by Hilary Dartt
A couple of times, she’d even imagined him proposing to her. He had turned her into that girl: a quivering mess of neediness. She wiped her nose on her sleeve, flushed the toilet and squirted cleaner into the bathtub. It was fine. She’d made mistakes before. But this time, it felt different. It was different. She’d been sure Jake liked her. Positive.
Delaney Collins was no dummy, though. She could handle rejection. Heck, she’d been the Queen of the Rejected in middle school, even while Josie reigned in a distant land as the Queen of Courtship. The very same sixth-grade boys with teeth too big for their faces who had torn up the candygrams Delaney sent them, had brought Josie flowers, offered to carry her bright pink backpack and held doors for her. Oh, yes, if Josie Garcia walked by, these boys – heinous creatures who broke Delaney’s pride day after day – practically trembled with nerves induced by some strange middle school hormone.
Delaney Collins could take it. She’d bounced back, right? So what if she still had nightmares about Joe Jansen announcing to their entire pre-algebra class that Dumb Dumb Delaney was a Dumb Dumb Dork and then holding up the note she’d written him, pointing first to her message: Would you like to go to the movies with me this weekend? and then to his response: NO WAY scrawled heavily across the bottom of the page? So what if the entire class screamed in hilarity, pointing at Delaney?
The adult Delaney realized then that she was about to scrub the porcelain off the bathtub, so she rinsed it before starting on the counter. Kitchen, bedroom, living room, closets … nothing was off-limits to Delaney Collins. She’d scrub every fleck of dust, every smear of grime, right out of this house. “And right out of my life.”
Once she was done inside, she moved on to the garden.
Last year, Summer had convinced her to install flowerbeds in front of the house.
“They’ll be cheerful,” she’d said at the time. “Welcoming.”
Standing in front of the shriveled, crispy mass of what, for a week or so last summer, had been a colorful collection of snapdragons and some other flowers whose names Delaney couldn’t remember, she doubted very much Summer would describe the garden as cheerful.
Depressing, maybe. Or terrifying. Or just plain ugly.
Delaney suppressed an evil cackle as she moved toward the flowerbed with her gloved hands outstretched. She couldn’t deny a creepy feeling of glee at ripping the parched remains of cheer out of the dirt at the roots.
Ah, yes, it felt good to yank them right out of the ground. Plant after plant. Nothing survived the vengeful attack. Not a twig, not a stem, not a single crumbly leaf. What had Summer been thinking when she talked Delaney into planting a garden? She should have known Delaney wasn’t capable of nurturing anything. Anything at all.
Not even a relationship guided by the supposed wisdom of her two best friends. What had gone wrong? She’d followed their stupid, sage advice … for the most part. It should have worked out. It should have.
By lunchtime, Delaney had pulled all the dead plants, along with a slew of dead weeds, out of the flowerbeds and stuffed them into a garbage bag. Her arms ached, the backs of her legs ached and her fingers hurt.
At least the front of the little bungalow looked somewhat more orderly, she thought as she stepped back to survey the results of her work, but still … it looked drab in the weak sunlight. Parched, shriveled weeds no longer stood sentry near the front door, but now all that looked back at her was an empty flowerbed. Completely empty.
She felt like crying again, so she yanked off her hat and the gloves and stomped inside.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The doorbell rang. Delaney, whose entire upper body was lodged under her bed, jumped. She hit her head on the bottom of her box spring, muttered, “Shit!” and slithered her way out, her hands full of rogue hair ties, bits of paper and loose socks.
The tiniest bubble of hope formed, somewhere deep below the surface. Was it Jake, coming to grovel for forgiveness? Heck, she thought, he didn’t even have to grovel. At this point, a quick round of begging would do. The little hope bubble grew a tiny bit bigger as it rose toward the surface.
Delaney dumped everything in a pile on the floor, rubbed the bump that was forming on the top of her head and took a quick glance in the mirror on her bedroom door.
