The Second Heart (19 page)

Reading Meredith’s thoughts on her face, Vi
said, “Either Eleanor is on our side and would want you to have the
coat, or she’s out to get us, in which case, she deserves to have
her coat stolen. Just take it.”

Careful not to make a sound, Meredith jogged
back into the house and slung the coat around her shoulders. It was
one of those puffy coats and it was much too small, making her look
like she was a big green caterpillar. If the moment weren’t so
serious, Vi would have laughed at how ridiculous Meredith
looked.

Catching the mirth in Vi’s eyes, Meredith
said, “Not a word, Vi. Not a single word.”

They closed the door behind them slowly,
pulling ever so gently until they heard the latch click.

“Can you run for a little ways?” Meredith
asked.

Vi looked down at her feet, thinking of the
raw blisters that she had already incurred the night before. “I
guess it can’t get much worse,” she said gamely.

“Just for a little while, okay? Then we’ll
walk.” Meredith took off down the driveway, setting a brisk
pace.

Inwardly, Vi cursed her friend for being so
athletic while simultaneously cursing herself for not. The blisters
on her feet started to burn inside her shoes as they rubbed against
the leather. She sucked in her breath and did her best to ignore
it, unsuccessfully. She focused on the need to get as far away from
Eleanor’s house as they could, thinking of the pain as the price
for their safety. Giving her discomfort a purpose made it more
bearable, though she still resolved to throw the wretched boots
away at the first opportunity.

At the end of the street, Meredith turned
south before cutting down another side street. They rounded a
corner and spotted a wash that ran through the neighborhood.
Meredith went off the sidewalk and down into the concrete ditch,
which still held several large puddles from the rain a few days
before. She slowed to a walk and went to sit in the pass under the
street they had just been on.

Relieved, Vi sank down next to her friend and
began unlacing her boots.

“How are your feet?” Meredith asked.

“Bad. But I’m trying to be philosophical
about it.” VI pulled off her right boot and sock and inspected the
damage to her foot. A large blister on her heel had broken and was
oozing clear fluid, while a second blister on her baby toe was also
threatening to burst.

Meredith hissed through her teeth in
sympathy. “Okay, so no more running.”

Vi shot her a grateful smile. “We need to
figure out where we’re going, anyway.” She began pulling off her
other boot.

Meredith was silent, pressing her lips
together nervously.

Vi stopped mid-tug and demanded, “What?”

“I think we should split up,” Meredith said
carefully. “My parents aren’t the only ones that I’m putting in
danger. It’s too big of a risk for you to stay with me.”

Vi scoffed and finished pulling off her
second shoe and sock. “So you think the best thing is for you to go
it alone, with no help, for everyone else’s sake?”

Meredith nodded.

“I didn’t have you pegged for the martyr
type.”

“I’m not trying to be a martyr, Vi. I’m just
trying not to get you killed. I mean, look at last night. We could
have frozen to death in that storm.”

“So if we did split up, what would you
do?”

Again, Meredith hesitated to respond. She
obviously had a plan in mind, but was reticent to share it with
Vi.

“Spit it out, Carpenter,” Vi said harshly.
She felt angry and a little hurt by Meredith’s desire to separate,
though she had no intention of letting it happen. She held
Meredith’s gaze as several emotions played out across her friend’s
face.

Finally, Meredith blurted, “I just can’t sit
idly by and let someone die because of my silence and fear.”

Understanding dawned on Vi. “You want to go
warn the guy at that other hospital, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

Vi thought it was an idiotic thing to do, and
almost said as much. Chances are the protégé was sniffing around
the other hospital, too, and Meredith would be putting herself
directly in harm’s way. On the other hand, Vi wondered how she
herself would feel if she knew she could save a life and chose not
to. Vi thought she might be able to live with that, but she knew
Meredith couldn’t. Swallowing all her misgivings, she said,
“Okay.”

“You’re not going to argue with me?” Meredith
asked incredulously.

Vi shrugged. “Would it do any good?”

Meredith grinned. “Probably not.”

“Then let’s skip that part and talk
logistics. Phoenix Mercy is way downtown, so we can’t walk. Do you
know anyone who lives around here who could give us a ride?”

