Between Us Girls Page 10

  God, I promise if we make it, I’ll be nicer to everyone and not complain about Quinn and I’ll go home as soon as I can…

  Twenty-Two

  Liv hadn’t planned on having a heart attack that day. True, she wasn’t feeling well when she’d gotten out of bed, but what was a little nausea and sweating? They were evidence of fatigue. They were inconveniences caused by a restless night and anxiety over Jasmyn’s departure.

  And so she had worked, planting sweet alyssum—they did so well in the coastal winters and filled the courtyard with their intoxicating fragrance—and then boom. She could scarcely breathe.

  Now, lying in a hospital bed, she felt suspended, a marionette with feet—or in this case, backside—not quite touching the earth. She was awake, but not fully. She was asleep, but not fully. She was drugged, but not to the point of pain-free. She spoke coherently, but because no one responded, she assumed the conversation was an internal monologue.

  “Apparently, I am alive. Otherwise Syd would have shown up to greet me. Instead, I got Keagan and paramedics.”

  They said it was a mild heart attack. Mild.

  “Mild. I suppose that means it was a pickup and not a semi that parked itself on my chest.”

  The thing had immobilized her right in front of the fountain. Naturally, Keagan was the one to find her there, gazing at the blue sky as though she were sunbathing. She heard his typical, unruffled voice long before she saw his face bent over hers.

  “Olivia, what are you doing? Taking a break?” When he knelt, he was already talking into his cell to a 911 operator.

  Everyone else at the Casa had left for the day. It was Saturday, their day to play, run errands, or, like Sam and Piper, to work extra hours. It was Jasmyn’s day to go back to Illinois.

  Back to Illinois. Less than twenty-four hours after Liv had dared to ask the Creator of the Universe what He was going to do about her undeniable, aching desire for a daughter that had begun to grow all out of proportion the day He plopped Jasmyn Albright on her doorstep…

  “You know, Abba, You could have just taken me home. Have it over and done with. I’ve had a good run, a solid six decades and then some. I would have been fine with leaving. But no. My biological clock starts ticking. Whoever heard of such a thing? I’m pushing seventy and I end up flat on my back, whining and gasping, making a fool of myself. ‘Keagan, oh Keagan. Please, please, bring Jasmyn back. I need her. I just need her here.’ ”

  Not that she thought for one minute that God had zapped her with a heart attack. Applesauce. That was her own fault. She ate an appalling diet, forgot on a regular basis to take her prescribed blood pressure and cholesterol medications, and she walked briskly the third Tuesday of every other month.

  But the timing. Ah, the timing was curious.

  Jasmyn had no reason to stay in Seaside Village, and Liv had had no right to keep telling her she could. Or to think a heart attack gave her an excuse to ask her to.

  Sending Keagan after the girl had been wrong. Liv felt like a conniving old biddy. Syd wouldn’t recognize her. Or would he? Maybe it was her true self coming out. She hoped Keagan failed.

  Liv heard approaching voices now and knew he hadn’t. No surprise, really. He never failed at anything.

  “Oh!” Jasmyn’s whispered breath overflowed with compassion. “She looks so…so…” Her voice trailed away as if she did not want to express how perfectly ghastly Liv must look.

  A throat cleared. Keagan. “Well, she did have a heart attack.” His neutral tone slipped a tiny bit.

  Liv smiled and opened her eyes. Nothing appeared before them, not even ceiling tiles. She sighed. Like the smile, it was probably real only inside her head. Okay, she could go with that, if only Jasmyn and Keagan were not imaginary.

  She heard the bedrail go down and sensed a weight on the mattress. A soft hand touched her arm.

  Well, that seemed real enough.

  “Liv.” It was Jasmyn, her voice firmer. “You look a little peaked, that’s all. But my goodness, who wouldn’t after what you’ve been through?” She spoke as if Liv were fully engaged. “Other than that, you look wonderful.”

  Wonderful? Right. Liv hooted in the silent way she had going.

  “Can she hear you?” Keagan said.

  “You never know. My grandpa was out of it for weeks after his stroke. Then one day he sat up and griped about specific things we had been saying and doing.”