Well, if it was Jake and he’d really come to grovel, her appearance would be a test of his undying love. Although she’d pulled her hair into a messy knot on top of her head, shorter blond wisps had fallen down all around her face, framing it in greasy hanks. Last night’s makeup (applied with precision so she’d look doe-eyed for Jake) was smeared beneath her eyes and her holey gray sweatpants and blue sweatshirt sagged at the knees and elbows.
She shrugged at her reflection and went to answer the door. The hope bubble, which had doubled in size, burst before reaching the surface.
“Mom,” Delaney said.
“Wow. Don’t look so happy to see me, honey.”
“Sorry. I was just expecting—”
“I hope you weren’t expecting company, looking like that,” Camille said. She hooted with laughter.
Delaney stepped back to let her in.
“Funny, Mom. What are you doing here?”
Camille didn’t answer.
“Sorry. Want some water or something?”
She closed the door, but couldn’t stop herself from glancing at the street, first. A few days ago, she probably would have felt all warm and gooey about the glossy new leaves on the trees, but today she only growled at them before turning the lock.
“No, thanks. I just stopped by to see if you wanted to have lunch.”
Delaney flopped down on the couch. “Did you think about calling, first?” she snapped. She immediately regretted it. “Sorry.”
“Actually, I’ve called and texted several times, but when you didn’t answer, I thought I’d stop by.” Camille put her hands on the back of the couch and looked down at Delaney. “What’s going on, here?”
“Nothing, Mom. I’m just cleaning, okay?”
“Don’t get snippy with me, young lady.”
“Sorry.”
“What’s going on, here?”
Delaney jumped off the couch and stalked into the kitchen, where she got herself a glass and filled it with water. “Last night, I went to the rodeo dance with the girls and we saw Jake there.”
“Oh, that was nice. Did the two of you dance?”
“No, as it happens, we did not dance. Jake was too involved with some other girl to even notice I was there.”
She took several gulps of water and slammed the glass down on the counter. Camille looked surprised for an instant, but she quickly regained her composure.
“Let’s go to lunch,” she said.
“I tell you the guy I’m totally smitten with has spent an entire evening with another girl, and all you can say is, ‘Let’s go to lunch’?”
“Honey, what do you want me to say? With you in the mood you’re in right now, there’s nothing I can say without you eating me alive. So, let’s go to lunch. And have a cocktail.”
“Now you’re talking.”
***
“What is this place, the Senior Citizen Hideaway?”
The East Coast decor inside the Castaway Cafe, all lighthouses and fishing boats and lobsters, did nothing to improve Delaney’s mood. Nor did the clientele. Everyone in there, with the exception of the staff, had false teeth and Velcro shoes.
“I’ll order you a Bloody Mary,” Camille said.
“Is this where you and Dad come to get your senior discount, or what?”
“They have good cocktails.”
Delaney stared at the stained white tablecloth, the pink and red carnations in a slim crystal vase. She pinched a petal off a red one, rolled it between her fingers.
“Yep, they’re real,” she said.
Camille shook her head, reacting in the same way she probably had to Delaney’s outbursts at age four. In an obvious attempt to lighten the mood, she said, “So, I
noticed you pulled the weeds and plant carcasses out of your flowerbed.”
“Yeah, I figured it was bad juju having all those dead plants at my front door.”
“Let’s replant them,” Camille said.
“You’ve been drinking already, haven’t you?”
When the waitress approached, Delaney noticed nothing about her other than the bright blue eye shadow smeared across her eyelids. She stared at it, transfixed, as her mom ordered Bloody Marys.
“Make hers a double,” Camille said in an undertone, tilting her head toward Delaney.
The waitress nodded and walked away, and Delaney picked up the conversation where they left off. “Not gonna lie,” she said. “I thought about it. But Mom, I kept those last flowers alive for what? A few days? A week, maybe? It’s premeditated murder to buy more.”
