The Care and Handling of Roses With Thorns (6 page)

The last is a pen-and-ink portrait. I recognize Becky immediately. It is drawn from above. She is on a pillow, asleep, her mouth open, her long hair spread out as though she is underwater. Fine lines crease at her eyes and between her brows in a frown. Her mouth is open and a trail of drool coming out onto the pillow. If it hadn’t been for the drool and the pillow, I would have thought she was drowning. I have to give it to Riley. It is realistic.

Riley leans against the doorjamb. “Are you looking through my stuff?”

“Just this.” I shut the notebook. Was I not supposed to look at art? Is that like looking through a journal? I’ll have to ask Dara. “Don’t leave it out if you don’t want people to see it.”

She harrumphs and slinks forward to grab her backpack. She’s one of those kids who walks along with a slouch, her eyes trained to the floor as though she expects land mines.

I try a compliment. “You’re an excellent artist, Riley. You must get it from Grandma.”

She rubs sleep out of her eye, smearing eyeliner.

I cluck. “Didn’t you wash that off in the shower?”

“I need makeup wipes.” She wipes her finger on her sweat pants. “Don’t worry. It’s hypoallergenic.”

“I was more concerned about mascara stains on my pillowcases.” I fish a pot of cold cream out of my dresser drawer and hand it to her.

She stares at it like it’s a rattlesnake.

I place it on the dresser top. “St. Mark’s only allows lip gloss. And I agree.”

“I like to express myself. I suppose you’ve never tried it.” Riley picks up the cold cream.

“Everything I need is up here.” I tap my temple. “Not on the outside.”

“My appearance is a manifestation of my personality.” Riley heads into the bathroom. “I thought you, with your roses, could understand that.”

I’m kind of impressed by her use of the word “manifestation.” “I suppose I do understand. But roses can’t help how they look.”

“Because you make them look how you want.” She shuts the door.

• • •

I
HEAD OUTSIDE,
intending to lock up the greenhouse. The air is cooling. A gnat buzzes by my face. As I walk to the greenhouse, my clogs crunching on the path, I hear a noise from the roses. To my surprise, Brad is in the garden, pulling weeds on his hands and knees. I’m more surprised to see how many weeds I’d missed. “Hey, Miss Garner.” He isn’t surprised to see me, on the other hand. He pushes his floppy hair out of his face. The boy hasn’t broken a sweat though his wheelbarrow is full.

“Brad. I didn’t know it was your day to come. Were you here earlier? I was just outside.” How had I missed him, squatting in the bushes?

“Just got here.”

I accept this. “Have you heard from any colleges yet?” Brad plays football and baseball, but our school is too small for scouts to bother. Instead, I’ve advised him to apply for science scholarships, ones for children of veterans and first-generation college students, and whatever else I’ve ever seen cross my path.

He shakes his head. “Not yet. Ms. Garner? I can’t come tomorrow. Practice. So I came tonight to work.”

“I have dialysis tomorrow night. Who’s going to water the greenhouse?” Tomorrow is their day for watering.

Most people would suggest watering today instead, but Brad knows better. These roses need water when they need it, not sooner and not later. Otherwise you can kill them. “I can get my dad to come.”

I think of Brad’s dad, the school janitor, heading here after his long hours of cleaning up after the private school kids, some of whose weekly allowances are more than his pay. Mine too. I don’t want Brad’s dad to do it. “I’ll think of something else.” Dara, maybe. Or Riley. Of course. Riley’s here.

“Riley!” I bellow toward the house. I have a really loud voice for someone so small. It’s the kind of voice that cuts through all other noise and chatter. Dara says when I try to whisper, it’s louder than most people’s regular volume. Never try to gossip with me quietly in public. Everyone will hear.

Riley comes out, her face scrubbed clean of makeup, her dyed hair bound in a neat ponytail. Wearing her Abercrombie sweats with a pink Abercrombie T-shirt, at last she looks more like the niece I remember, more like a little girl, the opposite of what she wants. “Giving that company plenty of free advertising, I see.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She nods at Brad, who finally gets up from his weeding.

