Wild Roses

by Deb Caletti

  I spent Christmas Eve with my dad. There was no talk of his Dino detective work right then, thankfully, but I saw that the books and notepads were still in his room, stacked neatly beside his bed. Dad had brought Nannie and two other old ladies home with him for the holiday, and he made a fantastic dinner that all the old ladies loved. One of them, Helen, drank too much wine and fell asleep before we had dessert, snoring away in Dad’s favorite chair. We opened presents, and Nannie and the other old lady, Mary, got rambunctious.

  “That would look lovely on Helen,” Nannie said when she opened the nightgown from Dad. She placed it on top of the snoozing old lady.

  “Put the necktie on her too,” said Mary. So Helen got decorated with Dad’s new tie, a car-washing mitt, and my new hat. Mary and Nannie were laughing so hard I thought we’d have to call the medics. Dad was trying to get Helen to hold the hand mixer I’d given him, when she snorted and flinched kind of violently, sending the car-washing mitt sailing and landing on the coffee table in a half-empty bowl of Dad’s clam dip. Nannie was holding her stomach with laughter, and had to hurry off to the bathroom. I’d never seen her this loose.

  “Jeez, what was in that wine?” I said to Dad. He was happy and relaxed, having a grand time, too. When we got everyone packed in the car to go, Nannie had to come back in because she’d forgotten the slippers I’d given her. She was in there so long that it shouldn’t have been a surprise that when we came home, we saw that her own Nativity scene had been moved to the dining room table, and the Christmas cards had been set upright along the mantel, just as they used to be when she’d lived there with Grandpa.

  Christmas day I spent at home with Mom and Dino. If your parents are divorced, you know this is one of the side benefits of the whole deal, the time when all of the crap and the moving from house to house actually starts to pay off a little. Two or more Christmases, two or more birthdays. Zebe won the holiday lottery. She has five Christmases and one Chanukah. She has Christmases with her Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Grandma (they’re divorced, too), and her other set of grandparents. Her stepmother is Jewish, so she gets Chanukah with them, too. Handing her the keys to a department store would be easier. Everyone wants to give you the holiday they remembered. You actually start to feel sorry for those kids whose parents are married to each other, poor deprived souls. Your social calendar becomes busier than the president’s during election year, and keeping track of everything becomes akin to solving those annoying puzzles where you slide around the numbers and try to get them back in order. You never want to see another Christmas cookie or a turkey again in your life. You realize there are many stuffing variations, all pretty gross. You realize how truly different Mom’s family is from Dad’s family. But you’ve got a stocking in every house, and candy and love and presents rain down upon you, like the Red Cross flying overhead, dropping packages. All this because your parents sucked at being married to each other.

  Dino had apparently done his shopping in no less than fifteen seconds total, and in the gift section of the men’s department. He gave Mom a six-in-one flashlight, a gold pen, and a box of handkerchiefs. He gave me an executive desk dartboard and an executive stress-buster ball to squeeze in your hand. I was glad he passed on the golf ball-care kit and the six-pack of holiday boxers. The day was nice but uneventful, and after dinner, Dino went into his office to work. There were only three months left until the concert. Mom and I sat in the kitchen and ate a piece of apple pie, then took thin slices of what was left in the dish until we were thoroughly disgusted with ourselves. Dino emerged, his hair disheveled and tired-looking, his eyes with dark circles. Mom made him tea, rubbed his neck.

  “We would have a pomegranate, this time of year,” Dino said. “In Italy. No, a pomegranate every day.”

  “You must be exhausted,” Mom said.

  “Unspeakably.”

  Dino went to bed, and after I let Dog William outside for a last holiday pee, I headed for bed, too.

  Mom must have been feeling sentimental. She’d come in my room to kiss me good night. “Merry Christmas,” I said to her.

  “You too, my girl,” she said. Her braid had swung over my face. Her own face looked thin and tired.

  “I hope it’s a really good year,” I said.

  Mom paused a beat. “I want that too,” she said.

  I woke up really early and happy the next morning, knowing that Ian and I were going to meet. Something about the morning seemed oddly still, too quiet, and when I peeked through my blind I saw why—it had snowed during the night, and it was a beautiful soft white everywhere. Snow is magical, and if you don’t think so, you won’t see magic anywhere. I got that excited feeling, like there’d be school closures, even though we were off school already. I went in Mom and Dino’s room, shook Mom awake so she could see. She crept up so as not to disturb Dino, went out in the backyard in her nightgown and made a snowball to put in the freezer, like we always did. I told you I thought it was going to snow. I could smell it in the air, she said. She was always proud of her weather-predicting abilities, especially after no one believed her. There was no practice that day, so she went back to bed, and I got showered and dressed. I was too excited to go back to sleep.

