The Anatomical Shape of a Heart(8)

“Me?” He warily took it and peered inside. “What is it?”

“Meatloaf, potato salad, and a cupcake.” The least froufrou stuff in the deli counter; I didn’t think I’d be doing him any favors by giving him imported olives and spicy noodles. “But don’t get too excited. It’s a bribe. Do you remember when I saw you last night at the bus stop across the street?”

He sniffed inside the bag before looking up at me like he’d already forgotten I was there. “When? Last night?”

“You were talking to a boy who knew you. His name’s Jack.”

Blank face. This might’ve been a bad idea.

“He called you Willy,” I added.

“Monk!” he said with a grin.

“Monk?” I repeated, wondering if we were on the same page.

“He’s religious,” Will explained.

“Oh, the Buddhism thing?”

Will brightened. “Yeah.”

“That’s him,” I said. “How long have you known him?”

“Oh, I’m not sure. Years, probably. I see him two or three times a week.”

Years. That meant he wasn’t just visiting a patient who’d had surgery. “Does he work here or have family that works here?”

“He comes to see his lady friend.”

I pictured Jack cuddling up with some busty candy striper, and my heart sank a little—which was silly, because the boy was a criminal, not my potential soul mate.

“Do you know anything else about him? Like his last name? Where he lives?”

Will sniffled and wiped his nose. “I know he takes the N.”

“Outbound?” I asked. “Like the bus we were getting on last night?”

“No,” he said, pointing in the opposite direction. “He takes it that way.”

Okay, that was something. He must’ve specifically taken the Owl bus to paint the BLOOM graffiti piece in the park. Which meant he didn’t live in my neighborhood. But where he did live was anyone’s guess. The N line stretched across the city and connected to a billion stops.

“Is there anything else you know about him?” I asked.

Will shrugged. “He’s pretty funny. Tells a lot of good jokes. Some of them are over my head. But you know, sometimes people smile when they’re sad. And sometimes girls who look sad are really smiling.”

He pointed at me and winked like he’d just handed me the secret to life. And that would be nice, but it was more likely he’d recently scored pain pills from one of the patients leaving the ER. And when he started whistling what I suspected to be the theme to The Brady Bunch, I knew I’d coaxed all I could get out of him, which wasn’t much.

And unless I wanted to camp out with Will until he happened to see Jack, I didn’t hold out high hopes of seeing him again. The medical campus is a busy place.

Just not as busy I thought.

Two days later, I headed back over for my second chance with the anatomy director. It sometimes seemed like the only times I really needed the train to be on time were the times it was late, so I was already ten times more anxious than I wanted to be. And maybe that’s why I wasn’t paying attention.

Someone bumped my arm, and my portfolio flew from my hand. “Ow!”

“My bad. I thought you saw me.”

A jacket bent over in front of me and picked up my portfolio. When the jacket stood back up, it grew arms and legs and a face that probably competed with Helen of Troy’s in the ship-launching department.

Jack.

He looked so different in daylight. A turquoise plaid Western shirt peeked out from the jacket, which was one of those classic black leather motorcycle ones. And when I say classic, I mean actually vintage—like, straight-up, 1950s Marlon Brando Wild One–style, all lightened along the creases and covered in tiny punk rock buttons. It matched the big black boots beneath the turned-up cuffs of his jeans. No hat covered his hair today, which was dark brown and several inches longer on the top than the super-close-cropped sides and back. That long top was swooped up into a loose pompadour, with fallen tendrils hanging over his forehead and all tousled in a way that was far too good to be windblown.

He was all retro and rockabilly and cool. If James Dean and David Beckham had a baby, it would be Jack. That jewel-thief outfit he’d been wearing that first night was a total criminal disguise.

“Jack the Vandal,” I said, and not in a cheerful way, either. More like he was my mortal enemy.

He cringed and glanced around. “Can you please not announce that to the world? I liked it better when I was Jack the Burglar.”

“So you’re not denying it? I mean, you shouldn’t, because I know what I saw, and then I find out that you … desecrated the Botanical Garden.”

“‘Desecrated’?”

“You heard me.” Okay, I hadn’t actually meant to use that word. It’s not like I’m really into flowers and thought the park was some kind of temple of nature; I was just nervous. But since it was already out of my mouth, I defended it like I was an old woman shaking her fist at scamps and ne’er-do-wells, snatching the portfolio out of his hand to emphasize my righteous anger. But he wasn’t fazed.

“Did you see it?” he asked, herding me toward the edge of the walkway with his too-tall body as a group of medical students passed.