Carry Her Heart (9 page)

Chapter Eight

In June, I was offered a contract for a short story that would be part of an anthology my publisher was putting together for the following summer. I was thrilled that they’d asked me to be a part of
Summer Nights
. So many authors I loved and admired were contributing.

The day my editor called, I started work on my story for the anthology. A young girl named Letha meets a boy at her parents’ annual summer solstice bonfire.

I dreamed about it that night.

I could smell the smoke from the bonfire and hear the wood crackle. In my dream, it was in my backyard, which was much bigger than it really was.

Letha was watching the flames when the boy sat down next to her. He said, “Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

She said, “I’ve been waiting all this time for you to see me.”

Most of the time, when I dream about a book I’m working on, I wake up feeling invigorated and ready to try to capture the scene. It’s as if when my conscious mind is turned off, my unconscious mind gets a chance to play and thoroughly enjoys it.

But the next day, rather than invigorated, that dream left me feeling . . . unsettled. All day long, the feeling hovered over me, even as the story flew from my fingers to the laptop screen.

I tried to push the feeling aside as I finished getting dressed for my date with Anthony. I’d wanted to stay in and order pizza, but he’d already made arrangements to have dinner at the Johnsons’, his partners and Ned’s bosses.

It grated a bit that he hadn’t bothered to ask me. I was unaccustomed to someone making plans for me without at least checking with me beforehand.

It seemed . . . cheeky.

I’d said as much to Anthony. He’d been thoroughly mystified about why I’d been annoyed that he’d just assumed I’d be thrilled. I agreed to go, but I wasn’t happy about it.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like the Johnsons. I did.

And, as I suspect, it was a nice dinner. Josiah and Muriel were a great couple. But Ned had been right. They didn’t actually fight, but they squabbled . . . a lot. They squabbled about weird legal facts that I didn’t even begin to understand.

They squabbled about the proper way to prepare a steak.

They squabbled about who came up with some new strategy for a case and then spent a great deal of time discussing it with Anthony.

Some people might have been upset to have people conversing about topics that they couldn’t contribute to, but frankly, I enjoyed watching the two of them. I’ll confess, I blatantly studied how they interacted with each other.

Josiah and Muriel were each absolutely convinced that his or her opinion was the correct one. They lived in this black-and-white world. Right and wrong. Their way or the highway.

I’d spent my life living in a gray realm, where the only absolute was there was no absolute. Every rule had an exception. Every situation had multiple outcomes.

Anthony joined in the fracas on occasion.

I was a bystander, but I liked watching how all three of them thought. Anthony was a step-one-then-step-two sort of thinker. He seemed to get thrown if someone interrupted that process.

Muriel was a jackrabbit, hopping from one tangent to another, then hopping back again.

And Josiah was . . . a quoter. He cited books and articles to back up his points.

To be honest, I had no idea what points they were each making most of the time, but it was fascinating listening to them all. Stepping, quoting, and hopping around a case.

“We’re being rude,” Muriel finally said. Both men stopped talking and she continued, “I’m sorry, Piper. If you put a bunch of lawyers together, this is what happens.”

I shook my head. “Really, I was enjoying the conversation. Watching how you all thought and formulated your arguments was fascinating.”

“Uh-oh,” Anthony teased. “We’ve been together long enough for me to know that means we’re all about to become fodder for Piper’s next book.”

“No. Not any of you in specific. But watching your thought processes—how different they all were—might inspire something in the future. Now, if I were John Grisham, your actual arguments might have been of more use, since he writes so much legal fiction. When you’re writing about teens, legal facts aren’t normally required.”

“If Grisham had been here, he’d have joined in the debates,” Muriel assured me. “Most attorneys can’t resist a good fight.”

The rest of the evening the topics were ones I could contribute to, though their lawyerly love of arguments continued to show through as we all debated
Star Trek
versus
Star Wars
. I loved both, Anthony loved neither, Muriel was
Star Trek,
and Josiah was
Star Wars
.

The lines were fairly well drawn.

I was still laughing about it when Anthony pulled his car into my drive. “I don’t believe I’ve ever been involved in such a fierce fight,” I said.

“I didn’t realize they were both such fans of the genre.” He added, “I’m sorry for springing the dinner on you.”

“I don’t do springing very well,” I told him. “Next time ask first?”

He nodded. “I’ve never been involved with someone for this long. I obviously don’t have much experience in what’s appropriate.”

“Even if we’re together thirty years from now, asking first would be the way to go.”

“Wow, our first fight,” he said with a chuckle. “I think we weathered it fairly well.”

“No, I’m pretty sure the
Star Wars, Star Trek
debate has to count as our first fight. Even if it doesn’t, let’s say it was because it will make a more interesting story in the future.”

“You’re right about that,” he said with a hint of laughter in his voice. “Two fights in one night and we survived.”

“We did.”

He leaned over and kissed me. When he drew back he said, “I’d ask to come in, but I’ve got to be at court first thing in the morning.”

“No problem. I’ll talk to you soon.” That was the nice thing about dating Anthony. We both respected each other’s schedules.

I opened my door but Ned called out, “Hey,” before I went in.

“Hey, yourself,” I called back and let the door slam shut. I waited and Ned came over and joined me on the porch. “How was your date?”

“Nice. We were at Muriel and Josiah’s.”

“A gaggle of lawyers at dinner.” He shook his head. “I bet that made for some interesting conversations.”

“Well, there was some lawyerly talk. And by
talk
I mean debates. They were out of my league. But then they discussed science fiction.”

