth, hoping her meaning was clear. She tried to look around the room, but the neck brace prevented it.
“Will? He’s … home. I mean he’s back at the house in Glen Cove.” She leaned toward the bed as if to tell a secret. “Cate, I hear you’ve been asking for him to visit, but we think seeing you in this condition would be, well, unnecessarily traumatic for him. You probably can see my point. It’s all … a bit much for such a young one.”
She rattled on for another ten minutes, doing her part to hold a one - sided conversation. But Cate had stopped listening. Instead, eyes closed, she was remembering how her infant son would giggle with delight when her breath ruffled his feathery soft hair. Would none of the medications they gave her soothe this deep ache in her heart?
#
Weeks of slow recovery followed in the private rehab facility where the Russos had her transferred once all the surgeries were completed. Cate began to make trips back and forth to a cosmetic dentist and she lost track of how many procedures and thousands of dollars the family had now spent. Such generosity they were showing her!
Then one day, her memory began to return.
It happened while she was futilely trying to brush her teeth with her jaw still wired shut. After rinsing off her mouth with water cupped in her hands, she straightened to look in the mirror. Instead of seeing her swollen eyes and cheeks, a brief image of Joseph’s darkly savage face stared back from the mirror. Her knees buckled, and she found herself sitting on the bathroom floor.
Over the next hour, she remembered pieces of their conversation in the restaurant and her speedy exit. Soon, she was reliving the argument that had started on the sidewalk and led to the slap and that first punch in that alley. An electric shock ran down her spine as she began to recall, to understand, what he had done to her. She walked over to the phone next to her bed and lifted it, poised to call 911. Then she looked around her, slowly replacing the receiver, and folding her arms.
Joseph Russo had planned it out very well.
For the past four weeks, she had been languishing in a posh plastic surgery aftercare center, the kind catering to rich matrons getting facelifts. The medical staff, including Dr. Littleton, had gone to great lengths to restore and heal her face. Of course, no one would believe her story of the attack now. Much of the bruising had subsided, and although she still ached from the shoulders up, she realized how well she fit the profile of a cosmetic surgery patient that had gone through all this hell for the sake of vanity. Oh, sure, your ex worked you over. A common response to all that medication — delusional!
Uri the driver had been the only witness. “No way to trit woman,” he’d said more than once. Since she’d moved to the recovery center, a different driver brought Will every time he came to visit. When she’d asked, Will just shrugged and said Uri had gone home. If home was in the Ukraine, then there really was no one to tell the real story. The realization had felt like another blow to her face. She felt a twinge of pain in her jaw and popped an extra pill to help her drift back to numbness.
Cate’s roommate Heather came to see her finally. “So glad to see you’re so much better,” she said flatly, eyeing the upscale furnishings of the hotel - like room. “I, um, needed to put your stuff in storage, ‘cause I needed to get a new roommate in there.”
Cate stared at her. Really, Heather, so much need?
“Sorry. Just needed to get back to some kind of financial schedule I could depend on. I actually had to call that creep and tell him about your share of the rent being due. The check came, no prob, but ugh.”
By “creep” did she mean Joseph? Since when did he pay her rent? Since you haven’t worked in nearly two months, chum, answered the voice in her head. Where would she and Will go when she got out of there? She had no way of even starting to look for a new place. No phone — the bill hadn’t been paid. No money for that or even for transportation around the city. She was almost twenty-five, with an eight-year-old child and less money than when she’d arrived in the city as a runaway teen.
Then Cate remembered what she had been planning right before the attack. She would contact Margaret and apologize. Sorry for stealing the money and running away. So very sorry. Can I come home and study accounting now?
Margaret would send airfare so she and Will could fly home to Arizona. Then she would happily work as Margaret’s slave on the family ranch in exchange for putting this whole disaster behind her.
Her head spun with ideas, but her body felt lethargic from the round - the - clock painkillers. Oxycontin — oxy — was something Cate had never taken recreationally, not even when the cool kids were into it. Now it was a lifeline, numbing the dull throb of her neck pain, headaches, and broken jaw. But she felt so loopy most of the time that she couldn’t concentrate. She would try to cut down on the dosage when she got out of there.
Right now, she needed to reach out to Margaret. Yeah, her big sister would save the day, she just knew it. Cate would call her right now if … she could remember the ranch’s landline number. She leaned back against her bed pillows to concentrate and promptly fell asleep.
Chapter 39
January 7, 2010, New York City
The new home of Cooper Union Art School loomed above her, all jagged angles and bulging lines. It looked frightening to Cate, on so many levels. Like a metal box, frozen in the act of exploding into a dozen sharp - edged chunks. This was where she would be getting her fine arts degree and living, if she accepted Joseph Russo’s offer.
