Summer in the City of Roses

by Michelle Ruiz Keil

  “What does that mean?” Lorna asks.

  Ugh. The game is doing its evil. With one word, she’s exposed her life in a house full of books with a family who enjoys Scrabble tournaments and the New York Times crossword puzzle every Sunday. Her vocabulary was something she used to get teased about. Other kids thought she was being stuck-up when she used archaic words from the old-fashioned books she preferred. She felt powerless then. Later, when Mom helped someone in the store who didn’t speak English or a classmate couldn’t make heads or tails of Shakespeare, she realized language was a route to power. And now she’s made Lorna feel stupid.

  “It just means, like, a metaphor. Like, right now, you look spitting mad. My brother used to take stuff like that literally—he really expected people to spit.”

  “I can’t make any promises,” Lorna says with a look Iph can’t decode.

  George looks down. Everything is off.

  “Well,” Lorna says, getting up. “Here you go.”

  “You don’t have to.” George says it like a plea.

  Lorna takes a chair from the dinette and places it in the center of the small living room. The moon is her spotlight. Her hair glows with it. She walks deliberately to the tape deck, takes out the Ella Fitzgerald, and pops in another cassette in its place. It’s Billie Holiday. “Ain’t Nobody’s Business.” Ha! After being so judgy about Lorna’s business, it’s totally the song George deserves.

  Lorna stalks a circle around the chair, her hand running along its back like it’s the jacket of a man in a three-piece suit. She flips her hair, arches into a spin, and sits, crossing her legs into a pose worthy of a fifties pinup.

  “Wow!” Iph says. The move is very Bob Fosse, something straight out of Cabaret.

  “Why do you wanna do that?” George says. “For those gross perverts?”

  “They’re not all like that.”

  “So you actually like the table dances, Lorna?”

  “We’ve all done things we don’t love to get by,” Lorna says. “Including both of us.”

  George folds up like a broken-down cardboard box. Iph’s glasses are acting up. She takes them off, wipes them. Back on, it’s clearer—George isn’t breaking down, but squaring up to fight.

  Lorna is sitting in her chair, holding her pose, face tight. There is something so familiar about her locked-together knees, the way her spirit seems to have left her body. And then Iph sees it. Lorna is like Mom. The pieces click into place like a Rubik’s Cube she’s been trying to solve her entire life.

  This is why Mom gives money to homeless kids every chance she gets, making sure to get cash from the ATM in Forest Lake before they drive into the city. This is why she knows to say sex worker instead of prostitute or whore. Why she’s always made sure her kids knew not to judge. Mom was that kid, once. On the street, alone. Doing what she had to in order to survive. Like Lorna. Like George.

  Iph gathers her mother’s secret life into her body like a treasure. She will hold it there and never say a single word unless Mom wants to talk. But she’s right. She knows it. And even though there’s nothing she can do for teenage runaway Mom, maybe it’s enough to help these two.

  “Can I ask something? What are you guys really fighting about?”

  George glares at Iph. “Why did you ask her to do that?”

  “I’ll tell you what we’re fighting about,” Lorna says. She walks over to the sofa and sits, owning the room. She must make so much money at the strip club. “George is judging me. We can’t all rise to your level of moral perfection, okay?”

  “What are you talking about? I’m not perfect.” George’s eyes close, and Iph sees how perfect George wants to be. How perfection is George’s way of surviving, no better or worse than living as Lorna does, this girl equivalent of a Siamese cat.

  “I’m not like you.” Lorna hugs her knees to her chest. “I don’t like urban camping. I don’t find it charming or fun. I don’t like having to sneak around and worry all the time. You know what happened to me on the street. You’re the one who picked up the pieces. But I have an apartment now, George. Did you even wonder where I was staying?”

  “I assumed with some guy.”

  Lorna heaves a pillow at George and misses. “Go to hell.” She takes a breath. “After living here, I needed space. I live by myself, you self-righteous little pill.”

  Scout whines into the silence. Wags hopefully at George and Lorna and Iph. Iph pulls her close and comforts her.