“This is your niece?” Brad wipes his hand on his jeans. “I’m Brad.” He smiles in a friendly way, but she kind of looks off to the side again and offers her hand back, floppy as a fish.

“Did the kids talk about it today?”

“You better believe it.”

Kids always know more than the adults do when it comes to gossip. “Riley, come here. I’m going to show you how to water the roses tomorrow night.”

She nods once, reluctantly. “Um, yeah. Don’t I just turn on the hose?”

“They have to be watered the right amount. And they’ll need food, so we have to use the sump pump.” I consult my rose book, Winslow Blythe’s
Complete Rose Guide
. Blythe is an octogenarian rose grower who’s written volumes of works. Sometimes I modify what he does, but he often has some good detail. If it weren’t for him, I would have used pesticide at full strength on my new blooms, burning them.

“Wait a second.” She disappears into the house.

Brad raises his eyebrow at me. “Guess you have your hands full.”

It’s such an adult thing to say, but typical from Brad. “Do me a favor tomorrow. Help her find her way around.”

“Yeah. No problem.”

She hasn’t reappeared. “Riley!” I yell.

“I needed my shoes. Sheesh.” She has put on a jacket. The sky is darkening.

Brad follows us into the greenhouse. I could tell him to run along home, but I figure he’ll have something helpful to say. Riley barely deigns to acknowledge either of us.

I get out the measuring pitchers and show her the rose food. I show her how to use the sump pump, sticking one hose into the rose-food mixture and the expelling end out over the roses. “Don’t forget to plug it in.”

Riley crosses her arms over her. Her stomach grumbles audibly. It’s been hours since that burrito. I’ve got to get her dinner. “So. Is that it? Each plant gets water? What a revelation.”

Apparently sarcasm runs in our family. I change the subject, pointing to one of my speckled red Hulthemias. Not unlike the one Byron has. “What do you think about this plant?”

She screws up her nose. “The spotting makes it look diseased.”

Brad snorts.

“Thank you for your opinion.” I decide to e-mail Byron about it.

“It’s true.”

Brad scribbles something down in the notebook on the table. “The formula.” He rips the page off and sticks it onto the tack board above.

“I can remember. Three cups of food. Water to the line.” Riley glances around as if seeing the room for the first time. Her lips purse. “I knew you did this, Aunt Gal, but I didn’t know you were so, like, into it.”

“It’s pretty much her whole life.” Brad sits on the stool and assesses my niece. I believe the term is “checking her out.” I frown at him, but to my relief Riley does not notice.

“Cool.” Her tone says it’s anything but. “So, uh, can we go eat?”

I glance toward Brad. He nods. “I’ll lock up after I put away the wheelbarrow.”

“Thanks.” I point to my car. “McDonald’s all right?”

“Not really, but I’ll eat it.”

“Good job not complaining.” I unlock the car.

Brad stands in the driveway, waving to us as though he owns the place. Of course he does. He spends so many hours here. If I’m home, I feed him chicken nuggets or pizza rolls and give him soda. I’m like his aunt. But for some reason I feel peculiar. Uneasy. It must be because of Riley and how he looked at her. I’ll have to be careful with her. Teens and their hormones. My own were too weakened by illness to torment me.

“Do you have a boyfriend back home?” I said.

“No, I do not. Did not. I don’t want one.” She crosses her arms. In profile, in this burgeoning evening, I could mistake her for Becky. I don’t tell her that, guessing my sister probably isn’t Riley’s favorite person at the moment, as she is not mine. In school, teachers would ask if I was related to Becky, and I’d always say, “Yes, but only by blood.” They would laugh every time. It wasn’t long before they discovered I was the studious one.

“That’s good. Keep it that way until you’re forty.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-six. That must be why I don’t have one yet.” I laugh.

“Your jokes are as corny as Grandpa’s.” She relaxes visibly, stretching her long legs out in my space-limited compact vehicle.

“I learned from the best.” We pull into McDonald’s.

