Vibro yelled after her, “Get newspaper too so we can put it under the pots.”
“Got it,” Dolores said.
“Don’t forget to get receipts for business purposes,” The Chink managed to choke out before he went back to sobbing.
Mary Lou brought the tea out on a tray. She poured three cups. Vibro slurped hers and studied the forest. “I think we should create zones. We’ll group like kinds together and put a picker on each. It’ll be more efficient that way.” She rubbed her hands together. “So we’ll put the Shonin elms, ficus and boxwoods together, then the Brazilian Rains, Dwarf Umbrellas and the Fukien Teas and then the Braided Money trees and Jades and the bald cypress. How does that sound? We’ll subgroup them so each person has a section of the whole to work on.” She glanced over at Mary Lou, who looked back at her, dumbstruck, teapot in hand.
“What?” Vibro said.
Mary Lou burst into tears and plunked down next to the weeping Chink. “It’s all too much,” she sobbed.
“No, it’s not! Come on, you two. Just think incrementally. Tree by tree, we can do this. You get five more minutes of despair and that’s it. You understand?”
Both The Chink and Mary Lou nodded.
Vibro’s cell phone beeped. “Christ-on-a-bike, what now?” Caller ID informed her it was Jennifer. “Yes?” Vibro said. She tried to keep her voice even and not irritated. If she were going to lust after another woman, the least she could do was be nice to her girlfriend.
“When are you coming home?” Jennifer said.
“Sometime in the next three days. Why?”
“I need you to come to the Pen and Pencil Candlelit Dinner tonight. I don’t have a date.”
“You never mentioned this.”
“I wasn’t planning on going with you. I know you hate those things, but Sylvia can’t go.”
“Is Sylvia a new best friend or is she PR woman?” Vibro inquired. She read the instructions on the box of Bio Provado.
“She’s the head of PR.”
“So let me get this straight. You want me to go as her proxy?” She better call Dolores and tell her to get safety goggles too. Bio Provado was some serious shit.
“You’re my last option. Please, please, please. I can’t go alone. I’ll look like a loser.”
“I can’t go. The bonsai forest has vine weevils and I have to stay late to treat them.”
“They’re just creepy little trees. Can’t it wait?” Jennifer said.
“They’re dying. The female vine weevils are laying thousands of eggs as we speak.”
“You’ll use any excuse to humiliate me. You’re just mean. Maybe I’ll see if Sparky can go. I bet she cleans up nice.”
“You stay the hell away from Sparky,” Vibro said.
“Gotta go. Ta-ta.” She clicked off.
Vibro speed dialed Sparky. What did that say, that she had Sparky on speed dial? She’d ponder that later.
Finally Sparky picked up.
“Don’t go with Jennifer to the Penlight Dinnerlit Candlelit thing. I mean it,” Vibro said.
“I already told her no,” Sparky said. “I’m sanding the floors in Apartment Number 4. I had to rent the machine for today because that was the only time slot available for the next two weeks. Apparently half of Seattle is redoing their wood floors.”
“Damn, she’s quick. I’m glad you’re busy, because Jennifer can be very persuasive.”
“Well, she wouldn’t persuade me. What’s up with the forest? Jennifer said you love the trees more than you do her and something about Evil Knievel laying thousands of eggs.”
“Christ-on-a-bike, she’s an idiot. We have an infestation of vine weevils. We have to remove them by hand, and there are one hundred and fifty trees.”
“Wow, when Jennifer said ‘forest’ I thought she was exaggerating. Evidently not,” Sparky said.
“It’s big. I don’t know how long this is going to take, but it has to be done immediately. We’ve got this heavy-duty pesticide.”
“Wear safety goggles.”
“I’m on it. So I’ll talk to you later?” Vibro said.
“Yes, keep me updated on the infestation.”
Vibro clicked off. She put the phone to her chest. She was overcome with fondness. Sparky was worried about her eyes. A person really cares when they mention safety goggles.
