by Deb Caletti
He takes my hand, gives it a little shake. “You’re funny,” he says. “I like you.”
“I like you,” I say.
And, there, yes, it is happening again. His eyes are on mine, and I am feeling this connection between us. It feels old. Like it’s already been, or will be, for a long time. This bench no doubt has seen many kisses; it is likely just all in a day for this bench. But what happens next is not what I expect. Henry leans in and kisses my forehead. It is so tender; it is so kind that I almost want to cry.
“Wait,” I say. “I almost forgot.”
I go reaching for that stupid bag of stupid caramels. And that’s when I knock my purse off the bench, spilling everything from travel-sized deodorant to travel-sized shaving cream. At our feet is a Rite Aid for gnomes. Thank God no tampons come rolling out. The perfect kiss moment is ruined as I grasp for the tiny Crest box and the bitty bottle of Scope, the folding-out toothbrush, and the SPF 35 lip balm.
What can I say? I’m an idiot. But right then, I’m the happiest idiot on Parrish Island.
chapter eleven
Solanum aethiopicum: scarlet eggplant. Or mock tomato mini pumpkins. Or Japanese golden eggs, among other names. The seeds of this plant look like tiny pumpkins, the fruit looks like a tomato, and botanists believe it’s an eggplant. Some say that slaves snuck this seed onto ships, which carried it to South America, but others disagree. Whatever name you choose, and whatever you decide to believe about it, this one keeps you guessing.
The day after my date with Henry Lark, I returned to the library. Henry and I looked in some books and made a few more Web searches on Pix’s behalf, but mostly we just laughed and had fun. And after that, we started spending more time together. To help Pix, I decided to try belief again, lazy, denial-filled belief, which also included a ritual of hopeful watching. Henry Happiness made me feel like everything was going to be okay, including my mother’s plant.
But now, ten days after my date with Henry Lark, Pix takes a terrible turn. I feel sick just looking at it. The stem is bare a good three inches from the bottom, and more and more of the clover-shaped leaves are turning yellow. Some have dropped and are sitting on the soil, delicate and wrong.
“Look.” I show Jenny.
“Oh no.”
“Nothing seems to be making a difference.”
“Try to feed it again today,” Jenny says. She is frowning. She’s getting more comfortable with me, or maybe I am getting more comfortable with her. Her hair is all morning electric-shock therapy. It’s sort of Einstein hair, but I’m not one to talk. My hair seems to live it up at night, same I was sure my Barbies did, after I shut the doors of the Dreamhouse.
“Maybe I’m feeding it too much. Maybe I should only do it every other day. . . .”
Every solution seems full of possible peril. I remember this feeling. Maybe if I . . . Maybe if I don’t . . . There are real options to try at first. There is medical knowledge and there is a treatment plan and there are a million zaps of radiation fighting unseen evil cells. There is soil and light and more water/less water. But then there are the other things you try. Being extra nice to the people around you. Deals with God where you promise eternal good behavior and a lifetime of devotion to the poor. The logic goes downhill from there. Maybe if you eat this grapefruit or don’t eat this grapefruit, or think this thought or don’t think this thought. If you are positive and optimistic, or see the worst coming, or if you don’t jinx the outcome by doing X or Y or Z . . .
“I don’t know what to say, Tess. I don’t have any answers.”
“I’ve been terrible. I’ve neglected it. I really only spent those two days trying to find out what’s wrong. I haven’t tried hard enough, and now look.” I’m scared. I’m afraid to even breathe next to Pix. Every time I even accidentally bump the sill, another leaf falls.
“You’ve been living your life.”
“I’ve been really selfish,” I say. I don’t know how to explain this, but the thought socks me in the stomach. I wrap my arms around myself. That feeling hurts so bad.
“You’ve been having fun. That’s good.”
Fun—it sounds so lame, especially to excuse my irresponsibility. This plant is the last one of its kind, and if it dies, it’s gone forever. Pix has been here getting sicker and sicker while Henry and I have been hiking up to the lighthouse at Point Perpetua Park, and walking to the waterfall on Mount Conviction, and picnicking in Crow Valley, where rabbits jumped around us and llamas looked on, blinking their long eyelashes.
