When Good Wishes Go Bad

by Mindy Klasky

  “I threw you out!” I exclaimed, before I could think of something more demure to say.

  He shook his head. “You told me to stop. You were right. We’re working together. I shouldn’t have confused things. I shouldn’t have mixed our personal and professional lives. But when I did, when you stopped me, I should have stuck around. I mean, it didn’t have to be—doesn’t have to be just about the physical.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, because I needed to say something.

  “No, it isn’t. I thought it would be okay, because we got through auditions. But you’ve avoided me for the past week. I mean, I like Jenn well enough, but I can’t spend the rest of the rehearsal process sending messages to you through your assistant.”

  “I am mentoring Jenn! I’m trying to give her more authority!”

  His voice was very gentle, even though he continued to talk to the building across the street. “You’re trying to avoid me. You shouldn’t have to do that.” He shrugged. “I was wrong. I shouldn’t have run away that night.”

  As difficult as this conversation was, I was touched by the effort he was making. I was surprised by his willingness to put his feelings into words. I realized, though, that his eloquence shouldn’t have surprised me. He was a playwright, after all. The words of However Long were what had drawn me into the play, well before I knew anything about the man behind them. “You didn’t run away,” I said. “You only did what I asked you to do.”

  He sighed ruefully. “Well then, I shouldn’t have spent the past week poking my head around corners, making sure the path was clear before I ventured out of my own home.”

  I stifled a laugh. “Oh, come on! I can’t imagine anyone doing that.” I was relieved to see him grin in sudden understanding. Making a split-second decision to forge ahead with our New and Improved Work-Based Relationship, I cast off my dreams of a quiet evening alone, with only the Szechuan Gate for company. “Do you want to grab a drink at the Pharm? Half the Mercer will be there.”

  “I’d like that,” he said. Even as he spoke, though, he stepped away from me. “But I can’t. I promised my mother I’d help out with a project.”

  Without permission, my memory ducked back to the night we’d stood over Dani’s workbench. I could feel Ryan’s hands on mine, expertly guiding my trowel over the waiting peat cups. My cheeks flushed red, and I hoped the evening light was dim enough that he couldn’t see. “What sort of project?” I asked.

  “Seed bombs.”

  “What?” I don’t know what I’d expected him to say, but seed and bomb were two words I’d never expected to find crouching in the same sentence.

  He looked around before he repeated himself, as if he were a little embarrassed by the words. “Seed bombs. We mix flower seeds in soil, prepare ‘bombs’ that can be planted anywhere. It’s warm enough now. The seed bombs are always the first major offensive of the year.”

  “‘Major offensive’? I thought this ‘guerilla’ stuff was just a joke.”

  “It is, and it isn’t. I mean, my mother isn’t actually going to chain herself to a bus shelter so she can plant a few sunflowers, and she’s not planning on blowing up any government buildings to make a point. But she’s absolutely serious about our need to take back the streets. She’s sworn to find beauty in New York, wherever it can be found. Just wait. Every year, once the vegetables are in the ground, she goes a bit crazy, protecting the seedlings until food can actually be harvested.”

  “I can’t picture her actually going to war over a few plants.”

  “Some of the Gray Guerillas have been arrested, multiple times. But not Mom. Not yet, anyway.” I tried to picture the gentle Dani shuffling into a courtroom wearing a prison jumpsuit, with chains looped around her hands and feet. I’d already seen the citation that policeman had issued, just because she was turning over the dirt outside our building.

  I smiled at the notion of elderly saboteur gardeners gathering in the shadows. “And I thought the Bentley was such a prestigious address.”

  “You’d be surprised by what goes on there. The Grays are a particularly organized cell. Have you met Lorraine Feingold? In 3F? Let’s just say you want her on your side in a battle.” He shook his head with a laugh. “She’s the Grays’ webmaster. She keeps the whole website up, coordinating all the attacks, and she manages the e-mail list, the blog, all of it. Has an absolutely black thumb, kills every plant she comes near, but she doesn’t want to be left out of the excitement, out of the subversive action. Besides, her son is a lawyer. He can bail her out if she ever gets dragged down to the police station.” He caught my disbelieving stare. “What? You don’t believe me?”