The Chink and Mary Lou were staring at her. “You have it bad,” Mary Lou said.
“I know. Come on, your five minutes of despair are up.” They divided the trees up per Vibro’s instructions.
“You very good person to have in crisis situation,” The Chink said. “For that I take you off probation.”
“Really? Cuz I was feeling a lot of pressure about that. I’ve never been fired before.”
“You were on probation?” Mary Lou said.
“We got complaints about depressing and love-angry fortunes and toe fungus,” The Chink said. “I told Vibro she must stop writing these. It not good for restaurant business when customer read fortune and burst out crying.”
“I’m feeling better now. I will only write happy fortunes, I promise,” Vibro said.
“You can bring smelly pillow to work all time if it make you write happy,” The Chink said.
The door buzzer rang.
“Mary Lou, you go help Dolores. I need talk to Vibro.”
“Okay,” she said and ran off.
“Vibro, I want to tell you a lil story about when I live in Japan. You listen?”
“Sure.”
They sat on the couch.
“My father was a very proud man. He owned many things and he thought he owned my mother. My mother was a very beautiful woman. My father paid no attention to her, only to his business. I don’t think he loved her, only wanted to have her—like a precious vase or something. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“One day we are sitting by the duck pond, my mother and me, and we see this painter. He wants to paint us. At first my mother says no, but the man pleads and tells her she can have the painting for free. He just want to paint her. So to make a short story long, my mother and the painter fall in love. She tells my father she is leaving him. My father is very angry. To punish her, my father keeps me. Either she must stay or never see me again. I am twelve. I see how happy she is with this man, he a kind man and he love her so much. My mother cry and cry. She cannot leave me for this man that she loves so much. It tears at my young heart. I go to her one night when my father is gone and tell her to leave. I be a man soon and then I come see her. She must go. She can no longer stay with a man that does not love her. She is wasting away and I know I will lose her forever if she dies. I remember the way she looked at me—full of sadness and joy. She knows what she must do. I help her pack a few things. She and the painter must leave Japan because my father will hunt her down. They go Paris and are very happy. My father dies and I go to be with them. Everybody happy. But it hard choice. Don’t waste time. You see?”
“Yes, I see,” Vibro said.
The Chink handed her the pillow. “Follow your heart.”
Dolores and Mary Lou came in with the buckets and bags and six foot-long Subway ham and turkey sandwiches.
“Holy shit, that’s a lot of food,” Vibro said.
Dolores handed the receipts to The Chink, who tucked them away in one of his many pockets.
“Okay, how about we start by picking and then administering the Bio Provado?” Vibro said.
“According to the experts that’s what we’re supposed to do. I checked the Internet while I was waiting for the sandwiches,” Dolores said.
“I must be a natural-born scourger of infestations,” Vibro said.
They set to work. After an hour they’d passed the point of squeamishness. Mary Lou, the animal rights person, had come to terms with her insect genocide. “I mean it’s not like we’re clubbing baby seals or pulling legs off frogs. These are invasive and destructive insects who are killing our beloved trees.” She sealed up anothe
r gallon-sized Ziploc Baggie full of the vine weevils.
Vibro took the bags down to the parking lot and ran them over with her car. She would run it through the car wash later to get all the bug juice off the tires. This whole thing was rather disgusting, but it had to be done. It was midnight and the moon was a sickle shape. She smelled spring in the night air and she thought about new growth and old love. The Chink was right—she couldn’t pass up love. Something had to change and only she could make it happen.
She went back upstairs and mixed up another batch of Bio Provado.
“Let’s take break,” The Chink said.
They sat down exhausted on the couch. “I’m going to see vine weevils in my sleep,” Dolores said.
“Ditto,” Mary Lou said.
Vibro was clutching her pillow again. There was still the slight scent of Sparky on it. “Dolores, if you had known Ramon was cheating on you what would you have done to, like, prove it? Cheaters always deny they’re doing it,” Vibro said.
