Driving Miss Catherine

Heikki sat in the waiting room of the Helsinki Airport. He checked the time again, and made sure the flight was on time, before he returned to reading a newspaper someone had left behind. It was yesterday’s paper, but he read it anyway. Or, looked at it, rather. His mind was far away as he tried to figure out how he was going to deal with this problem.

First, there was the strange phone call with Albert. He never really liked Albert, and didn’t understand why his mom wanted to do business with him (besides the fact that he had money). Then, he’d had to request leave from the navy. Heikki was just starting to feel like he was making a place for himself without his mother’s influence, and was starting to break free from her control.

But here he was, on leave from the job he was starting to like, helping his mother one last time. After this, he wouldn’t be dragged back into her schemes, no matter what kind of hold she had on him. At this point, her reputation had been sullied enough that whatever she claimed about him would most likely be taken with a grain of salt. Besides, that was years ago and he was young- most people would forgive him for his careless mistakes in his youth.

The second reason he let his mother drag him into this again, was Cat. When he heard she’d spent all of her father’s money on her new boyfriend, and ended up accidentally ruining this deal his mom and Albert had been working on, he felt bad for having dragged her into it. Now he had to get her out of it. She called him in tears a few nights ago, and he could tell she was trying to sound like she wasn’t crying. Cat said she wanted to try giving him a second chance, and she forgave him for everything. He knew her dad was behind this, and he hoped the two of them (Cat and Heikki), could work something out.

He heard her flight number being announced and stood up to meet her. He put his on his white hat and straightened out his uniform as he waited for Cat to get through customs. She was looking down at her phone and pulling her suitcase behind her and didn’t even see Heikki waiting for her, so she walked right past him.

“Cat!” He called out to her and she froze. She slowly turned around to face him, and he made sure to give her one of his best smiles.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” she after looking him over for a minute.

He shrugged and caught up to her. “I thought I would meet you here, just makes it easier. Let me take your bag for you.” He took the handle of her suitcase and they continued walking toward the exit. He showed her to his car and they drove to her hotel. He wasn’t sure what to say to her, and she didn’t seem like talking either, so they were silent the whole car ride.

“Thank you,” Cat finally said. He’d carried her suitcase up to her room, and didn’t really know what to do. They needed to talk, but he really didn’t know how much she already knew, or what was going on.

“No problem, it wasn’t really that hard for me to carry your bag up here.”

“No, I mean for agreeing to see me again.” Cat bit her lip to keep it from trembling.

Heikki smiled and tried to look comforting, but really he felt bad for her. He wanted to give her a hug and tell her everything would be all right, but he couldn’t promise that. “Why wouldn’t I want to see you? I would never turn down a visit from my favorite Cat.”

“After everything that happened, I thought maybe we could start over.” She pressed her lips together and forced a smile.

“Listen, Cat, we don’t have to do this. If you think you have to pretend-”

“I’m not pretending; I really think we should give this a second shot.”

Heikki sighed. “So you left your racecar driver boyfriend for your crazy ex who tried to get you pregnant because his mom told you to? Really miss Catherine, no one’s going to believe that. If we’re going to pass for a couple we’ve got to try harder.”

His bluntness caught her off guard. Cat had really thought she’d convinced him she still had feelings for him, and that perhaps she had fixed things. She hung her head and slumped on the bed. “So you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” he sat next to her and hesitated before wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “Your dad wishes we’d never broken up, and my mom is furious at your dad. Somehow, us dating might have made things better.”

“He thinks you’re better than Seb, somehow. And he’s never liked that I’m dating Seb. I never told him, but he just knows. He knows everything.”

“Speaking of whom, what does Vettel know about all of this?”

At the mention of his name, Cat broke down and began sobbing about Seb, and Kevin, and how everything was falling apart. She leaned into Heikki and let him wrap his arms around her until she felt safe and secure.

“He thinks I’m in New York meeting with my advisor about my final project, which is where I’m supposed to be right now. I accidentally told Kevin, but that’s only because I started crying after I kissed him. I’m sure he thinks I’m crazy now.” Cat forgot how easy it was to talk to Heikki. He made you feel like the only person that was important to him. She’d forgotten how nice that felt, especially since Seb had been so distracted with F1 these past few months. She rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, letting his warmth and secure embrace erase her worries. He wasn’t the monster she’d made him out to be in her head.

