The Heart Does Not Grow Back Read online

  “We’ve got to start right away,” Tracy said. “I’ll be working twenty-four-seven. The budget isn’t huge. I’m hoping insurance companies will work with us to cut overhead for the first season, but if it takes off, we can start paying for the surgeries out of the production budget. Really dig deep into the donor list where people not only can’t find an organ but don’t have the coverage to get it transplanted.” She kept looking at me. I hadn’t found the proper channel of enthusiasm to jump around or hoot or smile. My kidney incision had hurt for three days before closing up.

  “Dale?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I just don’t have the words to describe how awesome this is.”

  “Well, if you start to forget the level of awesome, just remember, we are filming a pilot, but you are saving someone’s life.”

  “I’m pretty damn sure I filmed a pilot, Ms. Pike,” I said.

  “For the last time, it’s Tracy. I’m your producer, not your mom.”

  “How many surgeries are we talking?” Mack asked.

  “They ordered six episodes. Two months during the summer. Ambitious, considering the logistics involved. Fucking actual surgeries, paperwork and waivers from all hell.”

  “And I just wait?”

  “You just wait. You both go celebrate if you want, but me? I’ve got to get story editors chasing leads on the waiting list. We’ll shape up some treatments and Dale can make the final call.”

  She’d pulled off a hell of a trick with her contacts, getting access to the lists. But the real trick was something only I could deliver—directed donations were legal, of course. I could give anything in my body to anyone, whether I knew them or not, but it was explicitly illegal to take money for an organ. The regulations themselves prohibited money, specifically, and also threw in “valuable considerations.” I figured TV fame or the success of our show made the directed donations we had planned illegal. Unless I could get some people to look the other way if some heat came down, but that wouldn’t be a problem. I figured some government officials would let me save a few lives if they got a seat at the table.

  “We’ll mix it up,” she continued, “but we simply must have some donations that are uncommon, visual, the type of thing no other human can give. I mean, I can give a kidney. We need to make sure we get an arm off of you. An eye, maybe. Not sure. I’ll give a list to the medical team—a medical team, mind you, that doesn’t exist quite yet. The pilot was a skeleton crew. Now we can give out actual jobs, and casting the doctor is going to be key.”

  “How much dough are we talking?” Mack asked.

  “Not the time to talk specifics,” she said.

  “It’s kind of like the exact time to talk specifics,” I said.

  “Can you both do me a favor and chill the fuck out? Go have a beer or something. Kill a few days off because pretty soon, we’re going to be balls to the grindstone for a few hard months.”

  “Lucky for me, my balls are tremendous,” Mack said. “Resilient and supple. You’d love them.”

  Her phone rang. “That means leave,” she said. We did, but not before Mack blew her a kiss, blowing it off of a hand with a platinum wedding band from a very special Dedications wedding that was taped but never aired. Apparently, the women in focus groups hated Mack Tucker, leaving him with a legally binding marriage and no fifteen minutes of fame to go with it. Pretty much any woman old enough to vote saw his charms as a slimy, arrogant prick who’d say and do anything to ride his benevolent best friend to fame.

  The network settled on a title, The Samaritan, and focus groups loved the pilot episode, especially middle-aged women. Not for anything exciting, like me being good-looking or dynamic. Just the opposite—I was tender and broken, a beaten puppy they wanted to take home, and somehow, from this cesspool of patheticness, the world’s most amazing superpower was emerging.

  Hollie Clarke was the recipient on the pilot episode. She was a single mom, struggling to make ends meet. She had end-stage renal disease, but more than anything she had problems with living; deep down, I could tell that she thought her life insurance policy would do her daughter more good than her juggling two jobs to keep them above the poverty line.

  I was in recovery from that surgery when I woke up to find two men in naval uniforms at my hospital bed. Most of the footage was in the can, and even as they stood there, the cameras were rolling. Negotiations were easy. We got access to the donor lists, free rein to pluck whomever we wanted, and I had my freedom—except for a few “to be scheduled” stays at Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, and a spot for a commissioned corps medical officer as an adviser and analyst on my medical team.

  * * *

  Home for us was an apartment so small you could take a shit in the bathroom and cook dinner in the kitchen at the same time. Even though I’d signed with the show for enough dough to afford a better place, living in a shithole was a familiar taste of home. The entire way home, Mack had touted his intentions to celebrate. But I sat down and turned on the television.

  “Christ, the TV again? Seriously? It’s Thursday, we just got our big break, and you’re just going to sit on your ass all night?”

  “Forgive me if the prospect of getting sliced up for the next few months doesn’t excite me. I need my rest.” So far, we’d only filmed the pilot. The recovery was fast, but far from instant. It hurt like hell for the few days it took the kidney to grow back, and while everyone else was astonished by my improbable recovery, I was simply waiting for the agony to subside.

  “It’s far more exciting than letting your life evaporate like a puddle on a hot road, that’s for damn sure. You’re going out. Getting fucked and fucked up, man! This is all because of you.”

  “I wish I could point to the moment of responsibility for what my body does. The reason that it’s my doing. It isn’t. It’s like inheriting money. I don’t do anything other than breathe every few seconds. I don’t even do it on purpose.”

