Summer in the City of Roses

by Michelle Ruiz Keil

  The world is spinning. Jane’s cigarette, the hot-tub water, the heat. He needs to sit, to lie down, but his body stands there, head untethered in the vast universe, the blue sky stretching too wide above the spinning planet, its cloud countries unmappable.

  Something clatters like the keys of a typewriter, and Orr opens his eyes and sees it’s the girl, bluish with cold, chattering her teeth.

  “Aren’t hot tubs supposed to be hot?” he asks.

  “Only if the heater works,” Plum says.

  “What were you doing in there?”

  “Acting out a painting,” she says. “Waterhouse. Ophelia.”

  “Ha!” Jane says. “This is what happens when you homeschool your children.”

  “I want to know how it feels to be them, okay?” Plum says.

  “I’m homeschooled,” Orr says.

  “Of course you are.” Jane puts her cigarette out in an old mason jar.

  Plum holds her hand out to Orr from her sunny spot on the deck. “Help me up, fellow uneducated heathen. I need to change before I freeze.”

  He likes this, of course. Bossiness is one of his favorite qualities in a person. He takes her cold hand in his warm one and pulls.

  On her feet, she is almost as tall as Orr.

  “I’m off to check on Jimmy,” Jane says. “Behave, you two.”

  “Plum,” Orr says, wiping his hand on his jeans, then worrying she’ll think it’s about germs and not water. Honestly, it’s a little bit of both, but Orr means no offense. Plum’s face seems to say she hasn’t taken any. Still, it’s hard to know. “Can I use your phone?”

  Plum leads Orr down the basement stairs and pushes through a beaded curtain. “This was my mom’s office. I sleep down here now.” The low-ceilinged room is dim, painted the color of clover honey. Green light slips past the lemon thyme that grows in front of the ground-level windows across the front of the basement. The air smells of incense and old books. The floor is covered in a pinkish, threadbare carpet that was probably red or purple once. A spinning wheel stands in a corner like a prop out of the illustrated fairy tales Iph used to read to him when he was small. In the center of the room is a table covered in a block-print cloth.

  “My mom was an art therapist,” Plum says. “She saw her clients here.”

  “I’ve done art therapy before,” Orr says, remembering therapist number five. “We drew a map of my inner landscape.”

  “Cool,” Plum says. “The phone is there.” She points to a table next to a low-slung sofa. “I’m gonna go change.”

  Orr dials the number. He knows it by heart, of course, but has dialed it himself very few times. Usually, he is the one at home doing the answering.

  Dad picks up on the first ring.

  “It’s me,” Orr says.

  “Orr!” Dad sounds weird in a way Orr can’t place. Not business Dad. Not weekend-energy Dad. Not not-a-morning-person Dad before coffee. Not headache Dad or date-night Dad. Not even tipsy Dad.

  “Son,” he says, and all Orr can picture is a desert. Nothing but sand and wind for miles.

  “Not the one you want.”

  “Orr.”

  Why does Dad keep saying his name?

  “Did you really go to Portland with a bunch of tattooed girls?”

  “How do you know that?” Orr touches the back of his neck—maybe there’s a tracker there after all.

  “The waitress. At the diner. Your order was a dead giveaway.”

  Of course. He always has the same thing at any breakfast place. Still, wow. Orr didn’t ever imagine that—a manhunt. Again, life is like an X-Files episode. “Did they scour the forest? Were there search and rescue dogs?”

  “Yes,” Dad says, and Orr knows he’s smiling. “Two German Shepherds. Taiga and Tundra. Sisters, the handler said.”

  “Nice.” Orr can’t help it—he’s softening to this throwback Dad who remembers smiling and shares his love of dogs. This is how Dad always wins. He turns on the warm tan handsome tall money-guy charm. The good-guy routine. You can see it then, why Mom married him. But Orr isn’t Mom. He isn’t even Iph.

  “I’m not coming home, Dad,” he says. “Not till Mom gets back.”

  “That’s a long time to be away.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Dad is silent.

