Читать книгу Heartbeat - Elizabeth Scott - Страница 14

9

The phone at Olivia’s house is blinking when we get in but she ignores it, sits me down in her parents’ gleaming steel kitchen and puts a peanut butter sandwich in front of me.

“Just don’t let me see you destroy it,” she says, putting a bag of corn chips next to me, and then goes over to the phone.

I hear her talking while I’m opening the sandwich and putting corn chips on top of the peanut butter.

“No, she called me from the hospital, and I said I’d come get her. I—look, Dan, I think she just needs some decompression time. You know?”

I love Olivia. Not just for talking to Dan for me, but for a million little things. Like, she was okay that my mom loved peanut butter and corn chip sandwiches even before I was. I thought the idea was disgusting until I found myself wandering around the house three nights after she reached for toast and then broke. I was thinking about her, the things she did, like how she always had to put her wallet in her purse before she’d put anything else in or how much she hated peas.

I was wandering, remembering, and I was alone. Dan was sleeping peacefully, no doubt dreaming of his baby.

I thought about those sandwiches.

I made one the way she always did, first pressing the slices of bread and peanut butter together, and then taking them apart to put the chips on before smooshing it back together, and it was good. As I ate it, for a moment I swear I could almost see her. Picture her smiling at me.

“Sure, she’ll call later,” Olivia says. “Okay. Bye.”

She comes back to the table, one arm extended. I hand her the chips and smile as she heads toward the pantry, eyes averted from my sandwich.

“It’s not that bad. I’ve seen those gel things your parents eat.”

“True,” she says, coming back to the table and sitting down.

“You can see the sandwich now since you’re sitting here, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. What happened?”

I tell her.

“Oh,” she says when I’m done. “Names, huh? He must really think the baby’s going to make it.”

“I guess. All it has to do is lie there and suck everything out of Mom that’s pumped in until it can survive long enough to live in an incubator.”

“Emma,” Olivia says, picking up my plate and walking over to the shiny steel sink. “You know the baby’s not a bug or anything. It’s your brother.”

“Half. And it’s—Mom is dead and it’s not and I try not to see it but sometimes it moves and Mom’s—she’s just lying there, you know? Her body is only there for the baby and Dan chose that. He said he loved her, that he’d do anything for her. What kind of love is that, Olivia? Would you want someone to keep your dead body breathing with tubes and machines because they wanted something from you?”

I’m yelling by the end and Olivia has come back to the table and puts her arms around me.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t—my parents—our family’s not like it was for you and your mom. And the baby, it’ll never even know her. That’s so strange and awful.”

“When Dan finally gets around to thinking about that, he’ll probably just say it’s proof that science can work miracles and it’s how Mom would have wanted it.” By the time I’m done talking, I’m shaking so hard my teeth are chattering.

“I want to fix it for you, you know?” Olivia says. “You’re so angry, Emma. And I don’t know if it’s with Dan or your mom.”

“Dan. Definitely Dan.”

“And the baby.”

“I—look, I do get that it didn’t choose for Mom to die. But she did, you know? And the doctors say the embolism didn’t happen because she was pregnant but it’s just...” I swallow. “There was that clot and everything else—she was so scared, you know, so scared, and now I see her every day and try not to wonder if she’ll wake up even though I know she can’t. That she won’t.”

“Maybe you should talk to someone.”

“Dan said that too,” I say. “What’s a shrink going to tell me that I don’t already know? My mother’s dead and I miss her. I’m angry at Dan for keeping her body alive so the baby he wants so badly can maybe survive. Mom would hate being trapped like she is and I can’t—won’t—forgive him for it. I can’t forgive the baby either, and maybe that makes me awful, but I don’t care.”

“You really are angry. Like, I’m worried about you angry.”

I shrug and stare at the table again. Olivia knows me and she’s right. I am angry. I am so angry I feel like it’s all I am.

“At least I’m angry for a reason. At least I’m not running around stealing cars for fun like Caleb Harrison. I saw him at the hospital today. Twice, actually.”

