Reach for Tomorrow (9 page)

“I just came back for Andy’s catcher’s mitt. We’re getting up a game of baseball.”

She absolutely hated being caught snooping. And Josh had caught her red-handed. She held her head high in an attempt to restore her dignity. “I’ve made your bed and cleaned up a little. The place was a mess.”

“I’m a messy guy. You know that.”

Back home, when they had dated and she’d gone to visit him at his grandfather’s, his room had often been less than orderly. She’d joked with him about it and he’d told her, “What I need is a girlfriend who loves junking up a place as much as I do.” She wondered if Natalie was that kind of girl.

“Well, it’s none of my business,” she said with a shrug, and started past him toward the heap of dirty clothes.

He stepped around her and up to his dresser. “What do you think of Natalie?” he asked.

Katie’s cheeks felt hot. “I hardly got a look at her.”

“She’s a nice girl. You’d like her.”

Katie doubted that. “Maybe I can meet her sometime.”

“Maybe.” He set down the photo. “Katie, I hope that when we get back home we can be friends again.”

“We are friends. Aren’t we?”

“You’ve gone out of your way to ignore me. That’s not how friends treat friends.” He sounded hurt.

Ashamed, Katie shrugged. “It’s nothing personal, Josh. I’m just giving us both lots of space.”

“If we had any more space between us, I’d be on the moon.”

She couldn’t help smiling. “This summer has really been great so far,” she said. “I like being here. I like having you here.”

“You do?”

“Yes, Josh. It’s nice to look up and see you every day. Like old times.”

He flashed her a smile that almost made her heart melt. “Thanks for telling me that. It helps.”

“Helps?”

“Helps me believe that we aren’t a hopeless case.”

She smiled shyly. “Nothing’s hopeless.” She bent and picked up his heap of clothes. “Except maybe your laundry. It looks pretty grim.”

“Thanks for doing it.”

“You beat us. I owe you, remember?”

“Well, we did sort of trick you.”

“I know, but we’ll get over it.”

She eased out the door, clutching the clothes, and the last sound she heard as she walked toward the laundry room was Josh whistling.

That night at supper in the rec hall, Katie sat with her friends, picking at her Jell-O. “What’s the matter?” Lacey asked.

“Nothing.”

Lacey leaned over to the others. “Which is shorthand for ‘Lots, but I’m not going to tell you-all.’ ”

“Can’t a person have a personal thought around here?” Katie asked.

“Sounds like a Josh encounter to me,” Lacey said with authority as she leaned back in her chair.

Katie was starting to snap, “No, it wasn’t,” when the rec doors opened and Josh, Kevin, and Eric
strolled in. They wore makeshift Mexican-style out-fits—big, cheap
sombreros
and horse blankets thrown around their shoulders. Eric carried a guitar, and the other two held roses in their teeth. They slowly walked over to where the girls sat and bowed from the waist.

“We have come to sing for you,” Kevin announced in a terrible Spanish accent.

“I thought we were supposed to sing for you,” Katie said. The three boys looked so ridiculous that she could hardly keep from laughing aloud.

“We have heard all of you sing,” Josh said. “It is not a pretty noise.”

“Why, you …” Lacey picked up a blob of Jell-O as if to toss it at them, but Chelsea grabbed her hand.

“Methinks the
señorita
is miffed,” Eric said. He’d drawn a thin mustache on his upper lip with eyebrow pencil.

Kids were leaving their seats and gathering around the girls’ table. “Hey, Josh,” one boy called out. “Are those my shower shoes you’re wearing?” He was a big kid, heavyset and bald from chemotherapy.

Katie looked at Josh’s feet and saw that he wore shower sandals shaped like little boats. She muffled her laughter with her hand.

“We have a song for the pretty girls,” Josh said in an equally bad Spanish accent. He glanced at his
compadres
. “The music, Señor Eric.”

Eric strummed the guitar, and together the three boys sang “Wind Beneath My Wings.” They were not quite on key, but as they went along, they began to sound decent, almost good. And when they sang the refrain, Josh looked straight into Katie’s eyes.

