Dark Surrender (34 page)

I hardly remembered even owning the plant, but her words somehow inextricably connected that forgotten and neglected thing to me. The thunk it made against the metal bottom of the basket echoed sickeningly through my chest.

“
Mother, that’s ... that’s just silly.” I could hear the doubt in my voice. Something old crept out of a dark corner of my mind, something I’d pushed there long ago, something that made my skin prickle and my breath catch. So I didn’t look at it, just pushed the damn thing back in its corner. “Plants are a tester for whether to get a pet, not for--”

“
Yes, yes,” Mother cut across me. “If you can’t keep a plant alive, then you can’t take care of a pet...and the same goes for a pet versus baby thing too.” She tapped out a long thin cigarette and lit it up, knowing full well that I detested smoke. She saw the look on my face and gave me one of her pitch perfect exacerbated looks that always said
Why do I even bother?

I never got her, she never understood me.

“
For god’s sake, Lucy, I bought that thing for you just two weeks ago!”

I looked down into the wastebasket--nothing could turn that brown in two weeks.

Mother started for the door. “Never heard of anyone killing a spider plant before.” She pulled open the door, checked her watch then rolled her eyes at me. “I haven’t all day. Our reservation is in twenty minutes.”

*****

After lunch at Bergdorf’s we fell into our usual pace as we strode through the store and Mother shopped. She moved swiftly through departments, scanning everything and only stopping when something new and desirable came into sight. Always making her decisions quickly, no matter what the item cost. I tried never to think too hard on how much money she spent each outing.

As we approached the shoe department I said I needed to look for some shoes. I thought, since I have to be here--attendance at Bergdorf’s on Sunday is as mandatory for Mother as church is to the rest of the planet--I might as well find something that I don’t have to work up a sweat getting my feet into.

I caught the surprised, almost happy look on Mother’s face, but then she saw I was heading for sneakers and athletic wear instead of heels and Italian leather. She moved off to the cosmetics counters, acting like she didn’t even know me, which made me smile.

“
Look, I actually bought something!” I said seven minutes later, shaking my very first Bergdorf’s shopping bag at Mother.

She gave me a wan smile and her eyes became slits as she looked down and saw I was already wearing the cross trainers. “I didn’t think they even carried such things here.” She turned to the pretty, enthusiastic young thing that was trying to sway her into buying the new Jennifer Lopez perfume. “First tennis shoes and now this celebrity toilet water.” She waved her hands dismissively at the girl and the perfume. “Maybe I should start going to Sacks on Sunday.” And she walked off to the jewelry counter, leaving the young sales girl looking on the verge of tears.

“
Don’t worry,” I told her. “She’s been coming here for thirty years.”

This perked up the little sales girl.

“
Anyways, she does Sacks on Tuesdays.” And I walked after Mother, losing her momentarily in the sparkle and glitter of the diamonds. Half of them in the display cases, half on the clientele.

*****

After Mother finally dismissed me I stopped for an impromptu jazz quartet play on the corner of Bank and a hundred and twenty-first street. The men were in their early sixties, their instruments looked even older, but their music was unquestionably lovely. I found myself losing track of time and just listening to them play and play, each song swinging right into the next seamlessly.

When they finally packed up their instruments my feet were numb and the sun was going down. But their music played on in my head as I strolled without a care in the world through the streets of New York.

I stopped at my favorite pizza shop and got a large pepperoni and extra cheese, and then headed for home. Ate the entire pizza by myself while watching reruns of
The Golden Girls.

*****

Late that night I lay in bed, the sheet jumbled at my feet. The air conditioning was on the fritz, so the intermittent sounds of passing cars wafted in with the wind through my bedroom window. I couldn’t sleep ... couldn’t even close my eyes ... I just couldn’t get that goddamn plant out of my head!

I kept on seeing it, brown and crusty, lying at the bottom of that waste can.

Next thing I knew I was stumbling through my apartment in the dark tripping over the Bergdorf’s box my shrunken shoes were still in, finally clicking a lamp on when I came to the wastebasket in question.

I could just leave it in there, I thought. Out of sight out of mind ... of course that was a freaking lie. Couldn’t see the blasted thing but it refused to leave my thoughts.

I reached down and pulled the potted plant from the balled-up papers and the empty cardboard container my last take-out order of Sesame Chicken had come in. I blew out a disgusted breath when I saw a half burned cigarette butt snuffed out in the black soil, the filtered tip smudged in my Mother’s favorite shade of lipstick.

*****

I remembered the plant again a few days later. All but two of its long fronds were brown and brittle. “Oh god,” I told myself stifling the sudden urge to cry. “Get a hold of yourself!”

I went to the kitchenette and turned on the tap, pulled a tall glass from the shelf and filled it. I poured the entire glass over the parched soil, watching air bubbles percolate from pockets in the earth, then decided I’d done all I could do. It was up to god or fate or Mother Nature now.

*****

The next day the two surviving fronds of the spider plant looked greener, thicker, and more alive. So I repeated the glass of water thing. Each day for a week I did the glass of water thing, not really looking at the plant that hard but knowing that it was on the mend. That was until the fifth day when I did actually look at the poor thing.

It was all brown, only the slightest touch of green remained in the mushy looking fronds.

This is stupid
, I told myself.
This means nothing.

But ten minutes later I carried the rather heavy potted plant down the two flights of stairs to my apartment and hauled it down two blocks, past three florists--after all, they only dealt in dead plants--until I found the first botanical store.

Gus’ Plantery.