“No. Remember, you’re my only friend,”
Meredith joked, though it wasn’t far from the truth. Her dedication
to school had edged out most of her personal relationships. “Our
apartment is the closest.”

“Your car and my scooter are both at your
parents’ house.” Vi paused and then suggested, “We could call a
cab.”

“No, Phoenix cabs take hours to show up. What
if they plan to operate on that guy this morning?”

They sat and pondered their situation for a
few moments. Meredith’s stomach rumbled loudly, reminding them both
that they were long overdue for a meal.

“What about Josh?” Vi asked suddenly,
remembering their newly befriended neighbor. “He owes us a ride to
a hospital, after all.”

“Don’t you think going home is too
dangerous?”

“If you really want to go warn that other
guy, then this is our best option.”

Meredith looked torn. “I want to go crawl in
a cave and hide forever.”

“That’s what Eleanor would have you do,” Vi
agreed.

Meredith shook her head, the corners of her
mouth turning down. In a low voice she said, “I spent the whole
night thinking about myself and how
my
life is changed
forever. I didn’t spare a single thought for the guy whose life is
about to be ended completely.” Tears sprang into her eyes as guilt
overwhelmed her. “And now, I hesitate to help him because I can’t
stop thinking about how it affects
me
. What kind of selfish
person does that?”

“Hey, it’s only natural to want to protect
yourself. You’re being too harsh a judge.” Vi’s voice was soft and
soothing as she reached over and patted Meredith gently on the
back, though she thought that her friend was probably due for a
good cry. The past two days were probably the hardest of her
life.

Meredith’s body shook as she sobbed
noiselessly. Looking up at Vi with red eyes and tear stained
cheeks, she cried, “I’m just so freaking scared, Vi. I always
thought I was such a strong person, but now that I’m being tested,
I just want it all to go away.”

Vi didn’t say anything, giving Meredith a
chance to let all the emotions out. Vi rubbed her back and made
shushing noises, until Meredith’s tears were mostly back in check.
While her friend hiccupped softly beside her, Vi said, “Doing stuff
when you aren’t scared is easy. But having the balls to try anyway
when you’re scared out of your mind, that’s what’s strong.”

“Do you really think so?”

Vi gave her a half smile. “Do you remember in
eighth grade, when we went hiking on South Mountain and I fell and
broke my leg?”

Meredith nodded.

“What did you do?”

“I went back and got help,” Meredith said in
a small voice.

“Even though you were terrified that a
javelina or a coyote was going to get you if you were hiking
alone.”

“What? My parents stressed the dangers of the
desert, okay?”

“My point is, you did it anyway, even though
you were afraid. You did what needed to be done. You
are
strong, Mere.”

Meredith sat for a few more minutes, playing
with a pebble next to her leg. She rolled it back and forth along
the concrete while she gathered her thoughts. “Okay,” Meredith
said, nodding. “Okay. Let’s go see Josh.”

Meredith and
Vi’s apartment backed up onto a small city park that boasted a
swing set and a few picnic tables. By the time they were crossing
the overgrown lawn, it was just after eight in the morning. Their
apartment building blocked them from view of the parking lot, just
as they had hoped it would.

Vi’s bare feet squished into the damp grass
as they walked, making small squelching sounds. Her socks were
stuffed into her pockets and her prized leather boots sat abandoned
in the wash where they had rested earlier. Vi stepped around a
broken off branch of a bougainvillea bush, careful of its long,
sharp spines.

A young woman was walking her dog through the
park, and she smiled at them as she passed. If she noticed Vi’s
bare feet, she didn’t give any indication. After returning her
grin, they waited until she was gone from sight before they walked
into the shadow of their apartment building and sidled up under
Josh’s window.

Vi reached down and picked up a handful of
landscaping gravel that had gathered along the foundation of the
building. She threw a pebble upward, but it bounced noiselessly off
the stucco next to the window.

“Seriously, Vi? The window is like six feet
wide.” Meredith took a pebble from Vi’s hand and threw it up, where
it clacked against the glass.