She felt the look all the way to her bones.

When the song was over, the campers cheered and stomped. Lacey shook her head, and Chelsea gave Eric a dreamy look. Meg leaned over to Katie and said, “So, do you think they have a shot at singing careers?”

“Probably not,” Katie answered, but her insides were still quivering from the expression in Josh’s eyes.

The three boys offered dopey grins, handed each girl a rose, and bowed one final time. “However,
señoritas,”
Kevin said, “this was just a demonstration of how proper singing is done.”

“Yes,” Josh said. “Make certain your song to us is equally well done.”

Lacey stuck out her tongue.

The three boys laughed and moved out of the rec center. Campers tagged after them, knocking off their
sombreros
and taking turns wearing them.

“Now, how are we going to follow their act?” Chelsea asked.

Lacey rolled her eyes. “Who wants to?”

“It’s our turn tomorrow night to sing to them,” Chelsea said. “We’ve got to do something spectacular.”

“Yeah, Lacey,” Katie chimed in. “This is all your doing anyway. Think of something.”

Lacey sighed. “Oh, all right. I’ll come up with some kind of idea. But the three of you had better go along with it.”

“Suits me,” Meg said with a shrug. “I’d love to inflict terminal embarrassment on the three of them.”

“Not Eric,” Chelsea said quickly. “I’m sure the other two dragged him into this.”

“So we’ve got a little soft spot for Eric, have we?” Lacey asked.

Chelsea shrugged self-consciously. “I think he’s cute. Don’t you?”

“He thinks he’s cute too,” Lacey said.

“That’s not kind,” Chelsea said.

“Maybe. But it’s the truth.”

Meg kept quiet, glad she had never told any of them about her canoe adventure with Eric. Ever since that night, they had been polite to each other, but he’d gotten the message that she wasn’t interested
in a relationship with him and had left her alone.

“Lacey, don’t get on Chelsea’s case,” Katie said. “If she wants to go after Eric, let her.”

“Be my guest,” Lacey said.

Chelsea looked crestfallen. “He practically ignores me. I have to start the conversation if I even want to have him speak to me.”

“Don’t give up,” Katie said with a kind smile. “Sooner or later he’ll realize what a terrific person you are.”

Chelsea looked out the window pensively. “Well, it had better be sooner. We’re running out of time. Only three more weeks left of camp.”

M
organ paced in front of the stalls. Maybe she wasn’t coming. He wanted Meg to show up more than he’d let on the afternoon of the tug-of-war. He hadn’t wanted to sound too pleased when she’d agreed, but maybe he hadn’t sounded pleased enough. Maybe he’d been too casual and she thought it didn’t matter to him either way. Maybe the idea of discussing poetry with him had turned her off. Maybe—

A horse whinnied, and he looked up to see Meg strolling through the woods toward the stables. He felt tremendous relief.

“Sorry, I’m late,” she said with a smile. “But I had to get my girls settled in at Chelsea’s cabin. They were real wiggleworms tonight.”

“No problem. I was just checking on the horses and getting them bedded down.”

She reached up and scratched the roan mare’s muzzle. “And to think I was scared of these horses when I first got here. Why, they’re as gentle as puppies.”

Morgan laughed. “They can be stubborn, but they’re a good bunch. Come on. I’ve fixed up a place for us in the tack room.”

He was nervous. What if Meg thought he was overdoing things?

As they walked to the tack room, Meg wiped her sweaty palms on her shorts. She couldn’t have felt more agitated. Being in the same place as Morgan made her heart beat faster and her hands tremble. “I’m walking slowly because my legs are killing me,” she told him. “And my back too. All that pulling was more physical exertion than I’m used to.”

“I have some salve you can borrow,” he said. “When I do the rodeo circuit and get thrown by broncos, I get so sore I can hardly move. The salve really helps.”

They entered the tack room, and Meg caught her breath. He’d worked hard to fix it up. A small table stood in the center of the room, and he’d borrowed a checked tablecloth from the kitchen. Two candles were burning, and a vase of wildflowers sat between them. The air smelled of old leather and saddle soap but also held a hint of jasmine.