I’ve been thinking only of myself, and I’ve completely ignored the most important things.
“You’ve also been seeing a lot of Henry,” Jenny says. She runs a finger around the top of her near-empty coffee cup.
“Why do you say it like that? You always sound worried when you say his name.”
“I don’t ‘always’ anything.” She gets up. Pours herself more coffee. Vito gets to his feet. He’s continually convinced that any human movement means TREAT. He is right maybe 5 percent of the time. How he lives with those odds is beyond me.
“What are you worried about, anyway?”
“I don’t want you to get your heart broken.”
“Why would I get my heart broken?” My heart has already been broken, and I’m still here, aren’t I? I pour myself a cup of coffee too. I’ve discovered that I like it after all. It’s something new about me. I make it with lots of sugar and milk and sip it while sitting in Jenny’s rocker on the porch. I think about Henry and smell the early-morning waters of the sound as the caffeine zips around inside me like a magic carpet.
“A million reasons. You don’t live here permanently, for starters. What am I saying? It’s none of my business.”
“We don’t know what might last or not. How do we ever know?”
“Well, okay. You got that right.”
“Why did I not know you all these years?” I try again. I keep trying this one.
“Misunderstandings.”
“You always say misunderstandings.”
She sets her mug down on the counter. “Are you okay here, Tess? Is everything all right with you?”
“Sure.”
“I hear you at night. Last night, the night before. Crying.”
I don’t know what to say. I didn’t think she could hear. I usually put the pillow over my head and fold it down. “It’s just . . . night. It’s hard. At night, it’s just me and me and no one.”
“Your dad said a few weeks. A few weeks are almost up.”
“Yeah, now that I’m having a good time.”
“Do you want to go home?”
“Are you sick of me?”
“God no. I love having you here. It’s the happiest I’ve been since your fool of a father moved out when he was eighteen. I just put myself in your place. You must miss it there. Even if you like it here, that’s your home.”
I try not to think about it. When I ride Jenny’s bike down her gravel road, when I turn left at the mailbox and head into the town of Parrish, perched over the waters of the sound, waters known for their healing powers, waters cradling slumbering whales, I do my best not to think about craggy, dry mountains of yellowed grass or the green sign over G street, WELCOME TO SAN BERNARDINO. When I sit once again in Jenny’s painting class, with Nathan holding the brush in his teeth, with Margaret telling stories about her beloved Eugene, and with Elijah’s painting becoming clearer and more distinct (two figures, two faces), I try not to think about our stucco ranch house or our own street, where some people have rock beds for lawns. I try not to think about my own room with my own pillow and the huge rainforest poster I made in the ninth grade on the back of my door, or my mother’s kitchen with the canisters for flour and sugar, or the Snow White cup from Disneyland where we keep our keys.
When Jenny gave me money and I bought some new clothes in town, I tried not to think about my own clothes in my own closet, that orange sundress and my Tall Heels, as Mom used to call them. Or sitting on the floo
r of Meg’s room, doing homework together. Or Meg’s stupid cat, Felix, who weighs almost twenty pounds and who lolls around like one of those sea lions on the rocks in Santa Cruz. All of it has gotten mixed up with what I miss most—my mother. My mother’s eyes, my mother’s voice, my mother’s presence. Her alive self, just there. My mother and our old life together. My father, even. My father with my mother. Sure, there was the frustrated way she’d say, Thom-as! Or the time she drove off mad, slamming the front door and making the windows rattle. But, too, she’d ruffle his hair. He’d slap her butt as she passed and she’d laugh. I missed him, just him, too. The way he’d yell at those guys on the talk radio stations. How he’d say he was going to make himself a peanut butter and peanut butter sandwich.
One person can hold it all together, and you don’t realize that. Not until they’re gone and the pin is pulled, and everything is gone.
