Heart to Heart (11 page)

Elowyn would twirl and say, “Oh, Daddy, I’m prettier than an old fish. And don’t you go threatening the boys with sticks either.”

Matt would tip his head. “Not much prettier than a trout leaping out of the water on a fall day.”

“Daddy!”

Then he’d hug her hard and pat my head. “You know I’m joking, honey. There’s nothing better-looking on this earth than my baby girl.” And he’d add for my benefit, “Or her best friend.”

Matt was a shining example of fatherhood to me, my own dad, a shadowy flicker.

I left the e-mail in my inbox. I didn’t answer it, but I didn’t delete it either.

I’ve never had a boy’s undivided attention until Wyatt came along, and it about blew me away. The first time he called me, my heart felt like it was going to hammer itself into smithereens. He called on our business line, and I answered, “Honeysuckle Bed and Breakfast. How may I help you?”

“Arabeth? It’s Wyatt. How’re you doing?”

My voice stuck in my throat. When I answered, it sounded like a croak. “Fine.”

“You okay?”

“Sure. Just fine. How about you?”

“Just finished cutting three lawns. My summer business.”

“Sounds hot.”

“It is, but not in a cool way.” He laughed.

“Hot, temperature-wise, not hot as in something fun to do,” I explained, my face growing warm. How obvious could it be that I had no experience talking to a boy? “Th-that’s what I meant,” I stammered. “Hot out today.”

“Hot every day in Atlanta in the summer.”

Just shoot me
, I thought. Why couldn’t I say something cute or clever? “Um—can I do anything for you?” Now I sounded like I was helping out an inn guest.

“I was thinking I’d like for us to do something together.”

My heart was hammering in my chest. “Like what?”

“Burger and a movie tomorrow? Or tonight. If you don’t have plans.”

Only helping Mom with our weekly cookout for guests
. “Tomorrow would be better.”

“Okay, then, I’ll slide by around five? We can eat and grab an evening show.”

“I’d like that.”

He gave me his cell number, and after we hung up I went to my room and fell on my bed, kicking and exalting like a football player who’d just made the winning touchdown. I had a date! Me, Arabeth Thompson. And the guy was gorgeous. I hopped up, went to my dresser, and looked in the mirror. My face smiled back. Involuntarily my eyebrow arched,
my mouth transformed into a pout, and my green eyes seemed to turn blue. I yelped and jumped back from my image. When I looked in the mirror again, my face looked like normal boring me. But I was shaken. For one brief moment I had looked like … like
her
. Impossible. I told myself that I’d studied the scrapbook too many times and had been thrown off balance by Wyatt’s call.

I grabbed the book and shoved it under my bed. I didn’t look in my mirror and quickly left my room.

“Absolutely not,” Mom said. “You’re too young to date.”

“I am not!” I cried. “He’s a really cool guy.”

“I don’t care if he’s the Prince of Wales. You’re not dating when you’re fifteen.”

We were in the kitchen, preparing for the evening cookout. Fortunately all our guests were out of the house for the afternoon, so I could yell. I stamped my foot. “You don’t even know him!”

Mom gave me a smirk. “Point taken.”

I’d walked into a trap.

She asked, “How did you meet him anyway?”

“He—Wyatt—came to visit with Kassey, that friend of Elowyn’s.” I had told Mom all about meeting Kassey and the coincidence of me and Elowyn liking the same flavor ice cream. I’d never told her
about the other odd happenings surrounding my heart donor, though.

“Okay, so he’s a friend of Kassey’s. That’s nice.”

“The three of us talked and he liked me. He asked me out.” I didn’t tell her about Wyatt being Elowyn’s former boyfriend. Too much information for Mom at the moment.

“And when was I going to meet him? On your way out the door?”

My brain was ticking through answers. He’d said I could call if I needed to change plans. “I can get him to come over. Maybe tonight.”

She stopped shaping hamburger patties and sighed. “I’d like to meet him, but you’re not dating him. And not tonight.”

“That’s so unfair!”

“I’m sure you think so.” She dropped the burger onto a tray and faced me. “It’s not just me … I promised your father.”

That stopped me cold. “When? Promised him what?”

“Before he went off,” she said.

I knew she was saying, “… the
last
time he went off.”

