Summer in the City of Roses

by Michelle Ruiz Keil

  “I can’t watch this,” Mika says. “Porch?”

  Outside is cool and perfect. The wind slides over the trees like a loose-strung bow. “Want to go for a run?” Orr asks Mika. But Mika is resting her head on her knees.

  “I hate that guy,” she says. “He’s awful for Jane.”

  Orr thinks of Dad. Is he bad for Mom? Are he and Iph bad for her? Part of the reason she needed the residency was because of her sadness. It’s why Dad encouraged her to dance more, to go into Portland for the classes that left them eating pizza three nights a week. And the way Orr acted when she left . . . no wonder she wanted to go away for so long.

  “Awful how?” Orr asks Mika.

  “In every way possible,” Mika says. “I can’t deal with this. Not again.” There’s a note in Mika’s voice that makes Orr understand how temporary his own stay at Penelope will be.

  “That song,” Orr says.

  “Racist dickhead.”

  Orr is shaking. It must have started before, when he thought the guy was there to kill the Furies in their sleep. He sits on his hands. That stupid song is stuck in his head now.

  “Why’s Jane with him?”

  “They went through some hard stuff together when they were young. Jane got over it, but Red never did.”

  They’re quiet enough that the background sounds of the neighborhood move to the front. Voices rise and fall in the house. The crickets sing and the neighbors across the street laugh at something they’re watching on TV. Someone next door turns on a shower. A baby cries, then quiets. Unlike his neighborhood at home, the houses in Southeast Portland are close together and no one seems to have an air conditioner—hence all the open windows. A car passes, then a trio of laughing bearded guys on bikes.

  “People always teased me for being Asian when I was a kid,” Orr says.

  Mika looks closely at Orr. “Huh.”

  “I’m not Asian,” Orr says. “They didn’t know what I was, so they guessed.”

  “They knew you were something,” Mika says. “So, uh . . . where are you from?”

  The way she says it makes Orr laugh out loud. “My mom hates that.”

  “Don’t you hate it?”

  “Oh, no,” Orr says. “I love it. I get to tell them I’m from the galaxy QRT 9987 in the Orion sector. Or sometimes I say I’m a fugitive surfing the space-time continuum. Or, you know, keep it simple. Say I’m from Mars.”

  Mika is smiling now. The grin makes her face into a pointy triangle like the face of a cat. “Can I borrow that?”

  “Are you a Martian, too?”

  “I’m thinking more like a vengeful time-traveling demigod.”

  “People will definitely believe that,” Orr says. “Especially if they ever hear you drum.”

  Mika turns red when he says it, and that makes Orr blush, too. They’re quiet again. Mika punches him softly on the arm. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  The door makes the tiniest squeak as Mika opens it. Orr inhales deeply. Something sweet blooms on Penelope’s street at night. Mika returns with both their sneakers. She plops Orr’s on the porch and sits on the top step to lace up her own.

  He pulls on his shoes over bare feet. It doesn’t even bother him now not to have socks.

  “Race you to the cemetery!” she says and takes off.

  Mika is faster, but Orr’s legs are much longer. They are both straining in the final blocks, bursting past the cemetery gates neck and neck. At the last second something gathers in the muscles of Orr’s legs and rockets him past Mika. He’s halfway down the path before he can stop.

  Mika trots up, laughing. “You’re a freaking centaur, boy! I thought you had hooves for a second there.”

  They stagger to a moonlit patch of grass and collapse.

  8

  Faith and a

  Sense of Truth

  The heat is an asshole. Iph misses the rain. She’s gone through all of Nana’s clothes, and the only clean things are a huge boxy T-shirt with a sea lion on the front from the Newport Aquarium and some unflattering, baggy shorts. Just lovely with her undereye circles and frizzed-out curls.

  George woke up quiet and distant, and Iph the bohemian adventuress of the night before was gone like yesterday’s makeup, leaving her in the familiar Land of Almost. Almost pretty. Almost cool. A party guest earnestly mumbling peas and carrots in the chorus.

  Being a protagonist is infinitely better.

