Between the Girls (The Basin Lake Series Book 3)

by Stephanie Vercier

  “I do,” Claire says in obvious relief, passing the plate of grilled steak across the table to me.

  “It’s sustainably resourced as well,” Mom adds in with pride. “Tyler said that was important to you.”

  That earns me a thankful smile from Claire, one that I’m grateful for.

  “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble,” she says. “I fully blame my dietary restrictions on my older sister.”

  “The vegetarian?”

  “Yes.” Claire laughs. “You told your Mom about Paige, huh?” she asks me.

  “Sure,” I say, setting the plate full of steaks down. “I don’t think we’ve ever known one.”

  “That’s not true,” Mom says. “Your Aunt Maureen’s best friend is a vegetarian.”

  “That skinny, pale looking thing?” Dad says with sarcasm.

  “Dad… come on.” I look over at Claire who thankfully doesn’t appear offended.

  “Tyler’s father used to do a fair bit of hunting once upon a time,” Mom explains. “Meat is one of our major food groups.”

  “Well, I fish too,” Dad adds, like he wants to move into Claire’s good graces after that stupid little stunt of his. “We ate up all my catch before we moved here. Otherwise, I would have been happy to share.”

  “This is more than fine.” Claire takes one of the salmon filets and then passes the plate around.

  While Dad sticks to the steak he grilled, both Mom and I opt for the salmon. I don’t want Claire to feel like the odd one out.

  “Tyler also tells us you want to be a doctor,” Mom says after we all start eating. “How did that come about?”

  After chewing and swallowing her first bite of food, Claire relays the story about her father, how he’d been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, “the very worst kind,” and had deteriorated and then died within a period of four years. I’d heard snippets of the story but not the entire thing, and I can’t help but to feel profoundly sad for her and what her family went through.

  “What an awful thing,” Mom says, a true look of sorrow on her face.

  “Is it genetic?” Dad asks, having barely finished chewing his food.

  I want to kick him in the shins for basically asking Claire if she’s going to get it, but part of me is curious too. It actually physically hurts a little to imagine that this vibrant, beautiful girl sitting across from me could one day be ravaged by an awful disease that could end up taking her life.

  “The evidence on that isn’t conclusive,” Claire says fairly clinically. “My sisters and I do have an increased chance of having it over the general population, but the risk isn’t that much higher than it would be for you or Mrs. Duncan or Tyler. But it is more prevalent in higher latitudes, so it’s more common up here than say in Arizona or Florida. I do take extra vitamin D as a precaution though since deficiencies in that are possibly attributed to MS.”

  “Goodness, you’re well informed. And this is why you want to be a doctor?” Mom cuts into her salmon and takes a bite while remaining engaged and interested in what Claire has to say.

  And I’m enthralled by Claire’s eloquent way of speaking and the determination in her voice.

  “That’s the main reason, yes. Plus I have the kind of analytical mind for it. I work well under pressure, and I kind of like to be the one solving problems. So, even if my dad hadn’t gotten sick, I think I’d probably still be following this same path.”

  “I wish you could give Tyler some ideas about his path.” Dad eyes me, not with any cruelty, but I don’t exactly appreciate his indirect motivation.

  “I’ve still got some time to figure it out,” I say flatly.

  “That time ticks away fast there, son. Personally, I’d like him to get into the fire sciences. It’s been rewarding and not so different from being a physician, a lot of pressure, not a lot of time for confusion.”

  “But we’ll be happy with whatever he decides,” Mom says, overriding Dad with her tone.

  “Maybe you’d like to come with me to my volunteer job tomorrow?” Claire asks me. “You could see if you have any interest in the medical field.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I say, jumping at the invitation regardless of the reason for it. “I could maybe drive.”

  “What is your volunteer job?” Mom asks.

  “It’s at a nursing home in Spokane where I help with activities, mainly getting people to bingo,” Claire replies. “I work part time at the one we have here, but the one in Spokane is bigger and one of the few facilities that has rooms for vent patients.”