  I laughed. “I just can’t believe I never heard about all this before I moved in. Power to the gardeners!” I pumped my fist in a fake gesture of rebellion. “So, will you show me how to build a bomb?”

  I expected an immediate answer, but I should have known better. Ryan thought things through, even if that meant he didn’t come off like a smooth action hero. He was introspective. He contemplated the meaning of his actions, the impact that they’d have on others. He measured cause and effect before he did anything. “Sure,” he said, meeting my eyes for the first time since our disastrous encounter on my couch. I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted that contact, that sign of trust. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed talking to him. He held my gaze as he said, “If that’s what you want.”

  I remembered the way that Ryan had settled into his body when we had stood at Dani’s workbench, the way he had relaxed into a calm, confident teacher as he showed me how to plant cabbage seeds. I thought about how much fun I’d had, planting the seeds. I remembered the satisfaction I’d felt as the first delicate plants unfurled in my living room. I imagined the flowers I’d see if I distributed a few seed bombs, or at least contributed toward making them.

  I wondered what my mother would think, if I told her I was involved with an underground gardening group. She’d never understand, not in a million years. But Pop-pop might.

  “That’s what I want,” I said.

  I tried to tell myself that the guerilla gardening would help me as a dramaturg, that I would understand more about Ryan. I’d better comprehend the jagged-edged world he’d depicted in However Long. I could hardly pass up such an opportunity to discover more about my playwright, more about his work—my job practically required me to spend time with him. “That’s what I want,” I repeated.

  We spent the last few blocks sharing our thoughts about the cast. Ryan raved about Teel, saying over and over again that she was exactly what he had imagined, that she was a dead ringer for the elderly women he had known in Africa. She was Anana, he said more than once, come to life.

  I wanted to warn him. I wanted to tell him that she was the same bubble-headed bimbo who had sabotaged our meeting with the Union. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t trust her, couldn’t be certain that she wasn’t going to find some new way to turn our entire production upside down.

  But how could I explain that Teel had changed her shape? I could still remember how my throat had closed up when I tried to tell Jenn about the magic in my life.

  Teel had been cast—she was the best Anana we’d seen. There wasn’t anything I could do about that now, nothing I could change. If I even wanted to change it. I just wasn’t sure.

  Besides, I was going to keep an eye on my genie. Kira was, too. We wouldn’t let anything get out of hand. Everything would work out fine.

  Yeah, I didn’t totally believe that, either. But I couldn’t share any more of my apprehensions with Ryan. Not without sounding like a raving lunatic.

  Arriving home, I ducked into my apartment, taking the time to shed my Teel-wardrobe outfit, in favor of more comfortable jeans and a T-shirt. I stared at myself in my bathroom mirror, wondering what sort of idiotic mistake I was about to make. Why was I going across the hall? What exactly did I think I was going to gain by spending more time with Ryan?

  I wasn’t an idiot. I knew that I
was inviting some sort of reaction, some sort of interaction by returning to the scene of our earlier crime, by volunteering to stand next to the workbench with him.

  I was just going to have fun, though. I was going to do a bit of subversive gardening. Ryan was off-limits, and I was going to keep things that way. The success of However Long required me to keep things that way.

  Anyway, it would be easy to keep my hands to myself. I’d seen what happened when I let myself get carried away. I’d just lived an entire week with the consequences of forgetting myself. I’d suffered the awkwardness of the wrong thing said, the improper things done. In fact, it was sort of a good thing that we’d let ourselves get a little carried away a week before. I’d recognize the danger signs now. I’d stop such contact well before anything else could develop.

  Besides, tonight wasn’t just about Ryan. I truly wanted to work with Dani. I wanted to feel her potting soil beneath my hands. I wanted to build something, change something, make an impact on the concrete canyons of my adopted city home. I wove my hair into a loose braid, wrapping the end with a gray elastic. The rubber band was a sort of secret message, a silent alliance with Dani’s organization. I squared my shoulders and set off to do warfare.

