Here in My Heart: A Novella (Echoes of the Heart) Page 12

  She watched him stand, leaving her and Vivian’s memories beneath the tree.

  “What?” She watched him walk to the door. “What’s next?”

  “What Vivian and my grandfather would have made for themselves, whether they’d stayed in Chandlerville or not.” He turned back, the hallway lights casting him in morning shadow. “What I think Vi and Horace had at the end. I know where my home is now. It will always be you, Dru. No matter how far away I live, or how long we stay gone from each other again, it will always be you. All I need to know is if you can love me enough again to take that same chance on me.”

  They gazed at each other, across the room where they’d cared for his grandmother together.

  And then he was gone, leaving the decision about their future together up to Dru.

  Chapter Eleven

  “You can’t do that,” Sally said to Lisa Sunday morning. “You don’t even know who he is.”

  Lisa shouldn’t have said anything about meeting Matthew. She’d promised him she wouldn’t. He’d said no one would understand. Like his parents hadn’t, and that’s why they’d never driven him to Chandlerville the way he’d promised they would. Now he was coming on his own. And if Lisa’s foster parents knew, they’d keep her from meeting him. Just like Sally was trying to keep Lisa from going now.

  “I do know who he is,” Lisa insisted.

  She and Matthew had e-mailed back and forth forever.

  They’d instant messaged, but only when Lisa could on the computer at home, because she didn’t have a phone that would do it. She’d seen his photo. She’d scanned and sent him hers from the place in town that let you pay to scan and e-mail. That way the Dixons wouldn’t see her doing it. Not like the spoiled kids in town who had all kinds of computer stuff in their own rooms, and no one ever bothered them about what they used it for.

  That’s what Matthew called the kids like Simon who would never be Lisa’s real friends because she was different. They were spoiled and thought they were better than kids like Lisa, kids who could never do or have everything perfect the way everything was for Simon and his perfect friends.

  Matthew didn’t think he was better than Lisa. She’d been so scared when she’d sent her picture that he wouldn’t want to meet her after he’d seen what she looked like, and after how long it took her to send it to him. But he’d said she was pretty. He’d said it was cool, her breaking the rules and finding a way to do what he’d asked her to. She was mature, he’d said, not spoiled like the other girls in her class and his in Atlanta.

  That’s why he’d finally found a way to get to Chandlerville this morning, even without his parents’ help, so he could see her for real. All Lisa had to do was slip away from the Dream Whip and meet him.

  “I know Matthew,” she said again. She finished wiping the sticky stuff off the last of the ketchup bottles. It was her job every Saturday morning.

  “You know who he says he is online,” Sally argued.

  She’d stood up for Lisa after the football game. Which Lisa had thought was so cool, until Sally started sounding so stuck-up and spoiled, talking bad about Matthew.

  “He’s my friend.” Lisa shoved the tray of ketchup bottles away and dragged the gross-looking mustard ones in front of her. She’d clean those, and then she was leaving. “And he’s my age. What’s the big deal?”

  Sally was jealous—that’s what Matthew had said a lot of girls were when they treated each other bad. Sally wished she had a guy like Matthew coming all this way just to meet her—not the same boyfriend she’d had since she was in elementary school, who kept fighting with her about the same things. Matthew had never fought with Lisa. He never made her feel stupid, the way Sally was now.

  “He says he’s your age.” Sally slid the mustard tray away. “He says he’s coming from Atlanta. For all you know, it’s another kid in your class, some boy like Simon, playing a joke on you. Or worse.”

  Lisa slammed down the mustard bottle she’d been cleaning. A squirt of yellow shot out and landed on her new white sweater—the one Mrs. Dixon bought for her to wear for Thanksgiving dinner and had said to keep special for Christmas, too. Lisa had wanted it to be special for Matthew. Now it was ruined, because Sally wasn’t her friend at all.

  “So I’m a joke?” Lisa wiped at her sleeve with a napkin and smeared the mustard more. “I’m so weird and so stupid and in trouble all the time, why would a boy want to come see me?”

