Power Play (19 page)

“I'm not joking, Mom. Jackie sent some new billing paperwork to the store a few weeks ago. I tried.” I paused. I wouldn't throw Joey under the bus. Not yet, anyway. “But it didn't get filled out in time.”

The silence in the air said far more than if Mom had used words to tell me how disappointed she was in me.

I dropped my forehead against the door of Sammy's truck. I wanted to bang it until I had an idea. Until I could fix this whole jacked-up situation.

“Why didn't you tell us earlier, Gaby? We could have prepared.”

“Because I thought I had a solution. I thought I could use the veggies from the Iroquois Street garden.”

“And?” Mom asked.

“No.”

“No?” The spark of hope in Mom's voice deflated like a plastic life jacket pierced by shark teeth.

“When Sammy and I got here, the garden had been picked over. Almost everything is gone. There's definitely not enough to bring to sell.”

Silence again. I hated silence.

“I'm sorry, Mom. I was, I was just trying to help.”

“I appreciate you trying to help, Gaby. I just wish you would have told me what was going on instead of trying to fix it yourself. We could have found a solution. Things like this have happened before. We could have handled it if we had known.”

I had no words. No excuses.

I should have called Mom and Papa straightaway. My pride shoved my common sense inside a school locker. I wanted so badly to be the hero. To prove to my family—my father—that I could do it. A girl, their girl, could run the family business.

Instead I messed it all up.

Sunk by my own fucking ambition. Hadn't Shakespeare taught me anything?
Macbeth
being my favorite play and all.

“I was trying to handle it so you and Papa wouldn't be more stressed out than you already are.”

“Well, that plan didn't work, did it, Gabriella? And because of your choices, we'll have to open late on our busiest day of the week. We easily could've brought in some produce from one of the stores hours ago.” Mom sighed. “What in the world were you thinking?”

“I don't know.”

When Mom spoke again, there was a hint of hesitation in her voice. “Are you trying to make Joey look bad because your father put him in charge of Three-one-three?”

“What? No!” I said, raising my voice when I had no right. “I was trying to save his ass for not completing the paperwork.”

“You just told me you were the one who forgot the paperwork. What's the truth, Gaby?”

I sighed, realizing the original lie I'd told to keep Joey out of trouble had just blown up in my face. Like the decision to go to the garden before contacting anyone else.

Best laid plans…

“I don't know what's going on with you, but it's not okay. The stores have practically run themselves for years. Your father gets sick and they go to shit? It doesn't make sense. I know you weren't happy about Papa letting Joey run Three-one-three, but if you're intentionally sabotaging things so he gets in trouble, you should stop. Right now. This is not about your hurt feelings, Gaby. This is our livelihood. Our entire family relies on this business.”

Shocked. Hurt. Angry. Those were the words that came to mind listening to my mother accuse me of sabotaging my brother.

“I tried to handle everything myself, so no one else would have another thing to be stressed over,” I whispered. “My intentions weren't spiteful, Mom.”

“I really hope that's the truth, Gabriella. You need to make better decisions regarding the business, not go out on your own. We know you're young and still learning. That's one of the reasons Papa left Joey in charge. Why don't you go home for the day?”

“Come on, Mom!”

“You need a break. Go home.”

It took every ounce of self-control I had not to scream or throw my phone into the road.

I needed to calm down. To think about the situation. To regain control.

I needed safety.

I needed Landon.

Sammy dropped me off at home before he drove back to work. I grabbed a few crates out of his truck.

He lowered his window and leaned out. “What are those for?”

“I'm going to go back to the garden to see if I can salvage anything for the soup kitchen.”

“Good thinking. Sorry about the garden, Gaby.” He'd said it a few times on the short ride from the garden to my house, and though each time it had made me well up with tears, this time I let them fall.

I nodded and turned away, instead of letting Sammy see me cry. I didn't want him to think I wanted his sympathy. I knew my poor decisions caused this situation. Mom's accusations ticked through my head again. I hadn't deliberately sabotaged Joey, but I did put my stupid hero complex above the good of the business; above the good of the entire family.

Hadn't I read this fable countless times? Same story; different situation. When you actively seek your moment in the sun, it blows up in your face.

After throwing the crates in my trunk, I climbed in the front seat.

And cried.

Calling Landon was out of the question, with all my hiccups and snorts, so I pulled out my phone and sent him a quick text.

Need to see you. Can I come over in an hour?

I wiped my eyes with my hands and waited for a return text. Times like this reminded me of my grandma's advice to always keep tissues in the car. I never did, but it was sound advice.

Landon:
Of course. You ok?

