High Hurdles Collection Two

by Lauraine Snelling

  DJ kept her expression noncommittal only with great effort. Gran, you know I don’t wear dresses. But she held up her arms to make it easier for Gran to slip the garment over her head.

  “I can put elastic around the waist if you like, or we can do a belt.” Gran pulled a belt made of braided strips of fabric from her bag and held it around DJ’s waist. “Oh my, darlin’, you’ve lost a lot of weight. I measured this off your jeans.”

  “She not lose more. I make sure of that.” Maria stood in the doorway, hands on hips and nodding. “That looks good, and comfortable, too. Did it hurt your hands?”

  DJ shook her head, surprised at herself. She’d been concentrating so hard on the fit that she’d forgotten about her boxing gloves. She stared at the person in the mirror. The turquoise material made her eyes look greener than ever and her fuzzy hair blonder. Looking taller than she remembered being, DJ was skinny now, not just straight.

  “Sheesh, maybe I should be a model. My neck is long enough for a goose. I bet my jeans are gonna just fall off. What do you think, Queenie?”

  The black-and-white dog raised her head from where she lay snoozing on the bed. She cocked her head to one side, gave a little woof, and laid her head back on her paws.

  “Was that a yes?” One eyebrow went up. “Guess so.”

  “No. I fix, you eat. I feed you up good.” Maria walked around her. “I think you look good in that. Nice legs. You wear skirts and dresses more often.” Her dark eyes flashed. “Boys come all time then.”

  “She’s too young for boys.” Gran evened out the gathers on the dress and stood back. “Looks nice, Darla Jean. You want any changes?”

  “Jeans?”

  Gran rolled her eyes. “I’m thinking of making a short-sleeved top and elastic-waist shorts for when you leave the house.”

  “That would be cool. Thank you for sewing them for me.” DJ dropped a kiss on her grandmother’s head. “Not like you had tons of time, I know.”

  “You come down now for lunch?” Maria paused in the doorway.

  “I just had breakfast.”

  “You eat before leave for hospital. Made chocolate chip mint cookies just for you.”

  “That was what smelled so good. You think maybe you could fix up a plate for me to take to Jody? Maybe if I bribe her she’ll go easier on me today.”

  “Fat chance.” Gran hung the other dress up in DJ’s closet and pulled shorts and a tank top from a drawer.

  “Sure, I do that. You hurry down now.”

  “Okay, thanks. Just let me get my clothes on.” DJ looked around for her sandals. “At least I don’t have to brush my hair.”

  “That’s my girl.” Gran gave her an around-the-waist hug. “Let’s get you ready.”

  After a lunch of grilled tuna sandwiches and chips, with a banana smoothie to drink, Gran and DJ got ready to leave.

  “You think something is wrong that Mom’s taking so long?” DJ asked. Lindy had a doctor’s appointment in the morning and had said she should be back in time but, just in case, Gran would fill in.

  “No, she had some errands to run, too. We can call her on the cell phone if you want.”

  “No, that’s okay. Got the cookies?”

  Gran nodded. “And a water bottle. Anything else?”

  “Nope. See ya, Maria.”

  On Friday DJ was making her way down the stairs when the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” she yelled without thinking. Not looking down, she picked up her pace. Her foot landed wrong, and the stairs came up to meet her.

  “My hands!” Her scream broke halfway down.

  Chapter • 8

  “Darla Jean, are you all right?”

  The doorbell rang again.

  “Coming, just a minute!” Lindy yelled at the door and gathered a sobbing DJ into her arms. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

  “Just my hands. Oh, Mom, it hurts so bad.” DJ sat on the lower step, her elbows resting on her knees, hands in the air. “I slammed them against the stairs. I tried twisting to the side, but …”

  Queenie licked away her tears as fast as they fell. She whimpered and glued herself to DJ’s side.

  “At least you didn’t break anything. Don’t move. Let me get the door.”

  DJ tried to stifle her sobs by taking deep breaths. If only she could at least blow her own nose! She started to get up but sat down just as abruptly. Her ankle screamed at her when she put weight on it. The thought of not being able to walk made her cry even harder. Queenie crawled under DJ’s arm and halfway onto her lap, her tongue still on tear patrol.