  “What’s your apartment like?” Iph asks. “Is it nice?”

  “It’s just a dinky studio in one of those old buildings near the library.”

  “One of the ones from the twenties? With those medallion things on the roofline?”

  “Kind of,” Lorna says. “I think it might be older than that. The kitchen and bathroom have that black-and-white tile, like a checkerboard. And there’s these ledge things over all the windows and doors. There’s no reason for them—they’re just pretty. I hung Christmas lights on them.”

  “Crown molding,” Iph says. To Lorna’s raised eyebrow, she says, “My dad’s an architect.”

  “My bed is right under the windows—what are they called? When three windows meet and are, like, pushed out from the front of the building?”

  “Huh. I don’t know. Picture windows? That doesn’t sound right.”

  “No, I think that’s it. Anyway, they’re super tall, so I bought these long white lace curtains at Fred Meyer, and it’s so pretty with the wind blowing in. I love to just lie there with windows open. I feel like a girl in a book.”

  “I’d love an apartment like that.”

  “I mean, it’s nothing special,” Lorna says. Iph knows this need to downplay; if you shine too much, the gods might get jealous and take it all away. “But I’ve got my routine—go to work, come home. Make food. I actually cook! I have a wok. I drink tea at night. There’s this herbal tea that’s supposed to be relaxing. With the bear on the front?”

  “Sleepytime,” Iph says.

  “Yes! I make that and run a bath. I put on music. I thought I’d get a TV right away, but I love it without. Life at Taurus Trucking taught me to entertain myself.” She looks at George, who is staring down at the floor. “I’m starting at PCC in the fall. I took all the placement tests and applied for financial aid.”

  “That’s amazing,” George says, finally looking at Lorna. “I want you to have all that. I just wish you didn’t have to do this to get it.”

  “Maybe I’m not supposed to admit this, but I like my job.” Lorna sits up straighter. “I like performing. I love the other dancers. Even the mean ones. The unstable cuckoo ones are kind of my favorite. I’ve made friends. I feel . . . at home there.”

  “Maybe that’s not healthy, Lorna. Did you ever think about that?” George’s voice is low, already defeated.

  “I’m not working at another restaurant, George. I’ve had enough grease in my hair to last a lifetime. Enough minimum wage. And what about all the times I’ve had to do stuff for free? Take a number I don’t want, smile on the street so I don’t get harassed. It feels good to get paid. At least at the club, there’s a bouncer. There are rules. I leave with what I used to make in a week in one night. Tell me that isn’t better.”

  “Those guys don’t deserve you.”

  Lorna rolls her eyes. To Iph she says, “Ever wonder what a Gemini with a Taurus moon and a Taurus rising looks like? Here it is!”

  “George?” Iph touches her foot to George’s. Even with all this drama, there’s still a little spark. “Have you thought about what Lorna deserves? She sounds happy.”

  “I am.” Lorna gets up and heads for the gin in the kitchen. She brings back the bottle and sits back down on her chair.

  They’re all quiet. Scout makes the rounds to each of their laps in turn as they finish off the gin.

  “So,” Lorna sa
ys. “Now you, Iph. Truth or dare?”

  “Dare,” Iph says like a crazy person.

  “Ha!” Lorna sits back in her chair like she’s not onstage but in an audience. “Excellent choice.”

  There is a pause, but Iph knows what Lorna’s going to say.

  “I dare you,” she says, “to do what you were doing five minutes before I barged in here.”

  Time stops as it always does when the game turns transgressive. Iph knows how this plays out—she and George kiss. Then Lorna and George. And finally, Lorna and Iph. Maybe Lorna’s been wanting to do that since she first saw Iph at the Roan Inish theater. Maybe Iph thought about it then, too, or earlier, when she first saw the painting. Maybe George wants this, although that’s the least likely possibility. It will end with someone crying, Iph or Lorna. Odds are it will be Iph, sitting there, waiting for George and Lorna to stop, for the game to continue. But it won’t, and Iph will run off like she did at the hotel with Dad.

