Keep Me in Your Heart (46 page)

“They didn’t tell you
anything
?”

She sighed. “Mr. Terry simply came in last week and said they were leaving.”

“There must be a forwarding address! A phone number!”

“No, there isn’t. Mr. Terry said that he’d notify us as to where to mail his deposits. Which he may not get back since he failed to give our customary two weeks’ notice.”

“But—but …”

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I have no other information for you. You’d best run along now.”

“If—if Charlie calls, will you ask him to
please
contact Nathan?”

“I’m not a message service.”

“Please!”

She agreed, but Nathan saw by her expression that as soon as he was out the door, she’d forget his name.

Nathan went to Jodie’s apartment and pounded on the door. Jodie opened it, took one look at Nathan and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Where’s Lisa gone?”

Skeet padded up behind Jodie in bare feet. “Hey, man.”

“Lisa’s gone? I—I didn’t know,” Jodie said, peeking
out the door and toward Lisa’s apartment. “Lisa’s gone,” she said over her shoulder to Skeet.

“But you live just down the parking lot from her! All her furniture is out. They’re repainting. She’s moved. How can you not know?”

“Hey, Jodie says she doesn’t know. Don’t be in her face,” Skeet said.

Jodie tugged at Skeet’s arm. “He didn’t mean anything by it.” She turned back to Nathan. “I swear, I don’t know. I’m in school all day and Mom works. I didn’t see a trailer or moving van when I
was
home.”

“But you’re her friend!”

“She often doesn’t call me, especially now that Skeet and me are together. You know how she is, she keeps to herself a lot.”

Nathan slumped against the doorjamb. “Why would she do this? Why would she leave without telling me?”

“Oh, Nathan, I’m so sorry!” The words came from his mother. “And you had no idea they’d just pick up and go?”

“Lisa told me she had to go through some tests.”

“Maybe the test results showed something that needed immediate attention.”

Nathan didn’t find comfort in that thought. “But why wouldn’t she say something to me? Why would she and her family sneak out of town? All their cell phone numbers don’t work, and they left no way to reach them.”

Karen lifted Abby from a changing table and handed her to Nathan. She picked up Audrey and laid her on the table, fetching a paper diaper from a shelf below. “She’s a very independent girl, Nathan. She doesn’t think or act like you do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Abby tried to grab his lower lip.

“Don’t get defensive. I’ve actually come to like the girl. But she
is
different. You must admit that.”

“Different isn’t a bad thing.” His mother’s analysis annoyed him.

“No, but different is, well,
different
. She plays by different rules, guards her privacy like a junkyard dog, and has never made you any promises that you’ve talked about. Which leads me to think she understands her dilemma and purposefully doesn’t form attachments.”

The truths were too much for Nathan. Lisa had made him no promises.
He
was the one who had made them.
He
was the one who had pledged his undying love and tried with all his heart to keep and protect her. And now she had vanished. “She shouldn’t have left this way,” he said, more hurt than angry.

“I agree,” his mother said. “But remember, people have reasons for making the choices they do, and although we don’t understand them, we must accept them.”

“But how will I know how she’s doing? How will I know when she gets really sick?”

His mother relieved him of Abby and, balancing each baby on a hip, said, “That is the worst part, Nate … the not knowing. I’ve wondered thousands of
times if Molly cried for me to rescue her from the water. I don’t know. I’ll never know.”

He saw emotional pain etched in her face just before she turned and carried the twins downstairs. He felt for her, and for himself, both now united by grief.

Nathan couldn’t concentrate at school, and after a week he considered asking his mother to supervise him for the final two months of high school. The twins were older and maybe she could handle his schooling like before. Maybe he could even test out and receive his diploma in the mail. Crestwater was just a big, indifferent institution as far as Nathan was concerned, and he wanted out. Certainly except for himself, Skeet and Jodie, no one seemed to notice that Lisa wasn’t there. “She came and went a lot,” Jodie told him. “People got used to it.”

“And she didn’t exactly go out of her way to make friends,” Skeet said.

Those things didn’t matter to Nathan. Lisa was gone and there was a hole in his life large enough to walk through. Even his guitars brought him no comfort. His music had dried up. He felt empty of song.

Fuller called Nathan up to his desk before Easter break. The final bell had sounded, the room had cleared, and in his raspy voice he said, “I wanted to tell you that your poem has been selected for the countywide book that will be published in the fall. Congratulations.”

There was a time when the news would have elated Nathan. Now it was just information.

“The competition was stiff,” Fuller went on to say. “Thousands of entries, but only two hundred chosen, plus sixty-five student art projects. Nice job, Mr. Malone.”

“Were any others picked from Crestwater?”

“One more. At the last minute, student four-five-four allowed me to also submit their work, which surprised me. I’d thought persuading this student was a lost cause.”

“The Icarus poem.”

“That was the one. How did you know?”

“I asked the author about it, and she told me she had written it, and I told her she should let you submit it.”

“So then you know everything?”

“Yes.” Nathan’s gaze held Fuller’s. “I don’t suppose you know what happened to the author, do you?”

“Sadly, no. The only message a teacher gets from the administration is that a student will no longer be in class and has left our area.” He shook his head. “Pity. She was quite gifted.”

Nathan’s brief flare of hope that Fuller might know something about Lisa’s whereabouts dimmed. “Thanks,” he said dully.

“Mr. Malone,
you
too are talented. Also, you’re a good student, and if you ever need faculty recommendations on college applications, I’ll be glad to write one for you.”

“Thanks again.” Nathan scooped up his books and went to the door.

“You aren’t alone in missing student four-five-four, Mr. Malone.”

Skeet and Jodie hung with Nathan over the break and worked hard to raise his spirits. They were playing a video game in his basement one morning when Jodie asked, “Do you know why Lisa was so secretive about her personal life? I’ve always wondered.”

