Heart to Heart

by Meline Nadeau

  Ariel continued to drive slowly, no longer looking around, lost in thought. It was only when she passed The Minturn Saloon that something caught her eye. A Ducati Monster roaring out onto the road in front of her. It was Jacob.

  What was he doing? He’d said he was going to training. But it didn’t seem like he’d be training at The Mintrurn Saloon. And he certainly wasn’t carrying a bicycle with him.

  Ariel’s pulse thundered in her ears. She’d quelled her curiosity once today. She’d thrown away her chance at speaking with Brian Jenks. She couldn’t resist her curiosity now. She jerked the wheel sharply, pulling in front of the Saloon for the second time that day. She waited, engine idling, until a truck passed. Then she pulled out again. She could see Jacob pulling away down the road, a few car-lengths ahead of the truck. Luckily the truck too was putting on speed. The distance closed.

  She shook her head at herself. A tiger can’t change its stripes, she thought. I can’t stop being a journalist just because I’m in love. Tailing Jacob to his destination didn’t seem hopelessly immoral. It was better than meeting with a man who hated him, who’d fought with him and who would doubtlessly spin Jacob’s behavior in the worst possible light.

  This would give her her sleuthing fix and hopefully provide her with a crumb to feed to Theo — who she could only imagine was losing all hope for her.

  Why had Jacob lied to her, anyway? She was certain he had something to hide. At this point, she didn’t think it was drug use. She couldn’t imagine Jacob cheating … after seeing the passion he had for the sport, hearing him talk about his love for racing. He had the kind of commitment that couldn’t be faked and couldn’t be compromised. She believed he was clean. Not that that explained certain other strange aspects of his behavior. Like his evasiveness with journalists. Like lying to her about where he was going.

  She was frustrated when a semi pulled in front of her and blocked Jacob from view. By the time the truck turned away to the right, he was no longer in sight. She had lost him. She’d have no juicy tidbit to offer Theo.

  On her drive back to the hotel, she tried to imagine what she would, in fact, say to Theo. She’d have to call him when she got back to the hotel to apprise him of her progress … or lack thereof. She couldn’t give him the story he wanted. The only story she could imagine writing about Jacob would be a profile of a man who was beautiful in more ways than one. Whose athleticism and self-discipline were unparalleled, and whose successes were honestly won.

  She wondered how she’d be able to work in a salacious passage on his hot bod. She knew she wouldn’t be able to resist offering her readers an opportunity to vicariously appreciate all the things she loved about Jacob. And sex sold magazines, right?

  She wasn’t sure if Theo would go for it. And if he didn’t, she couldn’t see any way to avoid having the story canned … and going back to New York. When she thought about leaving Colorado, she experienced a deep ache — somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.

  • • •

  Ariel decided to stop off at Jacob’s room to pick up her clothes before she dealt with Theo. Letting herself in with Jacob’s key, she saw that the suite had been cleaned and looked as dazzlingly luxurious as it had the first time she saw it. The bed had been freshly made, her discarded dress folded and laid on a chair. She felt a moment of embarrassment as she imagined what the maids must have thought when they encountered the rumpled bed and the discarded woman’s clothing. The room must have looked like the scene of a debauch.

  Collecting her things, she wondered when she’d see Jacob again. They hadn’t made any plans to meet later. Smiling, she realized she’d grown very quickly to expect that they’d see one another every day … and definitely, definitely every night. She moved to the desk in the sitting room to find paper for a note. She’d leave him something teasing, suggestive. Something that would make him look forward to their next meeting as much as she did.

  But what she saw when she slid open the desk drawer shocked her so much she dropped her dress and her shoes to the floor. With a trembling hand, she picked up the small baggy of white powder she’d found within.

  Her heart pounding, she slipped it into her pocket.

  Then she snatched up her clothes and stumbled blindly from the room.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jacob was buzzed through the gate and walked along the flower-bordered path. The grounds were small but cheerful, with garden beds bright with purple kale and cherry tomatoes, and a picnic table in a cluster of young aspens.