  “No,” Iph says. “We have to stop.”

  “What? I did your dare.”

  “Lorna. You just want to compare our chemistry to yours. That’s still us competing for George. And I’m probably going to lose. But either way, this is beneath us.”

  Lorna’s face is blank for a second, but she finds her footing quickly. “Oh, I’m so sorry, do they not play truth or dare in the West Hills?”

  “Lorna,” Iph says, “do you want George back?”

  The room is silent and still, down to Scout. “Does it even matter?”

  Now George breathes out, an exhale that’s almost a whinny. On the back of the bike, Iph enjoyed thinking about how like a centaur George was. Lorna and George finally lock eyes. Iph’s chest aches as she watches. What are they acting out, and why?

  It’s not simple teenage relationship drama; that much she knows for sure. It’s deeper, about their parents and their childhoods and the things they’ve seen too young. These two will do this over and over again, Iph realizes, until they’ve hurt each other so badly there’s nothing left to salvage. Something has to change.

  “I dare you both,” Iph says, “to do exactly what I say right now.”

  Lorna laughs. “Now who’s the boss?” she asks Scout.

  “Fine,” George says. “But I’m drinking the rest of my gin first.”

  “No more gin,” Iph says. “Stand up, both of you.”

  Lorna looks surprised but does it. George obeys only when Iph holds out her hand.

  “Close your eyes.”

  First, Iph moves George a little closer to Lorna. Then she moves Lorna into George, as close as Iph was an hour before. Their hip bones collide. Iph adjusts Lorna until they fit together. They stand like that, arms at their sides. “I want you to be aware of your body right now,” Iph says. “Focus on your breath, your heartbeat.”

  She turns on the tape. She places George’s hand on the small of Lorna’s back and Lorna’s on George’s shoulder. “Listen to the music. Open your senses wide. What do you smell? Do you still taste the gin? How do your legs feel? Is there tension in your face?” She waits, watching them both pretend to follow her instructions at first, then fall into the tasks. “Breathe,” she reminds them. She fits Lorna’s free hand into George’s. “Now dance.”

  The two sway and stumble. Feet are an issue. And shoulders. And knees. “Lorna, lean your head on George’s shoulder and take a deep breath. What’s the first thing you notice?”

  “Rose soap,” Lorna says. “George washed up for you.”

  “What else?”

  “The breeze on my neck feels good.”

  “And?”

  Lorna stops swaying. “I feel . . . sad.”

  “How about you, George?”

  “For the last three months, this was all I wanted,” George says, eyes open and on Iph. “But now it feels weird. I’m worried about you.”

  “George? I don’t want to know how you feel about your breakup with Lorna or anything about me. I want you to tell me how you feel right now, in this moment. And close your eyes!”

  After a beat or two, George says, “I’m sad, too.”

  Iph lets them dance for a while. “Spin her,” she says. And, “Don’t forget to breathe.”

  The two of them dance to the end of “My Man” and through “Stormy Weather,” gliding around the living room gracefully now, eyes open. The song changes to “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” and they’re looking at each other once in a while, smiling now. If this were a play, Iph would start the scene here: they’re both so present, in sync with each other, simultaneously happy and sad. They stop. Step back a foot, no longer touching.

  “We’re done, aren’t we?” says George.

  “Yeah,” Lorna says. “We are.”

  They hug as Scout dances around their feet, and then they stop and open their circle to Iph. She hesitates.

  “We’re friends now,” Lorna says. “All of us. Promise me, you guys. I don’t have too many people I can be real with. I think that’s why I was so scared to lose George. Why I couldn’t let go.”

  George nods. “You know that stuff you said when we had that fight on Hawthorne?”

  “I said a lot of things.”

  “Well, at least one of them was true. It’s sort of a life mission of mine—to be someone’s person. Their protector.”

  “I said that?”

  “You said I loved being in love,” George says.

  “That’s what she told me in the bathroom at the movie theater,” Iph says, stepping back.

  Lorna laughs and plops to the floor, pulling them both down with her. They’re in a circle now, cross-legged, knee to knee.