  “Vent patients?” Mom’s eyes narrow slightly.

  “People with tracheotomies.” Dad beats Claire out with the clarification. “People that need assistance breathing or to be suctioned to clear their lungs. I’ve worked my share of car accidents and fires where we saved a life, only to have that person stuck as a vegetable and on a vent.”

  I glare at Dad again.

  “Not everyone is like that,” Claire says. “Some of them, yes, but there are just as many who are alert. A few of them have MS.”

  “Well, I’ve got to admire your fortitude,” Dad says. “I’m good at patching people up, but I’m not sure I’d be able to deal with the aftereffects.”

  If that isn’t the fucking truth. I wonder if Dad realizes just how bad he’s dealt with the aftereffects of my injuries?

  Mom looks over at me. “I think that would be a good experience for you, Tyler.”

  “So, you won’t be digging the rest of those roots out this weekend, then?” Of course Dad has to be the one to put a kink into things.

  “I can finish on Sunday… if that’s all right.” I’d already dug two out during the week, which he knows—he’s just being difficult.

  “Of course it is, right, Brian?” With Mom staring at him, I doubt he’d find a way to say no.

  “Yes, that would be fine. Just don’t be gone all day.”

  By the end of dinner, I can tell that my parents have been won over by Claire, even though Dad is trying not to be because me possibly getting into another relationship is akin to me doing drugs I guess. But how could Dad find fault with a girl who is as mature and polite and driven as she is? I don’t doubt he hopes some of that will rub off on me. And as for Mom, it’s easy to see she likes talking to her, and I don’t doubt that she’ll be telling me later about how beautiful, friendly and kind Claire is.

  And, as for me, I’m in deeper than I was even last weekend when I’d desperately wanted to kiss her, wanted to do more. It should be so easy, save for my disfigurements, save for Laney.

  “I hope that wasn’t too much.” We’re out on the deck now, Mom insisting that she and Dad clean up while I spend some time alone with Claire.

  “It was great actually,” she says, sitting right next to me on our outdoor wicker couch. “I never got invited to Austin’s house for dinner, so…” She puts her hand on her mouth and scrunches her features up. “Sorry… I shouldn’t have mentioned him.”

  “Hey, it’s okay.” And it is, even if hearing the guy’s name makes me jealous.

  “He came to see me,” she says, quietly, tilting her eyes down.

  “When? Earlier?” That makes my blood start to boil.

  “Before dinner.” Her eyes are back on mine, but they seem reluctant. “He stopped by my house, and that’s why I was late.”

  “That little shit.” Now my blood is actually boiling.

  She puts her hand up, as if to stop me from saying anything more. “I’m only telling you because you should be aware, and I don’t want to get you sucked into my drama with him. I still feel bad about your eye.” She reaches up and touches my cheek.

  “It’s fine.” Her touch calms me, and I take in a breath, reach for her hand, close my eyes and exhale, the immediate anger I’d felt dissipating.

  We sit there for a few minutes, just being silent, but I eventually release her hand because I don’t want her to think it’s weird to want to keep touching her.

  “Austin can get pers
onal. I want to believe I wasn’t dating an asshole, but he’s showing a side of him I really hate, and he might say stuff… things about you.”

  “Like what kind of things?” My mind shoots to the worst possibilities.

  She pauses, looks uncomfortable. “He thinks it’s weird that you don’t play sports or that you aren’t even in PE. I told him it was none of his fucking business.”

  “No… no it’s not.” My entire body tenses at the idea of a punk like Austin, a guy who couldn’t even graduate high school on time, making judgments about me.

  “I don’t want to see you get hurt,” she says, inching closer to me. “I think I like you, Tyler.”

  The genuine way in which she says that catches me off guard, in a good way. It allows Austin to be erased from my head, just like that, and I put my arm around her and pull her close, sure I can feel her heart beating somehow, wondering what she’s thinking with each beat of it.