  Two young women were sitting at the picnic table. They looked equally happy, equally at ease in the warm afternoon, although Jacob knew that one of them had to be a patient, the other a nurse. This was a wonderful facility. It didn’t look like a hospital. The main building was a beautiful, three-story house with a communal kitchen, a library, an entertainment room, and private bedrooms for all the residents. The mental health nurses, therapists, and drug counselors were some of the best in the state. All in all, it was a wonderful place for a troubled girl to make a full recovery.

  Jacob was glad he could afford it. His parents hadn’t wanted to ask him for money. He’d only been pro for a few years. The money had just begun to roll in, and he’d already used a big chunk of it to pay his father’s medical debt and the mortgage on the house. But when Jacob had flown home and seen his sister, ninety-five pounds, rocking in the corner of her bedroom, he’d squelched all protests with a single grim stare.

  “Whatever it takes,” he’d said, voice breaking as he knelt by his sister and put his arms around her. He looked back at his parents, the two of them framed in the doorway. “Karen, Mom, Dad,” he’d said. “We’re all in this together. Karen, we’re going to do whatever it takes to get you through this.”

  Even now, though, it was hard to believe that the situation had gotten so bad so fast. Jacob’s father never talked about it. What he thought was anyone’s guess. But Jacob knew he had to feel bad. Had to feel in some ways responsible. Jacob knew his mother felt a lot of guilt. He sure as hell did. Karen had gone right to the edge, and no one had stopped her. Why hadn’t anyone known sooner? Intervened sooner? She could be in jail right now. Or worse. His beautiful, brilliant, caring little sister could be dead.

  Another addict. Another statistic. Jacob felt the hot tears rise in his eyes. He had to stop for a moment in the path and collect himself.

  “Hi,” said one of the women at the picnic table. “Those are pretty.” Jacob smiled. He carried a bag of goodies — apples, oranges, granola bars, a few of squares of dark chocolate — and a cluster of columbines he’d picked on the side of the road. He waved at them with the columbines.

  “Have a tomato,” said the other woman. She sounded proud. Jacob knew that gardening was incorporated into the therapy here. Planting seeds, tending the soil — these activities connected people to the earth, to the rhythms of life. Helping something grow should make you feel empowered.

  “Love to,” he said, approaching the garden and plucking a ripe cherry tomato form the vine. It was prickly in his mouth, then warm and sweet. He took a moment to collect himself, looking at the lovingly weeded rows of leafy greens and the short trellises of peas.

  It was terrifying how close they’d come to losing Karen. It was more terrifying to think she wasn’t out of the woods yet. At least here, she had professional support. She could garden. She could sit at a picnic table and read a book while the aspens quaked in the breeze. Sure, it wasn’t quite like living a normal life. There were single and group meetings every day, planned activities, people constantly looking over her shoulder. Her horizons were limited by the gates, the walls. But she was safe. She had time and space enough to dream of something beyond this limited world: a bigger, better tomorrow. He wanted that for her. A bright future, full of love and hope. He’d do anything to help her get it.

  Five years younger than he was, Jacob’
s sister Karen had always been a sunny, vivacious girl, dominating dinner table discussions with boisterous tales of her playground exploits. Jacob had taught her how to ride a bike, had spent entire winters pulling her up the sledding hill in the old toboggan so she could shoot down again, screaming bloody murder.

  But by the time she was in high school, Jacob was out of the house, traveling around the country racing. He was surprised when he saw her at Christmas the first year he’d spent away from home. He knew kids changed a lot during adolescence, but the alteration in his kid sister had seemed dramatic. She didn’t seem to have her former sparkle, but that could have been due to her teenage angst, which Jacob could only assume prompted her decision to dye her blond hair shiny black.

  “You look like you’re in the Addams family,” he’d joked and for the first time his ribbing had fallen flat with his sister, who fixed him with a contemptuous sneer.

  “A phase,” his mother whispered in the kitchen as Jacob helped her make the gravy for the Christmas goose. “It’s just a phase. Like when you wouldn’t let anyone cut off that God-awful rat-tail.”

