She was touched by the sincerity in his voice. “So this course you want to take, what do your parents think?”
“I haven’t told them exactly. I just said I was going to do some extra study at the community college. That shocked them enough.”
“But why haven’t you said anything? They’d be pleased.”
“Dad wants me to go to college. He’d never understand my wanting to be a lowly EMT.”
“And you don’t want to go to college?” She couldn’t imagine that. She’d wanted to go all her life. Education was a way into a good job and better money.
“I hate studying,” he confessed. “I hate being cooped up in a classroom. If I went to college, I’d party and never go to classes. I’d be on probation before the end of the first grading period.”
“You sell yourself short. Look how you’ve brought your grades up this past year.”
“It was sheer torture. I’m telling you, college would be a waste of my time and Dad’s money. I want to drop all my college prep courses in my senior year.”
“Your dad—”
“Will have a seizure.” Carson finished her sentence. “I can’t help it. That’s why I want to take this intro course this summer. If I do well, maybe it’ll help Dad take off his blinders and see me as I really am.”
Kathleen was seeing a side of Carson she’d not met before, a serious side that suffered from conflicts imposed by his overachieving and perfectionist family—good, kind people, but people who pressured him to be like them. He was different. His crazy antics were his way of telling it to the world. “Well, I think you should go for it,” she said. “You’d make a wonderful EMT.”
“You think so?”
She smiled. “Want a letter of recommendation from me and my mom?”
“I’ll settle for a kiss.” His familiar impish grin lit up his face.
“You want to kiss my mother?” She feigned shock.
“Just her daughter.” He grabbed for Kathleen.
She ducked and skittered away into his bedroom, where he caught up with her and began to tickle her mercilessly. They fell into a laughing heap across his bed. They eventually grew quiet, gazing into each other’s eyes. The sound of their breathing stirred the air.
“Dangerous place to be with me,” he finally said.
“That goes both ways,” she said, emboldened by a rush of adrenaline. She’d already been in his bedroom, but he didn’t know it. She’d sneaked in once the summer before when he’d been upstairs, so she already knew what it looked like. It had an Asian motif done in chocolate brown, green and black, a carpet the color of grass and accents of bright red.
He stole his kiss, then sat upright, pulling her with him. “What do you think of the place?”
Her gaze swept the room and she hoped she looked as if it were the first time she’d seen it. “Not bad. You decorate it yourself?”
“Get real. But I did get to tell the decorator what I liked.”
“You have good taste.” She couldn’t help looking at the shelf of photos along one wall for the one of Stephanie she’d seen before. It had been moved, but it was still there. Boldly, she went over and picked it up. Aloud she read, “ ‘I won’t forget our special summer. With much love, Steffie.’ How charming.”
He took it from her hands and slid it into a drawer. “I see the place so much, I don’t notice such details. And I might add, I don’t have a photo of you to replace it.”
“I’ll get right on it.”
Stephanie Marlow was a sore point between them that had almost wrecked their romance at Christmastime. Stephanie hated Kathleen, and she held some mysterious power over Carson that led him to refuse to abandon his friendship with the girl.
“You are—um—over things with her, aren’t you?” Carson asked.
“Well, you said she’ll be away all summer, so I’ll adjust to her absence.” Kathleen tried to be flip, but still Carson’s gaze looked guarded. “Plus you’ve convinced me that I’m the one for you,” she added with a smile.
“She’s been hired to do modeling shoots in the Islands and in London. Then she’s off to Brazil to visit her mother, who’ll probably never return to the States.”
It rankled Kathleen that he knew Stephanie’s schedule, but she didn’t say so because it would only make Carson mad. “And I guess her father won’t miss either of them?”
“He never has in the past.”
Poor little Steffie, Kathleen thought sarcastically. She wished she’d stay in Brazil and forget her senior year at Bryce Academy with Carson. But of course she wouldn’t. “With your taking that EMT course, you’ll be busy too.” She changed the subject.
“What about you? You headed into the Pink Angels again?”
Kathleen took a deep breath. “I’m thinking about getting a job. I almost got one last summer, but Raina insisted we all sign up to be Pink Angels—which I’m glad I did, but if I want new clothes for my senior year, I need to earn some money.”
“I thought your mother got a job.”
“Just part-time.” Since her open-heart surgery, Mary Ellen’s life had blossomed. She attended a multiple sclerosis support group and all their get-togethers, was even dating a member of the group and was working three days a week as a bookkeeper for a trucking firm. There were times when Kathleen wondered if Mary Ellen even thought about Kathleen’s deceased father anymore. If she did, she didn’t talk about him the way she used to. Kathleen added, “Besides, Mom shouldn’t have to pay for all the things I want. I don’t mind working. But don’t say anything to Raina and Holly. I haven’t told them yet. We’re supposed to report to Sierra on Monday for orientation.” Sierra Benson was in charge of the program.
“How about in the fall? I thought you were counting on the credits you get for being in the program.”
“That’s what I want to talk to Sierra about. I want to go back in the fall for class credit, and I hope that not being involved this summer won’t bump me from the program.”
