by Sonja Yoerg
The drive was long and flat. The closer they got to Richmond, the less Iris liked what she saw out the window. So many roads, buildings, huge trucks. It was quiet inside the car, but imagining the noise and the smells made her anxious. She was about to ask Suzanne if they could turn around and go home when they drove through an area that was just houses with trees scattered in between. Soon it was green all around. Suzanne turned left through a gate.
“The Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. I haven’t been here for ages, not since a field trip with Reid’s eighth-grade class.”
A gigantic building, like a palace made of ice, loomed ahead.
“That’s the conservatory. We can go there first.”
Suzanne parked and led Iris into the Palm House at the entrance of the conservatory. Iris had read about cycads and palms in Suzanne’s books, but that wasn’t the same as standing beside them, examining their texture, experiencing their solemn pride. They moved through to another room, where the air was as thick and moist as on a mid-August day. Suzanne showed Iris the orchid collection and explained about the different types: the showy cattleyas with their ruffles and frills; the oncidiums with their dainty little flowers, looking just like their nickname, “dancing ladies”; and the dendrobiums and phalaenopsis, with a dozen or more intricately painted blossoms on each graceful arching stem, almost too beautiful to look at. Iris peppered Suzanne with questions about how the orchids grew and lived.
Suzanne pointed to a pair of blooms, each as large as her palm. The petals were the color of lilacs, with throats of deeper purple and yellow. “This one, a cattleya, has an amazing scent, but only at night because it’s pollinated by moths.”
Iris imagined sleeping outside with orchids hanging from the trees above, waiting for the nighttime scent and the arrival of the moths, wings silver and ghostly in moonlight. If only she could enter the world of her imagining, or her past.
They moved on to the dry part of the conservatory, where cacti and other desert plants grew. Iris knew a little about them from her books and a National Geographic show about the Sonoran Desert, but she found the idea of life with little water disturbing. If she had to live without a stream or a river, she, too, would become hard and thorny. She followed Suzanne out of the conservatory and toward the Woodland Walk. On the way, they passed through gardens that reminded Iris of those planted around houses: neat groups of plants and trees arranged around paths, benches, fountains, and small ponds. Iris saw signs for the Healing Garden and asked to see it. One part was for meditation, although no one was sitting still the way Reid had demonstrated for her. The other part of the Healing Garden was a circle of plants around a grassy area. In the middle was a huge mortar and pestle on a stand.
“My mother used one like that.” Her voice caught in her throat. To regain her control, she concentrated on a sign by a stocky tree whose gray bark was covered with knobby thorns.
Suzanne came close to her; their shoulders touched. “Prickly ash.”
“Good name.”
“Says its bark can be used to treat toothache.”
Iris had a bad toothache when she was about seven, before Daddy left. Mama had mixed up something for it, boiled leaves and roots for a tea, put a compress on her cheek. Mama hadn’t minded when Iris clung to the pink bear with the rainbow tummy patch Daddy had given her, even though Mama had a fight with him about it. Iris didn’t understand most of what they said except that Mama thought the bear was bad. Daddy said it was just a stuffed bear, and it seemed to Iris he was right because she wanted very badly to keep it. Every time Daddy brought things home for Iris and Ash that Mama said didn’t belong, they had a fight, but he kept doing it anyway.
Iris had no idea what herbs and roots Mama had used to ease her toothache, and it saddened her. It was like forgetting Mama’s face, or the smell of her hair. She could only just recall those, and now she doubted herself. She had a hole in her mind where Mama used to be, and another for Daddy. And they used to be just about everywhere.
Lost in her thoughts, Iris walked the rest of the circle, not bothering to look at the plants. Suzanne followed her without a word.
They crossed two bridges and reached Woodland Walk. All the right trees and bushes and flowers were there—not just the Virginia ones that Iris recognized, but also ones that came from other similar places. But Woodland Walk had no wildness in it. Nothing struggled for life or was joyful in living it. It was like a TV show of the woods. Nothing surprising would ever happen there the way it did in real woods, all the time, if you knew how to watch. Ash would not show his face in Woodland Walk.