“You need the practice.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said. Planting a garden is like being in love. It takes work. Practice. But with a little nurturing, things blossom.”
“Seriously, Mom? That is so cliché my ears are bleeding.”
The waitress returned with her blue eye shadow and the drinks. Delaney sipped hers in relative silence, pausing between sips to crunch on the piece of celery. “This is good, Mom,” she said. “Good idea. Nice and peppery. Really puts a spring in your step, I’ll bet.”
“Geez, Delaney,” Camille muttered. “You’re really on a roll today.”
Delaney couldn’t help herself. She burst into tears. She buried her face in the crook of her arm and sobbed. Camille reached across the table and laid a hand on Delaney’s head.
“Oh, sweetheart. I know you really liked him. He sounded like a really great guy. But maybe he’s just not the right one.”
“He is the right one!” Delaney said without raising her head. “He is. I thought we were, like, an item, you know? I thought he liked me just as much as I liked him. He showed me a hockey movie, for goodness’ sake. And then he goes and ruins it. He ruined everything. Where did I go wrong? What did I do? I was actually behaving myself, following Summer and Josie’s stupid rules. The stupid Dating Intervention. It’s a failure. I’m a failure!”
“There’s got to be some explanation,” Camille said quietly. “He sent you flowers.”
“He took me sledding.”
“He helped you get that job.”
“He brought me breakfast.”
“He ate your cooking.”
Delaney wailed.
The couple at the table next to theirs gave Delaney a speculative look, still chewing, forks poised over something pink (crab salad, maybe?).
Delaney wondered how long they’d been married. They were old and in everything from their age-spotted, wrinkled hands to their bright pink crab salad to their red cardigans, they looked the same. She wanted to wear red cardigans with Jake fifty years from now.
But she was starting to feel like she’d never wear red cardigans, or get wrinkly hands with anyone, ever. She’d be eating crab salad at the Castaway Cafe, a.k.a. The Senior Citizen Hideaway, alone, no one there to drape her red cardigan over her shoulders or pass the salt and pepper.
The waitress returned with the fish and chips Camille ordered for them.
“You know, honey,” Camille said, “I’m almost positive there is more going on there than you know. There has to be an explanation.”
“Mom, just because you found true love doesn’t mean everyone else is destined for it, too. There is no explanation other than the fact that Jake Rhoades doesn’t feel the same way about me as I do about him. I’m destined to be alone forever with a growing number of cats. End of story.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Delaney sat in her front yard, surrounded by flowers. Flowers in little plastic six-packs, flowers in big pots and flowers whose roots were wrapped in plastic. Camille was inside, brewing some iced tea, which Delaney thought she’d probably lace with vodka or bourbon. Delaney looked helplessly around at the cheerful, vibrant purples, pinks, yellows, reds and whites, and she resolved that she wouldn’t let them die.
If she was going to be a spinster, a cat lady, the weird old woman who wore colorful sneakers with patterned knee socks every day, then she was going to have to learn how to garden. And she was going to have to get more cats.
Pixie glared at her through the front window.
“What are you glaring at?” Delaney said.
Camille breezed through the front door then, a pitcher in one hand and a couple of plastic cups in the other. “There’s nothing like gardening on a beautiful spring day to lift the spirits, Delaney,” she said.
Delaney accepted the cup and took a big gulp before realizing it was, in fact, laced with something strong. She took an even bigger gulp and set it down.
“Let’s get to it, then,” she said.
For hours, they worked side by side, on their knees in front of the flowerbed. They turned the old soil, added fresh soil and turned that. They set the plants out, stood back, rearranged them and then began digging holes. It was therapeutic, Delaney thought, but she probably wouldn’t go so far as to admit that to her mother. Plunging her hands into the dirt, churning it up, smelling that rich scent. In fact, Delaney thought, she could make gardening her lifelong companion, if she didn’t kill all her little charges. Although that’s probably what would happen. She would decide she loved gardening and then suffer repeated bouts of heartbreak as each plant withered and died.