  It made Lisa feel like she was going to throw up.

  Actually, she’d felt that way ever since Matthew had said he was really coming. He was supposed to be studying at the library all day. Instead, he was taking MARTA and then a bus to Chandlerville, as long as Lisa promised not to tell her parents. She had to come alone, so she didn’t get him into trouble.

  Or was it because he was embarrassed to be seen with her? Or was he really someone she knew, like Sally said—some kid, waiting to make fun of Lisa and then tell his friends, so they could all laugh at her?

  Sally leaned across the table. “I don’t think you’re stupid or weird or messed up. I’m just worried. I want you to have friends. I’m your friend. And I’m telling you, this isn’t okay.”

  “What’s not okay about meeting in the bank parking lot!”

  Lisa stood up, needing to go to the bathroom, needing to cry and be sick and totally lose it, she was so freaked.

  She knew not to do this. Parents said not to, and schools did, too. In radKIDS, Dru had gone over and over how kids shouldn’t put themselves at risk doing things like Lisa was going to. But if she didn’t meet him today, would Matthew keep being her friend and think she was pretty? Would he stop talking to her online because he thought she was spoiled, too?

  “What bank?” Sally stood, too. She looked like she’d chase after Lisa if she had to. “When is he supposed to meet you? Tell me, Lisa.”

  “So you can keep me from going?”

  Sally crossed her arms and looked angry, the way she did a lot with Cade. She was tapping her toe on the ground, like she did when she was thinking. Sally was one of the smartest girls in middle school. Lisa wanted to be just like Sally one day: pretty and funny and popular and smart, and everything so easy for her. She wanted to believe Sally wanted to help her now.

  But Lisa had never had anyone want to be with her the way Matthew said he did when they talked online. The Dixons and the people at Family Services said Lisa could fit in anywhere, with anyone, if she’d try hard enough. But they didn’t have ADHD like her and Matthew. They hadn’t been in four foster homes already.

  They didn’t know what it was like to be a kid and never make friends because she was the one always in trouble. And who wanted trouble for a friend?

  “If I don’t tell,” Sally said, “will you let me come with you?”

  “You . . . You’d go with me?” Some of the sick stopped swirling in Lisa’s stomach. All morning it had scared her a little—a lot—thinking about doing this alone.

  “We’re friends. Friends take care of each other and don’t let anything bad happen. That’s why I don’t like that Matthew’s trying to get you to not tell anyone and not bring anyone and not do any of the safe things I know you’re wanting to do, even though you say you don’t want to, because you’re afraid of what he’ll do if you don’t do what he wants. If he really liked you, he wouldn’t make you do that. A real friend doesn’t make you do things that scare you.”

  “I’m not afraid.” Lisa tried to make her legs stop shaking. There was nothing to be afraid of. “He’s nice to me. Nicer than anyone in my class at Chandler.”

  “Then let me come,” Sally said, like she really wanted to. “If Matthew’s really that nice, he won’t mind. And if he’s what he says he is, I’ll leave you guys alone. But if it’s someone from Chandlerville playing a prank on you, then you’ll have me there to help make them sorry, just like after the football game.”

  “Really?” Lisa had been remembering it over and o
ver, how Sally had stood up for her with Simon. It had been great.

  “Really.”

  “But the Dream Whip opens in like an hour.”

  “I’ll be back. I’ll tell Dru I left something at home. She and Officer Douglas are in the kitchen, acting like everything’s normal, when everyone in town knows they’re missing Mrs. Douglas since she died yesterday.”

  All morning, a part of Lisa had wanted to tell Dru about Matthew, too, and to ask if she’d come to meet him. But Sally was right. Dru was too messed up herself to help Lisa.

