Keep Me in Your Heart (16 page)

Trisha gathered the eight patients on the list one by one and wheeled them into the exercise room, where a cheerful aerobics instructor led them in stretching exercises and coordination drills. Some could barely lift their arms. Trisha helped one woman grip a one-pound barbell and curl it to her chest. The woman offered a wide toothless grin when she succeeded in doing one curl all on her own.

After the exercise class, Trisha folded and stacked towels and linen in the laundry room. It was after five when she wheeled the last of her charges into the main cafeteria for supper and went looking for Christina. “She’s with Mr. Tappin,” Mrs. Kimble said when Trisha asked about her friend. “Honestly, that old man won’t do anything for anybody except her. Why, I’ve seen him shove his tray on the floor if he doesn’t like the person who comes in to feed him. He won’t feed himself. Why, he’d starve to death if we didn’t poke food in his mouth three times a day.” She shook her head, muttering to herself. “Alzheimer’s is a mean condition. Yes, it surely is.”

Trisha went to Mr. Tappin’s room and stopped at the doorway. Christina was on her
knees in front of the old man’s wheelchair, patiently feeding him spoonfuls of mashed potatoes. Trisha heard Christina saying, “Now open up wide. This stuff is so yummy. And if you finish all your supper, I’ll read you a story.”

The old man stared straight ahead but opened his mouth. Although he closed his lips over the spoon, the potatoes oozed out of the sides of his mouth and dribbled down his chin. Christina dabbed his chin with a napkin and offered another spoonful. Trisha watched, mesmerized. Christina never ran out of patience, and the old man opened his mouth obediently whenever she asked. Mrs. Kimble was right: Christina had a gift for working with the old man.

After they left the nursing home, the girls stopped for burgers before going home. “I don’t know how you do it,” Trisha said, nibbling on fries. “That place makes me sad.”

Christina smiled and shrugged. “I like to help. I’ve sometimes thought about going into nursing.”

“You’d be good at it.”

“Vermont has a nursing program,” Christina added. “Mrs. Kimble says that some of the smaller hospitals are letting surgical nurses
help with routine surgeries. That means lending a hand to the surgeon, maybe even closing a patient.”

“You mean like sewing somebody up?” Trisha made a face. She didn’t find anything appealing about blood and wounds.

Christina laughed. “Somebody has to do it. Why not me?”

“If that’s what you really want to do, you should do it.” Trisha sipped her cola. “Does this mean you’re taking the Vermont scholarship?”

Christina’s smile faded. “I’m still not sure about that yet.”

Trisha told her about the conversation she’d had with Tucker days before. “He wants me to talk you out of going, but I won’t do it. If anything, I’m telling you to go.”

Christina looked resigned. “He’s been putting pressure on me for sure. He makes me feel like I’ll be deserting him. He doesn’t see it as a possible future for both of us.”

“Why do you put up with it? With him? You don’t have to.”

“I’ve known Tucker for more than half my life. He’s just always been there for me.”

“You want loyalty? Get a dog. Tucker’s immature and manipulative.”

Christina dipped her head; her blond hair fell forward, covering her face. “Don’t say mean things about him, please. He loves me and he doesn’t mean to hurt me.”

“But you’re not happy. Maybe the perfect guy is out there—maybe in Vermont—who’ll love you and treat you right.”

“I think about that too.” Christina raised her head. Her blue eyes looked serious. “When Tucker’s sweet to me, when he’s kind, he makes me feel better than any other person in the world. I can’t imagine a day going by and not seeing him or talking to him. He knows what I’m thinking, he knows what I’m feeling, sometimes just by looking at me. It’s hard to explain.”

Trisha thought Christina’s explanation sounded creepy, but didn’t tell her so. At a nearby table, a group of guys horsed around, blowing the paper casings off their straws and slapping the table surface with flattened palms.
They’re flirting
, she thought. And why not? They’d caught sight of Christina.

