IJUH complete

by Sullivan, Christopher X

  “You can build me one of these,” I said at last. Then I looked into his eyes. “If we ever move to the country, I’ll complain about every little upgrade you make, but if you want to build me something like this...” Wow. I would love you forever. I would never need to leave my home. I would be happy forever.

  “I’m never moving to the country... so that’s shot.”

  Way to fucking ruin my dream! Give a guy some hope! I’ve literally never asked for one thing... and the one thing I do approve of... nope!

  I winced. He swung my hand up and down.

  “I’ve never seen a blue orchid before,” I commented.

  “It’s dyed,” she explained. “I’ve had one before and when it made new blooms they were white. I’m not sure how they dye the flowers, but they do.”

  “Huh. You don’t get many blue flowers in the wild.” I walked through the rest of her collection. “Most of mine are Phals. I don’t have any Paphiopedilum.” I touched the blooms. “You can tell by the bug-catcher on the bottom. I heard they’re hard to clone, but easy to hybridize.”

  “Nothing an expert like yourself can’t handle, I’m sure. And I think they’re impossible to clone.” Grandma Wolff was gentle with her humor, but that was her way of intimating that she had much more experience than me with raising orchids.

  “Do you have success with cuttings?” I asked.

  “Oh yes, with other subfamilies. The trick is sterilization and the proper hormone. If you don’t sterilize, you’ll get near to potting and everything will die.”

  I hadn’t ever gotten that far, but pretended like I knew what she was talking about.

  “Why do you ask? You seem to really like that Venus slipper. It has a beautiful purple and yellow pattern. I raised that hybrid myself.”

  “It’s amazing. And you did that all in here?”

  “Heavens no. My husband built a barn inland and that’s where my real greenhouse is. I generally give my plants as gifts in exchange for donations to my charities. And what I don’t give away, I donate to the Orchid Garden. One way or another, I’ll get another lady slipper. Please, take it home with you.”

  “I can’t take that.” I nearly staggered and clung to Mark’s hand for support. “I don’t have the environment to properly care for it.”

  Mark was on his grandmother’s side of the argument. “You can house it in my apartment. In the guest bedroom.”

  “I don’t know.”

  She handed me the pot, which had expertly cut air holes. The orchid was in full bloom and well-established (which was saying something for October). It had three tall, delicate stalks. That plant would have cost well over a hundred dollars to purchase. Probably over two hundred.

  Grandma Wolff tapped my arm holding the plant. “I love that you are so interested in my passion. I used to do so much more with them. Consider this as my way to lure you back to my gardens. If you ever want to work with my orchids, come back... I’ll pay you in orchids.” She smiled and gave me a hug. I hugged her back. She was small and hunched, but she must have been a tall woman in her day.

  She walked us to the door.

  “Can we stay up here, Mrs. Wolff?” I asked.

  “Please, just call me ‘Grandma’. Even my own kids do.” She opened the door. “I’d love for you to enjoy my gardens. Please consider my offer. I can always use volunteers to repot and trim roots.”

  She left.

  I meandered through the rows of plants and laid her gift in the middle of the outside table. “There aren’t any fragrant orchids,” I commented.

  “Are there fragrant orchids?”

  “Yes. She must have them in her barn thing.”

  “I can show you her barn before we get on the highway.”

  I smiled softly. “But no stopping. Just look at it from the outside.”

  “Of course,” Mark agreed. He picked up the gifted orchid from where I had deposited it. “If you don’t take this, she’s going to know.”

  “I can’t accept that! That’s easily a two hundred dollar plant.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” I turned my back on my lover and focused on the first love of my life—orchids. She had such a tremendous collection. “Why didn’t you show me this place earlier? This is so amazing.” I was still in awe.

  “Is this why you don’t want to introduce me to your parents?” Mark asked, pulling that conversation out of who-knows-where.

  “What?”

  “Because of the money thing? Is it because I’m a man, or because... you know, because you’re embarrassed.”