5

I
N THE MORNING,
I
HAVE MY TEA IN THE KITCHEN, LISTENING
to the unfamiliar sounds of Riley getting ready. It involves a lot of banging doors and running water and loud music. Finally she appears, and I nearly spit out my tea in surprise. Her hair is in a French braid, and she didn’t reapply her makeup. No makeup at all, in fact, which makes me see the dark circles haven’t yet entirely disappeared from under her eyes. A plain white blouse and navy blue pants complete the look.

“I’ll get you some official uniforms today.” I nod. “Very good, Riley.” In time, I hope her dark circles will disappear. If she stays on with me. I’m a terrible fuddy-duddy. So is Grandma, but grandmothers are expected to be, not aunts. Grandma is also generous with giving out pocket money.

“I told you I wasn’t an idiot.”

Ah, but the attitude hasn’t changed. “I never said you were.”

“You implied it.”

“Good vocabulary, too.” I refuse to argue with her. “Take a compliment when you can get it. You’ll soon find out I rarely give them.”

• • •

A
T SCHOOL, I
buddy Riley up with my female Brad equivalent: Samantha Lee. Brad would of course be my first choice, but he seemed a little bit too taken with Riley for my comfort. So a girl it has to be.

Samantha has long straight hair, naturally blue-black given her Chinese heritage, that she always wears pulled back, even on the weekends when I see her around town with her equally fastidious parents. “I am the Asian stereotype,” she told me once last year. “Good grades, good girl.”

“That’s what you should be in high school.” I liked her immediately. “Stereotype or not. I wish all the kids were like you.”

Samantha and Riley eye each other nervously. “Ready?” Samantha says. She actually appears more frightened than Riley, whose reputation probably precedes her, now that I think about it. Troubled mother who just shipped her kid off on a bus, appearing out of nowhere in the middle of the school year. Of course kids are going to talk about Riley. She’s the new bad girl. The one Samantha’s parents probably won’t even let her hang out with. Though they might because Riley is associated with me.

The transcripts from Riley’s old high school arrived this morning. Let’s just say Riley isn’t working up to her potential. Even in P.E., she got marked down two grades for “refusing to wear uniform.”

I am more than a little concerned that a kid who tested into the gifted and talented program has not had an advanced class since the sixth grade. Normally, St. Mark’s wouldn’t let in such a subpar student. But Riley’s not a normal case. I tell Dr. O’Malley I’ll whip her into shape.

• • •

A
T LUNCH,
I think about going into the student cafeteria to see how Riley’s doing, and decide to leave her a bit of time first. Time to integrate without Aunt Gal breathing down her neck. For some reason, these students are against having relatives come to school. My parents never embarrassed me. But then, as my mother says, I was born to be old.

Dara sits beside me. Today she’s wearing a yellow shirtdress, belted at the waist, with a ridiculously full skirt. Her lips are painted coral, which she carefully blots before taking a bite of her egg salad sandwich.

“Are you wearing a crinoline?” I say, seeing the out-of-place piece of netting poking out from underneath. “When you go retro, you really commit.”

“You know you’re so jellies.” This is her cutesy way of saying “jealous.” Some kind of young-person slang Dara tries to stay connected with. I don’t even bother. She touches my arm. “Check out the new chemistry teacher.”

“Where?” I swivel around. “I don’t see him.”

“Shush! Keep your voice down.”

“Is that him at three o’clock?” I am pointing. He glances our way. Dara gives a little shriek and bats my hand down.

“You’re worse than the kids.” I appraise the man candidly from our position. “He’s bound to look over here at some point, anyway.”

He definitely looks like Dara’s type, with a dark beard and a sort of pompadour swoop over the top of his head. He wears an aqua-colored button-down, sleeves rolled up, and a pair of black slacks with black and white saddle shoes. He is in reasonably good shape, a bit beefy, but solid.

He glances my way and his cheeks dimple into a grin in the bare spots of his beard. I grin back and feel a silly flush on my face. He is definitely Dara’s type, I say to myself. Not mine. If anyone was my type it would be someone like the history teacher, who unfortunately has been married for fifteen years. I mean, unfortunate for me. Not him. I am disgusted at my muddle-headedness.

I nudge Dara. “Looks like the universe just plopped a husband into your lap.”

She breathes in and out noisily. “He’s a little short.”