“We could—I could go to California and stay with you for a while,” Jenny says.
I can’t picture her there. She belongs here, on this strange northwest island of foggy cliffs and odd characters. Vito lies back down by the refrigerator. He groans like an old man. He sounds disgusted. Once again, his TREAT hopes have been dashed. “I want to stay here.”
And I do. Because, here, I have that vacation feeling, the one where you’ve left your life for a while, and good riddance to it. Here, I am someone new. Here, all that has hurt me is 1,294.6 miles away. And here, there is Henry.
* * *
I drop my bag on the counter.
“Henry’s not supposed to fraternize at work,” Sasha says. “If it’s personal, then you wait for personal time.”
“Ha,” Larry says next to her.
Sasha’s got on combat boots and a T-shirt that says I’M PERFECT. YOU ADJUST. She’s typing something into the computer. She barely looks at me. I’m assuming the typing has something to do with important library business.
“This isn’t personal. I need help.”
She looks up. She reads my face. She must see how desperate I’m feeling. “I guess this can wait. Henry’s not in until noon.”
I sneak a look at her screen.
Abby—I am lost without you. . . .
Larry catches my gaze and rolls his eyes. I roll my eyes back.
“So. What’s the big emergency?” Sasha says.
“It’s about a plant.”
“You still having plant problems?” Larry says. Larry shoves his hands into his jeans pockets. He looks perturbed. “I thought Dr. Lester Frank would do the trick.”
“It’s not the end of the world when you make a bad book match, Larry,” Sasha says.
Larry scratches his sort-of beard. “Man. I can’t believe it.” He is seriously disappointed in himself.
“It wasn’t a bad book match,” I console. “Dr. Lester Frank was awesome.”
“Kind of a dark dude,” Larry says.
“Yeah.” He’s right about that. “But Dr. Lester Frank said the same thing as Henry. If nothing else works—and nothing else has worked—you need to know exactly who the plant is. You need all the information you can get about it. It may have its own issues.”
“Like Sasha,” Larry says. She socks him.
“All right.” Sasha grabs a notepad and pen, and both Larry and I follow her over to the two computers. “Name?” I tell her. She types fast. Once again, two atoms split and become a goo that becomes a mass that evolves into our planet before the search results appear. I don’t know how they stand it. They seem perfectly okay waiting. I guess if you don’t know that things can be better, you aren’t bothered when they’re not that great.
“This’ll just take a minute,” Sasha says.
“Ha-ha. Good one,” I say, but Sasha’s serious. I don’t want to tell her that Henry and I already tried this very same search. It seems rude, for starters, but she also seems capable of placing one of those combat boots on your throat when irked. I am standing close to both of them. Larry’s denim shirt smells like cigarettes too.
“You guys!” I say. “I thought smoking went out in the seventies.”
“It did,” Sasha says.
“Being a librarian is a stressful job,” Larry says.
It doesn’t look stressful. Honestly, there’s no one here. Just that same guy reading the newspaper and a mom and her son in the dinosaur section.
“You got your average low-maintenance book lover, sure,” Larry says.
“Just here to get their fix,” Sasha adds.
“But most everyone else has some problem that you’re supposed to cure with—”
“Information.”
“And I believe in information—” Larry makes his voice sound like a preacher’s. “Information solves ninety-nine percent of the world’s problems.”
“But there’s that other one percent that information can’t do a damn thing about. Love and loss, baby,” Sasha chimes in.
“How to Make Love Last? Grieving the Loss? Moving on from the Past? Come on, A Farewell to Arms?” Larry argues. “I was talking about acts of God. Tsunamis. Dying plants.”
“All right. Here it is. Pixiebell.” Sasha shows me the same wrong plant Henry found days ago.
“That’s not it.”
“That’s not it?” She looks shocked.
“Not even close.”
Larry takes off. In a flash, he’s back. Photographic Atlas of Botany, Field Guide to Plants, How to Identify Plants in the Wild. He shoves them at me.
“Region?” Sasha asks.
“Amazon? I think Amazon.”
