The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns

by Margaret Dilloway

  It’s the simplest thing in the world. I write everything that’s going to be on the test up here. Then they are supposed to study it. But somehow, some way, the test always surprises a lot of these kids.

  “Please write this on your index cards and study them,” I intone to the class. Half of them ignore me. Another quarter break out their cards. The other quarter stare at the board, as though they believe they can memorize twenty pages’ worth of material without writing anything. “I promise you, if you know these items, you will get an A on the test.”

  I sit heavily behind my desk. Already I can tell Dr. O’Malley, the headmaster, is going to want to talk to me again after this quiz. I take off my glasses and rub my eyes. It is said that happiness is directly inverse to intelligence. The dumber you are, the happier you are. Doctors say that having a malfunctioning kidney takes away twenty IQ points. Today I should be pretty darn happy, because not only do both of my kidneys not work, I’m sporting a raging sinus infection, which I’m sure must take away at least ten more. The classroom is not exactly a sterile environment.

  As if on early cue, the intercom buzzes from the office. A tinny female voice says, “Dr. O’Malley needs to see you, Ms. Garner.”

  “Now? I’m in the middle of class.”

  Dara knocks, then enters. Today she wears a cream dress that has a sweetheart neckline and full skirt with a crinoline, printed with crimson roses. Her hair is curled and pinned back. She’s in 1950s pinup mode. I actually see one of the boys blush, his pronounced Adam’s apple moving up and down in a gulp. In my opinion, a high school teacher would be better off wearing a burlap sack. Or, at the very least, skirts down to the ankles, and no makeup. “They sent me to cover for you.”

  I throw up my hands. “This better be important.”

  “They didn’t tell me a thing.”

  “It’s probably a grouchy parent,” I say under my breath. I think I’m being quiet, but the entire back row swivels their heads around. Yes, I’m talking about you, Sean McAllister, I think at the first boy. His mother throws a fit when he gets less than an A minus. The boy never turns in half his homework. He doesn’t even have the decency to look away.

  Dara shushes me. “Gal.”

  “You know exactly what I mean.” I pick up my purse and my water bottle. I salute Dara. “Good luck. Carry on, kids.”

  I close the classroom door with a click.

  Last winter, the school’s headmaster called me into his office one bright Monday morning after the report cards went home. This happened every Monday morning after the parents got the first-semester report cards in the mail on Saturday. I think Dr. O’Malley must have written it into my contract.

  Dr. O’Malley had chewed on his yellow pencil, staring out blankly to the parking lot, where students sped off in cars that cost more than my annual salary. “You’re too hard,” Dr. O’Malley said. “We’ve had complaints. From parents.”

  I figured these complainers were the same kids who did not write down all the test topics I posted on the whiteboard before the test, failed the test, then had their parents complain to the principal that I was too hard.

  “Too hard?” I asked him. “I wrote down what the final was going to be on! How could that be too hard? It’s AP Biology, for crying out loud. Why don’t I make all the tests open book?” I did not raise my voice. I hardly ever do, channeling my frustration instead into the hard tone Dara said could pierce metal. “These parents want their kids to learn, don’t they? That’s why they pay tuition. I don’t put anyone through unless they earn it.”

  Dr. O’Malley ran his hand through his still-thick gray hair. The only Irishman I’d ever seen with a full head of hair after age sixty. His naturally fair skin was a mottled red and brown, the result of his spending his youth on the water. “You can’t fail two-thirds of the class.”

  “I can, if they deserve to fail.” I put my hands on my hips and became very quiet. At that first interview, Dr. O’Malley had assured me I would not be beholden to helicopter parents who want to give their kids the world in return for nothing, so when they go to Penn or Wesleyan or all the second-tier Ivy League schools our students usually get into, they will not fail out and come back home because nobody ever made them really work. Unfortunately, Dr. O’Malley had begun to capitulate to parental demands more over the years, as the economy worsened and competition for students became stiffer.

