Wild Roses (13 page)

"No blood," Kyle agreed.

"Hey, guys, there's back-to-back episodes of
Fat People on Bikes this afternoon." Bunny looked at his watch. "Starting
now."

"Oh, cool," Derek said.

They picked up their backpacks, headed off.
"Fat People on Bikes?" Chuck said.

"Hey, they believed me, that's all I care.
Little television monsters." I guess he and Dino had one thing in common, which
would have made Dino shudder.

"That's all they do. All day, every day," I
said.

"I hate it when kids don't participate," Bunny
said. "They could be outside playing ball. Collecting bugs."

"Hanging out at ye old swimmin' hole," Chuck
said.

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"Shut the F up, Chuck. If you don't
participate, you're just taking up oxygen."

"Life is a banquet. Approach it with hunger,"
Chuck said. "Hey, I'm done, right?"

"Wow, it looks great. I just hope it doesn't
fall off when you're driving," I said.

"I saw that on Tertible Traffic Traumas," Chuck
said. I smiled. I really liked those guys.

"Now you've had your learning experience," I
said.

"Congratulations, Chuck, you big idiot," Bunny
said.

"Thanks, man," Chuck said. "Sorry about all the
things I called you back at the lug nuts."

"No problem. I'll consider us equal for what I
said to you when you made me call Sonja for a date."

"You should've heard him," Chuck said to
me.

"I hope this Sonja said yes," I
said.

"With my good looks? What do you
expect."

"He was trembling like a baby bird," Chuck
said.

"Anyway," Bunny said, in a lame effort to
change the subject. "We better get going. Hey, Lassie, thanks for your help. It
was great hanging out with you."

I laughed. "Cassie," I said.

"Cassie? Man, I could've sworn he said
Lassie."

"Woof," I said. "Lassie?"

"I don't know. I thought maybe your folks were
real animal lovers."

"Bunny, you F-ing fool," Chuck said.

"You thought it was Lassie, too," Bunny
said.

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They climbed into the car. The small spare tire
looked shy and inadequate on the Datsun.

"Jesus, you stink," Bunny said to
Chuck.

Chuck yanked the paper Christmas tree
deodorizer off of the rearview mirror, thrust it under his shirt, and gave it a
swipe under each arm. "Smellin' like a rose," he said. Then he started the
engine, gave a wave, and drove off.

After Mom confronted Dino about the blank pages
and his lies, Dino did appear to get down to real work. Supposedly this was what
we were wanting, but I didn't know why. The pressure of having to create and the
creation itself were what led him to a disturbing restlessness and increasingly
odd acts. Several times I heard him awake in the night, creaking down the
stairs, performing in his office, and then clapping for himself when it was
over. During the day his usual perfectionism was in high gear--he would remake a
bed Mom made, rewash the dishes, pour out coffee that was made for him and make
it again "properly." His testi-ness increased. He would turn every innocent
remark into a perceived criticism of him. It's a nice day, you would say. And he
would snap in reply, Did I say it wasn't a nice day? Just because it's a nice
day and I don't remark upon it doesn't mean I'm a pessimist. He bit Mom's head
off for giving him the wrong size spoon, yelled at me for walking too heavily
down the stairs, leading me to have Brief Fantasy Number One Thousand and
Twelve, whereby I borrowed Nannie's old bowling ball and sent it crashing down
two flights. I was living with a bolt of lightning, never knowing

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when or where he might strike. I spent a lot of
time in my room, ate dinner as fast as possible. Headphones are great when you
live in a disturbed home--I started wearing them at night, so I could pretend a
peace that didn't exist. Worst of all, though, Dino started up his freaky
obsession with William Tiero again.

The newspaper is gone, Dino said one
morning.

Probably late, my mother replied.

Maybe he wants my paper, Dino said. He wants me
to wonder where it went, to wonder if he has been here to take it. He is messing
with me.

God, it gave me the creeps. There was this
feeling of horrible anticipation, of knowing that things would not keep going
this wrongly and suddenly right themselves. No, wrong like that would keep
building. Wrong always seemed to double and grow like cells under a microscope.
Right could be steady, but wrong fed upon itself. Sometimes I wished "it" would
just go ahead and happen, whatever "it" was.

Mom looked like she was losing weight, in spite
of the fact that Alice's loaves of banana bread were increasing. Dino's working,
the writing--it seemed to pour a life-giving liquid onto old, sleeping torments
of his. He started smoking, too, a habit he'd given up years ago. One cigarette
after the other he smoked, horrible bursts of nicotine poison filling not only
his lungs but mine and Mom's and Dog William's, getting into the strands of our
clothing and even making the bread left out on the counter taste bad. You'd find
snakey bits of ash all over--

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in coffee cups and saucers, and once in Mom's
potted ficus plant. I hated those cigarettes. They were a visual reminder of a
growing disease.

"I don't understand something," I said to my
mother one afternoon. We were having a domestic mother-daughter moment, folding
laundry together, which was a rarity in our house. When you've got a working
mother, I've noticed, you learn to live with dirty clothes, talking yourself
into the fact that no one will really notice the blotch of yogurt spilled on the
leg of your jeans, or you learn to do laundry yourself, or else you learn to
root through stacks of clean/nonclean clothes for a pair of socks, with the
skill and speed of a pig hunting for truffles. Zebe's mother is a graphic
designer, and Zebe has used adaptation number two. She is so good at the laundry
she could do the presidential underwear. Everything in her closet is folded and
organized by color, but I still love her anyway. At our house we usually do the
root-and-find method, although Dino's clothes always manage to get done.
Something about seeing my mother iron his shirts really pisses me off. I know
she hates to iron. I know she would rather go out in sweats than get the
wrinkles out of cotton, yet there she is, starching and pressing Dino's clothes.
Fast forward to Brief Fantasy Number One Thousand Five Hundred--two big steaming
iron-shaped holes over the boobs of each of Dino's shirts.

