Perennials

by Julie Cantrell

  “Not that kind of friend,” Fisher says. “She hasn’t been at school as much as a week, and she’s already thinkin’ she’s somethin’.”

  “That right?” Chief is asking questions about Moody Broody, but I get the feeling he’s really asking about her father.

  “She called us dirty.” Bitsy’s face twists like a kudzu vine.

  Finn shrugs. “We are dirty.” Even his voice is little, but he always comes up with something funny to say.

  Everybody laughs but Bitsy. She’s too busy staring at Mother’s pearls and her pink-polish fingernails. Her face looks hound-dog sad. I get a funny feeling that something just happened, and that Bitsy will never catch fireflies with me again.

  “Who wants to help me in the garden?” Mother calls upstairs where I’m still in bed with Bitsy. She got the big bedroom because she’s the big sister, but she lets me sleep in here so we can talk until we fall asleep at night and talk again when we wake up come morning. Mother says it’s fine as long as we, one, don’t argue, and two, get up in time for chores. We don’t. And we do.

  When I jump out of bed to help Mother, Bitsy pulls the covers over her head. “You’ll end up with dirt under your nails. Gross.”

  Bitsy thinks she’s all grown up. I know she’s not. I hurry and change into a pair of cutoffs and a halter top. Then I skip away, leaving my sister in bed.

  Mother works at the flower shop anytime somebody has a wedding or dies, but nobody is getting married or buried today, so she meets me in the garden—her favorite place, and mine too.

  Together, we pull weeds, water the beds, and deadhead the zinnia. I do get dirt under my fingernails, but I’m happy, and Mother is too. So are Fisher and Finn, dragging their fishing poles out to the pond. Bitsy will probably come out acting all nice as soon as she realizes Fisher is here. That’s what she usually does anyway. She can be as grumpy as a tomcat, but the second Fisher shows up, she’s all of a sudden giggling, leaning onto one hip and turnin’ her body all catty-cornered-sideways, as if she needs Fisher to hold her up straight.

  When Mother and I finally go in for lunch, I smell my sister before I ever see her. “You’re making my throat itch.” I rub my neck, wishing she’d go eat outside and take her too-much-perfume with her.

  Bitsy’s face scrunches. “Well, if I make you itch so bad, then you can sleep in your own room from now on.”

  Mother must not hear, because all she says is, “You look pretty, Bitsy.”

  I give up, grab my sandwich, and head for the pond. Fisher and Finn have a can of worms and two bluegill in a bucket, but they sure do smell better than Bitsy.

  1982

  I’m eleven now, and Bitsy says that makes me way too old to build a tree house. Bitsy says a lot of things, so I keep looking through Mother’s gardening shed while my sister stands with her arms crossed like she’s nothing but a knot. “Why do you always act like you come from some trashy family? Running around like we can’t afford shoes.”

  “Sticks and stones.” That’s what Fisher told me to say when she’s being mean to me. She’s hardly ever nice anymore, so I say it a lot. Now I give her my best you-don’t-scare-me look and try to get out of the shed before she makes me mad. Ever since Blaire Dayton moved to Oxford with her fancy dresses and her snotty attitude, Bitsy’s turned wicked. She won’t do anything without her stuck-up friends, and they all get on my nerves. Fisher’s too, but that doesn’t stop them from flirting themselves into a frenzy over him, as if he cares one bit.

  I walk sideways, trying to scoot past Bitsy with my arms full of scrap wood. The longest board drags low behind, knocking the gas can over with a thud. I hurry-drop all my stuff, but the fuel is already in a pool by the time I set the can up straight again.

  “You’re in for it now.” Bitsy shakes her head like she loves to watch me squirm.

  “Not unless you tell.”

  “Smells so bad, they’re gonna know whether I tell or not.”

  “It was an accident!” She makes me so mad I want to spit.

  “Never would have happened if you’d stop running around like some backwoods redneck.”

  “Stop talking!” I yell, dragging my boards all the way to the cedar tree where Finn and Fisher are supposed to meet me. It’s been three years since Blaire called us dirty, and Bitsy has been too afraid to break a sweat ever since. Truth is, she probably wants to build a tree house as much as I do, but she’s too worried somebody might see her having fun for a change. Well, too bad for her. She can sit and polish her nails all day if she wants. I’m gonna use my brain. And my hands. And my feet. Even if I do get dirty doing it.

