Every Wild Heart Page 9

  There were two missed calls from my agent, Shayne, who had never once in all the years that I’d known her left an actual voicemail message. I’d pushed any thoughts about the television show to the back of my mind—our conversation on the car ride home from the studio only two nights earlier felt like a lifetime ago. But clearly, Shayne was anxious to hear from me. In her world, life-changing decisions were made in a matter of hours, not days.

  I draped my knees over the armrest and dropped my feet onto the chair beside me. I’d been wearing the same clothes for nearly forty-eight hours. I was so tired that my eyes burned. My old friend the security guard pointed at my feet and shook his head sharply. I sighed and swung my legs off the armrest, letting my boots land with a loud smack on the floor.

  I decided that I felt too exhausted to talk even to Simone, so I sent her a text letting her know that I would be out of the studio for the next few nights while I stayed home with Nic. I would return to the show on Monday. I realized that I’d have to hire our old babysitter, Irene, for Nic again—I didn’t want her to be home alone while I was at work. What if she fell and hit her head and there was no one there to help her? I sent Irene a message to ask if she could help out again for a while.

  Then I did a quick scroll through my email in-box to see if there was anything that couldn’t wait. One particular email caught my eye. I didn’t recognize the sender’s email address, but the subject line—“Hello from a fan!”—made me believe that the message inside would lift my spirits. I was checking my personal email account, not my public fan mail one, but every so often a fan managed to dig up my personal address. As a public figure, I’d learned years ago that there was really no hiding if someone was intent on finding you.

  I opened the email. I should have deleted it the moment I realized what it was, but once I started reading it I couldn’t seem to stop.

  You’re playing an old show on the radio tonight. I remember this one. I didn’t like it the first time I heard it. Now I’m almost enjoying it, because the fact that you’re running it, that you’re not in the studio right now as I write this email, means that I must have gotten under your skin. I’m glad. When you ruin someone’s life, you shouldn’t get away with it. You shouldn’t get rich on it. You might be able to hang up on me, but I will make sure you can’t forget me. You mess with my life, I’ll mess with yours. YOU BETTER FUCKING WATCH OUT.

  They were the words of the caller from two nights earlier, the show before Nic’s accident. Maybe the email was from the same person, or maybe it wasn’t. The strange thing about crazy people, I’d noticed in the years since my rant about Tyler had gone viral and I’d become a household name, was that they all shared a similar vocabulary, as though love could be found in a million variations, but hate was just hate, any way you sliced it.

  Then again, hatred wasn’t always the motivating emotion of my stalker-fans. Jenny Long, for example, had been a different sort of crazy. We’d met for the first time after a show one night when she sprang toward me from the shadows outside of the Hawke Media Building and asked if we could take a photo together. Roy had shot me a warning look, but I didn’t feel particularly worried—it wasn’t uncommon to find fans waiting for me outside the studio. Jenny had put her arm around my shoulders and as we smiled up at the phone she held in her outstretched hand, I saw on the phone screen that her eyes had filled with tears. Suddenly, both of her arms were around my neck. “I need to talk to you,” she’d whispered, her breath wetting the skin behind my ear. “You’re the only one who understands.” Her grip tightened. While Roy tried to peel her off me, I dug my elbow into her stomach. She’d reeled backwards, her expression morphing from anguish to shocked betrayal. “Please, G.G., you’re my best friend,” she’d cried. “It’s me, Jenny!” A security guard from the building made a belated appearance then, grabbing the woman by the arm as Roy and I hurried toward Roy’s waiting car.

  “Do you know her?” Roy had asked after we were safely inside the locked car.

  “No.” The collar of my jacket was damp from the woman’s tears. It was only when I wrenched that jacket off my shoulders that I realized how badly I was shaking.