  She could hear her mother at the door. It was a delivery of some sort.

  “I heard a scream. Can I help you, ma’am?” The deep voice obviously belonged to a man.

  “I … ah … my daughter took a tumble on the stairs.” Lindy looked over her shoulder to see DJ wincing when she tried rotating her ankle. “Yes, maybe you can. Come in, please.”

  “I … I’m sorry, Mom, but I hurt my ankle, too.” The tears continued to roll in spite of everything DJ tried to stop them.

  “Hey, you look like you’re in a world of hurt.” The tall man in khaki shirt and shorts set a flower arrangement down on the table by the door. “Are you DJ?”

  “Mm-hmm.” DJ sniffed.

  “The flowers are for you, but it looks like what you need is a strong arm to help you to a chair.”

  Another sniff. “I guess. What a stupid thing to do.” Queenie curled her upper lip at the man towering over them. DJ hugged her close and whispered in her ear, “Easy, girl, it’s all right. He’s trying to help us.”

  “That’s why they’re called accidents. My name is John.” He turned to Lindy. “Where do you want her?”

  “On the sofa in the family room, please.” She pointed through the arch.

  “Okay. You call off the dog and we’ll take care of this.”

  “Queenie, here girl.” Lindy slapped her thigh.

  Queenie gave her a look that clearly said, “You have got to be kidding. My job is here with DJ.” She glanced up at the man and showed her teeth again, but very politely this time.

  “Queenie, it’s all right. Go on, go with Mom.” The dog’s look clearly said that she disagreed with this order but would obey if they insisted. They did.

  “Good dog you have there.” John leaned forward and put his arm around DJ’s waist. “Okay, on three. One, two, three.” He heaved, DJ braced on her good foot, and she was upright again, her arms held in toward her body to protect her hands. “You know, it might be easier if I just carried you.”

  “I … I’m pretty big.” DJ could feel her face flaming like she’d fallen asleep under a sun lamp.

  “Not quite. Looks like half a wind could blow you over.”

  “Took less than that on the stairs.” At least she could talk now without sobbing.

  “Okay, so you hold your hands out and I’ll do the rest.” With the ease of a man used to heavy lifting, John swung her up in his arms without even a grunt and within strides deposited her on the sofa. “Now, how’s that?”

  “Good.”

  “I’ll get some ice for that ankle.” Lindy turned toward the kitchen. “John, can I get you something to drink or—”

  “No, thanks. Got to get on my route. Mind me asking what happened to your hands?”

  “Burned them in a barn.” DJ leaned against the back of the couch, her injured foot resting on the cushion. “All I needed was to hurt another part of me.”

  “Yeah, bummer.” He left the room and returned with the bouquet of red carnations and white chrysanthemums in a rough twig basket. A red Get Well balloon bobbed above its anchor on the handle of the basket. “Here ya go. You can at least enjoy these.” He handed her the card.

  “Thanks for your help.”

  “You are more than welcome. This was easy. One day I came to a house to find a woman in labor and made a flying run with her to the hospital. Almost had to deliver a baby. I’ve had first aid and CPR training, but not midwifery—first thi
ng I thought of when your mother answered the door.”

  Lindy set the blue ice bag on DJ’s ankle and walked John to the door, thanking him profusely all the way. When she returned, she wrapped a towel around the bag to hold it in place and put a pillow under the foot. “Ice and elevate.” She stood back. “I sure hope you didn’t break something.” She glanced at her watch. “I think I better call Joe to come help us get you to treatment.”

  “Can’t I skip?”

  “Nope. And this way we can get your ankle checked at the same time.”

  “Could you please wash my face? My eyes feel like they have rocks in them.” She knew her tone of voice left a lot to be desired, but right now anything more was beyond her ability. She could hear Gran’s voice reminding her to thank God in all things, but that seemed impossible, too.

  DJ came home from the hospital groggy as always, but this time with a tightly wrapped foot, due to a minor sprain, and a frown the size of New Hampshire. As Robert helped DJ into the house and to a chair, the boys came running. They wore matching round eyes.