  “She doesn’t know?” Orr had assumed Mom would come home the second she found out. That it was a matter of Dad getting in touch with her. There is no phone in Mom’s cabin. She has to use the phone in the common house. Calling in, there’s no guarantee someone will be around to pick up.

  “I want her to have her residency, Orr. She deserves it.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have had me kidnapped by fascists, then.”

  “Maybe not,” Dad says. Orr knows he’s thinking about Mom, about how angry she’ll be when she finds out about Meadowbrook. “I’m hoping she’ll decide to stay. If you’re sure you’re okay.”

  “Do you even care?”

  The other end of the line goes silent. Have they been disconnected? Then Dad breathes, so ragged on the exhale, Orr wonders if he’s crying. “I was worried about you. You were sleeping so much and not eating. You wouldn’t talk to me. I found out about Meadowbrook from Oliver’s wife. She’s a school psychologist. She highly recommended it.”

  “I don’t care,” Orr says. “If it was so good, you should have convinced me. You didn’t even try.”

  “I didn’t think you’d listen.”

  They’re silent together—one of the few traits they share. Mom and Iph have debates about who’s more stubborn, Orr or Dad.

  Finally, Dad says, “I’ll come get you. What’s the address?”

  “What makes you think I would go anywhere with you?” Orr’s voice is louder now. “I told you, I’m not coming home till Mom gets back. The girls say it’s all good. They don’t mind feeding me, because I clean.”

  “You clean?” There he is—the typical, more skeptical Dad. “Have they seen how much you eat?”

  Wait. Wait. He’s sitting here talking to Dad, but what about Iph? “Dad! Why aren’t you telling Iph?” He’s done it again—forgotten his sister. “Is she freaked out that I’m missing?”

  Dad makes a weird noise. “Iph isn’t here. She says she’s in Portland. With a friend.”

  He’s lying. Orr knows for a fact that Iph has no friends. Not even in Forest Lake, let alone all the way out in Portland. “Where did you send her? Dad, what did you do?”

  “Nothing. God, Orr. Nothing, all right? It’s all her—she’s there looking for you, kid.”

  Dad sounds so strange. What is he feeling? What does he want?

  “I told her about Meadowbrook. That night at the party. She was furious. She took off. Left the hotel. I tried to find her. Looked all over. She left a message early Friday morning. I didn’t get it because I was driving up to Mount Hood to search for you.”

  “You lost both your kids?”

  “Father of the year,” he says, but Orr doesn’t feel sorry for him.

  “Did she ever call back?” Orr is standing now, pacing, twisting the phone cord as he goes.

  “She’s fine,” Dad says. “We talked yesterday. She won’t come home, either. I guess you both think I’m a total bastard.”

  “Dad. Why did you send me there?”

  “I thought it would help.”

  “Help what?”

  “Help you feel stronger. Happier.”

  Orr stops. “Say that again.”

  “I thought Meadowbrook would make you feel stronger. And being stronger would make you happier.”

  Orr takes the words in through his nose, sniffing deep the way the coyote on the mountain had at a hole in the base of a tree. He swallows Dad’s words. Listens to them in the hollow of his chest, lets them vibrate like strings on a cello, and no
w he is crying.

  “You thought having me kidnapped would make me happy? Dad, they put a sack over my head and carried me out like executioners. They tied my wrists and stole my hair.”

  Dad is silent. Then he says, “It was a mistake. I don’t know what I thought it was going to be like. I guess I didn’t think about that—the means. I was focused on the end result.”

  “They were racist,” Orr says. “Homophobic! It was a bad place.” Orr takes a deep breath, all the way down to his tailbone, the way he does when he’s getting ready to play a difficult piece. “But, Dad . . . getting away from there? Finding Jane and Allison and Mika and living in Portland? This is what’s making me strong. This is making me happy. And it doesn’t mean I forgive you,” Orr says. “I don’t know if I ever can.”

  Dad is silent again. Finally, he says, “Iph is looking for you, Orr. If she calls, can I give her your number?”

  “I don’t know it.”

  “Can’t you ask?”

  Plum is back, changed into leggings and a white button-down shirt that reaches her knees. Her rainbow-striped socks bunch at her ankles in the uncomfortable-looking way Iph always wears hers.

