The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns

by Margaret Dilloway

  Every rose I see is perfectly formed, a prime example of its breed. The displays are meticulously arranged, every bloom looking as though it was just plucked from a dewy bush. The room looks like a bridal wonderland.

  This is the biggest rose show I’ve ever attended. My Hybrid Rose category has three dozen competitors, all spread throughout the tables.

  Across the room, I see Byron’s head. He nods once. I nod back.

  May the best rose win.

  Riley and I reach the 110 table. I pop open the cooler and take out the rose. I have packed it in a base of Styrofoam and breathe a sigh to see it still upright in its pot. I take it out and place it into a larger ceramic pot that Dara has made for me. The pot is beautiful, with metallic tones of gold, silver, and green. It makes the Hulthemia rose colors pop.

  “Raku?” Riley asks, turning the pot.

  “That’s it.” I am not sure what raku means, other than it’s the way Dara fired it. She took it out of the hot kiln and put it into an old oil drum filled with sawdust.

  Riley runs her hand over the piece. I straighten the tag I’ve attached to the plant. It’s all I can do to not point to it.

  At last she notices. “Does that say ‘Riley’?”

  “If it were a snake, it would have bitten you.” I move behind the table.

  She is silent, regarding the pottery and the Hulthemia. The rose is at its best today. Its blooms have matured into many layers of petals, twenty-six at last count. The white stands out from the lavender like irregular stripes on candy, and the heart center is a stunning dark purple instead of red. I can see more buds appearing, and it hasn’t gotten too bushy yet, like the original Hulthemia in the wild would. Its leaves are luxuriously dark green and its stamens stick out canary yellow.

  I sniff the bloom nearest me. The scent has also matured. Green apples, vanilla, and an undertone of cayenne. Like being in the spice aisle of the grocery store, holding an apple pie in your hands. Sweet, but not too sweet.

  Like Riley herself.

  Not that I would tell her that. She would be terribly embarrassed.

  I think it’s the best Hulthemia I’ve ever seen.

  Maybe the best rose.

  I touch the petals gently.

  “It’s beautiful, Aunt Gal,” Riley says.

  I nod. “Thank you for saving it, Riley.”

  “It’s you who created it.” She gives me a gentle smile and comes back around the table. We sit down together on the flimsy folding chairs and watch as people drifting by stop to admire the flower. My flower. Drawn like bees.

  If I have been judged, I am not aware of it. So many people have come by the table, some with clipboards, many with cameras, asking questions and jotting down notes, that I could have been judged a hundred times over and been unaware.

  Ms. Lansing walks up, most definitely a judge. Today she wears a peach suit with a creamy ruffled blouse, her heels three inches too high for any human being, her pantyhose unnaturally tan. She beams, lipstick on her teeth. “Gal. My goodness. Glad to see you out and about.”

  “I’m not dead yet,” I say, only half joking.

  She blanches. What people don’t know is if you don’t joke about cheating death, you’ll be horribly depressed all the time. It does throw some off.

  “Good for you,” she says faintly. She puts on the glasses from the chain around her neck and regards the rose. She makes a soft clucking noise in the back of her throat, like some strange hen. Which in fact she resembles, with her large chest tapering to tiny feet. Riley and I grin at each other.

  Ms. Lansing’s mouth straightens into an ugly line. She begins writing, fast, on her clipboard. She turns the judging sheet over and writes some more. I begin to feel nervous. Surely it’s not a good sign, all that writing.

  Three more judges walk up. Of course. They wear name tags with long green ribbons dangling from them. I smile and greet them. Ms. Lansing hasn’t moved out of their way yet.

  The judges see my flower and turn very serious. One of them, a man in his sixties with a great gray handlebar mustache, asks, “How did you obtain the striping?”

  My phone rings. The number is George’s. My heart thunders. “Pardon me,” I say to the judge. There’s only one reason for him to call me right now. To give me the kidney compatibility test results.

