The Care and Handling of Roses With Thorns (5 page)

I have nothing to say to this. It is incomprehensible. All of it.

“Listen.” She takes on the confident, salesperson demeanor she makes her living with. Nothing can touch her in her bubble. I know I am lost. “Just keep her until I get back, okay? Please? She hasn’t seen you in what, a year?”

“More like seven.”

“And whose fault is that? The phone works both ways, last time I checked.”

Touché, my sister.

Becky continues. “I’ll send you a check for her upkeep.”

That isn’t the point. Though I’ll need it.

“Gal? You there?”

“Yeah. I’m here.” I forgot I wasn’t talking. It’s a habit I’ve developed with my sister. She’s useless to argue against.

“All right. I’ll call when I get in.” I hear a baritone murmuring behind her, probably into her other ear, into her neck. “I gotta go, Gal. Thanks.”

The dial tone feels like a slap in the head.

I shouldn’t have assumed all was well.

I go into the living room. Riley’s staring blankly out the window. I am struck by how fast time has gone. She’s almost an adult, fifteen and a half. To me, the period I didn’t see her means seven or eight new roses, barely enough time for a new rose success. My perception of time is more geological than human.

Her energy somehow fills up the house, makes it vibrate. It makes me tired, frankly. She stretches and shoots a withering look toward me. “Who doesn’t have cable in this day and age?”

“Welcome to the home of the last great cheapskate holdout.” I grin. “No cell phone, either. And dial-up Internet.”

“You’ve got to be joking.” She leans forward and rubs her temples with her fingertips. “I guess my mother really is trying to punish me.”

“I’m not that bad.” I want to point out that at least I have my head screwed on straight, but instead I go into the kitchen. What will I feed her? I never have company. “You hungry? I’ve got minute steaks.”

“No thanks.” She follows me into the kitchen, opening the old yellow freezer door with a groan. “Ugh. Frozen peas. Minute steaks. It looks like Grandma’s freezer.”

Now she’s acting more like a regular teenager. The type I’m used to.

I choose the simplest food possible, plus a few extra things in case Dara comes over or Brad looks hungry. “She taught me well.” I dig inside. “I might have a frozen burrito.”

“Can’t we get a pizza?”

I give her a stern look. “Didn’t your mother teach you how guests should behave? You eat what’s put in front of you.” I find the burrito encased in a tomb of frozen water. Bean and cheese. I crack the ice off over the sink and stick it in the microwave. “Take it or leave it, buddy.”

“Buddy’s what you call boys.” She sits at my round glass table, putting her fingers underneath it. Who gets fingerprints on the underside of a glass table?

I sit across from her. “You’re just like me. Get cranky when you’re hungry.”

“It’s not because I’m hungry. I’m always like this.”

“Oh, good. I’ve got something to look forward to.” I’m teasing, but her expression drops and darkens. Oops. She probably never got teased, the way my father teased me and Becky. I punch her lightly on the arm to show I’m playing.

She winces as though I could actually hurt her. “I didn’t want to come, you know. But I had no choice. My mother was like, hey, I gotta go to Asia, and Gram’s not home, so you’re going to Gal’s. Who cares that the school year’s almost over? Who cares what I think?” She leans toward me. “You know, she didn’t have to take that stupid job. She could have looked for a new job at home.”

I lace my fingers together. “Not exactly fair, I suppose.”

The microwave beeps. Riley gets up and takes the burrito out, putting it on a plate she pulls out after a second’s search. “Want half?”

I shake my head. “I might have salsa in the fridge.”

“I’m not a bad student, you know.” She retrieves the salsa and sits down again across from me, wrinkling her nose. “This expired last year.”

“Expiration dates are relative.” I sniff at it. Still smells like salsa. No mold. It’s all those preservatives. I throw it away to appease her. “What’s your favorite subject?”

She takes a bite of the burrito, careful of its heat, and does not speak until she is through chewing. “Art.”

“Art. That’s nice.” I’ll have to put her in Dara’s class. If she stays long enough to enroll. But what else am I going to do with her, even if I have her just three weeks? She can’t sit here alone. “Science is where it’s at for girls, though. This country needs more female scientists. Heck, more scientists in general.”

She chews, her bored expression speaking volumes.

“Come on. You can be good at whatever you want to be.” My standard rah-rah teacher speech, mostly aimed at girls whose scientific and mathematical aims got squashed someplace south of the sixth grade, when they didn’t get to be on the Lego robotics team.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t good at science. I said art was my favorite.” She has finished her burrito.