He’s a head taller than me. He’s probably the same height as Dara, maybe even a little bit taller than she is. She likes giants so she can wear heels. “Not really. But you know what they say about short men.”

“No. What do they say about short men?” Dara takes a sip from her coffee mug.

“I don’t know. I was hoping you did.” I waggled my eyebrows at her.

She laughs.

“Hello.”

It’s him. He’s standing over us. “Is this seat taken?” He places his hand over the plastic seat next to me. His eyes are puppy dog brown, with long black lashes and black eyebrows.

“It is now.” I slide it away from the table with my foot. “I’m Gal Garner.”

“George. Morton.” He shakes my hand and sits.

“This is Dara,” I say, all but forcing her to hold her hand out.

She swallows her coffee. “Art department.”

“Excellent. And you?”

“Biology.” I push my glasses up against my face.

“Biology and chemistry. Sister subjects,” he says.

I shrug. “I think all subjects are sisters, don’t you?” I point to Dara. “She’s developing a cross-curricular program. Science and art.”

“Really?” He turns toward Dara, who nods and gives me a little glare. Pushy Gal. But hey, she’s not getting any younger, and she needs to move fast before Ms. Schilling from mathematics snaps him up with her red hair and slinky pantsuits. She is already eyeballing him. And she’s short enough to be interested.

I wonder what has brought him here to this small school in the middle of nowhere in particular. To leave his old and probably highly paid position in research. But maybe he was called to teaching. Some are.

He is eating a wrapped sandwich from the cafeteria, reminding me I should poke my head in and see what Riley’s up to. Avocado and turkey. The avocado is a little brown.

“The pizza’s the best thing on the menu.” I throw my trash into my lunch sack. “They cook it off-site.”

He laughs, and it’s a pleasant one. Thank goodness. I hate whinnying laughs. “Thanks for the advice.”

“Let me know if you need any supplies. I’m in charge of that.” I stand up. “Mr. Morton, nice to meet you.”

“Call me George.”

“I hardly know you well enough.”

“Gal’s old-fashioned. Like 1850 old-fashioned,” Dara says.

“One of my many charms.” I wink at them both. “Have a good lunch, kids.”

I walk off, leaving them to their talk. When I use my back to open the door, I look back. They are talking, Dara’s hand tangles and swirls in her hair, her sure sign of flirting. For some reason, I feel a pang. But it’s just like the coffee. It’s not good for me. So I avoid it.

• • •

I
SPOT
S
AMANTHA SITTING
with her usual suspects. The kids from the math team, the debate club, the community service club. All the clubs designed to get you into college. And where I want Riley to be sitting.

Finally I see Riley at a table in the far corner of the room. She’s eating with Dr. O’Malley. Her art notebook is open before them. He laughs at something Riley says.

Two minutes at this school and she’s winning over my boss. I don’t know if I should be jealous or thank her. “I knew if I left you alone, you’d fall in with the wrong crowd.” I sit down.

“Hi, Aunt Gal.” Riley waves. She looks happy. No. More than happy. Sparkling. Much happier than she’d looked this morning.

“Riley was just telling me about your roses,” Dr. O’Malley says. “I didn’t know you breed them. I thought you just grew them.”

“Aunt Gal has come up with brand-new roses,” Riley says.

“You should have your biology class do a rose project.” Dr. O’Malley leans toward me. This is the most interest the man has ever shown in anything I’ve done. Always, he’s been open and friendly with the other teachers. Dara’s even had Christmas Eve dinner at his house, helped his wife bake cookies. He’s been known to take the Student Scholars of the Month to get frozen yogurt, to allow himself to get pie in the face at the annual carnival (I buy plenty of tickets to that). But to me, he’s been only businesslike and formal. I’ve always gotten the feeling I’m a worry to him. A burden.

I nod at the Doc. “That would be impossible. It’s not part of the curriculum. And I have to teach to the curriculum.” My voice shakes with annoyance. He knows this. I can’t just do whatever I want in class.

“True, true. Not always my choice, you know.” Dr. O’Malley looks considerably cheerier than he had yesterday. He pats Riley on the shoulder. “Nice kid, Gal. And quite the artist. Miss Westley will have a field day with her.”

