Hearts Unfold (26 page)

Closing the
door and leaning against it, she had proclaimed, “I guess I fixed them.”

Emily, curled
on her bed with her face turned to the wall, had been wondering how much worse
her life could get.
 
Now she feared she
was about to find out.
 
“What do you
mean?”

“I told them
your secret.”
 
When Emily didn't respond,
Penny prodded, “Don't you want to know what I said?”

“Do I?”

“Yes!
 
It’s brilliant, and I thought it all up on
the spur of the moment.”
 
Taking a deep
breath, she proceeded, her eyes gleaming.
 
“I told them your father's in the diplomatic corps, somewhere on a
top-secret assignment, so secret even you don't know where he is.
 
I told them the only way I could room with
you was if I let them do a background check on me.
 
The administration is sworn to secrecy and
there are agents on campus to keep an eye on you so you aren't kidnapped or
something.”
 
Penny was positively glowing
with pride, watching expectantly for Emily’s reaction.

“You
didn't!
 
You lied to them all?
 
Oh, my gosh, Penny, what if they go to the
super?
 
We'll both get expelled!”
 
Rolling off her bed, Emily jumped to her feet
in panic.

“But they
won't.
 
They bought it, hook, line and
sinker.
 
They loved it!
 
It fed right into their 'big brother is
watching' paranoia.
 
And look at
yourself, Emily.
 
You could be somebody
like that, with the way you dress and that car of yours.
 
Your father obviously made a lot of money,
why not give him a glamorous job.
 
I just
wish you could have seen their faces.”

Dropping back
on the bed, Emily had stared at Penny in amazement.
 
“I can't believe you would lie for me like
that.”

Penny
grinned.
 
“It wasn't a lie. It was a
bluff.
 
It's up to the prosecution to
prove otherwise.
 
I'm just honing my
defense attorney skills.
 
Now cheer
up.
 
Next time they see you, they'll all
be looking around for your bodyguards.”

They had
laughed later at the change in the way Emily was treated.
 
It was as if the other students were sharing
some deep secret, greeting her with knowing smiles and, just as Penny had
predicted, trying to detect the Secret Service agents on her trail.
 
But Emily had felt guilty.
 
It was a lie, no matter what Penny said, and
it had only been necessary because she'd been secretive in the first place.
 
Her father would have been ashamed of her,
she knew.
 
She had been raised to know
better, he would remind her, and family came first, no matter the
circumstances.

Penny also
understood about family.
 
She was just as
fiercely loyal to hers and just as determined to live up to their expectations
of her.
 
The middle child of three, and
the only girl, she was bent on making her parents proud.
 
She and her brothers were all in college, and
their parents were looking forward to the day each graduated and made a success
of their lives.
 
While Penny dreamed of
being a public defender, she was well aware that a better paying job would put
her noble ambitions on hold.
 
She owed it
to her family to make money, she said, but someday maybe she could follow her
dream of helping those most in need.

While Penny
possessed a wickedly humorous outlook on her fellow students, and could
impersonate faculty members with such sarcastic accuracy that Emily shed tears
of laughter at her antics, she was serious about the things that mattered; her
family, her faith and most of all her boyfriend, Frankie.

Penny met
Frankie no long after she and Emily had become roommates.
 
He was in the Army, stationed at a nearby
base, and had come into the diner where Penny waited tables on weekends.
 
A native of the Midwest, he was a big,
handsome boy, but painfully shy.
 
Penny
had invited him to a movie, and they had been a couple ever since.
 
Now Frankie was somewhere in Southeast Asia,
and Penny, a devout Catholic, went to Mass at seven each morning to pray for
his safe return.
 
She had accepted an
engagement ring from him just before he had shipped out last summer—a tiny
diamond set in gold which she wore on a chain around her neck.
 
She hadn't told her parents yet that she was
engaged for fear they would worry about her even more than they normally did.
 
Emily was sure that Penny would also
understand about wanting to keep private things private.

It was late
when Emily got back to the dorm, and she was disappointed to find that Penny
had not yet returned.
 
Unpacking her car,
she sorted her things back into place in the room.
 
She took the letter from Milo Scheider out of
her purse and tucked it in the drawer of her desk.
 
There had been no more news of Stani's
condition as far as she knew.
 
When she
had told Jack about the contents of the letter, he had urged her to think it
over before she destroyed the check.
 
One
day she might feel differently about it.
 
As for Stani Moss, Jack again advised her to give herself time.
 
Saving a life was bound to make a powerful
impression.
 
She had wanted to respond
that if he only knew how powerful, he'd understand why she didn't need to be
paid for what she'd done.

While she
prepared for bed, she listened to the arts programming on the radio, just in
case Stani’s name was mentioned.
 
She had
just switched off the set when the door burst open and Penny swept in, dropping
her bags in a heap on the floor.

“You're
back!
 
Did you have fun?”
 
Giving Emily a big hug, she stood on tiptoe
to press her cold nose against her cheek.
 
“And no broken bones?”

Emily hesitated
for a moment.
 
It was late and she wasn't
sure she wanted to start what could be a long conversation now.
 
But one look and she knew Penny had already
seen the changes that had taken place since they parted two weeks earlier.
 
“I didn't go skiing, Pen.
 