“Very nice,” Meg murmured.

Morgan hoped she was sincere. In the warm glow of the candles and the lone lamp hung on the wall, he thought she looked soft and pretty. And she smelled wonderful, of fresh soap and wild grass mingled with gardenias.

Meg sat in one of the chairs. Morgan fetched the salve and gave it to her. “Use it for a couple of days after a good hot shower. Your muscles will feel better. Promise.”

“Thanks,” she said, tucking the can into her pocket. He sat across from her, and she fingered the book of poetry on the table. She wasn’t sure how to begin.

“You got clean, I see,” Morgan said with a little laugh.

“It took three hot showers and half a bottle of shampoo.”

“Well, you look terrific.”

She blushed, cleared her throat, and asked, “Do you have a favorite poet?”

“I keep coming back to Emily Dickinson. There’s something special about her stuff. Some of it’s sad, but really honest.”

Meg opened the book to Dickinson’s section. “I know what you mean. Take this one: ‘Because I
could not stop for Death,/He kindly stopped for me—’ ”

“Don’t!” Morgan blurted out.

Startled, she looked up to see a look of pure pain on his face. “Wh—What’s wrong?”

“Not that poem.” He shoved his chair back and stood. “It has … memories for me.”

Meg’s heart hammered. Why had she started with
that
one? “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“It was Anne’s favorite.”

“Is she your girlfriend?” Meg felt a terrible letdown. He was substituting her for this Anne. It was Anne he wanted to be with this evening.

“She … She was somebody I cared for a lot. But she died.”

“Oh, no, Morgan. I’m so sorry.”

“She was special to me.” His words were halting, as if he was having trouble getting them out. “I was able to spend the last weeks of her life with her, and I read poetry to her sometimes. She was in a lot of pain, you see, and the poetry soothed her. That poem was a special one to her.”

Tears welled in Meg’s eyes, for Morgan’s loss, for her own loss of Donovan. “I—I had a friend who died too,” she said. “He needed a liver transplant, but they couldn’t find a donor for him in time. My
father was his surgeon. Daddy did everything he could, but nothing could save Donovan.”

The intensity of the painful memories shocked her. Meg had thought all that was behind her and that time had dulled her hurt, but it had returned as sharp as a sword to pierce her with new pain.

Morgan crouched in front of her, feeling like a jerk. Why had he poured out his guts about Anne? He’d only reminded Meg of someone she’d lost. A boyfriend? Morgan couldn’t guess. “Looks like we both know something about losing,” he said. “I didn’t mean to bring back bad memories for you.”

“They’re good memories too,” she said, dipping her head so that he wouldn’t see the tears brimming in her eyes. “Donovan wanted so much to live. He got cheated.”

“Anne wanted to live too. She fought hard. Harder than any wild horse I’ve ever known. I like to think that death didn’t come to take her, but, like the poem says, she went out to his coach and got in of her own free will.”

Meg nodded in understanding. “I’m glad I came to help at this camp. Whenever I look at the kids, I see regular kids who want to have fun.”

“You’re giving them that. You should be proud.”

“You are too,” she said. “It’s the least we can do,
don’t you think?—help others out. Donovan is still helping. He made sure there was a special house for families to stay in so they could be with their sick children. Did Anne do anything special like that?”

Morgan was drawn up short. Anne had given him money for his genetic test for Huntington’s chorea, but he couldn’t tell Meg about that. He stood, pulled Meg to her feet, and turned her face upward so that he could look down into her eyes. “This evening didn’t turn out like I planned,” he said. “I’ve made you sad, and for that I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.” He had subtly shifted the subject. She knew he was through talking about Anne. And himself.

“I think we should call it quits tonight. I’m not in the mood to read any more poetry.”

She felt rebuffed, as if he’d walked to the edge of a special place with her, then retreated. Or maybe he just didn’t want to be with her. “All right. Maybe some other time.”

She told herself to walk away, but she couldn’t.