by Lynn Galli
“I am or will be, yes.”
“You look tired and in pain.” She was being kind. I looked pale, ashy, exhausted, limp, and like I hadn’t groomed myself in a week.
“Thanks, you look ticked and worried.”
“I am, dammit.” Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t do that to me again.”
“Yeah, because my heart condition is really about you.”
That dragged a reluctant laugh out of her. She shook her head and squeezed my hand again. Her other hand slid partway up my arm. The touch felt better than being able to sit on my couch after nearly a week. “When I ran into Spence yesterday and he told me you were in the hospital, I wanted to wring your neck for not telling me.”
“That probably made you more mad than me not telling you.” I guessed and her eyes widened. Guessed right.
“Don’t do it again. We’re friends. You need to let me know when you’re going through something like this.”
“Noted,” I acknowledged her worry and need for reassurance.
“Need anything from me?” she asked, glancing back at the conspicuously empty rooms.
A kiss, a hug, her body wringing pleasure from mine. I definitely wanted those things but couldn’t possibly go through them right now. Not that I’d get them even if I hadn’t just had surgery. It would be up to me to give her what she wanted. As sure as I’d been that she would relent, I was beginning to think she wouldn’t.
I wondered if my expression showed any of those thoughts because she hesitated before accepting my, “Thanks, I’m good.”
A smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “I’ll check in tomorrow.”
Why did that seem more like a threat than a promise?
From the Journal of Lena Coleridge:
My God, she looked like she’d been dragged by a bus. Wiped out, hurting, fragile, and so beautiful. I wanted to wrap her up and take the pain from her. When she wasn’t around all week, I was worried and angry and hurt that she hadn’t told me she’d be gone. She didn’t have to tell me where she was going, just that I wouldn’t be seeing her on my dog walks for a week. Sure, it’s been strained at times. Always is when you see someone naked and it doesn’t work out, but we’ve been moving back toward normal. Then she disappears and stupid me thinks it’s because she was still holding that night against me. If I hadn’t run into Spencer on my walk last night, I might never have known.
Hearing she was in the hospital tore me up. Flat out. Yeah, okay, obviously I care about her. I never would have fallen into bed with her if I didn’t, but I nearly punched him when he wouldn’t tell me specifics. Surgery on Tuesday, she’d be back today. That’s all he said when he figured out she hadn’t told me herself. Frickin’ loyal jerk.
At first I was so angry that she’d shut me out like that. We almost had sex. We were getting so close, and she thinks she can just go have surgery and not tell me. How can she make me want to shake her and kiss her at the same time?
It was such a relief to see her back home, safe, out of surgery, hopefully healthy now. I’ll find out what she had done. She has no choice in that. She will tell me. If it’s something to do with her heart, I know it’s a touchy subject, but she’s my friend, dammit. I’m helping her through this. It didn’t escape my notice that her parents and her two best friends were there. Well, she just got a new best friend. No more driving off to Denver to have surgery and not tell me. Whatever her recovery needs, I’m going to be there.
Chapter 28
Regaining my strength turned out to be harder than I remembered. Not being seventeen probably had something to do with it. Day by day, though, I was able to increase my stamina. Three weeks out, I could now manage grooming and cooking for myself. Independent again, I never realized just how much it meant to me.
Still, it was nice to have my mom pop over for breakfast or dinner and to help tidy up. Spencer came for lunch twice a week and Mei stopped off every night after work. Ashlyn had become a semi-permanent visitor, taking care of yard work and making light grocery runs for me. Brooke and Cassie came just as often. My other friends, acquaintances, and some clients stopped by with get well cards and wishes. I’d gone back to being known as the one with the sad heart condition. I wasn’t sure if that was better than having my sexuality as my headline.
A tap on the sliding glass doors had me turning from my makeshift desk at the dining table. One thing about being homebound, I wouldn’t get behind on my work. Lena stood outside, dogs by her side. I felt a smile pull my lips wide. My other daily visitor, Lena had definitely surprised me. Yes, she’d come by almost daily prior to my surgery, but now she never missed a day.
“Hello,” I greeted all of them when I went to the door.
“We’re off for our walk. Join us?”
After the first couple of days, she’d stopped asking how I felt. She just seemed to know as if she’d been there with me as often as my mom or Mei after these things. Even Spencer and my dad still tiptoed around me most times. Others would have asked if I felt up for a walk, but not Lena. She knew I had to walk a mile a day. She showed up mid-afternoon almost every day to drag me away from my work.
“General Hospital is on.” I gestured to the dormant television in the living room.
She laughed and pulled on my arm. I winced at the stretch. My chest still ached and the incision area would be sore for another week or so. Lena noticed and immediately dropped my arm. “Sorry.”
“Slight twinge, nothing big.”
We started off the porch, walking at a pace that was about half my normal speed. She never minded, adjusting her stride to match mine. When I needed to stop or sit, she stopped or sat with me. If I needed a crutch in the last two hundred yards to make it home, she’d offer her arm for support.
“Will you tell me sometime?”
I called out to Kitty so he didn’t get too far ahead of us on the street. “About what?”
