I loved Cathy from day-1.
It was 1982. I had recently dropped out of Ithaca and had found work as a barback at Bentley's, the cocktail lounge at the Holiday Inn in Tewksbury. It was fun. Lame music (the house band would play Hall and Oates' "Maneater" three times in a night!), free drinks, tips, and lots of laughs. My favorite bartender was Mary. She was cool, funny and pretty. I had a little crush, but I was basically a kid and not to be taken seriously. But she liked me, and when I could no longer deal with living at my parents' house, Mary offered me a spare room in her home in exchange for a few hundred bucks a month and an agreement to be available to babysit her two boys, Joey, 6 and Jamey, 4. It was to be a very happy time in my life for many reasons, not the least of which was meeting Mary's older sister, Cathy.
Cathy pulled into the driveway in her big-ass Mercedes. When she walked into Mary's kitchen, she shined so brightly, she made the midsummer day look like night. All diamonds and teeth. Mary was pretty, maybe even gorgeous. But Cathy.... Cathy was...stunning. Literally.
And I responded appropriately. Stunned. Speechless. And to all who know me, I am not using hyperbole, here. I was, briefly, unable to speak. My crush on Mary was officially over and Cathy was now the "girl-I-don't-even-dare-to-dream-about-because-girls-like-her-do-not-consider-guys-like-me-serious-contenders". I was so insecure, so positive that I had no shot that there was no pressure on me and from that day forward I became very comfortable (on the outside) around the Stunning Miss King. We flirted shamelessly, harmlessly, without any hint of possibility in real life. I didn't even wish it, that is how off-the-charts-far-fetched the concept of "Cathy and I" was in my mind.
Cathy was married to Arthur King. No one called him that. He was simply, "King". I never met the man. To me, he was just some older guy who had paid for the accessories which looked so good on Cathy.
Cathy would come over fairly regularly for coffeetalk with Mary. I would greet Cathy with a hug, spin her around into a low dip, before asking when she was going to come to her senses, leave her husband, and run away with me. Her laughter would fill the room. Mary would laugh or roll her eyes at me. I would be on my way and not give her another thought. It was just a game we played. We played it often and stuck to the script. I moved away from Massachusetts in the Fall and did not see Cathy again until 1990.
Eight years is a long time. I worked for my Uncle Bob for a year in New Jersey and spent four years in The Marine Corps before moving back to New England, where I lived for another couple of years with my girlfriend, Helen. I had stayed in touch with Mary over the years, but I don't remember if I saw Cathy or not, but I must have. **update: I just remembered. I saw Cathy one time in the interim. She ran into my arms in Mary's kitchen and wrapped her legs around my waist. How could I forget that?
Helen and I broke up in 1990. I was lonely and sad. I knew that Cathy and King had divorced, so I asked Mary for Cathy's number. I just wanted a shoulder to cry on and four years in the Marines and working for Uncle Bob had made me brave, so yeah, I was making a move. Sue me.
Cathy's heart was bigger than her Carly Simon smile. Bigger than her 450 SEL. Bigger than her biggest diamond. Bigger than her ridiculously big house...and that is what I loved about Cathy.
To say that people did not get "us" would be an understatement. Yes, she was beautiful. Yes she was so sexy, she could (and did) stop traffic, but it was "Her" I loved.
At first, we were discrete. Cathy's boys, Gary and Brandon, were teenagers of divorced parents. She did not want to do them any more emotional harm and also wanted to be a "good mom". One night, she and I were watching TV in her bedroom. She suggested that I "fall asleep", fully clothed, on top of the covers, so that when Gary came into her room to kiss her goodbye in the morning, I would be asleep in the big bed, but in the most innocent way possible. Gary came in, kissed his mother goodbye and went off to school.
That night, Cathy, Gary, Brandon and I went clothes-shopping. Gary and I were trying on shirts. He looked at me and said,
"So, you got to sleep in Mom's bed, last night."
"Is that a problem?" I asked.
"Nope."
My motives were pure. I was straight-up in love. It also probably didn't hurt that I was a ticket-scalper, so Gary and Brandon got great seats for free after that.
We were together for maybe a year. We had a lot of fun. We had a lot of laughs. We had a lot of fights. Cathy drank. A lot.
At the time, I was sober. I tried my best not to judge people who drank heavily, but when we fought, she would sometimes say cruel things that she would forget the next day. She would apologize, promise that it would never happen again and it wouldn't until it did. I tried to help. I took her to AA once. At the time, I was on the outs with her family and could not discuss it with them. No one would have believed her to be an alcoholic, anyway. She worked full-time. She raised two boys. She didn't drink during the day. On and on. Even I didn't think she was a terminal case.
The fights became more frequent and eventually the day came when leaving her was less heartbreaking than fighting with her or watching her fight herself. No one could fathom why someone like me would break up with someone like her. I don't know if people realized we had been talking about marriage. We stayed in touch for a bit and then...not.
I called Mary last Summer. It had been a long time and I wanted to catch up. She told me that Cathy had died, years ago. She described the lonely, excruciating death of an alcoholic that I had heard described countless times while I was attending AA meetings. My wife, Allison's Father had suffered a similar fate. I could not believe it. I could not imagine a line from the nightly vodka and tonic to the description Mary gave me on the phone that evening, last Summer. I still cannot.
I am sad and guilt-ridden for not having stayed in touch with Cathy. Knowing what I know about alcoholism, I am confident that I could not have "saved" Cathy, but I would give almost anything for the opportunity to open my heart to her as she opened her's to me twenty some odd years ago. I intentionally distanced myself from her because she seemed to have a bitter streak toward me. I was too self-absorbed to not recognize that she was just hurt.
I know why Cathy drank. She told me once during one of the hundreds of heart-to-heart talks we had that are so easily obscured by time and rancor and regret. The gist of it was no real mystery to anyone who wanted to know. She drank to forget. She knew there was work she could do which could help and I watched her try. But the fear of the truths she would have to confront was too great for her. And booze worked. It was not a perfect solution, but it worked. At least it still was last I saw her.
That is all the sorrow I have for the memory of Cathy King. Though she passed years ago, the wound is fresh for me; but joy still creeps into my consciousness like a mischievous 4-year-old sneaking out of bed to watch "Late Night With David Letterman" from behind an overstuffed chair.
I choose to remember Cathy as I remember her: Vivacious and flirtatious. Compassionate and funny. Loyal and tender. And one of the truly great kissers of all time.
Rest in peace, my love. It is for people like you that the human imagination has conjured heaven.
xo,
ron
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