“Wow, so it is true,” Olivia says.

“What?”

“I heard his parents got him some emergency hearing and he got assigned community service for the thing with his dad’s car,” she says. “You know, picking up trash and stuff. But I guess he’s at the hospital instead. What did he say?”

“Nothing,” I say, thinking of his, What’s your problem? and his stares. The second one was the worst. The way he was just looking at me and Mom, and how he must have seen me lying there, resting my head on her hand.

“Nothing? You sure?”

“How do you know what happened to him, anyway? It’s not like you’d have found out by going anywhere near a computer, so that means you talked to someone and that means...”

“Yes, I saw Roger,” she says, and blushes. “But it’s not what you think. I was getting gas and when I went to pay for it, he was inside getting a soda and we talked for a minute.”

“Uh-huh. So you were getting gas.”

“Yep.”

“Even though you got it two days ago and you’ve only driven to school and back since.”

“All right, fine,” she says, mock-slapping my arm. “I saw his car in the parking lot and I might have wanted to see him, and I did but it was no big deal. Okay?”

“How long did you talk to him?”

“Awhile.”

I grin at her. She stares at me for a moment and then grins back. “I know! We talked! Do you think he likes me? I really want him to like me.”

“What’s not to like?”

“The fact that most people think I’m a freak because I don’t use computers or any of that stuff.”

“Olivia, we go to school with people who steal buses. And their father’s car. Oh, and that guy who always wears the same brown shirt. You’re not a freak.”

“Well, not compared to Caleb Harrison. Or Dennis and his shirt thing,” she says. “But neither of them have social lives and I’d like one.”

“You have one. You talk to people in your classes. You dragged me to parties after the horrorfest that was Anthony. You went out with Pete last year. If you ever started using technology, you’d rule the school in a week.”

“Nice try,” she says, and grins at me. “Roger said I have nice hair, but what does that mean? It just lies there.”

“Olivia, you do have nice hair.”

“It’s flat.”

“You’d like Caleb’s hair,” I say, and she blinks at me.

“What?”

“I just—it’s wavy and stuff. Like how you’re always saying you want yours to be.”

“I thought you didn’t talk to him.”

“I didn’t.”

“But you noticed his hair.”

“We were in the same room, Olivia. He was about two feet away from me. It was hard not to see him.”

“He’s cute,” she says, and now I stare at her.

“No, not I think he’s cute cute,” she says. “Scary druggies don’t do it for me. But a lot of girls think he’s hot.”

“Not the ones in my classes!”

“No, you all think guys like Anthony are hot. Caleb’s got that whole quiet loner thing going, plus he has the cheekbone/eye/hair trifecta.”

When I stare at her she says, “Awesome face, great eyes, amazing hair. A trifecta. What are you learning in your classes?”

“Not that.”

“Oh, right. How’s the New Deal paper coming anyway?”

“It’s not.”

She looks at me and then says, “For real?”

I shrug.

“I know you haven’t been buried in books like usual but I thought you wanted to go to one of those top ten schools. I thought you and Anthony were neck and neck to see who could have the best ranking and SAT score and all that stuff.”

“Yeah, we were.”

Olivia frowns and starts to say something else, but her parents come in. They are both blond, like she is, but that’s pretty much where any similarity stops. They work in IT support and their life—their world, in fact—is computers. I have never seen one of them without something that isn’t electronic in one hand. It reminds me of how Olivia and I started the whole hanging out on my roof thing.

A few years ago, they gave her some sort of “does everything and can organize everything” gadget for her birthday and she came over, climbed up the trellis on the side of our house onto our roof, knocked on my window (and scared the crap out of me), and when I came out onto the roof, she cried and we talked. And then I threw her gift off the roof.

Mom calmed Olivia’s parents down, then calmed Olivia down, and then gave her a birthday gift from “me and Emma” and put foot rungs on the trellis so she could get up onto the roof easier. Since then, it was something we did once in a while for fun, but since Mom died, it’s the only way she comes to see me.