He shook his head and looked amused. “All for new clothes?”
How could he understand? He wanted for nothing material, while she wanted many things. Money was tight at her house. She didn’t want to put pressure on her mother. “Pretty new clothes,” she told him. “I can’t go naked.” A wicked grin crossed his face and she turned beet red. “Don’t say a thing.”
“What? You can’t fault a guy for mental images, can you?”
“Erase them. And then take me home before I break curfew and get into trouble.”
“I can get you into trouble without us leaving.” He kissed her neck.
“I thought we agreed we should stay out of that kind of trouble.”
He grinned. “For the time being. But not forever.”
She blinked as he turned and exited the bedroom. Her heartbeat quickened and her mouth went dry as her insecurities resurfaced. Until Carson had come along, she’d never been seriously kissed. She had no doubt that he’d experienced much more, was probably used to getting anything he wanted from the girls he dated. Sophisticated girls. Girls like Stephanie Marlow. Kathleen was scared. She didn’t want to lose Carson, but she didn’t want to get in over her head either. She kept remembering what had happened to Raina. Carson wasn’t vindictive and hateful like Tony, but what if he got bored with her? And with Stephanie waiting in the wings, he wouldn’t be without love and affection for long. Of that, Kathleen was very sure.
three
“HELLO, KATHLEEN. READY to start another summer?” Sierra said, smiling up at Kathleen when she entered her office. “I’m making out the work schedule now, and even with the new recruits there’s still plenty to do. I’m glad I have you veterans to fall back on. And don’t worry, I won’t put you anyplace with sick patients. Did you like your stint in the medical library? The director sure had glowing words about you.”
Kathleen nervously licked her lips. This wasn’t going to be easy. “I need to tell you something.” Color crept up her neck and across her face as
she explained her problem. She finished with “I love the program, and I’d like to come back for credit in the fall, but I—I really need a job this summer.”
Sierra sat back and steepled her fingers. “I understand. I had to work all through college. It was tough, but I did it. Any prospects?”
“I’m filling out applications at department stores and also at a couple of restaurants for lunch shifts. There’s a pharmacy not far from my house. Maybe they can use my help.”
“Why leave? The hospital has plenty of paying jobs, and so long as we keep your hours within federal guidelines, your age shouldn’t be a problem. Let me check into it.”
Kathleen’s heart leaped. “Will you?”
“Just hold off on taking a job until you hear from me, all right? I promise to get back to you quickly.”
“I sure will. And thank you so much.”
“I wouldn’t want a little thing like money to get in the way of your medical career.”
“But I—” Kathleen saw that Sierra was teasing, because everyone knew that Kathleen couldn’t stand the sight of blood. Her blush deepened. “I’ll wait to hear from you.”
Sierra laughed and shooed her out of the office.
Holly hustled around the pediatric floor doing the chores Mrs. Graham had given her. So far she’d removed breakfast trays and delivered two get-well balloon baskets and six get-well cards to various kids in the rooms. This area was much more cheerful to work in than the pediatric oncology wing, but even though the kids there were much sicker, she liked working that area better. The kids tugged on her heartstrings. Some of them suffered so nobly. Many screamed their heads off whenever a doctor approached their beds, because they associated anyone in a white coat with pain, but they all seemed to like Holly. She played endless games of Go Fish and Yahtzee with them when they felt up to it.
One of the floor nurses called out, “Holly, there’s a flower delivery downstairs in the gift shop for someone in the teen wing. Could you run down and get it and bring it up to the correct room? They missed it this morning, and the girl’s having surgery this afternoon.”
Holly took the elevator down. Except for her initial tour of the hospital when she’d first become a Pink Angel, she hadn’t been in the teen wing the whole year that she’d volunteered. Down on the main floor, she went into the gift shop, where undelivered gifts were placed, and was surprised to see Kathleen behind the counter. “Is this your assignment?” Holly asked.
Kathleen looked sheepish and glanced at an older woman, clearly the one in charge, and asked, “Can I have a few minutes with my friend?”
The woman agreed, and Kathleen took Holly outside into the bustling atrium, where Holly said, “I can’t be gone long. I’m supposed to be picking up a flower delivery. What’s up?”
“When I got here, Sierra sent me down. I had asked for a real job. You know … the kind that pays money. Actually, I was going to quit the program because I really have to work this summer, but Sierra said she’d try and hook me up here.”
“Why didn’t you say something to me and Raina?”
“I was going to.”
“When?” Holly sounded hurt.
“I didn’t want Raina to go into lecture mode until I had my plan in place. You know how touchy she’s been ever since she found out about Emma.”
“Yes, but she’s doing so much better since Hunter’s been home.”
“I let her talk me out of getting a job last summer because she wanted us all to be volunteers together, and I couldn’t let her do it again. I really need the money.”
“Good thing you caved last summer. You’d have never met Carson.”
“True, but I can’t face the medical floors like you and Raina do. A job in the gift shop is perfect for me. The best of both worlds this summer. I was planning to tell you all when we went home today. Mom baked me a cake and is having a little party to celebrate my minimum wage coup. Corny, huh? But she knows I wanted to be with my friends and make money.”