“I bought you a special surprise,” Camille said as they patted the soil down around a juniper shrub.
“I thought my special surprise was whatever you spiked the iced tea with.”
“No, it’s even better.”
A moment later, she returned from her car with a long roll of hose and small plastic bag.
“A hose?” Delaney said.
“Don’t look so disappointed. You’ll see. Help me unroll it.”
“Wow. It looks pretty impressive,” Delaney said a few minutes later. “Thanks for the hose, Mom.”
“Delaney. Knock it off. It’s an irrigation hose. You bury it in your flowerbed, set this handy timer” – she held up the plastic bag – “and it waters your flowers without you having to think about it.”
“Oh. I guess that is pretty cool, actually.”
As they began burying the hose, winding it between and around plants, Delaney heard a car pull up. She had a vision of stomping down the tiny seedling of hope that sprouted, and then realized that imagery was counterproductive to her new gardening hobby. It wasn’t Jake. It was probably someone turning around or going to a neighbor’s house or looking for a thinner, longer-haired woman.
Unfortunately, she saw when she looked up that it was Summer’s van. Almost unconsciously, she looked for a hiding spot as Summer and Josie climbed out and headed across the grass. Of course, there wasn’t one.
“Ooh, great idea, Dee,” Summer said. “An irrigation hose. Give ’em a fighting chance.”
“Shut up,” Delaney mumbled.
“My idea,” Camille said. She stood up and gave Summer and Josie each a hug.
“Ooh, testy this morning?” Josie said.
“Could you just give it a rest?” Delaney said. “Just this once?”
“Sorry, Dee.” Josie grimaced, then held up a paper bag. “We brought supplies.”
“More gardening supplies?”
“No. Heartache supplies. We’ll be right back. C’mon, Summer.”
When the front door had closed behind them, Camille said, “That’s sweet.”
Delaney rolled her eyes.
“We’re almost done here, and then I’ll leave you girls to your heartache supplies,” Camille said. “Just help me bury this line.”
As they worked, Camille said in a quiet voice, “You know, honey, I still think there has to be some explanation. You two really hit it off. I wouldn’t let it go quite so easily, if I were you.”
Delaney’s eyes filled, and she wiped them
as best she could on her sleeves.
“I’m humiliated, Mom. I thought things were going so well, and then he’s just there with another woman. And he knew I was going to be there. Even though I want nothing more than to be with him, I also never want to see him again.”
Camille got to her feet and went over to the hose bib to set the timer.
“Oh, honey. I think you do want to see him again.”
After a few moments of quiet while Camille adjusted the dials on the timer, Delaney heard the hiss of water running and watched as dark areas appeared in the flower bed. She had to admit, she found this all pretty impressive. But she wasn’t in the mood to make a big deal of it. Camille turned around, wiping her hands on her jeans.
“All right,” she said. “You’re all set up. Now, doesn’t this look cheerful?”
They stood back and Delaney had to admit: the flowers, bright against the creamy yellow backdrop of her house, did add an air of festivity. It pissed her off.
“Yeah, it looks cheerful,” she said.
“Could you sound any less cheerful?” Camille put an arm around Delaney’s waist and squeezed. “This will pass, Delaney. There are plenty of great guys out there. Jake Rhoades isn’t the only bull in the pasture, you know.”
Despite her grumpy mood, Delaney chuckled.
“All right. I’m going to get out of here and leave you girls to it.”
She wrapped Delaney in a tight hug, kissed her cheek and said, “Keep your chin up.”
***
Inside, Summer and Josie had laid out an impressive spread of cheer on the small dining table. Delaney’s spirits lifted at sight of the wine, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate bars, pretzels, candy and gossip magazines. Tears sprung to her eyes yet again, and she bit down hard on her lower lip to keep them from flowing freely.
“How did you guys escape your husbands on a weekend?” she asked.