“And you held your own in that arena,” he said with a surety that came from knowing and sharing my love of the genre.

“Oh, I did,” I assured him.

“I thought Anthony wasn’t a fan of science fiction,” he said.

We’d invited Anthony to some of our opening night shows, but he’d always declined. I’m not sure if Ned had ever invited Mela. She hadn’t been a fan of the genre, but I suspected that if he’d invited her, she’d have come.

I worried about Ned since he broke things off with Mela. He hadn’t gone on any other dates, as far as I knew. He’d been alone for a couple months now. Maybe he’d come out because he was lonely.

I nodded at the chairs, and we both took a seat. “Anthony’s not a fan, but turns out the Johnsons are . . .”

We sat on my porch, under the glow of the light from the schoolyard, and talked about
Star Trek
versus
Star Wars
. Then we discussed which
Star Trek
franchises we liked best.

I’m not sure how long we sat there, talking in the murky light that filtered through my serviceberry trees, but Ned finally said, “I should let you get to bed.”

“How about you? Are you going to be able to get some sleep tonight?” I’d noticed a light on in his living room a lot at night since Mela broke up with him.

“I think I will,” he told me.

“Good.”

I watched him go inside and waved as he shut the door. I was worried about him. Even when you know a decision is for the best, it can still hurt.

I wished there was something I could do to make it easier on him.

I sat outside a while longer, looking at the light spilling from his living room window. I tried to think of something I could do.

Anything.

But in the end, I had to admit certain hurts simply needed time in order to heal.

And certain hurts, no matter how long you waited, never fully healed.

That Saturday was an Amanda’s Pantry Saturday. This week, Ned had volunteered to come help. We hadn’t talked about Mela, but he still seemed out of sorts. I’d spent the day trying to make him smile, and I thought I’d done a pretty good job of lightening his mood.

It wasn’t hard for me to be happy on Amanda’s Pantry days. I loved interacting with our clients. Our last client of the day was Mimi Ridley. She always brought her daughter, Lovey, with her. Lovey wasn’t actually her name. It was Lisbeth. But once you met her, you never had any doubt that her true name was Lovey.

Lovey came in and crawled on my lap. She was tiny for a kindergartener and fit on it with ease. “I made you somethin’.” Without waiting for me to ask what, she thrust a small stack of papers in my hand. “I wrote you a book ’cause you gave me some and I wanted to give you some back.”

“Lovey, that was so sweet of you.” There were colorful but hard-to-identify pictures and random letters filling the pages. “Would you read it to me?”

“Sure,” she said as she nodded like a bobblehead doll. “Once upon a time, there was Miss Pip and she told stories.” She pointed to a picture. “That’s you and a book and me and some other kids.”

I nodded as if that’s exactly what the circles and squiggles meant to me.

“And she gives them food, and last time, she gave Lovey some stuff for pancakes.” She pointed to ovals on the next page. “That’s me eatin’ pancakes. Mom made ’em for me.”

“That was nice of your mom,” I assured her.

“And that’s me and Mom after we ate them.” The ovals had morphed into broad circles.

“That’s lovely, Lovey.” The pictures might be a bit hard to identify, but the heart of the story was there, and it was a beautiful heart.

“I wanted to bring you some, but Mom said they’d be cold, and cold pancakes aren’t good.”

Ned stepped up. “That’s okay. I was going to take Miss Pip out tomorrow for pancakes.”

“You were?” she asked, her eyes wide, as if she were amazed by Ned’s mind-reading skills.

Ned nodded, completely serious. “Yes. I was going to ask her if she’d come with me and help me find a dog tomorrow, and I thought I’d feed her pancakes first.” He leaned close and whispered, “When you ask someone for a favor, it’s a good idea to do something nice for them first.”

Lovey weighed his words and nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, that is a good idea. What kind of dog you gettin’?”

“That’s my problem.” He sighed as if that very question had weighed on him heavily. “I don’t know what kind. Ms. Pip is good at figuring out people, so I thought she might help me decide just what kind of dog I need. I think choosing a dog is an important decision.”

“Yeah, that’s important. I bet she could help you. She likes to help people.”

Ned grinned at me, and I felt warmed by his expression. Ned’s happiness had come to mean a lot to me.

He whispered to Lovey again, as if her mom and I couldn’t hear him. “She does like to help them a lot.”

“Will you bring the dog with you sometime?” Lovey asked.

“I’ll tell you what, if you and your mom can come at the end of the day in two weeks, I’ll come and I’ll bring my dog with me. I’m not sure he’ll want to be here for a whole day, but I bet he’d like to walk over for a visit.”

Lovey turned around and asked Mimi. “Mom?”

Mimi nodded. “We always come late because I work Saturdays until two.”

“And I go stay with Mrs. Sandy across the street.” Lovey dropped her voice to a stage whisper and announced, “And she makes me lunches, but she don’t never make me pancakes.”

I had never seen Ned interact with a child before. Oh, he’d helped at the food pantry before and he’d certainly talked to kids, but not like this. There was a connection between him and Lovely. He was good with her.

I realized that in all the time we’d dated, Anthony had never come down to the food pantry and helped. Even knowing how much it meant to me.

I tried to tell myself that I’d never gone to court to help him with a case, but I knew it wasn’t the same thing.

Ned and Lovey chatted about dogs and pancakes as I helped Mimi.

And when they left, Lovey hugged Ned and promised to bring him his own book in two weeks.