Wild Roses (19 page)

"I don't see what the point is. You're going
away. You're going away, right?" I said to the Fredericis' house. I didn't
understand. I didn't get how things could change from that perfect day in the
woods to where they were now.

"Cassie, look at me." He took my chin. Brought
my eyes to his. "You know I love you."

"You sold yourself out. You're going away,
right?"

His eyes were wet, from cold maybe. Maybe he
was about to cry. "Yes."

"Leave me alone," I said. I broke away from
him. Hurt, the winning emotion, was rushing forward, gathering up my insides and
holding them too tight. Hurt squeezed my heart, and I ran. He betrayed himself,
so he'd betrayed me.

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CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER NINE

I knew Ian came early to lessons to see me. I
knew he stayed late, hanging around the front lawn. He even threw something at
my window once, which I ignored.

"The boy is back," Dino had said that first
day, with this horrible glee in his voice. How I didn't throw my water glass at
him, I'll never know.

"So it all works out," my mother
said.

I hated everyone. Dino. Even Mom sometimes. Dog
William for being happier than ever, having Rocket back in his life. I
fantasized about funding my father's sabotaging-Dino efforts, the way one
government secretly funds the destruction of another. Okay, the way our
government does that. I hated school and almost everyone in it. They changed the
seating chart in World History, and I ended up sitting next to these two girls
who I always thought

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looked like those monkeys from Planet of the
Apes. In science we started labs. My partners were Orlando, who didn't yet know
he was gay, and this girl, Julia, who already knew she was. So during one class
it was the Bad Primate Movie film-fest, and the next it was the Rainbow Pride
Hour, with Orlando using words like exquisite, and Julia showing us pictures of
her and Allison Lorey at homecoming. Zach, of duct-taped-snake fame, had
suddenly moved after his dad got a new job. I felt a sadness and inexplicable
loss. Twins separated, phantom-limb stuff. I actually missed him. Worse, we were
into that long spell where there were no vacations until Spring Break, unless
you count that perennial holiday favorite, President's Day. Such a time of
revelry and celebration, where the whole country stops in joyful remembrance of
William Howard Taft and Grover Cleveland. Party on.

The next time Ian had a lesson, I stayed in my
room. Chuck and Bunny had given him a ride; I heard their car and Bunny's deep
voice calling out a good-bye. No Rocket that day--Dog William would have his
heart broken. Good.

I held the snow globe, turned it upside down
enough times to make the bear truly pissed off, if he could get pissed off. I
thought maybe I should name him. I wondered what a good name for an unanchored
bear would be. Bingo? Dave? Timmy? I ignored the goddamn beautiful sounds coming
from downstairs. I wondered how Sabbotino Grappa, full of lemon trees and
curved, cobbled streets could produce a man with a stone heart.

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"Cassie!"

A knock at my door. Shit, a knock. I dropped
the bear on my bed. I guess the music downstairs had stopped some time ago. It
was Ian. At my bedroom door.

"Are you crazy?" I said to the door. "Dino will
kill you."

"Open up. Come on. Cassie, come on!" "Ian, what
are you doing?" I said through the closed door. "He's right downstairs." "I
don't care." "Go away."

"I'm not leaving until you talk to
me."

"Jesus," I said. I opened the door. "Get in
here before he sees you." I yanked his sleeve, shut the door behind him. "What
are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking I'm in love with you. I'm
thinking I miss you and I'm sorry you feel I've let you down."

His brown eyes were soft. I wanted to put my
hands in his hair, inside his coat, around his waist. Pain versus happiness, I'd
told my mother. There must be a simple mathematical solution to figure it
out.

Some strange memory came to me then. A story
from when I was little, told again and again by my parents. I was climbing the
attic stairs as my mother stood behind me. Are you afraid of the stairs? My
mother had asked. No, I had said. I'm just afraid of falling.

"Hey," Ian said. "I'm in your room. I've never
seen your room."

He looked around at my lamps and my hula
dancer

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dashboard guy, and at my Einstein Action
Figure. He picked up the tiny plastic television on my dresser, looked inside
the peephole and clicked through the pictures of Dogs on TV--tacky dogs in tacky
costumes. He stared at the star chart on the back of my door.

"You've got to get out of here," I
said.

"Not yet." Ian took his sweet time looking
around. He read the quotes stuck up along near my bed, picked up my snow globe,
which I'd ditched quickly on the mattress. He gave the bear a spin, watched him
swirl.

"I've had him since I was a kid," I said. "He
used to be glued down."

"I like him like this," Ian said. "He looks
happy. Free. He's just cruising around." Ian gave him another spin.

"He's totally unanchored. Lost in
space."

"He's smiling. Look, miniature painted lips.
Smiling." He held the globe above us, pointed out the tiny red line on the
bear's face. "Cassie, what are you so afraid of?" Ian said. He handed the globe
back to me.

"It's obvious."

"No."

"Losing you. Having you go away. Feeling too
much. It doesn't seem to lead to good things."

"It's like . . . you're on vacation. But
instead of enjoying the sun and the palm trees, you're worrying the plane's
gonna crash on the way home."

"You are leaving. I will lose you."

"I'm here right now. We don't know what the
future will bring. Why don't we let that take care of itself."

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I didn't say anything. Ian resumed his survey
of my room. He saw my scarf, draped over my desk chair, ran it between his
fingers. He picked up my pillow, held it to his face to smell my
scent.

"I love the way you smell."

"Ian." I could barely speak.

"Cassie, let go."

