The Care and Handling of Roses With Thorns (14 page)

“People should live off what they make, not use credit cards,” I say piously, blowing on my pasta. I know she’s talking about herself.

“Not everyone has parents to help them out, Gal,” she says, her tone hard. “That’s not the point.”

“Yeah. I get it. Riley needs a break because she’s so far behind. I get it. Did Mr. Morton just tell you to say that?” I jerk my head toward her cell, lying on the table.

“No.” She eats her salad quickly. “You know what, Gal, you’re impossible sometimes.” She gets up. “I’m going to get more bread. You want anything?”

I reply in the negative. Impossible. Yes, I am impossible. Everything about my life seems to be one grand impossibility after another.

I play with the pasta, thinking about Dara. I never did tell her about the rose show results. Nor has she asked. It would be like Dara getting married and me not asking her how the wedding was. Sure, I could just tell her, but shouldn’t she ask if she really cared?

For the first time, I get that my friend has a different agenda than I do. Different opinions. We are possibly two people that should not converge so much any longer. I want to weep.

I do not. Instead, I wait for Dara to return, then tell her I’m not feeling well. I leave the restaurant before she can voice a protest or a concern.

• • •

L
ATER THAT NIGHT,
I’m in bed reading the Winslow Blythe rose book, waiting for Riley to return home. I’ve left on the porch light and two lamps in the living room, plus the light in her bedroom. Now I skim the words over and over; I already know them nearly by heart, and the book only serves as company. The paper rustles comfortingly under my fingers as I listen for a car to slow. All I hear is the refrigerator, my old companion.

At last, at precisely ten, the front porch creaks and the front door clicks shut. “Riley?” I call.

She closes her bedroom door without answering. Uh-oh. I get up, shoving my feet into slippers.

“Riley?” I knock, then enter. She’s lying on the bed, facing the wall, her back to me. “Everything okay? Did you have a good time?”

She does not answer. Her breathing is ragged. Crying. I sit on the bed next to her, touch her back. “What happened? Talk to me.”

She turns over. Her makeup is smeared all over her face in garish streaks, her eyes streaked with red. It reminds me of finding her outside, gripping that golden retriever’s fur, when she was a toddler. “Nothing. I’m just sad.”

I lean into her. “Why?”

“You wouldn’t understand.” A sob chokes her.

A smell like sweetly rotting fruit comes off her breath. Alcohol. I lean in and smell her jacket. Cigarette smoke and pot. I fight the growing panic rising inside. “Riley. Tell me where you where and what happened. You were drinking and smoking.”

“I didn’t smoke anything. Other people were.” She covers her eyes with her hands, not denying the drinking.

Fear tumbles my stomach. I put my hand on her. “Did someone do something to you?” A million possibilities rush through my head. Someone giving her booze on the sly. Rape. Roofies. Who knows?

“No. No one did.” She takes her hands off her eyes and blinks at me. “We were out in the field behind the old Schaeffer place. A bunch of us. Samantha, Brad, pretty much half the school.” Tears fall again. “I only had a few sips, Aunt Gal. I swear. I . . .” She trails off, turns away again, covers her head with the pillow.

I want to smack her. “Don’t you know the trouble you could have gotten into?” She’s turning into Becky. Who knows what she and Becky did together. Maybe she already is like Becky. Frustration gets the better of me. I hit her wall with my palm. “This is unacceptable. You know that.”

Her shoulders shake. She’s hyperventilating.

I rub her back. “Riley. Take deep breaths.”

She tries to say something, but she’s hiccupping now. She turns over to face me again, taking one giant breath to steady her diaphragm. “I’m sorry, Aunt Gal.” She is so sorrowful, my heart breaks.

I exhale. “I’m going to have to punish you again, Riley.”

She nods, her eyes squeezing shut. “Aunt Gal. Why did my mother send me away?”

My heart catches. This is why she’s done this. “She didn’t want to, sweetheart.” I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s what she needs to hear.

Her face crumples again. “I was good. And she didn’t want me.”

“She does want you.” I stroke her hair. I am close to crying, too.