“You’ll have to meet my friend Dara. Miss Westley. She’s the art teacher.”

“I probably won’t take art, though.” She swipes her mouth with the napkin, leaving a swath of darkness.

I wait for her to continue and she doesn’t. “Miss Westley is an excellent teacher.”

“They always make you do the art like they want it to be done, and then I get marked down for doing it my way.”

I’m not entirely sure what she’s talking about. I haven’t attempted a real piece of art since I threw out my Crayolas in second grade. My rose sketches hardly count. “I’m sure Miss Westley wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Yeah. Never mind.” She gets up and puts her plate in the sink. “I suppose you don’t have a dishwasher, either?”

I decide not to press her about the art. I’m a biology teacher, not a guidance counselor. I point to the dishwasher. “I do like some technology.”

She puts the dish in the appliance. “I’m going to hang out in my room.”

Good idea. There are purple bags under her eyes that are not a result of the otherwise heavy cosmetics. “Better wash off that makeup first. And you know you can’t wear it to school.”

“I figured.” She slumps off into the bathroom. I hear the shower turn on. I hope she doesn’t use my towel. I can’t have other people’s germs rubbing off on me. It’s hard enough avoiding them at St. Mark’s.

I sit back in my chair, feeling tired even though it’s supposed to be one of my good days. I should probably call my mother on her cell phone in France and discuss what to do with Riley and my sister, but the thought of that makes me feel like I need to go to bed for the next thousand years.

Besides, I don’t want to disturb my parents. I know, even if I tell my mother not to, she will cut her vacation short. No one has perished. No one is even ill. This is a momentary bump.

I can handle this.

I have to go out and see if a rose I prepared a few days ago is ready to give me its pollen. It’s not something I can skip, nor do I want to. The thought of the greenhouse reinvigorates me. “I’ll be out in the yard!” I call to Riley’s closed door, and get a muffled response.

I pull on a sweater and go outside. Immediately, the air and the scent of grass and roses and pollen makes me feel better. I count my blessings that I don’t have allergies.

My neighborhood is covered in shade trees of varying heights, spreading out as far as I can see, which is not very far, considering the tall houses blocking the view in my suburb. The greenhouse air is balmy and dense, tropical compared to the dry California air. I pull up my stool, turn on my worklight, and consider the anthers in the plastic cup I’ve pulled out a few days earlier. The pollen has built up and looks like orange dust on the anthers.

Meanwhile, the mother plant’s stigmas have gotten sticky, ready to receive the pollen. I transfer the pollen to the stigma. Now all I can do is hope for the best.

I go look at the plants I’ve grafted onto rootstock. These are the plants I’ve hybridized successfully and am now propagating. Propagating is different from breeding. It’s creating more specimens of the rose you want to keep. To propagate, you could also cut off a six-inch stem of the parent at a forty-five degree angle and dip it into some rooting powder. Then you stick it into soil and hope it roots.

There are about twenty-five of the propagated plants in plastic pots, set up on wooden benches. All of these have buds. These are also wait-and-see. Most other regions in the country don’t have blooms until June; in California, the outdoor roses start blooming around April, sometimes earlier.

I remember Byron’s question. I’ll go ahead and send him my answer. For best results, he needs to go back two generations maternally, and use the mother he had then instead of the mother he’s using now. I think.

• • •

THE GREENHOUSE DOOR OPENS,
and I jump a little. I hadn’t heard anyone coming. Dara stands there, looking concerned. “What on earth happened to you? Dr. O’Malley showed up and took over. He wouldn’t say anything. Just said you and your family were ‘physically’ all right.”

“I am.” I write “G101” on a paper tag and tie it around the new rose I’ve pollinated. “It’s my niece. She’s here.”

“Riley is here?” Dara knows all about Riley and Becky. Dara shakes her head. “Is your sister here, too?”

“Becky is not. Becky’s on her way to Hong Kong for her job, apparently.” I put the rose back in its proper place, the best seat in the house. “She sent Riley here.”

“She can’t do that.” Dara’s voice rises. “She can’t drop her kid off and expect you to pick up the pieces.”

“That would be expecting my sister to be reasonable. And you cannot expect that from Becky.” I stand. “Let’s go inside. You can meet her. She loves art, but she hates art class.”

