Flowers

by Scott Nicholson

  Wendy had seen pictures of him, a sullen, gray man with small eyes. Mom, at different times, had said he was a sailor, a carpenter, a preacher, and a bank robber. Wendy had no idea which of those were meant as jokes, because Mom was always sad when she talked about the man in the pictures.

  "He left us, didn’t he?" Wendy said.

  Mom looked off toward the setting sun. Somewhere the fingers of the night maker were preparing to cast a black sheet over the sky. A star shaker had dashed the first tiny dots of light against the darkness. The moon girl was tugging the greenish-white crescent up the opposite horizon from the sunset. This would be a perfect night, if not for Wendy having to hold her breath and Mom turning so quiet and serious.

  "He left me," Mom said. "I don’t think he ever left you."

  Left. Like Wendy would leave all this blowing-the-wind business in a heartbeat. "Didn’t he love us?"

  "Love comes in many ways, sweetheart. You’ll have to find that out the hard way. I could tell you and tell you, but I don’t even know half of the ways and I’m probably wrong about the half I do know."

  "So he loved you enough to have me, but not enough to stay."

  "He was a good man. But he was just that—a man. He could handle the good times, but responsibility scares even the best of them."

  "You mean he left because you were a wind girl?"

  "We were different. There’s no plainer way to say it than that."

  "Can’t people love people who are different?"

  "I think it’s happened before. Mrs. Seaver next doorlikes cats and puzzles and Agatha Christie, while Mr. Seaver likes snakes and football and Stephen King. But it’s different when the two different people are both of the same kind. Makers and people don’t seem to mix too well."

  Did that mean Wendy could never even think about kissing Randy? Or any of the boys she knew? Did this wind business have ways of hurting that even love hadn’t invented yet? If she had to give up kissing before she’d even started, she wanted to get unmade from being a maker, and fast.

  "So how come you tried?" Wendy asked. "Even when you knew it wouldn’t work."

  "Because you always have to hope that it does work. That’s what it’s all about. Even when it seems impossible."

  "Is love ever possible?"

  Mom stood behind Wendy, lightly rubbing her shoulders. "I needed a child, too. And we needed somebody to run the wind because I knew I wouldn’t be young forever We thought that having you would solve everything, you’d be the magic that kept us together."

  "You didn’t answer my question. Is love ever possible?"

  The sky was darker now, a bruised shade of purple. More stars had been shaken out and the moon girl was right on schedule.

  After a cricket chirped in the stillness, Mom said, "I suppose."

  At that moment, Wendy wished she were a rain girl, so she could cry and be done with it. Where were the clouds? Where was that dumb thunder? She wanted to get rid of this wind in a hurry.

  Voices came from down the sidewalk. Under the streetlamp, Wendy saw three shadowy figures, then heard Beth’s giggle. The three stepped into the light, Beth on one side, Sue Ellen on the other, and in the middle—oh, sweet mother maker, it must be Randy.

  Randy, who was even taller than she imagined, and even in the bad light and him thirty feet away, she could see that his eyes were big and bright and were those dreamy kind that probably looked at you when you talked instead of walking all over your body.

  Sue Ellen was closest, and she waved to them on the porch. Sue Ellen was in her blue wool sweater, the one that showed off her fast-developing figure. Wendy hated Sue Ellen at that moment, because Wendy was stuck like a lump in her rocking chair, waiting to make some stupid storm, and was wearing a ratty old sweatshirt.

  Beth had her arm locked in Randy’s. Beth had to walk off-balance and kind of leaning over, because Randy was so tall. Beth didn’t seem to mind too much, because she kept falling over and bumping into Randy.

  "Hey, Wendy," Beth said, when they were closer. "Hi, Mrs. Wells."

  "Hi, girls," Wendy’s mom said.

  "Hey," Wendy said, barely a whisper, but the plastic lawn bird spun its wings.

  "Randy wanted to meet you," Beth said. Wendy couldn’t tell if Beth was joking. Or maybe she was showing off, because she managed another of her four-star giggles.

  "Hi." Wendy flipped her wrist in greeting as if she could care less whether Randy turned away or whether he came closer with those big eyes that didn’t look like they could hurt you.