She shakes her head. “Not enough.” Her breath shakes her body. “Can I . . . can I call her now?”

“Sure.” I get up and leave, shutting her bedroom door.

In the living room, I sit on the couch, putting my feet on the coffee table. Wondering how I can stop Riley from becoming Becky. Being with Becky has screwed her up. Becky leaving her has screwed her up, too. Riley is going to have problems either way. I take off my glasses, rub my eyes. Something hard is in my throat, something that won’t be swallowed away.

Riley opens the door. “She didn’t answer.” She’s taken off her jacket, her posture slumped. She looks like the Little Match Girl.

I am a little glad her mother didn’t answer. I’m not sure Becky would have helped. I pat the couch next to me. “How about some late news?”

She sits next to me, close but not touching. Her makeup and tears have dried. I reach over and grab a tissue out of the box, wipe her face. She does not move.

I turn on the television, and we watch until Riley’s eyes begin to close.

18

I
TURN MY WATER WAND ON THE ROSES, LOOKING FOR SMALL
reddish brown specks. It’s Monday of the second week of May and the spider mites have come out to play, as they always do this time of year. I call them red vampires. I’m supposed to be a biologist, interested in the circle of life and everything having its place, but I hate anything that will hurt my roses. If I were a true Darwinist, believer in survival of the fittest, I would leave them alone. Of course, if I were a true Darwinist, I also would have died a long time ago.

A row of hybrid teas has a few mites, though their numbers are mitigated by my daily morning washing. It is exactly as annoying and time-consuming as it sounds. The early sun beats down on my unprotected brow. I will have to remember to wear a hat. The weather has heated up, and is now averaging in the mid-eighties by noon.

Inside, Riley is getting ready for school. We hadn’t talked about the incident all weekend. Instead, we’d gone to the nursery, to a movie—some comedy I’ve already forgotten—and to church yesterday. Throughout, I’d watched her. For what, I didn’t know. Some sign that she needed to talk, or cry again.

“I’m here if you want to talk,” I’d said, clumsily.

She had shrugged. “I’m fine.”

I have decided not to punish her for drinking. I’m certain Riley had acted out only because of her mother’s leaving her. I mean, if my mother had sent me away abruptly, who’s to say I wouldn’t do something like that? I can’t imagine it.

• • •

I
OPEN THE HOSE UP MORE,
soaking my navy blue sweats through. Next door, the neighbor peers through her window. She drops back when I wave. The water spray must be powerful enough to wash away the mites, but not so powerful the roses are damaged. I bend and search under each bush, waving the wand until my arm aches. It’s a good workout. An insecticide would be easier, but I like to avoid spraying various chemicals on my roses, not because I’m particularly against poisons from an environmental standpoint. I’m against poisons from a hazardous-to-Gal standpoint. I simply believe that with all these other cards stacked against me, I certainly don’t need to add “exposure to hazardous chemicals” to the mix, even if they are supposed to be benign to human life. Do you know how many things throughout human history scientists have asserted would hold no harm against humans? I rest my case.

At last I finish the rinsing and wind up the hose on the huge reel. I have a soaker system, but I also have this regular big green hose for tasks like this, requiring real water pressure. I am not used to the physical labor and begin huffing before a quarter of the hose is collected.

This is the time when Brad normally comes, in the morning before school starts, so he can clean the roses and we can let them air-dry during the heat. With school and dialysis and getting ready for the next rose show, I have no time to do this.

I have one major problem, though.

Brad quit today.

He simply texted me this morning, instead of showing up. Just like that. No warning. Nothing. Only words coming through a little tiny phone screen.

It had to be because of the drinking. He thinks, rightly so, that I will be angry.

Brad probably did not want to hear the hundred lectures I had planned for him about underage drinking and corruption of underclassmen. Nonetheless, I’d expected a bit more notice. I’d expected him to face me in person. I was wrong.

Now Riley comes outside, dressed in her uniform, her hair neatly brushed. “Aunt Gal, you can’t do all this by yourself. You’re all dirty. You have five minutes to get ready.” She looks worried, her arms crossed and her forehead wrinkled. “Let me help.”

