Bloom (2 page)

“Couldn’t sleep?”

She jumped at her father’s voice and turned around quickly.

“Dad!”

“Hi,” he said, smiling. He wore his white robe and what remained of his greying hair stuck out in every direction.

“Hi.” She put the tub of ice cream back in the freezer and closed the door. “No, couldn’t sleep. Was I being too loud?”

“Nah, I couldn’t sleep, either. I heard a noise and figured you were on one of your late-night ice cream runs.”

“You know about that, huh?”

“Your mother used to do the same thing right after—”

“Dad, gross!”

“What? I was going to say ‘right after she finished working the late shift at the hospital’.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So, why the midnight snack? Something happen at school?”

He walked toward the kitchen and pulled out one of the tall stools below the bar. The counter that ran along the back of the kitchen turned out from the wall and separated it from the dining room. Haven’s mother liked to keep that surface clear so someone could sit on a stool and use it like a bar.

Haven’s father sat on his stool and smiled at her.

“Dad, it’s late.”

“So? You’re not going to sleep any time soon. Not with all that sugar, anyway. Come on, sit down. I’m a good listener.”

She sighed and reluctantly pulled out the stool next to him, then placed her bowl on the counter and sat down. She ran her spoon around the inside edge of the bowl, scooping up the softer ice cream on the sides.

“Is it boy trouble?” he asked.

She made a sour face. “I am
not
talking to you about that.”

He nodded. “I guess that’s your mother’s department, anyway.” He pretended to wipe sweat from his forehead in relief. Haven smiled and took a bite of ice cream. “To tell you the truth, kiddo,” he continued, “you have us a little confused. This is the first time we’ve ever heard anything other than high praise from your school. I know you’re still upset because of the move and I hated to take you away from your friends, but my new job is going to give this family a lot of freedom.”

“It’s just a little healthy rebellion, Dad. That’s all. Didn’t you and Mom ever start trouble for no good reason?”

“Of course not!” he said, feigning insult. “We were model students in every way. Why? What did you hear about us?”

She laughed and shook her head. “You’re so corny.”

“
That
wasn’t corn. And for the record, I’m a very cool dude.”

“Riiiight. You just said ‘cool dude’.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still learning.” He looked at her. “So, everything’s really okay? No drugs, no dropping out, nothing like that?”

“Everything’s fine, Dad. I promise. I don’t even know why I was acting up. It’s not really me.”

“Maybe you were testing your limits,” he said.

“Maybe…I guess.”

“Which is perfectly normal,” he said. “You need to know how much you can handle. But you also need to do it respectfully. You’re an extremely bright girl, Haven. You surprise me every day, but we can’t handle getting phone calls from the principal like that. Especially your mother. She’s a little scared.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

He ruffled her hair until she pulled away, smiling.

“So,” he said. “Tell me about the boy you like so much that you wrote his name on the gym wall.”

“Ew, Dad!”

She hopped off her stool and hurried upstairs with her bowl of ice cream. Noah was still sleeping quietly as she tiptoed past his room. Haven closed her door as gently as she could and turned off the light before climbing into bed. She enjoyed the last few bites of strawberry ice cream while looking out of her window at the countless stars scattered across the night sky.

2

C
olton Ross awoke late—the glowing red numbers on the cheap alarm clock next to his mattress read eleven o’clock. He lay there smiling, knowing that he felt better in that moment than he would feel for the rest of the week. He pulled aside his thin sheet and stood on the cold wooden floor.

The uncurtained window next to his mattress showed him a view of the busy street below his apartment building. Businessmen and women walked briskly down the sidewalks, bumping into each other and generally ignoring the world around them.

Colton rescued a dirty skillet from the bottom of a pile of filthy dishes and, after a thorough scrub, cooked three scrambled eggs for breakfast. He then took a quick shower and pulled on the cleanest t-shirt and pair of jeans he could find. Normally Colton rode his bike to the homeless shelter for lunch on his days off, but he decided to walk instead.