  After that night, Jenny Long waited outside of Hawke Media frequently enough that I grew to expect her, and yet infrequently enough that each time she sprang out of the shadows and hurled herself at me it was a surprise. The building’s guards knew to look out for her, so she became increasingly stealthy, wearing wigs of different colors. Some nights she waited on the corner and ran toward me at full speed just as Roy opened the car door for me. She was always crying. In her mind, I was her closest friend. She thought that I spoke to her—and only her—through the radio every night. “Please, G.G.,” I’d hear her whimper dejectedly as Roy slammed the door behind me. “It’s me, Jenny.”

  After a few weeks of this, I filed for and was granted a restraining order. It worked. I hadn’t seen Jenny Long in over a year. I had no idea where she was, or what had happened to her, or if she still listened to me on the radio and believed that I was speaking directly to her alone. Had her obsessive love for me morphed into hatred over the past year? Had she gone from believing that we were best friends to believing that I had ruined her life? Was she now intent on ruining mine? I had no way of knowing.

  I blocked the email address, but it was too late. If I’d read that note at almost any other moment in my life, I would have rolled my eyes as I deleted it from both my in-box and my mind. But on that day I was sad and confused and worried about my daughter, who it seemed I was to take home from the hospital forever changed.

  The threatening words landed like darts in a soft target, and there they remained.

  ROY DROVE US home from the hospital later that night. I held Nic’s hand and watched the side of her face as she gazed through the window. Her expression was placid, but her eyes seemed unusually bright. It might have been the reflection of the headlights of the cars headed south on the freeway.

  “Is everything okay, Nic?” I asked her softly. Roy glanced at us in the rearview mirror.

  I could have sworn that my lovely daughter stifled a sigh as she pulled her gaze from the apparently mesmerizing sight of 101 in all its heavily trafficked glory. “I’m fine, Mom,” she said. “I told you, I feel great.”

  “But, Nic,” I pressed, “do you feel a little off? A little different than you did before the accident?”

  Instead of answering, she smiled. “Can you believe I did that? Tried to jump Tru over a tree?”

  “No, actually, I can’t.”

  “I think it’s kind of amazing.”

  “Frankly, it makes me want to put you on a leash.”

  Nic laughed.

  “The other day,” I told her, “I looked down from my office window and saw a toddler wearing a backpack with a rope attached to it and at the other end of the rope, about four steps behind him, was his mother. She seemed calm. The whole thing appeared very reasonable.”

  “Mom.”

  “I’m just saying, one rope attached to your school backpack and so many of our problems could be solved.”

  Nic shook her head, smiling. She leaned into me and rested her head on my shoulder. A moment later, before I could press her again about how she was feeling, she was asleep.

  OVER THE NEXT few days, Nic and I spent most of our time listening to music and taking naps and eating comforting meals of pasta and stew. I studied Nic, reading into everything she said, examining each of her smiles. It was clear that she knew I was watching her; her mood swung from indulgence to annoyance and back again.

  The house was full of flowers sent by Martin (card: “With hope for a swift recovery!”) and Shayne (card: “Nic—Feel better! G.G.—Let’s talk soon!”) and Simone (card: “We love you, Nic!”). Denny called twice to check on Nic. Tyler visited every day.

  Nic spoke on the phone with my parents, who had retired to Palm Springs a few years earlier. They were irritated to only learn of her accident days after it had occurred, but wer
e relieved that she was on the mend. My mother offered to come help, but I thanked her and said we’d be fine; anyway, we’d see them soon enough when they visited at Christmas.

  Nic called her friend Lila often. On the couple of occasions that I overheard her on these phone calls, I found her mildly conspiratorial tone both comforting and worrisome. She hadn’t made close friendships at her old school, so her relationship with Lila was a welcome change. But there was a knowing quality to her voice, a certain throaty maturity, that made my breath catch in my chest.

  She painted her fingernails red. She must have found the polish in my bathroom. She sang “Piece of My Heart” as she painted her nails, and her singing voice was strong and clear. But this was nothing new.

