Keep Me in Your Heart (35 page)

“Do it!” Nathan took off running, catching up to Lisa’s cycle just as she was revving the engine. He threw his leg over the seat behind her.

“Get off!”

“No way.”

She hesitated. “You’ll slow me down. We’ll end up in jail.”

“I’m riding with you.”

“Off, Malone.”

“You’d better move it.”

“You don’t have a helmet.”

“Then you’ll just have to drive real careful.”

The field was almost empty of cars now, and the red cast of the firetruck’s lights could be seen swirling in the gloom, hurtling across the field toward the bonfire that glowed and crackled against the dark ground and pale, thickening fog.

“Hang on,” Lisa ordered. Leaning forward, she aimed the big Harley in the opposite direction from the fast-approaching truck. In seconds, Nathan was flying through the night, his arms holding her to him.

N
athan hunkered down, hanging tight. Riding the Harley was like riding a wild horse, the ground so bumpy that he thought his teeth would jar loose. The dark night surrounded them, and all Nathan saw were blurs of branches shooting past as Lisa kept close to a tree line parallel to a fence. Eventually she hit a dirt road, pelting them with gravel as she turned onto it. The cycle finally hit the solid asphalt of the highway and the ride smoothed.

Nathan watched the white line of the road streak below his feet. His head filled with the noise of the machine and the aroma of her leather jacket. He was freezing, but also wild with the pleasure of the ride and the nearness of Lisa. He would have ridden to the ends of the earth with her, certain that he’d never experienced a greater high than this moment in time.

Lights began to fly past and he realized that they were back in civilization. The cycle slowed, turned again and stopped under glaring lights in a gas station. They both sat on the machine and breathed hard. Slowly the sound of a country song from a nearby car broke into Nathan’s consciousness, bringing him back to earth.

“You can let go now,” Lisa said.

Unable to feel his cold-numbed fingers, he did so stiffly. He got off the bike, flexed. “We made it.” He grinned.

She dismounted the cycle, brushed past him. “I need gas.”

He took the pump handle from her, reached into his pocket and pulled out money. “How much?”

“I can buy my own gas.”

“I owe you. I invited myself along.”

She took a ten-dollar bill from him and headed for the building. Nathan filled the Harley’s tank, staring at the beautifully airbrushed red heart emblazoned with her name in fancy letters on a purple ribbon. He’d never felt more alive. Being close to Lisa had awakened him, and he tried to think of a way to keep the feeling going. He glanced around, caught sight of a huge bookstore directly across the street—the kind that stayed open extra late.

She returned, handed him his change just as the pump clicked off. “Can you call your friend to come get you?”

He felt a moment of panic. “Can’t I bum a ride
home? I don’t live too far from Crestwater. Don’t you have to head that way to get home yourself?”

“Afraid I’ll dump you out here, Malone?”

“Terrified,” he answered truthfully, but kept his tone unemotional. “How about some coffee? I’m cold, aren’t you?” He gestured across the street and watched emotions he couldn’t read cross her face.

“I need to be going.…”

“Come on. It’s warm in there. A cup of coffee. What can it hurt?”

Inside the bookstore, which smelled of newly printed books and fresh lemon oil, he bought them each a mug of mocha coffee, then found two easy chairs among the stacks. He watched Lisa sip from her cup and fumbled for a thread of conversation. “You did a brave thing back at the party, standing up to Roddy.”

“You’re the one who almost got his head knocked off.”

“Thanks for intervening. He would have killed me and Skeet and never thought twice about it.”

She smiled over the top of her cup, and it was as if someone had turned on a current through his body. “Rod’s a bully. He’s big, dumb and drunk. In the morning all he’ll be is sober.”

Nathan grinned. “But still big and dumb?”

“Count on it.” She warmed her hands around the cup. “Why did he go after Skeet?”

Nathan shrugged. “I guess because he can. I heard you stood him up last year for the prom. Why?”

She arched an eyebrow. “Because I could.” He laughed and she added, “Football season will be over soon and Rod will fade into the background. He won’t have staying power, believe me.”

Nathan wanted to take her hands in his, but he hesitated. What if she wouldn’t stand for it? He asked, “So what kind of music do you like?” She named a couple of bands. “I’m into country,” he said. “Not the twangy kind, but the modern kind.”

“You mean those songs about somebody doing somebody wrong?”

“I think of them as songs from the heart about life. Skeet and I play in my garage and work up some juice. He’s on keyboard. I play guitar. I—um—I’ve written a few songs myself. Don’t expect them to go platinum or anything.” She looked more interested. Of course. She liked to write too.

“Ever get any bookings?”

“Not since Morgan Frey’s ninth birthday party. Skeet and I were fourteen and the girls thought we were stars.” He grinned at the memory. “Our band lacks depth. We need more members.”

“A singer?”

“The
right
singer would be good. You a singer?” He didn’t dare to hope.

“I can’t sing a note.”

“So that’s a look at my life. How about you? What do you like to write?”

“Nothing that will ever get published.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Sure I do.” She took another sip of coffee. “I’ll never send them anyplace. The only person who reads my stuff is Fuller, and that’s for a grade.”

“I want my songs to get published. It would be a kick to hear them on the radio someday.”

She continued to drink the coffee, and silence lengthened between them. He searched for something else to say to her, to make her look at him with interest, to have her think he was cool. He should face it: He was dull and boring with a small, uninteresting life. Why should she talk to him?

