Heart to Heart

by Lurlene McDaniel

  “So what’s your point?”

  “Nothing.” She said it in a way that meant “something.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I don’t like being talked about. And I don’t like your insinuations. Wyatt and I are friends. Just friends. We have someone in common that we both cared about. Neither of us is over her dying. Now take a hike and don’t you ever gossip about me again. I don’t want my best friend’s boyfriend. I want my best friend.”

  I grabbed my jeans and sweater and finished dressing in a bathroom stall.

  · 13 ·

  Arabeth

  There’s an advantage to attending an all-girls school—there’s no pressure to impress boys. There’s also a disadvantage to attending an all-girls school—there are no guys to impress. The yin and yang principle. But there’s a bigger negative too. Everybody already has their friendships and cliques cemented in concrete. I’m not the only new girl this year, but there aren’t very many of us, so we stand out. During the second week of school, after gym class, someone noticed the top of the scar that runs from my breastbone to my navel.

  “What happened to you?” asked the girl.

  I clutched my shirt to my throat. “Surgery,” I mumbled.

  “What kind of surgery?”

  I fiddled desperately with the numbers on my locker dial. Let it go, I begged silently. I didn’t want it all over school that I’d had a heart transplant. “When I was younger,” I said evasively. “No biggie, but it left a scar.”

  The girl was looking at me like I was a freakazoid. Which was just what I didn’t want. My mind flashed back to standing in the hall with Monica telling me she had new friends, implying that these friends were more fun than sitting around a playhouse with a sick girl like me. “Got to run,” I told the nosey girl staring at me. I scurried off.

  Later, when I told Mom about the incident she said, “Why not tell the truth—you had a heart transplant that saved your life.”

  She didn’t get it. “I’ll be an insect under glass. What if they talk about me?”

  “Because you had a transplant? That’s a stretch, Arabeth.”

  “They’ll have a ton of questions I can’t answer. Like who was your donor? How does it feel to have someone else’s heart? Is it icky? I don’t want to be some science experiment.”

  Mom looked shocked. “I thought you were grateful.”

  “I am. But talking to girls is different. I just don’t want it spread around.”

  Mom sighed. “I don’t see your problem.”

  You’re not a fifteen-year-old girl wanting to blend in, I thought.

  “I guess the only people who need to know are in the front office,” Mom said. “And your teachers.”

  “And they already know and they’re not supposed to talk about it,” I said.

  Before she left the room, Mom said, “You’re different, Arabeth. Ever since the transplant, you’ve been different somehow, not like yourself. Not all the time, just sometimes. That’s not a criticism,” she added quickly. “Just an observation.”

  I’d felt it too, but I didn’t dare confess it. I didn’t dare tell her about the essay I’d written with my left hand or how I’d practiced ever since to do it again and couldn’t. Of how holding a pen in my left hand felt awkward and weird and that any letters I managed to make looked like a four-year-old had drawn them. “Maybe I’m different because I’m older and for the first time in years, I feel good.”

  “Yes, you’re growing up,” Mom said, looking wistful.

  And growing away, I thought, but didn’t say.

  “Maybe that’s it,” she said, without sounding persuaded.

  We wear uniforms to Athena—navy or ivory golf-style shirts and khaki skirts or slacks. I was disappointed at first, but then I realized that the uniforms made all the girls equal—no over-the-top clothes, no designer labels and I’m-richer-than-you posturing. Sometimes wealth and privilege show up in the purses they carry, or in their computer bags—who knew Chanel made computer bags out of genuine crocodile hide?

  Not all the girls at Athena were silver spoon queens. Some were on scholarships or were recipients of special grants. Maybe some were like me, beneficiaries of Social Security and military government funding. I thought about that sometimes—that my father dying in action a world away enabled me to attend such a prestigious school. I’d trade every bit of this education to have him back.

  Athena was growing on me, but I never really felt as if I fit in, as if I belonged. I was definitely going to go for public school next year, no matter how much Mom tried to talk me out of it.

