Keep Me in Your Heart (38 page)

The kitchen looked spotless, and the smell of chocolate chip cookies spiced the air. Nathan pulled a gallon of milk from the refrigerator and poured some into a pan, rummaged in the pantry for cocoa and sugar, all the while maintaining a stream of conversation. “You were right about Jodie. She’s great. Larry’s talking about getting us a gig or two for the holidays. He has connections from his old days and we think we might give it a try—”

“Nathan, it’s okay. You don’t have to talk me to death. I don’t mind helping you with the food. I don’t mind being alone with you.”

He was glad for the dim light. She couldn’t see how embarrassed her words made him feel. He put the pan of milk on the stove and turned on the gas burner.
“Okay, you found me out. I do want to be alone with you.”

“Why?”

“Because you never even look my way at school.”

She crossed her arms. “It’s nothing personal.”

He forced a laugh. “Well, it feels personal. It feels like you think there’s something wrong with me. Like I’m not worth another conversation, or another cup of coffee. Why can’t you stand being alone with me?”

“That isn’t true.”

“Then why can’t we be friends?”

“We are. I found your band a singer, didn’t I?”

“You did that for Jodie. The fact that she helps our band is bonus points. Not all of us are projects for Lisa to manage, you know. What do you get out of it?”

“I—it’s complicated. My life is complicated.”

“How so? Have you got a job?” She shook her head. “Then what? You don’t have curfews. You cut school at will. You don’t hang with anyone. What’s complicated?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because
you
care. You stand up for me and Skeet to a guy like Roddy. You become an advocate for a girl like Jodie. Your ‘I don’t give a damn’ routine doesn’t hold up with me.”

“I’ll work on it.” She looked shaken, tried to brush past him.

He caught her arm. “Not so fast.” And before he could stop himself, he’d pulled her against his chest
and kissed her full and hard on the mouth. She fought him at first, but he didn’t let go, and as the kiss lengthened, it deepened. His blood sang in his head, tore through his veins like wildfire. He raised his hands and cupped her face, pushed his tongue between her lips. She didn’t resist, but put her arms around him and kissed him willingly.

The hiss of milk boiling over on the stove was what finally seeped through Nathan’s consciousness and broke them apart. They stood staring at each other while the milk sizzled and a burning smell singed the air. Nathan’s hands were shaking and his heart was almost jumping from his chest. Lisa’s eyes looked huge and deep. Her breath was ragged and louder than the boiling milk. She stepped backward, turned to the stove and shut off the flame. “It’s a mess,” she mumbled, and he was certain that she wasn’t talking only about the burned milk.

He came up behind her, wanting to touch her, hold her, but she sidestepped him. “Don’t,” she said.

Nathan walked across the floor to the kitchen island. He rested his palms on the cool granite, licked his lips, and tasted her all over again. “I’m not sorry,” he said.

“Nothing’s changed,” she said, sounding stubborn.

Her words wounded him. He’d put himself on the line with that kiss, opened his heart and invited her inside, and now she was pulling back. Again. “Sure it has.” He crossed to the refrigerator. “We have to heat more milk.”

*  *  *

There were only three days of school the following week because of Thanksgiving. Lisa missed the first two and on the third slipped into her seat in Fuller’s class just as the bell rang. Nathan ached with frustration. Had she not come to school simply to avoid him? He’d thought about calling her but kept losing his nerve. Plus, there was no listing for her in the phone book. Better to deal with her face to face. But at the moment, he was staring at her back and Fuller was talking about poets Nathan had no interest in. Lisa lifted her hair and gathered it into a barrette, and Nathan was left to stare at the nape of her beautiful neck. He wanted to put his hands around her neck and shout,
Don’t you know you’re making me crazy!

“… poets today have difficulty being heard because poetry has few advocates in today’s world,” Fuller was saying.