She continued. “Before he left, he asked me to make sure you didn’t wear makeup until you were at least fourteen, and that I wouldn’t let you start dating until you were sixteen.”

He’d missed two of my birthdays before he’d left for Afghanistan because he’d been on special assignment with the army, and now he’d never share my birthday again. Still, I didn’t want to give up my argument. “I’ll be sixteen in October.”

“Months from now,” she said.

“Wyatt will have forgotten all about me by then.”

She held up her hand. “I told your father we were in agreement. At that time, neither of us were sure you’d
live
till you were sixteen. You were so sick and we were scared for you.”

Invoking the memory of my father was something she rarely did, so I knew she was serious about my dating future. “I hadn’t
wanted
to wear makeup until after my transplant,” I said stubbornly. “Who ever saw me except family and the homebound teacher?”

“So it was a nonissue. This isn’t.”

“But no boy’s ever asked me out before.”

“A good thing. You’d have just heard the word
no
a little sooner.” She turned back to her hamburgers. “Invite him over for tomorrow night. You can have our living room all to yourselves. I’ll move up my baking schedule and stay out of your way all evening.”

I’d set myself up for her solution since I’d volunteered to have him drop by. “He’ll think I’m a baby.”

“You’re my baby,” she said. “Now grab that head
of lettuce and those tomatoes and start getting the condiment platter together.”

Still angry, I did as I was told. The kitchen was quiet except for the sound of Mom shaping burgers and my knife slicing through a ripe red tomato. I threw her a sideways glance and wondered why she and Dad would have taken the time to talk about me wearing makeup and dating when I was just a little girl. Thinking about my dad saddened me. I missed him, and I wouldn’t be seeing him again. Not in this life.

I rehearsed what I would say to Wyatt, how I’d act breezy and casual. “Mom nixed me going out tomorrow night. How about you coming over here?” I was determined not to allow this opportunity to slip away. Now that I knew the truth about when I could actually date, how could I be sure that I’d ever be asked out again? And Wyatt was so cool. I couldn’t let him get away. So how to date him without going out? Mom and Dad had dictated my future years ago and I was stuck with it. Maybe. If I—

The house phone rang, interrupting my thoughts. I jumped.

“Grab it,” Mom called. “I’m elbow deep in hamburger meat.”

I picked up the receiver, hoping it was Wyatt saving me from the trauma of calling him.

“Hi,” a woman’s voice said cheerfully. “Is this Arabeth?”

“Yes.”

“This is Terri Eden. I’ve been thinking … I’d love to treat you and your mother to tea at the Ritz-Carlton. Do you think you can meet me there this Sunday?”

I got a job. In the months after Elowyn died, Wyatt and I had been pretty tight. Now he was busy with his lawn customers, his buddies, and yes, with Arabeth too, which was an adjustment for me. Plus I’d promised Mom I’d be responsible for my car, and gas was expensive, so a job seemed like the logical thing to pursue.

I landed one in a nursery—the kind that nurtures flowers, not kids. I liked it because I could be outside catching sun rays
and
get paid. I also joined a summer volleyball league at the Y—a good thing, because I could take out my feelings about life being unfair on the court and sometimes on the competition. In one game I spiked a ball hard over the net, catching a girl on the other side smack in the face and making her nose bleed. My bad.

Around July Fourth, I grew really bored. People, including Wyatt, were out of town. The Y was sponsoring a picnic, and so was Mom’s office, but I didn’t want to go to either one. In a fit of pure and utter boredom, I called Arabeth. She’d called me a few times earlier that summer and invited me over, but I’d always told her I was ‘busy.’ Now a day with her beat my alternatives. “Maybe we can catch the fireworks at Stone Mountain,” I suggested over the phone. “Or at Six Flags.”

“Really? You want me to go with you?” She sounded more excited than the situation warranted.

“Do you want to?”

“Absolutely! You’ll save me from an evening with my family.”

The inn was having a cookout when I arrived, and the food grilling on the barbecue smelled delicious. I met Arabeth’s mother, her aunt Vivian and her uncle Theo, assorted cousins, and several inn guests who’d decided to hang around rather than brave holiday fireworks traffic.

“Don’t leave. We can watch the show over in that direction,” Aunt Viv said, pointing toward the sky over the backyard trees. “We’ll eat home-churned ice cream and avoid the crowds.”

