“What do you mean?” I asked.
“What we were saying,” she said, “is that we need to do something. Something bold.” She let go of her handlebars and shot her arms into the air for a microsecond. “Something that makes us do this inside.”
I laughed. “Can we keep our clothes on, though?”
Sage smiled. “We’ve just got to do something.”
I don’t know that much about art. I don’t know what the artist meant in the painting, but I think one of the points may have been that the woman did have to be naked. I don’t mean like really naked. But she was there. Just herself in the middle of all this ordinary stuff.
She was being herself.
Chapter
8
“You should come over to my apartment,” Sage said. “You shouldn’t have to be by yourself.”
I had just told her about Cocktail Hour. We were lying on our backs in the park. She was naming more clouds. Emile and Georgie.
I shrugged. “I don’t mind.”
“I never get to have friends over,” she said. “And if we’re having company, we could probably have ice cream.”
So it was that when Dad and Michael headed out to Big Ben and Little Jon’s place, I followed Sage into the building next door.
It was pretty much like our building. It must have been built during the same time. The main difference was that the floors of their hall were scuffed up old wood instead of the floors that Michael called “terrazzo” in our hallways.
I followed her into her apartment on the second floor. It looked out over the parking lot towards our building. Lisa stood in the kitchen, still in her uniform from Marzetti’s Hardware.
“Want something to drink?” Lisa asked.
She poured Sage and me tall glasses of lemonade. I could tell it was the powdered stuff from a canister. It tasted like home.
We sat at the table. Reina joined us. She had a dandelion woven into her long braid, and wore a crystal pendant around her neck.
After the lemonade, Sage took me to her room. Their apartment was the same layout as ours, mirror image, but she had the room closer to the bathroom, like Dad and Michael. I looked over the pictures hanging in the hall. There were several baby pictures, newborn Sage with her moms holding her between them.
One picture was of the family at the hospital, Sage in Lisa’s arms, Lisa wearing a hospital gown, her face puffy and splotched. Reina sat next to them, beaming.
Sage walked back next to me to look at the picture.
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s the day I was born.”
I tried to wrap my mind around it. “You weren’t adopted?”
“No,” she said. “Why?”
I shrugged. “I guess I just assumed since you have two moms and all…” My face turned red when I saw the look of annoyance on her face. “Sorry,” I said. I guess it made sense. Sage did look like Lisa. But where did she get her crazy, frizzy curls?
Sage sighed. “A lot of people assume I was adopted. It’s no big deal.”
I followed her into her bedroom. “My mom conceived me through A.I.” Sage said.
“A.I.?” I said. More letters I didn’t understand.
“Artificial Insemination,” she said. I could feel my cheeks turning pink. She said the words like it was no big deal. Something normal.
“I never met the sperm donor,” she said. “My moms have information about him, but I don’t really see the point right now. He gave me the curls and green eyes. And gave me life on some level, obviously. But he’s not really like a dad or something.”
I nodded, hoping that was the right response. I took the pause to look around her room. Her bedspread was magenta, heaped with pillows of all shapes and sizes, including a large pink frog and a giant cushy cupcake. Just about what I would have expected.
Photographs covered the walls. They weren’t framed or anything, just stuck into the plaster with thumb tacks. They weren’t in any particular order, but I could pick out Sage in most of them, growing up from a bald baby to a girl with the giant head of hair.
When I looked at Sage, she was smiling again.
“That’s my life,” she said. “All over those walls.”
She started pointing to pictures and telling stories. There was a picture of her at Hmong New Year dressed in what Sage said was traditional Hmong clothing, standing next to her similarly garbed grandmother, pictures of her with Lisa and Reina holding signs at demonstrations for the right to marry, pictures of school events and festivals. In most of the photos, Sage was sandwiched between Lisa and Reina.
I had pictures like this from my early childhood, squished between Mom and Dad. Now all of my pictures had an empty space next to me.
“Your moms have always been together?” I asked. I sat down on a purple beanbag chair and looked up. She had white paper clouds cut out in all shapes and sizes attached to her ceiling.
“Not always,” Sage said, laughing. “But since before I was born, yeah.”
Lisa poked her head into the bedroom. “The ice cream isn’t going to eat itself,” she said.
We followed Lisa into the dining room where Reina sat at the table, brushing clear stuff onto a bunch of little disks.
“Prepping for the Red Hot Art Fest,” Reina said. “This year, we just went for it and got a table. They’re more craft than art, but still.” She held up the tray. They had taken clippings from old comic books and turned the vintage superheroes into pendants, keychains, medallions, and pins.
“They’re cool,” I said, picking up a keychain that said, KA-POW!!!!!.
Reina pushed the pendants aside to make room for the dishes of ice cream Lisa was passing around. It was soft and sweet in the lingering heat.
That night before bed, I called Mom. I told her about visiting Sage and her moms.
“You have a friend.” Mom sounded happy. “I’ve been hoping you wouldn’t stay cooped up with a couple of old fogies for the whole summer. Or one of your old books. Dead white men.”
