“You all right?” Dara takes a sip of iced tea.
“Of course.” I am perspiring. I better have some more liquid. I pour water into a plastic cup.
Then I see him, the man of the hour, Brad. At the window, a glass of Coke in hand, he gazes out, smoldering like the hero of a young adult romance. Except, of course, he is not. I walk purposefully over.
“Brad.”
His eyes crinkle in a genuine smile. “How are the roses?”
“Fair.” I don’t feel like telling him about Riley’s rose. I take a sip of water, watching him so intently that he blanches. “Can I talk to you outside?”
We exit through a sliding glass door onto an empty patio with tables and umbrellas. I taste salt in the air. The wind is loud, and I raise my voice. “I know what you did.”
“What I did.” He smirks, takes a sip of Coke.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
The water reflects in his irises. “I didn’t do anything.”
I finish my drink. His face is impassive. I feel a surge of self-righteous indignation. Doesn’t he care that he took an opportunity away from another student? I stand. “Your mother would not be pleased.”
He turns to me now, his face suddenly fierce. “You don’t know what my mother would be pleased about.”
I take a step back. He’s right about that. What do I know about him, or anyone, for that matter?
He takes a breath. “I know you’re pissed because I cheated you, Miss Garner. But it’s nothing personal.” He swivels his head back to the ocean. “It’s what I had to do.”
I crush my plastic water cup, considering my words. I remember him in my rose garden, working hard. Memorizing plant names. Scoring in sports. This is what I have to remember, all the good things he is capable of. I can only hope he’ll keep on doing them. He didn’t do this to spite me. He has only hurt himself. I inhale. “You’re smart, Brad. You’re better than this.” I start walking toward the party, but pause to look back. The strong afternoon sun makes his face sweat, and he doesn’t wipe it away. He stares at the water. I can’t tell what he’s feeling.
My anger is gone for good. In its place is sadness. “I wish you the best. I really do.”
He does not move.
I slide open the glass to the noise of the party.
Brad’s father nearly runs into me. “Are you off, Gal?”
He still has great bags under his eyes, and his face is gaunt. In fact, his entire body is gaunt.
“First one in the family to go to college.” He puts his hands in his pockets and looks to where his son sits outside. “Taking that janitor job at the school paid off.” He grins with half his mouth.
On impulse, I hug him.
He is stiff for a second, and then he awkwardly pats my back. “Thanks, Miss Garner. For everything you’ve done.”
Brad has not moved from his post by the ocean. I hope he remembers me as someone who is pulling for him. I hope he sends me a card from college one day.
“It was nothing at all,” I say.
I lift my hand to wave good-bye to George and Dara, across the room watching me.
Winslow Blythe’s Complete Rose Guide
(SoCal Edition)
September
Just when you think the pest danger is past, it returns. With warm summer nights disappearing, aphids may be on the rise. Look for them and the cutter bee, which will leave large circular holes in your rose leaves. Caterpillars will eat the rose buds.
In any case, you must be vigilant this month, or your fall blooms will be jeopardized.
38
THE DIALYSIS CLINIC STILL SEEMS STRANGE WITHOUT MR. Walters. New people come in all the time, unfortunately for them, but Mr. Walters was always the constant. The big guy in white. Now that we’re friends, I see why all the nurses liked him.
“Heard from Mark lately?” I ask Nurse Sonya, who sits nearly hidden behind the wall partition.
She shakes her head.
I feel guilty. I haven’t seen him since we played cards almost two months ago. School has started, and I’ve gotten busy again. I make a note to call him.
Dr. Blankenship walks by the nurses’ station. She stops when she sees me. She’s on her way home, already changed out of her lab coat.
“Hey, Doc.” I lean through the window and call.
“Gal.” Her face falls. “I was about to call you.”
I observe her pale face. “It’s not good news, I presume?”
We go to her office. She shuts the door and sits not behind her desk, but in the chair next to mine.
“Gal,” she says, “I have some bad news.”
My body tenses. Something else happened. Kidney guidelines have changed; I am never going to get a transplant.
Her hair falls over her face as she leans her head to the side. “Gal. Mark Walters passed away yesterday.”
I do not comprehend what she is telling me. I blink dumbly.
“He got another infection last week, and didn’t recover. I’m sorry.” She blinks rapidly. “His funeral will be on Saturday.”
“But I just saw him,” I blurted, though really it was six weeks ago. “We played cards.”
“I’m sorry, Gal.” She reaches for pen and paper, scribbling down the name of a church. Her hand shakes, so her handwriting’s worse than usual. “We did everything we could.” Her nose runs.
I pluck out a tissue from the generic box on her desk.
She blows. “I really ought to buy the nicer stuff. This is rough.”
We both laugh in spite of ourselves.
She takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Gal. I try not to get personally involved, but that is impossible sometimes.”
“I know.” Cold floods my fingers. My heart pounds quickly in my ears. I hold onto the chair arms so I don’t fall out.
Walters can’t be dead.
I take the piece of paper with the church address and put it in my purse.
