Chapter Ten: Glimmers of Hope
Flipping through a magazine as they rode to the next tour destination, Joey halted when he saw a picture of Kitty. She was at some premier with one of the current hot leading men. The guy was tall and athletic-looking, a perfect foil for tiny Kitty. The magazine made mention of Kitty’s absent wedding ring – and insinuated it might have something to do with her escort.
“Christ!” Joey grumbled. This was all Josh needed. He was a wreck as it was. He’d tripped up noticeably on stage the previous night – something Josh never did.
“What?” Chris asked.
Joey quietly slid the magazine to his friend. Josh was asleep on the seat across from them. Hopefully, he’d never see it.
“Man, this isn’t good,” Chris murmured.
“What isn’t?” Justin demanded as he entered the compartment. Looking over Chris’ shoulder he saw the picture. “Hey, it’s Kit!”
Josh woke, hearing his wife’s name. “Kitty?” He was disoriented enough to believe she was there somehow.
“Man, that guy’s a freakin’ giant next to her!” Justin exclaimed.
“What?” Josh demanded as Joey and Chris gave Justin a quelling glare.
“What’d I do?” Justin asked, aggrieved.
“Need some tape for that mouth?” Joey muttered.
“It’s just a picture,” Justin defended.
“Of Kitty? Lemme see.” Josh snatched the magazine from Chris.
His face fell when he saw his beautiful wife smiling up at her handsome escort. As if that wasn’t painful enough, he read the blurb. Kitty. Ben. No wedding ring. The words slammed into his chest.
“We’re sorry, JC. If Junior here didn’t have such a big mouth—“ Joey growled.
“Hey!” Justin complained.
“Excused me.” Josh rose and moved towards the rear of the bus for some privacy.
He wouldn’t get a reply, but he needed to call Kitty. “Sweetness, it’s Josh. I need to know if this Ben guy is the reason you don’t love me anymore.” He hit end on the cellphone.
Josh noticed he had a message waiting for him on his cellphone after the performance. The message was one syllable spoken by the sweetest voice in the world. “No.”
“Thank you, baby,” he whispered. He somehow knew Kitty wasn’t capable of cheating on him, not with her moral code. Phone-tag. He left another message. “It’s Josh. I didn’t think so, baby. Thanks.”
Kitty heard and whispered, “You’re welcome,” into the lonely night.
“Hey, Pet.” Josh had finally gotten through to Kitty’s cousin.
“JC! Where have you been?”
“Me? On tour.”
“And you haven’t talked to Kitty.”
He bristled at the slight accusatory tone Pet had used. “I musta left a couple dozen phone messages for her. It’s kinda hard to talk to someone who won’t pick up. “
“What’s going on? Kitty’s been quiet and – well, sort of mopey for more than two weeks.”
“She walked out on me.”
“She what!” Pet was disbelieving. “I’ve never seen two people more in love than you and Kitty.”
“That’s what I thought, too.”
There was a large sigh on Pet’s end of the line. “What a twit. I wonder what bee’s in her bonnet.”
“If you find out, could you tell me?”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“She never said. I know I messed up, moving her into my place, but she never said anything about it. She wrote me a note saying she was moving out. I got there in time, but I couldn’t stop her.”
“That’s all?”
“Not quite. Kit basically told me she wished none of it had ever happened.”
The hurt in his voice was not lost on Pet. “I know that’s not true. She adores you.”
“Past tense.”
“I’d bet good money it’s present tense, too. If it wasn’t, she wouldn’t be going around looking like a pathetic bloodhound.”
“Pet, is she okay?” She may have left him, but that didn’t stop Josh from worrying about his wife.
“I don’t think so. Something’s been eating at her. I think, I’m going to have to rattle her cage a little.”
“You can tell her for me, I’d move heaven, earth and hell, if she’d just love me.”
“She already loves you, JC.”
“I want to believe that.” Josh stared down at the two rings he carried everywhere he went these days. Kitty’s engagement ring and wedding ring were never far from his sight. “But I’ve got her rings…”
“I couldn’t figure that one out. She left her rings behind?”
“Took them off right in front of me.”
“Just wait until I get a hold of her tonight…”
“Don’t be too rough on her, Pet. I just need to know what’s wrong, so I can make it right again.”
“I’ll have her call you.”
For the first time in weeks, Josh felt hopeful. If Kitty would open up to anyone, it would be Pet. The two were practically sisters. “I really would appreciate that.”
“I’ve got to go now, JC. Don’t give up on Kitty. She’s thick sometimes, but she isn’t stupid.”
“Thanks for listening and trying to help.”
“What are cousins for?”
“You’re a fool,” Pet told her cousin when Kitty finally confessed she had left Josh.
Kitty bristled. “I thought you would understand.”
“Understand what? You walked away from the man you love – a man who is so totally in love with you if a naked Playmate of the year walked by he wouldn’t even blink.”
“It isn’t working. It never has.”
“Then fix it.”
“I can’t fix it.”
Kitty rose and went outside to lean against the porch rail. She had always felt at peace here where it was quiet and green. But there was no peace to be found.
“What’s broken, Kitty?” Pet followed and asked quietly.
“Everything.”
“Could you be a little more specific?”