“I read classics,” I said, hardly thinking that Dad and Michael deserved to be called old fogies.
“I should make you a list of some more diverse authors,” Mom said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. She often said this. She never did.
“If you have a friend you can make it through just about anything,” Mom said.
I wondered about her. Sure, she had friends that came and went. The occasional person from her art studio or yoga class. Still, I thought she was probably lonely, especially when I wasn’t there during the summer.
I thought about all the pictures of Sage pressed between her parents. About Lisa and Reina working on their pendants together.
“What about you?” I asked her. “Do you have someone?”
“I have my art,” Mom said breezily. “My art and my work.”
“Don’t you ever wish you had someone?” Every now and again I tested the waters, hanging onto a thin line of hope that my parents could reunite someday.
“Men get in the way,” Mom said. “I don’t need a relationship like that.”
I wondered whether it was true.
“Guess what?” Mom asked. “I watered the tomatoes this morning.”
Chapter
9
“You should meet Mr. Keeler,” I said to Sage the next morning. I was waiting on the stoop to help him water the Potentilla Fruticosa. I knew he would be down soon.
Sage stood in front of me, biting her lip.
Suddenly the door to the building opened and out he walked. Sage stared up at him, her eyes wide.
“What?” Mr. Keeler asked, “You’ve never seen a wrinkled old cur before?”
I stood up. “Mr. Keeler, this is Sage. Sage, Mr. Keeler.”
“Hello,” Sage said in a small voice.
“I’ve seen her,” Mr. Keele
r growled, reaching out his shaky arm to hand me the watering can. “You cut one of my shrubs.”
“I didn’t know it was yours,” Sage said, her voice gathering strength. “I didn’t know anyone cared about these bushes.”
“Now you know.” Mr. Keeler sat down on the stoop, fishing a cigarette out of his shirt pocket. I watched them out of the corner of my eye as I filled the can and started watering. Sage stared at Mr. Keeler, then at me. I smiled at her.
She took a deep breath. “It’s a very nice garden,” Sage said hopefully. I nodded at her, trying to encourage her.
Mr. Keeler huffed. “It’s a pile of rocks. It used to be full of lilies. Bright orange ones. Daylilies. Hemerocallis.”
“I know what Hemerocallis is,” Sage said. “There was a whole bed of daylilies behind my old house. They used to bloom all summer. Once, when I was little, I picked one and cried and cried when it wilted after just one day.”
Mr. Keeler huffed, but didn’t say anything as he finished his cigarette. He flicked his cigarette butt out into the sidewalk, then took the empty watering can back from me.
Sage and I watched him walk back up into the building. When the door slammed shut behind him, I turned to Sage.
“He’s not so bad, is he?” I asked.
“He’s kind of like this garden,” she said. “Rocky, but with a chance of finding good soil underneath.”
“I guess,” I said.
“He likes daylilies,” she added. “I think I could like him.”
We sat side by side on the steps. “I was thinking,” I said. The idea had just occurred to me. I hesitated, then spat it out. “It might be interesting to plant flowers in here in front of the building. Daylilies. Or something. For Mr. Keeler. As a surprise.” My hands ached with the desire to work through the soil.
Sage stood up. “Please, please, please,” she said. “I can picture it now, full of a wild tangle of lilies blooming all summer.”
“Something like that,” I said.
At lunch, I brought up the idea with Michael. “I was thinking we might try to plant something in front of the building.”
Michael dropped his fork. His cheeks were slightly pink, and he was smiling. “Wow,” he said. “I mean yes. Yes. We should check in with Maxine. She’s probably in the office today. Let’s go now.”
“Now?” I said. I hadn’t thought about the details, getting everything approved and all that. The idea suddenly seemed daunting.
Michael stood up. “It’s absolutely no problem. Let’s catch her before she is out for the afternoon.”
As I followed him down the stairs, I couldn’t help but be impressed by his eagerness to help.
“Thanks so much for thinking of this,” Michael said. “I have always been interested in organic gardening. We could do some native plants or something.”
We? He wanted to do this, too? Then it hit me. I had said we might try to plant. I meant Sage and me. He thought I meant we as him and me.
Suddenly we were standing in the arctic air-conditioning of Maxine’s office. I was telling her the idea. She stared at us behind red-framed eye glasses.
“Of course all the labor would be free,” Michael added.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, smiling at us. “Well, why not. If you do the work, you can do whatever you want, and I say screw the management. I probably have a few dollars somewhere to help get a couple of plants.”
She began rummaging around in her desk.
“We can get that later,” Michael said. “Thank you.”
I followed him out of the office. He led the way outside to stand in front of the garden. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him it was a mistake; I didn’t want or need his help.
I should’ve just let it go. Michael was so excited. It probably wouldn’t hurt to have the extra help. At least until the rocks were out of the way.
“What’s the plan?” Michael asked, waving his hand over the rocky bed.
Just then, Mr. Keeler opened the door. Michael’s shoulders tightened when he saw his nemesis.
