The Care and Handling of Roses With Thorns (15 page)

19

I
T’S NOT UNTIL
I
ARRIVE BACK AT HOME THAT
I
REMEMBER
I
left Riley there at school, when I am the one who drives her home. Well, she’s a big girl. She can figure out a way home. She has before.

Everyone else wants to make things too easy for the kids. No one has to work for anything, figure stuff out. Mr. Morton’s niceness will be the downfall of him as a teacher. He’ll probably let all his students take the final three times until they get the grade they want.

I push aside my feelings that I’m committing neglect, and get on the computer to check my e-mail.

One from Byron. Finally.

So sorry about your rose show. Terribly busy with the season now. Good luck to you.

And that was all, no signature, no chattiness. He’s had enough of this quasi-friendship, no time to give me a how-do-you-do. Or he is in fact busy, as he says.

First Dara, then Brad, then Riley and Mr. Morton, now Byron. Not to mention the kidney doctor and powers-that-be. Is there no one
not
conspiring against me? I let out a breath, a long one whooshing the dust off my keyboard. Then I sneeze.

I have to laugh at my own pitifulness. There’s nothing else to do. By this time next year, I promise myself, I will have:

1. A new kidney

2. A successful Hulthemia, with scent

3. A new couch

I write the list down on a piece of scrap paper emblazoned with a realtor’s picture. I pause. It seems like Riley ought to belong on this list someplace. But what do I want for her? Do I want her to leave or stay? I write:

4. Riley?

I put the list away.

My phone pings with a text. Mr. Morton, not Riley, because Riley knows better than to use the text feature. I am going to have to change to the unlimited text plan, unhappy as I am about that prospect.

Will give Riley a ride since you left,
it reads. Jesus God.

That reminds me of overhearing him on the phone. Dara and I know next to nothing about Mr. Morton, except that he used to work at some chemical company. He and Dara have been out several times, but all they’ve done is see a movie, get coffee afterward, and talk about the movies. Hardly getting-to-know-you scenarios. That’s more like conversational avoidance.

I think about the morning I’d asked Dara if she liked Mr. Morton, when she dropped in to have her coffee with me. I’ve always hated coffee; tastes like bitter dishwater, but I’ve watched her drink gallons over the years.

“He’s a nice guy,” she said. Her mug was shaped like the face of a winking woman; it said
BAILEY’S
on one side.

“Does Dr. O’Malley know you’re advertising liquor on campus?” I said.

She blinked. “Come on. I got it in an antique store.”

“That makes it perfectly acceptable?” I settled back into my chair. I’d brought in some of my newly blooming roses off my nonbreeding bushes, the burnt red Hot Cocoa, and had them arranged in an old pasta jar in a big cloud. “I know he’s a nice guy. But what does he like to do?”

She took a sip of the coffee so light it had to be mostly cream. Dara never ate breakfast; said her coffee had more than enough calories and calcium to count for food. “Build things. Watch movies.”

“Heck, I know that much.” If it were me going out on dates, I would have the man’s mother’s maiden name, Social Security number, religion, and childhood dreams by the second one. I made a noise of disbelief, which sounded more like an unattractive snort. “Dara. Come on. Quit bringing me second-rate information.”

“I’m sorry!” Dara laughed, smoothed out her capris printed with large roses. “I prefer to let things take a natural course, not force them.”

“At that rate, you’re going to get married at about the same time the sun burns itself out.” I sharpened my jar of number two pencils, something I did every morning for the students who forgot theirs at home. For a while I told everyone that if they forgot a pencil, they were just going to be out of luck, but then half the students did no work for a solid week because they’d left their pencils at home. Dr. O’Malley was not so happy about this.

Dara took a rose out of the jar. “Can I take one?”

“Looks like you already did.” I kept sharpening as she stuck it behind her right ear.

“Not behind the left?” I indicated her other side. Left ear would mean her heart was taken.

“Nope.” She held her now-empty cup. “I’m still seeing Chad, too. It’s all still light.”

Any lighter and Mr. Morton would think she wasn’t interested at all. I stuck another pencil into the sharpener, raising my voice against the satisfying mechanical hum. “Whatever makes you happy, my dear.”

