Heartsick (7 page)

Chapter Ten

We only get lost once during apple picking, when we trail off, my basket swinging by my hand, into the woods. Okay, we weren’t really lost.

He grabs the basket and plops it down, a few apples bobbing out.

“Hey,” I say. “They’ll get dirty.”

He leans over me, one hand on my hip, the other on a tree branch. “They’re already dirty.”

My hand grasps his shoulder and he squeezes me, gently, into the tree as we kiss. Despite a few more similar distractions, we rustle up two bags of apples and head to his house. And by
his
house, I mean the farmhouse he shares with his sisters.

It’s sad to see his sister, Ginger, but both Luke and Rachel had given me a heads up about what to expect. Ginger can still walk most days. But it’s slow, strategic. She can do some things for herself, like brushing teeth and eating, but it’s getting worse.

Despite this being the first time I’ve met her, she makes the effort to give me a hug. A slow one. It seems difficult for her to raise her arms and encircle me, but she manages.

We sit outside at a picnic table, the night air around us. Ginger bows her head and slowly brings her hands together. Luke and Rachel do the same, so I follow. I may have been raised by agnostics who decided to stop taking me to church when I was six, but they taught me how to be a polite dinner guest.

“Thank you, God, for this meal. And thank you for our friends,” Ginger says, eyeing me. I tense. I don’t think anyone has ever thanked God for me. Luke squeezes my knee under the table; my muscles relax. Amen.

Dinner is delicious. The burger is probably one of the best of my life, juicy and with ketchup and these brilliant tomatoes that Ginger grows in their garden. On good days she can still garden. We also have a special pumpkin microbrew that Luke and Rachel got from Charlottesville, which tastes even better with a dash of cinnamon. The smoke from the grill makes my eyes a little itchy, but otherwise it’s just heaven sitting outside. We’re surrounded by the red and brown leaves as their four golden retrievers swarm around us, taking turns pushing their furry foreheads into Luke’s waiting palms. We drink in the pumpkin-y goodness and talk about everything from the quirky woman who runs Allan’s Antiques to the way the mayor always ensures there is a large, hideous fruitcake at the annual Christmas party at the town hall. Then we drift into talking about our fall recital and my senior solo. It’s tomorrow night.

“Are you nervous?” Ginger asks.

“Only a little. Rachel’s been a great help,” I say.

Luke chimes in, cracking his knuckles, “Yeah, she learned everything she knows about modern dance from me.”

“I’m sure,” I say.

Rachel buries her laughs in her hand.

“What?” Luke asks. “Is there something about me that says I’m not the sort of man who can be all elegant?”

“Well, you’re chewing on a piece of straw,” I say with a smile.

“Ah, you just haven’t come to understand the grace and skill that’s involved in straw chewin’.”

“Maybe you can give me pointers after you see the show tomorrow night,” I say as we gather the dishes.

Rachel shoots Luke a look before moving ahead of us to the kitchen.

Luke rubs the back of his neck. “Actually, Quinn, I can’t make it. I’ve got to work. I’ve been meaning to—”

“I’m going to do the dishes.” Ginger strikes through whatever Luke was about to say. “I feel up to it. Let me.” She winks at me. “Quinn can help.”

“Yes, of course,” I say. Once we’re in the kitchen, I take the towel she offers me and stand ready to dry.

Ginger flicks Rachel and Luke away with some soap. “Go on, shoo. I’ve got important matters to discuss with Quinn.”

Rachel folds her arms. Luke smiles, but it’s a lopsided smile. They wait for Ginger to take it back and let them stay. But when she doesn’t turn around, they grab a couple beers out of the fridge and go back outside.

“They listen to you,” I say as I take a wet dish from her.

She smiles. “Always have. Even as kids, I could get them to do anything. One time I convinced Luke he had to clean the whole bathroom because there was a wet footprint on the bathmat.” She turns to me. “But he was really young then, like, maybe seventeen.”