  Dr. O’Malley sighed and sat on his desk. Even here, he was a head taller than I. I knew he, and the parents, and the board, all regretted my tenure here. But now there was no way to fire me, not without it looking incredibly bad. Not with me and my bad kidney. The only time this disease has been worth anything, I guess.

  I smiled up at him without warmth. “Look, Doc, we go through this every first semester. And every year you seem to forget. By quarter three, the kids are used to me. They buck up. Or their folks hire tutors.”

  He blew air out through his pursed lips.

  “You’re slipping,” I said. “You’re lowering the bar.”

  “I am not.”

  “Then let me teach my way. My students graduate, and they go to college and they know how to work. They ought to be thanking me. In fact, many of them have.” Every year, I get at least two cards from students off at college, telling me that I saved them from flunking out.

  O’Malley closed his eyes. “Let’s table this discussion for now, Gal.”

  Finally. “We always do.” I left his office without waiting for him to dismiss me.

  • • •

  TODAY, THROUGH THE headmaster’s glass windows, I see a dark head sitting in his guest chair. The blinds are partially closed. Even so, his expression of concern is clear. My heart begins hammering. I immediately think of my sister, my parents. Something must have happened to one of them. My worst fear.

  He leaps up and opens his office door. “We have a situation.”

  So it’s not a family emergency. I take a deep breath. It must be a different emergency. I go through all the possible kids who could have complained. There are too many, so I give up. I shuffle inside.

  Someone sits in the guest chair opposite O’Malley’s desk. It is not a parent out for blood. It’s a kid, a teenaged girl, with long dyed black hair and too-white makeup on. Raccoon eyeshadow. She wears a polo shirt, orange with a big pink horse on the chest, the collar turned up like it’s 1985, with torn and safety-pinned black jeans, flocked pink Doc Martens, and a black overcoat. She looks like the lead singer of the Cure, by way of Ralph Lauren. I’m reminded of the judge from the rose show for a second, in a weird way. Someone wearing a mask, someone who doesn’t want us to see who she really is.

  “Who’s this? What’s going on?”

  The headmaster sits down and nods at her.

  She lifts a hand covered in silver skull rings and spikes. “Hi, Aunt Gal.”

  My mouth drops open and I can’t close it. Riley? My niece, Riley? A thousand jumbled thoughts go through my head. My voice is calm and emotionless when I speak, though.

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “New York, right now. She’s on a business trip. Then they’re sending her to Hong Kong for a couple of months.” Riley meets my eyes and I expect to see fear, or sadness. Her expression is blank. I imagine she’s telling herself that everything is all right, that she is in her happy place. Or perhaps she has simply taught herself to be numb to the aftereffects of her tornado of a mother, like I have for my sister. Anger at her mother blooms anew. How dare she? What was Becky thinking? She wasn’t, is the answer. There is no point in asking.

  “She took the bus here.” Dr. O’Malley runs his hand through his hair. This time I actually see three hairs fall out and feel sorry for him. “From San Francisco.”

  “That’s not too far,” I say. This must be a dream. I touch Riley’s shoulder and the bony knob feels
real. I note the fact that my niece is resourceful under pressure. Good for her.

  The headmaster looks at me funny. What I said was odd, I realize. Am I trying to pretend that it’s normal for a mother to send her only child across the state alone, without telling the person expecting her?

  “I’ll call her mother immediately.” My voice sounds distant. I wonder if I am in shock, or if it’s this sinus infection fog.

  I walk around the front of the chair so I can face her. Even when she’s seated and I’m standing, she’s not that much shorter than I am. The last time I saw her, she was a little girl. Now she’s nearly unrecognizable. She used to have dark blond hair that looked exactly like Becky’s, and dressed in the ladylike clothes Becky bought for her. Every trace of that innocent has been stamped away.

  If I had had a daughter, if Riley had been mine, she would be different. She would not be wearing black clothes and she certainly wouldn’t be thousands of miles away from me.

  I realize I can’t remember Riley’s birthday without my calendar. It shames me.

  “Riley?” I whisper, unnecessarily.

