The Anatomical Shape of a Heart(5)

I jogged up a dozen stairs to our front door. As I fumbled for the house key, a taxi pulled up to the curb. My brother jumped out and quickly paid the driver before spotting me.

“Mom’s on her way home!” Heath called as he raced up the stairs, imitating an ambulance siren. He was dressed in a tight jacket, tight jeans, and an even tighter black shirt with silver studs that spelled out 21ST CENTURY METAL BOY. He also reeked of beer, which is why I didn’t believe him.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

“Me? Where have you been?”

“Picking up criminals on the night bus.”

He made an “uh-huh, whatever” sound as he combed his fingers through spiky hair the same shade of brown as mine. Standing one step above, I was almost taller than him; we both took after my mom in the height department. He glanced at my skirt and boots. “Hold on. Why are you dressed up?”

“It’s a long story. You smell like a brewery, by the way. Are you drunk?”

“Not anymore,” he complained. “Hurry up and let us in. I’m totally serious. I saw the paddy wagon pulling out of employee parking when my cab passed the hospital.”

The paddy wagon is my mom’s ancient white Toyota hatchback. It has two hundred thousand miles on it and a dent in the fender.

“I paid the cabbie extra to run a red light so we could outrace her. Grrr!” he growled impatiently. “Any day now, Bex.”

Bex is what my family and friends call me, as in short for Beatrix, and Bex only—not Bea, not Trixie, and not any other way that can make my nightmare of a name sound even more old-fashioned than it already did.

While Heath prodded my back, I unlocked the door and we hurried inside. Even though our apartment takes up two floors, it’s officially only a one-bedroom. My mom has that bedroom, and Heath lives below on the bottom floor in Laundry Lair, which is technically a tiny basement space attached to a one-car garage. And my room is technically the dining room, but we eat at the kitchen table or on the couch in front of the TV—“like pigs,” my mom says, but the shame doesn’t stop her.

The no-shame gene runs in the family, because it also doesn’t stop my twenty-year-old brother from squatting here at home instead of getting his own place. And because he was still four months away from being legal, my mom would kick his ass if she knew he’d been sneaking into clubs with a fake ID. Again.

“Why is she coming home in the middle of her shift?” I asked.

“Hell if I know,” Heath called back to me as he headed for the bathroom. “I’ve got to take a piss. Watch at the window and yell when she drives up.”

“Forget it. I have to change. She doesn’t know I was out, either.” I raced into my room and stashed the portfolio next to my drafting table before shrugging out of my coat. Two French doors separated me from the living room. I’d covered all the glass with old X-rays I’d cut into squares, so that when the doors were shut, I had a modicum of privacy. But since it isn’t a real bedroom, I don’t have any windows, and all my clothes are crammed inside a rickety Ikea wardrobe that won’t stay shut.

But it isn’t all bad. For light, I have a cool old Deco chandelier that hangs in the center of the room and a gigantic built-in mission-style china cabinet on one wall that I use to display my collections: vintage anatomy books, a 1960s Visible Woman (a clear plastic toy with removable organs), some old dental molds, and several miniature anatomy model sets (heart, brain, lungs). At the foot of my bed is Lester, a life-size teaching skeleton that hangs from a rolling stand. The skeletons are usually expensive, but my mom snagged him for nothing at the hospital campus because he’s missing an arm.

Heath skidded to a stop outside my X-ray doors, breathing hard. “Seriously, where were you tonight?”

“Trying to meet with the anatomy lab director, but she never showed.”

“That again? Look at you, being stubborn. I thought Mom told you not to bug them.”

“I’d already made the appointment,” I argued. “It’s not like I was breaking into the lab and molesting bodies. I wasn’t doing anything wrong.” Except defying my mother’s wishes, taking the Owl, and flirting with someone who may or may not be a wanted vandal … “Not horribly wrong, anyway,” I amended.

“God forbid,” Heath mumbled. “You really don’t know how to be bad.”

I got my boots unzipped and tossed them into the rickety wardrobe. “Oh, and you do? Was Noah out with you, or did he even know? If you’re cheating on him—”

“Shh! Listen.” He angled his head to the side, bracing his hand on the doorway. “Is that the paddy wagon?” he whispered.

The familiar grating thump of the garage door rattled through the floor.

“I was asleep when you got home!” Heath instructed, racing downstairs.

I quickly tossed my skirt under my bed and managed to hop into lounge pants while pulling my doors closed. Right after I shut off my chandelier, Mom’s footsteps hurried up the basement stairwell and into the living room. Crap. That was fast. She must be in a hurry.

“It’s one in the morning. Where the hell are you calling from?” Mom’s voice said over the squeak of her rubber soles. “Never mind. I don’t care. Just get to the point and tell me what you want.”

Who in the world was she talking to?