  “Watch the table, Riley.” I walk away, heedless of the judges, heedless of everything except the necessity of getting to a quiet place. “Hello?” I say, moving out of the ballroom at a fast clip.

  “Gal.” It’s George. “I have the results.”

  I take several breaths, leaning against a wall. “Well, what are you waiting for? Break it to me.”

  I can feel his extreme regret before he utters another word. “I’m sorry, Gal.”

  I blink at the ceiling. I sink to the floor. Darn. I hadn’t realized quite how badly I wanted his kidney. How much I had expected it to match. How perfect that would have been, a solution right under my nose.

  “The other teachers with type O blood have all agreed to be tested, too,” he says. I swallow. My voice doesn’t work.

  “We’ll make announcements at the school, at church, on Twitter. We’ll set up a chain donor system. Don’t you worry, Gal.” His voice, warm and worried, comforts me somewhat. Imagine. George doing this for me.

  “I am very grateful,” I manage to choke out. “Thank you.”

  I hang up and sit for a minute, drawing my knees up to my head, resting my forehead there.

  Tonight I will go to a dialysis center here in Los Angeles. Our hotel room will be empty; I’m not comfortable having Riley stay alone in a hotel, away from me and from home. I will do this the day after tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow after that, and so forth forever, through vacations and work, picking up infections the way black sweaters catch lint.

  I am not sure how long I can continue. How long I will continue. The human body has its breaking point.

  I find I cannot bring myself to get up. Not one of the dozens of people walking by asks me if I need help. I don’t blame them. They are all concerned about their own roses, their own judging.

  “Hey.” Riley is shaking my knee. “Auntie.”

  I raise my head to look at her. The poor girl’s face is creased with concern. I’m going to prematurely wrinkle her. “Sorry, Riley.” I hold up my hand. She pulls me up. “I just had to sit for a second.”

  She considers whether or not to accept it. I begin walking to the table. “Anything exciting happen while I was gone?”

  “The judges took your rose,” Riley says, skipping ahead of me and walking backward though there are people jamming every available breathing space.

  I don’t understand. “What do you mean?”

  “They took it. The man with the mustache.” She hands me a receipt. “You have to pick it up later.”

  I crumple the pink receipt into my pocket.

  “What does this mean?” Riley asks.

  “I don’t know. It’s never happened to me before.” Our table is, indeed, empty, save for the number 110. The tabletop looks large and empty and sad. I stop and stare.

  Riley takes my hand. Once smaller than mine, it’s now larger. She pulls on me gently. “Let’s go take a break, Aunt Gal.”

  She should not have to lead me, this child in an adult body. I want to tell her so.

  But I am too tired.

  I follow her out of the ballroom.

  • • •

  I TRY MY BEST to lift myself up out of my funk, but I keep dwelling on George’s news. I phone my mother.

  “I’m on my way,” she says promptly.

  “No, Mother.”

  “Gal, at least let me do this for you. I’ll stay with Riley tonight so you don’t have to worry.” I hear a car door bang. “I’m
already in the car. You’re only two hours away. There’s nothing you can do about it now.”

  “You better hang up, then.”

  41

  THE AWARDS CEREMONY IS HELD IN A BALLROOM. THERE WILL be a banquet after this that I will miss. I’m hoping my mother arrives in time for me to give her my ticket; after all, it’s included in the price.

  Riley and I get there when most of the seats are already taken. Part of me thinks this whole thing is pointless, and I might as well head to dialysis early. The only thing keeping me here is Riley. She grins, excited. “I think this is the day for the Riley!” she sings.

  I muster a smile, too. “I hope so.”

  Ms. Lansing stands and takes the microphone. How is she always the emcee at these events? No wonder I never win. From back here, behind all these taller heads, I can see only the top of her hairdo.

  “Welcome to our awards show,” she says warmly, eliciting loud applause. The lights dim and a projection screen behind her shows a rose arrangement, a palette box. “Please hold your applause until the end when all the winners are up here. Third place for palettes, Mrs. Cynthia Aguirre!” She continues up through first in the category, and when all three winners are up, we clap.