She takes off. In a flash, she’s back. Amazonian Beauties. Botanical History of the Tropics. Flora and Fauna of the Rainforest Regions. I never knew librarians were so competitive.
Larry goes back to the front desk to help a young woman looking for books on making organic baby food. Sasha sits next to me at a table. Her eyes look determined through her round glasses. “Maybe that’s not its exact name? It’d help if we knew what it looked like.”
“Well, it’s kind of . . .” I try to describe. I am using my hands. Sasha slides her notepad over. I’ve already told you what a great artist I am.
“It’s a tree?” Sasha asks.
“No, no.”
“That looks like a man in a hat.”
“Wait,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”
I dash out, taking the steps fast. I’ve got Jenny’s van, so I pop in and speed the tin can back to her place. Jenny’s out front, mowing a small patch of grass with a push mower. She’s wearing a sunhat, and Vito is trotting back and forth behind her.
“You should let me do that,” I say as I run past her.
“That’s a deal,” she says. “What are you—”
But I don’t stop to answer. I fly up the stairs to my room. I have the last pixiebell on the windowsill, barricaded by three wooden chairs stacked with books, just in case that crafty little mutt learns how to open doors. I don’t want to take any chances. If dogs could be cat burglars, Vito would be one.
I get out my phone and take photos of Pix from all angles. I take so many that it should have had its hair and makeup done. I have a film-flash image of Pix romping in a meadow and sitting thoughtfully by a stream and leaning against a fence, like the girls do in their senior pictures. Pix stars in a photomontage sequence in my head. You should have heard the music.
I wish I’d known to take more pictures of my mom. Especially during the last week that I didn’t know was our last week. I had no idea that the pictures I had were the only ones I would ever have.
“Don’t die,” I say to Pix.
* * *
I am driving so fast to the library that Jenny’s old van is shuddering. But I almost slam on my brakes when I see them. It’s Henry, and he’s arriving at work. He even has a brown lunch bag in his hand. I would love that about him, that brown lunch bag, but I don’t have the chance to love it. I’m taking in what I’m seeing. Of course I recognize that glossy hair—that perfect Millicent hair—and those perfect
ly quirky Millicent clothes: the crocheted bag, the cotton dress with the embroidered hem. They are arguing. At least that’s what it looks like. Henry’s arms are folded. She is leaning toward him, and her mouth is curved in an ugly manner. So. Millicent gets ugly when she’s mad.
I wish he hadn’t seen me, but there’s no hiding that van as I turn into the library parking lot. They wrap up their business quickly. Whatever it is they’re discussing, it’s obviously private. Millicent strides off toward Main Street. Henry runs his hand through his hair and heads inside to work without waiting for me.
Right then, I know. What I just saw has something to do with that photograph in his room, the one that was placed downward, too painful to look at. Millicent doesn’t think Henry is so weird after all.
I rejoin Sasha, who is still sifting through my table of books. Henry is in the back somewhere. I hold up my phone. “Photos,” I say.
“Hand over the goods,” Sasha says.
I do. She peruses the pictures, cooing and clucking and saying, Aww, like the pixiebell’s an adorable newborn. I didn’t know librarians could be such smart-asses either.
She smacks a book down in front of me. Botany Through the Ages. “Get to work, Miss Marple.”
And then there he is. “Hey.” Henry slides into the chair across from me. My heart starts going crazy. Henry’s got that effect on me. The I-want-to-jump-in-his-lap effect. The I-want-to-go-somewhere-together-forever effect.
“Hey,” I say.
He doesn’t say a word about what I saw outside and what he knows I saw outside. Instead he says this: “I’m going to save that plant if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Pixiebell or bust!” Sasha’s glasses have slid down her nose a little. She’s got Flora and Fauna of the Rainforest Regions in front of her and is taking notes. She stops to madly scratch her pen in circles, trying to get the ink to flow again.
Who knows what happened between Millicent and Henry. Who cares, really? Because something much more important is happening right now. This is clear: We are now on a mission.