  I was hunting around the back of my closet for warm stuff when I heard a big bamp at my window. I swore at first, thinking it was Courtney’s brothers, but when I looked out I saw Ian standing right outside, and bits of a snowball dribbling down my window. The street was still sleeping, and Ian’s boots had made a path down the road. God, it was pretty out, and Ian had on his dark coat and held a slim white box. He was standing there in full view, really dangerous, and I urged him down the street with my hands, held up one finger to indicate I’d be right there.

  I grabbed the slim white box in my own room, shoved on my mittens and my old boots, but got this in reverse order, since I couldn’t work the laces. I flung off my mittens and tried again, pulled on my new snow hat from Nannie, and was happy/unhappy about it. Unhappy because it was scratchy, happy because the scratchiness reminded me of really great snowy days in uncomfortable hats. I tried not to clump down the stairs, and when I stepped outside, the only thing the cold hit was my face. I had on layers of clothes and so I could barely move, just the way it should be. Ian was down the street, clapping his mittened hands for me to hurry.

  I clomped and sloshed down the street. I picked a clean patch so that I could make my own footprints. Something about marring smooth sand or snow and making our mark must go back to our caveman days, because it is such a satisfying feeling. I was hot already and pulled off my hat, making my hair look superb, I’m sure. Otis, the neighbor’s cat, was picking his way across the snow with tenderly raised paws and a great deal of caution.

  I tossed a snowball in Ian’s direction. “That’s for the one at my window,” I said. My aim sucked and I hit the Fredericis’ mailbox.

  “You better watch it,” he warned. If my hair had gone all undersea creature on me, Ian didn’t seem to care. He grabbed me up in his arms and lifted me up and set me down again.

  “Snow,” he said. His breath came out in a puff.

  “I love it,” I said. “This is the best.”

  “Let’s go to the riding trail, then we can do the presents,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  We walked hand in hand, or rather, mitten in mitten, which is about the coziest and Everything All Right with the World feeling you can get. We walked toward the school, the center part of the island, where there is a perimeter of forested riding and walking trails. We walked past the trail marker, and I slid the snow off its top into a heap. The trail didn’t look real. It was a postcard day. The branches of the trees were heavy and drooping with white thickness, and the ground was a soft and sparkly carpet.

  “So beautiful,” I said.

  “You too,” Ian said. He took hold of one strand of my hair, looked at the color of it against his mitten. He looked at my face. “Brown hair, dark eyes, white snow.”

  We walked a bi
t, just listening to silence. Snowy quiet is more quiet than regular quiet. It’s like the world is holding its breath.

  After a while, Ian stopped. “Presents?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  We both knew what we were getting each other. We agreed to get each other the same thing, only we’d choose which kind. Eliminate all gift-giving hassle and anxiety. We swapped boxes. I bit the fingertips of my mittens and pulled them off, tossed them to the ground so that I could open the package.

  “Ready?” I said, and we both pulled the scarves from the boxes. Mine was red, amazingly soft, fuzzy. The one I’d chosen for Ian was blue, with thick, wide stitches.

  “Let me,” Ian said. He wrapped the scarf around my neck.

  “I love it,” I said, and wrapped his around his neck, tucking the ends inside his coat.

  “Me too,” he said.

  We hugged for a while, stood together, and I had that feeling you get in nature that you are small against its grandness, same as when you used to see the tiny figure of a person against the Latitude Drive-in Movie screen, before they tore it down to put a strip mall there. Ian put my mittens back on my hands, and we walked a little, boots crunching.

  “Fir, cedar, evergreens,” Ian pointed. “Spruce. Poplar. Deciduous. Water can go up hundreds of feet, to the tiniest branches up there. Just travels up, molecule by molecule.”

  “I didn’t know you knew about these things.”

  “I like to study trees.” He looked upward, and his dark hair fell away from his eyes. “They’re quiet. They’re solid. Sure of where they are.”

  “You must get tired of sound.”

  “God, really.”

  “You could study trees instead.”

  Ian laughed.

  “You could.”

  “I’d love that. I would so love that.”

  He stopped on the trail then, and we kissed in the snow, in our new scarves. It was one of life’s perfect moments, where you look around and think I want to remember this. You try to etch it in your brain so that when you are Nannie’s age and are living at Providence Point, you will look out the window and see red and blue scarves against a white background, Ian’s breath against the backdrop of trees, new snow beginning to fall; at first, small diamonds, and then huge fat flakes that sat on the shoulders of Ian’s dark coat and fell upon his hair. You will remember the soft flakes against your upturned face, the way they fell upon your tongue, and Ian telling you he loved you into your hair. You would remember all of it, and feel that sense that you had everything you ever wanted in the world.