  “I looked good with that rat-tail,” protested Jacob and he and his mother collapsed into the warming laughter that had always sustained their relationship. Still, Jacob could tell his mother was worried. Karen was sensitive and had been deeply affected by their father’s blindness and subsequent depression. It didn’t make it easier that money was tight and she was a teenage girl facing all the usual social pressures: pressures to have the right clothes, the right car, the right zip code.

  Colorado was a state of geographical and social extremes. It attracted a rich crowd, tourists who flew to the Rockies for ski vacations, but not enough of the tourism revenue trickled down to the struggling families. Jacob knew from experience that it was hard to grow up in close proximity to people who had so much when you had very little yourself. Well, little in some respects. Even when Jacob’s father was able to work, the family had had to scrimp on luxuries. But they never scrimped on love. That was the important thing.

  However, Jacob had to recognize the fact that after his father’s eyes got too bad for him to drive, the atmosphere in the home had become strained. Always a robust man, not talkative, no, but active, with a lively, penetrating gaze, Richard Hunter now took to sitting in the living room armchair with the lights off. He wore dark glasses and it was hard to tell if he was asleep or awake. He didn’t seem to want company, and he never showed any interest in his daughter. Karen, who used to chatter at his side for hours after the evening news, would now cross the room along the back wall or else avoid the living room all together. She would come downstairs and walk out the front door, entering the kitchen through the side door. Not a good situation.

  Two years ago, Karen had dropped out of school before earning her teaching certificate — and Jacob hadn’t found out for months. His mother took a while to tell him the news, and Karen herself had become increasingly hard to reach by phone. Jacob finally learned that she’d left Denver, had come back to Leadville. She hadn’t moved back home, though. Instead, she’d moved in with her boyfriend.

  By then, Jacob was racing in Europe and spending even more time away from Colorado. Jacob called Karen using the Internet phone almost every night when he was training in Italy and left messages but she didn’t return his calls or emails. It was odd timing … just as his career was taking off, family tensions were starting to weigh him down. He tried to shrug it off, focus on where he was, what he was doing. But the Hunters were a close-knit bunch and the past years of not-quite-right were taking their toll on him. He couldn’t shake the suspicion that not quite right was about to get a whole lot wrong. It helped that he was starting to earn enough to send his family money, but it still didn’t feel like enough.

  Jacob could hear the weariness in his mother’s voice when they talked on the phone. Nonetheless, she was always filled with funny anecdotes about her work as a school nurse (“Not just a penny, Jacob! This little boy had a roll of quarters up his nose!” “Inflation, Mom.”) and she never failed to tell him how proud she was of his cycling. He sent DVDs of his races home, but he was afraid to ask if Dad watched them. Richard could see the television screen if he sat very close, but he rarely he did so. Too much effort. Everything about him indicated utter resignation. He’d given up.

  This from the man who had taught Jacob how to fly.

  When Jacob got the call — the call he’d been half-expecting — he was in France.

  “Come back, Jakey,” his mother had said. “Karen needs you.”

  He got on the first flight home.

  His mother had warned him. He’d thought he was prepared to see Karen. He wasn’t. His sister had lost thirty pounds. She’d shown up at their parents’ house in the middle of the night to ask for money.

  They had to face the hard truth: Karen was addicted to meth.

  Jacob entered the rehab center and greeted the house manager.

  “Hi, Jake,” said Bettina, a kind, maternal woman with large, dark eyes. “Let’s check the bag.” She went through the snacks in Jacob’s bag quickly and perfunctorily, making sure he hadn’t brought his sister cigarettes or other controlled substances.

  “Looks good,” she said. “Healthy.”