Me:
No. I mean, yes, I'm ok. Long story.

Landon:
I love you.

Me:
Love you too. See you soon.

I tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and drove back to the garden with a lighter heart, knowing I'd be with Landon soon.

Before I got out of the car, I extracted a small spiral notebook and pen from my glove compartment. I wandered down each aisle and took stock of what was there, throwing a random fruit or veggie in my crate.

After Papa had cleared both plots of land, he invested in an irrigation system for the garden, a maze of hoses along the dirt. Near the lettuce, I noticed one of the hoses lay severed almost in half.

Maybe I shouldn't have jumped to the conclusion that a person, or people, had been stealing from the garden. I dropped my notebook and pen and crouched next to the hose, flicking the frayed rubber with my index finger as I surveyed the damage. An animal must've chewed it.

I stood back up and dusted my hands off on my jeans. Then I bent down, grabbed my notebook and pen, and jotted a note to have someone come out to fix the hose.

Technically the garden had two street fronts, but only the Iroquois Street side had a swinging entrance in the gate. Not that it mattered. An old-school, waist-high chain-link fence surrounded the entire area, so the lack of entrance gates wouldn't hinder intruders. Anyone, including children, would be able to climb or hop over the fence.

The last crop I wanted to check was all the way in the back of the garden, near the opposite street. I'd selected that location for the raised bed of strawberries because I knew how crazy strawberries could grow. I'd planted my very first crop of them in our old backyard when I was five years old. After a preschool project about planting, I'd begged Mom to help me plant strawberries, because they were my favorite fruit.

About a year later, after being mesmerized by a book about fairies during story time at school, I created a fairy garden amid my treasured strawberries. Mom started me off with two fairies attached to long, thin sticks. Fairy magic zapped through my fingers when I pushed those sticks into the ground among the juicy, red strawberries. A whole world came alive. A secret world that only Mom and I knew about. For my seventh birthday she'd bought me a beautiful, pink, sparkly fairy cottage and a miniature birdbath with a crystal ball sparkling inside.

A few days after the fire, Mom and Papa brought me and my brothers to see the ruins of our childhood home. They said we needed closure, but at the time it was pure torture. I didn't want to see my home reduced to a blackened wooden frame, the remains of a Popsicle-stick cabin carelessly discarded into a campfire. Everything was gone. Everything.

I stood there staring, horrified that the place that had once represented everything had burned to nothing. I wanted to get back in the car and go, until I remembered my garden. Had the fire reached the backyard? My strawberry garden? My fairies?

I released Mom's hand and ran to the backyard, ignoring Papa's cry for me to be careful as I kicked up dust and ashes on my path to the back. But I never ran close to the house, just through the debris scattered across the lawn. When I reached the backyard, I found the garden covered in a thin layer of gray ash but still there. Still alive. Still thriving.

And hidden among the strawberries, under the gross, grimy film, were my fairies. And their house. And their itsy-bitsy birdbath with its beautiful, shiny crystal ball.

So I snatched them all up and carried them back to the car. Instead of planting them in our new yard at our new house, I tucked them away in the bottom drawer of my nightstand, among all my socks. Where they stayed until high school.

Once the garden had been planted, and each type of fruit and vegetable had its place, I dug the forgotten fairies out of my sock drawer and hid them among the new crop of strawberries. Under those vines, the fairies were home.

I knew exactly where they were, but took the long way around to check out the entire strawberry patch before taking a careful step into the middle and pushing the foliage away. My fairies smiled at me from under the green blanket of leaves and vines. The iridescent paint on their wings shimmered in the sunlight.

Was it stupid that I continued to check the welfare of plastic garden figurines? Maybe. But as the only toys salvaged from the fire that seized every physical memento from my childhood, I didn't care. Even at nineteen, the fairies brought me a sense of peace.

“Mission Accomplished,” I said as I stood up. The unmistakable sound of clanging on the chain-link fence made me turn. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a large figure in a bright red T-shirt jumping over the fence, from my garden onto the sidewalk.

I hesitated opening my mouth, which is the smart thing to do before spewing venomous words at someone in Detroit. I'd lived in the city my entire life, and I didn't live in fear, but I knew how to keep myself safe and what battles to pick. So I crept to the fence slowly and peered over. The intruder hadn't gone far. He was kneeling with his back to me in front of two little boys. Both boys' fists overflowed with perfect, plump strawberries.

The intruder said something I couldn't hear to the boys and turned his head slightly toward the garden.

My stomach churned and I grabbed the top of the fence. I swallowed a clump of air and nothing, trying not to throw up.