“I’ll change her mind.” Dara follows me in. “Your class behaved well, if you were wondering.”

“Of course they did. They’re never bad. Just lazy.”

Dara laughs. “Spoken like someone on tenure.”

“You know I only speaketh the truth. I’m the Oracle of St. Mark’s.” I take a minute steak out of the freezer, suddenly ravenous. “Want one?”

“No thanks. You should eat leaner meat.”

“So they tell me.” I take out a frying pan.

“Why don’t you sit down and let me cook?”

“I’m fine.” Dara is sweet, but sometimes too overbearing. Like my mother. However, if it weren’t for Dara, my mother would have far more episodes where she decides to fly up in the middle of the night based on a hunch that I’m sick or needy.

“Anyway, there’s more news.” Dara sits up, her face lit. “Dr. O’Malley hired a chemistry teacher.”

“About time.” We’ve been interviewing candidates forever. At least, since last year. “Which one did he pick?”

“A new guy. Comes from a chemical company in San Luis Obispo.” She shrugs. “Everyone’s talking. Seems like a step down for someone like him. Step down in pay for sure. And it’s not like we live in a glamorous city.”

“That is interesting.” I flip the steak out onto a plate. Teachers at our school are underpaid, earning even less than public school teachers. “We’ll see how long he lasts. At least he can help coach the Science Olympiad team.”

I had volunteered to coach Science Olympiad after my first year, because I didn’t like how the old coach had done things and our team had come in next to last place for three years in a row. Not a very good showing for a private school.

The team is supposed to have two coaches, one in life science and one in physical. Ms. Maseda, the physics teacher, dropped out this year. She’s close to retirement and suffers from a variety of physical ailments. Plus, she kept falling asleep during the after-school meetings. We made quite the decrepit motley pair, she and I, showing up to meets with one good kidney between the two of us. But we did place third last year.

Sometimes my mother worries about me taking on too many activities. The truth is, the more a patient like me does, the better. All of this keeps me going.

“You’re so cynical.”

I don’t think I’m cynical at all. If I were, I would have given up long ago. “I expect the worst, but hope for the best.”

Dara shifts and glances toward the closed bedroom door. “Riley must be exhausted.”

“She’s slept long enough. I should get her up. Otherwise she won’t be able to get to sleep tonight.”

“Teenagers sleep. Haven’t you seen them in your class?”

“Ha ha.”

Dara stands. “I’ve got to go. I just wanted to stop in and see if you were all right. Let me know if you need more help.”

“Going on errands?” I hope she is, so she can get me a gallon of milk. I might even need to dust off my Costco membership if Riley’s going to be staying with me. Stock up on soda and chips.

“Nope. Got a date.”

A pang of jealousy stabs pitifully at me. I squash it. Just because I haven’t had a date in, oh, ever, doesn’t mean my friend can’t. I’d had more pressing things to worry about, like whether or not I’d survive my teens. “I hope it’s not the mechanic. He smells like brake fluid and cigarettes.” She has no steady, that Dara; none of them are right for her. Even the ones I’d settle for, she finds some fault with. Heck, any woman would settle for a lot of these guys, the ones who don’t drink, who have steady jobs and hold the door open for her and remember to give her roses on her birthday. Someone’s always not artistic enough, or not romantic enough, or likes watching sports a little too much. Or he talks too little or too much.

“Not seeing him anymore.” Dara winks at me, checks her hair in the white framed mirror by the door. “This is the accountant. Chad. He has excellent hygiene.”

“Good.” I brighten. “I need help with my taxes.”

“He works for a corporation. He’s not H&R Block.”

“Useless. Dump him.”

She doesn’t take me seriously. “Remember to feed Riley a vegetable at dinner. I know you don’t have many.”

“I’ve got some cans in the pantry.”

“Frozen are better than canned.”

“She will live.”

Dara leaves. I stand at Riley’s door, debating whether to knock. I am seized with the urge to peek inside, see whether she’s breathing, like a parent home with a newborn. No. Let her sleep.

The contents of her backpack are spread across the coffee table. A Neil Gaiman novel. Some comic books with wide-eyed Japanese characters. A black Moleskine sketchbook, like the kind Dara uses. I flip it open. I expect to see depictions of death, skulls and crossbones, and bottles of poison. Instead, there are dancing cupcakes. Big-eyed cartoon animals. Close-ups of flowers—daisies, a few roses. Very good.