  On the one-year anniversary of my transplant, Mom splurged and took the two of us out to dinner at a really fancy restaurant in downtown Atlanta. She ordered a glass of champagne and said, “To your good health,” and let me take a sip.

  “The bubbles tickle,” I said.

  She set the glass down and looked at me. She looked as if she had something to tell me.

  “What?” I said.

  “I’ve been in communication with your doctor about your heart.”

  My last labs were good. I wasn’t due for more tests for a couple of months. “Is he recalling it?”

  She laughed. “No, silly. He said he’d been contacted by the transplant center. He said that in rare occasions, if all parties are willing, they allow donor families and recipients to meet. They used to keep them apart, but research showed that often the two parties want to meet. That it was healthy for them to know one another. The donor family gets to see the value of donating their loved one’s organs, and the recipient gets to express their gratitude.

  “He said there are Web sites where recipients and donors search for each other. So the medical people sometimes facilitate the meeting. If everyone wants to. If—if the recipient is still alive. That’s why they wait at least a year. It’s an adjustment period.”

  Her words tumbled over me like a waterfall. When the flow stopped, I asked, “Are you saying that her family wants to meet me?”

  “Only if you’re willing.”

  I sat back in my chair, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of me. Hadn’t I always wanted to tell them thank you? Hadn’t I been wanting details about my donor? “Do you think I should?” I asked.

  “It’s your choice, Arabeth. In this case, I won’t tell you what to do.”

  Great. She usually told me exactly what I should do. The heart in my chest picked up its pace. I had the chance to have so many questions answered. I had the chance to meet the family who had given me renewed life. How could I refuse?

  “You can think about it. You don’t have to make up your mind tonight,” Mom said.

  “I’d like to meet them,” I blurted. “More than anything.”

  Misty-eyed, Mom reached over and clasped my hand. “I’ll tell your doctor. He’ll make the arrangements.” She squeezed my hand. “I’m so proud of you, honey. And your dad would be too.”

  The heart in my chest settled down into a steady rhythm.

  · 14 ·

  Kassey

  “Can you come over?” Terri asked me on my cell. “I have something for you.”

  I hadn’t seen her since November when I’d run into her at the mall. Now it was January and almost a year since Elowyn’s death. “Sure. When?” I was dreading going over to the house, but Terri had asked me to come over ages ago and I hadn’t. I never told anyone about seeing Matt attacking El’s wrecked car, but I knew I’d never forget that image.

  “Tomorrow afternoon?”

  Tomorrow was Saturday and I had no other plans. “After lunch?”

  “See you then.”

  • • •

  I pulled up in front of the Edens’ house, half expecting to see the rusty hulk of Elowyn’s mangled car, but the side driveway looked clear. I got out of the car, walked to the front door, and rang the bell. Terri answered and hugged me instantly.

  “You look wonderful,” she said.

  I stammered, “Th-thanks.”

  She
looked thin, and tinier than I’d ever seen her. We stood at the front door and talked. She asked me a few general questions that I answered politely. Finally she said, “Do you want to see her room? How we’ve changed it?”

  “No! “Um—sure,” I said.

  My heart was hammering hard when she opened the door to Elowyn’s old bedroom. It had been totally transformed. Gone was any reminder that the room had once been a bedroom where Elowyn and I held countless sleepovers. The French decor had been replaced by cream-colored walls and built-in work surfaces, a sewing center, and floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Terri said, “This is my hobby room now—where I sew and do my scrapbooking. We kept the door shut for eight months, until Matt said it was time to change things. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t come in here without falling apart. We thought about selling the house and moving, but I couldn’t do that either.”

  I felt sorry for her. As much as I missed Elowyn, I had school and volleyball and hanging out with friends to keep me busy. Terri and Matt had only memories. The look of Elowyn’s room might have changed, but its purpose was still to honor her life.