“You make him sound like Santa Claus,”
Trisha said with a sigh. “ ‘He knows when you’ve been bad or good.…’ ”

This made Christina laugh. “You can turn the most serious moments into jokes, Trisha. How do you do it?”

“It’s a gift. So what do you want me to tell you? Stay with Tucker and spend the rest of your life on his roller coaster? Go to Vermont and see how you feel about him after he’s not in your face every waking minute? Both are options.”

“You’re lucky. You see things in black and white. I don’t. But I am working on it. I just need time to sort through it all. All right?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Just be my friend. Don’t take so many potshots at Tucker. It only hurts my feelings.”

Trisha sighed. That was the difference between them—she was a take-no-prisoners kind of person and Christina had a heart the size of Texas. “One more thing, then I promise to shut up about it,” she said. “Don’t let who you’re with define who you are. Sorry if that sounds corny, but it’s what I think.”

“Is that your absolute final word on the matter?”

“Well, maybe for tonight.” Trisha grinned. “Now, turn around and smile at those guys at the table over there before they break their necks trying to get your attention. It’s the humanitarian thing to do, you know.”

Three
 

O
n Thursday, a blizzard blew across northern Indiana, shutting down school for two days. Trisha was going stir-crazy when Cody surprised her, arriving on skis the afternoon the snow-plows were digging out the town and rural roads. “Ski patrol!” he shouted from her front porch.

She squealed, yanked open the front door, and threw her arms around him. “I can’t believe this! Come in! I’ll fix hot chocolate. How long did it take you to get here?”

He released his skis and propped them on the porch. “About thirty minutes across the fields. The snow must be three feet deep. And some hot chocolate would be great.”

She took him downstairs to the family room, where she’d already established a comfort zone with pillows and blankets in front of a cozy fire, and a stack of videos. “If I have to watch
The Matrix
one more time, I’ll go crazy,” she said. They’d only lost power for an hour on the first day of the storm. Now there was nothing to do but wait until crews cleared the roads.

“But it’s such a cool movie,” Charlie piped up.

“Get lost,” Trisha told him.

“No way.”

She pointed to the stairs. “Hike, buster.”

“I’ll tell Mom.”

Their parents were upstairs in the kitchen doing some kind of project. “She’ll back me. Cody’s gone to extreme effort to be with me, not you.”

“There’s nothing to do up there!”

“You have ten games for your PlayStation. I got you one for Christmas—”

“Hold it.” Cody stepped between Trisha and Charlie. “Tell you what, sport. Give Trisha and me some time together, and I’ll come up and play a round of Spider-Man with you.”

Charlie considered the offer. “Just an hour?”

Trisha rolled her eyes. “Blackmailer.”

“One hour.” Cody set the alarm on his watch.

“You two going to get all kissy-kissy?” Charlie made a face like a fish puckering its lips.

“Hit the road,” Trisha said, picking up a pillow to throw at her kid brother.

“One hour!” Charlie bounded up the stairs, making sucking sounds.

“He’s such a brat,” Trisha said, flopping onto a row of pillows.

“Well, he’s right about one thing. I am going to kiss you.” Cody swept her into his arms.

His kiss was long and deep and Trisha felt her knees go weak. He pulled back and touched her cheek tenderly. “That was worth braving the cold for.”

“Thank you for rescuing me,” she said, laying her cheek against his chest. His wool sweater felt scratchy and smelled of cinnamon.

“Now about that hot chocolate …”

She went upstairs and into the kitchen, where her father had a dismantled garbage disposal spread over the kitchen table. Her mother stirred a large pot of soup on the stove. “Cody’s here,” Trisha said.

“You don’t say,” her mother said. “And in all this snow too. How gallant.”

“Ah, love,” her father said. “Ain’t it beautiful?”

Trisha ignored their teasing and poured milk and cocoa mix into a mug and put it into the microwave. “Can he stay for supper?”

“Of course.”

