Paul leaned close and whispered, “Andrew’s particular about his quality stuff. When it goes out with his name on it, he wants to be sure whoever buys it is getting what they pay for and not some plant that’s been so stressed it won’t grow or bloom the way it’s supposed to.”
It was hard for her to work up much sympathy for someone who had to wait around longer than expected for an orchid to bloom. Still, she’d rather work for someone with integrity than without. She’d been a hostess at a restaurant that recycled its bread and made sauces from used butter. It was all she could do to keep from telling customers to eat somewhere else.
“How do they get stressed?” she asked.
“Too much or too little water. Too much or too little light. Sticking the plant under an air-conditioning vent or near a heater. Wrong pot, wrong medium, planted too loose or too tight. They aren’t as delicate as most people think, but they aren’t philodendrons.”
“My mother has a thing for African violets.” She picked them up on sale, the plants so neglected that no one else wanted them. Through some magic Maria didn’t understand, her mother brought the violets back to life.
“You’ll have to take her a couple of the miniature cattleyas Andrew has developed. They bloom a couple of times a year, and the flower can last for a month or more. The retail nurseries are advertising them as the first real orchid houseplant.”
“You sound like a commercial.” Giving her mother an orchid would be more burden than gift. Elena Ramos could never see an orchid as just another plant. She would worry any pleasure away and grieve if the plant died.
She looked around while she waited. Not much had been done to the house to convert it into an office. The living room was outfitted with bookshelves, filing cabinets, and a desk, but the remaining rooms held little or no furniture. With a little paint and furniture, someone could easily live there full-time.
Andrew ended his telephone call and turned his attention to Maria and Paul. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to back out of lunch.” He tossed his pencil on the desk. “That bark order we’ve been waiting for finally came in, and it’s the wrong size. If I don’t get it taken care of today, we’re not going to be able to start the repotting tomorrow.”
“You want me to see if Klein’s has some they can sell us? I could go over there now to pick it up.”
“Let me see what I can do here first.”
“Don’t worry about the lunch thing,” Maria said, trying not to show how relieved she was. “I brought something to eat.”
“Just because I’m not going doesn’t mean you aren’t,” Andrew said. “Paul can fill in for me.”
Before she could come up with a reason for not going, Paul said, “Great. I love Fred’s place.” He held out his hand. “I assume you’re paying?”
Andrew opened his wallet and handed Paul several bills. “Bring me the usual.” The phone rang. Andrew answered. He nodded and motioned for them to leave.
Maria followed Paul out of the office. “I think I’d just as soon eat here,” she said when she was sure Andrew wouldn’t overhear her. “I’m not that hungry.”
“Afraid to be alone with me?” he challenged.
What a jerk. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
He grinned. “Then grab your purse and let’s get out of here.”
He’d won. And she’d let him. The thought disgusted her. What came next–telling him she liked riding in his stupid BMW?
3
HE’D DONE IT TO HER AGAIN. PAUL DIDN’T have a BMW, he had a Honda. A red one. Ancient. Rusted through on one fender, dented on the other.
“Nice car,” she said, adjusting her shoulder strap
“It gets me where I want to go.”
“Does it get you back, too?”
He laughed. “Most of the time.”
She really didn’t want to like him, but he was making it hard. If she had to be around him while she was there, she might as well try to get along. Having a friend who was a rich white boy wasn’t something she’d ever set out to do, but then she’d never thought she would be pulling down two dollars above minimum wage standing ass deep in orchids, either. “You live around here?”
“Down the street from you.”
“From where I’m staying,” she corrected him. “I live in Oakland.”
He turned the opposite direction from the way Cheryl had come that morning. The houses around there were small but had large, well-tended yards, some with picket fences and plastic deer, others with detailed topiary. This was where the people who worked the fields and held the service jobs lived, the ocean miles away, the views unspectacular. Small grocery stores and fruit stands sat on corners, and the service stations were so old they actually had areas where mechanics worked on cars.
“How do you like the house?” Paul asked.
“It’s okay.” She loved everything about it, from the rock fireplace to the deck that overlooked the ocean, but to say so was too obvious. Only people who’d never been anyplace special or done anything out of the ordinary would make a big deal out of a house. “You ever been inside?”
“My family stayed there every August when I was a kid–for over ten years.”
“So how come you don’t stay there anymore?” she asked.
“My mom and dad were the ones who rented the house, and they’re divorced now. Last year my mom married the guy who lives in the house where I’m staying now.”
“Your mom was foolin’ around with one of the neighbors while she was on vacation with your dad?”
“Are you always so blunt?” He sent her a sideways glance. “And so wrong?”
“If you mean do I call it like it is–yeah, I do. What’s the point pretending something isn’t the way it is?” She looked out the window at a house painted bright pink with dark green shutters. “And I’m right a lot more than I’m wrong.”