  The bookcases were heavy with scrapbooks. Terri followed my line of vision. “I take the books apart and reconfigure them all the time. I thought it would make me sad, but it doesn’t. It comforts me to rearrange the photos.” Terri stroked the bindings of the upright books. “I have Christmas ones, her school days, vacation times. And just when I think I’ve finished, I come up with another idea, so I tear books apart and build new ones.”

  A lump clogged my throat. I cleared it out. “You said you had something for me …?”

  Terri snapped out of her reverie. “Of course.” She went to a large built-in desk strewn with ribbons and pieces of material and opened the top drawer. She removed a small box and handed it to me. “I found it when I was cleaning out her closet. She’d hidden it behind her sweaters.”

  I took the blue box tied with a white bow. “How do you know it’s for me?”

  “I peeked.” Terri smiled. “I’m sure it was for your birthday last year.”

  I stared at the box. TIFFANY & CO. was written on the lid. Elowyn’s favorite store. I remembered the times we’d gone in the store at Phipps Plaza and walked around gawking at the jewelry in gleaming glass cases. China was on the third floor and Elowyn had pointed out the crystal, china, and silver patterns she was going to request when she got married. “A little soon, don’t you think?” I’d teased.

  “Never too early to figure out what you like,” she’d said.

  “Maybe your tastes will change.”

  “Unlikely. This looks so European and fancy. I love it.”

  “What if your fiancé doesn’t like it?”

  She flashed a dreamy smile. “Like that will happen. He’ll want me to be happy. And beautiful china will make me happy. We’ll have parties and friends over and I’ll light candles and our table will be gorgeous.”

  I understand why dishes and silverware meant so much to her. The china and silver and beautiful crystal helped her dream of happily ever after and of her future, things I hadn’t thought too much about because Mom and I lived day to day with what we had—secondhand dishes and garage-sale finds. Terri had wonderful taste and Elowyn had inherited it from her mother. Both their dreams were gone now, vanished on a rainy road on a February night.

  “Aren’t you going to open it?” Terri’s voice pulled me into the present.

  I untied the ribbon and lifted the lid of the box.

  Inside lay a silver bracelet with a single round disk. BFF was engraved on one side; my name was on the other. Tears blurred my sight.

  “Let me help you put it on,” Terri said. She draped the bracelet around my wrist and secured the clasp with trembling fingers. “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  I sniffed. “I’ll never take it off,” I said. “Never.”

  Terri stroked my hair. Tears brimmed in her eyes. My heart felt like it was breaking in two. “I miss her so much,” she said.

  I held on to her and we cried together for a long time.

  When I showed Wyatt the bracelet, he rolled the silver disk in his fingers and asked, “What do you want to do on the one-year anniversary?”

  Of her death. He hadn’t said the words, but we both knew what he meant. The anniversary of the day all our lives had changed was about a week away. I thought for a minute and said, “Something French.”

  The February day came, cool but clear. No rain. When school was out, we found a small art theater showing a French movie with subtitles. Midway through, Wyatt leaned over and said, “My head hurts trying to follow this. Can we split? She’d understand.”

  I didn’t need encouragement.

  Outside it was dark, though it was only seven o’clock. “Any ideas?” he asked.

  “Food,” I said. “French food.”

  “We can’t afford some fancy French restaurant.”

  So we went to a specialty grocery store and cruised the aisles, picking up products and reading the ingredients on the backs of boxes and cans looking for food from Elowyn’s favorite country. “Brie,” I said, holding up a wedge of imported cheese. “All the way from France.”

  He sniffed it, shrugged. I put it into the cart.

  “French bread,” he said, tossing a baguette into our cart.

  I thought it was cheating because the bread was baked in Atlanta, but I didn’t argue. “Snails?” I picked up a long, skinny, see-through container stacked with snail shells.

  We stared at the orderly pile of escargot, said “Eww” in unison, and put the package back on the shelf.

  “Grapes,” Wyatt said. “Aren’t they French?”

  “Sure … pressed into wine.”

  “Don’t have my fake ID card with me,” he said.

  “Don’t even go there,” I told him, and pushed toward the bakery section.

