I was almost to the parking-lot door when it opened and Johnny came in with a blast of cold air. He was windblown and out of breath. “Heather!” he said. “Glad I caught you. Can you give me a lift home after I’ve seen Lilly?”
“Sure,” I said, “but visiting hours are over.”
“I know. I couldn’t get a lift from Charlie’s; I had to walk. It’s freezing out there.”
“Charlie’s? You came all the way from Charlie’s?” It was five miles, at least.
“Yeah. Come with me, OK? You can show me the best way to sneak in.”
“Johnny—”
“Please?”
I groaned, and gave in.
When we slipped into Lilly’s room she was sitting up in bed with her magazine. Johnny crossed the room, sat on the edge of her bed, and took her hands.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m OK.”
“Good.”
He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a single yellow rose. “For you,” he said, handing it to her. She took it hesitantly, looking at it as if she had never seen a rose before. “I’ve got to go now,” Johnny said, “before Heather drags me out. It’s past visiting hours and you need your rest. But I want you to know I’m thinking about you. I’ll see you tomorrow, OK?”
She nodded. He kissed her gently and turned to go. As we slipped out the door I glanced back at her. She held the rose in one hand, gazing at it, and lifted her other hand to her face, lightly pressing her fingers to her lips. Then the door fell closed behind us, and I followed Johnny out into the hall.
“That was a very pretty rose,” I told Johnny. “Ah, where exactly did you get it, between here and Charlie’s?”
“It was a big bush,” Johnny said. “There’s lots more roses on it.”
“As I thought.”
“It’s just not fair.”
“What’s not fair? Privately owned rosebushes?”
“Lilly. I mean, her dancing ability is really all she had. Now she doesn’t even have that any more.”
“I know. I was just thinking, at least none of this upsets her. She doesn’t really care. But there’s something awful about that, too.”
He nodded sadly, and I put an arm around his shoulders, and walked him out to the car.
Over the next few weeks Vanessa continued her treatments, and began a campaign to get Lilly admitted to the experimental program. The red tape was phenomenal, but Vanessa was wealthy and influential, and she had funded a great deal of the research herself. Even so, Tyler thought her chances of getting Lilly admitted were poor. “It was hard enough for us to get Vanessa in,” he said, “and Lilly’s much younger and much less ill. She won’t be considered a good candidate for something experimental.”
I thought that seemed strange, since they were trying to stop the course of the disease, not cure it. Surely the ideal time to do the treatment would be early on, when the symptoms were still mild. Tyler shrugged and agreed, but said that red tape was red tape.
Time passed, and Lilly returned to her routine. She went to class as usual, but her dancing had lost its perfection. Often she grew tired, or stumbled, or lost her balance, and after a few falls she stopped wearing her pointe shoes. Soft shoes were safer. Of course none of this seemed to bother her, but it was distressing to me. And to Johnny.
When I left dance class with Johnny and Lilly on the night before Thanksgiving, it was snowing. There was no wind to speak of, and the snowflakes drifted slowly down to land on our hair and coats.
“Oh great!” Johnny said happily. “Snow. I love snow.”
“That’s because you don’t have a car,” I said, looking at the Rabbit to see how much snow I was going to have to scrape off.
“Oh, come on, Heather, it’s barely even freezing. The roads are clear; there’s no ice. It’s beautiful.”
“Hmph. If you like it so much, you scrape the snow off the car.”
“It is beautiful,” Lilly said.
I looked at her in surprise; she sounded as if she meant it. She gazed up for a moment, watching the snowflakes spin down out of the clouds. Then she said, “I’m going to start the treatments. Mother got me into the program.”
“Oh, Lilly! That’s wonderful,” I said. “When do you start?”
“Next week. After the holiday.”
“That’s good.” Johnny took her hand. “Really good.”
I said, “I wonder how she swung that! I never thought she’d get through all that red tape so fast. Your mother’s really something, Lilly. Is she going to come for Thanksgiving dinner?”
“Yes. We’ll be there at six. Thank you for asking us.”
“Don’t thank me; Johnny’s doing the cooking.”
“And it will be excellent,” Johnny said. “Lilly, where’s your snow scraper?”
I ended up scraping the snow off the Rabbit after all, while Johnny attended solicitously to Lilly’s car. We were both wet and shivering as we drove out of the parking lot. Johnny brushed snow out of his hair and rubbed his hands in front of the Rabbit’s heater. The heat didn’t seem to be working very well.
“So what are we having for Thanksgiving?” I asked.
Johnny shrugged. “Don’t know. Let’s stop by the store on the way home.”
“OK. It’s nice that Vanessa’s coming, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is. And Lilly. Listen, Heather, why don’t you invite Tyler?”
My heart jumped a little; I had thought of it as soon as I’d found out Tyler was staying in town for the holiday. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not sure he’d want to come.”
“Then ask him, and find out if he wants to come.”
“I just don’t know if he’s really interested in me. He hasn’t called or anything in a long time.”
“You haven’t called him either, and I know you’re interested,” Johnny said reasonably. “Come on, be spontaneous. Invite him. Meet him at the door in a glamorous dress, with a flower in your hair.”
For a moment I fantasized doing just that. In the back of my closet was an elegant violet silk dress that my mother had given me. I could wear that, and when Tyler came I could—
I returned to reality in a rush, and navigated an icy patch of road. “I couldn’t do that,” I said.
“Why not?” Johnny asked.
“I just couldn’t. He couldn’t possibly be interested in me, anyway. He’d probably think I was crazy if I threw myself at him like that.”
“Oh, Heather. I think maybe he’d like it.”
“I think maybe he wouldn’t. I can’t, Johnny. I just can’t.”
Johnny sighed, and remained thoughtfully silent for the rest of the drive to the store.
Thanksgiving dinner was interesting. Johnny had gone for the semi-traditional effect, which this year meant that there were bits of smoked turkey in the cheese-and-mushroom omelets. Vanessa raised her eyebrows when her dinner was set before her, and Lilly looked surprised, but they both appreciatively cleared their plates. After the omelets Johnny served hot tea and cookies. I was warming my hands on my teacup, wondering where Tyler was right now and what he was doing, when Vanessa asked Johnny to play for her.
“Sure,” Johnny said. “What do you want to hear?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Something you love to play. Anything.”
Johnny disappeared into his room for a moment, and emerged with a guitar in one hand and a flute in the other. He played a few pieces on the guitar at first, then switched to the flute. Vanessa listened with rapture.