He liked New York City because it was big enough to get lost in yet personal enough when he needed it to be. His new job at the shipping depot kept him busy for fifty hours a week or more and his spare time was steadily shrinking as the weeks passed, so he tried to make the most out of his occasional day off.

After graduating high school six months ago, he had kicked around his hometown of Pittsburgh for a while before his friend Reece convinced him to move up to New York. After he settled in to the spare room in Reece’s apartment, Colton ditched his pickup truck for a bicycle and had barely thought about Pennsylvania since.

When he emerged from the front door of his apartment building, the street was even busier than it had been just thirty minutes earlier. No matter what day of the week it was, Colton always seemed to have to travel against the flow of foot-traffic. Pittsburgh had been moderately better, but Colton had lived in the suburbs instead of downtown.

His favorite produce stand in The Bronx was near the corners of Westchester and Castle Hill. The owner was busy topping off a heaping carton of bananas when Colton approached the stand.

“Morning, Mr. Laretti.”

“Mr. Ross! Good to see you, as always. Yet it is few and far between, yes? You must have the day off.” Antonio Laretti had bushy black eyebrows and a receding hairline. Standing on his toes, he was probably only five feet tall. He squinted up at Colton through thick reading glasses.

“My first in two weeks.” Colton picked up two apples and inspected them for bruises.

“Ah, yes, they work you too hard. I am also working too hard. But! People are needing their fruits and vegetables, yes? Where else they gonna get them if not from old Antonio!”

“Thanks a lot, Mr. Laretti.” Colton handed him a dollar and took the two apples.

“Of course, of course. Come back soon, I’ll have better apples.”

Colton smiled. “I’m sure these are just fine. Take it easy.”

Mr. Laretti mumbled a farewell in Italian as Colton walked away.

He stuck one of the apples in his pocket and turned the corner onto Westchester Avenue. Colton held the other apple firmly in his palm. He took a quick look around to make sure no one was watching him and held the apple at his side. Colton imagined the fruit withering in his grip, sinking into itself as it gave up its life. He smiled as the firm red skin turned soft against his palm and sank down closer to the core. The apple shrank to a sliver of its former size and cooled as if it had been instantly refrigerated. Colton checked once again to make sure no one was looking at him before he held up the shriveled piece of fruit.

It looked like a rotted apple core; it was brown and crispy, shrunken into the shape of an hourglass. Colton peeled away a small piece of burnt flesh from the black fruit and was not surprised at the fine powder that fell out of the hole.

He tossed the desiccated core into a wastebasket and kept walking toward the shelter. He ate the other apple as he walked.

After a few more steps he started to feel warmth gather around his spine between his shoulder blades. It first spread up to the base of his neck, then back down his spine before flowing out to his arms and legs. Finally, it settled in his hands and his palms radiated with heat.

Colton had accidentally run across the phenomenon less than a year earlier while handling a small lizard. The delicate reptile had somehow managed to sneak into his house in Pittsburgh during the day and clung to the inside of the sliding glass window until nightfall.

That afternoon had been a particularly hard one for Colton. His mother abandoned Colton—and Colton’s father—nine years earlier. Neither of them had heard from her since. Most of the time he was able to push thoughts of her out of his mind, but for some reason, on that day, he couldn’t help but dwell on how happy he used to be when she was around.

His father came home drunk from work and continued drinking until he passed out on the couch, shouting insults to Colton and his long-absent, unfaithful mother the entire time. Shortly after his father’s final rant and subsequent blackout, Colton decided to go out onto the back porch to get some fresh air.

He found the lizard as he slid open the sliding glass door. It didn’t try to escape when Colton reached out and gently scooped it off the glass. It sat there in his palm, staring up at him sideways with one eye. Colton stepped out of the house and walked over to the nearest bush to set down the lizard, but before he got there, the reptile twitched and rolled over onto its back. He watched as the lizard’s skin shrank until it was nothing more than a thin brown layer stretched over a tiny skeleton. It looked as if it had been baking in the sun for weeks.

