Driving Miss Catherine

Second Chance

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.”