  “Yeah?” She angles her face away from mine.

  “It’s good to see you.” I mean it. I think about hugging her and bend over awkwardly, but she twists away, her head back.

  Her eyes, purposefully blank, the same hazel as my sister’s, darken into a yellowish green as she lifts her head. “Mom said you knew.”

  “Knew what?” I am racking my brain.

  “She talked to Grandma and set it up.” Riley clutches the gray-on-gray Hello Kitty tote bag on her lap.

  My parents are in France for the next two weeks. I remember the conversation I had with my mother after my procedure. She had said something about Riley leaving her mom—to stay with her, not me. After their trip to France. Not right now.

  Had I agreed to something I didn’t remember? I might have been medicated when I spoke with my mother, but she’d never have suggested this. Not with my illness.

  “Mom said you said I could come here. Free tuition.” She breathes in deeply. Under her overcoat, I see she is painfully thin. Her pale fingers tremble. “I guess Mom got it wrong, huh?”

  Free tuition. Yes, there was free tuition for faculty offspring. Or legal wards. Had I mentioned this to Becky, ever? If so, it was in passing. Maybe during a long-ago Christmas conversation, yes, I had said casually, “Too bad she’s not mine. She could go to St. Mark’s for free.” And this was considered an open invitation? Assuming things, as she always did. Taking what she could.

  I put my hand on Riley’s wrist. God, it’s so small I could snap it like a piece of chalk. She’s more fragile than I am. What has my sister done to her? She should be growing bone mass to guard against osteoporosis. She needs calcium and vitamin D. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll take care of it.”

  “You better go on home for the day.” Dr. O’Malley stands. “Gal, do you need anything?” I can tell what he’s thinking. Gal’s family is completely messed up. Should I call the police? Is Gal able to handle this? His face is all sad basset-hound sympathy. I can’t stand it.

  Riley stands and she’s tall, taller than her mother, at least five-ten. She looks like some kind of preppy vampire hunter in those clothes and that hair. “Thank you very much for your assistance, sir.” She holds her hand out to the headmaster and pumps his up and down firmly. She straightens her posture and sets her lips, with their faded dark-red lipstick, firmly in a line. “Thank you, Aunt Gal.”

  “You’re welcome.” I’m surprised at her politeness. When you see a kid dressed like her, you expect her to be withdrawn and surly. Maybe I should be the one dressing like that. Get me some tattoos. I wonder briefly if she has any, and decide it’s not the right time to inquire.

  I wait until we’re at my house to call Becky. I hope this is sufficient time to calm my nerves enough to do more than shout at my sister. I am so mad I can feel the wax melting in my ears. I decide to make a list of points I will make to her so I don’t leave anything out.

  Riley flicks her gaze around my small living room. It’s shabbier than what she’s used to, I know. “The guest room has a queen-sized bed.” I hang my keys on their hook by the door. “Make yourself at home.”

  She nods, still folded into herself, and curls up on the living room couch.

  I go into my bedroom and shut the door, hitting Becky’s number. It rings twice before she answers. “Hey, did my girl get there all right?”

  For a moment I think I’ve lost my mind, my sister’s voice is so confident and casual. “Becky, what in the name of all that is good and holy is Riley doing here alone?” There. Not exactly a shout, but not meek either.

  “Becca. It’s Becca now.” She lowers her voice. “I don’t understand.”

  I ignore this. “Becky, I was not expecting Riley. We never talked about it.”

  “Mom said . . .”

  “I don’t care what Mom said. Mom’s not our go-between. Pick up the phone and call me directly if you want to talk to me.” I don’t believe for a second our mother agreed to this. It would be entirely out of character. The only thing I can think of is, my mother was distracted by her packing when Becky talked to her, and Becky, as usual, made some very grand assumptions about what I’d do.

  The very sound of her breathing hurts my ears. “There’s only one little problem. I’m about to board a flight for Hong Kong.”

  I throw my hands up. “She’s your daughter, for crying out loud. You can’t dump her someplace.”