I can take no credit for Riley. But I nod and thank him.

“Let me know if you need help with the guardianship. I did it before, when we took care of one of my nephews.” Dr. O’Malley puts his trash on the tray.

“Guardianship?”

“Legal guardianship. Her mother signed a form. It’s in with her school records. You just have to sign and turn it into the courts.”

Legal guardianship. It sounds so dreadfully official. Of course I would need that officialness. But I feel uneasy. Just how long is Becky planning to be gone?

I’m also a little surprised that Becky remembered to do something official. Of course, she’s not totally irresponsible, or she wouldn’t be able to hold a job at all.

I glance at my niece, who is nibbling at a green apple slice. It’s hard to believe, only yesterday I was not responsible for another human being. Actually, being responsible for me counts as two, or three, people, so what’s one more?

Dr. O’Malley bids us good-bye. I turn to Riley. “How did you do that?”

“Do what?” She drinks her milk, leaves her green apple on the tray. “I was sitting here alone, and he came over and talked to me.”

“Eat your fruit.” I change the subject. “What happened to Samantha?”

Riley pops the rest of the green apple in her mouth and swallows without chewing. “She’s not as great as you think, Aunt Gal.”

“Really?” I glance toward Samantha, who is looking guiltily our way. “How so?”

“I cannot say without breaking a confidence.” She looks pointedly the other way, where Brad is holding court with his friends. He feels her eyes on him and waves. She purses her lips.

“No one’s hurt or in trouble?” I prod.

She shakes her head.

“In that case, a confidence is okay.” I get up as the bell rings. “I guess I’ll let you make your own friends, then.”

Her lips twist and she shrugs. I know what she’s thinking. What does it matter, if neither of us knows how long she’ll stay, or when her mother will get another bug and come back as suddenly as she left? I reach across the table to squeeze her hand. She drags hers away, into her lap.

• • •

A
FTER SCHOOL,
I host a tutoring session for some of my struggling sophomores. This I do in spite of the fact it’s my night for dialysis and my blood feels extra, extra unclean, like it’s been a week instead of two days since my last visit.

In addition, I have received a message from Dr. Blankenship, left on my answering machine at home and accessed when I called to check it just now. “The MRA tests were inconclusive. We need to discuss the IVP option.”

I nearly throw the phone across the room.

Dr. Blankenship believes that my IVP dye allergy is psychosomatic, despite many doctors believing otherwise. She cites one study to me all the time. In it, researchers took people who said they were allergic to IVP dye and those who weren’t. They gave IVP dye to both. No one had reactions any worse than the ones they’d had before. If they were truly allergic, the study authors argued, their reactions would be worse.

I consider the study unethical. I mean, who takes people whose throats close up and puts the same allergy-causing substance back into them? Just because a study is conducted at a university by M.D.’s doesn’t mean it’s foolproof. This is where Dr. Blankenship and I disagree, on the fallibility of physicians like herself.
One
of the points where we disagree, I should say.

There are some doctors who know they are not infallible, who take in all the available information and make sound decisions based on the individual patient. Dr. Blankenship, while having a high success rate with transplants, has a fatal flaw: she thinks going to medical school makes you something akin to a god. In her mind, her reading of a study is more correct than mine.

But I’m the one who has lived in this body, not her. I’m the one who has to live with what she does. After all these years of dealing with doctors, I’ve seen plenty of mistakes made.

If I don’t speak up, no one will.

I would switch doctors if I could. But my limited health plan, and the limited hospital where we are, means she is my only option.

I have to put it out of my head.

The after-school students trudge in. All of them want to be elsewhere. I can’t blame them. I’d rather be elsewhere, too.

Riley is standing at the doorway, having stopped by as I’d instructed her, unwilling to put a foot in the room. I ask her if she wouldn’t like to stay and get some extra help, too, considering she’s missed most of this year.

“I’ll go work at the library until you’re done. I didn’t go to school in outer space, you know. I know things.” Riley dismisses me.

“With those grades, you could have fooled me.”

“An outer space school would probably be better, because the aliens would have better technology.” Riley’s backpack looks as though it will topple her.