  Dru had come to work, same as always, even though cranky old Mrs. Douglas was gone and Dru had really liked her. But Dru’s smile had been all wrong again, and she’d looked mad at Officer Douglas again. Lisa could tell, even though Lisa and Sally had only glanced into the kitchen for a second, before they’d decided to do stuff in the dining room and leave the adults alone. No way was Lisa going to try and talk to Dru this morning.

  But she really didn’t want to go meet Matthew alone, no matter what she’d promised him. She was sweating, like after she ran laps in PE. And Sally wasn’t trying to talk her out of going anymore. She wasn’t acting spoiled at all. She just wanted to be a friend.

  “Okay, you can come,” Lisa said, heading outside as fast as she could because she didn’t want to give Sally a chance to change her mind.

  “Wait for me out back,” Sally called after her. “I’ll be right there. Let me tell Dru I’m leaving. It’ll only take a minute.”

  “You told Horace to sign the Whip over to me once the will’s probated?” Dru sliced another tomato.

  She’d been slicing them for half an hour, trying not to lop off a finger. Trying her best not to confront Brad, who’d been quietly working beside her the entire time. So far, neither of them needed stitches. But she couldn’t keep quiet another minute.

  She hadn’t seen him since he’d left her yesterday morning at Harmony Grove. She’d spent the rest of the day and last night at the Dixons’, sorting out her feelings for Vivian, and for Brad. He hadn’t called. She hadn’t expected him to. He had to have been busy with plans for Vivian’s funeral. And he’d said all there was to say already—or so she’d thought.

  She’d told herself he was giving her time.

  But somewhere between sleeping with her Friday night, telling her yesterday that she was his home, and now—Brad had evidently decided her time was up.

  She’d wondered if he’d show at the Whip that morning. She’d hoped he would. There was so much she’d realized she couldn’t see clearly on her own—so much of Brad was tied up in who she’d become and who she wanted to be. And at the hospice center, he’d said he wanted a future with her, without coming right out and saying he loved her. Then Horace phoned on Dru’s drive over this morning, filling her in on Brad’s decision to shed his last tie to Chandlerville.

  Brad pushed aside the enormous metal bowl he was using. “I wish Horace hadn’t called you. I wanted to tell you myself.”

  He’d already been hard at work when she’d arrived, chopping up the chicken the staff had grilled and refrigerated the night before, dicing celery and boiled eggs and adding the mixture of seasonings that made the Dream Whip’s chicken salad impossible to replicate, though many had tried.

  He hadn’t pushed her to talk when she’d walked straight to the rack of aprons, pulled one on, and gotten to work on the tomatoes. He’d let her go and gotten back to his own prep, hardly looking up until she’d broken the silence between them.

  He laid his knife down now, placing his hands on the counter on either side of his cutting board.

  “Let me explain,” he said. “I can see how you’d think—”

  “That you’d already had a change of heart—since yesterday—once you’d rethought your options?” She sighed and put her knife down, too.

  She sounded like a bitch. Another battle between them was the last thing she wanted. It might be the final time they really talked, and it was breaking her heart. But they weren’t teenagers anymore. They shouldn’t be saying things this time that they’d look back on later and regret.

  “I don’t want to do this,” she said. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. We were both upset yesterday. Vivian had just died. We’d spent the night together. Emotions were running high. I’m not going to hold you to what you said . . . what you almost said, actually. I meant it the other night. No strings attached. Don’t worry about it.”

  As a silly girl, she’d dreamed of their life together. When that hadn’t worked out, she’d thought she’d moved on. That she was still trying to make herself do just that was her problem, not Brad’s.

  She’d carelessly spun new fantasies on top of a friendship she’d renewed with a good man who’d done whatever he had to, to please his grandmother. Dru had let herself want Brad again, even the parts of him that still infuriated her. She’d let him challenge her to take a chance on the future they could still have—kids and a family and a long life she could proudly record in a memory book, for someone to skim through one day and smile at. It was time to let all of it go, for good—the way he was.