“The divorce was my dad’s idea. My mom and Peter didn’t get together until later.”
“And it was okay with this Peter guy that you moved in with your mom?”
The question seemed to throw him. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Most guys don’t want anything to do with a woman’s kids when they’re as old as you are.”
“I happen to be great company. And I’m useful.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.” She softened the words with a lopsided grin. “What do you do, mow the lawn?”
“Actually, I’m the only one who does any work around the house.”
She studied him through narrowed eyes. “You’re there alone, aren’t you?”
“Damn, you’re good.”
She shouldn’t have been so pleased. “So, where are they?”
“Europe for the summer.”
“For three months?” She sometimes put herself to sleep at night fantasizing about the places she would go if she were rich, but this was beyond anything she’d imagined.
“Peter’s an artist. He visits galleries and stops along the way to paint when the mood strikes him. It’s all tax deductible.”
“And what does your mother do while he’s sitting around painting?”
“Right now she’s taking a cooking class in Paris. Eventually she wants to open her own restaurant.”
Paul’s mother was in France going to school to learn how to cook while her mother stood over an ironing board all day to earn money to buy basic ingredients for food she barely had the energy to cook. It wasn’t fair.
“Where are you going to school?” Paul asked conversationally, not picking up on Maria’s mood shift.
Why would he want to know something like that? “Kelly Morgan High School.”
“When you graduate.”
“Oh, you mean college. I’m not. At least not right away.”
He didn’t react the way she’d expected. Instead of the stunned disbelief she usually got from his type, he simply asked, “Why?”
“Now why do you think?”
He didn’t answer for several seconds. “It can
’t be because you’re not smart enough.”
There was no way he could know how smart she was or wasn’t, but she liked that he thought she was.
“And it can’t be money. There are too many programs that–”
There was no way he could tell how much money she had, either, and it made her mad that he assumed she couldn’t afford to go to school even if he was right. “And you can tell just by looking at me that I qualify for those welfare kinds of programs?”
“I’m going on what Andrew told me.”
Now she really was mad. Andrew had no right to talk about her. “He doesn’t even know me.”
Paul pulled up to a stoplight and turned to look at her. “Are you always like this?”
“Like what?” she fired back.
“Pissed off at the world.”
She glared at him. “It’s not the world, just the people on it that I can’t stand.”
ANDREW THREW THE KITCHEN TOWEL OVER his shoulder and went to answer the knock at the door. “This is a surprise,” he said to Cheryl. He moved to the side. “Come in.”
She waited until he closed the door before asking, “Still mad at me?”
“I told you I wasn’t mad.”
“Disappointed, then.”
“I’m getting over it.” “I brought you a peace offering.”
He looked at her hands. They were empty. “What is it?” he asked suspiciously.
“Me. Or at least as much of me as you can take advantage of in five minutes.”
He laughed. “I’m good, but I’m not that good.”
She reached up and put her arms around his neck. “I’ve been dying to do this since I saw that scowl on your face when I got out of the van.” She touched her lips to his and then her tongue, tasting whatever he had been tasting in the kitchen.
He deepened the kiss, then murmured, “Remind me to scowl more often.”
“First I need to ask you something.”
“Is this part of my five minutes?”
“Sorry, it’s as long as I could get away. The girls are cleaning the kitchen, and I promised we’d get a video as soon as they were done.”
“You want to know what happened at work today.”
She didn’t bother asking how he knew. “I’ve never seen Maria in such a bad mood.”
“She met Paul.”
Cheryl frowned. “And?”
“She likes Paul.”
“I’m going to need more than that.”
“Think West Side Story.”
“Paul is in a gang?”
“Skip that.” He struggled for another analogy. “Okay, think Sabrina.”
“The movie?”
He nodded.
All she could remember was how mismatched she thought Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn were. “Paul’s an old man?”
“He’s from the privileged side of the tracks, Cheryl. His life is so comfortable he donates part of his paycheck to a charity his brother is involved with. Do you know any other nineteen-year-old who hasn’t started his own dot com business who gives away money he had to work to earn?”
“Maria would–if she could.”
“Precisely my point. She can’t, he can. But it’s more than that. He does it and doesn’t even know it’s not the norm. That’s an insult to someone like Maria.”
“And a barrier,” she said sadly. “This is not what I wanted her to see. She already feels defensive.”
“She’s hungry, Cheryl. But she’s scared, too. She’s afraid of wanting something she thinks she can’t have.”
“You’ve known her less than a day, and you can see all this about her?” She didn’t doubt him; she was curious how he’d gotten through Maria’s shell so quickly.
“All you have to do is talk to her a few minutes and you can see how bright she is. She works hard, she’s quick, she has a smart mouth with a lot of anger and intelligence behind what she says, and she’s passionate about things that interest her. She also has a way of looking at someone that makes them–makes me–feel like a bug under a microscope.”