I croaked one word to the profile I recognized.

“Landon?”

My sight seemed distorted, as if I were looking through the wispy edges of a cloud. Was this entire day a figment of my imagination? A nightmare? I rubbed my eyes, but quickly realized this was real life and I couldn't wipe life away.

Upon hearing his name, Landon glanced at me, then back to the boys before cranking his neck toward me again, as if in disbelief. “Gaby? What are you doing in there?”

“What do you mean what am I doing in here? This is my garden. I just saw you jump the fence. What were
you
doing in here?”

“That's the rich lady whose farm it is. She don't ever share,” one of the boys said to him.

“This is your garden?” Landon asked, his eyes scanning the rows of picked produce, rather than meeting mine again.

“Yes. I told you about it, remember?” He couldn't have forgotten. It was unfathomable to me. The Harry Potter books he'd given me when I'd told him my prized first editions had been lost in the fire sat proudly on my dresser. A thoughtful, treasured gift from him after I'd revealed my own family's biggest Detroit tragedy.

Landon finally looked me in the eye. “I didn't—” he began.

“Didn't what, Landon?” I interjected. I squeezed my eyes shut and paused. I had to stave off the tears and keep a strong voice right now, even though I wanted to sink down and army-crawl under the empty vines where the stolen strawberries once hung. I opened my eyes but clenched my fists at my side, the need to squeeze something in anger still present. “Didn't know? Didn't steal?”

The taller of the two boys leaned into Landon and said, “Old girl is maaad.”

Landon, still on his knees, glanced at the boy and put a shush finger over his lips. Then he stood up and took a step toward me. “It's not like that, Gaby.”

I took a step back. Toward my garden, toward my car, toward my old world. The world where Landon was just a crush, not a real person with the power to help—or hurt.

Out of nervous habit, I pressed each of my knuckles with the pad of my thumb. I heard the pops and crunches on the first go-round, but kept up my methodical squeezing to calm myself. Or maybe I was directing the pain somewhere other than my heart. I wasn't sure.

“Why would you steal from us? From
me
?” I yelled. Confrontation was becoming easier for me, which made me sad. I didn't like this side of myself. But I couldn't back down, either, because Landon taught me to be strong.

“I didn't know this was your garden,” he explained.

I laughed, a hollow, sad chuckle. “Okay, why would you steal from anyone's garden? This isn't a rich community.”

“I was trying to teach them not to steal.”

“By stealing?”

“I wasn't—”

“You have the fucking strawberries in your hand! I saw you jump over the fence!”

“Oh my god, just listen for a minute.” Landon's voice went from relaxed and patient to an annoyed growl.

“How are you going to justify this, Landon? Because you're such a good person from such a good family?”

“No, I—”

“Or the old, I play hockey so I'm above the law? Is that the excuse? Because you're a big fish in a small sea right now, Landon. I doubt anyone outside of Metro Detroit would even recognize you.”

“You're not even making sense right now. You're acting crazy.”

“Crazy?
I'm
crazy?” He'd just pressed my trigger word. “Yeah, it's totally crazy that I started a farm where my house once stood and have given the harvests to the local soup kitchen for the last four years. That's totally crazy.”

“That's not what I'm talking about and you know it. So don't give me the sob story. You won't even stop to listen to me.”

“Why don't
you
listen to
me
this time? I'm so damn sick of listening to everyone else. And doing what everyone tells me is best for me. How I should feel. How I should act. What I should do. I'm so over that bullshit.” I pointed a finger at him. “
You're
the one who taught me to stand up for myself—right, Landon? But you just want to be the next guy who gets to have his way and tell me what to do. You feel invisible in your own family so you went after me, quiet little Gaby who wouldn't stand up to anyone. Guess your plan backfired.”

“That's fucking bullshit. I think you know me by now to know—”

“You're right, Landon,” I interrupted, on a roll with my insults and throwing all common sense and compassion out the window. “I do know you by now. The man who never had to work for anything in his life steals from someone's garden when he could easily buy the food.”

Landon staggered back as if I'd landed a hook to his cheek or a jab to his gut.

“You're right, Gaby, I've never had to work for anything my whole life—including girls. This relationship just became too much work for me.”

The last few months flashed before my eyes just as Landon turned around and walked away.

I stood, shaking with rage, in front of the garden I created to be a symbol of resilience and perseverance after tragedy.

Instead of directing my suppressed anger at Papa, Joey, or Jared Mitchell—I threw it all at Landon. Like the house that formerly occupied the land of the garden behind me, my relationship with Landon took months to build, and less than five minutes to go down in flames.