  “I have no clue what the fuck you’re talking about,” Mack said. “If you don’t hit the town with me tonight, I will have this apartment so full of ass and booze that you will shoot loads of excitement on your precious little television.”

  I turned up the volume.

  “I’m gonna go polish the body up a little bit, so you have about ten minutes to make the right decision.”

  I made the wrong decision. But he accepted it, knowing he didn’t have to babysit me or worry about me dragging the night down. He finally had a role on a television show, even though it was small and mostly behind the scenes. Mack was officially an associate producer, but his only job was to basically hang out and be my friend. Tracy and her real staff did all the heavy lifting. She was putting the finishing touches on the schedule. It wasn’t just about shooting the footage, of course; she had to consider surgery logistics, recovery times. Me? I kept waiting for Rae to call me, as I had for six months. She never did. I still thought about her, mostly during the waiting—waiting for Tracy to call, waiting in offices and hospitals, waiting in lines for takeout, waiting for taxis.

  During commercials, I turned down the volume and picked up the phone, dialing Rae’s number except for the last digit. I let my touch linger just above the last one, and then hung up.

  This is what teenage boys did. This is what it had felt like to call Regina while she was alive.

  But if I could just dial that last number, maybe I would talk to her and find that things had changed. That I wouldn’t have to go through with this. If she had left or Harold had gotten blown away by a tweaker I wouldn’t have to lure her away by saving strangers on national television for fun, fame, and profit.

  I hung up and dialed a different number instead. Hollie answered.

  “It’s Dale.”

  “Dale Sampson?”

  “Yes. Are you doing all right?”

  “You know I am, Dale. Nothing’s changed since last week. Still ticking. That’s a damn fine kidney you gave away.” She chuckled, but nothing felt lighter. The phon
e was greased with palm-sweat, the mouthpiece moist with the condensation of breath.

  “That’s good. Real good. Melissa?”

  “She’s great. Growing like a weed, and I’m going to see all of it thanks to you.”

  I didn’t talk, expecting her to hang up. She didn’t.

  “I just keep thinking it isn’t real,” I said.

  “Me too. Every morning I wake up, I have to convince myself it wasn’t a dream.”

  “Dreams would be nice.”

  “You don’t dream?”

  “Nightmares.”

  She didn’t ask about them.

  “Has anyone told you about the show?” I said.

  “No. I don’t care about the show, Dale. I got a kidney out of it already, so forgive me if I’m not exactly rooting for it to air.”

  “It got picked up a few weeks ago. We have a schedule now. Once we’re done shooting, the pilot’s going to run.”

  She was quiet for a long time.

  “There’s something we didn’t tell you,” I said. “Not that it matters, but you should know. I shouldn’t tell you over the phone, either. Would you consider meeting me?”

  “Of course I’d meet with you. You can come by or—”

  “I don’t want you to think it’s a date or anything,” I said.

  This sort of startled her. She collected herself and said, “I wasn’t taking it that way. I doubt we’re good dating material. We’re already about as intimate as two people can get.”

  “I’ll come by sometime, then, if a time or whatever works for you.”

  She didn’t answer immediately. I let her think, listening to her breathing on the phone. I could almost hear her processing what I meant to her, forming what she should say next very carefully. She ended up surprising me.

  “Why don’t we go out to dinner? My treat,” she said. I didn’t know which sentence was harder for her to spit out, but it was such a sweet and innocent gesture I almost cried.

  “Yes to the first part, no to the second,” I said. “A gentleman always buys.”

  “You’ve done enough,” she said. “Honestly, I have to do something to make it up to you.”

  “Be a good listener. I have a story for you. A whopper. Do that and I’ll get the check. Deal?”

  She thought about it and said, “Deal.” She was a thoughtful, careful conversationalist, this one.

  “Thank you,” I said. “You pick the place and the time.”

  “Skaf’s in Glendale,” she said. “Good and not expensive. Are you free tonight?”

  “I can pick you up in two hours,” I said.

  When I hung up, I wished immediately that I would have said good-bye in a more chipper tone, the kind of immediate regret that snaps like whiplash right after a conversation with a girl that you wish had never ended, and right then, I knew I was in trouble.

  * * *

  I didn’t tell Mack where I was headed, but he could tell by the fact that I’d dressed half-decent and combed my hair it was something important. He let me borrow the Jeep and on the way there, I tried to figure out just why exactly I was doing it again—why did I find myself infatuated with a girl for no discernible reason? Again?

  Finally, I decided to tell that question to fuck off. It’s just a stupid question. We don’t know why we like or love anyone until we discover those parts for ourselves, and what draws us in deeply enough to discover them is different for everyone. We’d already shared something, and I wanted so badly to help scrub away her tension and fear. When you’re always worried about bouncing checks and scraping together electric-bill money, that shit settles into your face and shoulders and stays there. Whether it was Raeanna or Hollie, saving people always seemed to cost money—money I didn’t have. Instead, I wanted to give her the only currency I had to spend, which was the truth about my kidney. I didn’t want her to see the episode on television and wonder why no one told her, or to find out from someone other than me.