Anyway, we were folding clothes. "I don't
understand something," I said, which I think I already mentioned. "If composing
causes Dino this much pain, why doesn't he

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quit? Why doesn't he take up fishing or
something? Embroidery? A low-stress occupation like forest ranger?"

Mom held one matchless sock in her hand. She
thought about this. "Because quitting would cause him more pain," she said
finally.

"I don't get that. If something causes pain,
then bam, get rid of it," I said. I was thinking of Ian. Okay, I thought about
him endlessly. Okay, I had daily arguments with myself over my desire to just
give in to my feelings and to say to hell with what Dino might think. But I was
mostly holding all of that at bay. Fear can give you more strength and resolve
than anything else I can think of.

"Oh, Cassie, nothing's that simple. Very few
things are that black-and-white. I wish they were. Nothing's a hundred percent
good. Nothing's a hundred percent bad."

"Okay, eighty-nine percent. If it's that bad,
get rid of it. Eighty-nine percent is enough."

"You're talking like a scientist," she said.
"Some things can't be measured. Let's say you love astronomy. But let's say it
causes you some problems. Back pain, eye strain, I don't know."

"We're talking mental anguish. Astronomy
doesn't cause that."

"What if it did? What if, say, I don't know.
Maybe this isn't a good comparison. Say you couldn't get into a school to study
it. Say your math skills weren't good enough. Say you really had to struggle or
something. What would you do?"

"Give it up."

"But you love it."

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"It depends how much I love it versus how much
pain," I said.

"Love is not something that can be measured,
Cassie. Sometimes love just is. Sometimes it's a force with its own reasons.
Reasons we don't necessarily understand, but with a power that is
undeniable."

"You sound like an After School
Special."

Mom sighed. "Fine. Never mind. Sometimes you
can cattle rope your heart and sometimes you can't, is all."

"Now you sound like a country-western
song."

"I'm shutting up with my motherly wisdom.
You're on your own."

"He's giving us all cancer. He's giving the
ficus cancer."

"I'm going to make him smoke outside," she
said, though we had already agreed about her ability to make him do
anything.

"I think he should become a bank manager," I
said.

"Without his music, Dino wouldn't know who to
be."

Two nights later I went to a school music
concert. I usually didn't go to these things, but Siang had told me that she was
doing a solo and hinted around that she'd like me to come. I wanted to do
something nice for her after her kindness that day in Dino's office. Usually
once I got home on a cold night, any good plan I made didn't seem as good as
staying inside and warm, especially a plan like listening to classical music,
which I got more than enough of anyway.

But I didn't change my mind--I went out into
the cold night and fought the cars jamming the parking lot, and

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found a seat with Sophie Birnbaum and her
parents. Sophie's little brother played the viola and was in the concert too.
His group played first, and Sophie and I grimaced at each other at the squeaky
parts and made fun of some of the names in the program, like Harry
Chin.

I was having a grand old cultural time when
Siang's group came on. She looked so thin and scared when she walked up to the
microphone in her long black skirt and white blouse, her hair straight and shiny
black, almost blue, under the lights. I could see her hands shake, and all I
could think of was the time Marna Pines puked right on stage during the
second-grade play and how no one ever forgot it. Poor Marna would always be
remembered as the girl who threw up right during her solo, stopping the show
cold until the janitor could come out and deal with the whole matter with his
mop and sawdust. Forever after she would be Pukey Pines, or one notch up on the
cruelty ladder, Upchuck Woodchuck, due to her slight overbite. I didn't want
anything like that for Siang. Sure, her Dino hero worship drove me nuts, but
there was something more than fandom at work in the way she tilted Dino's
painting straight again. Siang was a good person.

The orchestra had a false start, causing some
of the audience to snicker. Then the orchestra began again, and Siang came in
with a forceful stroke of bow against violin, her chin down, her fingers flying.
Jesus, there was Siang with her little Indiana Jones Boy Sidekick voice and her
annoying habits, just taking control of the whole situation and kicking the shit
out of that violin, which I know isn't

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exactly an appropriate musical critique but
true anyway. The audience didn't move. She just had them there right with her.
My heart just got all full. I was so proud of her.

After the concert I waited for Siang and told
her how great she was. Her parents told me about eight times that it was good to
meet me, beaming at me as if I had just given them one of those huge Publisher's
Clearinghouse checks for a million dollars. I found the frosted sugar cookies at
the cookie table and brought back one on a napkin for Siang and then headed back
outside, feeling satisfied and happy and hopeful, though I'm not exactly sure
why. I got out of the school parking lot, and instead of going home, I was
overcome with a strange urge, which was to drive down to the ferry terminal,
near the little house on the corner where Ian now lived.

Maybe it was Siang's bravery that made me do
it, frail and breakable Siang showing so much power in front of that audience,
or maybe what was really knocking around inside my brain was what the
metaphysical motorcyclists without motorcycles had been saying about fear. Mom's
voice was there too, I think (although she would not have been happy to be a
motivating factor), talking about love as a force with its own reasons. Maybe
all three things collided together and formed something new, some philosophical
Big Bang in my brain, I don't know. What I do know is that I parked across the
street from Ian's house. My body was cruising along without my permission--it
got right out of the car and walked to the door, and it was only after I knocked
that my brain caught up and I realized what the