  “I’m not embarrassed,” I said, looking down and with my face flushing.

  “Then what’s the holdup? You know I love you. You know I will be here for you. Are you worried about them having a bad reaction? If they treat you like my father treated me back in the day... it won’t be the same. I’ll be here for you. We’ll work through it together.”

  My spine melted into mush and I willingly collapsed in his arms. He set the orchid on the table and opened his shoulders as an invitation—which I took. He was warm, and his cologne was faint, and he was all around me. “I don’t know why. Maybe I... my grandparents’ house is, like, half the size of this residential floor. It’s tiny, even with the dining room addition. So tiny. And they raised nine kids in that house. And none of them went to college. I’m the second of their grandchildren to go to college. And I’m a failure.” I was bitter.

  “You are not a failure. The hell is that coming from?”

  “I was so smart and in line to have a fancy engineering job. My uncle is an electrical engineer... he was trained by the Navy.”

  “Okay...”

  “My life has been so different from yours. So, so different. How is this even possible? How am I with you?”

  Mark shrugged and I felt the thick muscles in his chest flex. “I think it probably happened because you pushed your way into my apartment and never looked back. I’ve never met anyone like you. It doesn’t matter to me that you have a shitty car or a shitty apartment. All that matters is that you look at me like you do, like I’m the best thing in the world.” Such vanity! “And I love seeing you act with confidence, yet looking to me for support. I don’t know how we got together... does anyone really understand how it happens?” He kissed the side of my head. “I know you’re obsessed with knowing how everything works. But some things just can’t be explained.”

  I nodded against his body, though I didn’t believe him—our relationship could be explained. He wanted someone dependent upon him (and preferably someone who was otherwise proudly independent). I wanted someone carefree and charismatic and fun (and someone to make me feel like a kid again).

  Mark continued: “But I definitely know why we are together. Why I love being with you and helping you and watching you... do the things you do. That is not a mystery.”

  “Thank you for saying that.”

  “This is where you’re supposed to say something nice back to me. I didn’t make that speech for nothing.”

  Always need to stroke that ego.

  “I love you,” I said simply and seriously.

  “I love you, too. Now pick up that orchid and let’s pack our bags. I don’t want to deal with extra traffic getting back to Chicago if we don’t have to.”

  I carried the orchid back to our room. We packed. I was sad. Who would ever want to leave a fairytale castle? Especially one with a greenhouse?

  I had an idea.

  “Your phone has room for more pictures, right?”

  “Yeah,” Mark said uncertainly.

  “Let’s go. I’ve got something we need to do.” I stealthily walked into the hallway and waited for Mark to follow me. Then I quietly shut our door.

  “What—”

  “Shh...” I indicated that we should creep along as slowly as possible. Mark obediently followed. I slid down the back stairs (because the house had back stairs) and tiptoed to his grandmother’s craft room. “Okay,” I whispered. “We nee
d to take pictures of all these paintings.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see.”

  He grumbled and I shushed him as I slid out the first painting. He put his phone on the flash. It blinded us both and washed out the photo of the painting.

  “This is not good,” he whispered.

  “We need better light. A consistent light so your camera can focus.”

  “This isn’t the best camera. I’m sure my grandma has a nice camera in here that we can use...”

  I turned on a small light over an empty table and set the painting there. The quality of the second picture Mark took was better than the earlier, blinding flash.

  “Go stand guard by the door,” I commanded. “We can’t let anyone know we’re doing this.”

  “Why? Are you trying to steal her artwork? Are you trying to be a low-stakes James Bond?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly right. How did you know? If I’m Bond, then you must be Pussy Galore.”

  Mark choked. “Where the hell did you get that from?” He grinned at me. “Pussy Galore...” he muttered. He checked the hall as I took the next couple pictures and placed the drawings back exactly as I found them.

  I was in the middle of the fifth picture when Mark spooked me. “Hey,” he whispered near my shoulder. I jumped like a cat being thrown in a bath.