Iris lagged behind Suzanne, wishing herself away from here, this mockery of the place she loved more than anything else, the only home she had ever had and the only one she’d ever wanted. She’d rather be inside the ice palace with the cacti. It was more honest.
Suzanne called her name. Iris caught up. Suzanne pointed at the base of an old oak. “I’m wondering if you’ve seen that plant. The one about a foot high with the five leaflets.”
Iris hadn’t seen it for a very long time, but she’d spent too much time with it not to remember. “I used to help my mother dig it up.”
“Really?” Suzanne seemed surprised.
“We had a big patch. We dug it up in the fall.”
“And you sold it?”
“Some. My father took a sack with him.”
Suzanne was frowning. “You never mentioned ginseng.”
“I hadn’t thought about it. It was a long time ago.”
Suzanne stared at her as if Iris had a whole bunch of secrets wadded up in her brain. Maybe she did. Sometimes it was hard to know what to say and what to leave out. When it came to her life in the woods with Ash, with Mama and Daddy, most of the memories were so hard to find and so hard to hold on to they seemed like secrets to her, too.
Iris pictured herself squatting next to her mother, carefully brushing the dirt from the twisted root of the plant, still attached to the vivid green stem and the cluster of red berries in the center.
“Sang. Mama called it sang.”
Suzanne put her arms around Iris, then, and Iris didn’t pull away. Her tears came without her permission, hot and fast. Iris let Suzanne hold her, let her stroke her hair.
She let Suzanne rock her a little, in those fake woods.
CHAPTER 29
Brynn had maybe a half hour to get Iris ready for photos. It would’ve been simpler to have let Iris come along to the salon with her for an updo and makeup, but that was out of the question. Iris wasn’t the starved rat she had been when she first showed up, but she still wasn’t normal. She was a stick and moved too fast all the time. And something in her eyes was sketchy, like she knew a lot more than she let on. For tonight, Brynn needed her to look better than someone you’d find living beneath an underpass. Iris had to look, well, hot, or at least lukewarm.
“The color is super pretty on you, Iris.”
Iris glanced down at the dress like she’d forgotten what she had on. Brynn’s dress from sixth grade was too long on Iris, but the lilac color did bring out her eyes. And it was stretchy and hugged Iris’s so-called curves. Brynn’s mother was not going to approve, but by the time she saw it would be too late.
Brynn wielded the flat iron like a magic wand, setting loose curls in Iris’s hair.
“Lift your chin and close your eyes.” The girl did as she was told. Brynn applied eyeliner (navy, not black this time, and not all the way around, lol), mascara, blush, and pale lip gloss. “Ta-da!”
Iris studied herself in the vanity mirror, turning first one way then the other.
“I hope you’re not going to scowl like that in the photos.”
Iris pouted, lowered her chin, and widened her eyes. A perfect duck face.
Brynn laughed. “You’re learning, Iris.”
Iris smiled, genuinely this time.
Brynn heard high voices from downstairs. Her friends were arriving. Not all of them would fit in the limo, but they wanted to take pictures togeth
er while their makeup and hair were fresh. Plus Brynn’s house, with the white columns, wide porch, and huge flowering bushes, had the best scenery. Some of the boys would already have smoked weed, not caring if it showed, but all the girls would wait until after the photos. What was the point otherwise? Brynn had to pace herself anyway. She didn’t want to be trashed before she got to Robby’s party. When she’d seen him a few days ago, they’d hooked up—not all the way, but enough that she knew he wanted her. Seriously wanted her. So she’d get loose at Kendall’s but wait to get way live with him.
Iris got up, teetering on her heels.
“One sec.” Brynn went to her desk and opened the top drawer. “I got you something.” She handed Iris a phone.
“I have a phone.”
“But you can actually call on this one, and text.” She winked at Iris. “And take photos.”
Iris turned on the phone. The screensaver was a rainbow.
“Iris was the rainbow goddess, right?”
“Yes, the messenger for Zeus. That’s what my mother told me.” Iris held the phone by the edges, like it was delicate. “Thanks, Brynn.”