Nathan squinted at the base of Lisa’s neck, where a tiny grid of blue dots disappeared into her hairline. Had she started a tattoo and then changed her mind? He’d always wanted one, but never had the courage to get one. His mother would have hit the roof and grounded him for life if he had. But Lisa—well, she apparently could do whatever she wanted.

“… read a nice piece of work to you today.” Fuller’s voice broke through Nathan’s thoughts. “It’s a love poem by one of our own and resonates without being cloying. I thought it quite good. It was written by student seven-oh-five.”

Nathan’s heart seized.

N
athan heard shoes shuffle, papers rustle. Usually Fuller called out every number except Nathan’s, and he read student 454’s work more often than any other. Nathan slumped low in his desk chair, cut his eyes sideways, wondered if he was wearing a sign announcing,
LOOK HERE! I’M STUDENT 705!
He sure hoped not. He’d tried for weeks to write well enough to be picked, but his work always came back swimming in red ink. According to Fuller, it lacked originality. It lacked conviction. He scribbled, “You write well, but it feels forced and dry”—whatever
that
meant. And now today, while Nathan was in total turmoil because of Lisa, Fuller had discovered something worthy to be read aloud. His stomach tightened.

Fuller cleared his throat and began reading Nathan’s work.

Fuller lowered the paper and a girl on the side of the room said, “That’s just
so
romantic.”

“Why?” Fuller asked.

Nathan’s ears felt on fire. He slunk lower in his seat. He’d written the poem late one night when he’d been longing for Lisa. The words had come quickly, easily, like water from a faucet. He’d been nuts to turn it in as an assignment.

No one spoke, and Fuller said, “It’s short and to the point. And we like it because it came from the writer’s heart, not his head. And that, my future Writers of America, is where all good writing comes from—a person’s heart. And once you tap into it, your work will come alive. Trust me.”

Nathan left the room slowly that day, not wanting to talk to anyone, especially Lisa, because he was certain he was wearing the poem’s authorship across his face like a billboard. He was suddenly glad about the long holiday weekend. He and Skeet hadn’t scheduled practice either. It meant four days without seeing Lisa. Four days. Ninety-six hours. Five thousand, seven hundred and sixty minutes to distance himself from the confession of his heart, now made public.

*  *  *

On Friday afternoon Skeet came over and asked, “Can I borrow your wheels to go see Jodie?”

Nathan was shooting baskets in the driveway. “Why?”

“I want to see her.”

Nathan stopped mid-dribble, tucked the ball under his arm and stared hard at his friend. “You got something going with Jodie?”

Skeet’s face turned beet red. “We—um—have been talking on our cells and seeing each other at school.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you liked her?”

Skeet shrugged. “I didn’t know how. You’ve had your head up your butt for weeks. I thought you would notice eventually.”

Nathan shook his head, felt apologetic and stupid at the same time. “I should have noticed. Sorry, man.”

“So can I take your car?”

“Jodie lives in the same apartment building as Lisa, doesn’t she?” Skeet nodded. “Give me fifteen to clean up and I’ll drive you over myself.” He tossed the ball into the garage.

“I thought you might,” Skeet said, with a wry grin.

Magnolia Gardens, the apartment complex where Lisa and Jodie lived, was a maze of yellow and brown rundown-looking buildings with a faded red tennis court, sans nets, and a pool long past its prime. Small signs pointed the way to the back. Jodie lived near a
yard full of little kids climbing on old playground equipment. Cars were parked everywhere, and Nathan ended up blocking in a car that Skeet said belonged to Jodie’s divorced mother.

Jodie opened her door, and the smile she beamed at Skeet told the story of how she felt about him. Nathan couldn’t believe he’d been so blind and preoccupied not to have seen it before. “Lisa lives in the left front ground-floor apartment through the next stairwell over,” Jodie told him.

Nathan thanked her and beat a quick retreat. A wreath made of fall foliage and orange ribbon hung on the scarred front door of Lisa’s apartment. Nathan wiped his sweating palms on his jeans and rang the bell.

“Can I help you, son?” A man’s voice came from behind Nathan.

