The girl who had taken the call had spoken to the operator, but she hadn't bothered to tell Kate that the call was long distance and not from her mother. It was the first time he had ever called. “What a surprise!” she said, blushing intensely, but fortunately he couldn't see it. “Happy Thanksgiving, Joe.”
“The same to you, Kate. How's everything at school?” He made reference to some outrageous story she had told him, and they both laughed. But she was surprised by how nervous she felt speaking to him.
Something about their letters had made them both more vulnerable, and unwittingly more open to each other, and it was odd now talking to him.
“Everything's fine. I'm going home tomorrow. Actually, I thought you were my mother. I'm going to be home all weekend.” She had already written that to him, but it was something to say in the silence on the line.
“I know.” At his end, he was as nervous as she was. He felt like a kid again, in spite of all his efforts to appear confident with her.
“I was calling to see if you'd like to have dinner.” He held his breath while he waited for her answer.
“Dinner?” She sounded suddenly off balance,“… Where?… when?… are you coming in from California?” She felt breathless as she asked.
“I'm already here actually. This trip came up at the last minute. Charles is in town, and I needed some advice from him. I'm having dinner with him tonight, and I could come up from New York sometime this weekend.” In truth, he could have waited for his mentor's advice, but he had wanted an excuse to come east, and had conveniently found it.
He told himself it didn't mean anything, he was just coming to see a friend, and if she was too busy to see him, he would go back to California. But he hadn't asked her before he'd come east, because he thought it might be more compelling if he was already there when he called. It had been a clever ploy, and an effective one, but in truth he didn't really need it. She would have been thrilled to see him, and tried to keep her voice steady and unaffected as she answered.
“When do you want to come? I'd love to see you.” It was the voice of a friend, not of a woman who revered him. They were both playing their parts well, though not without a certain degree of challenge. This was new to him, and to her too. She had never had a grown man pursue her, and he had never before had these terrifyingly unfamiliar feelings for anyone.