“What was it like to be homeschooled?” she asked. “Didn’t you get lonely?”

“I was alone, but not too lonely. We did things with other homeschoolers—field trips, joint projects. I made it into the citywide spelling bee in seventh grade, but lost in the third round:
excavate
tripped me up. I’m going to use that word in a song someday, just to prove I can. Plus homeschooling has some real perks—the cafeteria lines are really short and the food’s incredible.”

That made her smile. “Your mother didn’t mind having you home all day?”

“She likes to teach. How about you? Have you always gone to Crestwater?” He knew the answer, but he wanted to hear her voice, have her eyes meet his.

“We moved here last January from Valdosta after construction work dried up for Charlie. He got a job here real easy, and there’s a lot of building going on in Atlanta. Mom works as an office coordinator for the
same construction firm. As for me, well, one high school is pretty much like any other.”

“Who’s Charlie?”

“The man who lives with Mom and me.”

“Your stepdad?”

“No,” she said, leaving him to wonder.

His parents were boringly conventional and had been married forever. “Is he the guy who sometimes rides your cycle and picks you up at school?”

“We share my cycle when his truck’s down. But the Harley’s mine. Charlie bought it for me.”

Nathan had many questions he wanted to ask, but she was finished with her coffee, and he saw that she was getting restless. “Want another cup?”

“No thanks.” She asked a salesperson passing by for the time.

It was after midnight and his stomach knotted. He didn’t want to be late getting home, but he didn’t want the evening with Lisa to end. “You going to miss your curfew?” he asked.

She stood. “I don’t have curfews. But I’ll bet you do, don’t you, Malone?”

He felt embarrassed, hating to confess that he still had rules and limits set by his conventional parents. “Until twelve-thirty, but I don’t care if I’m late.”

“Come on,” she said. “I’ll drive fast.”

Getting on the cycle, he said, “My car’s at Skeet’s. He’s just down the street from me. It’ll be best if I park my car in my driveway tonight.”

“Whatever,” she said, and the engine roared to life.

There was little traffic and she got him to his car in less than twenty minutes. She cut the engine before hitting the top of his street and coasted. At Skeet’s street, he hopped in his car, fished out the key from under the floor mat.

“I’ll walk this to the corner before I start up.” Lisa began pushing the Harley.

“How about a movie next Saturday night?” he whispered loudly, leaning out the window.

“I told you, Malone, I don’t date.”

Disappointed, he watched her disappear around the corner.

Nathan drove his car into his driveway, jogged to the front door and turned his key in the lock as the hall clock struck the half hour. He had made it. He took the stairs two at a time, quietly slipped into his bedroom and threw himself across his bed, euphoric. He’d spent part of an evening with Lisa and it had left him soaring, and hungry for more of her. He’d get her to go out with him again. He didn’t know how, but he would.

He heard one of the twins begin to cry, and soon after, the other started. They would be hungry, and his mother would come down the hall to their room to nurse them. And knowing his mother, she’d peek into his room to check on him. Nathan quickly struggled under the covers, pulling the sheet up just as he heard
his door creak open.
All tucked in, Mom
. He heard the door close, and after a few minutes the twins quieted down. Nathan got out of bed, turned on a flashlight and found a legal pad. His head and heart were full of music and he wanted to write it down. Lisa had done that. She’d filled him with hope and fire.

Lisa sat for a long time at the corner, balancing her cycle and looking back at Nathan’s house. She saw a dim light go on in an upstairs room and wondered if it was his room. She fumbled in her jacket pockets, searching for a cigarette. She remembered stashing one, but now she couldn’t find it. She didn’t smoke much, but once in a while she craved a hit of nicotine.

Her search turned up empty and she swore under her breath. Charlie had most likely confiscated it. “You shouldn’t smoke,” he told her whenever he caught her with a cigarette.

“Why not? It’s not as if I’ll die of lung cancer.”

“It doesn’t look ladylike. It’s a stinking habit.”

“You should talk. Who do you think I steal them from?”

“Just ’cause I smoke don’t mean you should.”

“You worry too much, Charlie.”

Lisa shivered. The light in the window blinked off. She should never have had coffee, or sat and talked to Nathan, or allowed him to put his arms around her waist and press his body against her back. Stupid of her.

She turned on the cycle’s engine and the noise splintered the quiet night. Dogs barked. Lisa roared off, determined to put this night behind her—as well as the guileless, blue-eyed boy who wrote country music and made her feel so totally alive.

“H
ow was the game?” Karen Malone asked the next morning at breakfast. “We lost.” Nathan sat hunched over his cereal bowl, desperately wishing he was upstairs in bed instead of getting ready to go outside for a morning of yard work with his father, who was already waiting for him in the garage.

“I saw that much in today’s paper. I’m asking if you had a good time.”

“Mom, it was a football game. I sat in the stands with Skeet. We cheered. We lost. We came home.”

“Really?” Her eyes narrowed. “Then why do the clothes you stuffed in the laundry hamper smell like stale beer?”

Nathan went hot all over. “You smelled my clothes?”

“And the inside of your car smells like beer too.”

“Aw, come on—”

“
You
come on.” She stood at the counter looking furious. “Did you drink last night? Tell me the truth.”

“No, I didn’t drink. And thanks for the vote of confidence.”