Dolores leaned her head against the couch. Her bouffant was mussed and she looked really tired. “I don’t know. How do you prove it other than catching them in the act? After Ramon left I found out he’d been sleeping around on me for years. If I had to do it over again, I think I’d hire a private detective. You can’t deny what is captured on film. I’d have gotten him then.”
Mary Lou patted Vibro’s arm. “You’ll leave Jennifer when you’re ready and you’ll find true love—I can feel it here,” she said, pounding the area over her heart.
“I hope so. God, what I wouldn’t give for a good woman and a Starbucks triple espresso latte,” Vibro said, sighing.
“Am I too late for the party?” Sparky said, walking in. She pointed at the door. “It was open.”
“Are those triple espresso lattes?” Mary Lou said, her eyes wide.
“Yeah, I figured you all might be needing a pick-me-up,” Sparky said. “And another pair of hands.”
Dolores leaned over and whispered, “She looks like a good woman.”
The Chink winked at her and nudged her in the ribs.
“What am I missing?” Sparky said.
“Not a thing. You’re absolutely perfect. Now, hand over those lattes,” Vibro said.
Chapter Fifteen
Boxed In
“What do you mean, you don’t know where the body is?” Lexus said, her voice screeching across the cell towers of the planet.
“Lex, it’s not as easy as you think. There’s protocol, channels one has to follow. Not to mention it’s been nearly a month since she died,” Cheryl said.
“So you’re telling me they don’t know where they put it? Or rather her?”
Cheryl had known it was not going to be a good day when Lexus and Pen showed up at the breakfast table with a box and stared at her as she ate her Honey Nut Cheerios. Usually, she ate alone since she went to work earlier than Lexus. Pen left the same time as Lexus did to catch her bus to school. She was attending her old school until the term ended. Not having her normal alone time in the morning was throwing off Cheryl’s day. She tried to be patient. “What’s up?”
Lexus hopped up and down in her chair. “Wait until you see what we got. I’m so excited, but this also serves another purpose.” She looked over at Pen, who smiled and nodded. “You tell her.”
Pen looked serious. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I feel like I need a way to process and accord dignity to what has happened.”
Pen had obviously been spending a lot of time with Lexus. The “process” and “accord dignity” stuff was pure Lex-speak. Cheryl tried to envision what it meant this time. Did Pen want team shirts that declared they were a cohesive unit? Or a family mission statement plaque of the kind like they handed out at work, commending someone’s performance? Or maybe one of those framed prints with inspirational sayings underneath a photo of some stunning natural wonder? She studied the box. It was too tall and narrow for any of those kinds of things. “Okay,” she said, trying to appear open-minded.
“Show her,” Lexus said.
Episodes like this afforded Cheryl no end of anxiety. She didn’t like surprises. She was never certain how to respond, how her face should look, what she ought to say. There was that Toastmasters Club where they taught people how to speak in public. Perhaps there ought to be a club for dealing with unexpected social situations too—they could call it “Ready or Not.” She should suggest that to Lexus for her life-coaching classes. She couldn’t be the only one who felt unprepared and awkward in this kind of situation.
Pen opened the box and pulled out an ornate piece of pottery. It was very pretty. It resembled a vase except that it had a lid. “Isn’t it beautiful?” Pen said, sounding reverential. “Lexus helped me pick it out. I think Martha Sue would have liked it. She had a lot of Chinese tattoos.”
Cheryl refrained from commenting on the subject of Chinese tattoos. She’d worked with a doctor from China who’d told her what some of those tattoos really said—things like “stupid white woman eats her own poop” or “big man has tiny dick” or “slut girl with saggy tits.” It was amusing and horrifying at the same time. Then, like an ice pick had been jabbed into her thigh, she realized what they were talking about, what the pottery was for. “Is that what I think it is?”
