She Died Too Young Read online

  Katie felt her face flush hot and knew she was turning red with embarrassment. Had she drawn the completely wrong conclusions about his attentions? “Well, I want an A also. I only mentioned Josh because he and I spend a lot of time together.”

  “Are you saying that you have to check with him before you can go research a paper for school?”

  His phrasing made it sound as if she were some kind of puppet and Josh were pulling her strings. “No!” she insisted. “Josh and I aren’t like that. We have an understanding.”

  “What kind of understanding?”

  How could Garrison twist her words and make it sound as if she had less than a mind of her own? “You don’t understand, and I don’t have time to explain it. It’s complicated, that’s all.”

  “Then, if it’s cool with your boyfriend, I’d like to take you to the UM library Monday night so we can ace this paper. What’s complicated about that?”

  “Nothing, I guess.”

  “So it’s settled. We have a study date for Monday night.” Garrison stood and scooped up his notebook. “And right now, I don’t see any reason to waste my time in this library. So, I’ll say goodbye, have a great weekend, and I’ll see you in class on Monday morning.”

  He was gone before Katie could open her mouth. She sat, dumbstruck, feeling as if she’d somehow lost control of a situation she didn’t understand. All she knew was that at this moment, she wanted to be with Josh. He was kind and caring and gentle. And I love him, she reminded herself.

  Katie left the library and drove straight to Josh’s grandfather’s house, where she knew Josh would be waiting for her.

  “Is this car neat or what?” Chelsea slid open a compartment door in the console of the limo and peered inside. “Hey, Katie, there’s a TV set in here.”

  “And there’s food to feed an army,” Katie said, opening a small refrigerator embedded under the seat cushion.

  The plush velour seats faced each other in the back of the expensive car. Chelsea sat opposite Katie, who poked through the contents of the refrigerator. “Want a soda?” Katie asked. “Or a sandwich?”

  Outside, traffic was light on the expressway taking them downtown. Chelsea could barely see the back of the driver’s head through the smoked glass partition. “Nothing for me. Do you think that guy can hear us?”

  “Probably not,” Katie replied, pointing to a row of buttons. “I think this is an intercom that allows us to talk to him if we want. Should we buzz him?”

  Chelsea snatched Katie’s finger, poised over a button. “Don’t you dare! What would we say?”

  “We could ask him if he has any mustard.”

  Chelsea giggled. “Boy, I wonder what it’s like to be this rich?”

  “Jenny Crawford was rich,” Katie said. Chelsea nodded, recalling the portrait of the beautiful young girl that hung over the stone fireplace at Jenny House. “If I had money, I’d give it away just like she did,” Katie continued. “I’d make huge donations to research. I’d fly all my friends in for a weekend at Jenny House. I’d buy everybody I liked a present.”

  “Would you buy me my own virtual reality game?”

  Katie snapped her fingers. “In a heartbeat.”

  “Speaking of heartbeats …” Chelsea placed her hand over her heart. “I wish you could buy me one and skip all this transplant waiting.”

  Katie smiled wistfully. “I used to wish the same thing.”

  The limo pulled up into the curving brick archway of a giant hotel. A doorman opened the car door, and Katie stepped out first. A wheelchair had been brought for Chelsea.

  “I don’t want that,” Chelsea said when she saw it. “I can walk.”

  The doorman nodded and led the way through a mammoth lobby that gleamed with brass and mirrors. Giant floral arrangements scented the air, and soft music playing on a piano and harp gave the hotel a feeling of splendid elegance. Chelsea walked past an indoor pond where lily pads floated alongside pale pink lotus blossoms. Bright golden fish languished beneath the water’s surface.

  The doorman took them to what seemed to be a private elevator, and when the door slid open, he said, “This goes express to the penthouse. Miss Longado is waiting for you.”

  Katie exchanged glances with Chelsea and mouthed Miss Longado? Chelsea shrugged. Alone in the elevator, the two girls suppressed giggles and grabbed each other’s hands. The elevator, lined in marble and mirrors, floated upward so smoothly that the only sensation Chelsea felt was a slight fluttering in her stomach. The movement stopped, and the doors slid open.