  Someone slaps me gently on the back. It’s Winslow Blythe, fertilizer man extraordinaire. “Saw your rose. What a beaut!”

  “I used your fertilizer recipe,” I say. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.” He waves my thanks away like an errant bee.

  “Are you a judge?”

  He shakes his head. “That would take all the fun out of it. I’m a competitor. Always have been, always will be. They may be wheeling me out of here on a gurney, but I’ll be happy as long as I got to show.”

  I take a breath. “I wish I could be happy just showing.”

  He leans toward me conspiratorially, so close I can smell mint, Ben-Gay mint. “Wait until you have your first win. You’ll become addicted for life.”

  Riley does not, surprisingly, leave for a snack. She sits beside me, chewing on a hangnail, looking as increasingly agitated as I feel. “Best Hybrid Tea!” the announcer says. “Best Floribunda Bloom! Best Shrub!”

  I clap until my hands hurt. Finally they arrive at my category. Best Rose Hybrid. Third place goes to someone I don’t know.

  Riley holds my arm. “Come on!” She is fidgeting from side to side, foot to foot.

  I put my hand on her. Suddenly I am very calm, as if she has taken all my nervous energy and is burning it up on my behalf. “It’s all right, Riley.” Even if my rose gets no prize, it does not change this fact: this rose is a winner. I will reproduce it and enter it everywhere in the next few years. Today will not be its only chance to shine.

  I turn my attention back to the stage and listen.

  “Second. Byron Madaffer for his orange Hulthemia, Tequila Sunrise!” Byron is onstage in about half a second, looking surprised.

  Riley takes up my hand.

  “First prize is very important today, ladies and gentlemen.” Ms. Lansing pauses dramatically under her spotlight. “First place also gets a slot in the American Rose Society trials, to begin this year at the American Rose Center in Shreveport, Louisiana.”

  Everyone applauds and cheers. Except for me. I stand rooted to my spot on the carpet.

  “First prize goes to Galilee Garner for her spectacular purple Hulthemia, Riley!” The photo of the Riley rose flashes two stories high behind Ms. Lansing. A collective gasp arises from the audience, then applause. More applause as I make my way up the aisle. I feel like a bride at her wedding. I nod to people, I high-five, some flashes go off. Only my groom is that shiny first place medal Ms. Lansing dangles before her. “Riley will be tried out for two years at the American Rose Center!

  “Congratulations,” Ms. Lansing says, with genuine warmth, no doubt swept away by the audience approval. She slips the medal over my head.

  I take my place next to Byron, stiffly. I want to stick out my tongue and point to my medal. You can’t keep me down, Byron Madaffer, I think. Both of us stare at the audience stonily.

  The photographer tells us to smile, and flashes blind me.

  “Smile, Aunt Gal!” Riley shouts from behind the photographer, and she claps her hands down to her knees in a guffaw. In the flashing lights she appears to be in slow motion, her hair flying about, joy on her face.

  And I laugh.

  All weight sheds away. I forget about my kidney and the dialysis and especially Byron. I grin with a carefree enthusiasm not seen since childhood photographs, back when I didn’t care at all what I looked like, before I was sick.

  The flashing ends. Byron gives me a quick, hard handshake. There is no trace of animosity on his face. Nor, really, any happiness. “Queen of Show is next,” he says briskly. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.” Getting Queen of Show will garner a great deal of attention. It’s the best possible scenario. “But I have what I came here for. A slot in the trial garden.”

  “If you want,” Byron begins slowly, “you could give me a cutting.”

  I stare at him, uncomprehending.

  “You can give me a cutting and I’ll start trials, too, at my farm.” Byron watches me warily, his expression still hooded, expecting, no doubt, an outburst. Perhaps even hoping for one, given his audacious request. I do not understand the man, except for this: I will never understand him.