Lexus let out a heavy and expressive sigh—a sound a life coach should not be making. “Duh,” she replied. She caught herself as if her inner life coach had given her a reproachful look. “I mean, yes, it is, and I suppose we did rather drop this on you. Pen and I chose an urn for her mother’s ashes so that Pen would have a sense of closure about her mother’s death.”
“I haven’t decided if I’m going to sprinkle some of the ashes…you know, around.” Pen appeared to stop and think. “Is there a lot?”
“I think so,” Cheryl said.
“Oh, good. I don’t know about the places thing yet. I have to think about it. Maybe for a while.”
“No rush. It’s not like Martha Sue is going anywhere. When you’re ready, we’ll do something,” Cheryl said.
Pen looked so sweet and pensive and sensitive that Cheryl experienced simultaneous urges—one was to scoop her up in her arms and the other was to slap her dead mother for being such a stupid shit.
Things had been all very well at the breakfast table, but now, talking to Lexus on the phone, they weren’t so good. “No one claimed the body within the timeframe.”
“They knew who she was, so she wasn’t a Jane Doe,” Lexus stated.
“But no one made arrangements because Pen is a minor and her mother was penniless, according to all records.”
“You’re telling me that in this country—the undisputed land of plenty—they throw your parts away?”
Cheryl didn’t mention that unclaimed bodies were also used for medical purposes and none of those were pretty. When she talked to the morgue, however, they had been able to ascertain that Pen’s mother was not one of the science bodies. She had been cremated and her ashes added to those of others and put in what they called a “pauper’s grave.”
“Did they chuck her out with the trash?”
“No, she was cremated.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Cheryl took a deep breath. “I have to find her ashes.”
“I’ll tell Pen. She’ll be delighted.”
Lexus clicked off. Cheryl put her head in her hands. She took several deep breaths and went downstairs to see the morgue attendant again.
“Let me guess,” Janet, the morgue attendant, said. “They want the ashes now.”
Cheryl noted Janet emphasized the “they” the same way Lexus did. The woman could have been Lexus’s sister. She was dressed like her under her open white lab coat. She wore knee-high black lace-up boots, a vinyl herringbone miniskirt and a neon green Hello Kitty T-shirt. Her hair was spiked short on one side and long on the other. She looked like a Picasso painting.
“Yes.”
“I used to work for the post office. P
eople would move and never put in a change of address. I would hold onto their mail way past the required ten days and you know what would happen?”
Cheryl imagined Janet working for the post office and decided that she had the perfect attitude for it—the in-built disgust for the incompetence of others. She probably looked pretty good in the blue uniform too. She had nice calves. Janet didn’t give her time to answer. Cheryl figured the question was rhetorical anyway.
“For thirty days, an entire month, I’d hold it and on day thirty-one, they’d call and find out we’d sent all their mail back. It didn’t matter that I’d held it three times longer than I should have. Nope, they couldn’t believe I’d done such an awful thing. I was supposed to know that in thirty-one days they would call and want to pick up their mail. I was supposed to be a mind reader as well as a postal worker. Well, let me tell you that wasn’t on the civil service exam.”
“So you don’t have the ashes?”
“No. We don’t keep the bodies that long. The funeral homes do a sort of pro-bono cremation for us. If there was next of kin, which apparently there was since somebody wants Ms. Sassafrass now, they should have notified us and made arrangements.” She arched an eyebrow at Cheryl.
“The only living relative is a child in foster care,” Cheryl said.
“And she needs closure.”
“Something like that.”
“Hold on.” She went into the back and came out with a box.
“What’s that?”
“A remainder box. I’m not advocating anything here, but the power of suggestion is, shall we say, a powerful thing.”
Cheryl pondered the riddle-like nature of the sentence. She wasn’t good at stuff like this. Lexus had often noted that, as smart as Cheryl was, she lacked the ability to understand what someone was saying when they weren’t saying it right up front. Janet seemed to sense this as well.
“Go to the store and buy enough baking soda to fill the box. Put it in the urn and pretend. It’s not like it hasn’t been done before.”
Love Over Moon Street Page 13