  I leave Bitsy to her mood and try not to let her ruin my day. I’ve been on the hunt all week, gathering scrap wood, nails, hammers—pretty much anything we can put to good use. I’ve already got the piles all sorted, and now I’m standing on the second-high branch, nailing boards to the tree. I’m working up what Bitsy would call a “white-trash sweat” when I smell something much worse than gasoline.

  A long, black roll of smoke rises up toward me, so heavy and thick it’s hard to see through to the bottom.

  I feel my way down, jump hard to the ground, and run as fast as I can through the woods, over the fence, through Mother’s gardens. I race around the roses, snagging my T-shirt on thorns before I reach the shed.

  “Fire!” I yell, but my voice can’t make a sound.

  “Get the hose!” Bitsy shouts, coughing. She is already dragging one across the yard, even though she’s wearing a brand-new sundress. I hurry to grab another, but the flames are high and I think this is more than a two-hose kind of fire.

  “Quick! Move back!” Chief has run all the way from the barn. He shouts as he tugs the hose from Bitsy. “Go call for help.”

  My sister hurries to the house while Chief and I fight the fire. The heat hurts my eyes, but I keep them wide open because the shed is cracking and popping now. Kind of how it sounds when we snap green beans, only much, much louder. I’m spraying water on the boards, but it doesn’t help. The flames are halfway to the roof, and they don’t seem to notice the water one bit.

  “Back up, Lovey!” Chief has never yelled so loud. He pulls me toward him. “It’s likely to come down.”

  The two of us move closer to the house and keep our eyes on the fire. We spray the grass around us, and I pretend the water is an invisible shield like in the cartoons. I’m still shaking, but all the fire in the world can’t touch us as long as we stand together and keep our hands on the nozzles. Next to my father I am safe.

  “Lucky the wind died down,” Chief says, because that’s what Chief does. He finds the good. “And that nobody was in there.” He’s always counting his blessings, but this time he counts too soon, because all of a sudden Fisher comes runnin’ out of the shed—the burning, smoking, hot-as-hades shed!

  I rub my eyes, trying to make sense of what I see, but it really is Fisher. He’s come right through the door, even though it’s nothin’ but flames, and he does it just in time, too, because as soon as he hits the grass, the roof starts caving in. The crash is loud and low, kind of how an avalanche might sound, I guess. Like thunder.

  As the walls fall, the dark-gray smoke fills with little orange stars. They spin up and down, like fireflies, but these aren’t fireflies and the whole sky is a danger. I’m sure not worried about the sparks, though, ’cause all I see is Fisher. He’s thirteen and he’s carrying Finn in his arms the same way somebody would carry a baby. Only Finn is no baby. He’s eight years old, and his hands are on fire. On fire!

  Chief hurries to the boys and pounces on the flames, using his own body to smother the fire. Then he jerks the old pair of work gloves from Finn’s hands and throws them to the ground. I soak them with my hose until the fire finally dies.

  In a daze Fisher feels his own chest and legs, trying to figure if he might have burns like his brother. He lifts his shirt, but he can’t find a wound.

  Finn’s eyes are wide, like he can’t blink them, and the fi
re has singed his eyebrows down to nothing. He’s always been small for his age, and now he seems even more like a little boy. He looks at his hands, and when he sees his skin has peeled away, he screams. It’s a cry I have never heard from anybody, and one I hope I never hear again.

  “You’ll be okay.” Chief keeps saying this, but his voice is shaky and his head moves back and forth like he’s telling his own self no. By the time firefighters show, the shed is nothing but a black-gray pile, which is exactly how I feel watching lines grow deep across my father’s face.

  Chief carries Finn to the truck, and Fisher squeezes in close beside him, both too scared to talk. “You boys are lucky to be alive,” Chief tells them, but I’m guessing they don’t feel so lucky.

  My father tells me to go inside and call Mrs. Oaklen. When she answers, she is already blurry-talked. That’s what Fisher calls it when she’s had too much “sauce.” I tell her the shed burned and that her boys were in there. “Fisher’s fine,” I say, hoping she might not think to ask about her other son, but she does, so I tell the truth.