At home now, I open Google on my computer. If Dara is not going to find anything out about George Morton, I will. It’s so easy to find out stuff about people these days. Once, a man advertised a set of large pots on Craigslist. He’d e-mailed me back, told me it would be first come, first served, and then didn’t answer his phone. All I knew was his first name, his neighborhood, and his phone number, and I found his house and got in his driveway seconds before another woman. Yes, I got those pots.

I type “George Morton, San Luis Obispo” into the search engine.

Instantly (this still surprises me, after all these years of having the Internet; I still half expect to have to use a card catalog when doing research) a number of hits come up. Most of these are not his.

I look over the image search. On page four, one photo sticks out. George Morton with another woman and a baby girl.

“Acrimonious divorce pits Alchemy Tech founder Morton against his wife,”
the caption reads.
“Lara Stratton-Morton, a former lab technician at Alchemy Tech, has filed for sole custody of their two-year-old daughter.”

My fingers feel frozen. I rub them together. A baby girl? An ex-wife? Why did they split up? An image of Riley’s father flashes into my head, a man now so distant I honestly have to look up his name or ask my mother if I want to know it.

Now that I know his company’s name, it’s easier to find another article. Most are his research papers; he deals with synthetic polymer chemistry, it seems. This encompasses non-natural rubbers, plastics, and fabrics like neoprene and nylon and, of course, polyester. Because many polymers use petroleum as a starting point, and we’re running out of oil, companies are trying to develop new ways to produce these materials. I find myself impressed at his body of work. Why would he leave something like this to teach at our nothing school?

Then I come across this nugget. Nugget, nothing. More like a piece of coal that I must swallow.

Shares of Alchemy Tech plummeted today at the news that CEO and founder George Morton is stepping down. Amid rumors of a takeover, Morton sold his majority shares last week and has no plans to remain in operations. “I have every confidence that our teams will continue to produce the best work and fulfill all our contracts,” he said in a statement. The company primarily deals with developing new synthetics for the polymer industry.

Dara should know about this. I’d want to know. I reach for the phone.

The door slams. Riley pauses dramatically near the entrance, holding aloft the chrome Craftsman tape measure my father left here. “I learned how to read it. Want me to show you?”

I have the phone in my hand. What should I say, good job for learning how to do something everyone else learned in sixth grade? Is she going to learn how to skip rope next? The mean thoughts make me flush. I’m still angry at her for joining the science team behind my back, though the fault really lies with Mr. Morton. I decide I won’t bring up the science team at all. “Not right now, Riley. I have to make a phone call.”

Disappointment crosses her face. I was supposed to want to see her read a tape measure? I suppose a real teacher would. I put the phone down. “Measure the couch. Show me.” The couch would be easy; I know it’s exactly eight feet, two and a half inches.

“Maybe later.” She tosses her tape measure unceremoniously on the couch, where it bounces off and crashes into the TV remote on the coffee table, knocking it off. “Oops.”

“There better not be a ding in my table.” I get up and inspect its white paint. It’s what Dara calls a Shabby Chic table, one with curlicued sides. I found it by the side of the road. Dara painted it pink, then white, scratching away part of the top to reveal the color underneath. It reminds me of some of my pink and white roses.

“It’s made to look old, Aunt Gal.” Riley flops down in the chair, sending small clouds of dust into the shafting sunlight, where they hang glittering in the air. “Sorry.”

I run my hand over the table. Smooth. I check a sigh, pointing instead to the dust. “You used to call those ‘dust fairies’ when you were little.” I smile at the memory, of little Riley sitting at my parents’ house, absorbed by watching the “fairies” that sprung up from the dust my mother could not be bothered to clean up. My mother had jumped up, got wet paper towels, and wiped down all her furniture.

“I did?” Riley smiles.

I nod.

“Do you remember any other stories from when I was little?” She leans forward, her elbows on her knees.

