Kiss the Girls

post-med-school budget. Occasionally KFC or Arby’s.”
    “You have a hot date tonight?” I asked her in my usual kidding tone. I wondered who was kidding whom, though.
    She casually took my arm in the crook of hers. “As a matter of fact, maybe I do. You look nice tonight. Very dashing, very cool.”
    I had abandoned my usual
bas couture
look, too. I’d decided on dashing and cool instead.
    I don’t remember much about the car ride to the Durham restaurant, except that we talked all the way. We never had any trouble talking. I don’t exactly remember the meal, except that it was very good regional/continental grub. I have the recollection of Muscovy duck, of blueberries and plums in whipped cream.
    What I remember most clearly is Kate sitting with one arm propped on the table, her face resting easily on the back of her hand. A very nice picture-portrait. I remember Kate taking off the yellow scarf at one point during dinner. “Too much,” she said and grinned.
    “I have a new pet theory, theory du jour, about the two of us. I think it’s right. Do you want to hear it?” she asked me. She was in a good mood, in spite of the harrowing and frustrating investigation. We both were.
    “Nah,” said the wiseguy in me, the part afraid of too much in the way of emotions. Lately, anyway.
    Kate wisely ignored me and went on with her theory. “I’ll start… Alex, we’re both really, really afraid of attachments right now in our lives. That’s obvious. We’re both
too
afraid, I think.” She was carefully leading the way. She sensed this was difficult territory for me, and she was right.
    I sighed. I didn’t know if I wanted to get into any of this right now, but I plunged ahead. “Kate, I haven’t told you much about Maria…. We were very much in love when she died. It was like that between us for six years. This isn’t selective memory on my part. I used to tell myself, ‘God I’m unbelievably lucky I found this person.’ Maria felt the same way.” I smiled. “Or so she told me. So yes, I
am
afraid of attachments. Mostly I’m afraid of losing someone I love that much again.”
    “I’m afraid of losing someone else, too, Alex,” Kate said in a soft voice. I could barely hear her words. Sometimes she seemed shy, and it was touching. “There’s a magical line in
The Pawnbroker,
magical to me, anyway. ‘Everything I loved was taken away from me, and I did not die.’”
    I took her hand and kissed it lightly. I felt an overwhelming tenderness toward Kate at that moment. “I know the line,” I said.
    I could see anxiety in her dark brown eyes. Maybe we both needed to take this thing forward, whatever was beginning to happen between us, whatever the risk might be.
    “Can I tell you something else? One more true confession that doesn’t come easily? This is a bad one,” she said.
    “I want to hear it. Of course I do. Anything you want to tell me.”
    “I’m afraid I’m going to die just like my sisters, that I’ll get cancer, too. At my age, I’m a medical time bomb. Oh, Alex, I’m afraid to get close to someone, and then get sick on them.” Kate let out a long, deep breath. It was obviously a hard thing for her to say.
    We held hands for a long time in the restaurant. We sipped port wine. We were both a little quiet, letting powerful new feelings wash over us, getting used to them.
    After dinner we went back to her apartment in Chapel Hill. The first thing I did was to check around for uninvited houseguests. I had tried to talk her into a hotel room during the car ride, but, as usual, Kate said no. I remained paranoid about Casanova and his games.
    “You’re so damn stubborn,” I told her as we both checked all the doors and windows.
    “Fiercely independent is a much better description,” Kate countered. “It comes with the black belt in karate. Second degree. Watch yourself.”
    “I am.” I laughed. “I’ve also got eighty pounds on you.”
    Kate shook her head. “Won’t be enough.”
    “You’re probably right.” I laughed out loud.
    No one was hiding in the apartment on Old Ladies Lane. No one was there except the two of us. Maybe that was the scariest thing of all.
    “Please don’t run off now. Stay for a while. Unless you want to or have to,” Kate said to me. I was still standing in her kitchen. My hands were awkwardly jammed into my pockets.
    “I’ve got nowhere I’d rather be,” I told her. I was feeling a little nervous and keyed up.
    “I have a bottle