  A woman dressed in a gray uniform smiled warmly at Chelsea and Katie. “Hello. Miss Jillian is in her room waiting for you. Follow me.”

  Five

  THERE WAS NO way Chelsea could act indifferent as the maid led her and Katie through the spacious penthouse.

  The maid ushered them into a bedroom that was at least the size of three bedrooms from Katie’s house put together. In the center of the room was an elevated platform, and on it, an enormous bed, where Jillian lay. An oxygen tank stood beside the bed, and a thin tube led from the tank to Jillian’s nostrils. She waved the girls over to her bedside. “Sorry about this, but my lungs need a little extra help today.”

  Understanding fully, Chelsea brushed aside the apology and introduced Katie.

  “Chelsea says you’ve had a transplant,” Jillian said. Her words sounded breathy, and her Texas drawl was quite distinctive. “Is that true? You sure look regular.”

  Katie laughed, feeling a wave of pity and camaraderie with the bedridden girl. “Two years ago, I looked just like you do now—all hooked up to tanks of oxygen.”

  “But a new heart changed all that,” Chelsea inserted, eager to make Jillian feel at ease.

  Jillian’s skin looked pale, but her eyes were bright with curiosity. “Chelsea says she’s living with you until she gets a donor. She’s lucky. I sure miss my home.”

  Katie surveyed the room. “Well, my house is nothing like this. That’s for sure.”

  “Katie’s home is perfect,” Chelsea insisted. “Having Katie is better than having a sister, because we never argue.”

  “A poor sister,” Katie joked.

  “This is the main bedroom,” Jillian explained, sounding almost apologetic. “My folks made me take it so I’d be comfortable. Actually, it reminds me of a barn back at the ranch. Mama’s taken one of the smaller rooms, and most weekends Daddy flies in and stays with us. He should be here from the airport any minute now with my brother, DJ. I want you to meet my family. You’ll like them.”

  There was a knock on the door, and when it opened, three people trooped inside. A man, obviously Jillian’s dad, filled the room with his presence. He looked suntanned and ruddy, and wore a cowboy hat and boots; his belt buckle was ornately carved silver. He went swiftly to Jillian’s bed and hugged her. “How’s my princess doing?” he asked in a booming voice.

  Jillian insisted he not make a fuss and introduced him to Katie and Chelsea. Jillian’s mother was a pretty woman with blond hair and blue eyes. Chelsea noticed on her hands several diamond rings that reminded her of boulders. Jillian‘s brother was blond, tall, and muscular, a picture of an outdoorsman with cowboy good looks. Chelsea could hardly take her eyes off him.

  He swept his black hat off his head and said, “Glad to meet you.”

  Chelsea’s pulse raced. She saw the resemblance between Jillian and DJ through their eyes and along their jawlines. The main difference between them lay in DJ’s robust good health and Jillian’s lack of it. The difference was even more pronounced when DJ bent and kissed his sister.

  “Nice to see you could tear yourself away from Shelby to come and see me,” Jillian said with a jab to DJ’s chest.

  “What’ve you got against Shelby?” DJ asked, his blue eyes mischievous. “She’s fine, and she thinks highly of you.”

  Jillian made a face and looked to Chelsea and Katie. “Shelby’s dumb as a brick. I don’t know why he wastes his time on her.”

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p; “I don’t think it’s her brain that appeals to me,” DJ said.

  His father laughed, and his mother hooked her arm through his. “None of that kind of talk. Douglas. You mind your mouth around Jillian’s company.”

  Chelsea was startled by the open, easy banter among Jillian’s family. She’d never heard parents talk to their kids as if they were equals. Katie was looking amused, so Chelsea figured she wasn’t offended by them. Jillian said, “Tell me everything that’s going on at home.”

  Her mother pulled at Jillian’s dad and said, “Let these kids visit. I’ll go make arrangements for lunch. You all will join us, won’t you?”

  Katie and Chelsea nodded acceptance. When their parents were gone, Jillian grabbed DJ’s hand and said, “How’s my horse? You exercising him?”

  “Shelby and I went riding yesterday.”

