Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult Page A

she'd never seen him before in her life, if
she would start telling him about Chicago or quote one of Lionel's
little epigrams or introduce any other favorite subject of
conversation, then she might happen to mention that, yes, she
wouldn't mind being his wife.
    "I'm
not really hungry," Paige said. Her eyes roamed the walls of the
apartment, the dark shadows of the hallway, and Nicholas began
berating himself for scaring the hell out of her. She was only
eighteen. No wonder she was shying away. Sure, he wanted to be near
her; maybe he could even admit that he was falling for her; but
bringing up marriage? He didn't know where that
idea had come from. Christ, that was like using a sledgehammer to
kill a fly. But he still didn't want to take back the offer. Paige
was looking down at her shoes. "This is weird," she said.
"This just feels so weird." She twisted her hands in her
lap. "I mean, I didn't have to worry about this before. This
feeling. I hadn't planned his. You know, when I was just sort of
hanging around with you, it wasn't—it wasn't—" She
looked up, groping for the right words. "So momentous?"
Nicholas filled in.
    "Yes."
Paige's face broke into a smile, and she exhaled in one long breath.
"You always know what to say," she said shyly. "That's
one of the reasons I like you."
    Nicholas
sat beside her on the couch. He stretched his arm around her. "You
like me," he said. "That's a start."
    Paige
looked up at him as if she was going to say something, then shook her
head.
    "Hey,"
Nicholas said, tipping up her chin. "Nothing's different. Forget
I said anything. I'm still the same guy you told off in the middle of
Route 2 a day ago. I'm still the one you can beat the pants off when
you play poker."
    "You
just happened to mention getting married."
    Nicholas
grinned at her. "I did, didn't I?" He tried to sound flip,
unconcerned. "That's the way I end a third date."
    Paige
leaned her head against his arm. "We haven't even had three
real dates," she said. "I can't stop thinking about you—"
    "I
know."
    "—but
I don't even know your middle name."
    "Jamison."
Nicholas laughed. "My mother's maiden name. Now, what else is
standing in your way?"
    Paige
turned up her head to look at him. "And what's my middle name?"
she challenged, trying to make her point.
    "Marie."
Nicholas took a stab in the dark, trying to buy time to figure out
his next counterargument. Then he realized he'd got it right.
    Paige
was staring at him, her mouth dropped open. "My father used to
tell me I'd know when someone was the perfect match for me," she
murmured. "He said God worked it so that you'd always be in the
right place at the right time." Nicholas waited for her to
elaborate, but she wrinkled her forehead and stared at the carpet.
Then she turned to him. "Why did you ask me?" she said.
    There
were a million questions wrapped into that one, and Nicholas
didn't know how to answer them all. He was still reeling from the
fact that, unbidden, her middle name had just materialized in his
thoughts. So he said the one thing that popped into his mind.
"Because you didn't ask me," he
said.
    Paige
looked up at him. "I really do like
you," she said.
    He
leaned his head back against the couch, determined to have an
ordinary conversation, the kind people who've been together forever
have all the time. He brought up the weather, and the local sports
teams, and then Paige began to gossip about the waitresses at Mercy.
Nicholas was soothed by the sound of her voice. He kept asking her
questions just to keep her talking. She told him in detail about the
angles of her father's face; she told him that she'd once tried to
read the dictionary from cover to cover because a classmate told her
it would make her smarter, but she'd only got to N. She described
wading into Lake Michigan at the end of May, so vividly that Nicholas
actually shivered and got goose bumps up his arms.
    They
were lying side by side on the narrow couch when Nicholas asked