I went home.”

“Home as in the
hills?”
 
Penny was shrugging out of her
coat, her eyes never leaving Emily's face.

“The same.
 
And I've been there the whole time.
 
In fact, I'm going for good at the end of the
year if my plan works out.”
 
She saw the
shadow that momentarily crossed Penny's face.
 
“It's what I need to do, for me, Penny.
 
I'm so much happier there.”

“I can see
that.
 
You're glowing.
 
You didn't fall in love while you were there,
did you?”
 
She was grinning, but her
question was dead serious.

“No, of course
not!”
 
Without warning, Emily's face crumbled
and she dissolved into tears.
 
Dropping
down beside her, Penny pulled her into her arms, rocking gently back and forth
on the bed until Emily managed to choke back her sobs.
 
“I'm sorry.
 
I don't know where that came from.”
 
Straightening, she wiped at her face, forcing a smile.

“Well,
something must have happened.
 
That's the
first time I've ever seen you really cry.
 
Want to tell me?”
 
Propping
herself against her headboard, Penny waited as if prepared to stay there for a
good long time.

Despite her
efforts to edit the story, in the end Emily told her almost everything that
happened during those eighteen hours, omitting only the few moments when Stani
had opened his eyes and she had wept on his chest.
 
Penny listened without interruption until she
heard about the letter from New York.

“I guess I can
see why you'd be insulted; but honestly, Em, you should put that check in the
bank.
 
What if your father got suddenly
worse, or your car broke down, or you got sick yourself?
 
That money could mean a lot to you.
 
It's not as if you asked for it.”
 
Ever practical, Penny was thinking of the
things she worried about herself, never having any extra cash for emergencies.

“It just seems
dirty somehow, like I took care of him expecting to get something in return.
 
But you're right.
 
It wouldn't hurt to put it in the bank.
 
At least I could buy a really nice wedding
present for my best friend someday.”

“Shh!
 
That's bad luck, to talk about things like
that.”
 
Penny slipped under the covers,
taking her rosary off the bedpost.

“Have you heard
from Frankie?”
 
Settling in her bed,
Emily turned on her side, watching her friend begin to slide the beads through
her fingers.

“I had a nice
letter for Christmas.
 
He doesn't say
much, but I think things are pretty bad over there.
 
He sounds sad, like he's seen things that
hurt him.
 
I'll just be so glad when he
gets back.
 
The hardest part of this is
not being able to see for myself that he's okay.”

Emily nodded,
aware that Penny had touched the very heart of her own dilemma.
 
Try as she might, it was the not knowing that
made her think of Stani Moss, no matter how much she wanted to forget him.
 
“I know, Pen.
 
But that's where faith is supposed to come in, right?”
 
Emily switched off the light, and they both
lay awake for a time, Penny praying that Frankie was sleeping peacefully
somewhere safe tonight, and Emily staring at the shadows on the ceiling, weary
and drained after telling her story.
 
She
tried to pray, asking that soon the vivid memory of a pale face beneath red curls
would begin to fade.
 
But part of her
wanted to hold on to that image, no matter how painful.
 
Letting him go was proving to be much more
difficult than she had ever expected.

Chapter Twenty-two

Stani dreamed
almost constantly during those first few days.
 
Variations on the same dream, really.
 
He was floating, surrounded by the blackest darkness or the most
brilliant light.
 
Gliding through silent,
deadening chill, he was powerless to stop his gentle descent to some unseen
place far below.
 
A face floated along
with him, a girl's face, with soft gray eyes and a sweet, serious smile.
 
From somewhere nearby, he could hear the
girl's voice, pleading gently, calling his name.
 
It was her voice that anchored him.
 
Her voice, soft and encouraging, called him
back when he threatened to drift too far away.
 
All the while, as he dreamed, he thought he was playing his violin.
 
He could feel it in his hands, tucked against
his shoulder, sense the vibration of the strings.
 
Music, familiar but unidentifiable, filled
some distant space, never quite reaching his ears.

Stani wasn't
frightened by the dreams, but they confused him; and he wondered what they had
to do with the days he'd lost.
 
He was
especially bewildered by the girl, who seemed so familiar yet surely was no one
he'd ever known.
 
When he told Jana about
the girl in his dream, she asked if the girl might be Betsy.
 
He had no idea why she would ask about Betsy,
but he told her no, this was someone he was certain he'd never met before she
appeared in his dream.
 
He found that
just before he fell asleep, which seemed to be frequently, he hoped that the
girl would be there, floating beside him while he slept.

When he was
stronger and could sit in a chair by the bed and stay awake for a few hours at
a time, he began to have other memories, waking memories.
 
He knew he had gone to Washington, rehearsed
and checked into a hotel.
 
He asked Jana
how they had learned about his accident and come back from Aspen.
 
He thought the accident must have happened in
Washington, but he could recall Robert's dropping him safely at the hotel.
 
When he began to ask more questions, a doctor
came to talk with him, a psychiatrist, who explained that in time he might
remember all or part of the days he’d lost.
 
Meanwhile, it was best not to try too hard, just let the memories return
naturally.
 
Stani was pretty sure that
meant the memories would be bad.
 
He
decided he was in no hurry to find out what had happened after Robert left him
at the hotel that afternoon.