  She doesn’t ask for more because she’s already dropped the phone. All I hear is her crying and yelling as she runs.

  While Mrs. Oaklen is leaving her house, Mother drives home to ours. Her station wagon is still rolling when she jumps from the seat and runs toward Chief’s truck in a panic. She looks back just as the oak tree blocks it from heading down the hill, but she doesn’t stop to worry about her car because she’s too busy yelling. “Are the kids okay? Tell me they’re okay!”

  Bitsy puts one hand across her hip, cocks her scrawny-bony self to the side, and points to the smoldering shed. “Lovey did it!”

  “What?” The look on Mother’s face is . . . I don’t like it.

  “She spilled the gasoline. And then she started the fire.”

  “Oh, Lovey. What have you done?”

  What have I done? I swallow hard and squeeze my hands tight into fists, trying not to lose my breakfast. Or cry. “It was an accident,” I say, too mad to look at Bitsy.

  Chief stands long and tall at the door of his truck. The whole sun sits on his shoulders as if even the day is holding its breath like me. Then Bitsy steps toward him, using her best tattletale squeal. “It’s all her fault.” She points my way. “Lovey did this on purpose! You know how she’s always building those campfires.”

  The last of Mother’s lilies crumble with the ash. Right along with what Mother would call my “sense of trust.” From the seat Finn and Fisher stare into the haze, their blue eyes a match in both color and fear. They don’t say a word but the message is clear. They blame me.

  “I spilled the gasoline. But I didn’t start the fire.” I turn to my sister and yell, “You’re a liar!”

  “We’ll talk about this when I get back home.” Chief uses a tone I know better than to challenge. “And, Eva, it’s not nice to call names.”

  He drives away as I mumble to nobody but myself, “It’s not nice to tell lies.”

  ONE

  May 2016

  Phoenix, Arizona

  “At what point do we admit we get paid to lie?” My assistant, Brynn, eyes the empty conference room down the hall, then the clock. The biggest campaign of our career is on the line, and with less than an hour before our big meeting, today’s the day we seal the deal. Or lose it.

  “I prefer to think of it as a little coat of shine.” I pass her a tin of Altoids, hoping the sweet sting of peppermint will ease her nerves.

  I wasn’t always a liar, but time has worn me down, and I now find truth a watery thing to hold. It’s been decades since I spent long, leafy summers clipping crinum lilies from Mother’s gardens, playing in the shadow of trees. I’ve replaced soil with salary, literature with lunch meetings, and all things Southern with a dry Arizona predictability.

  Here in this Phoenix high-rise, I now earn big rewards for veiling the truth. Although within the buzzing corporate hive known as Apogee, we prefer the more respectable term—advertising.

  Brynn replies, mint pinned like a marble against her cheek. “Presentation set to view. Leave-behinds stacked at each seat. Rose water chilled.” When I offer a grateful grin, she adds, “You taught me well.” A brown braid falls from her shoulder, revealing a tattoo beneath the ruffled sleeve. Youth, she’s still got it. I don’t.

  I straighten my skirt, a modest knit I chose from Jansana’s latest line, hoping to please my clients. “Now, power stance.” I take the position of Wonder Woman, inching my legs hip-distance apart with hands on waist and chin held high. My strawberry-blonde locks, tightly cropped, are fighting gray strands that seem determined to stake their claim.

  Lifting her arms into a victory V, Brynn aims for a double dose of superpower. It’s a trick we learned from a TED Talks video, our latest obsession. We hold it for the two-minute span, and then she reacts. “It really does work!” She stretches her spine a bit straighter, surging with confidence.

  Offering an I-told-you-so wink, I rearrange a vase of Mexican elder, a broad burst of flowers I clipped on the way into the tower this morning, a sign of good luck. In these parts the white clusters can fade from the tree by early spring, but we’re far into May already and they’re still producing their notable cloud-like blooms, a rebellious showing my mother would appreciate.

  I push the vase to the side of my desk and close my planner. It’s been color coded to keep me organized, providing a detailed task list for each and every day. When the bright-blue tab snags my sleeve, I can no longer ignore its labeled reminder: Annual Personal Goals. I jot myself a quick note: Reassessment due.