I wonder what the gossip will be at school today, and if any of it will be directed at Riley. “You going to be okay today?”

She looks down, scuffing the toe of her sneaker into the dirt. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” Then she meets my eyes directly, her eyes flashing green. “Nothing happened at the party, Aunt Gal. Nothing except drinking.”

I straighten from the hose winder. I can feel specks of dirt all over my face, though I was only watering. My breath comes fast and heavy. “Good. Finish winding it for me, and we’ll get to school just fine.” I walk into the house as she gingerly grabs the handle and begins turning the crank.

• • •

I
N
AP
B
IOLOGY,
I confront Brad as he walks in right before the bell. “Hallway. Now.”

He follows me out. He says nothing. I’d thought better of him.

Down the hallway, his father is emptying a trash can. He glances up, looking exactly like Brad will look in thirty years, except I hope Brad won’t look so hangdog-defeated. Bags swirl under the man’s eyes. He nods at me and I nod back.

Brad holds up his hands and, seeing his father, leans forward in a whisper. “I am sorry, Ms. Garner. I have to help out my father.”

“What do you mean?” I’m confused. I glance toward his father. “In the morning?”

Brad flushes. “Dad has a paper route. Dad works a night shift, too, and he’s too tired in the mornings now. He’s saving up money for my college.”

I glance down the hall at his father again, wondering several things at once. One, why the school doesn’t pay a living wage to its workers. Two, why Brad’s father, who appears to be a fairly intelligent, capable human, can’t get a better-paying job. Three, whether I can start paying Brad so he doesn’t have to leave.

Brad passes his hands over his face, leaving fingerprints on his cheeks. Down the hall, his father empties a dustpan noisily, shuffling away without a backward glance toward his son. The confident Brad disappears for a second, and I see a new Brad. Unhappy, afraid, alone. This Brad I see comforting his father when his mother didn’t come home, getting the free secondhand uniforms from the school, the one who doesn’t pay into the class field trip fund, who’s earned his peers’ respect through the luck of his good looks and athletic abilities. I see that I don’t know the half of this kid.

So I don’t say anything to make him feel bad about texting me or quitting. I know I can’t pay him. For a moment I consider asking my mother for help; I know she will foot the bill without question. It’s tempting, but I want to be a stand-on-her-own-two-feet adult too much to ask.

I am aware of the class inside rustling about. It’s far past bell, and they know we are out here. “Okay, Brad,” I say, after a long silence. “Thanks for letting me know.”

He nods once, begins to turn, and pauses. “I can’t come after school, either. I have too much studying to do for finals. I don’t want to mess up.”

I nod once in return. He goes silently into class.

• • •

I
GET TO
S
CIENCE
O
LYMPIAD
a little late, because I’m trying to or-ganize my curriculum for the next day. With the competition in two weeks, Mr. Morton is in a tizzy, but I have no worries. My teams are more than well prepared. The kids could do these tasks in their sleep.

Mr. Morton, on the other hand, thinks his students will forget everything as soon as a little pressure is on them. Maybe his teams aren’t well prepared enough.

When I arrive at his classroom, the trebuchet kids are outside. Mr. Morton is nowhere to be found, neither inside nor out. My kids are efficient as an ant colony, with their supplies all set up. I look in earnest for my co-coach. His briefcase and metal water bottle are still here, the water bottle forlornly on its side.

I am bending over helping my anatomy student identify a kidney (“Surely you jest,” I say) when I hear another voice join the kids outside. A familiar female voice belonging to my young niece. I peer through the bank of open windows lining the room.

Sure enough, it’s Riley, clipboard in hand, watching the action. Brad hands her a tape measure. “I’d rather not do that part,” she demurs. “I’m here to watch.”

He sputters the exasperation I feel. “What good is being an alternate going to do if you don’t know how to step in? What if somebody’s sick?”

I call out a rejoinder. “Yeah, what if someone’s sick?” I step forward. So Mr. Morton has decided what I think does not matter, and so has my niece. But really, what else is new around here? I feel resigned more than anything.