  “Do you know the number for Penelope?” Orr asks her.

  “Who’s Penelope?” Dad asks. “I thought you said the punkers were Mika, Allison, and Jane.”

  Orr rolls his eyes. “No one says punkers anymore, Dad. And Penelope is the house.”

  “Then who are you talking to? Where are you?”

  “I’m at Plum’s house,” Orr says. “I’m talking to Plum.”

  “Who is that? Another punker?” Dad’s doing this on purpose to make Orr laugh, but it won’t work.

  “Plum’s a friend of Jane’s.”

  Plum grabs Orr’s wrist. Her hand is dry now but still cold. She writes a phone number in purple Sharpie on the back of his hand. Orr repeats it for Dad.

  “I’ll give this to Iph,” he says. “Now, how about the address?”

  “I don’t know it,” Orr says and looks at Plum. She mouths no—she must be able to hear Dad through the receiver. It’s a Dad thing, always being a little too loud on the phone. “I know where the house is. It’s on Southeast 35th Street, off Belmont. The pink one on the east side of the street halfway down. I can give you the address later.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “Dad, why aren’t you trying to make me come home?”

  “Because I believe you,” Dad says. “I believe you’re happy. You sound happy. You haven’t been in bed with your headphones on, have you?”

  “No. They’re still at the house, anyway.”

  “Not banging your head or not eating?”

  “No.” Well, he could be eating more, but that’s not Dad’s problem. Not anymore.

  “Is this Plum person nice?”

  “She seems nice. Very pretty,” Orr says. “She homeschools.” Why is he telling this to Dad?

  “Orr, I’m planning to tell your sister this next time we talk. I’m saying it now to you. I’m willing to evac you anytime for any reason, but if you come home, you stay home. If you stay in Portland, you’re on your own.”

  “I’m not coming home.”

  “I won’t ever send you back to Meadowbrook, Orr. I promise.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Fair enough. One more thing, though—I want you to call me. Once a week, okay? Every Sunday. No matter how much you hate me. And call me sooner with the exact address.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Thank you,” Dad says. Orr is surprised by that. He’s not sure why. “I love you.”

  Orr doesn’t say it back and hangs up the phone.

  Plum is there with a little frown on her forehead, but the rest of her face is smiling. Her skin is speckled like a sparrow’s egg. Even her lavender eyelids are freckled. The hair around her face escapes the top of her bun in corkscrews—curly like Iph’s and Mom’s now that it is drying.

  “So,” Plum says, “you think I’m pretty?”

  3

  The Opera

  Iph doesn’t need a mirror to know her cheeks are red and her hair is crazy. Waiting to cross the street to the movie theater, she puffs out Nana’s muumuu for air and gets another whiff of minty smoke. She imagines herself lighting up a skinny white cigarette, enjoying every puff. George said Nana smoked Pall Malls. The dress, it seems, is a little haunted.

  She and George hit Powell’s downtown and the one on Hawthorne before calling it quits. Glow had been right—Mika does work at the bookstore, but the information desk guy wouldn’t tell them which location she worked at or when she would be in next. There was nothing to do but try again tomorrow.

  For dinner, they had slices of pizza and endless free cups of water. She wanted to split a salad, but she wanted air-conditioning more, so she and George are going to the dollar movies.

  They’re early enough that the line is short. The cute green-haired girl in the ticket booth seems to know George and won’t take any money. George winks at Iph and waves an extra ticket, pink instead of the red ones for admission. “Free popcorn and a Coke!” George crows.

  “I have to pee,” Iph says. “I’ll see you in there.”

  The restroom is oddly situated, up a narrow flight of stairs carpeted in a color you never see anymore, the pinkish-gray of end-of-summer hydrangeas and faded velvet sofas. Inside the restroom is an anteroom, an actual place to rest, with a love seat and small tufted stools in front of a mirrored counter. A girl is there putting on lipstick. She is mouse-boned with delicate hands, her vertebrae a dollhouse staircase in her back-baring halter dress. In the mirror, she looks Iph up and down—and down again. She turns and asks, “Why are you wearing my boots?”

