Sex & Sourdough (27 page)

“But you said that was because my heart was going nuts. You fixed it,” Kevin insisted.

The surgeon sighed and pulled out a thin tablet PC. He opened a color-coded animation of the human heart. He’d used the same animation to show Kevin how the electrical pathways in his heart had short-circuited. At the time, he’d been explaining the catheter ablation procedure. “Blood comes into the heart from the lungs here, through the pulmonary veins. Your aortic valve”—he pointed to an artery on the left side of the heart—“opens to let oxygenated blood into the left ventricle. It closes again so blood can be pumped out to your organs and muscles. Yours doesn’t close completely. Some of the oxygen-rich blood flows back through the valve.”

“But if my heart’s not going nuts anymore, it should get better, shouldn’t it?”

The doctor shook his head slowly. “It’s not muscle tissue or skin. It’s not going to heal.”

“So, is it bad?”

“At the moment, no. It means the left side of your heart has to work harder to get enough blood to the rest of your body. The more blood your heart needs to pump, the harder it has to work. At this point, your heart can compensate for the damage fairly easily. If the leakage gets more severe, the valve will eventually need to be replaced.”

“Replaced?” Kevin squeaked.

“Replaced. It’s not an easy procedure, and it’s not one that can be done through a catheter. Open-heart surgery carries a much higher risk, and it requires a much longer recovery. The best thing you can do is avoid making your heart work harder than it has to. Keep your blood pressure low, stay on all of your lupus medications, and avoid strenuous activity.”

“No hiking,” Kevin muttered, finally beginning to understand.

“Day hikes aren’t going to hurt. General aerobic activity should be fine, but I strongly recommend you avoid weightlifting and backpacking together. Basically anything that raises your heart rate and requires you to strain a lot of muscle at the same time.”

Kevin felt his stomach sink. “No hiking.”

“Hiking is fine, just so long as you don’t carry anything heavier than five to ten pounds.”

Kevin stared at him blankly.

“I realize that’s not what you wanted to hear. I can’t force you to stop backpacking, but I suggest you really think about it before you decide to head back out there. If you choose to continue backpacking, you might need the valve replacement in a matter of months. If you avoiding putting too much strain on your heart, and keep your lupus under control, you might never need it.”

T
WO
DAYS
later, as the leaves began to change and cool weather settled in, Kevin resented being stuck inside the hospital even more. Not only was he missing the last of the warm weather, but since it was the beginning of October, there was no way he would be able to make it to the end of the Appalachian Trail before the park service closed Mount Katahdin on October 15. He still got worn out walking down the hall, so it was time to face the reality that his hike was over.

Kevin walked along the hallway in the hospital for an hour, wondering if there was any point in trying to get his body moving again. When a nurse’s aide brought him lunch, Spider trailed in behind her, along with two men in Massachusetts’s State Police uniforms. Spider had taken the bus back and forth between Albany, New York, and North Adams, Massachusetts, three times to check up on Kevin, and to keep him posted on where Chex Mix might have wandered off to.

“Hey,” Kevin greeted Spider with a smile. He dropped the grin when he saw the stricken look on Spider’s face.

“Hi, Sourdough. You look better.”

“What’s wrong?” Kevin asked. “What is it?”

“They found where Chex set up camp,” Spider whispered.

“Did they find him? Is he okay?”

Spider shook his head, looking lost.

“He’s missing.” One of the police officers stepped in front of Spider. “Mr. Winters, we need to talk to you about the last time you saw Mr. Jefferies.”

“Sure,” said Kevin.

The second police officer clapped Spider on the shoulder and led him out into the hall.

Kevin recounted everything he could remember about running into Spider and Chex Mix, including Chex Mix’s chat with Anders’s ex, while the police officer scribbled notes on a legal pad.

“Can you tell me more about the man from Florida?” the officer asked.

Kevin told him everything, starting from the first time he’d seen the man at Mountain Crossings in Georgia. He told the police officer about the endless voice mails, and seeing him again in Virginia.

“Is this Anders kid still out there hiking?”

“No. He went home to Florida weeks ago.”

“Do you happen to have a phone number where we can reach him?”

“In my wallet, but… uh, it’s hard to get out of bed….”