“Of course,” I say, laughing.

“So,” she says as she sprays another plate with hot, steaming water. She’s got these big, floppy orange gloves to protect her from the heat. “He hasn’t told you what he does.”

“No,” I say. “Well, he said he was unemployed.”

She laughs and dips her head back so her blond curls dance along her temples. My hand pauses in the comforting rotation of drying a plate. She nods into the sudsy sink. “That was technically true, but it’s just him avoiding telling you what he really does.”

“Why?” My teeth grind.

She stops cleaning dishes so she can look me in the eye. She has to steady herself, clinging to the sink, as she pushes back an unruly curl. “Because he likes you. I can tell. He doesn’t get goofy around many people.”

I focus on rubbing off some bits of food. Ginger isn’t great at washing dishes, but I wouldn’t be either if it was that difficult for me to move. “So when he likes a girl, he lies to her about what he does? Standup man,” I say.

“He’s got a tough job. It sometimes scares women off.”

“Oh?” I say.

“Or worse, they like him more, but for what he does, not who he is.”

“I see him for who he is.” I surprise myself. I mean, do I really know him?

Her neck flops a little, unintentionally. She turns off the water, and I finish drying the last plate. She takes the rubber gloves off and pinches her mouth, examining me.

“So you aren’t even a little curious?”

Of course I am! But I don’t want to say that. I don’t want to be all judge-y. I force a shrug. “I don’t need to know what he does to know I like hanging out with him. It wouldn’t change anything.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” she says. “Promise me you’ll get to know him first. I don’t want you getting scared off before he even has a chance. It’s hard to be a wife of a...well, what he is.”

I don’t even try to keep my mouth closed as an unpleasant heat rises in my chest. I put my hand on my hip. “Ginger, this is our second date.”

She laughs and uses both hands to smooth back her hair. The thing is, it isn’t a happy laugh. It’s soaked with desperation. And even though she’s smiling, my eyes get a little teary when she says, “I just want to know he’ll be happy. I want to know they’ll be okay after I’m...”

She stares at the ground. I don’t usually hug people I just met, well, after the introductory hug. Maybe it’s the two beers I had or the way she’s biting her lip. I give her a side hug. She brings her arms up around my arm and leans her curls into me. Until we hear Rachel’s laughter wafting through the screen door and Luke calling, “If y’all want to see me try to swallow a spoonful of cinnamon, you better get out here now.”

Ginger’s sad tears turn to warm, happy tears. She pulls away but doesn’t let go.

Chapter Eleven

Rachel and Ginger go to bed, and Luke suggests we go down the hill to the fire pit. It’s about one-hundred fifty yards from the house, just close enough that I know I can go to the bathroom in a toilet, but far enough away that it feels outdoorsy, like camping.

Luke grabs a few blankets and brings marshmallows and chocolate and graham crackers. As we walk, he continues talking about how he really is a stellar dancer. He keeps talking about his “elegant side” as he piles wood into the fire pit and creates a burning blaze.

Finally, I say, “Okay, well later, maybe you can prove it.”

“What do you mean later? We have a spotlight.” He waves up to the full moon. “And a dance floor.” He gestures to the grass beneath us. He’s trying to be romantic. It’s pretty adorable.

“But we don’t have any music,” I protest.

He scratches the back of his neck. “What do you call the rustling of leaves and the chirping of crickets and all that shit?”

I laugh. He smiles, proud he made me laugh. He pulls his smart phone from his jeans pocket and presses a few buttons. A familiar song spews out: “She’s in Love with the Boy.” He sets the phone down on the blanket before opening his arms, ready for a dance. His chest looks so good. Like something I just want to burrow into among a lot of sheets.

“I like that they go to the Tastee Freeze in this song. That’s how you know they’re country,” I say.

“I bet there are no Tastee Freezes where you come from?” Luke asks, head slanting, smile gone.