  He walked past the library, saw people reading, a few others sitting at laptops. No Karen. He peeked in the kitchen. It looked a tornado had hit. There were bags of flour and sugar, mixing bowls, and pots on every surface. Jacob caught a snatch of a heated argument about leavening reduction at high altitude. He grinned. Nothing quite like baking a birthday cake at ten thousand feet. He recognized some of the residents, and some of the nurses and attendants from previous visits, and he gave a little nod before moving on. He was certain they recognized him, even if they hadn’t seen him here before. Everyone recognized him these days. But no one reacted as though a celebrity had just burst onto the scene.

  Discretion. That was key. Having Karen’s battle with addiction become a matter of public interest due to his sudden fame would be the worst thing Jacob could imagine.

  Karen planned to teach kindergarten. A reputation as a recovering meth-head would hurt her chances, maybe permanently. Certainly in Colorado. Karen would have to leave the state.

  Maybe it would be good for her to get away. But it had to be her own decision. Jacob wouldn’t let her be forced out of town by shame and notoriety. Not if he could help it. Even if he had to lie to reporters about his family. Even if he had to make up stories to explain where he went when he disappeared on his motorcycle. When Jacob had first read articles that attributed his stellar racing record and attention-dodging behavior to performance drug abuse, he’d almost laughed. He actually preferred the rumors to the questions … questions that might lead the press closer to the real drama in the Hunter family. After all, the accusations were ultimately harmless. Jacob’s tests were squeaky clean. He’d never dreamed of using drugs to help his race. It was antithetical to who he was, what he stood for.

  On one hand, racing in the Colorado Classic was a dream come true. On the other, racing in Colorado brought all the scrutiny he feared too close to home.

  His fight with Brian had been a disaster. It was covered in multiple local papers and it was a miracle that, as far as he knew, no large national or international paper had picked up the story. Yet. No one knew how Brian Jenks was connected to Jacob Hunter. His sister’s boyfriend. His sister’s dealer.

  Ex-boyfriend, Jacob reminded himself. Ex-dealer.

  Jacob crossed the hall and knocked lightly on Karen’s door. After a moment, the door cracked open and Jacob was looking into his sister’s large, hazel eyes.

  “Jakey,” she said, and threw the door open. She was wearing loose cargo pants and a long sleeve shirt that cloaked her painfully thin frame. Jacob followed her into her room and placed the bag of snacks on the table. Karen took the columbines from h
is hand and touched their petals lovingly.

  “My favorite,” she said solemnly.

  Jacob smiled. “I brought you dark chocolate, too,” he said.

  “My real favorite,” crowed Karen, tearing into the bag with impish delight.

  Jacob was happy seeing his sister displaying her former vivacity. She’d decorated the walls of the small, antiseptic room with a kitten calendar, pictures of Jacob that she’d cut from cycling magazines and a few older family photos. The top of her dresser was covered with books and notebooks. It looked like her dresser back home.

  Karen launched into stories about the staff, the other patients in her group, her drug counselor, and her plans to reenter college in the fall semester. Jacob noticed that her face was pale and that her words tumbled out faster and faster. She was sweating and when he went to put a hand on her shoulder, to get her to slow down, she jerked away from him.

  Jacob’s heart sank.

  “Have you had any other visitors today, Karen?” he asked levelly. Karen didn’t meet his eyes. She threw herself on her narrow bed.

  “I can ask the nurses if you won’t tell me,” he said.

  Karen sat up. “Why shouldn’t Brian come to see me?” she asked in a high, shrill voice. “He loves me. We’ve been through a lot together.”

  “He’s put you through a lot,” said Jacob. He sat next to Karen on the bed and she flinched away from him. Jacob’s fury mounted as he thought about what kinds of experiences had made Karen so skittish. “Karen,” he said. “You’ve always been our family’s source of strength. Your energy has always held us together.”

  “It hasn’t been enough,” said Karen, her face twisted in pain. Jacob heard the eerie echo of his own fears. I couldn’t do enough. Couldn’t make his father see again. Couldn’t erase his sister’s suffering.

  “But you are enough,” said Jacob. “Just you. Being who you are. You need to take care of yourself. You need to channel your strength and energy into loving yourself. Karen, we don’t need anything from you but for you to be healthy and happy.”