  There is a thing Orr always said about the kids who were nice to him at school. That he was their “human credential.” Like, Look, I’m so kind and open-minded, I’m friends with the boy who meows in class when he’s bored. It was like that with Iph’s friends, too, although it took her longer to realize it. She knew how to make herself socially useful in a way Orr never figured out. But by sophomore year, Iph got tired of it. She experimented with eating lunch alone in the library and not calling anyone for a week. After a month without diminishing herself to fit in, she was stronger. She boxed the sporty, brightly colored clothes she’d never liked and had Mom take them to the women’s shelter.

  She’d decided on her new uniform and started wearing it: old dress shirts of Dad’s, knotted at the waist. Straight-legged jeans and men’s white tees and vintage penny loafers. Pencil skirts and sweater sets. She offset the classic fifties coed vibe with Yai-Yai’s loud costume jewelry, mixed with little things she made from party favors from the toy store—mismatched earrings and bracelets made of tiny plastic animals and a growing collection of Barbie shoes. She was never without lipstick, dark red or hot pink with nails to match. A sort of method-acting, student-era Marilyn Monroe going to a rave. A few of her old friends had been interested in her transformation—at first. A few boys seemed to notice, too—but that meant nothing unless she was down for clandestine sex. There would be no actual dating in high school for Iph. Teen coupling was all about status, and Iph’s body type and brownness counted her out, at least in Forest Lake.

  “Ugh,” George says, pulling the bike out. “Portland is not supposed to be this hot.”

  “Does she have a name?” Iph asks about the bike as they wait for Scout to do her business.

  “Ethelette,” George says. “I’m a dork, okay?”

  “No,” she says, straddling the bike rack. “That’s perfect.”

  As crappy and insecure as she feels this morning, she’d rather be here than anywhere else. Bouncing on the back of the ten-speed is what Iph does now. George has even fastened a throw pillow to the rack with a bungee cord in deference to Iph’s bruised butt.

  Last night, post-kiss, George had been chivalrous, offering Iph Nana’s room like crashing in a pile on the sofa together suddenly wasn’t proper. Except neither of them wanted to separate. They’d stayed up talking till four in the morning instead and took Scout for a pre-sunrise walk. It was dawn when they went to bed and three in the afternoon when they finally woke up. Now the bones of the Hawthorne Bridge tower above them. George’s calves are glorious as they push the bike through the hottest part of the afternoon.

  George is busy today. A stop in Old Town. A stop in Southeast. Then meeting Glow at her needle exchange site. After Old Town, Iph will be dropped off at Powell’s to wait like a child.

  You’re a detective, she tells herself, looking for Glow’s friend Mika. But before the thought is complete, she shuts it down. The whole girl-detective thing is a game. She can’t actually find Orr. Is she even trying? What about flyers? Ads in the paper? If she was serious, she’d go back to Dad and get his credit card and plaster every telephone pole in Portland with images of her brother. She’d make Dad hire a real investigator. Use her supposed psychic powers to find him herself.

  Once off the bridge, they veer right and cross Burnside, passing under the red lion-guarded gate to Chinatown. George gave her the downtown tour the day before, and surprisingly she’s retained some of it. It’s di
fferent exploring without a car. Slow enough for her brain to catch up with her body.

  George locks the bike kitty-corner from an old hotel called the Gentry, telling her it’s known as the Entry on the street. “It’s a joke,” George says. “Gallows humor. The Entry is like a portal. Once you go through, it’s hard to find your way back.”

  Iph has never been on this street. Its narrowness and the age of the buildings hint at earlier eras of white settlement. She always wonders what it was like for the indigenous people who lived here before colonization. There are so few traces left of that world. When people talk about Portland history, they tell you which settlers the streets are named after and how the city almost washed away in the 1894 flood. Some of the bars around here probably still have basements that lead to the so-called Shanghai tunnels below the city that were used for shipping and as speakeasies during Prohibition. There were even rumors that poor white sailors and racial minorities were kidnapped and kept there to be indentured to ships’ captains when they came into port.