  “I like you too, and I don’t want you to get hurt either,” I say, relaxed out here on the deck, crickets making their nighttime noises off in the distance.

  “I like you, even though I think you still might have feelings for your ex.”

  I’m caught off guard again by the brave, honest way in which she just said that, but I’m unsure how to answer her, if she even expects an answer, which I think she must. This isn’t the first time she’s brought this up, but there’s more weight to it now. Do I tell her the truth or a lie? If I had to pick between she or Laney right now, I’d pick Claire for all of the things I don’t know about her, for the possibilities saying yes to her might have in store. But there is still that part of me that can’t let go of my past with Laney and the second chance that might still be possible.

  “It’s all just really confusing,” is what I settle on. “But yeah, there are still some feelings there.”

  “At least you’re honest,” she says with a sigh. “I like that. Not that I like you still have feelings for… well… someone else, but honesty is a good thing, so just keep it up.”

  I’m grateful for the ease of her acceptance, but I’m also slightly taken aback at the idea I want her to be more jealous of Laney, like the way I am of Austin. But I remind myself she’s just mature, better able to separate the heart and the mind, and that’s good—it’s definitely good.

  I pull her closer to me, a smile forming on my face at the satisfaction I feel just in holding her. “Are you cold?” I ask, looking up at the stars, our breath beginning to show in the autumn night air.

  “A little,” she confesses.

  I unzip the hoodie I’d put on before we came out here, move away from her so that I can peel it off, and then I put it over her shoulders and pull her back to me.

  “Now you’re going to be cold.”

  “No… I have you.”

  She sighs, but it’s a sigh that I think means I’m making her happy, maybe taking her mind away from Austin. While Laney pops up once or twice while I’m holding her, it’s mostly all Claire in the here and now. And tonight I’m willing to believe there are as many possibilities for Claire and I as there are stars in the sky above us.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  TYLER

  “My Mom says you’re her favorite person today,” Claire tells me after I pick her up and we hit the freeway toward Spokane.

  “Just today?” I ask, feeling so much more at ease with Claire after last night.

  “Well, you’re totally saving her from having to drive me to Spokane—she still doesn’t like me driving there myself.”

  “You that bad of a driver?”

  “I’m one of the best! It’s the other people she says I have to watch out for—she just doesn’t want to tempt fate.”

  “Well, I’m glad your Mom has given the responsibility of getting you there safely to me. What part of town is it in anyway?”

  “It’s up north. Kind of at the edge.”

  It takes well over an hour to get there, traffic heading north through the sprawl of the city and the mountains looming in the distance reminding me of Denver. Claire is a great navigator, giving me plenty of time to get into the correct lanes and make turns. When we finally get to our destination, I find a nice, one story building surrounded by well-manicured grounds and trees—pretty nice. But as soon as we walk in, I’m hit with the lowlying smell of ammonia, urine basically, just strong enough for me to take note.

  “How you doing, Claire?” the woman at the front desk asks after we stop at the counter, Claire signing us in.

  “Pretty good. How about you, Diane?”

  “Can’t complain. Got all of our garden vegetables harvested, and now the canning process begins.”

  “Oh, cool. Hey, this is my friend, Tyler. He’s going to help me today.”

  “Hello, Tyler,” Diane says with a smile. “Let me just get you both some badges.”

  She hands over two volunteer badges that we clip on to our clothes. True to form, Claire is wearing a nice blouse and a skirt, clipping the badge at the tip of a single pocket over her chest while I stick mine on the material between the buttons of my shirt.

  “There,” she says, beaming up at me. “We’re both official now.”

  “Say hi to Margaret for me,” Diane says, going back to some paperwork.

  “Will do,” Claire replies before leading me into a long hallway. “Margaret is my favorite resident.”

  Outside some of the rooms, people sit in wheelchairs, looking practically comatose. Being in a place like this reminds me of the clinics and hospitals I’d been to over the years. Those places were different of course, but this nursing home evokes the same kind of uneasiness in me I had in going to those places over and over again.