Holly grinned. “Actually, I’m jealous because I didn’t think to do the same thing.”
Kathleen returned her smile and they walked back to the gift shop, where Kathleen introduced Holly to her supervisor and the main employee of the shop, Mrs. Nesbaum. “It’s so good to have hired help again,” the portly woman said. “The last girl just up and left without a word. Just didn’t show up one day. You’re not going to do that to me, are you?”
Kathleen assured her that she wouldn’t, then walked Holly to the refrigerated unit that held an array of floral baskets. She found the one that Holly had been sent to retrieve and deliver. “See you in the parking garage at five,” Kathleen said. “I’ll tell Raina ASAP.”
Holly set off to make her delivery. Her first impression of the teen floor was that it didn’t look very cheerful. Pediatrics was bright and colorful, with murals and a kid-friendly playroom that was well stocked with toys, games and books. The teen floor looked like any of the hospital’s adult floors—dull and uninteresting. Most of the doors were closed, meaning visitors should knock before entering. She wondered how many teens were on the floor, and what was wrong with them. Of course, hospital policy prohibited her from asking a patient such personal information. It could only be volunteered or surmised.
She found the room number of her delivery and knocked gently. No one answered, so she cracked the door and saw a girl asleep on a bed. Holly entered and placed the basket on the bedside table, hoping it would be the first thing she saw when she woke. The sleeping girl looked to be about thirteen, and a “nothing by mouth” order had been taped to the wall above her bed. Made sense, since she was going into surgery. Holly felt sorry for her and gave an involuntary shudder. The girl was too close to Holly’s age for Holly to feel comfortable. She thought about asking her father, the fount of all theological knowledge, why kids got sick in the first place. Holly believed in God with all her heart, but the way he ran things didn’t always make sense to her. Her father, Mike, often fell back on “Does the clay question the potter?”—an answer that annoyed her and solved nothing.
Holly heard a gurney coming down the hall and backed away from the sleeping girl. “I’ll say a prayer for you,” she whispered. She fled the teen wing, grateful to be away from the depressing place that housed people her own age wrestling with disease and pain—and ever so grateful that she wasn’t one of them.
“You missed dinner,” Raina’s mother said as soon as she walked in the door that night.
“Kathleen’s mother had a little party for her to celebrate Kathleen’s new job in the hospital gift shop. No more volunteering for her this summer … steady work and steady pay,” Raina answered stiffly.
“Good for Kathleen. You could have called me,” Vicki said.
“Sorry,” Raina said, without conviction.
“Are you going to be angry at me for the rest of your life?” Vicki crossed her arms.
“I’m not sure. Do you have any more secrets you ‘forgot’ to tell me?” Raina was talking about Emma, of course, the baby whom Vicki had given up for adoption years before Raina was born.
“Don’t be hateful. I was trying to get on with my life.”
“And if my sister hadn’t gotten sick and needed bone marrow, and if I hadn’t put myself in the national registry on a whim, would I have ever known about her?”
“I would have told you eventually.”
“And will you tell her about our having the same father? She should know that.”
“Maybe someday. She’s struggling with so much right now.”
Exasperated by Vicki’s excuses, Raina fired at her, “You’re playing God, Mother. She has a right to know.”
“She has terrific adoptive parents who love her and who never expected me to walk back into her life. Plus her biological father is dead, so why muddy the water? What purpose would it serve except to make you feel better, or whatever it is you’re feeling toward her? She’s not a part of our lives, Raina.”
“She’s par
t of my life!” Raina cried. “I saved her life. Just because you don’t want anything to do with her—”
“Stop it!” Vicki glared at Raina. “How dare you assume what I want? Do you think it’s easy to give up a baby? Do you think I haven’t thought about Emma every day since I gave her up? But I had you to think of and to raise, and a career to plan so that I could make a life for us. Because it’s about us, you and me, and what’s best for us.”
“How nice to know I was the perfect substitute for the baby you really wanted.”
Vicki’s hand shot out at Raina’s mouth so quickly that Raina never saw it coming, but she felt the sharp sting—it made her eyes water. For a stunned moment, neither one of them spoke. Raina’s head was reeling. In spite of all the yelling matches they’d had over the years, she couldn’t remember her mother’s ever striking her. She watched Vicki’s eyes fill with tears. “That hurt,” Vicki whispered.
Raina couldn’t answer. Shock mingled with fury. Her mother had slapped her. Slapped her.
Vicki backed away. “I’ve made so many sacrifices. And for what? For a daughter who doesn’t think about my existence. And for another who hates me.” She turned, her back ramrod straight, and ascended the stairs.
Raina watched her mother leave without apology, without concern for having slapped her. Raina seethed, but held herself in steely control. She would be eighteen in November. She would graduate next May. She could hang with Hunter all next summer, maybe go to college in the same area. Maybe she would forget college and get a job near Hunter. Anyplace would be better than here with her mother, who had once been like a best friend but who now seemed like her worst enemy.