  “I’m not trying to dump her. If I don’t go to Hong Kong, I have no job at all.” Becky takes a breath. “Listen, if you want, call Mom. I’m sure she’ll come home from France and get her.”

  “Don’t make Mom solve all your crap. It’s not fair.”

  “She sure solves yours.” Her voice rises again. “She’ll be at your side at the drop of a hat if you need her. Not mine.”

  I take a deep breath of my own. I think of Riley out there on the couch, probably listening to all this. How no one wants her. That can’t be good for a kid. “Did you talk to her father?”

  She snorts. “Now that is funny. That would do no good. Besides, living with you in California is a lot better than shipping her off to her wicked stepmother in Boston.”

  I have nothing to say to this. It is incomprehensible. All of it.

  “Listen.” She takes on the confident, salesperson demeanor she makes her living with. Nothing can touch her in her bubble. I know I am lost. “Just keep her until I get back, okay? Please? She hasn’t seen you in what, a year?”

  “More like seven.”

  “And whose fault is that? The phone works both ways, last time I checked.”

  Touché, my sister.

  Becky continues. “I’ll send you a check for her upkeep.”

  That isn’t the point. Though I’ll need it.

  “Gal? You there?”

  “Yeah. I’m here.” I forgot I wasn’t talking. It’s a habit I’ve developed with my sister. She’s useless to argue against.

  “All right. I’ll call when I get in.” I hear a baritone murmuring behind her, probably into her other ear, into her neck. “I gotta go, Gal. Thanks.”

  The dial tone feels like a slap in the head.

  I shouldn’t have assumed all was well.

  I go into the living room. Riley’s staring blankly out the window. I am struck by how fast time has gone. She’s almost an adult, fifteen and a half. To me, the period I didn’t see her means seven or eight new roses, barely enough time for a new rose success. My perception of time is more geological than human.

  Her energy somehow fills up the house, makes it vibrate. It makes me tired, frankly. She stretches and shoots a withering look toward me. “Who doesn’t have cable in this day and age?”

  “Welcome
to the home of the last great cheapskate holdout.” I grin. “No cell phone, either. And dial-up Internet.”

  “You’ve got to be joking.” She leans forward and rubs her temples with her fingertips. “I guess my mother really is trying to punish me.”

  “I’m not that bad.” I want to point out that at least I have my head screwed on straight, but instead I go into the kitchen. What will I feed her? I never have company. “You hungry? I’ve got minute steaks.”

  “No thanks.” She follows me into the kitchen, opening the old yellow freezer door with a groan. “Ugh. Frozen peas. Minute steaks. It looks like Grandma’s freezer.”

  Now she’s acting more like a regular teenager. The type I’m used to.

  I choose the simplest food possible, plus a few extra things in case Dara comes over or Brad looks hungry. “She taught me well.” I dig inside. “I might have a frozen burrito.”

  “Can’t we get a pizza?”

  I give her a stern look. “Didn’t your mother teach you how guests should behave? You eat what’s put in front of you.” I find the burrito encased in a tomb of frozen water. Bean and cheese. I crack the ice off over the sink and stick it in the microwave. “Take it or leave it, buddy.”

  “Buddy’s what you call boys.” She sits at my round glass table, putting her fingers underneath it. Who gets fingerprints on the underside of a glass table?

  I sit across from her. “You’re just like me. Get cranky when you’re hungry.”

  “It’s not because I’m hungry. I’m always like this.”

  “Oh, good. I’ve got something to look forward to.” I’m teasing, but her expression drops and darkens. Oops. She probably never got teased, the way my father teased me and Becky. I punch her lightly on the arm to show I’m playing.

  She winces as though I could actually hurt her. “I didn’t want to come, you know. But I had no choice. My mother was like, hey, I gotta go to Asia, and Gram’s not home, so you’re going to Gal’s. Who cares that the school year’s almost over? Who cares what I think?” She leans toward me. “You know, she didn’t have to take that stupid job. She could have looked for a new job at home.”