Her idea sounded good to me. I’d forgotten about the crowds and traffic when I’d asked Arabeth to hit the road with me. “That okay with you?” I asked her.

She agreed, but looked disappointed.

“We’ll blitz the mall next week,” I said, to make it up to her. I liked her family, but I understood about wanting to shed them. Elowyn had always wanted to lose hers and I thought they were easy to be around.

“That would be fun,” Arabeth told me, brightening.

As it grew darker, her mother asked, “Where are the sparklers we bought?”

“My room,” Arabeth said. “I’ll get them.”

I tagged along behind her. When we entered her bedroom, I almost fell over. It resembled a French countryside, with sunny yellow walls and a wallpaper mural of fields of lavender. “What’s this?” I asked, flabbergasted by the decor. “Where are we?”

“France,” she said, crossing to a desk with a weathered farmhouse finish.

“You love France?”

“Not until after my transplant.” She picked up a sack and turned toward me. “Another one of those weird things I was telling you about the first time we met. While I was in the hospital recovering, Mom and Aunt Viv redecorated my room, but it was what I requested. I just woke up yearning for a change and French country was all I wanted.” She stared at me, then said knowingly, “It was Elowyn’s choice too, wasn’t it?”

“Totally. She was crazy about the whole country
of France. Went so far as to tell me she would marry a Frenchman and live in France someday.”

“Well, I don’t plan to marry a Frenchman,” she said with a smile. “I escaped that craving.”

I made my way around the room, studying the furniture, bedcover, and pillows. It really reminded me of Elowyn’s old room. I guess French country-style decor was France no matter who did the decorating.

I stopped at a wooden chair with an oddly shaped saddle thrown over it. “This doesn’t look like it came from France.”

“It’s a camel saddle, and it came from Afghanistan,” said Arabeth.

“How did you end up with it?” I asked.

“It was a present from my father.”

I thought back to the people I’d met that evening. There was no Mr. Thompson, so I figured Arabeth was just another girl with a broken family. Maybe her dad had left for better reasons than mine. “You own a camel?” I went for humor.

She shook her head. “Dad was in the army. A good soldier. He died in Afghanistan, killed by a roadside bomb.”

A shiver shot up my spine. I’d never known anyone in the military. War was something only on TV news shows. “Gee … sorry. I wasn’t trying to be nosey.”

“It’s history,” she said, hugging the crinkled sack
against her body. “I miss him. I’m sorry he never knew about my transplant. It would have made him really happy.”

We went outside. It had grown darker. Fireflies blinked in the night air. “Natural fireworks,” I said, hoping to make her more cheerful. I hadn’t meant to bring her down.

“I’ll pass those out,” her mother said, taking the sack. Everybody got two sparklers.

Arabeth said, “Let me show you something else. Something I’m sure Elowyn didn’t have.”

I followed her to the very back of the yard, to a small wooden house too big for a dog, but just right for small children. It was too dark to see it well, but I could tell it had an opening for a door and a window complete with small shutters.

Arabeth ducked inside. “It’s a scrunch,” she said, “but come on in.”

I ducked into the doorway and joined her in the tight quarters.

“My dad made this for me when I was eight years old. He loved carpentry and was really good at it. I used to spend hours in here. My heart couldn’t take the strain of playing, so this was my make-believe world. In here, I wasn’t sick and I had a million friends, all wanting to come into my magic playhouse.”

“It’s pretty neat,” I told her.

“Do you really think so?”

“I do.” I slid down a wall, curling my knees tight to my chest. I held out one of my sparklers. “Got a match?”

She was hunched over hugging her knees too, but she fished a book of matches out of her shorts pocket. “Here you go.”

I lit my sparkler and watched it ignite.

“It’s the cool variety,” she told me. “The barrel’s hot, but not the sparks, so you won’t get burned.”

I tested the theory by capturing a few of the starry sparks. She was right. In the sizzle of light, I saw that her eyes looked large and unguarded. It didn’t take a genius to realize how lonely she had been as a kid.

She touched her sparkler to mine and we watched as it caught, throwing sparks everywhere.

“You must have had a great dad,” I said.

“Don’t you?” she asked.

My sparkler came to the end of its life. “Not so much. He and Mom are divorced and he’s been out of my life for a zillion years.”