  Iph rubs her temples where the lost-and-found glasses pinch. Takes in the girl’s familiar waifish supermodel brand of pretty.

  Of course. The mystery girl in George’s painting.

  “You’re Lorna,” Iph says.

  “I know who I am,” the girl says. “The question is, who are you?”

  “I’m Iph. I’m in town for few days,” Iph says. Why did she say that?

  “Do I look like I care about your itinerary?” Lorna stands, taller than Iph would have guessed. Iph looks her up and down and down again. Gold strappy sandals with a chunky forties heel.

  “Why are you wearing my shoes?” Iph says.

  “These are . . .” Lorna’s huffiness disappears. She drops back down to her seat. “Wait,” she says. “You’re the cute friend. And George, I presume, is here?”

  “And you bought those from Shiny Dancer today, didn’t you?”

  Lorna holds one foot out, tilting the shoe to catch the light like it’s a diamond engagement ring at the end of her hand. Her feet are daintily shaped, with red toenails and high arches that mold to the shoes’ own curves. She’ll probably be able to walk ten miles and then dance all night in them without a single blister.

  “George has been looking all over for you.” Iph says it like she and Lorna are friends, aiming for disarmament. As much as she’d like to instigate some soap-opera-style manipulation to keep Lorna and George apart, she won’t. For whatever reason, it’s not in her.

  “Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie. Kissed the girls and made them cry,” Lorna says. “You crying yet?”

  “Did George do something to you?”

  Lorna’s forehead is high and her eyes are blue, but she’s a little more like a real person and a little less like Kate Moss than she was in Iph’s head last night. Still, just a little.

  “No,” Lorna says. “Georgie’s fine. It was me.” Lorna pinches the bridge of her nose like she’s a forty-year-old French woman having problems with her lover. Like someone who talks about the people she’s dating using that word. Lover—eww. It’s probably uncalled-for to hate Lorna for something Iph only ima
gines she’s guilty of, but there is a too-muchness about this girl. And an odd vulnerability.

  “Please,” Lorna says, “don’t tell George you saw me.” She meets Iph’s eyes, and there it is—the beleaguered heroine. Iph would cast her as Nora in A Doll’s House. As Queen Anne in Richard the Third. As Norma Jean in the play about Marilyn Monroe in high school that Iph is supposed to be secretly writing in her spare time.

  “Please,” she says again. The lipstick is still in her hand. She puts it in her purse. How old is she, anyway? Her eyes have faint creases at their tips. Her under-eyes are bruised crescents. World-weary, that’s how she looks.

  “I know it’s none of my business, but . . . would it be so bad to go say hi?”

  Lorna looks up and to the left—a gesture to access memory. Iph sees her love story with George in that look. Is she about to cry?

  Suddenly, Iph is willing to cede any sort of claim she might have on George. It’s always this way for her—she’s jealous and possessive until the moment she’s not. In the end, competition doesn’t make sense. Whoever wants the thing more should get it. She wonders, though, does Lorna want it more, or is she just good at looking heartbroken?

  “George and I are just friends,” Iph says. “If that helps at all.”

  “For now.” Lorna puts away her lipstick. “You are so Georgie’s type.”

  “I think that’s more you,” Iph says. “Have you seen the painting?”

  Lorna nods. Slowly, like the painting is a lot. Which it is. You might think you want that kind of attention thrown your way, but Iph sees it on Lorna’s face—that kind of love can be a burden.

  “Here’s the thing,” Lorna says. “Georgie loves to be in love.”

  “So it was a one-way street?”

  “No! I mean, George is amazing. But . . . kind of? I don’t know, George made me feel safe. For a while.” Lorna looks down at her hands, clasped like she’s holding a tiny animal between them. Like she’s praying. A tear drops and disappears into the folds of her fingers.

  Iph reaches out her own hand like Lorna is a child she’s about to help across a busy street. Lorna takes it. They’re quiet. The moment is weirdly intimate. Iph’s theater brain strains to be let free, to take notes, but something else in her shushes it.