“No,” I say. “We don’t have Sonics or Waffle Houses, either.”

He approaches me cautiously, with his head leaning forward and his forehead wrinkled, like I’m some sort of victim. “How do you survive?”

“We somehow manage,” I say as he takes my hand.

His look is so mopey and serious. I need to break it up. I push him away. “What happened to the modern dance skills you were going to show me?”

He wipes his wet lips with the back of his hand. “Right, well, the main rule of modern dance, as I’m sure you know, is to spend a lot of time on the ground.”

“Oh?” I say as he takes my hand and pulls me over to the plaid blanket. It’s quick. He turns around and kneels in front of me, and soon his hands are around my waist and his mouth is on my belly. He’s kissing me through my dress, which isn’t the same, but the position, it’s just too close. My mind leapfrogs back. I jerk away. I hide my face in my hands and try to keep my balance as my legs shake. I bite my lip and try not to think about the past.

It sucks how horrible memories can ruin perfectly good present moments.

He looks up at me, mouth open, eyebrows in a triangle. “I’m sorry, I...” He starts to get up, one knee kneeling, the other foot on the ground, but I have taken a sufficiently clean breath. I come back to him, placing my hands on his shoulders. His muscles come on strong through his button-down shirt.

“Sorry, it just reminded me of something, that’s all. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“What did it remind you of?” His eyes seem to say over and over again,
you can tell me, you can tell me,
like the redundant ripples on a lake after you’ve thrown a stone in.

“It’s nothing,” I say.

“It didn’t seem like nothing. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I say more firmly. I respond with a surefire way of making him forget and move on.

I kneel down so we’re almost level and put my arms around his neck. I don’t kiss him again, I just brush my lips against his. And that’s enough, soon he’s back to kissing me. He twists me into a dip so that I’m lying on my back on the plaid blanket as his hand reaches up my thigh and toward my underwear.

Men are so easy sometimes.

“Quinn,” he whispers. “Did Ginger tell you what I do?”

And then, sometimes, they aren’t.

“No,” I say.

His forehead crinkles and he swallows. “Well, a local job came through.” He looks up to something out in the middle of the field. His Adam’s apple shifts again, another deep swallow. His gaze is so focused. I arch my back to see, upside down, what he might be looking at.

Nothing. He’s just hesitating.

Ginger says it’s hard to be a wife of a guy like Luke. Ginger wants us to be serious.

I don’t.

I bring his face back to mine, his scruffy cheeks cupped in my palms. “We’re just having fun, right?” I pinch my lips together.

He nods. He rubs one hand along my hip and delivers a devilish smile that I want to eat up. His pointer finger dips under the edge of my panties. His thumb glides softly over my lady button. “I would call this fun.”

He rubs his thumb against me slowly at first, and the light friction has me clutching at his shirt. He kisses the skin against the straps of my orange dress and continues down to my breast. Our eyes stay locked as his mouth glides and teases me through the dress over my nipple. I can’t help sighing as his hand shifts and his fingers plunge inside of me. His rhythm is perfect. He’s strong and gentle and I squirm pleasantly as he brings me closer and closer to the edge.

The last wonderful thought I have before my mind turns to lusty mush is that I have a handful of condoms in my purse.

* * *

Everything is divine, except the immediate afterward. He curls next to me, kissing the back of my neck, spooning me with both arms and legs, his rough hands reaching for mine. His consciousness drifts away.

My eyes are wide, looking over the plaid blanket and the blades of grass and tree roots.

Inch by inch, I escape his grasp. I tug my bra and dress and panties back on. I get my bag. Unfortunately, Luke wakes up. He tries to convince me to stay with him, in his room, in his bed.

No, I say. I need to get up early, I lie.

He walks me the mile back into town. I say I’ll be fine walking on my own. The crime rate is very low. But he insists. It’s not up for debate.