The officer went to the cheap armoire across from the foot of the bed. “In here?”

“The small plastic bag,” Kevin nodded.

The police officer handed the entire bag to Kevin. He pulled his wallet out of his folded shorts and flipped through it. The tiny piece of paper he’d spent weeks obsessing over was gone. He went through the contents again, pulling everything out and checking each spot. He searched all of the pockets in his shorts, and then unfolded the clothes in the bag and shook them out.

“Everything okay?”

Kevin flipped through his wallet again, hoping for a glimpse of white paper he somehow missed the first couple times. It wasn’t there. “Uh, I don’t know what happened to his number. I think his last name is Blankenship, if that helps,” Kevin muttered.

“It helps. We should be able to track him down. So you’ve been here in Albany for two weeks, now?”

“That’s right.”

The officer scribbled that down too.

“Chex is in trouble, isn’t he?”

The officer’s automatic smile didn’t reach his eyes. “We’re looking for him. We’ve got search-and-rescue teams looking everywhere. And the news has picked up the story,” he said, gesturing toward the television mounted in the corner of the room. “If we find anything, there will be a press release.”

Kevin swallowed and nodded. It was unusual for an experienced hiker to get into trouble, but it did happen occasionally. When you were alone in the woods, a snake bite or a broken ankle could prove deadly. If Chex Mix had gotten hurt too far from the trail itself, if he couldn’t move, he wouldn’t survive long after he ran out of water.

“We’ve located his campsite,” the officer told him. “So we can narrow down our search area a bit. We’ll do our best to find him.”

When the police officer left, Spider came in on his own.

“Hey,” Kevin said again.

“Sorry about just dropping that on you, man.”

“What else have I got to do?” Kevin asked, gesturing around the sterile room. “Have….” He bit the inside of his cheek and tried to think about how to ask. “Have they called his family?”

“You have some gall, asking me that. Are you going to let me call your family yet?”

“I’m not missing,” Kevin insisted.

“Asshole.” Spider shut his eyes. “I called his mom. It’s just her and his kid brother at home, so they’re going to wait for news. I’m going to go back to Massachusetts. The search teams need volunteers.”

Kevin knew Spider had been living off painkillers for the past few weeks. He was still limping, even with the sturdy brace he’d gotten from his own visit to the clinic in North Adams. Joining the search for Chex Mix would just make the stress fracture in his shin worse, but standing by and doing nothing was unthinkable. Kevin nodded slowly. “Keep me posted?”

“Yeah, I will.” Spider fidgeted and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Look, I know you didn’t want me to call anybody for you… but….” He pulled out a tiny scrap of paper and held it in his fingers, turning it over and over. “I figured maybe Butch could talk you into calling them, so I called him instead….”

“You took his number?”

“Look, you’ve got every right to be pissed about me going through your wallet, but you’re a stubborn bastard, you know that?”

“You’ve got it?” Kevin was so relieved he couldn’t help smiling. “I thought it got lost. Give it here, I need it back!”

Spider handed over the tiny scrap of paper.

Kevin closed his fist around the phone number and relaxed. He had been thinking about calling Anders, just to hear his voice, since Anders left. He wasn’t deluded enough to run off to Florida expecting Anders to welcome him with open arms, but he wanted to call him. As Kevin thought about the way Anders had rolled his eyes and deleted voice mail after voice mail from his ex, Kevin realized how stupid he was being. He doubted Anders would even have his phone on, much less answer it, and the last thing Anders needed was to have another ex-lover leaving him pathetic, desperate messages. But just holding on to the phone number made him feel like Kevin still had some connection to him.

“What?” Kevin asked, raising an eyebrow at the expression on Spider’s face.

“Nothing. Nothing. Just knowing you’re thinking about a guy with that look on your face is weird, that’s all. It’s not like you guys were all that discreet, but I didn’t think it was, you know,
serious
.”

“Discreet? Says the man who ended up practically naked with a girl he just met in the common room of a crowded shelter, with an audience?”

“I was a little drunk.” Spider grinned. “And that’s not what I meant. I figured you guys were just fooling around, you know?”

“That’s all it was,” Kevin insisted.