She glanced at me then watched Kitty race back toward us. “What you had done.”
“Boob job.”
Laughter spilled from her lips. “Captivity has messed with your brain.”
“What? Did they botch it?” I joked, glancing down at my barely B-cups.
Her eyes dropped, and my nipples betrayed me, tightening under her gaze. What I’d meant as a joke had treaded into serious territory. “They’re perfect.” She waited two beats and finished, “I assume. I was denied that pleasure, you’ll recall.”
Whoa, had she just brought up our almost night together? And joked about it? “There’s the sass I’ve missed. I wondered how long you’d keep treating me delicately.”
“I haven’t been-” She cut herself off when she caught my smile. “Punk.”
As we passed the Crane’s house, the door opened. “Hello, you two. Glory, how are you feeling?”
“Fine, thanks, Nancy.”
“Anything we can do for you?”
“Thank you, but no. I’m all set. Say hi to Calvin for us. Enjoy your evening.” I waved and continued at the same pace, encouraging her to drop it. She took the hint and said her goodbyes before heading back inside.
“How many of those do you go through a day?”
“The first week, everyone I know in town. It’s tapered off since.”
“I’ve heard lots of concern. As your neighbor, I’ve gotten calls every day.”
“Tell them I got sick of this town and moved.”
“How long would that rumor take to make the rounds?”
“Resident relocation is better than affairs on the gossip scale around here.”
She chuckled, coming close enough to brush against me. “Tempting. I do like messing with people sometimes.”
“Really?” I asked, all innocence.
“Punk,” she muttered again. “Not today, then.”
“Today for what?”
“Finding out about your surgery.”
I stopped myself from repeating my earlier joke, but only because talking about our almost but not quite night together was on
ly slightly scarier than talking about my heart condition. “New valve.” If we were going to be real friends, I couldn’t keep pushing her away.
Her step stuttered. She reached down and stroked Fender to cover it up. “You had a heart valve replaced?”
“Yes.” I took advantage of her pause and stopped for a rest. I’d made it a hundred feet father than yesterday before my first stop.
“That’s serious.” She blinked several times. “Major, I think.”
“Avoid it if you can.”
She shook her head, exasperated. “Don’t do that.”
“You’re new to this. Come visit me in the cardiac wing next time and you’ll walk away with a book full of morbid humor.”
“You’re already planning to go back?”
“Hope not.”
She gave a single nod. Turning around, she started us back toward our houses. “Me, too. This worried me. I can’t imagine how scared you must have been to go through it. You’re very brave.”
To go through a life saving procedure? I wouldn’t call it brave, but it was nice of her to say. “Thanks.”
“Please don’t keep me in the dark if it happens again.”
“I have to go to the dentist next month.”
Her hands rose toward my neck, twisting together to mimic wringing it. “I’m serious. I care about you, Glory. We,” she paused and waved her fingers between us, “care about each other. Keep me informed, please.”
I heard a faint click of my new mechanical valve in the quiet between us. After three weeks it was becoming more difficult to discern the sound. Mom and Mei assured me that they couldn’t hear it. But at Lena’s confession, I felt and heard how rapidly the valve was working. For the first time since the surgery, the sound felt really good. Or maybe it was learning that Lena hadn’t completely distanced herself from me or what we could have together.
*
“Hey,” I called after knocking on Spencer’s door and letting Mei and myself in.
“My two favorite people,” Spence greeted, walking in from his back deck.
I could smell the grill going already. Trout if my nose was working right. He’d gone fishing with my dad and his buddy James last weekend, and Mei and I were going to be eating the spoils.
He smiled, his eyes flaring at Mei before swooping in for a kiss. “Hi, sweetheart.”
My heart warmed at their embrace. It seemed like the second the divorce came through, their happiness increased tenfold. They were still keeping it private, at least for another three months, but they were no longer careful to seem like they were mostly associated through me. Brooke and James had also been let in so that they wouldn’t have to hide their obvious affection for each other in front of the two other people they spent the most time with.
He turned and gentled an arm around me. “Sixty percent?”
I smiled at his way of asking how I was doing. “Sixty-one.”
“Excellent. You can wrap the corn in tinfoil. Mei, salads and veggies, please.”
“You just asked us over to cook for you,” she snarked.
“I had to kill the fish, my lovely, and clean them. They require constant cooking supervision, the delicate things.”
Mei laughed, pushing him back onto the deck. I loved seeing her this happy.
“Hey,” I said, stopping him. “Is that a goatee? Spence, you stylish dude, when did you make that change?”
“I had a shaving mishap. Took an extra swipe. Had to bring it down to a goatee. You like? Irresistible, right?”
We both laughed. Spence could be a funny ham when he put some effort in. Mei leaned up and kissed his now bare face. He did look good and a little closer to his thirty years, too.
“Did you want to invite Lena?” Mei asked as we took up our assigned tasks in the kitchen.
“She’s out at the Ducky Derby with Kirsten and Rod today.” I leaned back and asked Spence through the French doors, “How’d you manage not to be there, Mr. Mayor?”