He kisses me at the stoop, complete with an extra squeeze of my left hand, before he leaves.

I coil into my own solitary bed.

Chapter Twelve

When I wake up, I stretch and fold forward into Child’s Pose. My face against the fabric. I smile, my lips rubbing the sheets. Yesterday was a good day.

I turn to my phone to catch up on email and see a text from Luke. It’s from two hours ago.

Hey beautiful. I still feel shitty about missing your solo. Can I take you to dinner after?

My stomach feels funny, and I read the text three times. But no, I don’t have to do that. He agreed we were just having fun.

So I text back: We always go out as a troupe after.

This isn’t completely accurate. We do, but friends and boyfriends come too. That gnaws at me. You could come too, but only if you promise to show off your modern dance moves.

It’s almost instantaneous: Anything for you.

I hold the phone to my mouth, smiling, for longer than I should. Finally, I flop out of bed and make myself go to the bathroom. I stand in front of the sink, fumbling for the toothpaste and rubbing out the little sparkly mint green blobs that Mandy left in the sink. (Okay, okay, some were probably left by me.) Something is off in the mirror.

I stop.

I stare into my eyes.

I shake.

My breath has escaped me and it feels like it will never come home. I steady myself by clutching the edges of the sink. Staring back at me, my eyes, the supposed windows to my soul, are foreign.

They are no longer blue.

They’re purple.

They don’t feel weird, they just look weird. I feel fine, except that I’m completely freaking the fuck out. I didn’t take whatever stupid drug Mandy and Zachary tried. What the fuck?

My chest tightens, like someone’s hugging me too hard. I look all around, to the seashell soap dish, to the window, to the dirt behind the toilet, as though answers lie there.

When I’m able to convince air to once again enter my lungs, I hold my hands out and calm myself down. “It’s okay, I’m fine,” I mutter to myself. “Except for the fact that I’m talking to myself.”

I try to assess the situation.

I’m shit at assessing situations. Where is Mandy? She’s not in her room, or the kitchen, or the living room.

I pull on some clothes and go outside and up the stairs to Conrad’s.

When he answers the door, I just blurt it out. “My eyes are purple.” I say it more to the world than him. I say it more to myself than to the world.

He squints. He smiles. “You’re blessed.”

I sigh. “Conrad, I need your help with this shit. It’s fine if you think God did it. Go ahead, think that. But I still need to, I don’t know, go to the hospital or something?”

He nods. “Probably still a good idea. Let me just get my coat.” He grabs his Technicolor one, which is really just a rainbow flashy jacket. But, yeah, he basically has a Technicolor coat. No, I’m not surprised by this. In fact, I’d be a little disappointed if he didn’t.

“Everything will be fine. You’ll be out smiling like the sun again soon,” he says as he crooks his elbow, an offer of physical support. I’m still visibly shaking, and we do need to walk down stairs. My hand plunges through the loop and wraps around his arm.

He drives me, even though it’s just four blocks. A walk might have been better. I need time to digest the stone of worry clinking around inside my intestines. And I need time to let Mandy respond. She didn’t answer my call. She didn’t answer my text, even though I definitely dived into the bush instead of beating around it: I have purple eyes.

Who wouldn’t respond to that? I continue to wonder after Conrad has deposited me in an examining room. I thank him and insist he goes home. He’s planning a huge fundraiser for the interfaith council tomorrow. But I know he’d also stay with me all day, and then stay up all night working on any homework or fundraising tasks he missed because he was staying with me. And he’d continue through his sleep deprivation with a brave smile.

I appreciate saints like Conrad. I don’t take advantage of them.

Finally, he agrees to leave, and I’m left in the cold, sterile room. Alone. I clench my phone and adjust my hospital gown because it’s really bright in here.

Dr. Brown comes in. She taps her lips more vigorously than she did with Mandy. She also seems less concerned with explaining things to me as nurses extract my blood and knock my knees with torture devices.