  “Becca!” Dani exclaimed as I slipped through the open front door. “Ryan said you’d be able to join us—I’m so pleased! I ordered some Chinese food. You just missed the delivery man. I hope you like it spicy!”

  “I love it spicy!” I said. Dani handed me a rice bowl and a pair of paper-wrapped chopsticks.

  “Dig in!” she said, pointing to the bright red and gold containers of food. “There’s Szechuan chicken and mu shu pork. And that should be lotus treasure, all vegetables. And rice, of course.”

  Szechuan chicken and mu shu pork. See? There were advantages to eating with others, to giving up my ideal of a quiet night at home, alone. As I breathed in the scent of chili oil, I asked, “How did you know I was going to join you?”

  She looked nonplussed. “We’re making seed bombs. Extra people always show up when we make seed bombs. It’s guerilla ethics, or something.”

  “Mom always orders extra Chinese food,” Ryan contradicted, stepping out from behind the screen that set aside his makeshift bedroom. “It reheats well.”

  “Don’t you give away all of my secrets!” Dani chided, but she was smiling.

  Ryan came and sat beside her on the couch. He had shed the sweater and khakis that passed for his work clothes. Now, he wore a stained T-shirt and jeans that were shredded across his knees. The outfit suited him. He looked like he had just walked in from some dusty dirt road, from stretching his legs, from surveying his domain.

  “So?” Dani said. “How was rehearsal today? Are you pleased with how the show is developing?”

  The finer details of plum sauce and rice pancakes kept me occupied while Ryan raved about Teel. I pretended that the mu shu pork needed my full attention. By the time Ryan loaded up his bowl with spicy chicken, we’d moved on to safer topics, to the other actors, to Hal’s velvet-glove-andiron-fist routine at the theater.

  Ryan’s enthusiasm was contagious. As he expertly worked his chopsticks, he asked me what I knew about the show’s designers. He had grand ideas about the set—he wanted to re-create an actual Burkinabe hut, with a pounded-earth floor. He knew that it would have to be open, that it couldn’t be completely accurate, but he hoped that the Mercer would remain as true to reality as possible.

  “I haven’t seen any plans yet,” I said. “I know the general idea of how they meant to handle Crystal Dreams, but those designs all went out the window, of course. I’m sure Hal will keep you in the loop.”

  As we continued chatting, we all ate more Chinese food than anyone could say was strictly necessary. Dani finally collected our bowls and carried them into the kitchen. “Go ahead and get started,” she said to Ryan. “As long as you have Becca to help you, I’m going to finish up my blog post.”

  “What are you writing about this time?” he asked, surrendering his chopsticks.

  “How to avoid arrest if the police intervene in street action.”

  Ryan rolled his eyes, clicking his tongue in disapproval at Dani’s placid smile. He turned to me as if he were cutting off an argument before it could begin and asked, “Ready?” He led the way over to the workbench.

  Three buckets were already laid out on the table. Each was filled with a different substance. I recognized the dark brown of the compost, and white-flecked potting soil. The third container was filled with a variety of seeds. Some were tiny, scarcely larger than a crystal of salt. Others were larger, though; a few were the size of peas. They ranged in color from sand to mahogany.

  As I rattled the seeds around their container, Ryan fished out two more buckets from beneath the workbench. “Watch,” he said, “and learn from the master.”

  I laughed at his boast, pleased to see him so comfortable. He picked up a battered metal measuring cup, turning it in the purple-tinged glow of the grow-lights, as if it were a work of art. Using the cup, he scooped out equal amounts of potting soil and compost, five measures of each. With a showy flick of his wrist, he added a single cup of seeds.

  “What are those?” I asked. “I mean, what type of plants?”

  Ryan glanced at Dani, where she’d settled on the couch with her laptop. “Mixed wildflowers, I assume.” She barely looked up from her computer and nodded. He explained, “We use different mixes for different seasons. By midsummer, we add in sunflowers. Those are my favorite.”

  “Sunflower seeds I would recognize.”

  Ryan plunged his hands into his bucket, sifting the earth between his fingers. His forearms clenched and unclenched as he worked the contents together, taking care to distribute the seeds evenly. The motion of his fingers was mesmerizing, the smooth, confident flow of his muscles as captivating as any tattoo sparkle that Teel could ever broadcast.