I felt my throat close up with tears. Sometimes
you build up these walls, you build and you build and you think they're so
strong, but then someone can come along and tip them over with only his fingers,
or the weight of his breath. I started to cry. Ian came and put his arms around
me, and I tried to think tough things because I hate to cry. I told myself not
to act like I'd been abducted and brainwashed by evil Hallmark robots, but it
was no good. He held me, and I tried not to think about what was really on my
mind--all the times that people came together and really loved each other, all
the times that meant they'd have to lose each other, too.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"What are you sorry for? Don't be
sorry."

"Just, how I handled things."

"I've hated disappointing you," Ian
said.

I got myself together. Unburied my face from
his shirt. I probably got makeup on his dark coat. I'm sure my eyes looked tres
Ringling Brothers.

"God, Ian. What are we thinking? You've got to
get out of here. Dino's going to know you're here. He's like a hawk. A hawk with
ESP. He notices everything. He

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catches every thought someone has that's
against him. He catches every thought about maybe having a thought someone has
that's against him."

"I don't care. I'll do the audition, but I want
a life, too. I told my mother the same thing. Dino's going to have to accept it
too."

"It's supposed to affect your focus. Spending
time with me means you're not giving everything to your music the way you need
to. You only have two more months until your audition."

"I can handle it fine. There's no reason I
can't do both," Ian said. "I don't care if Dino knows. I don't want to hide
anymore."

I felt a surge of brave glee. It felt good. No,
it felt great. "I hope you know what you're doing," I said. "I've never been
more sure."

"Oh, God. He's going to kill me." More glee in
this, the anticipation of good conquering evil. Some sicko part of me was
thrilled at the idea of the shit hitting the fan. It was very Romeo and Juliet,
only we know what happened to them.

"Kiss me. Then walk me down."

"Man, you are asking for it."

"He's going to have to understand."

I knew when he said this that he didn't
understand Dino very well. We stepped out my door, walked down the stairs. Of
course, Dino was coming out of his office when we reached the landing. I'm sure
he knew where Ian was the entire time, and was keeping track of the passing
minutes on his watch.

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"Ian needs a ride home," I said. "He came to
ask me." So much for conquering evil. I was already descending into fear-induced
excuses and barely concealed panic. I realized that I'd have to make good on my
quick thinking, was relieved to remember that Mom carpooled that morning, as she
often did to save on ferry passage.

"Thanks for the lesson, Mr. Cavalli," Ian said.
And then he picked up my hand, laced my fingers in his.

"Good-bye, Boy Wonder," Dino said.

I drove Ian home, my heart leaping around with
Oh, Shit, What Have We Done jubilation and anxiety. And at just plain happiness
at being with Ian again. You know what I'd missed? The smell of him, how he
always smelled like he'd just come in from the cold, and like that vanilla
shampoo. And now I could smell him there in the car beside me and it made me so
happy. I felt like I could just drive around for the next twenty years and be
perfectly content, there in Mom's Subaru, with her half-eaten roll of
butterscotch Life Savers in the ashtray, paper coffee cup crinkled on the floor,
and Seattle Weekly in tossed disarray on the backseat.

I turned the radio up loud. Some old rock song.
Something very un-classical. I guess even Mom needed a break from it too, while
she was driving. Ian patted his thigh with his palm to the beat. We arrived at
his house and kissed in the car for a while. Man, did I like kissing Ian
Waters.

We steamed up the windows until Ian had to go.
I hated to see him leave. Kissing him in the car made me

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want to never have to see the back of his coat
going away from me. He walked up the steps to his house, and I watched him. He
turned and waved good-bye.

It wasn't until I'd gotten home that I realized
he'd forgotten all about his violin in the backseat.

The bizarre thing was, Dino didn't say a word
about Ian and me all that night, or the next day even. He was only his usual
depressed self, this morose person who was becoming our usual household
companion, this man on a constant hunt for the ways he was sure he was being
harmed. I wondered if he'd given up on the theory that he could feel more in
control of his own life by controlling someone else's, or if he just didn't care
anymore. What I really thought, though, was that it was all building up inside
of him--his anger, his disease. The vicious mix was simmering.

Dino must not have even told Mom about Ian and
me. She didn't mention anything, or even seem annoyed with me. Dino stayed holed
up in his office, then went to bed early. He just stayed disconnected from me.
But then again, he'd never truly connected with me in the first place. I was
like the dishwasher, or the coffee pot, and always had been. I just came with
the package, and as long as I was doing what I was supposed to do and kept
quiet, fine. Sometimes, in a step-situation you've got all the pieces, but it
just doesn't make a family. Everyone is trying to make believe that it is, but
you can tell the difference. No divorce book is going to help, no "new
traditions" are

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going to help, and God, no family vacations are
going to help (unless purposely staying behind at the rest stop and making a new
life there fixes things), because it just doesn't feel right. Your parent makes
a choice, based on who knows what, and you're forced to live with that choice.
That's the reality. "Family" is not the reality. Zebe had a stepsister who's
supposed to be a sister, and I had a stepfather who's supposed to be a father,
and we're all just faking it, and not very well, either. There's an aversion to
the Required Relationship, same as I have an aversion to those miniature, creepy
corns. They look unnatural to me, but I'll eat them if I have to. Let's just be
honest. Sometimes there's love there, and it all works great. But sometimes
there isn't. A lot of times there isn't. These people are just strangers who
live with you and take on assumed

Family like names. And even the tolerance that
usually comes with blood relatives isn't there. It's all painfully staged. It's
a bad play, that you sit in your seat and squirm during with awkward anxiety;
it's a pair of shoes that just don't fit that you jam your feet into anyway It's
not home. It's people in a house.