“No problem. I put my number in there for you. Just don’t let my mom know, okay? She treats you like a baby.” Brynn put her arm around Iris’s shoulders and guided her to face the full-length mirror. “Wait until the boys see you, Iris. Wait until Sam sees you.”
Iris blushed.
“Just wait. We’ll have so much fun.” Every teenager deserved to have fun, live on the edge a little. Even Iris.
The house was filled with people, and there were more outside on the porch and spreading over the lawn. Iris had thought it would only be a few of Brynn’s friends, but parents were there, too, and brothers and sisters and even some grandparents, including Suzanne’s parents. Worse than the crowd, though, was the look on Suzanne’s face when Iris came downstairs. Her mouth opened, but she didn’t say anything. She bit her lip, and her eyes were so sad, Iris had to look away. Suzanne went outside and pulled Brynn from her circle of friends, and although Iris couldn’t hear the conversation, she could tell Suzanne was angry from the way she grabbed Brynn’s arm. Whit took Suzanne away. Iris was confused. All the other girls had dressed up. Why shouldn’t she?
Iris stood beside Sam for one photo. He was even more attractive in person than on the computer. His smile made her stomach feel the way it did after riding in the car for too long.
“We finally meet!”
He slipped his arm across her bare shoulder, which felt terrible and delicious at the same time. She had to stop herself from wriggling away.
Suzanne went inside to get Reid, then asked Iris to be in a few photos with the whole family. Brynn said something in private to Whit. He handed a phone to Iris and asked her to take the photos, and she understood Brynn didn’t want Iris included. It didn’t matter, though, because Reid left before they’d finished.
Iris, overwhelmed by the noise and activity, retreated to her room and settled in with her coloring books.
A bird whistle came from under her pillow where she’d hidden the phone Brynn had given her.
BRYNN: I’m leaving now. Back later. Wait up for me?
Iris typed slowly, using her index fingers, worried about making a mistake. When she was done, she couldn’t find the send button. The blue arrow?
IRIS: I will. Have fun. Send me photos.
BRYNN: (yellow cartoon face blowing a heart)
Iris smiled. She searched the screen for where the pictures might be. Maybe her phone didn’t have them. Finally she found them.
IRIS: (yellow cartoon face blowing a heart; rainbow icon)
She went back to coloring for a while, checking the phone every few minutes for texts from Brynn. She felt guilty about having a secret phone, but it seemed everyone in the family had secrets. Brynn sent secret photos to Robby, Suzanne had asked Iris not to mention what had happened to her in the woods, and Reid had told Suzanne he was going to be at Alex’s tonight, but Iris had heard him talking on the phone about a party. Iris came to the conclusion that keeping secrets and telling lies was the only way people could manage their complicated lives. It took too much time to explain your choices, so you just did whatever you wanted and fixed the problems later, or ignored them, as Brynn had done by dressing up Iris.
Iris had drifted off when Brynn texted her that they were coming back. Iris checked her clock: almost eleven p.m. She slipped her penknife and phone into the small bag Brynn had loaned her and waited until she saw the lights of the limo in the driveway before going downstairs. Suzanne and Whit were watching TV and drinking wine. They both looked tired—and surprised to see her.
“We thought you’d gone to bed,” Whit said.
“I’m waiting for Brynn.”
Whit smiled, but Suzanne just sipped her wine. A moment later, headlights swept the wall of the entry. Brynn rushed through the front door, holding her shoes by the straps, her friends in a small herd behind her, each carrying a bag of some sort. They ran up the stairs.
“Be right back!” Brynn shouted.
Iris hung by the living room doorway, wondering where the boys were. Maybe they didn’t change their clothes.
Reid came in from the kitchen, half a sandwich in his hand. “Hey, Iris.” He was looking at her dress. She crossed her arms in front of her body. Reid spoke to Suzanne and Whit. “I’m going to Alex’s now.”
Suzanne said, “Text us if you decide to go anywhere, okay?”
“Sure thing.”