I honestly can’t think of any at the moment. My head is still wrapped around George Morton and Dara, the image of him with his wife burning behind my eyes. The fairies were incidental, a result of seeing the dust motes. “You were a terror,” I say finally, thinking of something general, things my mother related. “Never wanted to nap, or put away your toys. You climbed high up on my parents’ bookshelf when you were not even two, and gave my mother a heart attack.”

“Anything else?” Riley, so hungry for stories of her childhood, continues to watch me with her large eyes. No matter how I try to fill her up, she will always be empty of these, which I cannot provide.

I have no words to express it to her.

Instead, I pick up the remote from the floor, and the phone, trying to be gentle when I tell her. I am not the one who should be telling her these memories. I have too few, and most are hearsay. “I can’t remember anything else at the moment.” I put the remote back on the coffee table and leave Riley sitting there, still staring at the spot where I’d been sitting moments before.

• • •

D
ARA ISN’T HOME,
it turns out, so I put her dilemma out of my mind and instead head over to dialysis a bit early, leaving Riley alone with a can of chicken chili and the TV.

I hesitate, keys in hand, seeing Riley at the table solo, glad to see she has actually bothered to pour the chili into an ancient melamine bowl. Before I can say anything, she raises a hand. “Don’t worry,” she says, her eyes on an open textbook. “I’ve got a biology test tomorrow I must study for, oddly enough.” She smirks at me.

“Remember your flash cards.”

She nods, spooning another bite into her mouth.

I point to a lined list I’ve tacked to the well-used bulletin board on the wall. Her chore list. If I give her enough to do, then she won’t have time to get into trouble. “And this.”

She squints up. “Chores?”

“Wipe down the bathroom with the Clorox wipes, vacuum the living room carpet, use the Swiffer on the hardwood, start your laundry, and empty the dishwasher.” I tap each item with my index finger.

“No problem.”

I wish I could tell her to go next door if there’s trouble, but of course that neighbor cannot be trusted in particular, and I don’t know the others. Instead, I tell her to call Dara, who’s agreed to be the designated go-to emergency person. For a moment I consider texting her the important George Morton info, springing it on her unavoidably, but I decide it can wait until the next day. I am not a coward like some when it comes to relaying information in person.

On my street, the neighbors are courteous, but not social. We wave to each other in our yards and watch for burglars. On Halloween, I hand out pencils instead of candies because I don’t want their soft young teeth to fall out of their heads. They probably don’t like me that much, those kids. One picked a rose on her way to school, as I sat at the window having my tea. I popped out in my robe, explaining that I certainly did not mind her picking a rose, as long as she asked first, because otherwise it was stealing, which was wrong. She threw it at my feet and never returned.

I plan to be back extra early in the morning to rinse my roses. Once more I give a little mourning cry for Brad and his punctuality. I might have to scale back my operations, if I am thinking realistically, maybe grow roses only in the greenhouse, but I avoid considering this seriously. Because if I scale back, there’s no way I’m ever going to be more than a simple rose hobbyist, and that would be unacceptable.

The dialysis clinic is quiet this night, so silent I can hear the buzz of the energy-efficient lights on the ceiling, the nurses clicking the keyboards from behind their partition. I almost don’t want to go in. The entire operation seems pointless, endless, if I have no chance of getting a kidney. For the rest of my life, however long it is, I will be coming here every other day. I can’t think about it. I think about fungus instead, the Hulthemia, how I need to call Byron. These are the only items keeping me sane.

Nurse Sonya looks up from her computer screen. “Gal. How are you holding up?” Her face, for some reason, is sympathetic. She lowers her voice and leans forward. I lean in, so close I can see the stray hairs under her eyebrows. “Dr. Blankenship can be a real hard-ass.”

Warmth spreads in my chest. I smile. “Tell me about it.”

She straightens and gives me a wink that tells me she’s pulling for me. “Have a seat. I’ll call you back in a minute.”

I turn to the waiting area. The only other patient in the whole place, surprise, is Mark Walters.

I want to avoid him, but then I decide I will not. He does not hold that much power over me. I sit down not on the other side of the room, but on a chair opposite and to his left.

This time he has an electronic reading device instead of a newspaper, with a rich-looking leather cover on it. He grins. “Ever use one of these?” He hands it over, spanning the aisle with a long arm.