  “I don’t think so,” I say at last.

  I lift a hand in farewell. Byron is already forgotten. Instead I’m wondering how quickly my mother will get here. “See you around, then.”

  He gives me one nod.

  I turn my attention to my niece and the people surrounding me, enveloping me in the crowd like a hug, offering congratulations.

  • • •

  MOM DOES NOT GET to the hotel until after dinner, which for me is a quick bite at a burrito stand. We pass her in the lobby as I head to dialysis at a local clinic.

  She grabs my shoulders. “Are you all right, Gal? Do you need something? Want a ride?”

  “Fine, no, and no.” I laugh at her concern. I will not let anything, or anyone, distract from this good mood. I’ve worked too hard for it.

  Mom lifts my medal from my chest. “Did you win Queen of Show?”

  “Nope.” I tell her about the rose trials. My rose will stay with the staff. They will graft the rose onto new rootstock and send it to several gardens around the United States to be tried in all kinds of weather.

  “We have high hopes for the Riley,” the mustached judge told me after I claimed my medal. “This Hulthemia could be the next breakout rose.”

  I shook his hand more vigorously than I’ve ever shaken anyone’s hand. “That is just the news I was hoping for, sir.”

  Now, my gray-haired mother lets out a shriek not unlike that of a very small girl who’s had way too much birthday cake. Everyone in the lobby stares as she does a ring-around-the-rosy dance around me. Riley edges away and perches on a chair, pretending she does not know who on earth these two crazy ladies are.

  “Okay, then.” I put my arm out to stop her.

  Mom stops, out of breath, her cheeks blown out like a chipmunk’s. “Goodness. Can’t a mother celebrate without people getting all in a tizzy?”

  “Not like that.” I smile at her.

  An odd sound makes me look up. A shuffle, shuffle, plop sound. Winslow Blythe walks slowly through the lobby. He is using a cane with a tennis ball on the end, which is the noise I heard. I haven’t seen him with a cane before. He is accompanied by a man about thirty years his junior, towing suitcases. Winslow’s shoulders are stooped and skinny, the few hairs on his head all blowing askew. For the first time, Winslow is acting his age. I have an idea. “Winslow!” I hurry over to him, leaving my mother and Riley behind in t
he lounge area.

  He stops and grins at me, the fog lifting from his exhausted gaze. “Congratulations again, miss! I tell you. What a rose. I would have given it Queen. Maybe I will have to be a judge one of these days.” He cocks his head to the side. “Although, you know, winning Queen of Show isn’t everything. Getting a spot in the trials is more important, I’d say.”

  Something about Winslow makes me glad inside. Open, quite the opposite of how I’d felt with Byron. I smile. “You’re right. I’m more than happy with the prize.” Queen of Show would have been great, but now the Riley had a solid chance to prove itself.

  I clear my throat before continuing. “I have a question for you.” I hesitate, feeling suddenly afraid. Afraid he’ll say no. “Would you like to get a cutting from the Riley? Try it out in your garden?”

  He bows so low I’m afraid his cane will slip out from beneath him. “I would be honored, Miss Garner.”

  I return to my mother, who is sitting with her ankles crossed, her arm around Riley. Riley looks considerably happier than she did when I left them, unable to control a wide grin.

  Mom pats the chair next to her. “I have to tell you something else, dear. I didn’t want you ruminating over it and spoiling your good time.”

  I sit. I wait. Mom’s face reddens. She glances to and fro, on the lookout for something. “Becky’s job has finally let her come back to California.”

  “I don’t understand.” My brain refuses to process the words coming out of her mouth, as if Mom has begun spouting an alien tongue.

  “Your sister is coming home.” Mom recedes toward Riley. “You better get to dialysis. You’ll be late.”

  42

  BECKY ARRIVES THREE DAYS LATER, A FULL DAY PAST WHEN she is expected. Constant tardiness. I check it off on the list of mental tallies I take against my sister.