  "Hi, Wendy," Randy said. He was wearing a T-shirt, even though the night was cool, and his forearms had real muscles, not like the arms of ninth-grade boys.

  "We’re going for a pizza," Sue Ellen said. "Want to come with us?"

  Pizza. With Randy. That meant she’d have garlic breath and there would be no way to kiss him and, anyway, when they slid in the booth it would be Sue Ellen and Wendy on one side, Randy and Beth on the other. Suddenly-clumsy Beth, who would manage to fall into him at least four times before the waitress even brought the pitcher of tea.

  But for an hour of those eyes across the table—

  "Can I go, Mom?"

  "Sorry, honey. You have chores, remember?"

  Wendy gazed at the black sky, the clear stars, the moon with no cloud touching it. Perfect weather. Perfect for everything but Wendy getting to do something fun for once.

  "I—I’ll see you guys at school tomorrow, I guess," Wendy said, as if she were the last puppy in the pound.

  "You sure?" Sue Ellen said, secretly rolling her eyes toward Randy as if to say, "How can you pass up a chance with this dream machine?"

  "I have stuff to do. Maybe some other time."

  Some other time, right. After Beth was wearing Randy’s ring, and it would shine with real stones, because you could just bet that a guy with a smile like Randy’s had a way with money. Or Sue Ellen might lure him away by wearing one of those blouses that showed off her belly button.

  And here Wendy would sit, a stupid old lump.

  "Sorry, girls," Wendy’s mom said.

  "Too bad," Beth said, and almost managed to sound like she meant it.

  "Maybe I’ll see you around," Randy said to Wendy.

  "Maybe." She felt swollen and strange, holding in all that wind while trying not to talk like a dork.

  The three continued down the sidewalk, Sue Ellen actually skipping, Beth stumbling artfully, Randy walking with his shoulders straight as if he didn’t care whether Wendy was watching him or not.

  And he probably didn’t care.

  Who would waste time on a stupid wind girl, who could do nothing right but stir the sky?

  What guy in his right mind would fall in love with a maker?

  And even though she knew it was probably not possible, that Randy could never love her long, she also knew how Mom felt all those years ago. You have to breathe, you have to inhale, you have to walk through the air.

  You must use whatever you have to grab whatever you can.

  And so she relaxed her throat, clenched the muscles of her stomach, and drew an extra whiff of atmosphere through her nostrils. Now the wind would come, no matter that the cloud girl and Mister Thunder were miles away from getting their work done.

  "Wendy, it’s not time yet," Mom said.

  "It’s time. It’s either now or never."

  The words came out with a soft wheeze, and behind the syllables a true bluster broke forth, rising from a whistle to a screech to a keen to a scream.

  Wendy exhaled, and the sky ripped apart. Mom shouted something that was lost in the wind. A soda can rattled along the street. Leaves flapped like a thousand birds lifting, branches bent, the tongue of the mailbox fell open.

  And still Wendy let loose, pushing out her anger and her desire, freeing shingles on the houses across the street, making the streetlamp sway. Beth shouted and lost her balance so thoroughly that she fell to the ground.

  Sue Ellen spun around and caught her sw
eater in Mrs. Seaver’s rose bushes. Randy turned and faced the gale, his hair barely tousled even though hedges leaned and shutters knocked wood.

  Randy fought against the force of Wendy’s breath, and Wendy kept blowing even as she thought how strange this was, attracting a guy by pushing him away. But he was as strong as he looked and kept coming, elbow raised across his face.

  This was the biggest storm Wendy had ever thrown, and all by herself, too. Sure, the lightning woman and Mister Thunder would have helped the show, and a thick rain would add some color, but Wendy was giving it all she had. The wind poured out of her chest and through her mouth and she had never shrieked as she did now.

  Randy reached the fence, hanging onto a post as the wind whipped his clothes. He held on until at last Wendy’s lungs were empty.

  "Wow," Randy said. "Did you do that?"

  Wendy nodded.

  "You’re different."

  "I’m nothing to sneeze at," she said.

  Mom was getting upset, but Wendy didn’t turn around to look at her. Instead, she looked at Randy as Sue Ellen and Beth gathered themselves from where they had fallen.

  "Do it again," he said, right to Wendy, his dreamy eyes crinkling as he smiled.