Her mother closes the door while typing out a message on some impossibly tiny thing, never looking up. Her father, who entered first, is using a strange-looking square, holding it in one hand and touching it with a plastic stylus, frowning as images flicker in and out.

“This cube isn’t maximizing its storage capability or its potential speed,” he says. “It feels like more of a design idea than an actual product.”

Olivia rolls her eyes at me, gets up and gets two energy drinks out of the fridge. “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.”

“How are you?” her dad says as her mother smoothes a hand over Olivia’s shoulder. “You have a good day?”

“Yeah,” Olivia says, and her Mom’s device starts to beep.

“Have you eaten?” her mother says, and Olivia rolls her eyes again.

“Yes. You?”

Her mother nods, and Olivia looks at her dad, who flushes. “I’m going to,” he says. “But the cube came in and I wanted to see it. I’ll eat later.”

“Something without caffeine or the word Energy! in it?”

Her dad grins at her. “Yes. And hey, we have a little more work to do, but then we’re going to watch a movie.”

“By yourselves?” Olivia says. “Without anything electronic in hand? Will you be all right?”

“You,” Olivia’s mother says, and kisses her cheek. “Want to join us?” She looks at me. “How about you, Emma? You in for a movie?”

I shake my head. Olivia’s parents drive her crazy and they aren’t around that much but they’re here, truly here, even if it’s not the way Olivia wishes they were, and I’m like a kid with her face pressed against the window, all the things I want and can’t have right in front of me.

I spy a family.

I miss Mom so much.

“I’m going to hang out with Emma,” Olivia says. “She can spend the night, right?”

“Sure,” Olivia’s dad says. “Is it okay with Dan?”

I nod.

“Do you need anything?” Olivia’s mom says, and I shake my head because what I need isn’t something anyone can give me. She looks at Olivia, kisses the top of her head, and then leaves, turning to the beeping gadget in her hand. Her dad grabs a package of crackers and wanders out, eating them one-handed as he starts to look at the cube again.

Some people think Olivia’s hatred of technology is an act, like she’s pretending or whatever. But she really does hate it. It’s not so much because of her parents—although I think that’s part of it—as it’s what she doesn’t want her life to be. She thinks it’s sad that people would rather talk without ever seeing each other.

“I just think life should be lived, you know?” she’s said to me more than once. “And how can all the talking with a keyboard ever be like actually talking to someone? It can’t. People need each other.”

“I don’t know,” I always said. “I think it just makes life bigger. People are closer, actually.”

“I’d rather have an actual talk with my mom instead of having her send me messages,” she’d say. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Sometimes,” I’d say, and she’d say, “Okay, fine,” but I get what she’s saying now. Mom and I talked like everyone else does, in person and over the phone and in all the ways you can, but now that she’s gone, I miss talking to her for real. Hearing her.

I could call her cell phone and hear her voice mail, but it wouldn’t be her. I could send her an email and get back the “I’ll be in soon!” message she put up before she left work, but it wouldn’t be her either. I would just hear and see electronic ghosts, and I already have a live one to face every day.

I call Dan from Olivia’s room.

“Hi,” I say when he answers. “I’m spending the night at Olivia’s. I’ll come home in the morning to get a ride to school.”

“I don’t know,” Dan says. “What about your homework? You left your bag in the car. Plus we still haven’t talked about what happened—”

“There’s nothing to say. You want a name. You pick it out.”

“Emma, your mother would be so sad to hear you talk like this.”

“She can’t be sad though, can she?” I say. “She’s dead. I’ll see you in the morning.”

And then I hang up.

He doesn’t call back. I know he won’t. I know that despite everything he says, he knows what he’s done. That he saw Mom die and made his choice.

He saw her die, and he still went ahead and decided that the baby was worth more than Mom and how scared she’d been about the pregnancy. About dying.

And he didn’t even ask me what I thought. Not about Mom. Not about the baby.

Not once.

He just decided the baby was worth everything.