A Heart Divided (16 page)

But this was Tennessee in October. It couldn’t be sleet. I opened my eyes. The room was inky black. I was curled into an impossible position on the window seat and had a terrible crick in my neck.

Plink!

Something smacked the glass, hard. I jumped. And I realized it wasn’t rain or sleet; what had just tapped the glass was a pebble. I yanked the window open and peered out. Jack was down in my yard, peering up. My heart wanted to rocket out the window and into his arms. But my brain said: Don’t be a fool. He’ll hurt you all over again.

He motioned for me to come down. I pushed into some flip-flops, grabbed a sweater, and ran downstairs through my silent house. The kitchen clock read ten past one. I went into the yard, vowing to harden my heart.

“You almost broke my window.” I rubbed my arms, and my words formed clouds in front of me. For the first time since I’d left New Jersey, I could see my breath against the chill of the air.

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I didn’t think I should call this late.”

“What do you want?”

“I…” He stopped, then started again. “My mother has terrible insomnia.”

I stared at him blankly. “Gee. Good to know.”

“That didn’t come out the way I—” He ran his hand through his hair. “This afternoon … after you left, I walked around in the storm, didn’t know where I was going. I
ended up in the Confederate cemetery by the golf course. I started reading the headstones. Lots of those boys weren’t any older than me, dead before they ever lived. When I thought about losing you, I felt like I was already one of them.”

“Those are just words.” A fist squeezed my chest. “You don’t know what you want, Jack.”

“I know I don’t want to go to The Citadel.”

My anger flared. “Gimme a break. Nine hours ago, you were meeting with their recruiter!”

“I didn’t have to attend that meeting. There’s a Redford Hall there. I could flunk out of high school and run around in lipstick, I’d still get in.”

“So why did you show up?”

“Because I said I would. Besides, they’d have called my mother in a New York minute if I hadn’t showed up.”

I felt so tired. “You’re never going to tell your mother you don’t want to go there. I never should have expected that you would.”

“Kate, I already told her.”

I couldn’t have heard him correctly. “You
told
her?”

“Just now. That’s what I meant about insomnia. She was in the study, reading. I told her everything.”

“What’s ‘everything’?” I asked cautiously.

“That I e-mailed the admissions office to say I won’t be attending. That I’ve filled out an application for a regional audition for Juilliard.”

Wow. For a long moment I was speechless. All his
switching back and forth was dizzying. Part of me was happy, but part was skeptical. Because it was just like after we’d argued at the mall. It was as if I was pushing him to change, and he was complying.

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” I finally asked. “If it’s because of your mother—”

“I didn’t make the decision to spite her. And I didn’t do it for you.”

“So if I lived in, like, upper Mongolia, you’d still want to go to school in New York?”

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Did I ever tell you that you’re a pain in the ass?”

“It’s a gift.”

“I told my mother one other thing,” Jack said. He took a step closer to me. “I told her I love a girl named Kate Pride. And nothing and no one can change that. Ever.”

His arms went around me, and we stood there, heart to heart. That I had almost lost him seemed impossible, and at the same time, too true. I wanted to be inside his skin. To breathe the air he breathed. To never, ever let go.

Silently, we went up to my room and lay down on my bed. Any other night, in a boxing match between caution and lust, lust would have won in an early-round TKO. But this wasn’t any other night. We were a shattered vase, pieces glued back together. So we lay atop the covers, fully clothed, and held each other carefully, as if passion might cause the jagged fault lines to splinter again.

at school, he was different; quieter, with less ease to his gait. I told myself he was just stressed. Even Chaz, not one to pick up on subtleties, asked Jack if he was okay. At lunch, we took a silent walk on one of the trails that wound around Redford Hill. Crimson and gold leaves pirouetted down from the trees, and I thought how sad it was that they were most beautiful just before they died.

After school, the cast of Miss Bright’s play did an off-book run-through in the theater. Attendance was mandatory. We went and applauded politely at the end, but a couple of months of rehearsal had not improved the text.

Not that I had any right to dis her work. Unlike me, she’d actually written something.

By unspoken agreement, Jack and I went to my house— he hadn’t seen his mother since their midnight showdown and didn’t want to see her now. In the Jeep, we didn’t turn on the radio or a CD. We just drove. When we turned onto Beau-regard Lane, there was a gray Cadillac parked in my driveway. “That’s my mom’s car,” Jack said, pulling up to the curb.

“What’s she doing here?”

“I don’t know.”

My mom’s Saturn was in the driveway, too. Which meant our moms were in there together. Whatever was happening could not possibly be good. “Let’s go,” I said impetuously.

“Where?”

“Memphis. Hanoi. Jupiter.” I stared hard at the front door. Maybe if I really concentrated, I could divine the conversation going on inside.

“Obviously, they’re talking about us,” Jack said. “We should go in.”

I bit at a cuticle. “When did you get so brave?”

“When did you get so weenie?” he shot back. Of course, he knew that comment guaranteed I’d get my butt out of his Jeep.

Our moms were in the formal living room, which we hardly ever used. Mine sat on the couch in worn jeans and a Rutgers T-shirt. Sally Redford, whose hair looked like it hadn’t moved since the last time I’d seen her, was perched ramrod straight on the paisley chair. She wore gray wool
pants, heels, and a peach silk blouse. Steaming cups of coffee and some pastries were on the coffee table between them.

