A Constellation of Roses

by Miranda Asebedo

“I was free. I could go where I wanted, when I wanted. I didn’t have to answer to anyone.” I point a finger at her like she’s the one I don’t want to answer to the most. I am furious, and I finally have someone to take it out on. It feels good.

  “You were alone, Trix. You were a little girl alone in a big world.” She reaches out and snatches my hand. She opens it up with fingers that are surprisingly strong for such an old woman. “Do you see this?” she hisses, examining my palm. Her yellowed nail scrapes across my skin, tracing my lifelines. “It says you’re a rose, Trix. And you have to decide if you’ll bloom or if you’ll wither. Put down roots or you’ll die.”

  “That doesn’t even make any sense,” I spit out, jerking my hand away. “And I didn’t say you could read my fortune.”

  “Honey, I could read your fortune just by looking at you.”

  “I didn’t want any of this.” And I don’t know if I mean Rocksaw or the McCabes or my mom or my gift. I just know that I didn’t ask for any of it.

  “Well, you don’t always get what you want. Sometimes you just get what you get. Now go on back to school, or leave town. You choose. You can bloom, or you can wither.” And then the crazy old woman peels out, leaving me standing alone on the sidewalk.

  My heart is drumming in my chest, and my face feels hot. I keep walking until I hit Main Street, and I follow it all the way to the McCabe Bakery & Tea Shoppe. I want to see it one more time.

  The Suburban is already parked in front, and when I look in the windows of the tea shop, I see that they’re doing brisk business. Auntie stands at the front counter putting scones in a pink paper box like she hadn’t nearly run me over and given me an ultimatum with her weird fortune-telling abilities twenty minutes ago, and Mia comes out of the kitchen balancing a tray with teacups and muffins on it, totally oblivious to how close I am to running again.

  I pull up the sleeve of my sweater, look at the scars.

  They’re not scars. They’re a map. Where will they lead you?

  I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know why I wanted one last look at the stupid tea shop. Everything is muddled, and I’m angry, and deep down below that I realize that I’m hurting, and that part scares me the most because I didn’t know it was there. It’s more than a phantom pain, it’s real, that aching absence of my mom and the Starlite Motel and everything I’d left behind in the city. I yank my sleeve back down again.

  “Is everything okay, Trix?” I look up, and Mia is leaning out the front door of the shop. She must have seen me through the windows. “Oh, honey, are you hurt?” She hurries over to me and puts her hands on my face. She smells of lemon and chai, and something motherly that I haven’t smelled since the Good Year.

  “No,” I mutter, pulling away.

  “Trix,” she says. “I want you to know that what I was trying to say last night, it wasn’t that you should be ashamed of what you did. I wanted to tell you that I was grateful.” She pauses, strokes my hair. “Grateful that being a McCabe helped you get by.”

  Being a McCabe has never been a gift to me. I am a survivor, nothing more, nothing less. And I should be on my way again. I should give up on this stupid idea that I can finish school and stay here with these women who think they understand me because we might share some DNA.

  I catch a glimpse of Auntie again through the window. This time she’s reading someone’s palm since Mia’s not there to shut her down. I recall the fortune she told for me. Put down roots or you’ll die. I remember the closed-in walls of Shane’s prison. The empty motel rooms. Isn’t what I have here better than that?

  I don’t know if I can keep myself from running again. But I’m going to try. I promise myself. I’m going to try.

  Moments pass between us, and Mia is silent, as if she knows something is happening, something that neither of us can force.

  Finally, I speak. “I should probably go. I’m late. For school.”

  “Do you need a ride? I can take you in the Suburban.” Mia doesn’t say so I know you’re not running away, but I can see it on her face anyway. Of course she knows what I was about to do. There’s no other reason for me to show up here when I’m supposed to be at school.

  “No,” I tell her. “I can walk.”

  “Are you sure everything’s okay?” Mia asks again.

  I nod, hoisting my backpack up higher on my shoulder.

  I want that aching emptiness to go away. I can do this. I can put down roots.