“She never told you anything?” This surprised Nathan because he figured girls shared every morsel of information they possessed.

“Do you know something?”

Now that Lisa had fled, there was no reason to keep her secret. It might also help his two friends realize that his sense of loss wasn’t just the pinings of a lovesick puppy. He set down his game controller and without any buildup told them all he’d known for the past many months. Jodie’s expression turned to shock, then she cried. “Cancer? Lisa has brain cancer?”

Skeet went slack-jawed. “Get out.”

“It’s true. All those months she skipped out of last period, she was going for radiation treatments.”

“I—I remember she’d sometimes get headaches,” Jodie said, blowing her nose. “She told me they were migraines.”

“Much worse,” Nathan said.

“So I guess she got worse?” Skeet ventured.

“The first question I’ll ask, if I can track her down before …” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

Jodie said, “Tell me again how you’ve tried to find her.”

Nathan went down his list. “All dead ends.”

“Did you go to the construction company where Charlie and her mom worked?”

Nathan sat upright. “No. I didn’t.”

“People get final paychecks. If they left quickly, the place may have a way to reach them.”

“You’re a genius!” Nathan jumped up, renewed hope surging through him, followed swiftly by disappointment. “I don’t know where they worked.”

“I do,” Jodie said.

“Let’s go.”

“Wait a minute,” Jodie said. “I have an idea, so let me handle this. Besides, I think a curious friendly girlfriend trumps a desperate hysterical boyfriend in this instance.”

Eventually they drove to the site where Jodie knew Lisa’s mother had last worked, and parked across the street. Before Nathan and Skeet could get out of the car, Jodie stopped them. “Sit. It’s best I go alone.”

“But—” Nathan started.

“Tie him up if you have to,” she told Skeet. Taking her purse and a shopping bag, she crossed the street and entered the construction trailer.

Time dragged and Nathan thought he’d jump out of his skin from the suspense. “What’s taking so long?”

“It’s only been fifteen minutes, dude. She’ll come through,” Skeet said. “This girl’s outstanding.”

It seemed as if an eternity had passed before Jodie emerged from the trailer and came back across the street. She scooted into the backseat.

“Well?” Nathan demanded. “Don’t make me go postal.”

Jodie grinned and handed him a folded slip of paper. “Charlie Terry’s new cell phone number.”

Nathan snatched it. “You did it, Jodie! Man, you’re terrific!”

“I told you so!” Skeet reached around and hugged her. “How did you do it?”

“I went to the only woman in there. She’s taken over Lisa’s mother’s job, and I said that I was Lisa’s best friend and that she’d left before the yearbooks came out and that I
had
to make sure she got hers because it
is
her senior year … blah-blah-blah.” She pulled a book from her bag and grinned. “I cried too. Real tears.”

“Brilliant,” Skeet stated. “Especially since new yearbooks aren’t even out yet.”

“Last year’s edition was a convincing prop. I just waved it around and she never got too close a look at it.”

“Did she say where they’ve moved?” Nathan asked, staring at the cell number and committing it to memory.

“Someplace in Miami,” Jodie said. “You’ll have to get Charlie to tell you where.”

N
athan waited until he was alone to make the call on his cell phone. Charlie answered on the second ring.

“It’s me, Charlie. It’s Nathan Malone. Please don’t hang up.”

After a pause, Charlie’s soft drawl came through. “I knew you were resourceful, son. How did you find us?”

“From where you used to work,” Nathan told him.

Charlie chuckled. “I told Lisa that it was a mistake for her not to tell you we were leaving. I said you’d figure out something.”

“H-how is she?”

“Bad.”

Nathan felt his stomach heave. “I want to see her.”

“She doesn’t want you to see her like this—the way
she is now. You know how she gets when she digs in her heels.”

“I know, and I don’t care. Please tell me where you are. I’m coming.”

“We’re in Miami. That’s a good ten-hour drive from Atlanta.”

“So?”

“Your parents might not like it.”

“I’m coming,” Nathan repeated, knowing he had one monster of a fight in front of him.

That evening after the twins were in bed, Nathan packed a duffel bag. He went down to the kitchen, stood in the doorway, watched his mother roll out pastry dough and gathered his courage. At the table, his father sat fiddling with his laptop. Nathan wondered why he hadn’t noticed this about the two of them before—they liked being in the same room with each other, even if they were doing different things.
Togetherness
. He had wanted that with Lisa.

Nathan stepped into the lighted room. “Mom, Dad … I’ve found Lisa. I just talked to Charlie and he told me where they are in Miami.”

Both his parents turned his way. Karen said, “That’s a relief. How is she doing?”

“Not so good.”

His father shook his head. “That’s too bad. I’m sorry.”

“I want to go and see her.”

“When?” Craig asked.

“As soon as possible. I could leave in the morning.”

“Tomorrow’s a school day.”

“I don’t care.”

“You’ve just come off spring break,” Karen said. “You still have six weeks of school left. You can’t just pick up and leave.”

“I haven’t taken a single sick day this year. My grades are perfect. I can afford to take the time.”

“Well, I can’t,” Karen said. “I can’t just drop everything and go with you. And neither can your father. Have you thought about trying to drive all that way with the girls?”

“I’m not asking you to go.”

It took a second for his statement to sink in, and when it did, his mother declared, “Well, you can’t go by yourself.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, Nathan, let’s not have an argument. You can’t go to Miami alone. You don’t know a soul there and you have no place to stay. It’s unrealistic to expect Lisa’s family to take you in.”

“I wouldn’t even ask them. They’re living in a motel while Lisa’s in this special facility.”

His mother returned to her pastry project. “No, son. You aren’t going.”