  Then and now, the population in Portland is mostly white. Mom used to supplement the history they learned at school. It was from her, not the teachers, that Iph learned Oregon was the only state to explicitly exclude Black people at its founding. Even though that law eventually changed, the sentiment is baked into the city’s segregated neighborhoods. It’s a regret of her parents’ now, that they settled in a place with so few Black and brown people.

  “You should probably wait outside with Scout,” George says, checking and rechecking the bike lock. Iph rolls her shoulders back and knots her hair on the top of her head. If she had a pair of scissors, she’d cut her T-shirt into a tank top right here on the street. Even Scout looks cranky.

  “Stay close—I’ll be quick.” George hands Scout’s leash to Iph. Maybe George is getting sick of her. They’ve spent almost every moment of the past four days together.

  The street smells like pee, and Scout is very busy checking it out. A man is having an angry conversation with himself. He passes Iph and turns a red face to her. He is clearly in pain, his head fiery with things he sees and she doesn’t. But he’s also scary, filthy in a layered, long-term way, with filmy, unfocused eyes. Iph thinks of the word unhinged and how this describes not just his possible mental state, but the way he’s holding his body. His arms are too loose, his knees too mobile. Maybe he’s drunk, but Iph doesn’t think so.

  “GO AWAY!” he roars. Iph steps back. Sweat drips from her forehead to her nose. Her glasses fog. She wipes them, puts them back on. Like the first time she wore them, everything looks too bright.

  “GO AWAY.”

  This time, he is roaring at her.

  Scout moves between Iph and the man and bristles.

  An insect halo is swarming the man’s head. It’s not really there . . . is it? He swats around his ears. He’s stomping now. People cross the street to get away from him. “GO. AWAY.” He’s in tears. The insects buzz louder.

  Iph wipes her glasses clean again with her T-shirt. She can see them now. Winged red ants with little angry human faces and mouths full of pointed teeth.

  “Hey!” Iph says. “Hold on for a second.” Scout barks to get the man’s attention, ready to go along with Iph’s improv. The man stills. Listens. “I have some insecticide in my bag.” She gestures to a bag that’s not there. “You’ll have to close your eyes to protect them. Maybe you should cover your face, too.”

  The man is startled. “The bugs?”

  “Yes, those red ants. They’re awful. Let me get them.”

  He tenses, afraid, she realizes.

  “I’m going to stay back and spray from here. It’s a strong propellent, so it should work all right.”

  His eyes widen. “Give me some warning,” he says. “Count to three.”

  “Okay! Here goes.” She braces herself and pretends to pull out a heavy can of bug spray. She feels the efficacy of the spray will depend completely on her commitment to its reality. She uncaps the canister and puts the cap in the bag. She shakes it and holds out her arm. “Here it comes,” she says. “One, two, three!” She presses the nozzle, making the shhhhh-ing sound of liquid spraying out.

  “Keep your eyes closed! They’re dropping,” Iph says. “I’m gonna spray the ones on the ground to be sure.”

  When Iph stops spraying, he opens his eyes one at a time. He turns in a circle, nodding as he goes. He presses his hands together like he’s going to pray, bows a little in Iph’s direction, then walks away, still nodding.

  Iph rubs her temples, the sweaty back of her neck. She feels drained now and a little like crying. The door to the Gentry opens, and a crusty older version of one of the Pioneer Square boys emerges. His energy is sticky as ground fruit, sweet and false. There is violence there. Iph shivers in the heat. Steps back. She’s raw from the red-ant man, she realizes, too open.

  She used to get headaches from going out in crowds when she was younger. Mom said she was like a sponge and taught her to close her receptors. “Like a little psychic raincoat,” she said.

  Iph’s been spongey all day. Skinless. Maybe kissing George has opened her up. And that, of course, is the danger of sex. The reason why there might be less of it in her future than last night’s flagrant kissing promised. She is exposed now. Fatigued from seeing and being seen.

  “You going in?” the guy asks. Before she can say no, Scout shoots through the open door, dragging Iph inside. Scout may be tiny, but she’s strong enough to pull a sled.

