The Anatomical Shape of a Heart(41)

“A couple of weeks ago,” I said.

“I accidentally dumped tea all over her,” she told Andy with a little laugh.

So funny. Yuk, yuk. Before she could elaborate, I asked, “How do all of you know each other?”

She leaned into Andy. “I met Jackson when I was staying at the Zen Center. I was going through some stuff at home, and they gave me a place to sleep and fed me in the student quarters for a few weeks until I got my shit together. I’m back at home now.” Then she added, “He helped me, so I helped him.” I had no idea what this meant, but from the way she was biting her lower lip, it was 100 percent salacious. “And now I’m helping Andy.”

Andy looked mildly horrified by this statement, but she just laughed it off.

Super. Just when I’d abandoned my nightmare visions of Jack getting it on with some hospital candy striper, I could now replace it with the image of Sierra the Runaway sleeping in some sort of weird cultlike housing, where she met Jack and exchanged sexual favors for enlightenment and pluots.

If Sierra was clueless to the unease radiating off me, Andy sure wasn’t. From the inside of his mouth, he wiggled his labret stud around with his tongue. “The extension cord isn’t long enough for the projector,” he told Jack.

“I’ll find a new one in a minute.” Jack steered me around Andy and Sierra and apologized under his breath as soon as we were out of earshot. “I didn’t know he was bringing her tonight. I guess she called him after she saw us in the tea lounge.”

“Are they seeing each other?”

“Sierra’s … a free spirit.”

Loving her more and more.

“Let’s go meet everyone else,” he said.

He herded me around the decks, and as dusk began falling and small golden lights lit up the tiered backyard, he introduced me to the partygoers. They included his rich friends from school, his poor friends from the Zen Center, his quirky friends from judo class (news to me that he knew judo, but maybe it explained all those muscles), and some nerdy kid who lived down the block, David, who was painfully shy and had busied himself with setting up the projector. And it was the pressing matter of the too-short extension cord, along with the request from—get this—catering-service people for Jack to sign off on their work order so they could leave, that left me standing alone in the middle of these motley strangers.

At the far end of the main deck, facing the white sheet, a gas fireplace built into a stone wall was roaring, and around it was an L-shaped bank of bench seating. Sierra stood in the middle, removing all the cushions from the seating and tossing them in a pile on the deck. She saw me watching her and smiled. “Those benches are super-uncomfortable. We can all stretch out on the floor.”

I sat down on the cushionless bench. She wasn’t wrong. A girl I’d met earlier sat down next to me, untucking a long, dark brown ponytail from the back of a sweater she was pulling on. “It’s getting chilly. Someone needs to turn on the heat lamps.”

I glanced to where she was pointing and spotted a couple of standing lamps that looked like the ones on restaurant patios, just nicer.

“Lala,” she said when it was clear I didn’t remember her name.

“Sorry,” I replied.

“No worries. I wouldn’t remember them all, either.”

But I did remember her story: a girl originally from Brazil who went to school with Jack. She was willowy, pretty, and friendly, and she was dating one of the Abercrombie & Fitch blonds. She lifted her plastic cup of alcoholic fruitiness.

“No, thanks,” I said, waving it away.

“Hunter tried to get a mini keg from his brother, but no go. We did, however, score two bottles of Fernet. He’s running to the store to get ginger ale.”

I had no idea what Fernet was.

“Tastes like old-timey medicine,” Sierra said, making a face. “You have to chase it with ginger ale, or it’ll come right back up. All the local bartenders drink it.”

Whoop-de-freaking-do. Heath was the drinker in my family, and I’d hit my once-a-year vomit limit that first day at the anatomy lab, so I’d be passing, thank you.

“How long have you and Jack been dating?” Lala asked.

I didn’t know how to answer that question. Sure, he’d vandalized a museum for my birthday, but dating? Dates were things you planned. You asked someone out. You didn’t just say, “Hey, it’s sunny and you’re standing here, so let’s go to the park.” But even if I knew in my heart there was something more between Jack and me, it wasn’t definable—not in the way this girl was asking. So I answered, “We’re just friends.”

“That’s not what I heard,” Sierra said. “Andy told me Jackson’s in luuurve.”

My cheeks warmed. Had Jack told Andy that, or had Andy just said it? You couldn’t be in love with someone you’d never even kissed … could you?

“Um, I don’t know about that,” I said. “But you guys dated?”

Sierra pointed at herself. “Me and Jack? Is that what he said?”

“No, that’s what you said at the tea lounge.”

“You told her about that?” Lala said.

Sierra gave us both a dismissive wave. “You make it sound like we banged each other’s brains out. Jackson was going through a rough time, and I provided some cheer.”