  He spoke as he worked, his voice as relaxed as his physical stance. “The first seed bombs were thrown in the seventies. You know, radical gardeners, working to overthrow The Man. They built their bombs in old glass Christmas ornaments, or they used water balloons.”

  “Did they really throw them?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He grinned as he poured water into his mixture, working the resulting mud as if it were bread dough. “To hear Dani’s old-time friends talk, an underhand lob worked best for the ornaments, but the balloons required substantial initial momentum.”

  “Initial momentum?”

  “They threw them overhand. Hard. Like a baseball—splat!” I laughed, picturing the spray of subversive dirt and seeds and water. Ryan said, “Of course, no one wants to bother cleaning up glass shards or slivers of rubber balloons. Now we mold the bombs into dirt balls and dry them out. If we bomb the target on a rainy night, the seeds sprout in just a few days.” He shaped some of his seed mixture into a sphere the size of an apricot and set the finished bomb on a waiting tray.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “Why don’t you get started on your own.”

  I caught my lower lip between my teeth and picked up the dented measuring cup. Five scoops of potting soil. Five scoops of compost. One scoop of seeds. I only hesitated a second before plunging my hands into the mixture. It felt good between my fingers, warm and crumbly. I stretched my spine as I worked, hunching my shoulders up to my ears, and then relaxing them, taking a deep, satisfied breath.

  The water was cold. The potting soil resisted absorbing it, but a little patience worked wonders. When the entire mixture was thoroughly combined, I rolled my first bomb. At first, it held together, but when I tried to transfer it to the tray, it crumbled back into the bucket.

  I tried again, taking care not to make it too big. The soil compressed between my palms; the grit of the seeds rubbed against my skin. As soon as I tried to move the ball to the tray, though, it fell apart.

  Ryan looked up from his last bomb. “You need more water,” he said. He scooped some into my bucket, but my hands deflected the
flow. I jerked to the side, barely avoiding creating a miniature cascade. My quick action saved the surface of the workbench, but it moved me precisely in front of Ryan. With a sudden heat, I felt the whole length of his torso against my back.

  “Easy,” he murmured, steadying my bucket with both hands. The motion brought his arms around me, pinning me between him and the worktable. My heart jackhammered in my throat, and I darted an embarrassed glance at Dani, certain that she must have heard my sudden intake of breath. Dani, though, was no longer sitting on the couch.

  Ryan’s lips were dangerously close to my ear. With my hair pulled into a plait, my neck felt exposed, vulnerable. I closed my eyes, overcome by a rush of memory from that night, from a week before. Ryan folded his hands over mine, ostensibly helping me to work the water into my seed mixture. The pressure of his fingers was steady. Deliberate.

  And then, we both heard Dani emerge from her bedroom. One of her Birkenstocks caught on the doorsill as she joined us, and she clicked her tongue in patent exasperation. Ryan eased back half a step, his hands sliding away from mine in the bucket, his fingers automatically gathering up a ball of dirt, rolling it into a perfect, regular shape. My breath ragged, I followed his example.

  “You two work fast,” Dani said, as she approached the workbench to survey our creations.

  “Any job worth doing,” Ryan said, his voice perfectly normal. A quick glance, though, confirmed a shadow of a canary-eating cat grin.

  “Is worth doing well,” Dani finished. “I’m going to ask Lorraine to check out our computer router. The wireless signal in here was practically nonexistent. I was able to post from the bedroom, though.” She set her laptop on the coffee table as she crossed to the workbench. “Those look perfect! They should only take a couple of days to dry. The next rainy night, we’ll call a bombing party. You’ll join us, Becca?”

  I finished rolling the last of my bombs. “Absolutely. That is, if Hal doesn’t schedule a rehearsal,” I said. My voice shook a little more than usual, but Dani was apparently willing to accept that I was particularly fervent about theater. In the midst of my relief, I was surprised to catch a yawn against the back of my teeth. I glanced at my watch, startled to see that it was nearly ten o’clock.