  On Sunday night, Roy arrived with burritos from our favorite Mexican restaurant. Two of the burritos had the extra-spicy salsa that Roy and I loved, and one had the mild salsa that Nic had always preferred. When she asked to try mine, Roy and I watched in astonishment as she ate the entire thing without breaking a sweat.

  By the time she went to bed on Sunday night, Nic—my Nic, who usually had to be pushed out of the house each morning—was already itching to go to school the next day. As I’d done for the previous four nights, I lay down to sleep on a blanket on the floor beside her bed, and listened as she begged me to let Roy take her to the barn after school the next day. I told her that her father and I were still discussing it, but the truth was that Tyler had pulled me aside earlier in the day and told me that he’d decided allowing Nic to see Tru was a good idea. His change of heart had not surprised me. With each visit, I’d watched my ex-husband grow less wary of Nic’s newfound confidence. He seemed charmed by her poise. By the time he pulled me aside during that morning’s visit, he seemed, oddly, less worried about Nic than ever before.

  Even though I’d agreed we should let Nic return to the barn, it was impossible for me to fully shake the terrible thought of her lying unconscious in the woods, the shock of almost having lost her, and the disconcerting sense that she was irrevocably changed.

  I had not been sleeping well, and Sunday night was no different.

  The next morning I awoke before Nic and watched her, my heart skittering anxiously, waiting for my daughter to open her eyes.

  Chapter 8

  The first thing Nic saw when she woke up was her mother’s worried expression.

  Nic bolted upright in bed, holding her arms out stiffly in front of her. “It’s aliiiive!”

  Her mother released a strangled laugh and swatted Nic’s shoulder. “I think I might be ten years older than I was five minutes ago.” Her mother did look tired. Nic felt a stab of guilt. “Don’t forget Simone and the kids are coming over this morning with bagels. They wanted to see you before school.”

  Nic stretched. Her body no longer ached, but the steady hum of her headache remained. “I’ll get in the shower.”

  “I’ll make coffee.”

  Within moments of her mother leaving the room, Nic could hear her cursing and banging around in the kitchen. She smiled. For as long as she could remember, weekday mornings began with her mother doing battle with the coffee machine.

  “Hasn’t that thing taken enough abuse from you over the years?” she called on her way to the bathroom.

  Her mom appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “Are you sure you want to go to school, Nic? I wouldn’t mind spending another day lounging around in our pajamas.”

  Nic groaned.

  “Right, right.” Her mother waved her hand in the air dramatically. “Got it. You want to go to school. If you happen to see my daughter Nic while you’re there, please tell her that her mother loves her.”

  “Will do!” Nic said, and stepped into the bathroom. She kept waiting to feel anxious about returning to school but the skittering sensation within her felt more like anticipation than worry. Part of this was that she knew, just knew, with surprising, delightful certainty that she would never stutter again. Had hitting her head somehow done this to her? Had some off-switch been flicked within her? Or maybe an on-switch? How could she know? She felt grateful and free, nearly giddy with possibility. It was like awakening one morning and discovering that you could fly.

  After she showered, she ran her hand across the line of gray and brown shirts that filled her closet and stopped on the yellow dress. Oh, just wear it already, she thought. And she did. She twisted her wet hair into a bun and pulled on her favorite shoes, a pair of black Converse high-top sneakers.

  She heard the doorbell ring, and then the voices of her mother, Simone, Rachel, and Sam floated toward her. She was about to head down to join them when she caught sight of the bottle of perfume on her bureau. It had been a birthday present from Simone. Even though the scent, a mix of lilac and vanilla, was light and sweet, each time Nic had put it on she felt like she was trying to be someone she was not—someone grown-up, someone who could accept a compliment without blushing or growing tongue-tied. Before, the scent had carried hints of all of Nic’s hang-ups, but now it just smelled nice. She sprayed it on the translucent skin of her wrist and then held her wrist to her nose and breathed in. She rubbed her wrists against her neck. This felt like a ritual, womanly and calming.