  “She have MS?” I ask.

  “Yes, and she has a trach, which is this tube in her throat that allows them to suction crap out of her lungs. She’s like my dad was, gets pneumonia a lot.”

  “That sucks. So, she’s on a vent?”

  “Yeah, most of the time. And it most definitely sucks, but I remind myself it’s simply another part of life.”

  The further we get into the nursing home, the more I wonder how anyone can stand to live here, work here or even volunteer here. It’s all so depressing, full of sickness and near death and smells that nobody else, not even Claire, seems to notice.

  I wonder if she would be so accepting if she were the one with MS or if she had scars all over her body that had necessitated endless clinic visits. Maybe she would. Maybe she’d deal with things a lot better than most of us do.

  We stop at a room about halfway down the long hallway, and Claire knocks. “Hello!” she says, her heels tapping against the shiny tile floor as we walk in.

  I’m expecting to see one person in this small room, but there are two beds and two people along with machines, one that appears to be breathing for the woman in front of us and the other releasing some kind of vapor into a tube in the other woman’s neck.

  “Hi Margaret,” Claire says walking to the side of the bed where a woman in a hospital gown lies, her body immobile but her eyes dancing and alive.

  “Claire.” Her voice is strained. “How long did it take you to get here, Claire?”

  “A little over an hour,” she says, taking her hand. “My friend, Tyler, over here drove us, which was pretty nice of him, huh?”

  The woman, Margaret, raises her head as much as she can to see me, and I instinctively move closer to make it easier on her.

  “Hello!” she says, bright and alert. “Tyler is it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, moving closer when Claire tugs on the hem of my shirt. “Claire has told me a lot about you.”

  Margaret’s eyes become mischievous, and they dance around before she says, “I hope it was all good.”

  “Definitely,” I say, wondering how a woman in this condition could be so happy.

  “I know you want to play bingo today, but they don’t have you up in your chair yet.”

  Margaret gets a very concerned look on
her face. “I have to go to bingo, though. I can’t miss it.”

  “No, we can’t let you miss it,” Claire agrees like an adult running the show, not like a seventeen-year-old girl. “I’m going to go find someone to help get you up, okay? I wouldn’t let you miss bingo.”

  Margaret nods, but still looks worried she might miss what I’m guessing is one of the few things she looks forward to.

  “They’re always short staffed,” Claire says with annoyance. “Do you want to come with me to find someone or stay here with Margaret?”

  “I’ll come with you,” I say, not quite sure what I’d tell Margaret on my own.

  It takes about ten minutes before Claire can find someone to get Margaret up. They apologize and say exactly what Claire had before, that they’re short staffed, but I can’t help but wonder if Margaret would even be getting up if Claire weren’t here to make it happen.

  After another twenty minutes that Claire and I spend waiting outside the door, the nursing assistant is finally pushing Margaret out in a reclining wheelchair, some kind of oxygen tank attached to it and a hose going up to her throat.

  “You’re all ready now!” Claire says with enthusiasm.

  “Ready!” Margaret beams, and I can tell going to bingo is like Christmas to her.

  Dad has always taught me not to cry, but I feel a pull of emotion in seeing this woman who is dealing with so much and is still smiling. And then there’s Claire who is just amazing.

  “I could push the chair,” I tell her, not wanting to be idle.

  “Of course,” Claire says, walking alongside as I push it, leading us and talking to Margaret as we go.

  “Is your husband coming today, Margaret?” she asks as we head through the hallways, slowed down by others heading in the same direction.

  “I think so,” she says in a voice that sounds a little confused. “He probably went golfing earlier.”

  “That sounds like your husband,” Claire says, then turns and offers me a smile.

  Eventually, we make our way into a large activity room with tables set up, and Claire leads me toward the corner of the room that is quickly filling with people, mostly in wheelchairs, a few with walkers or canes.