Colton shuddered with disgust and threw the dead lizard into the bushes before he went back inside to wash his hands.

It happened only two or three times over the following few months, and usually with something small, like a fresh vegetable or piece of fruit. Recently, however, Colton had found that he was able to somewhat control the ability. It didn’t always work, but over the past weeks he had failed less and less often.

He only used fresh produce—no more lizards. The freshness of the object mattered, Colton had discovered. A can of sliced peaches was useless, but a fresh peach from Mr. Laretti’s produce stand worked just as well as the apple.

Colton didn’t understand the process but he was getting used to it. The warmth he felt afterward calmed him down, even after the most stressful of days.

He took the last bite of the second apple and tossed the core into the wastebasket just outside the homeless shelter. There was already a long line of homeless men and women wrapped around the edge of the building from the doorway. Colton squeezed inside and hurried over to the long row of tables at the back of the room.

A strong odor of cooked vegetables and unwashed clothes hung thick in the air. He grabbed an apron hanging off a hook on the wall and put it on. The latex gloves from the “large” box barely fit his hands, but every volunteer had to wear them. He struggled to pull them down over his fingers as he walked over to the end of the long line of tables.

The volunteers dipped big ladles into huge pots of steaming soup. On the other side of the table, the unceasing line of homeless shuffled past with bowls in hand. Every other volunteer would drop a chunk of stale bread into the soup.

Colton took his spot at the end of the line and started handing out bread. The volunteer next to him was Sue Wallace, who ran the kitchen.

“Nice to see you again, Mr. Ross. New haircut?”

“Yes. Thanks. Sorry I’m late.”

The elderly woman smiled and the skin at the outside corner of each eye bunched up into a hundred tiny lines. “Honey, the phrase ‘better late than never’ means more at this place than anywhere else I can think of.” She winked at him as she poured some soup into a bowl. “Your haircut looks good, by the way. A little short, but still. You get those nice, dark curls when it’s longer. You really need to let it grow.”

Colton felt as if he was being lectured by an aging family member. He smiled and added a chunk of bread to another outstretched soup bowl. He nodded politely at each person who came through the line. Most of them seemed surprisingly healthy—Colton had noticed that the men and women who frequented that kitchen were either healthy or sickly in cycles. After a short period of declining health, old faces would never return and new faces would appear in the crowd.

Maybe he wouldn’t have to use his talent that day, after all. He was starting to think he had destroyed the apple for nothing.

The front door to the building was closed a few minutes later, signifying the end of lunch. The people still in line within the building would be allowed to stay, but everyone outside had to start looking elsewhere for food.

“Sweetie,” said Sue. She tapped Colton’s arm and pointed to the old man standing on the other side of the table. He had dark circles under his eyes and his skin clung tightly to his bones.

“Oh, sorry,” said Colton. He placed a piece of bread into the man’s bowl, then watched as he walked away and sat at a table, alone. The man coughed loudly into his sleeve and had to catch his breath before he could start eating. His breath wheezed as if his throat had all but closed. He ate slowly, raising the soup spoon to his lips with a shaking hand and spilling most of its contents on the way to his mouth.

“That’s Henry,” whispered Sue. “I don’t think he’ll be around much longer.”

Colton waited until the last person in line received their bread, then he took off his apron and threw away his gloves. He walked over and sat at the table next to Henry.

“Hello,” said Colton.

Henry looked up at him over his empty soup spoon right before he put it in his mouth. He pulled it out slowly and returned it to the bowl, starting the pointless process all over again.

“My name’s Colton.” He extended his open hand. The homeless man looked at him suspiciously. “It’s okay, Henry. Shake my hand.”

Henry slowly set his spoon down in the soup bowl and reached out his shaking arm. Colton grasped his hand firmly.

Ever since he had first discovered what he could do with his ability, Colton had been searching for a way to put it to good use. His desire to make even the smallest difference in the world had originally led him to the homeless shelter, where he spent his time trying to help as many of the helpless as he could. The happiness he felt afterward briefly muted the sadness from his own past.