  “Is that what it is with us?” Iph asks George. “A rescue drama? The prince and the maiden?”

  “Iph.” George gives her a look she doesn’t understand. “Let’s talk about this later.”

  “What do you mean, later?” She knows she’s whining, but it doesn’t stop her.

  George laughs. “How old are you right now?”

  “I feel about thirteen,” Lorna says. “Also, forty-five.”

  “I meant Iph,” George says.

  “Huh,” Iph says to Lorna. “That’s what I thought when I first saw you. You have a spooky old-young thing going on.”

  “I do,” Lorna says. “But tonight, dancing with George, I felt my age. Like the age I was at that very second. It was wild.”

  “That’s presence,” Iph says. “It’s what actors do. You’re good at it. I think you could act if you wanted.”

  “You think?”

  “Um, yeah,” George says. “But Iph? So can you. You’re so smart and shiny.” George presses a shoulder into Iph’s.

  “So is it later now?” Iph is teasing, but she’s also human. The director in her has left the building and all she wants to know is if George still likes her.

  “What I am,” George says, dark eyes wide, “and what I would, are as secret as maidenhead; to your ears, divinity, to any other’s, profanation.”

  Iph’s whole body contracts. She sees George seeing it, lips parting into a pretty O.

  “That’s what?” Lorna says. “Shakespeare again?”

  “Ask Iph,” George says.

  “I don’t know what it’s from.” Iph wonders if she’s blushing.

  “Twelfth Night,” George says.

  “All I know is Romeo and Juliet,” Lorna says. “And you’re perfect for that. Noble family, super smart. All bright-eyed and pretty.”

  “You really think so?” It’s like Iph is ten years old, maybe eleven, at an epic sleepover.

  Lorna looks at Iph like she’s a problem that needs solving. “Are you still in high school?”

  “I’ll be a senior,” Iph says.

  “Well, I’m sure you’re headed off to college or Broadway or whatever after that, but
if you ever needed the cash, you would clean up at my club.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh my god, yes, and I’m not even into girly-girls. Plus, say all you want about the strip club, but high school is seriously toxic.” Lorna winks at her.

  “Hey!” George says. “Don’t put that idea in her head.”

  “Don’t worry,” Lorna says. “She’s not going to take me up on it. No offense, Iph, but I have the feeling girls like you do internships and summer jobs abroad.”

  “None taken,” Iph says, thinking about Mom and the daughter Lorna might someday have. About money and healing and love.

  The sky is its earliest-morning pale, and the neighborhood is hushed. Not a car or person in sight. They walk in a hip-and-shoulder-bumping mass toward Clinton Street and end up at Piccolo Park. Scout races off-leash in the cool grass as George easily crosses the monkey bars. They converge at the swings, three in a row with Iph in the middle, pumping in unison into the rosy sky.

  “When does Cup and Saucer open?” Lorna calls from her swing.

  “We’re broke,” George says. “We blew our busking money on sushi and presents.”

  “It’s on me, dummy,” Lorna calls.

  “I don’t want your ill-gotten gains, woman,” George says.

  “Oh, George,” Lorna says. “I made a stupid amount of money last night. Let me spend it on you two.”

  “Do they have French toast?” Iph’s mouth is already watering.

  “Yes,” Lorna says. “It’s excellent.”

  “Let’s jump off together,” Iph says. “On three!”

  They grab hands, and together, they fly into the dew-dropped summer morning.

  Lorna’s hand slips from Iph’s, but Iph and George land together, feet on the tan bark, hands clasped.

  20

  The Cherry

  Orchard

  Iph rubs the crust from her eyes and stretches out on the sofa. She’s been curled tight into herself, too crashed to realize she needed a blanket. The apartment is chilly, and the sky is pinking. Dusk or dawn?

  She sits up. George is on the floor, snoring lightly. Kicked-off covers reveal curves of breast and hip that are usually hidden. Mink lashes skim delicate cheekbones. Scout is cuddled at George’s feet.