  Keagan made a noise that almost resembled a chuckle. “We don’t have to worry about Liv griping.”

  “No, we don’t.” Jasmyn stroked Liv’s arm, gently and rhythmically. “She’s not like that.”

  Silence filled the room.

  It was a deep, comfortable silence, and Liv felt embraced by it. One by one the anxious thoughts slipped off into the blurry edges of her mind. The marionette fell gently against the pillow and mattress.

  Twenty-Three

  In the hospital cafeteria, Keagan leaned across the table until he was almost between Jasmyn and her spoon. She stopped stirring the coffee and looked at him.

  He sat back. “Thank you for coming.”

  As though she’d had a choice. He had slipped through airport security as if it did not exist, shocked her with Liv had a heart attack, and marched off with her beach bag. Now she had missed her flight, had no clothes except the ones on her back, and had no plan in mind. What was she doing?

  Jasmyn ripped open two more nondairy creamer pods—she’d already added two others—and poured them into her mug.

  “That stuff will kill you.”

  Coffee sloshed from the cup. She set the spoon on the white Formica tabletop and clenched her fists on her lap. “I’d do anything for Liv, but I’m a little…”

  “Discombobulated?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Like it sounds.”

  “Hmm. Like I’m a water balloon and I just went splat?”

  “You got it.” He squeezed a tea bag over his cup. “At the moment, you’re mentally halfway to Illinois with an image of a healthy Olivia. You’ll catch up to reality shortly.”

  “She seemed perfectly fine this morning. Maybe tired, but her usual self.”

  “That’s how these things happen.”

  “But the doctor said she’ll be okay, right?” Jasmyn had asked the question at least half a dozen times already, ever since the doctor had spoken to Keagan when they first arrived at the hospital.

  “Yes, that’s what she said.” Keagan repeated his answer in a tone of infinite patience. “The angioplasty went without a hitch. Liv can go home in a day or two.”

  She nodded. Okay. It was serious, but not as bad as it could have been. “I still don’t understand why she wants me here. I mean, she has dozens of friends who are closer to her. Inez is closer. You’re closer.”

  “Inez has her dotty moments, and I’m a guy. Nowhere near the same impact. Her dozens of other friends don’t live at the Casa.”

  “I don’t live at the Casa.”

  “She thinks you do.” A corner of his mouth made a tiny indentation. It might have been a smile.

  He was actually a nice-looking guy.

  “But I don’t live there. I am on vacation. I have no clothes. Again. No household stuff. No home to put it in if I did.”

  Keagan lifted his jacket from the back of his chair and unzipped an inside pocket. “Nothing has been moved out of Cottage Eleven.” He pulled out Liv’s stretchy coil key ring and a cell phone and slid them across the table. He fingered a key with a brown dot painted on it. “This is the office key. Inside the top desk drawer you’ll find your cottage key. Chad’s bringing her van over for you to use. All of our numbers are programmed into her phone. You’ll want to let the others know what happened. Organize visits. Probably meals too.”

  Jasmyn stared at him.

  “A few deep breaths always help.”

  “Keagan, I can’t.”

  “Breathe?”

  “No. I can’t live here and take care of Li
v.”

  “Because you were doing something else?”

  Not exactly. “She trusts me this much?”

  “Is there a reason she shouldn’t?”

  “Will you stop answering questions with a question?”

  “Jasmyn.” He leaned forward again, forcing eye contact. “She trusts you completely. You need to trust yourself.”

  She frowned.

  “Just now, when we first saw Liv, she was agitated. The moment you started talking, she relaxed. You light up a room, Ms. All Bright. You make a difference. Just be yourself.” He touched her hand, light as the brush of a butterfly wing, and then he stood. “Why did you come back?”

  “Because you made me.”

  His left eyebrow rose. Clearly he didn’t buy that answer.

  And clearly, she could have simply said no. Except she hadn’t wanted to go home.

  “By the way, I already called Piper,” he said. “She’ll pick up some clothes for you.”