  Inside, Iph looks for a sofa to rest on, but it’s not that kind of hotel. There doesn’t even seem to be air-conditioning. The desk clerk is a head and torso in a plexiglass box, like those animatronic fortune-tellers they had in the awesome pizza place in downtown Forest Lake before it was torn down to build a Wal-Mart.

  Scout barks a sharp little hello.

  “Scout!” The lady adjusts her Dolly Parton wig and slips a bejeweled hand out of a slot in the plexiglass, wiggling two manicured fingers. Scout hops up to lick them, then sits for a treat. The lady obliges with a cackle, tossing it out the slot into Scout’s jaws.

  “George is on the third floor. Take the stairs, sweetheart. There’s a mess in the elevator. If it opens, hold your nose.”

  Iph follows the extended red claw to a door that reads stairs and climbs. Can the elevator smell worse than this? She wills her nose shut and follows a perfectly cheerful Scout up two flights.

  The third floor smells better, but still not remotely good. There’s a cafeteria scent mixed with wet gymnasium and some sort of toxic cleaning solution. Iph hesitates, but Scout pulls her down the hall. There’s a weird vibe in the place that Iph can’t quite pin down.

  Scout tugs her onward and stops at the final door on the left. She scratches and whines until it opens. “Sorry,” Iph says when she sees George’s face. “There was a guy. Scout brought me here—”

  “It’s all right, doll,” someone says. “Come on in.” It’s a woman. White, older, hard to say how old. She’s wearing a pink kimono trimmed in balding ostrich feathers, and her hennaed hair is piled high on her head and stuck through with three red chopsticks. Another woman leans against the headboard, eyes closed. This one is light brown, graying and handsome, eyelids fluttering like she’s in the middle of an intense dream. Iph turns away, trying not to stare. The woman is high, Iph realizes. Probably on heroin.

  “This is Velma,” George says. A rotating fan clicks in the corner like a metronome. Iph turns her face to meet the breeze.

  “I’m Iphigenia.” Iph smiles. Something about this woman’s old-timey glamour makes Iph want to give her full name.

  Velma’s eyebrows raise. Maybe she knows her Greek tragedy. “Well, hello there,” she says like they’re all in a forties comedy and there isn’t someone nodding out right next to her. “George tells me you’re an actor. And clearly quite the dish.”

  “Why, thank
you,” Iph says, smiling like a silver-screen ingenue. It’s nice being referred to as an actor. And it’s the first time anyone’s ever called her a dish.

  “Don’t mind Pete,” Velma says.

  “I’m so sorry for barging in.” Iph’s eyes have adjusted, and she sees that Velma is older than she thought. She has great skin, but her hands, absently stroking Pete’s arm, are wrinkled. Her neck is, too. She’s probably at least sixty. That explains the name. No one is called Velma anymore.

  “Velma’s a poet,” George says. “Pete’s a jazz man.”

  He, Iph mentally corrects herself in relation to Pete. “I love poetry,” she says. “And my dad’s a big jazz guy.”

  “What poets do you like?” Velma leans forward like she’s dying to know.

  “Anne Sexton,” Iph says. “Theodore Roethke. Sylvia Plath. Emily Dickinson. Shakespeare. Tennyson. Sappho. Blake.”

  “That’s an excellent list. It’s so nice to see young people still read,” Velma says. “Shakespeare certainly improved George. You should have seen the hell-raising before the bard came along.”

  “Velma!” George shakes a finger and Scout dances as Velma laughs.

  “I won’t keep you kids.” Velma rubs the cuff of Pete’s white shirt, a long-sleeved button-up that’s surprising in this heat. “And George, if they have anything in the van for Pete’s leg—”

  “Velma”—George’s voice lowers—“you might want to get over to the ER. I’m worried. I think it’s got to be lanced.”

  Velma’s eyes fill. “Pete won’t,” she says. “Not after the way they treated us last time.”

  George exhales, short and fierce. Sometimes Iph sees the ghost of the bow and arrow even when George isn’t wearing it.

  “So lovely to meet you,” Velma says. Her voice is soft and slow. Is she high, too? Iph has never considered this—older people addicted to drugs. But of course it happens.

  “You, too,” Iph says. “I love your kimono.”