  Wendy said, "Will you wait?"

  He nodded.

  The wind fell off in small currents and eddies, floated between the exhausted trees, settled on the skin of the land. The wind died like an impossible love.

  Wendy inhaled, so softly that March seemed September.

  And she held her breath.

  ###

  SCARECROW BOY

  The sun raised a sleepy eye over the north Georgia hills. Short-leafed pines shivered here and there in the breeze, surrounded by the black bones of oak. Ground mist rose and waltzed away from the light. A stream cut a silver gash in the belly of the valley on its way to the Chattahoochee, the only thing in a hurry on the late-autumn morning. Inside a warped barn, the scarecrow boy rose from its dreams of brown fields and barbwire.

  Jerp rubbed his eyes to wipe away the glare of dawn as he walked with his grandpa to the barn. The grass crunched under his boots and his breath painted the thick vapor in the air. A banty rooster bugled a reveille. Wrens fluttered from under the tin eaves of the barn, on their way to scratch earthworms from the hard ground. The sky was ribbed with clouds, a thin threat of snow.

  Jerp glanced at the second-story windows of the barn. No scarecrow boy yet. But Jerp knew it was in there somewhere, flitting between cracks with a sound like dry paper crumpling. But maybe it only came alive at night, when the darkness kissed its moon-white face.

  "Quit your daydreaming, boy. Got chores to do." Grandpa roped a stream of tobacco juice onto the ground. Steam drifted from his spit and he shifted the bucket from one gloved hand to the other.

  Jerp wanted to tell Grandpa again about the scarecrow boy. About how it smiled at him when he was alone in the barn, how it danced from its nail on the wall, swinging its ragged limbs as if caught in a December crosswind. About how Jerp got the feeling that the scarecrow boy wanted something, a thing that only Jerp could give it. But Grandpa would say, "Got no time for such foolishness."

  Grandpa held open the barnyard gate and waited until Jerp followed him inside, then closed the gate as carefully as if he were performing a ritual.

  "Always close up behind you. We do things right around here." Those were the same words he had said every morning and night when they came down to do chores.

  Grandpa passed the bucket to Jerp and removed his gloves. Jerp watched as the big-knuckled hands slammed the hasp into place. The noise echoed across the hill, maybe waking the scarecrow boy.

  The milk pail banged against Jerp's knee as he followed Grandpa across the barnyard. A sow grunted under her breath in one of the side pens, mistaking the sound for the arrival of the slop bucket. She rolled over in the marsh of her own waste and glared at Jerp. Jerp wasn't scared of her. He was more worried about the scarecrow boy who would be waiting in rafters or cribs or dark corners for Jerp to step within reach.

  Jerp followed Grandpa to the front of the barn. Its rough gray planks were split from decades of harsh weather and ten-penny nail heads stuck out like little brown eyes. Grandpa slid open the heavy door, which hung from wheels that rolled across a steel track overhead. They ducked under the oily ropes that had been dipped in chemicals and stretched across the barn opening. The horse and cows liked to rub their backs against the ropes and the chemicals were supposed to keep the flies away, but the flies were like the sun, reliable and stubborn.

  "Gonna be a real corker of a day, Jerp." Grandpa crinkled his eyes, the closest he ever came to smiling. "Maybe we can get some work done around here."

  "Yes, sir," Jerp said, checking the barn windows once more for any sign of the scarecrow boy. The windows were empty.

  The barn air smelled of hay and dust, manure and animal hair. The cows mooed from their stalls, in a dull hurry to be turned out. Grandpa took a three-legged stool down from the wall and carried it to the milk cow's stall. He sat on the stool and reached underneath the cow and began tugging up and down as if picking fruit. Jerp held the pail so that the cow couldn't kick it over, watching the shadows for the scarecrow boy until at last the pail was full.

  "Fetch some ears of corn for the chickens, and I'll meet you back at the house," Grandpa said. He was going to leave Jerp alone in the barn. No, not quite alone.

  "But what about—" Jerp knew he was going to sound like a whimpering little city boy. He gulped and finished, "What about breakfast?"