  Jasmyn tried taking a deep breath. It caught in her throat. More clothes. At least Piper was a smart shopper and understood Jasmyn’s simple tastes. Except for those neon yellow shoes and the comfy sandals.

  Keagan put on his jacket. “And I called Sam.”

  “Sam?”

  “She’ll be the most affected.”

  “Sam?” Jasmyn wondered why he thought that about the Casa’s most together tenant. What else was she missing about her new friends?

  “Drink the tea,” he said. “Skip the coffee. You’ll feel better. Later.” He walked away.

  Jasmyn wanted to run after him, the only familiar person in this whole weird scene. But fear rooted her to the chair. What had she just agreed to? Or at least not disagreed to?

  You light up a room, Ms. Albright.

  But he had said it in two distinct words. All Bright.

  Just be yourself.

  Discombobulated could not begin to describe the turmoil inside of her.

  Deep breaths. Drink the tea.

  Maybe she should try things Keagan’s way.

  Twenty-Four

  Sam stared at the panel of buttons inside the hospital elevator. The numbers blurred. Which didn’t matter a whole lot because she didn’t have a clue what floor she wanted.

  “Ma’am, are you all right?”

  Ma’am. What was up with ma’am? Liv was a ma’am. Inez was a ma’am. Since turning thirty, Sam had become a ma’am to salesclerks and waiters. It was as if there was some rule about age thirty.

  She glanced at the person beside her, a woman in greenish scrubs. A short, young woman who probably had not yet been called ma’am. “I…” Her heart hammered in her throat, cutting off her voice.

  “Where are you going?”

  She gulped. “ICU. I can’t find it. I keep asking people. I’ve been on sixteen elevators and down a dozen corridors.”

  The woman smiled and punched a button. “This place is a maze. I’ll take you to ICU.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I’d better before you collapse.”

  “I’ve been running.” Which she did several times a week. Therefore she was in good shape. Why couldn’t she breathe?

  The stranger deposited her at the ICU waiting area. “Good luck.”

  Sam found Jasmyn seated on a couch behind a plastic potted palm. “Jasmyn.”

  Her friend turned.

  Her friend? She’d never had one, not really. She wasn’t sure what it entailed.

  Jasmyn Albright, the woman she had dropped off at the airport. The one from Illinois who should not be at the hospital and involved with Casa business. The one with the overly sweet voice who liked Canadian bacon and sauerkraut pizza and wanted a job. The one who seemed to enjoy Sam’s company.

  The one who cared for Liv as much as Sam did.

  Jasmyn rose from the couch and wrapped Sam in a tight hug. “They let me see her. She’s going to be all right.”

  Sam squeezed shut her eyes and held her breath. Big girls didn’t cry. Ma’ams certainly did not cry.

  But they hugged. It was okay to hug because that’s what friends did.

  The rest of them arrived, every Casa de Vida resident. Chad, Piper, Riley, little Tasha, Inez, Louis, Coco, Noah. Even Keagan. For that matter, even Sam herself. And, good grief, even Beau, the self-employed handyman who should have been working on a Saturday.

  They filled the waiting room with chatter and made it standing room only. An ICU nurse shooed them off. Jasmyn suggested the cafeteria, and the noisy bunch straggled down the hallway.

  Sam positioned herself behind Keagan, the only one she trusted to lead them directly there and back.

  “Hey,” she said to his shoulder.

  He turned halfway, slowing until she was beside him.

  “How did you and Jasmyn get in to see her? I thought it was family only.”

  “I explained we were the closest thing to family Liv has.” He shrugged. “One nurse bent the rules.”

  No stretch of the imagination was needed to believe him. She said, “Can you tell her I’m family too?”

  “Are you?”

  Sam did not like Sean Keagan. He was aloof and enigmatic and talked like a robot and asked more questions than he answered and he was special to Liv.

  He touched her elbow and halted. The others kept on going. “Sam, you are family.”

  The lump in her throat returned.

  “You and Liv care about each other.”

  Sam blinked and blinked. Family…Another concept so cobbled up in her past it meant nothing. “I pay rent. I respect her. She’s a good businesswoman. She…she…”

  “She makes your home feel like a safe place. She watches over you. She cooks and bakes for you. She prays for your well-being.”