  “Nic!” Simone cried when Nic entered the kitchen. “You’re looking gorgeous! Traumatic brain injury becomes you.”

  Nic laughed. She felt her mom watching her as she hugged Simone and Rachel and Sam.

  “I love your dress!” Rachel said.

  “Thanks. Mom got it for me.”

  “Months ago,” her mother said. “It looks great.”

  “You smell good, too,” Simone said, winking.

  “I’m wearing all of my birthday presents this morning.”

  “Happy birthday!” gushed Sam, who was seven. His eyes darted around the kitchen, looking for more presents maybe, or cupcakes.

  Nic smiled. “No, it was a few months ago, remember? But your mom gave me the perfume I’m wearing today.”

  “Well, it may not be your birthday, but it is your first day back at school, and we thought we should celebrate with your favorite bagels,” Simone said. She passed Nic a plate with a toasted bagel slathered with cream cheese. “I’m so relieved you’re okay, Nic. We’ve been worried about you. But look at you! You’d never guess the ordeal you’ve been through.”

  “I feel great,” Nic said, as much for her mother’s benefit as Simone’s. It seemed possible that Nic could have entered the room doing a chain of back handsprings, and her mother would still eye her warily, wondering what secret injury she nursed.

  When Nic was halfway through her bagel, her mom walked to the far side of the kitchen to refill her coffee, and Simone trailed after her. They put their heads close and spoke in low voices. Nic couldn’t make out anything they were saying because Rachel was chattering loudly about some new dollhouse furniture she was hoping to get for Christmas and Sam was busily beating two spoons against the kitchen counter, but the gist of the adults’ conversation became clear the moment they returned to the table.

  “Nic,” her mother said. “Your father and I have decided that you can visit the barn this afternoon—”

  Nic’s heart soared. “Oh, Mom, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  “Hang onto those thanks for a minute and let me finish. You’re not allowed to ride. I don’t even want you to lunge Tru. But I know it’s important for you to see him, so if you promise me that you will be very careful, and that you won’t ride, I’ll tell Roy he can take you there after school today.”

  Nic was dying to ride—five days out of the saddle felt strange to her—but she could see that she wasn’t going to get anywhere by pushing back. She put her arms around her mother. “I’ll be careful.”

  “No riding,” her mom repeated. “No lunging. Don’t even walk into the ring. Denny is going to keep an eye on you.”

  Nic managed to stop herself from rolling her eyes. She took a large bite of her bagel. She couldn’t wait to see Tru, but she wasn’t wishing
away the school day like she usually did. She wondered if Lucas Holt had written her off after her weird stuttering meltdown or if that small flicker of flirtation between them might still exist. Had he noticed that she hadn’t been at school?

  She caught sight of the clock on the microwave. Shit! she thought. I’m going to be late.

  “Nic!” her mom said.

  “What?”

  “You just said . . .” Her mom glanced at Rachel and Sam, then at Simone. They all watched her. Sam grinned. Rachel’s glossy pigtails seemed to quiver with excitement.

  “You said a bad word,” Rachel announced.

  “Oh!” Nic laughed. “That was out loud?” She stood and carried her breakfast plate to the dishwasher, feeling all four pairs of eyes move with her as she did.

  MORE EYES FOLLOWED her as she stepped out of her mom’s car in front of the school that morning. Maybe they were excited to catch sight of Gail Gideon, or maybe it was Nic’s yellow dress. Or had everyone heard about her accident? The school wasn’t that big, making life easy for the kids who thought it was important to know everyone’s business. Nic felt those eyes on her and for the first time wondered if gossip was really all that bad. Maybe the interest in one another’s lives was natural, maybe even critical, for a community. The idea of someone talking about Nic behind her back had always made her feel cold in her bones and strangely lonely, but now she felt herself grow a little taller. She was interesting. Maybe people were talking about her because a part of her belonged to them. With them. They felt her absence when she was gone.