“Don’t worry, Gal. I won’t let that happen to you.” She looks up at me, newly intense, and she sounds like she is speaking the truth. But all she speaks is her own promise. There’s a difference.
I push my chair back. I’m sick to my stomach. “I’ve got to start dialysis.”
“I’ll walk out with you.” She gets up. She turns off the lights and locks her door, checking the knob twice. I wait, realizing my hands are shaking.
I follow her slowly out. She pauses at the nurses’ station, and I know she is going to break the news to them. I return to the waiting room and go into the bathroom, lock the door, so I don’t have to watch.
39
IT RAINS THE DAY OF THE FUNERAL, THAT SATURDAY. Uncharacteristic for this time of year. Rain at a funeral means something, but I can’t remember what. The rain is more like a drizzle, so light I don’t bother with an umbrella. The burial is a private family matter.
I stand in Walters’s son’s house for the wake, by myself. I have brought a dish of enchiladas and placed them on the white-lace dining table, bowing under all the food. The small house is elbow to elbow with people, mostly senior citizens, but many younger than that. Walters had many friends. Idly I wonder how many people would show up to a wake of mine.
Walters’s son, Kevin, talks to Dr. Blankenship. Around thirty years old, he looks a great deal like his father, only with a mop of sandy blond hair instead of white. “He was sick for such a long time,” he says. “I’m sort of glad he’s not suffering anymore.”
The words shock me like electricity. I know it’s what people say after people have been sick a long time. But Walters, I am sure, was not ready to pass. If he suffered, he did as a fighter.
I offer Kevin my condolences. “He talked about you a lot,” I say.
Kevin bends over to my eye level. “You must be Gal.”
I nod.
“I know you, too.” He puts his glass of wine down on top of the black upright piano. “I’ll be right back.”
I wait, with Dr. Blankenship standing beside me silently.
“He didn’t want to die, you know,” I say to her. “Suffering or not.”
“I know.” Her cool fingers press briefly against my arm.
She wanders away.
Kevin returns, a small stuffed animal in his hand. A penguin. “He told me to buy a penguin and give it to you. Said something about a baked Alaska melting.”
I smile in spite of myself, taking the stuffed animal in my hands. It’s a baby penguin, the lower half gray, with large plastic eyes, made of some kind of incredibly soft material. I imagine Walters on his deathbed, concerned not just with saying good-bye, but croaking out instructions for his son to obtain a Beanie Baby for a relative stranger. How like him.
Then I picture Walters swaddled in a white snowsuit, waddling among the penguins, icicles forming on his mustache. “He wanted to go to Antarctica. I can just see your father with his white hair on the white snow. He would have been camouflaged on the ice.”
Kevin laughs, then wipes his eyes, his smile fading. “That sounds like something Dad would have wanted to do. I wondered about the penguin.”
“I guess I’ll have to go for him.” I clutch the stuffed animal to my chest.
The rain outside has picked up, at last turning into something that can properly be called rain. I clutch the penguin and watch the drops splatter the windows. Inside, the lights are on, so all of us are reflected in the glass, spectral images projected onto the trees and grass of the backyard. And I remember. I’ve heard it rains only on days good people are buried. But Walters was, as he said, a heathen. I smile.
• • •
AFTER THE FUNERAL, my head begins throbbing. I go home and get in bed, my clothes still on, shivering. I don’t turn on any lights.
Riley raps on the door frame. “Another bad spell, Aunt Gal?”
I swallow. When I speak, my voice is so soft, she has to lean forward to hear. “You might say that. I’ll be all right.”
Riley disappears.
The sun goes down. I lie awake, watching the shadows change.
Mark Walters’s death has shaken me more than I can admit. How am I supposed to carry on with dialysis when you die after a transplant, the thing that’s supposed to save you? I want to live, but everything seems pointless. Why bother to put myself through it all?
Footsteps sound. Lights turn on. Dara and Riley appear, sticking their heads in the doorway.
“Gal? You going to be okay?” Dara whispers. “Can I get you anything?”
I shake my head.
“It’s that guy who died,” Riley says.
Real tears well up now, at last. They stream down my face.
Dara comes in, takes a tissue out of the box. She wipes the tears away. “You’re not him, Gal.”
She looks so worried, her brow wrinkled, that I want to sit up and stop crying. But I can’t.
I turn over, my back to my niece and my friend. “I’ll be all right. Just leave me be.”
• • •
WHEN I ARRIVE at school on Monday, Dara and Riley are in the hallway, stapling up fliers. Down the hall George is doing the same thing. And Dr. O’Malley.
It’s early. No other students have arrived, the front gate still locked. Strong morning light is filtering through the dusty windows. “What’s going on?” I move up behind Riley. I had wondered where she went.
She jumps. “Aunt Gal, you scared me!”
Dara hits her black stapler hard with her palm. “We’re in the middle of something here, Gal.” But she winks.
“Something for you.” Riley hands me a flier.
* * *
CUPCAKES FOR A KIDNEY
WHEN: Friday at lunch and after school
WHY: To fund a kidney transplant for Miss Garner
* * *
I am speechless.
Dr. O’Malley and George approach. “You’re going to need time off,” Dr. O’Malley says. “This will help.”