  "We see to the animals first. You know that." Grandpa juddered his head as he drew up to spit again. Jerp nodded and turned, walking to the corncrib with feet as heavy as International Harvesters. He heard Grandpa teasing the sow out in the barnyard. Jerp put a trembling hand on the latch.

  He turned the latch and the door creaked open. Rats and their shadows scurried for the corners, their rustling making them sound as big as bobcats. He looked under the stairs that led to the hayloft, searching the darkness for movement. At first he saw only rotted pieces of harness and a broken cross-saw blade, its teeth reddened with age. Then he saw the scarecrow sitting among the sun-bleached husks. A smile stitched itself across the faded face. The scarecrow was looking at Jerp as if one of them was a mirror, with eyes as flat as old coins.

  It was the boy in the barn, the one he had tried to tell Grandpa about. The one he had seen many times from his bedroom window, through the fog his breath had made on the glass. The scarecrow boy that had swayed like a sheet on a clothesline, its skin glowing sickly in the dark loft. The scarecrow boy that had stared from the barn window as if knowing it was being watched. The scarecrow boy that looked as if it were waiting.

  But it's not real, Jerp told himself as he reached down to the grooved skin of the corn husks. The scarecrow boy is not there if you don't see it.

  Jerp tried not to look under the stairs, even though the sweat was coming now and his eyes strained toward the corners of their sockets and the sunlight wasn't pouring fast enough through the cracks between the siding planks.

  Had it moved? No, it was only a pile of old crumbling rags. Rotten cloth and straw never hurt nobody, just like Grandpa had said. Even though Jerp had seen the scythe of its smile. He gathered an armful of corn to his chest and ducked back, slamming the crib door shut with his foot and elbowing the latch into place.

  Jerp's heart hammered in his ears as he shucked the corn and rubbed the grains loose with his thumbs. The kernels fell like golden teeth, and the chickens gathered around his feet, pecking at the grommets of his boots. He was trying to tell himself he hadn't seen the boy in the barn. That the scarecrow boy wasn't wearing a ragged flannel shirt and jeans with holes in the knees. It didn't have skin as white as raw milk and eyes that glimmered with a hunger that even biscuits and hamfat gravy wouldn't ease, nor was its hair as black as a crow nor its teeth as green as stained copper. It hadn't sat there through the frozen night, chattering until whatev
er served as its bones worked themselves loose.

  It had to be a straw puppet, tossed in the corner until growing season. Only weeds and fabric. Only a scarecrow. But Grandpa didn't use scarecrows.

  "Scarecrows are for the birds," Grandpa had said. He used pie pans on strings and shotgun blasts and bait laced with battery acid to drive away the magpies and crows. He said every scarecrow he'd ever put out had been covered in droppings by the end of the afternoon. As far as Grandpa was concerned, all a scarecrow did was provide a shady picnic area for the little thieves.

  Jerp wasn't going to think about the scarecrow boy in the barn. He had more chores to do, and he didn't want Grandpa to give him the look, the one where he raised one white eyebrow and furrowed his forehead and twitched the corner of his mouth a little. It was a look of disappointment, his wordless way of saying Jerp, you've come up short, can't cut the mustard, maybe you really oughta be in Atlanta with your parents, where you can be just another big-city sissy and everybody can call you "Jerald."

  Jerp would rather run through a barn full of thin, silent scarecrow boys than to have Grandpa give him the look.

  So Jerp pretended to forget the scarecrow boy as he curried the mare and turned it out for the day, then gathered the eggs that the game hens had squirreled away in their dusty nests. He checked on the two boars to see if they had enough water and dumped a bucketful of mashed grain and sorghum into their trough. Grandpa didn't name any of the animals. He said he didn't think it was right that people gave names to things that they were going to eat.

  "What's good for the goose is good for the gander," Grandpa had said, without bothering to explain what that meant. Jerp thought that maybe he meant everything died just the same.

  Death was part of life on the farm. Thanksgiving brought a blessing to all but the turkey. Hens who went barren because their eggs were stolen soon steamed on the table, stunted legs in the air. Hogs and cattle found a hundred different uses in the kitchen, baked, broiled, fried, or barbecued.

  "God bless this bounty on our table," Grandpa said before each meal. Jerp thought maybe he should do the prayers while the animals were still alive. The way he had done for Grandma.