Nathan walked back out to the parking lot to where the man was working under the raised hood of an old truck. He wore a ponytail and was dressed in dirty jeans, a sweatshirt and a jacket. “I’m Charlie Terry,” he said, wiping his hands on a soiled rag.

“Nathan Malone.” They shook hands.

“I’m guessing you’re looking for Lisa.”

“I was in the area. Brought my friend to visit Jodie.” The excuse sounded lame even to Nathan’s ears.

“Lisa’s out with her mom doing some Christmas shopping.”

Of course
. His mother had taken off early to do the same thing. His father had twins duty.

“They’ve been gone awhile, so I expect they’ll be back soon. If you want to wait around, you can.”

Nathan didn’t have anything else to do. He couldn’t barge in on Skeet and Jodie, and he couldn’t drive off and leave Skeet. “If you don’t mind.”

Charlie smiled. He was tall and well muscled. His skin was deeply tanned and his hands looked like worn leather. His voice, thick as honey, sounded Southern. “You know anything about engines?”

“Just that cars need them to move.”

That made Charlie laugh. “This old heap should be sold for scrap, but I keep hobbling her together. Cheaper than a new one.” He ducked back under the hood.

Nathan leaned in to see a maze of wires, and the smell of oil assailed him. “What’s wrong?”

“I think it’s the alternator.” When Nathan said nothing, Charlie added, “It sends electrical current to the battery. If the alternator doesn’t work, the car won’t start.”

“I thought the battery had the electricity.”

Charlie cocked his head and grinned. “You really
don’t
know much about cars.”

“Or girls either,” Nathan said before thinking.

Charlie laughed, straightened. “Women are a mystery, all right. Even Shakespeare thought so.” Then he proceeded to quote several passages about women from different Shakespearean plays. Nathan recognized only a few, but Charlie’s rich voice made each line sound
heavy with meaning. Charlie finished with, “ ‘Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?’ That’s from
As You Like It
. ”

Was Charlie making fun of him? Had he figured out how much Nathan cared about Lisa? And how little Lisa cared about him? “There’s been a few songs written about it too,” Nathan said. “I guess no one can figure them out.”

Charlie looked amused. “Not that we don’t keep trying.” He worked with the wires, attaching several to a black gizmo. “Now, hooking up an alternator, this makes sense. Machines are fixable and they’re logical too.” Finally he said, “Get in and turn the key. Let’s see if I’ve done this right.”

Nathan scooted across the torn bench seat and turned the key. The engine sputtered, then came alive. He hopped out. “That’s pretty cool.”

“What—making a truck start? A monkey could do it if you showed him how.”

“They say a monkey could write a novel if you leave him at it long enough. That doesn’t mean the novel will be any
good
.”

Charlie slapped Nathan’s shoulder. “Right again.”

Nathan felt pleased that Charlie seemed to approve of him, because he knew that even though the man wasn’t Lisa’s father, Lisa thought a great deal of him. Nathan poked his head under the hood of Charlie’s truck and was studying the perplexing engine when Lisa’s voice asked, “What are you doing here, Malone?”

Nathan jumped and banged his head on the edge of the raised hood. He saw stars.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Charlie said. “He’s bleeding.”

Nathan reached up. His hair felt sticky, and when he looked at his hand, he saw blood.

“Are you all right?” Lisa looked anxious.

“I—I think so. Do you have a twin sister? I see two of you.”

Charlie chuckled. “Take him inside and fix him up, girl.”

Once inside the apartment, Lisa sat Nathan on a chair in the small dining area and clamped a folded paper towel onto his head wound. “I’ll be right back.”

He waited, looking the place over. It was sparsely furnished, with few decorations on the walls. The apartment looked lived in, but not homey. The front door opened and a woman entered carrying several department store sacks. “You okay? Charlie told me what happened. I’m Jill Lindstrom, Lisa’s mother.” She was an older version of Lisa, except that her hair was bleached blond with dark roots showing.