  She lived in a little one-bedroom deal, with the only window visible from the street barred up. The city was technically Van Nuys. That was a weird thing about Los Angeles. I kept thinking a city was a city, but you were just never in L.A. itself, at least not for the human stuff, like meeting a double-shifting waitress for dinner.

  She answered the door and I could tell we either weren’t leaving the house, or weren’t leaving on time, anyway. She was a tall woman, with big lips rich women paid out-of-pocket for, big green eyes, and hair that looked blond half the time and red the other half the time, depending on which angle the light was hitting it. She could have paid the rent in a dozen different ways, but she didn’t have those L.A. aspirations. She never talked about acting or modeling or the screenplay in her bottom drawer. She told The Samaritan chase producers about her life in such a straightforward, powerful way, without a hint of complaint or a hint of seeking pity. When I saw her footage, I immediately wanted to pick her from the shortlist they gave me. I wanted to save her life without ever meeting her daughter, Melissa.

  I still wouldn’t get the chance, it seemed—Melissa was gone, but the entire place looked like an archaeological dig for long lost toddlers. Toys were everywhere; every wall had pictures of a red-haired, gap-toothed little angel. She was a good smiler. The fridge was covered with pages ripped from coloring books. I could see the kitchen and bedroom from the open doorway. The house was probably smaller than my apartment, but reminded me of my palace in Verner.

  She fiddled with her earring for an uncomfortably long time, faking a smile, finally saying, “Well, come on in.”

  I looked at the pictures of Melissa and said, “She’s cute,” and I wasn’t even bullshitting to be nice.

  “Thanks. She’s at my sister’s tonight. Believe it or not, I have to work at ten.”

  “I believe it,” I said.

  Her hair was still wet from the shower and I couldn’t tell if she had makeup on or not. That she would answer the door in such a vulnerable state was sort of touching.

  It was already closing in on eight. “Do you think we’ll make it to this place and back in time?”

  “No,” she said. “Wait—did you really want to go out to eat?”

  Now she had me all screwed up. “Well, I wanted to talk. You wanted to go out to eat.”

  “I thought by talking … I mean, you really want to eat dinner?”

  “Oh, Hollie,” I said, the truth dawning on me. “It’s not like that.”

  “Don’t get the wrong idea,” she said. “I don’t treat myself like currency. I’m not like that and I’ve never done anything like that.”

  She sat down on the couch and said without looking at me, “I don’t have anything else to give you. I thought this might be what you wanted, and you sort of deserve it. My body, in a strange way, belongs to you.”

  “Hell, my own body doesn’t even belong to me,” I said. “I’m glad you’re sitting down.”

  I sat down next to her and she started to cry. I put my hand on her back and felt the dampness of her skin through the thin silk of her dress.

  “My God, what you must think of me,” she said. “I just don’t know how to handle all this. I thought I was going to die and now I’m not and it’s because of you, and I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Three things you gotta know,” I said. “First, I’m a virgin. So as awkward as you just felt, how about them apples? Second, I think you’re one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen. And finally, that kidney I gave you? It grew back.”

  That dried up her tears in quick fashion.

  “What?”

  “I can regenerate my organs and tissue,” I said. I held up my right hand. “Did you ever see the Verner shooting covered on television?”

  “That one in the Midwest, at the high school party? I think I remember,” she said.

  “The guy blew this hand off. It grew back.” I tugged my ear. “My ear grew back. My tonsils? Removed when I was a kid. They’re back. And that kidney I gave you—I have it back aga
in. So if you think I own anything in your body, that’s just not true. It’s all yours. All I sacrificed was a little pain, and hell, they have drugs for that.”

  “That’s about the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard,” she said. I took her shift in body language as a cue and took my hand off her back.

  “You don’t believe me, which is fine,” I said. “The show is going to start airing and every week I’ll be giving things away. You may not believe it even then. You and a lot of other people will think it’s TV magic or some shit.”

  “It’s not possible,” she said.

  “That’s what I thought too,” I said. “Now that it’s all on the table, let’s just say fuck it. Let’s process it on our own terms, okay? I just want to hear you say fuck it and smile, and give me the number of your favorite local delivery-food source. Then I want you to go get some sweats on and let’s wolf that shit down so you can get a nap in before work.”

  She smiled and said, “Fuck it, then.”

  “Louder,” I said.

  “Fuck it!” she cried, and laughed out loud.

  We split a large pizza and drank Coke out of a two-liter bottle with almost no ice cubes, the best damn way to take it. You can really guzzle it down when it’s not too cold, just drink it so fast the bubbles hurt your nose. She talked about Melissa. I nodded and said “That’s nice” in all the right places, and just like that, my first-ever date was in the books.

  On my way out, this tall, beautiful girl with her hair in a bun and a faded Raiders T-shirt kissed me on the cheek and said, “Thank you.”

  And I didn’t think there was much to say to that, only things that could ruin the moment. I left and took the long way home, the way people do when there’s a moment worth savoring just a little while longer.