  Eight

  I CHECK MY CLASS SCHEDULE again when I make it back to school. It’s already time for lunch. Thankfully Mia packed me food, which is in a tin Star Wars lunch box that I’m pretty sure is from the original franchise. I take it to the gym, which apparently serves as the cafeteria from noon to one. The room is filled with folding tables and long benches, and students are seated in strategically clustered groups. A few students sit in the bleachers, either on their phones or working on homework away from the noise and gossip of the lunch tables. The closest tables to the entryway look like they’re full of anxious freshmen. I keep walking toward the tables that look most likely to be juniors or seniors.

  I remind myself that I’m a junior now. No need to say anything stupid if someone asks me my year. Disappointment sits low in my gut, but I tell myself what Shane always said: It is what it is. And then he’d shrug. There’s no use fighting what can’t be changed.

  I don’t see Ember at any of the tables, so I sit down at the end of an empty one and start unpacking my food. Truthfully, I’m not sure if she’d want me to sit next to her or not.

  I don’t have to worry about being alone for long, because someone sits down across from me, setting down their lunch tray with a clatter. “Hey there.” I look up to see Jasper Ruiz. Right away, I think of his brother, Jesse, who is forever immortalized in the trophy case near the front door of the school. “I wondered if you were going to grace us with your presence today,” he says.

  “Well, here I am,” I reply, taking out a ham sandwich wrapped in wax paper, a plastic baggie of potato chips, a brownie the size of my palm, and an apple. Underneath the sandwich, in the bottom of the lunch box is a handwritten note that reads Have a great first day! XOXO.

  It must be from Mia, because I can’t see Auntie bothering to leave a pink Post-it in the bottom of my lunch box. Oddly enough, it makes my eyes feel hot.

  “Everything okay?” Jasper asks.

  “I’m fine,” I tell him. “It’s these gluten-free muffins that Mia makes. They make my eyes water.” There’s no muffins around, but Jasper doesn’t comment on it.

  “Hey, Jasper, what are you doing over here? Don’t we usually sit at that table, or did I get hit harder than I remember at practice yesterday?” a guy asks, sliding his tray next to Jasper and sitting down. He’s tall and broad-shouldered with black dreads nearly to his shoulders. He wears a letter jacket in the school colors, orange and black, for the Rocksaw Tigers. His gaze slides over to me. “Oh, that’s why. New girl, huh?” He smiles and says to me, “Hi. I’m Lincoln, but everybody calls me Linc. I’m a junior.”

  “Trix,” I reply. “I’m a junior, too.” Two more years, I remind myself. I can do this.

  “I can’t believe they chose fairy tales as the theme for the homecoming dance,” a pale blond girl complains, sitting down next to Linc. Without saying a word, they trade food: her sloppy joe for his french fries.

  Another girl follows her. “It’s dumb, but next year we get to pick, and we’ll choose something good.” She uses one hand to toss her long, shiny black hair over her shoulder as she sits down next to the blond girl.

  Both girls notice my presence as another boy slides onto the bench next to me. The blond girl’s eyes widen, and the dark-haired girl’s mouth falls open a little. Apparently new blood is something of a shocker here.

  My benchmate, however, is oblivious to their surprise. “Hey, guys,” he says, juggling a guitar case in one hand and a tray of what looks like half a dozen sloppy joes in the other. “Why are we sit
ting over here?” He does a double take when he sees me, like I was invisible before. He has longish red hair and dozens of freckles. He sets his guitar down carefully, but his sloppy joes not so much, and they nearly slide into my lunch box. “Sorry, um, is it okay if I sit here?” he asks me.

  It’s good to know that I’ve still got that air about me that suggests you should ask for permission to sit next to me. “I guess so,” I reply, taking a bite of my sandwich.

  The girls next to Linc exchange glances, as if subliminally communicating about the presence of a new girl at the table. “This is Trix,” Linc announces to the latecomers. He points at the blond girl. “That’s Adalyn.” He gestures toward the girl with long, dark hair—“Ramani”—and then over to the red-haired boy—“Grayson.”

  “You must be the niece from the city that Mia was gushing about last week. My mom and I dropped in to the tea shop to ask about the concession-stand donations, and you were all she could talk about,” Adalyn says.