  Then I lead the way to our fourteenth-floor conference room where we will soon welcome Jansana’s CEO, president, and chair of their all-female board. Known as The Trio, these women have launched one of the most successful activewear companies in the world, a multibillion-dollar corporation recognized for trendy yoga gear and celebrity endorsers. If we play our cards right, they’ll hire us to handle their advertising, a goal I’ve had for at least five years.

  I fiddle with the silver chain around my neck. The dime-size charm weighs against the hollow of my throat. It’s the symbol of an hourglass, a graduation gift from my parents. Engraved with the words Your time is now, it serves as a daily reminder that the sands are always shifting, that life won’t wait for any of us.

  “We get this one shot, Brynn. One.”

  In response, Brynn breaks out in the famous Eminem song “Lose Yourself,” singing the catchy “one shot” phrase about making the most of life’s opportunities. She nails the rap rhythm with ease while I prepare the presentation, tweaking the angle for optimal lighting. Her youthful performance delivers a pierce of envy to my ribs, but laughter wins and I offer a playful bow of respect. She’s earned it.

  “Always swore I’d never sell out.” Brynn settles into one of the twelve chairs, spinning her pen atop the oval table. “Two years in the Peace Corps and now look at me.” She tilts her laptop my way, noting the new spreadsheet as proof we’ve each become one of the minions.

  I give the stats a sideways glance, then turn my attention to the flash of yellow creosote out the window, a fresh burst of bloom to follow yesterday’s scant dose of rain. “I wanted to be a horticulturist,” I admit. “Florist. Flower farmer. Someone who comes home with dirt on my hands at the end of the day.”

  I get lost in my childhood fantasy of living happily ever after on a small Southern farm, growing eggplants and bell peppers, selling poppies and peonies. “That was before my sister ran me out of my own life.” My stomach clenches. “It’s ironic, really. Bitsy was the fact bender, not me.”

  “Good ol’ Bitsy.” Brynn gives her best Scarlett O’Hara impression, lifting her eyes to the side with a long, slow blink, as if she’s in that posh marriage bed telling Rhett Butler, “I’m thinking about how rich we are.”

  “Three years older and a whole world wiser. At least that’s what she’d tell you.”

  “Yeah, but she’s a liar,” Brynn jests,
exaggerating the trigger word. After years of hearing me talk about my family, she thinks she’s got us all figured out.

  I start a pot of coffee, allowing the fragrant French roast to carry me home to my mother’s kitchen. While the brew bubbles, I arrange cranberry scones and give Brynn another piece of my childhood. “I was eleven when Bitsy blamed me for setting fire to my mother’s gardening shed. It was the first time I called her a liar. Chief didn’t like that one bit.”

  I don’t say how I longed to be my father’s favorite, how it stung when he would choose Bitsy to sit beside him in the truck, letting her shift the gear stick every time he popped the clutch.

  “I get it.” Brynn rolls her eyes. “My sister’s a drama queen too.”

  “That shed burned down more than thirty years ago, and I can still smell the stench of melted lawn mower tires.”

  “That would be pretty hard to forget.” Brynn tilts her chair, rolls her pen through her bangs.

  What I don’t say is that Bitsy’s fire burned more than Mother’s shed. Much more. But the memory of Fisher rushing from the flames, his younger brother, Finn, ablaze in his arms, well, that part of the story has never found voice.

  Our curious barn cat watched the entire act unfold, her amber eyes peering between fence posts, her wet black nose poking through to investigate the happenings of the farm. The cat knew the truth. Bitsy knew the truth. I knew the truth. But my parents, well, if they knew the truth, they weren’t saying. And that nearly killed me.

  “Sounds like you’re feeling a little homesick today.” Brynn pulls a card from her tote bag, then slides the envelope my way. It reads, Happy Birthday, Eva!

  “You remembered?” At forty-five I’m way too old to expect anyone to recognize my birthday, but as I tear open the seal, I’m blushing like a schoolgirl. The image depicts an army of firefighters rushing in to extinguish a cake set aflame by countless candles. Inside is the inscription, Who says old ladies aren’t hot?