“That’s all it was?” Spider smirked. “I doubt I could get that number away from you again without a crowbar. You’re full of shit, Sourdough.”

“Maybe,” Kevin admitted. “Can you give a copy of his number to the cops? They wanted to talk to him about the guy in the Jeep.”

“Shit, yeah.” Spider copied the phone number quickly.

“Let me know how things go out there?”

“I will.”

When Spider left, Kevin turned on the television and tried to find the coverage the police officer had mentioned. He didn’t find anything, but he left it on a local channel, muted the volume, and waited for his most recent dose of painkiller to kick in.

He didn’t let go of Anders’s number this time.

W
HEN
HE
woke up in the early evening, with the setting sun making the entire room glow, he saw Anders slouched in the chair in the corner and thought he was still dreaming. But if he was seeing Anders in his sleep, Anders wouldn’t be way over in the corner, or wearing clothes.

Anders looked up when Kevin shifted. Kevin saw the way Anders’s exhausted blue-gray eyes lit up, the way his entire face seemed to soften and radiate joy at the same time. Not over the asshole from Florida this time, and not over an amazing vista or a breathtaking waterfall, but just for him. Nothing in the world could have kept Kevin from smiling too.

Anders got up and came to the side of Kevin’s bed. That was when he noticed the strange film on Anders’s left cheek. It looked like clear melted plastic, and it was covering three thin, angry red lines that ran from his cheekbone toward his lips. Three fresh scars, parallel, like claw marks. “Anders? I….” Kevin tried to reach for him, but his muscles were stiff and his legs hurt again. “What happened to you?”

Anders leaned down and placed a soft kiss on Kevin’s lips. “Hello to you too.”

“What happened to your face?”

“I was born this way. It’s sad, but I’ve learned to cope.”

“I meant the huge scratches across your face,” Kevin tried again. “Were you in an accident?”

“I wish.” Anders touched the edge of dry film on his cheek. “Medical-grade superglue,” he explained. “It was supposed to fall off by now, and it itches.”

Kevin ran his fingers along the stubble on Anders’s jaw and waited for an explanation.

“My ex,” Anders said, looking sheepish. “He doesn’t believe we broke up. Even after I shot him down, he wouldn’t accept it. He followed me around school and broke into my place to leave creepy gifts. He even went to my family. He convinced my parents we were still together. He was at their house for Sunday supper and….” Anders shrugged and gestured to his face.

“And he did this?” Kevin gently ran his finger between the two longest scars.

“Punched me with his keys.” Anders laughed. “I think I cracked one or two of his ribs, so I figured we’re even. Cuts heal, but… I’m never going to live this down.”

“Did you call the police?”

“My father did, unfortunately.”

“How is that unfortunate?”

“He’s Frank Blankenship,” Anders said as he rolled his eyes, “so the only statement the police care about is his. Now there’s a warrant out for Joel’s arrest. He’s wanted for battery, trespassing, and breaking and entering. I’m actually glad they haven’t found him yet. Once he gives his version….” Anders shook his head. “I know no one’s going to believe him over my dad, but everything about our relationship is going to come out. Not just out as far as my family goes, but out in the fucking newspaper, a huge scandal just because it has the Blankenship name attached to it.”

“Damn. Believe it or not, we tried to buy you a bit of time. Before I wound up in here, he showed up at a shuttle stop asking about you. Chex Mix told him you were way ahead of us, hoping he’d go up north.”

“Chex Mix did that for me?” Anders looked surprised. “I guess that’s why I didn’t see Joel around campus until Friday.”

“How much time do you have away from class?” Kevin asked.

Anders flexed the fingers on both hands as if he was trying not to strangle someone. “Forever. Do not get me started on law school.”

“That bad?” Kevin quirked an eyebrow.

“Yes. If I hadn’t dropped out, I would have ended up going insane and burning the building to the ground by the end of the first year. I might not know what I want to do with my life, but I know that becoming my father isn’t it. So I thought I’d come see if the rumors about you having a heart attack were true.”

Anders shifted so he was leaning over Kevin’s chest. He ran his hand over Kevin’s breastbone, gently tracing the curve of his muscles. “So, heart surgery? Two heart surgeries?”