  “That’s me,” I say, able to keep a straight face even though I’m inwardly cringing, wondering what Mia told them about me.

  “Are you one of the McCabes?” Ramani asks, taking a sip of her chocolate milk as if to fortify herself for the answer. “They’re legendary.”

  “Yeah.” I open my chips like I’m not waiting for them to ask about my gift.

  “That’s great!” Grayson raves, like we’re some kind of national treasure gracing the Rocksaw people. “So, can you—?” Grayson asks before ending his question with another bite of sloppy joe.

  “Eat lunch with you?” I finish for him, shoving a handful of chips in my mouth. “Yeah.”

  Adalyn and Ramani shoot each other a look of uncertainty.

  “Trix helped me with pie deliveries on Saturday,” Jasper offers. Clearly his opinion of me carries weight because they all visibly relax. The girls start eating and discussing homecoming again, and Linc asks Jasper if he’s ready for the game on Friday.

  I watch them while I eat, and it’s clear that while they’re a tight little group, Jasper is their hub. They look to him for his opinion about everything from the homecoming theme to what will be on the chemistry quiz next week. He laughs and jokes, and it’s obvious that everyone adores him and he adores everyone. Jasper the golden boy.

  “Are you going to go?” Adalyn asks, pulling me out of my observations.

  “What?”

  “Are you going to go? To homecoming?”

  “Why, is that a big deal?” I fold the small pink note from Mia into triangles.

  “Is it a big deal?” Adalyn gasps, putting her hand over her heart.

  “Some of us feel more strongly about it than others. But it’s almost two months away.” Ramani laughs. “Not everybody has an inspiration board of dresses yet, Adalyn.”

  “Well, I was only asking,” Adalyn huffs. “I’m trying to get to know her.”

  “Probably not,” I reply, stuffing my empty food wrappers back into my lunch box and closing it with a snap.

  “Do you have other plans?” Adalyn persists. “It’s the last weekend in October.”

  “No,” I reply without added explanation. It’s best to cut these kinds of conversations off.

  “Is Ember going?” Grayson asks around the guitar pick he’s holding with his teeth. He’s taken his guitar out of its case and is tuning it while he listens to the conversation. “You’re cousins, right?”

  “Yeah, we’re cousins. I don’t know if she’s going. She hasn’t said anything about it to me.”

  “I don’t think she says anything to anyone,” Adalyn says.

  I spear Adalyn with a glare. “Ember talks fine. Maybe she just doesn’t want to talk to you.” I get up and leave the lunch table. I wander around until I find my locker again, and by the time I get there I hear footsteps behind me, and I turn to see Jasper jogging to catch up.

  “Jeez, you’re elusive,” he says, grinning at me. “I looked all over for you.”

  I look both ways down the hall. It’s mostly empty because everyone else is still at lunch. “Yeah, it’s a real big place. Hard to find me in this crowd.”

  “Well, I started in the library because that’s where Ember usually eats lunch.”

  “So that’s where she was,” I say, opening my locker. It makes sense. Ember doesn’t seem to like being around other people.

  “You made quite an impression on my friends.”

  “Great.”

  “Are you always this prickly?” he asks. “I mean, we’re bound forever by law of pie delivery, but not everyone has that kind of special relationship with you early on. You might scare off the less bold.” He actually winks at me.

  “I’m not here to make new friends,” I reply. “I’m just here to graduate.”

  “So you must prefer old friends. Let me guess. The ones who can’t call you because you don’t have a phone signal?”

  “Those would be the ones.”

  He nods, like he’s considering something. “Well, if you give me a couple minutes after school, I can take you to Cedar Mountain before practice so you can check your messages. Maybe send a few texts or even make a call if the stars align.”

  “Would you?” I ask, embarrassed by the desperation in my voice. Usually I wouldn’t look to anyone else for what I need, but I feel like if I could talk to Charly, somebody from my old world, maybe I could figure out this tangled mess.

  “Anything for a fellow pie-delivery veteran.” He starts walking away backward, the heels of his cowboy boots clicking against the linoleum. “I’ll meet you by the front doors at three o’clock,” he says. “Don’t be late.”