  “Don’t do that on purpose!” I whispered hoarsely. Then I corrected myself. “Don’t do that. You did it on purpose!”

  “Shh...” he teased. “My grandma has a scanner. We could probably use that. She might even have them already scanned.”

  I glanced at the computer. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?” I whispered.

  “I didn’t think of it until I was watching your butt as you bent over by the computer.”

  “Gross.” I waited for Mark to turn on the computer. “Now we’re going to have to break her password.”

  “We’re going to be proper spies. Stand by the door and watch for guards. I’ll crack the code.”

  “Yeah right.” I had no faith in his code-breaking skills, but I stood by the crack in the door and listened for movement in the hall.

  “Okay,” Mark said. “I got in.”

  “No you didn’t.” I walked over to the computer and, sure enough, he had gotten in. “You knew the password?”

  “It wasn’t password protected. Now let’s look for the secret files, 007, before we have to shoot our way out of here.”

  “Yes, Pussy. I love your thinking.”

  I had an N64 as a kid and played GoldenEye more than I care to admit. I was never very good at it. Or maybe it was Die Another Day? I can’t remember. I was never any good at first-person shooters, but I slayed at racing games. Suhail and Nick never played racing games with me, unless they wanted to lose. They forced me to play their first-person shooters and my pride always took a beating.

  Mark found a folder of both the orchid paintings and their photographic source material. “This is perfect,” I said. “Now mail them to me and we’ll be done.”

  Mark brought up the Explorer tab. “No internet.”

  “Damn, Pussy. What do we do now?”

  “I have a phone charger in my bag. We can use that to connect to the computer and hack into the mainframe. Then we download the sensitive information, sir.”

  “You can be really silly when you want to,” I said with a laugh.

  Mark spoke with a breathy, somewhat feminine voice. “That’s right, 007. It’s because you’re so dreamy and I can’t help myself around you.” He puffed out his chest like he was trying to show off his cleavage.

  “Let’s get the device and complete this mission.” We left the craft room and retreated to the bedroom. I sang the theme song for James Bond and wove in the background music that played on GoldenEye when you completed your mission.

  We found the charging cord, snuck back to the craft room, hooked it into the computer (and waited for Mark’s device to load), then downloaded the files to Mark’s phone. Success!

  We shut down the computer, turned off the lights and left the room. Caleb saw us as we left the craft room.

  “There you are!” Caleb shouted.

  I sang the sad, off-key music that played when you were shot and killed in GoldenEye, then collapsed into Mark’s arms and pretended to be dead.

  “You can be really silly when you want to be,” Mark said to me.

  THE REST OF OUR TRIP wrapped up in under ten minutes. We packed our bags in Mark’s car (which included my new orchid). We played with the kids until Mark’s parents showed up. We said our quick goodbyes.

  “You didn’t have to wait for us,” Martha said. She kissed me briskly on the cheek. “It was so nice to see you again.”

  “You too, Mrs. Wolff.”

  “Martha, Chris. My name is Martha.” I handed her the card that I had picked out for her at the convenience store. She thanked me for the card and for the one that I gave to Mr. Wolff for his birthday. She knew it wasn’t from Mark.

  I handed my third card to Grandma Wolff, which I had edited to thank her for the orchid as well as her hospitality. She gave me a strong hug, too. Then Mark and I were on our way back to Chicago. Before we got on the highway, we stopped in the parking lot of his grandpa’s ‘barn’, which was actually a large greenhouse.

  “Is this a business?” I asked.

  “I think she does sell them. But it only grows tropical plants. Those are my grandmother’s favorites.”

  “I saw her plumeria,” I said, enviously.

  “Her what! You perv!”

  “Dude, it’s a flowering tree. That’s what was growing up to the roof and shading the orchids.”

  “Just teasing.” We pulled out of the parking lot. “So what’s with the pictures?”