“That was just my warm up,” Vi said
defensively. She threw a second pebble, which pinged against the
metal window frame that ran down the middle of the two panes of
glass.

They threw several more rocks, each a little
harder than the last. After each pebble, they glanced around
cautiously, making sure they weren’t being observed. Still, Josh
didn’t come to the window.

“Maybe he’s not home,” Vi suggested,
disappointed.

“Maybe he’s a really heavy sleeper,” Meredith
countered. She bent down and pulled off her tennis shoe, turning up
a corner of her mouth slyly. She felt jittery and nervous as the
wet of the grass soaked through her sock, sending a chill up her
body. She threw the shoe at the window, where it thumped loudly
against the window, causing the glass to shake in its frame. She
looked around to make sure no one had seen them.

From inside the apartment, they heard a
muffled, “Jesus Christ!”

Meredith gulped down a giggle, feeling giddy
in her relief that he was home. She looked around again nervously,
making sure they were still alone behind the building. Vi raised an
amused eyebrow at her while Meredith walked over and picked up her
shoe where it had fallen on the ground.

Upstairs, they could see Josh hobble angrily
over to the window on one crutch. His hair was sticking up on one
side and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. When he caught sight of
Meredith and Vi down below, his anger turned to confusion as he
opened the window. “We have to stop meeting like this,” he joked,
though his curiosity was written all over his face.

They had agreed on the walk over to keep Josh
as much in the dark as possible while still convincing him to give
them a ride to the hospital. Meredith focused on stuffing her damp
foot back into her shoe while Vi did the talking. “We need your
help,” Vi began. “A friend of ours is in the hospital, and we need
a ride to go visit him.”

“That’s not as romantic a tale as throwing
things at my window would suggest,” Josh said, fishing for more
information.

Vi’s eyes slid over to Meredith’s face, as if
asking for permission to say more. Meredith said, “Well, since the
last time we saw you, we kind of got into a bit of trouble. And
we’re worried that someone might be watching our apartment.”

“Where are your shoes?” Josh asked Vi.

Vi smiled. “They were hurting my feet, so I
ditched ‘em.”

“Ha, literally,” Meredith said out of the
side of her mouth.

Vi chuckled at the private joke. Then she
said to Josh, “Got any sandals I can borrow?”

“So now you want a ride
and
shoes?” He
looked at them as if he was sorry he had ever met them.

“And food,” Meredith added hopefully.

Josh closed his eyes and scrubbed a hand down
his face. “Dude, my apartment caught on fire and I have a broken
ankle. I don’t really want to get sucked up into your… whatever it
is.”

“You just had to ask for food, didn’t you?”
Vi teased, confident that she would be able to persuade Josh to
help them, girlfriend or no.

“Okay, no food!” Meredith amended.

Contrite, Josh said, “No, no. You can have
some food.” Then he added wearily, “Are these, like, drug guys or
something?”

“No,” Vi assured him.

“So who are they then?”

“Come on, does that really matter?” Vi asked
with an alluring smile.

“It matters if I’m going to help you,” Josh
said, unaffected by Vi’s charms.

Meredith remembered Vi’s irritation a few
days earlier at Josh’s having a girlfriend and wondered if Josh had
borne the brunt of it. She knew a different tactic was probably a
better idea. “We saved your life,” she reminded him quietly. “We
wouldn’t ask if there were anyone else who could help us.”

“And you can come get us around the corner.
They won’t even know you’re involved,” Vi added.

Josh looked at them darkly. “Fine. Give me
ten minutes and then I’ll come pick you up at the Circle K.”

* * *

Lenny sat up straighter in his car as he saw
someone coming out of the apartment across from Meredith’s. Their
neighbor maneuvered awkwardly on crutches and wore a backpack slung
over his shoulders. Lenny relaxed and watched with amusement as the
poor guy tried to totter down the concrete stairs without tripping
over his own crutches.

At the bottom of the stairs, the man started
to hobble toward his car when he stopped short, having forgotten
something. He warred with himself as he debated whether to climb
back up the stairs or forget about it. Finally, he turned and
dragged himself back up to his apartment, backpack, crutches, and
all.