  The only bright spot between lunch and my potential phone call with Charly is an art elective. I marvel at the array of materials in the small, sunny room. There’s a supply closet with rows of charcoal pencils, colored pencils, pastels, watercolors, acrylics, and oil paints. I’ve never painted, but I’ve always wanted to try.

  While the teacher is walking around checking on student projects, I creep into the supply closet, my hands whisper-soft as I touch the charcoal pencils. I slide two up one voluminous sweater sleeve and a slim carton of pastels in the other.

  When I leave the closet, I see the teacher. “Well, hello!” she says cheerfully. She’s got blond hair and glasses and looks faintly familiar. “I’m Miss Riggs. You must be Trixie.”

  “Trix,” I correct her. “Trix McCabe.”

  “That’s right,” she says. “It was you, in McCabe’s Bakery.”

  Then I realize that she’s Ella, the woman who ordered the Bracing Blueberry pie on Saturday. Not only is she wearing glasses, she looks considerably better now that she’s not bawling and honking her nose into tissues.

  “How’d the blueberry work out for you?” I ask.

  “Good. It was the perfect cure.” She blushes a little as she motions for me to sit down at the end of a long table. I guess that’s the thing about small towns. You never know when somebody you met bawling at a café is going to turn out to be your art teacher. “But enough about that, right? You’re a junior, so we let you pick your projects; we only ask that you try a different medium every quarter. Do you have any experience working with clay?”

  “No,” I reply.

  “Would you like to try it out?” she asks. “We got a grant for a kiln last year. Grayson could show you how to use the pottery wheel.”

  I look over and see him putting on some kind of messy apron. He smiles and gives me a small, encouraging wave. His is the only face I recognize other than Ella’s—I mean, Miss Riggs’s. “I want to paint,” I reply.

  “Sure, that’s great. Why don’t I get you some paper, and you can start working on some preliminary design ideas. Are you thinking oils? Acrylics? Watercolors?”

  While Miss Riggs is digging around in the storeroom, I slide my pilfered charcoal pencils and pastels into my backpack.

  “You can use this for today,” Miss Riggs says when she returns. She hands me an ancient sketchbook nearly fill
ed with mediocre work, and some nub-length pencils and charcoal. I find a couple of clean sheets of paper near the back, but they’re wrinkled, and the whole thing is dusty. “I know,” Miss Riggs says, sighing. “It’s not the nicest paper. Let me get you a copy of the supply list for class. We have block scheduling, you know, so you won’t be back until Wednesday. Make sure you have what you need by then.”

  The supply list is a lot longer than I expected. And judging by the Dollar Tree school supplies Mia sent with me today, the McCabes aren’t exactly flush with cash to buy all these fancy materials. “What about all the stuff in the supply closet?” I ask.

  Miss Riggs makes a face, like this part is uncomfortable for her. “Since it’s an elective, and art’s on a tight budget, students have to bring their own supplies. What’s in the closet is what students have already contributed. Once you bring your share, you’ll add them to the supply closet. Except for your sketchpad and canvas. Those are only for you.”

  I think of my sketchbook in my backpack. There’s plenty of room in it, but I’d never pull it out and use it here. The thought of other people seeing pictures of Mom or Shane or Wendy makes me uncomfortable. They’re mine. Just mine.

  Even though part of me wants to turn inward, to focus on those pictures in my sketchbook, I’m drawn to the possibility of working with the charcoal, which I haven’t used in months. It doesn’t take long for inspiration to strike, and soon I’m lost to the world around me. As I begin sketching the preliminary work, I realize this is what I’d wanted to draw from the first time I laid eyes on it. My charcoal stick is sure, fluid strokes as I make out the front peak of the big, rambling farmhouse. The sun will drench the house in warm light, but there will still be shadows in the dense roses, night-dark between the thorny stems and leaves. I use the softest charcoals to deepen the shadows, my fingers to blend the shades, a chunky white eraser to highlight where the sun will hit the house.

  Soon, my hands are black with charcoal, my ideas smeared across the fresh white paper. I’ve got the sketch finished by the end of class. There’s not a lot of detail on it, but it’s enough to frame the picture in my mind, open up the possibilities of what would be light and what would be shadow.