  “What happened to your foot?” Once again in unison. One of them—in her befuddled and muddled state DJ wasn’t sure which and at the moment didn’t much care to know—reached out to touch her propped-up, swollen, and wrapped foot.

  “Don’t!”

  “Sorry.” Immediately all four blue eyes filled with tears.

  DJ felt so low, the belly of a turtle would be far beyond her reach. What a creep you are. They didn’t do anything. “I’m sorry, guys.” She glanced up to see tears in her mother’s eyes.

  She held out her arms on either side of the chair. “Come here. Just watch out for the hands and foot, okay? I hurt at both ends.”

  “Your hands, DJ—no bandages.” The boys took on their wide-eyed look again.

  “I know. Cool gloves, huh?” With one twin on each side of her, their elbows propped on the arms of her chair and their eyes magically clearing to their usual summer-sky blue, DJ hugged them, careful to keep her gloved hands out of the way. “Please forgive me for being such a grouch?”

  “You’re a hurting grouch, huh?” one of the boys said as Queenie put her front paws on the knee of DJ’s good leg.

  “Sure am.” She blinked hard. Medication took the terrible pain out of her hands, but keeping her eyes open and her chin off her chest still took all the energy she possessed. Not that she had that much.

  “Okay, guys—let’s get DJ upstairs,” Robert said. Though DJ was capable of hobbling with a little help, Robert swung her up in his arms and grunted his way up the stairs.

  Once DJ was on her bed, tears of self-pity leaked from her eyes in spite of her sniffing.

  Queenie jumped up on the bed and gave her a quick slurp. DJ buried her face in the dog’s fur, ashamed to look at her dad. After he’d done so much to try to make things easier for her, all she could do was sound like a permanent grouch.

  “Just call me Oscar,” she muttered.

  Robert sat down on the edge of the bed. “It’s okay, DJ. You’re entitled to a bout of self-pity. Seems to me you’ve handled all this far better than most fifteen-year-old kids would. I think if it were me, I’d pull the covers over my head and tell the entire world to take a hike. A l-o-n-g hike. You sleep for a while and perhaps things will look better when you wake up. I’ll get the intercom set up again so we can hear if you holler for help.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” She felt his kiss on her cheek. Queenie lay within the curve of her arm, and they sighed matching sighs.

  For a change, DJ woke in time for dinner. Robert helped her back downstairs and out to the deck to join the family. Sparrows and finches chattered in the oak tree that sheltered much of the deck in the evening. The hummingbirds ignored the family around the table and continued to dive and display at the two glass feeders hung on wrought-iron hooks off the deck railing. Their squeaks and clicks and the humming of their wings were part of the deck music, along with the hiss of the sprinklers and an occasional shout from a neighbor’s yard.

  DJ studied the roses that bloomed along the deck, the pots full of bright pink and white begonias, and the blue stalks of salvia as if she’d never seen them before. A birdhouse hung from one of the oak branches, and peanut shells told where the squirrels had dined on the deck railing.

  “General wants to tell you hi, too.” One of the twins leaned on the arm of her chair. DJ had been giving the boys riding lessons on their pony before she was injured. “Grandpa Joe helped us when you were gone.”

  “We missed you something awful.” The other twin had taken up the other arm.

  “All right, you two. Who’s who?” DJ looked from one round, smiling face to the other. No bandages or bruises to tell them apart.

  “I got a loose tooth, see?” The twin on her right side wiggled an upper front tooth.

  DJ pointed to his chest. “Name?”

  “Bobby.”

  “So Billy doesn’t have a loose tooth yet?”

  Billy shook his head as if he were on the wrong end of a tragedy. “Nuh-uh. Not fair.” He pinched a tooth between thumb and finger and tried in vain to move it. “Thee?”

  “Have you boys washed your hands?” Lindy set a bowl full of tossed salad on the table.

  Both boys raised their hands and flipped them front and back.

  “What about faces?” They darted off to the bathroom, giggling as they went. Queenie chased after them, a sharp yip cheering them on. “Would you rather sit on the lounger?” Lindy came over and stroked DJ’s fuzzy hair.