“I’ll be honest with you...um—” She looks at my chart and takes an uncomfortably long time locating my given name. “—Quinn. I’ll be upfront with you.”

“Are you normally obtuse and obstructive?” I crack a smile. She doesn’t laugh. It makes the nerves that seem centered in my belly hurt even more.

“Of course not,” she says, emitting the exact kind of chuckle that reveals she is about to tell a semi-lie and isn’t entirely comfortable with it.

“As you, of course, know, you’re not the first one with this condition. Well, your frie—” Dr. Brown looks to the ceiling before looking back at me. “I mean, a similar case revealed abnormalities in the blood, so we’ll order a complete blood work for you. It will take a week to process.”

My mind flashes. What abnormalities? Have they told Mandy this? Are they keeping it from her? I’m outraged on her behalf until I consider the disturbing possibility that maybe Mandy just hasn’t filled me in.

I stare at my thumbs.

“The good news is otherwise you seem fine. Perfectly healthy. However, we’re still unsure what we’re dealing with here,” Dr. Brown continues. “Someone from health and human services has requested to speak with any patients with similar symptoms. At this point, we can’t make you stay and talk with him, and honestly, he probably doesn’t really know...” She looks at the ground and sucks in her lips. “It probably is a good idea if you talk to him. It might help him figure out a possible connection and cause. One other patient has already agreed.”

Of course she’s talking about Mandy or Zachary. Right? I would have noticed if someone else was walking around campus with purple eyes. And, anyway, in terms of connections, it’s not hard to deduce Mandy and I live together, and Zachary and Mandy are bonking boots, often in our apartment. But I didn’t take their drug. These eyes have to be caused by something else. Maybe some strange mold in our house or some combination of food products we’re all eating?

These thoughts buzz in my brain until I realize Dr. Brown is still looking at me. “Of course, I’ll talk to him,” I say.

She writes down the number of the conference room in the hospital. “The other patient just went to speak with him about fifteen minutes ago, so you might need to wait.”

“Fine,” I say. I’m glad I can catch Mandy or Zachary between our interviews.

I put my clothes back on, and it’s a relief to get out of the flimsy, revealing hospital gown.

While searching for a ladies room, I overhear something about blood abnormalities. I stop in the hall, pressing my back to the wall. Feeling like a spy.

“Yeah, her count was 100 white blood cells per Mcl,” a woman’s voice says.

“No,” says a man. “That can’t be. It must be a typo or something.”

“No, it was 100,” she says. Her voice has two edges to it, like curiosity and fear are duking it out to see which emotion will be reflected.

“She would be sick, or dead even, with that count.”

“I know,” the woman says. “But she’s fine.”

When they walk out of the room I have to think fast and pretend I wasn’t eavesdropping by staring at my fingernails. (I’m not very good at thinking fast.) Fortunately, they don’t notice me.

I move on. Eventually, I find a bathroom. Relief. And then I find the meeting rooms. The chapel is on the same hall. A brilliant stained glass and wooden door among a dozen mundane cerulean doors.

There’s a small waiting area, so I pull out my e-reader and start reading about nineteenth century French art for a class. But it just annoys me because it’s about Monet’s
Woman with a Parasol.
It’s not that I don’t like that painting, in fact I adore it. My parents have a reproduction and as a child I would sit in the living room and stare up at it, imagining that the umbrella was magical, and that it protected both the woman and her child from everything in the world, which is why they could be above it all. I love to analyze some paintings, pick away at levels and meanings and attributes and faults, but there’re a few that you don’t want to analyze. Like a good joke or a favorite hamster, dissecting it will kill it.

So I’m grateful when the door to room 356 opens. I hop up, ready to see Mandy or Zachary. Ready to finally talk to at least one of them about this crazy purple eye shit.

But the creased purple eyes staring into mine don’t belong to Mandy or Zachary.

They’re Danny’s.