  “You let that girl on Windsong? How could you?”

  DJ chucked her under her chin. “I rode Windsong.”

  Mollified, Jillian settled back against her pillows. Chelsea could tell that the exertion had cost her strength, because Jillian closed her eyes and sucked oxygen. Chelsea saw a shadow cross DJ’s face, momentary and fleeting, like clouds shifting across the sun. The look disappeared almost as quickly as it had come.

  DJ held his sister’s hand and said to Chelsea and Katie, “I’m glad Jillian’s made some friends.”

  “We’re in the transplant program together,” Chelsea explained, suddenly feeling a need to fill in the silence left by Jillian’s lassitude. “I need a heart. Katie’s already gotten a transplant.”

  “You don’t say.” DJ studied Katie with renewed interest.

  “She already has a boyfriend,” Jillian said from the depths of her pillows without opening her eyes.

  Chelsea felt a twinge of envy because DJ obviously had noticed Katie and not her.

  “That cuts,” DJ replied, acting offended. “I’m curious, that’s all. I don’t make a pass at every pretty girl I see, you know.”

  “We were wombmates, remember? I know exactly how you think.”

  “Well, if all you’re going to do is insult me, I’m going to leave the three of you to yourselves.”

  “Is that a threat or a promise?” Jillian opened one eye and studied her brother playfully.

  DJ stood and, picking up his hat, walked to the door. “If you’re lucky, I’ll join you for lunch.”

  “Thanks for the favor. We’ll try to contain ourselves.”

  Chelsea saw the affection in Jillian‘s face for her brother and again experienced a twist of envy. How lonely she had been, growing up a sick, only child. For all her health problems, Jillian was lucky to have the kind of family she did.

  When the three of them were alone, Jillian asked, “So, what do you think of my family?”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody like them,” Katie said with a laugh.

  “They are pretty special, aren’t they?” Jillian motioned for Katie and Chelsea to sit on the bed with her. “I wish I could have been healthy like DJ. It’s been awfully hard on him. He’s perfectly fine, and I’m not, even though we have the same parents.”

  “And you were wombmates,” Chelsea added, taken by the idea that Jillian and DJ were twins.

  “Yeah, go figure. Same DNA, but in me, the stuff goes crazy.” A brief, awkward silence fell. Jillian finally cleared her throat and looked to Katie. “So, you’ve had a heart transplant. Tell me about it. I want the truth. Not this medical stuff the doctors keep feeding me. They can quote more dumb statistics, but not tell a person one real thing about how things actually are!”

  “I’ll do better than that,” Katie said, glancing around the room to make sure they were alone and that DJ had shut the bedroom door securely behind him. “I’ll show you.”

  Katie pulled her shirttail from her jeans and undid the buttons. Slowly, she parted the material and exposed her chest. A long, straight scar, raised and slightly red, stretched under her bra from the center of her breastbone to her belly button. “Eventually, it’ll get thinner and turn white,” she explained, “but this is proof that they filleted me like a chicken, pulled out all my old stuffing, and put in new.”

  Jillian’s eyes grew wide with wonder. Even Chelsea was moved by the sight, for although she’d spent the entire summer with Katie, she’d never seen the whole scar this way.

  “Can I touch it?” Jillian asked.

  Katie leaned closer, and Jillian gingerly ran her fingers along the ridged skin.

  “Is that what they’re going to do to me and Chelsea?”

  “Yes,” Katie said. “Out with the old. In with the new.”

  “It’s kind of scary.”

  “I know. I was scared too. And the first time I saw this wound, with all the sutures, I freaked out. They had to give me tranquilizers to calm me down. I felt like a Frankenstein monster.”

  “Well, it’s really weird to think someone can trade your heart for another,” Jillian replied. “Like you’re made up of assorted, interchangeable body parts.”

  “Parts is parts,” Katie said with a flip of her hand. “Seriously, it’s no picnic, but it’s worth it. I’m living proof of that.”

  “I wonder what my chances are,” Jillian mused. “I mean, I need lungs too.”

  “They wouldn’t have put you on the beeper if they didn’t think you were a good candidate,” Katie assured her.