  “You’ll see. If we have enough time, I’m going to need your help on a project. I know exactly what to get your grandmother for Christmas.”

  “Now you’re getting my family Christmas gifts?”

  I stuttered. “I have a confession to make,” I said after I got control of my tongue. “I don’t buy many Christmas gifts.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Or birthday gifts. I usually wait until I see something that’s perfect for so-and-so a person. I sometimes go years between getting gifts for people. But when I do, I go all out.”

  “Is this your way of telling me you’re going to go all out for my grandma?”

  “I guess it is.”

  “You just want to show me up.” No! “And pay her back for that orchid you were fawning over. Dude, you're so transparent.”

  “Am not.”

  “All I have to say is that if my Christmas gift isn’t better than what you get her, then I'm going to throw a fit.”

  “Oh my God, you are so dramatic. Pussy Galore was appropriate.”

  We bickered the entire way home. I debated whether or not to have him go off the highway and stop by my parents’ marina, but that would have been very risky. We could have done a simple drive-by like we did at his grandpa’s barn. But in the end, it was safer to pretend like the marina didn’t exist. We drove home and I was very pleased with how the weekend had shaken out.

  Babysitting

  Tim and Ryan called in Mark’s offer to babysit on the Wednesday before our working trip to Milan.

  “I don’t want to do it,” Mark said at first. “You’ve got too much to do before we leave.” I explained how he could work with me all day before our babysitting and then we would take a nap at five.

  “What about our workout?” Mark asked.

  “The kids will be enough of a workout.”

  I won that argument. Mark polished my manuscript with me in the morning and we napped for an hour before we left. We showed up at Ryan’s house a half hour early.

  Ryan opened the door and welcomed us into the disaster zone.

  “Where’s Tim and Stacy?” Mark asked.

  “They’ll be here at six thirty.”

  “I thought we neede
d to be here at six!” Mark screamed as he turned to me with his eyes blazing. “Fuu—” he stopped himself from cursing. “We stressed to get here by six,” he complained.

  “We got here right on time,” I said.

  “You little liar! He always does this to me. He never thinks we can get somewhere on time!”

  “I just ensure that we get places on time.” I shrugged. Mark was miffed at me.

  We played with the twins until Tim and Stacy showed up with Charlotte. Charlotte pranced into the living room wearing her princess outfit—the one that Mark had gotten her for her birthday. Her chocolate brown hair streamed behind her like a mane. She was so tiny—the twins were almost bigger than her despite being two years younger.

  Tim walked in after his daughter. He was wearing a dark suit and looked very nice. Stacy wore a fancy black dress that hugged her round belly.

  “I think this will be the last time we go out before the baby comes,” Stacy said, cradling her bump. “I could hardly look at myself in the mirror.”

  “You look stunning,” I said, getting to my feet and hugging her.

  I loved all my friends, and the two couples in that room were well on their way to being very good friends. I trusted them. I worked out and played tennis with the guys. I connected with the ladies. I would have done anything for those people—and I felt they would for me.

  The group waited until seven before leaving. (In all honesty, they had probably expected me and Mark to show up fashionably late). That allowed the kids get used to their babysitters for the night. Jeremy and Zacky didn’t seem to care one way or the other who was playing with them—me, Mark, Mommy, Daddy, Tim, Stacy, Charlotte. They were good kids and very easy-going.

  Charlotte was slightly more of a daddy’s girl. If Tim left the room, she knew almost immediately. It was freaky how attached she was to her father. I wondered how much time her father got off work to play with her—probably not much. Tim managed to squeeze in a few hours to hit the gym with us. Did he feel guilty about that time away from his little girl—I wondered how I would feel if I had to choose between stress relief, work, and seeing my child.

  Hopefully I wouldn’t make the choices that Tim did. I loved him—like a friend—but I would not want his life. I had worked with tremendous force over the last five years in order to earn flexibility in my writing life. I valued flexibility above everything else—above status, above prestige, above money, above everything.