The door to the shop clanged with tiny, tinny bells, as I pushed through it. Banks of potted flowers lined every wall. Every inch of counter space had a potted plant or fern or bush or vegetable on it. Even the walls were thick with lush vegetation. A man in his early thirties popped up from behind the checkout counter, a large plastic sack of soil perched on his shoulder. His hair was neat and straight and golden blond, his green eyes obscured by wire framed glasses -- his face was sweet and boyish and he looked absolutely terrified at the sight of me.

He stood there for a few very long, very awkward beats, then lowered the sack of soil to the floor and tried to shake off his shyness. “May I ... may I help you?” His cheeks flushed.

I held out the limp brown spider plant. “I think I killed it.”

“
Yep,” he said, taking the potted plant from me and then sticking his thumb down into the dirt. “Almost killed the poor fella.” He moved toward a back counter, planting his hand on top of the surface of the soil and then tipped the pot over. A steady stream of brackish water drained out into a large stainless steel sink. “Almost drowned it.”

The man then broke off some of the brittle brown fronds. “Looks like dehydration played a hand too.”

I was suddenly feeling stupid, I was suddenly starting to hate this guy, the way he was saying how bad a person I was--not that technically he was saying that, but it sure sounded like he was!

“
Will it live?” I asked, pulling the clay pot from the man’s hands.

“
Ah, sure. Just remember to water it every week, just once a week, bottled water not from the tap.”--
Oops
--“and do you have it sitting in direct sunlight?”

I thought about where it had been the last week--on the coffee table by the couch. About twenty feet from the nearest window.

“
That would be a no.” I shook my head. Maybe I was stupid.

“
Well, plants like sunlight, so if you want this little guy to live I’d move him to a window, one that has an eastern exposure.”

“
Huh?”

“
Just because it’s a window doesn’t mean light comes through it. Morning sun is the best.”

“
Oh,” I said, feeling my eyebrows knit. A sure sign I was getting rattled. “Makes sense.”

He smiled, a brief flash of white teeth, and then it was gone. “If it bounces back it should start looking like this.” He held his hand up to a giant green plant, its fronds a bright green, cascading over the sides of its pot like an emerald waterfall. “If not, I can sell you another one.”

Back came the smile, looked real happy to help me either way things turned out. I suddenly decided I really did hate him.

*****

An excerpt from my erotic romance short,
Whatever You Want
.

Whatever You Want

By

Mercy Walker

Whatever You Want

Copy Right 2012, Mercy Walker

Kindle Edition

“
So, you don’t think I’m crazy?” I’m staring out Margie’s office at her cute new secretary. He’s twenty-two, blond, broad shouldered, dangerously well built and he’s got the prettiest blue eyes. He’s wearing an azure shirt/tie combination that brings those eyes up a notch from merely pretty to mesmerizing.

Margie leans in over my shoulder and we peer out at him, a couple of Siamese twins. “What I think ... is you have very good taste.” We both smile. “He’ll do you a world of good. Trust me.”

“
But fucking the secretary ... it’s so cliché.”

“
Todd’s my secretary, so it doesn’t count,” She elbows me. “Anyways, you’re not attached, it’s been almost a year since the divorce was final,” She looks at me and rolls her eyes. “And I haven’t once heard you talk about having anything resembling a good time in that lonely old bed of yours.”

“
Thanks for making it sound so depressing.”

“
You’re my best Ad exec. Not to mention one of my dearest friends. I need you to be happy.”

I glare at her.

“
Okay, happier. You’re smart, sexy and successful. I want to see you enjoying all that.”

I stare as Todd leans back in his chair and scratches the back of his neck. Even his fingers are thick and muscular.

“
But he’s so young.”

“
He’s what, five years younger than you?”

“
Six.”

Margie walks in front of me, blocking my view of hot little Todd and looks me square in the eye. “If you haven’t noticed, you’re freakin’ hot.”

I shake my head and smile.

“
If I were a lesbian I’d be all over your ass. And If I weren’t still in the “happy” phase in my marriage I’d have bagged that fine young man his first day.”

I marvel at Margie’s resilience. She’s on her fourth marriage and yet she really thinks this one’s going to last. But she also thought that Brad and Jennifer would reconcile, and that shoulder-pads would make a comeback.

“
You just need something to break the ice.” Margie punches a button and suddenly Todd springs from his desk and appears in her doorway.

“
You called?”

His smile is fucking radiant, even better than his eyes. Of course the swells of his pecks heaving through the thin material of his shirt aren’t bad either.

“
Would you be a dear and grab me a cup of coffee?” Margie says, her voice cloying.

“
Right away, Ms. Fuller,” He turns toward me, “Anything for you, Miss Clark?”

“
Oh, no ... I’m fine.” I look down at my still full mug of coffee.

“
Right. I’ll be right back.” And he strides off to the break room.

I’m still watching the youthful jiggle of his ass when Margie pulls my mug from my hands and then unceremoniously dumps its contents into a potted palm.

“
I guess I didn’t want that.”

“
What you want is a fresh cup.” Margie hands me my empty cup and points in the direction Todd just went. “So go get some.”

Her tone of voice and the solicitous wriggle of her eyebrows make me laugh, and a flushed feeling rises up in my cheeks. I’m suddenly amazed at how much I really do want to follow Todd to the break room, to “break the ice.”

I don’t realize I’m already halfway there until I hear Margie calling, “That’s my girl!”

My skin starts feeling hot, and I notice I’m holding my breath. So I stop short of the break room door and take a long, deep breath. This isn’t the first man you’ve ever talked to, I tell myself.