Riley’s eyes widen. “Hi, Aunt Gal.”

“Miss Garner,” I remind her. Riley fumbles with the tape measure, unable to get the metal to uncoil. Brad holds down one end by the trebuchet, and she walks the tape measure out to where the beanbag sits in the middle of a brown, dead patch of grass.

“Five meters and . . .” Riley’s voice trembles. “Two centimeters?”

“Can’t you read one of those things yet?” I ask in what I think is my mild voice. I stride over and read it. “Five meters, twenty centimeters.”

“You don’t have to yell at me.” Riley turns away, chewing her lower lip.

“This is nowhere near yelling.” I glance around. Still no Mr. Morton. “Has anyone seen Mr. Morton?”

They all shake their heads, except one. One of the trebuchet team, a female junior, points. “He went back there.”

Odd. There’s nothing behind the science building except scrubby hillside. I walk around the building.

Indeed, there he is, talking on his cell. Cell phones, I decide, should get some kind of award as the most accursed invention of the modern age. You can never be unplugged. I’m about to say something, but his back is turned, and what I hear next stops me cold.

“I have given you everything,” he says, his voice loud and full of more emotion than I’ve ever heard out of a male, except at a Shakespearean play. “I want to see her. I’m her father.”

At this, I drop back behind the corner, unwilling to listen to any more. Mr. Morton is a father? Who is the mother? Dara doesn’t know about this. That’s the kind of gossip that spreads fast. Who is he talking to?

What do we know about this man? I ask myself.

I go into the classroom. Mr. Morton comes in shortly after. His hair seems to be electrified, which makes me smile momentarily, but he shows no sign of being upset.

“Sorry about that.” He sits at his desk, straightening papers that need no straightening, and only then do I notice the flush in his cheeks. I decide not to confront him about Riley just then.

But I don’t have to, because my niece herself materializes next to him. “You said you were going to tell her,” she says accusingly. “She went all crazy on me.”

Teens sure have a different reality than I do. “Riley. Define crazy.”

Mr. Morton raises his hands. “Hey, hey. Peace. I’m doing the trebuchet, I can have her as an alternate if I want.”

His direct snub of not only my teaching authority but my guardian authority stings. “I thought we were both doing the trebuchet,” I say. My father built the contraption, after all.

He shakes his head. “My name’s on the form as the adviser. You know you only need one coach per event.”

“And Mom signed off on my form,” Riley chimes in.

“That’s why I let her on the team.”

“You kept her a secret!” I cannot believe it.

“It just happened.” Mr. Morton is going to make this All About the Principle. I can tell he’s hunkering down, ready for a long-term battle.

“How?” I’m certain Riley has forged the signature. “Show me the permission slip.”

Mr. Morton makes a show of leafing through his files.

Riley stands resolute, her fists at her sides. This team is important to her, even though she’s just an alternate and she can’t read the darn tape measure. I suspect its only importance comes from the fact that I said she couldn’t do it. Her cheeks burn carnation pink, making the freckles stand out on her nose. “She said I could sign it for her.”

“Forgery. That is perfect.” I sit down at an empty table opposite Mr. Morton. He twists his mouth into something resembling concern.

Riley crouches next to me. “If you call her, she’ll say she signed it.”

This is the last conversation I want to be having. People always seem to think I seek conflict. I don’t. It seeks me. I put my forehead in my palm. It feels hot, or my palm is cold. I can’t determine which.

I have had enough. All I want to do is go home and watch
Wheel of Fortune
.

“Obviously, both of you are going to do as you like. I might as well not be here.” I pick up my tote bag, a pink one imprinted with multicolored DNA molecules that my mother bought me last Christmas. The DNA molecules roil before my eyes. I focus on a corner of the room, waiting for the dizzy spell to pass.

“Don’t be like that.” Mr. Morton exchanges a look with Riley that says,
We must manage her before she has a true fit.
This I really cannot stand. Before I say something I will probably regret forever, I hustle out of there, dizzy or not.