“We hardly have any time together – and when we finally do, it seems we spend it in bed.”
“Oh, so now JC’s a lousy lover.” On their wedding day, Pet recalled how enthusiastic Kitty had been about being Josh’s lover.
“No!” Kitty protested. She couldn’t imagine a more wonderful partner.
“He’s thoughtless?”
“No…”
“He beats you?”
“Of course not!”
“Hate to say it, cuz, but I’m not hearing any negatives.”
“I never should have married him. What did we really know about each other? It was all hormones—“
“Crap,” Pet stated succinctly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Crap. Garbage. Horse pucky.” Pet leaned on the rail opposite her cousin. “If it was only hormones, you could have just slept with him and got it out of your system.”
“I could not!”
“Why not?”
“I was saving myself—“
“For the love of your life, the man you married.” Pet shrugged. “I’ve seen you with attractive men, men better looking than JC and with a lot more going for them—“
“You have not! Josh is damn near perfect!”
Pet raised an eyebrow. “Eh? Then the hormone argument doesn’t wash. Give me the real reason.”
“I hate the fact her expects me to live in the house he bought to be with someone else, that he wants to make love to me in that bed he shared with her.”
“Does he know that?” When Kitty mere looked at her, Pet had her answer.” “Don’t expect a guy to know these sorts of things, Kitty. Men just aren’t hard-wired that way. All JC knows is that he loves you no matter where he is.” Pet grinned. “I’d be willing to bet the gross of your last movie, that if you told him what you just told me, he’d sell the house and burn the bed.” Since her last movie was doing very well, they were talking a fairly large wager.
Kitty managed a sad smile. “That’s just a part of it, Pet.”
“But that’s the part that made you walk?”
Kitty nodded.
“You love JC and you want to be with him. I say you need to help him understand what’s wrong. He’s willing to work on it. I know he is.”
“And you know this exactly how?”
“He called me this afternoon. He said he’d do anything to make you love him again.”
“I never said I stopped loving him.”
Pet reached for Kitty’s right had and held it up. “You took off your rings and left them behind. That pretty much tells a man he isn’t loved.”
“It’s just so many things…”
“Then make a list. It isn’t like you to walk away, Kitty. You’ve never been the type.”
“I’ve never been this hurt or confused—“
“Or more in love. Love does make you vulnerable to another person’s failings as well as his strengths.” Pet reached over and handed the portable telephone to Kitty. “Call him. Talk to him for God’s sake.” Then she went into the house.
Kitty stood there a long time, staring out over the woods that made Pet’s home a secluded haven. She’d never considered herself a quitter or a coward, but she’d rather climb that old three-story pine tree from her childhood than call Josh. Wouldn’t her fears sound petty? Could he understand the shadow she felt between them? He didn’t know the entire story – and neither did Pet.
“I don’t hear any dialing going on!” Pet declared through the screen door. “If you forgot the number—“
“I know the number,” Kitty grumbled. Josh’s cellphone number was burned into her memory.
“Then call him already!”
“Nag!”
“Stubborn mule!”
With a helpless sigh, Kitty punched in Josh’s cellphone number.
“JC,” Josh answered the chime of his phone.
“Hi.”
“Kitty?” Disbelieving, he sat up straighter on the bus seat. “Sweetness, I—“
“Just let me talk, okay?” Before she lost her nerve.
“Sure, baby.”
“I think we need to talk about this.”
“Name the place.”
“If I’m not mistaken, you can’t exactly go traipsing all over right now.”
“Kit, I’ll be wherever you need me to be.”
“Right here, right now,” she whispered brokenly.
Josh heard the catch of tears in her voice. “That’s where I wanna be, too. Tell me where you are, sweetness. I’ll get there.”
“I think that would make for some very unhappy fans – like tens of thousands.”
“The fans mean a lot, but you’re my life, Kit.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You are.”
“Josh…”
“Please, baby, help me here. I need you to tell me what to do.”
“Love me.”
”With everything in me,” he promised. If God would only bring Kitty back to him…
“You’ll be in Phoenix tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah, but, sweetness, I’ll get off this damned bus right now—“
“No, I’ll—“
There was a tremendous static and Josh lost Kitty’s voice in the noise. He panicked when silence greeted him from the other side of the connection. “Kitty!…Baby, are you still there?” Still silence. No!
Once at the hotel, Josh dialed Pet’s number. “Pet, let me talk to Kitty,” Josh demanded anxiously.
“She isn’t here.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know. After she talked to you, she came in, grabbed her purse, then took off like she was on fire.”
“We were talking and the connection went haywire and I lost her. She isn’t answering her cell, either.”
“I’m in the mountains. Cell connections don’t always do well out here.”
“What am I gonna do?”
“Sit tight. Prayer might help,” Pet suggested. “Or maybe cross you fingers and toes.”
“Pet, did she tell you what’s wrong?”
“Some of it. I think she was leaving a huge chunk out. Something…well, just seemed missing. Don’t ask me to tell you. I think it’s Kitty’s place, not mine.”
“Is it salvageable?”
“I’d say so. If you’re both willing to listen and compromise.”
“She’s my wife and I love her. If it’s in my power, I’ll do it.”
“Then I think it just may work.”