  “How about these éclairs for dessert?” He pointed to the cooler cases.

  The chocolate-covered éclairs looked yummy. “Get two.”

  “I can eat more.”

  “Two,” I told the woman behind the counter firmly.

  In his car, I asked, “Where to?”

  “I’ll surprise you.” He put the car into gear and drove on to I-85 and merged into the fast-moving traffic.

  “You do have a plan, don’t you?”

  “I have a plan.”

  He got off thirty minutes later at the airport exit, found a few back access roads off the main drag, turned off his headlights, and drove along bumpy ground. He stopped along a deserted stretch of land in front of a high fence with razor wire at the top. Curiosity ate me up. “Is this legal?”

  “Come on.” He opened his door.

  “Where?”

  “Paris.”

  He pulled me out of the car along with the bag of food and an old blanket. He threw the blanket on the hood of the car, helped me up. The hood was still warm from the engine and the heat felt good through my clothes. He threw part of the blanket over our shoulders and started pulling food from the bag. He said, “Dig in.”

  We ate cheese and bread, grapes and grape juice, and the éclairs. He toasted Elowyn and we touched our plastic cups together. Just then, a huge jet came rumbling along the asphalt on the far side of the fence. I clapped my hands over my ears and watched it gather speed, then lift screaming off the runway and soar over our heads. We were close enough to see its silver belly and retracting wheels. I crouched, feeling the rumble of its engines shake the ground.

  “It won’t hit us,” he shouted above the roar.

  I followed the plane with my eyes until I lost in the night sky. Goose bumps broke out on my skin. “Is it really going to Paris?” I asked.

  “I’ll bet so,” he said.

  I turned to him. “How do you know about this place?”

  “We used to come here. El and me. She loved to hear the planes and watch them fly over us. She always said she’d go to Paris.”

  “The cops never stopped you from
sitting here?”

  “Never been caught. Besides, this runway is way far away from the actual airport. No one comes out here.”

  “Except for you and Elowyn.”

  “Not for a long time.”

  I poured us each some more grape juice and raised my glass to my friend, trying hard not to cry. “To Elowyn. We miss you.”

  I looked skyward, watching the blips of lights of ascending and descending planes, mechanical fireflies filled with life, coming and going, high above the earth on the way to somewhere, someplace. Beside me, Wyatt put down his cup, turned my shoulders toward him. I stared into his dark eyes. Without warning, he cupped my face in his hands and he kissed me.

  · 15 ·

  Arabeth

  “You’re going to wear a hole in the floor,” Mom said.

  I paused, toyed with the strings of my hoodie, then went back to pacing. “When will they get here?”

  “When they get here,” she said. “Now sit down. I can’t afford a new wood floor.”

  I plopped down on the couch, pulling the strings of my hoodie in a seesaw motion. “What if they don’t like me? What if they’re sorry they gave me their daughter’s heart?”

  “Now stop that,” Mom chided. “They’re going to like you and you’re going to like them. So am I.”

  It had taken almost a month for the arrangements to be made for us to meet my donor’s parents. Mom and I had been surprised to learn that they lived so close by, just miles away in Alpharetta. I had imagined that my heart had been flown in dramatically via helicopter like I’d seen in TV shows, but that wasn’t the case. We’d picked this Saturday in April to meet because the weatherman had predicted a glorious sunny day and I wanted the day to be perfect. Outside, tulips dotted our flower beds and dogwood and lilac bloomed. I smelled the lilac blossoms through the open window.

  I heard the crunch of tires on our gravel driveway and shot off the sofa. My hands shook. “Do I look okay?”

  “You’re beautiful,” Mom said.

  I stole a peek out the window. A blue SUV was parked in front of the porch and a short, stocky man with dark hair was walking around to the passengerside door. He opened it and took the hand of a tiny blond woman, helping her slide out of the vehicle. She held a purse and a tote bag. My heart thudded hard as the two of them walked up on the porch, these strangers and parents of my donor. The doorbell rang and I jumped. “Get it, Mom,” I said.