“Maybe we should start making plans for dinner tomorrow. Our parents want to meet with us, and we should probably get our story straight.” Heikki reluctantly broke the silence and ended the moment between them. It was a short, but special moment.

As Cat lifted her head off his shoulder, she thought ‘maybe it won’t be so hard to pretend to be his girlfriend after all.’ She smiled and relaxed as some of her worry and anxiety was melted away with those gorgeous blue eyes of his. “So, should we try to convince them we’ve gotten back together?”

“I was thinking we should say we never broke up.” Heikki suggested and Cat looked at him questioningly. “Like, publicly, we broke up so my mom would stop pursuing her crazy plan to knock you up and steal your money. But we were secretly in love and kept talking all these months.”

Cat thought about it for a minute. It seemed crazy. “Why would I date Seb if I was still in love with you?”

“Can’t a girl love two guys at once?”

His offhanded question hit Cat harder than she thought. Was it possible? “I’m sure some girls could, but not me. I’d never had a serious boyfriend until I met you, and then Seb came along...I guess it could be convincing, but I’m not really that kind of girl.”

“Okay, but we’ll have a lot of catching up to do.” Heikki smiled and launched into a detailed account of his time in the navy over the past few months and the two ended up talking well into the night.

When it came Cat’s turn to recount her past couple months she yawned. “Perhaps we should continue this tomorrow.”

Heikki stood up and moved away from her bed. “You’re right, perhaps I should go.”

“No, you should stay here. If we’re supposed to be secret lovers, it would make sense you’d spend the night.”

“I-okay.” Heikki looked around the small hotel room and wondered if he’d be taking the couch.

“I’ll just take a shower quickly, and then we’ll go to bed, okay?” Cat slipped into the shower and Heikki set about making up the couch into a slightly usable bed. He removed most of his uniform and decided to sleep in his undershirt and boxers, when Cat emerged from the bathroom in her pajamas. They were the warm, unsexy kind of pajamas, and Heikki was thankful for that. Whatever he might have felt for her, he knew their pretend relationship was nothing more than that.

“What are you doing over there? That couch is far too small for you. This bed is more than big enough for the two of us. We can be grown ups about this.” Cat climbed into bed and would not hear his protests so he gave in and slipped into the other side of the bed far from Cat. He heard her fall asleep quickly, her breath falling into a rhythm, and it reminded him of the one night they had spent together. How they’d spent little time sleeping as they made love time after time. How he fought with his mother the next morning, before ultimately being forced to fulfil the last part of her mission. How Cat had caught him stealing her birth control, and switching it for the fertility pills. How sad and betrayed she had looked before she left. How empty and alone he felt on his return to Finland.

Heikki did not sleep well that night, but Cat seemed to awake feeling refreshed and reenergized, as one should after sleeping. They headed over to his place to pick up some clothes and stopped to get some breakfast first. Cat told him most of the details of her exciting time with Ferrari, leaving out the unimportant parts about Seb, or Kevin, and tried to get him up to date with any information he might need to convincingly be her secret lover.

When they got to his apartment they were still chatting as they walked up the stairs to his room. When they reached the top of the stairs, his mom appeared in a robe and looked very surprised to see him.

“What are you doing here?” Heikki asked and reached over to hold Cat’s hand, as if they were a couple and it was the most normal thing for him to do. But before she could answer, someone emerged from the room behind her, tying a robe around his waist.

Cat blinked a few times. She could not believe what she was seeing. “Dad?!!?” She let go of Heikki’s hand took a step back, almost falling down the stairs, but Heikki caught her. Her head was spinning and she clung to Heikki’s arm and tried to figure out what was going on.

Heikki seemed equally confused as Cat, so she assumed this was not part of the plan. They both looked back and forth between their parents and waited for an explanation, but everyone seemed too surprised to say anything.

“We, er, we were going to tell you tonight,” Albert looked over at Mina at his side, and realized she wasn’t going to help him out. “We’re in a relationship.”