(Waiting For) Heather (Part Two)

Katie called and I just let her talk. She’d broken up with Bill again, so I was treated to yet another account of what a jerk he was, familiar words that would be conveniently forgotten when they got back together in a month or so. I waited until there was a slight pause well into the conversation to serve up my strained attempt at a casual question. So, hey, did Heather ever show up?

Heather? Oh, yeah, Heather’s here. I’ve got her in my car right now. She lowered the phone and there was a brief, unintelligible exchange punctuated by giggles. Are you going to be home later?

She didn’t seem to be listening. Gotta go. See you later.

It wasn’t unreasonable then, was it, for me to think that they might be over that night? But what was unreasonable was that I was still waiting in my living room at midnight, jumping up to crane out the window every time headlights stabbed down my street, still hoping long after I knew that there was no way in the world they were coming.

Of course I should have known better than to expect Katie to arrive on schedule. The same Katie whose organizational skills and discipline had propelled her to the top of her law school class and made her the rising star of her law firm was often unable to meet the simplest of obligations to her friends. She was never less than fifteen minutes late for even the most carefully planned meeting and just as likely never to show up at all.

But there I was the next night and the next, popping up at the noise of a car or the ring of the telephone, and then dejectedly sitting down again. Katie had e-mailed me, apologizing and promising to bring Heather over "soon." I knew enough about her schedule to be fairly certain when to expect her and when not to, but my brain couldn’t seem to process the information, bound by nerves stretched tight as bowstrings, each second dripping down relentlessly. I felt like I was standing on ground zero, in the middle of something that hadn’t happened yet, the air around me charged and buzzing, filled with a strange clarity.

The other thing was that after I talked to Katie I realized that I missed her very much, too. After all, she and I had more than memories between us, an actual, if intermittent relationship, one that seemed to be on the verge of heating up again. I started remembering how good it could be between us, picturing all the things I’d tried to push out of my head when I knew she was with Bill.

They say the best way to condition rats is to reinforce them only occasionally – they’ll keep pushing that lever forever if something good comes out once in a while. That was part of Katie’s difficult charm. Just when you were about to give up on her she came through.