“Dr. O’Malley and I have the wrong blood type for you,” Dara says.
“But I don’t.” George smiles. “Type O. The universal donor.”
“Yes?” I don’t understand.
“I am getting tested to be a potential donor.”
I am even more speechless.
Riley claps her hands together. “We did it. Finally. She has nothing to say!”
“And you know what? Maybe we can organize an organ swap. I give my kidney to someone with the right match, someone else gives you a kidney with the right match.” Dara staples another flier to the wall. “We can make it work, Gal.”
This is overwhelming. That someone—people—are helping me like this. I want to laugh and weep. Jump up and down. But instead I stand still, my mouth open, unable to move. My friends all stare at me with concern.
George grins and speaks first, to my relief. “Well, we did it. We found a way to strike her mute. Cupcakes are the secret.”
I smile back into his merry brown eyes. He is patient. In a moment, I find my voice. “I’m just glad we’ll finally be putting your showroom kitchen to good use.”
“Who said anything about my kitchen?” He shakes his head playfully.
“George’s kitchen. Good idea, Gal.” Dara begins ticking off cupcake flavors on her fingertips. “We need chocolate, vanilla, maybe strawberry.”
“We can do a chocolate-dipped one,” Riley adds.
“How about something more creative, like avocado and bacon?” Dara says.
“Nothing weird,” I say, but she waves me off.
They all move down the hall, deep in discussions of decorations and numbers.
Only George remains behind. He indicates the others with his thumb, like a hitchhiker. “Coming, Miss Garner?”
I blink. To my surprise, my feet move of their own volition. Toward him. “Indeed, Mr. Morton.”
He hands me a stapler.
Winslow Blythe’s Complete Rose Guide
(SoCal Edition)
October
Living in SoCal is a mixed bag sometimes. There are mild winters, but also occasional wildfires, not to mention earthquakes and pollution. The month of October is still hot and requires daily watering.
This month will be the last time you feed your roses. You want the roses to begin their winter slowdown and rejuvenation.
October sees many rose shows around the state. Try your hand at an entry, or simply go check out what’s new and exciting. You might be surprised at the new varieties of roses coming out, and want to try your hand at one for your own garden.
It’s also when you want to do what many rose growers dread: get rid of the underperformers. Sometimes, despite your best efforts, a rose simply will not do well in your garden. There’s no shame in it. Pull it out, plant it in a different spot, or give it away. You’ll be surprised at how often a simple change of venue will allow an underperforming rose to thrive.
40
THE AMERICAN ROSE SOCIETY HOLDS ITS FALL ROSE SHOW and convention in Los Angeles this year. It is the most important rose show I have attended yet. I enter two competitions. One for the Rose Hybridizers Association Trophy, and another for consideration in the next International Rose trial.
I write the seedling’s name on the form. The Riley.
Riley and I drive down the night before, my rose in hand. My stomach feels like it’s tied into Celtic knots, and whenever I get behind the wheel, my foot turns to lead. I let Riley drive most of the way, forcing myself to relax. This time it’s me who turns the music up too loud.
The show is at the Hilton at Universal Studios, in Studio City. “Can we go to Universal Studios, as long as we’re here?” Riley asks as soon as we get into the lobby, as I knew she would. She rolls the cooler behind her with the rose inside. I have made no effort to hide the big “Riley” sticker I have made for it.
“We’ll see. If I win, then definitely.”
“I think I have better luck when you lose,” Riley says.
“Probably so,” I say. “Heck, if I lose this time I might be so depressed that I’ll take you to Vegas.”
“But I’m too young to gamble.”
I shrug. “Guess that’ll be too bad for you.”
“Oh, Aunt Gal.”
I immediately feel at home. The lobby has two-story windows curved inward, resembling a greenhouse. A long chandelier lights up the room and a large rose arrangement underneath.
Riley turns away the bellhop who tries to take the cooler, wheeling the thing across the lobby herself. She pushes the elevator button. “Can we at least go into CityWalk and look around?”
The hotel adjoins a colossal mall, full of pricey entertainment and dining options. “All right. But outside of dinner, you’ll have to use your allowance.”
• • •
THE ROSE SHOW takes place in a great ballroom the next morning. Lights glow above in two starburst chandeliers set into the ceiling. The carpet, in polka dots that remind me of black olives, makes my head swim if I stare at it too long.
Riley wears a light purple polo shirt, in honor of the Hulthemia, with khaki pants and a matching purple headband with white stripes. “You’re turning positively preppy,” I tease her. I put on an argyle cardigan in many pastel colors, knowing the air-conditioning will be cranked high, over my own khaki pants. For the first time, we look as though we could be related.
Rows of tables have already been set up, each with a white tablecloth and a number. I get my number, 110, and look for my table, Riley trailing behind with my cooler. There are masses of people running about, busily setting up multiple displays, and the air is thick with the scent of roses. Sweet and musky. Spicy and fruity. Peaches, pears, strawberries. Honey and cream. Loose tea. Red wine. Pepper. My nose is busier than a bloodhound’s.
The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns Page 29