My mom filled us in: Sally Redford had called to ask if she might stop over with some home-baked pastries as a belated welcome to Redford gift.

“Mom, what are you really doing here?” Jack asked.

“I was just getting to that, Jackson.”

I sat on the arm of the couch near my mom. Jack stood by the wall in the demilitarized zone, halfway between our mothers. Without further niceties, Sally Redford got down to the real deal: her son and me. His “stunning” midnight announcement. His “legacy,” and how I did not fit into it. My mom listened intently without interrupting.

When Mrs. Redford finally reached the end of her soliloquy, my mother took a contemplative sip of coffee before she spoke. “Interesting. Is there a point?”

Jack jumped in. “No, Mrs. Pride, I don’t think there is.” He turned to his mother. “I told you, Mom. I’ve already made my decision.”

Mrs. Redford offered a tight-lipped smile. “Do you know what my greatest disappointment is, Jackson? That I apparently have failed so miserably in how I raised you. I feel I should apologize to your father for the mess I’ve made of things.”

“This isn’t about you,” Jack said wearily.

“Of course it’s about me,” Sally Redford insisted. “We’re talking about family, honor, and responsibility. Like it or not, Jackson, I’m the only family you have.”

“Mrs. Redford.” My mom set down her coffee. Her
voice was calm, but I could see fireworks behind her eyes. “Your son is a terrific young man. I’m sure your husband would be proud of how you’ve raised him. But as far as where he goes to college or what he studies, don’t you think that should be Jack’s choice?”

“And I’m sure you understand that is between me and my son, Mrs. Pride,” Sally Redford said in honeyed tones.

“I quite agree. But you came here and made me a part of it.”

“You do see that Jackson never would have made this choice if not for your daughter.” Mrs. Redford turned to me. “I blame myself more than I blame you, Kate.”

“Leave Kate out of this,” Jack snapped.

“My dear son, you have made that impossible. Believe me, I know how seductive a beautiful young girl can be. I used to be one.”

My face burned. “I didn’t…
seduce
your son, Mrs. Redford.”

“If the next step in your plan is to get pregnant, by quote unquote ‘mistake—’”

“I would never… We’re not even—” I stuttered.

“You don’t owe her an explanation,” Jack told me.

My mother stood, a clear indicator that as far as she was concerned, this conversation was over. “You obviously know nothing about my daughter or the kind of person she is.”

“I don’t doubt her attributes,” Mrs. Redford said, also
rising. “I just doubt them for my son. And I won’t let his future be compromised by a high school crush. I have to insist that Kate and Jack not see each other anymore.”

“You expect them to just accept that?” my mother asked, incredulous.

“Parenting isn’t a popularity contest, Mrs. Pride.”

“Enough!” Jack exclaimed, holding his palm up. “Stop. Both of you just… stop.” He took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. “Mrs. Pride, I’m sorry my mother came here with this. She shouldn’t have. Mom, I’m sorry if you disagree with my decisions. But if they’re mistakes, they’re
my
mistakes, not yours.”

His mother was unmoved. “Jackson, if I have to send you to military school to keep you two apart, I’ll do it.”

“You can’t do that!” I protested.

“Don’t presume to tell me what I can and can’t do, young lady.”

“She’s not telling you,” Jack said, voice steely, eyes cold. “I am. I love Kate. And she loves me. Maybe if you’d ever allowed yourself an honest emotion that wasn’t colored by some… some antiquated concept of the right thing to do, you’d be happy for me. I wish you were. But even if you’re not, it won’t change how I feel. Or what I do.” He reached for my hand. “Come on.”

For the first time, his mother’s façade seemed to slip a little. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I don’t know, Mom. But right now, anywhere’s a better place to be.”

thought it was incredibly unfair that his mother had rejected me, but I was proud of Jack for standing up to her. He assured me that her threat to send him to military school wasn’t serious. She wasn’t about to pull her Red-ford son out of Redford High, if only because it would reflect badly on her parenting. Besides, he’d turn eighteen in four months, and then she couldn’t call the shots anymore.

I didn’t doubt that Jack loved his mother. She was smart and interesting and she adored him. After his father’s death, she’d raised him alone. Sitting there on the banks of
the Harpeth, he told me more about her. How the Redford family fortune had doubled in the past ten years because of her shrewd investments. How she gave away vast amounts of money to worthy causes and worked harder for free at her charities than most people did at their paying jobs. Because of Sally Redford, scores of women on welfare had reclaimed their lives.

I was impressed. Politics aside, in a different situation I would have admired her. But I was who I was, and that changed everything. Jack had promised his mother he’d accompany her to a Vanderbilt University Children’s Hospital fund-raiser that night, and being Jack, he wouldn’t go back on his word.

Before dinner my mom told my dad all about Mrs. Red-ford’s last stand and decreed we wouldn’t ruin our meal by rehashing it. So instead, Portia prattled on about Barney, her first boyfriend. (Of course, knowing that our parents would disapprove, Portia didn’t actually use the word “boyfriend” but rather the code phrase “this guy in my class.”) Barney was evidently writing a fan-fiction prequel to Harry Potter. My parents listened to Portia’s plot summary as if Barney had already won a Pulitzer.

“Does he get good grades?” my mother asked, sipping her iced tea.

Portia nodded. “Straight A’s. He’s supersmart, Mom.”

My dad tugged gently on Portia’s ponytail. “So are you, kiddo.”