  But when he was gone this time, she was going to find someone she could make a real home with, work problems out with, and take every chance with, no matter how big or small. With Brad finally out of her life, she would find a love that would be hers forever, one she didn’t need to protect herself from—the way Marsha had found Joe, and Vivian had found Butler and then Horace at the end.

  Brad reached for her and pulled her close until their bodies pressed together, making her ache from wanting him to want her just as much. He tipped up her chin and waited for her to look at him.

  “You don’t understand,” he said.

  She needed his kiss, even now. She needed him to let her go. “Please don’t do this. I—”

  Sally rushed in from the dining room.

  “Quick,” she said, running toward the back door without waiting to see their response. “I have to get outside. Lisa’s going to leave without me if I don’t. I told her I was just letting you know I had to go home and get something. But you have to follow us over to some bank. I don’t know what bank. But you have to come right now. Don’t let her see you, but you have to be there.” Sally headed out the door to the parking lot, sunlight casting an aura around her. She looked positively terrified. “Lisa’s meeting some loser she found online, and I . . . You just have to come.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Lisa’s going to be okay,” Brad said to himself as much as to Dru.

  They were following the girls through the business end of Chandlerville, staying off the sidewalks as much as possible, keeping close to the buildings, hurrying but staying out of Sally and Lisa’s sight line.

  “We should stop her,” Dru whispered back.

  “Not until we’re sure there’s a problem. If we’re wrong, and you don’t handle this right, you’ll lose her trust.”

  The way he’d lost Dru’s again, because he’d left her alone yesterday, last night, believing in the love growing between them.

  If she couldn’t do the same—if she could jump so easily again to the wrong conclusion about his conversation with Horace—he had to accept that he might never get her back. She hadn’t wanted an explanation about the Dream Whip. Friday night when they’d made love, she hadn’t expected promises from him. She kept looking for reasons to write him off.

  He wasn’t going to let Dru put herself in the same predicament with her little sister.

  “Lisa’s making a mistake,” he said. “But she won’t believe you unless you let her make it. Then you’ll be there for her when she needs you. She has to know you’ll always be there, Dru. You can’t push her into doing something she doesn’t want to, and you can’t hold her back. You just have to care about her, even when things are completely messed up.”

  Dru stopped running, bringing him up short, too.

  They were breathing heavily, quietly, whi
le she stared at him with those eyes that had always seen him, wanted things from him, like no one else could. They would be unstoppable together. He was certain of it. She had to let herself see that, too.

  She headed after Sally and Lisa again, and he had her back. He always would, while she tried her damnedest to let him go.

  “You’re right,” she whispered. “We have to know who Lisa’s meeting. We have to be sure she needs our help, or she’ll never let us help her again.”

  “Or Sally.”

  Brad took Dru’s arm and slowed, stopping her at the north corner of the Chandlerville Federal Bank parking lot. They were hidden from sight behind a cluster of camellia bushes that were a foot taller than him and bursting with a riot of blooms even though it was nearly Christmas.

  “If Lisa finds out Sally ratted on her,” he said, “she’s just lost what I’m guessing is her only friend in town. If this goes down wrong, she’ll feel betrayed by all of us.”

  “We’ll explain. She’ll understand.”

  “Will she? Can you really get over a person you love letting you down like that?”

  Dru stared at him again, seeming to understand the double meaning of his words. She placed a hand over his heart and stretched up on her toes, kissing his cheek.

  “You’re a good man, Bradley Douglas,” she whispered. “You always have been. You never meant to let me down or hurt Oliver. You wouldn’t have slept with Selena that night if you hadn’t been drunk. I should have known that. I shouldn’t have waited this long, made you prove so much, to get over what happened. I’m sorry for making it impossible for you to come back for good. Call Horace and tell him you’ve changed your mind about the Whip. Don’t give up the restaurant because of me. Hold on to your ties to this town, the way Vivian wanted you to. I understand you changing your mind about us. I’ll keep my distance from now on, except for work if you still want me there. Just know that I don’t blame you for anything that’s happened.”