“The roads should be clear enough for me to drive him home tonight,” her father said.

Trisha had half hoped that her parents would let Cody sleep on the sofa downstairs. He had once before, and she had sneaked down in the middle of the night and snuggled in his arms until dawn. Nothing had happened between them, but it had felt really good to be held, to hear him breathing softly in her ear. Her parents would have killed her if they’d known. The microwave beeped and she carried the cup down to the basement, where Cody was flipping through a stack of CDs.

They plopped on the sofa and Cody drained the chocolate in about two gulps. “Thirsty?” she asked.

He grinned. “It was a long trek.”

“I’m glad you came.”

“I couldn’t help myself. I kept seeing you with my arms around you.”

She felt like melting. “You thought about being with me for two days straight?”

“That and your mother’s cooking,” he added, nuzzling her ear.

She pinched him hard, and next thing they were wrestling and laughing. When the alarm on his watch sounded, she was disappointed. She didn’t want to give him up to Charlie.

“Duty calls,” Cody said, turning off the alarm.

“Hey, Cody! Time’s up!” Charlie called from the top of the stairs.

“This from a kid who can’t remember which entrance of the school to wait in front of when I go to pick him up,” Trisha grumbled.

Cody kissed her. “Be back in a bit.”

Trisha sighed, immediately bored. She picked up the phone and called Christina. “Guess what?” she said when her friend answered. Trisha told her about Cody’s arrival on skis.

“Lucky you. I’m stuck here with my parents. And all Dad does is pressure me to accept the Vermont offer, while Tucker’s begging me to stay around.”

“But you
have
to go to college,” Trisha said.

“Oh, I’ll go, but maybe not so far away. Honestly, I think my parents want to get rid of me.”

“No way. They just don’t want you to pass up a golden opportunity.”

“Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“Yours,” Trisha said, meaning it with all her heart. “When do you have to decide for sure?”

“By the end of February.”

“That’s next month.”

“Tell me about it.”

They hung up, and when Cody finally returned from his game with Charlie, Trisha told him about the conversation. “Tucker’s being really selfish,” she said. “Did you ever say anything to him?”

“A little.” He didn’t meet her eyes.

“What? You’re not telling me everything.”

“He wants to double next Friday night. Thought it would be fun if we went to the Henderson game with him and Chrissy.”

Henderson was a town thirty miles away and its high school was one of Mooresville’s chief athletic rivals. The Mooresville basketball team, the Fighting Scots, had won seven of their last ten matches. This time, the game was on Henderson’s court.

“I like Chrissy and I love you,” Trisha said. “Do we have to take Tucker with us?”

Cody laughed. “It was his idea, remember?”

She made a face. “It’s all right with me. Maybe our presence will help Tucker stay off Chrissy’s case.”

“Tuck will drive. I’ll come here and they can pick us up together.”

“You know he almost started a riot at the Chesterton game.”

“That was last year. I’m sure he’s going to behave himself at this one.”

She laced her fingers through Cody’s. The air between them felt charged, like electricity without an outlet. Her internal radar went off. Something wasn’t right. “Are you sure you’re telling me everything?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You found another girl you want to date and you want to break up with me.” She blurted out her deepest fear, not believing it, but using it to make him open up.

“No way.” He gave her a disgusted look. “I don’t want to ever break up with you.”

“Okay, it was a reach, but I know there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Do I look that guilty?”

“You look like you want to tell me something but don’t know how.”

He looked sheepish. “I never could fool you.”

“Why would you want to?”

“Because I told Tucker I wouldn’t say anything. He made me promise.”

“But you want to tell me, don’t you?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Is it about him and Christina?”

Cody nodded. “I wish Tuck had never told me. It’s like carrying around a ticking time bomb.”

By now, curiosity was eating Trisha alive. “I can keep a secret,” she told him.

“Better than me, I hope.”

“I won’t say anything.”

“You can’t tell Chrissy.” Cody’s expression was serious, challenging.