Mr. Keeler sat down, breathing hard from walking down the stairs. The cigarette in his mouth was almost spent even though smoking was against the rules in the building. He glared at Michael.
“What are you so excited about?” Mr. Keeler asked. He blew out a mouthful of smoke.
“We’re making this wasteland into a garden,” Michael said. “I don’t think anyone will be sad to see these mangy shrubs go.”
Mr. Keeler pulled the cigarette from his mouth. “Those are Potentilla Fruticosa. You’ll take those over my dead body. Those bushes have been here almost as long as I have. I watered them out of my own faucet during the drought of ’92. You think you can tear out anything, you young people. Just because it’s old.”
Michael wasn’t looking up at Mr. Keeler anymore. I hadn’t had the chance to tell Michael the whole plan, planting lilies around the bushes. And I hadn’t told him it was supposed to be a surprise for Mr. Keeler.
“We’re keeping the bushes,” I said. “They just need some company.”
Mr. Keeler ground the end of his cigarette into the stoop, then flicked his cigarette butt onto the sidewalk. “Damn straight,” he said.
“We have a receptacle for your cigarette butts,” Michael said.
Mr. Keeler didn’t look at him as he stood up and walked back inside.
As the door slammed shut, Michael growled. “That man. He drives me crazy.” Michael took a deep breath, picked the cigarette butt off the sidewalk, and dropped it into the coffee can.
“Well,” said Michael, putting his hand on my shoulder. “I’m yours to command. Should we start now?”
“No,” I said. “We’ll get to it.”
Michael looked disappointed. “There’s no time like the present. I can’t wait to help.”
So far, he hadn’t been any help at all. “We’ll start later,” I said. Michael’s face fell as I turned and stomped back into the building.
As we ate our free-range chicken salad for supper, Michael told Dad about the plan to put in a garden.
Dad smiled. “It sounds like exactly what you two need,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. Dad looked so happy about it. I really tried to sound enthusiastic.
Dad cleared his throat, “You know, Jer,” he said. “I was thinking we could have a day out tomorrow, just you and me.”
“Really?” I said. “Okay.”
“It’s the Fourth of July.” Michael said. “I thought we could get the garden started. And have a picnic or something.”
“You have all summer,” Dad said. “Jer and I usually go fishing on the Fourth. We’ll try to bring back something for dinner.”
“When were you going to inform me of this holiday tradition?” Michael asked.
Dad shrugged. “I just did.”
Michael sighed. “Well, if you’re going fishing, I am going on the Freedom from Pants Ride.”
“The what?” I asked, hoping I hadn’t heard right.
Michael laughed. “It’s just a thing we do in Minneapolis. Every Fourth of July, a group meets across the street in Stevens Square and takes a bike ride through the city. Sans pants.”
I’m pretty sure that means without pants! I was suddenly even more thankful that I was about to spend the day fishing with Dad.
Michael eyed Dad. “Be back in time for fireworks. They start at dusk and we’ll need some time to find a place down at the river. I wish I would have known. I could have bought some better fishing food for the two of you.”
“Don’t worry,” Dad said. “I’ve got it covered.”
Michael smiled. “What does that mean—that you’re going to Subway?”
Dad shrugged. “We’ll figure something out.”
Fishing. A whole day with Dad. A whole day without Michael.
Chap
ter
10
It was still dark when Dad and I woke up to go fishing. Dad had gathered what we needed the night before so we could make a fast getaway. But it wasn’t fast enough.
“Make sure you bring enough water,” Michael said, yawning. He stood in the living room in his boxer briefs and undershirt. I had never seen him up so early. He was the type of person who made sure he got his beauty sleep. “You’re sure you don’t want me to throw together a lunch?”
Dad pointed to the cooler. “I got it.”
Michael raised his eyebrow. “I’m impressed. Don’t forget sunscreen.”
“I got it.” Dad walked over to Michael and squeezed him in a hug. “We’ll be home in time for fireworks tonight.”
Just as we picked up our fishing poles, Michael spoke again. “You’ll want hats,” he said. “It gets bright on the water.”
“Good thinking,” Dad said. Dad pulled a hat on. At first I thought it was the Timberwolves cap he always wore, but Michael was smiling at Dad. I now realized Dad was wearing the bisexual flag hat that Michael bought at the festival.
“I’m fine,” I said.
Dad shrugged. “It does get pretty bright out there.”
I went back to my room. The Ally cap was still sitting on my dresser. I grabbed my sunglasses instead.
I walked back to the front door. “I’m ready,” I said, making sure to let Michael see that I carried sunglasses instead of that hat.
Finally, we were out the door.
On the way down the stairs, Dad handed me the cooler. It was light. I opened the lid.
“Shouldn’t there be food in here?” I asked Dad.
He winked at me. “There will be.”
We stopped at the gas station and Dad bought a large bag of ice, two Mountain Dews, two “Monster” subs, a carton of donuts, and a pair of coffees. I didn’t usually like coffee, but it was a special occasion.
The sky began to glow dimly as we drove east to Stillwater, evidently Dad’s favorite fishing place out here.
Second Dad Summer Page 5