  DJ shook her head and leaned into her mother’s caress. “Then I can’t eat at the table. Mom, it is so beautiful out here and smells heavenly.” She inhaled a long, appreciative sniff.

  “That’s the roses and the alyssum. The lemon tree is blooming, too. In fact, we’ll get to pick our first lemon pretty soon. The blossom end of it is still pretty green. …

  “Ah, DJ, you have no idea how much we’ve all missed you,” Lindy continued. “Nothing has been the same with you gone. What with you at USET camp back East, then straight to the horse show, and then the hospital, it seems like you’ve been gone forever. And to think …” Lindy stopped and cleared her throat. “We came so close to losing you. I just can’t thank God enough for letting you stay here with us.”

  “Me too.” DJ blew out her cheeks, the exhaled breath whistling through pursed lips.

  “Okay, Deej, we did it.” Robert bounded up the stairs from the lower level of the redwood deck to the top. He held out a spoon and a fork with handles made fat with foam rubber. “This way you can grip them whether your fingers want to clamp or not.” He held the utensils up to be seen more easily. “You can make about anything with foam rubber and duct tape.”

  “Gorgeous.” Lindy inspected the contraptions.

  “Dinner ready.” Maria stopped in the open doorway. “You do good, Mr. Robert. Now DJ can feed herself.”

  “Not that we mind helping you.” Lindy took the fork and placed the handle against DJ’s right gloved palm. “Now, see if you can close your fingers around it.”

  DJ focused all her will on her stiffly stretched fingers. Come on, bend. Hang on to the fork. Bend! Her forefinger moved the most, but only slightly, so Lindy cupped her hand over the back of DJ’s and gently pressed the fingers inward.

  DJ flinched and swallowed against the pain. But the hurt was nothing like it used to be, and her hands had to learn to work again. She concentrated on keeping hold of the fork, but it fell in her lap. A groan seeped from between her clenched teeth.

  “No, not to worry. Each day will get better.” Robert worked her hand this time, pressing each finger to curve around the handle. Again the fork fell.

  “Maybe we should tape the fork to her glove.”

  “No, but how about elastic? Then it would have some give.”

  While the two of them discussed solutions, DJ stared at her gloved hands. If she couldn’t even hold a padded fork, how was she ever going to be able to hold two reins and feel the
tender mouth of her mount?

  “Darla Jean, your tutor will be here about eleven. The school just called,” Lindy announced the following Monday.

  DJ kept the groan inside. The last thing she wanted to do was meet her tutor; the first thing she wanted to do was fall back asleep. The night had been rugged enough, what with two nightmares and needing to take pain pills in the middle of the night.

  “But I don’t have my homework caught up yet.” Whoops, not a good thing to say. The look she got said, “So whose fault is that?” Her mom just didn’t get it. Why read something when it went out of your brain faster than your eyes could put it in? Or your ears, since she was still working on the book report on Tom Sawyer. DJ sighed. At least she didn’t have therapy today. Here she thought she’d have a free day—to sleep.

  Slipping into sleep was one of the things she did best, even though lots of times she didn’t get to stay that way long.

  “Wouldn’t you rather meet with her out on the deck?” Lindy glanced around DJ’s room, and the furrow between her eyes showed what she thought of it. DJ didn’t have to look. She knew a slob had moved in, but shouldn’t a patient be allowed to be a bit messy when things were so hard to pick up?

  “I guess.” DJ swung her legs to the side of the bed and stood up, still hesitating before moving again in case the dizziness came back. Bending over still caused the room to spin at times, so things lay on the floor where she dropped them. She’d just gotten herself downstairs and settled on the deck with a strawberry-banana smoothie when she heard the doorbell ring. Most likely she should have brought her books down with her.

  Lindy brought their guest out and sat down across the table.

  “Hi, DJ, I’m Debra Allendra. You may call me Debra if you like, or Ms. Allendra if you prefer.”

  DJ glanced from the slim young woman with sparkling eyes to her mother, who shrugged. Since when did teachers want to go by their first name? “Glad to meet you.” Liar. This is about as bad as a new therapist.

  “Would you like something to drink?” Lindy asked as Ms. Allendra removed some papers from her briefcase and took a seat next to DJ’s.