“Or if you need a ride somewhere,” Whit said. “It’s never too late to call.”
Reid let out a grunt and bit into his sandwich.
A stampede of feet on the stairs. The girls, led by Brynn, rushed past Iris into the living room.
“How was the dance?” Suzanne asked.
“Great!” Brynn was acting like a squirrel. “Daddy, can Iris ride in the limo with us? Just for a bit?”
Suzanne frowned. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It’s a lousy idea,” Reid said.
Brynn swung her hair. “Who asked you?”
Whit looked past the other girls at Iris. “Do you want to, Iris?”
Reid stepped over to where Suzanne was sitting. “Mom, this is so wrong.”
Whit ignored him. “Iris, do you want to ride in the limo?”
She looked from Suzanne to Reid to Brynn to Whit. Everyone was staring at her. “Yes.”
Whit turned to Suzanne. “Let her go for a half hour. No big deal.”
Iris wondered if Brynn felt the way she did at this moment when her parents didn’t agree about what was right for her. Iris was thrilled that Whit was sticking up for her and excited that she might be able to go. But Suzanne’s reaction worried her. If it was no big deal, then why didn’t Suzanne just agree? Brynn was always saying her mother tried to suck the fun out of everything. Maybe that’s what this was. At first Brynn’s anger with Suzanne had confused Iris. Now Iris understood something about what Brynn felt.
“Please, Suzanne?” Iris drew out the “please” the way Brynn did.
Suzanne sighed.
“Jesus, Mom,” Reid said.
It had worked.
Whit came out and spoke to the driver. Iris climbed inside. It was darker than she’d thought it would be, but her eyes adjusted quickly. The boys were there but not in their dress clothes.
Sam was in the back seat, the one facing forward. “Hey, Iris. Sit next to me. Riding sideways can made you sick.”
His eyes were glassy and bloodshot. Iris squeezed in next to him, and the rest of the girls found seats, talking all at once. The limo started to move.
Brynn was in the middle of the long seat, taking photos with her friends. She pointed the phone at Iris and Sam.
“So cute, you guys!” She took the photo. “Iris, sit in Sam’s lap.” The other kids hooted, sounding like coyotes.
“Come on, Iris.” Sam opened his arms.
Iris hesitated.
One of Brynn’s friends jumped into the lap of the boy next to her. “It’s a limo tradition, see?”
Sam put his arm around her, lifting her under her arms. She tugged down the hem of her dress.
“You don’t weigh anything,” Sam said, settling Iris on his lap.
“She’s a spinner!” another boy shouted, and everyone laughed.
Sam felt so warm underneath her, and his breath was hot across her forehead. She didn’t know what to do with her arms. Brynn and some of the others took photos.
Iris remembered to smile.
The limo dropped her off. Suzanne was waiting on the porch, hugging her sweater around her even though it was a warm night. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” In truth, she was more than fine. She was excited because of Sam. She also had another secret and wanted to get away from Suzanne before she figured it out. “And I’m really tired, so good night.”
“Good night, Iris.” Suzanne kissed her on the forehead. “I’m glad you had a nice time.”
In her room, Iris changed into the shorts and T-shirt she slept in, in case someone checked on her. She’d wait an hour, she decided, before she went to the party, longer if she heard anyone downstairs. Brynn had said it would last a long time and had shown her where it would be on a map on Iris’s phone. “Text me when you get there and we’ll get you in.” Iris knew “we” meant Sam.
He’d said he’d be waiting for her.
CHAPTER 30
Fucking Alex. Reid had to hand it to him, the guy scored the best weed. Reid couldn’t feel his face. Luckily, they’d waited to smoke it until they got close to Wertland Street, where the party was; otherwise they probably wouldn’t have found it. They’d walked from Alex’s house, which was maybe a mile and a half, and had crossed into campus and hunkered down in the shadow of a huge tree, out of sight of campus police.
“One more for the road?” Alex offered him the joint, burned down to a nub.
Reid held up his hand. “I’m good.”
“Want something else?” Alex dug into his shirt pockets, fumbling.
“What you got?”