“You’re amazing.” She looked at him with a mixture of awe and puzzlement. “Can you do this with everyone, or was Maria special?”
He shrugged. “When you’re raised the way I was, getting a handle on people quickly is simply a matter of self-preservation. I’ve met military kids who moved around a lot when they were growing up who have the same ability.”
“How could I not know this about you?”
“It’s not the only thing.”
She tilted her head and studied him. “That’s why you wanted us to have this time alone. It wasn’t just to become lovers again.”
“Just?”
“All right, poor choice of words. I misjudged you. I’m sorry.”
“It gives us something to talk about in our old age.”
She smiled. “I love being right–even when I’m being given credit for something I don’t deserve.” She stretched up and kissed him again. “Gotta go. I don’t want them to come looking for me.”
CHERYL MOTIONED FOR DEANNA TO PASS THE popcorn, took a handful, and passed it on to Maria. She’d talked them into renting Casablanca as much to hear their reaction as to save herself from having to watch Scream II. When it ended,
Deanna was crying, Karen said she thought the clothes were fantastic, especially the beaded top Rick’s girlfriend wore in the opening, and Maria didn’t say anything.
“So, what do you think, Maria?” Cheryl asked, as soon as Karen stopped to take a breath.
She unfolded her legs and stretched. “Any woman who lets a man think for her is an idiot.”
Deanna reached for another tissue. “She told him to.”
“It was another time,” Cheryl said. “That was how men and women saw each other then, the way they interacted.”
“I think it was sexy,” Deanna said. “Rick sacrificed everything to make sure she was safe. I wish someone loved me enough to do that for me.”
“Did you notice how much he smoked?” Karen said. “And he always had a drink in his hand. I’ll bet he was an alcoholic.”
“How do you think it should have ended?” Cheryl asked Maria.
“She should have gone with her husband because she wanted to.”
Karen snorted. “You’re just saying that because you’re Catholic and don’t believe in divorce.”
“Her husband was more interesting and braver than Rick. And a lot cuter, too.”
Cheryl perked up. “Why do you think he was more interesting?”
“Look at all the stuff he’d done and how he wanted to get to America so he could keep fighting for the resistance. Another thing–Rick didn’t have to get on that train in Paris. Her husband wouldn’t have. He would have gone after her. What did Rick do? He went to Casablanca and bought a bar.”
“You have a point,” Cheryl said. It wasn’t one she’d ever heard anyone else make, which made it even more interesting.
“But he never forgot her,” Deanna said. “And in the end he gave her up because he wanted her to be safe and she wouldn’t have been if she stayed with him.”
“Can we get back to the clothes?” Karen said.
“Anyone want to talk about what was going on in the world when this movie was made?” Cheryl asked.
All three of them, in chorus, said, “No.”
Cheryl laughed. She’d made her point and started them thinking. What more could you ask of a simple movie?
4
MARIA YAWNED AS PAUL BACKED OUT OF the driveway. Six-thirty was getting earlier and earlier every morning. It seemed the harder she tried to go to bed by ten, the more reasons there were to stay up. Deanna and Karen were like windup dolls with flapping jaws, always talking about what they’d done that day, where they’d gone, what they’d seen. Like she was interested in old missions and hiking out on some point to see seals. What good was that kind of thing going to do them when they got home? At least she’d have money to show for the time she was there.
>
“Late night?” Paul asked.
They’d been riding together for almost two weeks, and he obviously took that to mean he had a right to ask questions. “Bad weed does that to me sometimes.”
“Yeah, me too.”
She shot him a sideways glance. There was no way Paul Williams’s lips ever sucked on grass. “Maybe you could hook me up with someone who has a better stash.”
His answer was too slow to be believable. “My guy’s out of town.”
She laughed. “Probably visiting my brother.”
“Okay, so you don’t believe me any more than I believe you.”
“You’re a cube, Paul.”
“Thanks.”
“You don’t thank someone for calling you a cube. It means you’re six times worse than square.”
“I know what it means. I’m a preacher’s kid. You’re not the first person who’s slammed me with that.”
“How can you be a preacher’s kid? You said your parents were divorced.”
“So what?”
“Preachers can’t get divorced.”
“Obviously you don’t know as much as you think you do.”
She could either tell him to go to hell–which meant she would have to stop talking to him–or find out more. “So it’s okay? Nobody cares?”
“I didn’t say that. In my mom and dad’s case, it split the congregation. Some even left to go to other churches.”
“How did you feel about it?”
He braked to let a car merge in front of him. “I hated it. For a time, I hated both of them, too. But I got over it.”
“My dad died. He was late to work one morning and got hit by a car. It was his fault, he was jaywalking. There wasn’t any insurance money, and my mom wouldn’t let the lawyers who kept calling her sue anyone. I used to get mad at him sometimes, too, but it didn’t do any good so I stopped.”
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