  Sam kept blinking, but the heat in her eyes remained.

  “Samantha, did no one ever do those things for you?”

  Made her feel safe? Cared for her? “My dad,” she whispered. “A long, long…” She took a deep breath. “Time ago.”

  Sam didn’t know who moved first, but the tears spilled and then his shirt was soaking them up, Keagan’s arms around her.

  Liv appeared to be sleeping peacefully, but she wasn’t exactly herself. Her gray skin matched the matted hair. Her chin was jowly. The ugly blue floral garb hung crookedly at her neck, the furthest thing from L.L. Bean imaginable. Liv would have used it to scrub down the courtyard fountain before wearing it.

  Sam exhaled. “Ohhh.”

  Behind her, Keagan said, “She’ll be fine.”

  “Yeah, right.” Her ears felt on fire, a sure sign she should be quiet. “She won’t be fine, not without some major lifestyle changes. She needs to walk every day, down to the beach instead of the coffee shop for glazed donuts and lattes. She needs to eat more vegetables. And she needs to hire Beau full-time so she doesn’t do it all. He gardens too. He doesn’t do just handyman stuff. She knows that.”

  “It’s understandable why you’re angry. We get like that when we’re afraid.”

  Sam clenched her jaw.

  “Jasmyn thinks she can hear us.”

  “Good. I hope she can. Liv, look, I know you’re tired and hurting and you probably want to quit. But you are not, I repeat, you are not checking out on us. We need you here. Do you understand? I need you here.”

  I need you here?

  Sam brushed past Keagan and sprinted from the room as if a wildcat were in pursuit.

  Sam’s father died when she was seven. A heart attack.

  Like his mother of Swedish descent, Jimmy Whitehorse was blue-eyed and a much-loved high school math teacher. Like his Diné father, he wore his black hair in a thick braid halfway down his back and served on the tribal council. Like both of them, he was gone at a young age.

  When Sam was old enough to understand the strange workings of marriage, she realized that her mother—much younger than her dad and still in her late twenties—had been cheating on her father for a long time. As a seven-year-old fatherle
ss child, with no extended family, she only knew that the day after they buried her dad, a stranger moved into the house, a man she had never met.

  He was a rough construction worker who took care of her mother and the three sons they proceeded to create in quick succession. He basically treated Sam as if she were invisible except when she was in his way. Then he snarled and called her names. Her mother? She was emotionally absent to her firstborn, unaware of her presence except when a cook or babysitter was wanted.

  Much later, Sam realized she was bright, brighter than the adults in her house. She also realized that that fact intimidated them. They verbally struck at her most vulnerable point, her heritage, which was an oddball grandmother of Swedish descent who happened to visit the rez in the 1940s and marry a Navajo man.

  School was no different. Kids went for the jugular. It was hardwired into their little brains to call others derogatory names. Teacher’s pet cut as deeply as did half-breed, outsider, bilagáana. She wasn’t the only smart one or the only one of mixed heritage, but she seemed to be the only one who carried both identities.

  Sam no longer blamed her classmates. The way she flew off the handle, she had been a fun target for them. Through it all she had learned how to take care of herself, how to fight as a little kid and how to be mouthy as a teenager. Some teachers understood and nurtured her better side. She focused on studies rather than cliques and boys.

  But at home? That wasn’t fair. That wasn’t right.

  And the only one who understood it all was dead.

  I need you here.

  She couldn’t lose the only one who had ever shown her the same kindness that her father had.

  Twenty-Five

  By the time Jasmyn made her way from the hospital to the Casa, darkness had fallen at the end of an unbelievably long day. She was frazzled to within an inch of sitting down on the alley’s dirty asphalt and bawling her eyes out.

  Driving Liv’s bulky minivan on the freeway and parallel parking it in the alley had been no picnic. Now she stood in front of the tall back gate, as solid as any steel door between the twelve-foot walls that surrounded the complex. Under a burned-out streetlamp, she fumbled with Liv’s bright orange coil with umpteen keys on it, none of which fit the back gate’s deadbolt.