“I put in an appearance earlier.” His tongue peeked out as he slid the spatula under one of the trout to flip it over.
“Slacker,” I teased.
“She might be home by now.” Mei insisted.
“I’m sure she’s tuckered out.”
“A whole day without seeing her? How will you manage?” Mei’s brown eyes sparkled.
“She walked me this morning.” Her early arrival had surprised and delighted me. I figured she’d skip the day with the Derby festival.
Mei nodded, a teasing glint in her eyes. “Are you ever going to tell us what happened with you two? Spence about swallowed his tongue when he realized she didn’t know you’d been in the hospital. Seems like something you’d tell the woman you spend many evenings with.”
“Are you asking her?” Spence said as he rushed in from the back deck.
“Stop it, you guys.”
“We’re curious. The way she reacted when you got back and the fact that she’s visiting every day says something about her.”
“She’s a good neighbor?”
“No one’s that good a neighbor,” Spence said. “Something happened, right?”
I shook my head not about to get into the details of a failed lovemaking session with my two best friends. “She has hang-ups about my age and us being neighbors, and I have hang-ups about us being neighbors and…” I let it drift off.
“Ditch the neighbor worry. It’s not like you can look out your window and see her brushing her hair in her room. You’ve got like an acre of trees between you.” Mei scooped the now sliced veggies into a pan.
“The age thing can’t be that much of an issue,” Spence said, handing the cooking spray to Mei. “She fits in with us just fine.”
“That just leaves whatever you’re hung up about,” Mei said like she was checking off line items on a to-do list.
“We’re friends. It’s working for us.”
They gave me a long look, testing to see if they could push me farther. Mei nodded and headed out to the grill to use the burner for the veggies. Spence followed but stopped at the door.
“Rick is a dick. You know that, right?”
I snorted. “Yeah.” Spence had a way of summing people up.
“Good, because I’d hate to think he’s messed with your head even now that you’re a mature, thoughtful woman.”
Rick hadn’t been the only one, though. “Not as much as you messed with his face.”
He laughed, thinking back to the beating he delivered. “Okay, just thought I’d mention it.”
I reached for his hand and squeezed. His concern felt good, misplaced, but good. Mei wasn’t sawed in half, so he couldn’t really speak to how someone might react and if that could have lasting impressions. Whatever it might be, I was still deciding if moving past the age thing, the neighbor thing, and the friendship thing only to be met by something that had ended two relationships before was worth the effort and potential awkwardness. Right now, it felt good enough just to be friends, and it seemed that Lena had come to the same conclusion.
Chapter 29
No matter how much I assured her I was fine, Lena insisted that she drive me to Denver for my follow up doctor’s appointment. My parents and Mei had been insisting, too, so I knew someone was coming with me. At about eighty percent, I could make the drive on my own, but all they could see was my still slow gait, twinges of pain, and abandonment in the middle of certain physical activities. No one was sure I could make the round trip without getting tired. I’d considered flying and having Christine pick me up and drop me off, but with everyone on my Glory Watch crew willing to make the road trip with me, I thought I would take advantage.
My mom was all set to go yesterday, but after having dinner with the crew, I somehow found myself in a car with Lena. She mentioned having a friend in Denver that she could visit during my appointment time, which meant the trip wouldn’t be wasted for her.
Once we got to the doctor’s office, she pulled into a parking space and killed the en
gine. I turned to stare at her. I’d expected that she would slow down just enough to push me out of the car without major injury.
“You don’t have to stop. I’ll call when I’m done. Don’t rush back or anything.”
“I’m coming in with you.” Lena was already getting out of the car.
“That wasn’t the deal.”
“I’ll wait till you go back with the doctor.”
“Lena.”
“Glory,” she said in the same tone. Her hand reached in through my open door to get me moving. “You’re always telling me how easy going you are. Just go with this.”
“But,” I said to her back as she walked ahead of me up to the office door. What could I do? Drag her out of the doctor’s office and throw her back into her car?
She took a seat in the waiting room as I went to check in. A magazine lay open on her lap when I came to sit beside her. I tried to think of some argument to get her to leave. I didn’t like feeling uptight about having her here. There was no reason to be; especially not now that she knew more about my heart defect than most of my other friends.
Jeffrey, the staring contest silver medalist, was sitting across the way and spotted me almost as soon as I sat down. His annoying mother, who couldn’t seem to stop calling his name no matter how well the kid behaved, thankfully didn’t see me. Without words, we went into a stare down. Him with a huge smile and large bulging eyes and me with a relaxed posture and almost sleepy eyes. That was the key to winning staring contests.
“What are you doing?” Lena whispered, leaning into my space.
“I’m taking this kid to task.”
“Mature,” she murmured and went back to reading her magazine. Or pretending to read her magazine. Prior to my stare fest with Jeffrey, I’d noticed her darting eyes taking in everything.
“Jeffrey!” his mother exclaimed when she noticed him staring at me.
He broke the stare when she yanked on his head to get him to face forward. He looked back just in time to catch me crossing my eyes at him. Despite his mom’s chastising, he giggled.