  Jillian turned toward Chelsea. “I’m glad you’re waiting with me. I’m glad we’re in the therapy group together and glad you brought Katie to talk to me. It makes me feel less like some medical freak.”

  Chelsea nodded. “We’re in this together, all right.”

  When it was time to eat lunch, Jillian‘s dad picked her up and carried her out to a chair at a table overlooking a balcony high above the city. A waiter served food from a cart, and when he stepped aside, DJ raised his glass of cola to the three girls. “Here’s to new hearts. And new friends.”

  Chelsea felt secure about the “friends” part of DJ’s words. She liked Jillian immensely and could tell that Katie liked her too. But the “new hearts” part left her frightened. One day, her beeper would go off, and the doctors would cut out her heart! She could hardly think about it without feeling nauseated. She didn’t want to let the others know. She didn’t want them to see her fear. She smiled broadly because she was afraid she’d faint and they’d realize just what a coward Chelsea James really was.

  Six

  Dear Chelsea,

  So, you and Katie have gone and gotten yourselves a new friend! I’m wounded. All right, maybe just jealous. Even though I’m back in school in a big way, and even though all my friends are still around, I feel like an outsider. I know it’s the crummy diabetes that sets me apart. Of course, I never talk about it to my friends … what with perfection being one of the highest criteria for social acceptance around Miami High.

  My parents badgered me into attending a diabetes support group. I hate it! Not a cute guy in the bunch. But that’s not my real problem. It’s the sitting around and revealing the secrets of your soul to strangers that gets to me. Why should I spill my guts to kids I don’t even care about? It’s not like this summer with you and Katie and Mandy. (Not that I talked about this stupid disease much with you all, but at least I didn’t feel like a specimen or a lab experiment.)

  On the home front, things have gone steadily downhill. It’s like a war zone at my house. Dad and Mom hardly speak, and then only to argue. What’s the matter with them? Don’t they know how this is tearing me up? It’s barely October, and I’m already worried about the holidays. How are we ever going to make it through?

  Excuse me. I don’t mean to unload on you. I know waiting around for some transplant operation can’t be a picnic. The one thing I’m looking forward to is the school play coming up in the spring. I’ve signed on to do makeup. (Especially on the male lead—Todd Larson. Really cool guy!)

  Believe it or not, there are times I wish I was back at Jenny House. I k
now I groused tons about the place when I was there, but looking back, I see it was a pretty special place. Remember your promise for us all to meet there next summer. (Don’t let me down!) As for Jeff, yes, he’s written me and called, but I won’t answer his letters, and I cut him off on the phone. I refuse to get involved with some guy who’s got hemophilia. All I want is to party and have fun and forget about sick people! (Present company excluded, of course.)

  So, share this letter with Katie, and know that I’m pulling for you. You have Katie call me the minute you get beeped and go in for your transplant. And tell that Jillian girl hello for me. If you two like her, then I will too. I promise I’ll be nice to her.

  Bye for now,

  Lacey

  Chelsea put down Lacey’s letter when she finished reading it aloud to Katie and said, “Do you notice anything different about Lacey?”

  Katie shrugged. “Sounds like our same old friend to me … refusing to deal with reality.”

  “I think she sounds desperate.”

  “If you mean about her parents—”

  Chelsea fluttered her fingers impatiently. “More than her parents. It’s like everything in her life is falling apart.”

  “You got that out of this letter?”

  “I’m reading between the lines. I think she’s in bad shape. Sure, in the letter she comes across as only annoyed, but I’m telling you, it goes deeper than that.” Chelsea stabbed at the paper with her finger. “There’s an unwritten volume here about ‘perfection’ and ‘social acceptance.’ And what about this Todd guy? Since when has Lacey let on that any guy appeals to her?”

  Katie shook her head. “You’re the one with the ESP, Chelsea, so if you say so, I believe you. But so what if it’s true? What can we do about it? Until Lacey wants to face reality, how can anyone help her?”

  “Jeff could help, if she’d let him. The guy is crazy about her.”

  “Forget it. I fought that battle all summer. Trying to run interference between Jeff and Lacey and Amanda almost did me in.”