  We walked back home, stopped at the beginning of my street. The media-monster boys didn’t even have their sleds out, and there were no forts or snowball fights or snowmen and women, but the blue light from the television shone from the living room windows. Mr. Frederici was shoveling his walk, even though the snow would likely turn to rain by night, and the snow would be mostly gone except for a few lingering patches by tomorrow. That’s how the snow was around here. A day or two of thrill and traffic all messed up, and then you had to wait another year for it to happen again.

  Ian put his mittened hands against my cheeks and kissed me, his mouth cold, and then warm again. His dark hair was wet from the snow. I’m sure I had mascara all over my face, but he looked at me like he loved me. Then Ian gazed down my street, at our house.

  “My mother was playing one of his recordings yesterday,” Ian said.

  I was silent. We both just stood and looked at my house. Unease was starting at my toes, creeping up. The day had been so perfect.

  “What his music does to you—there aren’t even words.”

  Perfect, and fleeting.

  Ian returned to his lessons, of course.

  He didn’t even tell me. I just heard his voice in the house a few days later and I knew what had happened. God damn it, it made me mad. I wasn’t sure who I was so mad at. Dino, for being right. Ian, for giving himself up. He had broken our pact. It was settled. At least that’s how I saw it.

  “Ian!” I called, after he left on his bike. He put on his brakes, had his head down. Like Dog William when he peed on the carpet. I ran to catch up to him. Fury, confusion, and hurt all mixed together so I didn’t know which was which.

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know. I couldn’t.”

  “Why? And why are you doing this? You don’t even want this. Why? Please. I just don’t get it.”

  “Look at you. I knew you’d be hurt. I didn’t want to hurt you. I just couldn’t do it.” He reached over, picked up my hand. He rubbed the top of it with his thumb.

  “What happened, Ian?”

  “My Mom found out I quit lessons, and flipped. I told her about us. She doesn’t even want me to see you anymore. Cassie, I don’t want that.”

  Great. Nice Janet with the chipped toenail polish. Anger bubbled up. Love meant nothing, I guess. Not compared to what that violin meant. I turned my head away. I stared at the Fredericis’ house. I didn’t even want to look at him.

  “I don’t want that,” he said. “Do you hear me? Cassie.”

  “I don’t see what the point is. You’re going away. You’re going away, right?” I said to the Fredericis’ house. I didn’t understand. I didn’t get how things could change from that perfect day in the woods to where they were now.

  “Cassie, look at me.” He took my chin. Brought my eyes to his. “You know I love you.”

  “You sold yourself out. You’re going away, right?”

  His eyes were wet, from cold maybe. Maybe he was about to cry. “Yes.”

  “Leave me alone,” I said. I broke away from him. Hurt, the winning emotion, was rushing forward, gathering up my insides and holding them too tight. Hurt squeezed my heart, and I ran. He betrayed himself, so he’d betrayed me.

  I knew Ian came early to lessons to see me. I knew he stayed late, hanging around the front lawn. He even threw something at my window once, which I ignored.

  “The boy is back,” Dino had said that first day, with this horrible glee in his voice. How I didn’t throw my water glass at him, I’ll never know.

  “So it all works out,” my mother said.

  I hated everyone. Dino. Even Mom sometimes. Dog William for being happier than ever, having Rocket back in his life. I fantasized about funding my father’s sabotaging-Dino efforts, the way one government secretly funds the destruction of another. Okay, the way our government does that. I hated school and almost everyone in it. They changed the seating chart in World History, and I ended up sitting next to these two girls who I always thought looked like those monkeys from Planet of the Apes. In science we started labs. My partners were Orlando, who didn’t yet know he was gay, and this girl, Julia, who already knew she was. So during one class it was the Bad Primate Movie film-fest, and the next it was the Rainbow Pride Hour, with Orlando using words like exquisite, and Julia showing us pictures of her and Allison Lorey at homecoming. Zach, of duct-taped-snake fame, had suddenly moved after his dad got a new job. I felt a sadness and inexplicable loss. Twins separated, phantom-limb stuff. I actually missed him. Worse, we were into that long spell where there were no vacations until Spring Break, unless you count that perennial holiday favorite, President’s Day. Such a time of revelry and celebration, where the whole country stops in joyful remembrance of William Howard Taft and Grover Cleveland. Party on.

  The next time Ian had a lesson, I stayed in my room. Chuck and Bunny had given him a ride; I heard their car and Bunny’s deep voice calling out a good-bye. No Rocket that day—Dog William would have his heart broken. Good.

  I held the snow globe, turned it upside down enough times to make the bear truly pissed off, if he could get pissed off. I thought maybe I should name him. I wondered what a good name for an unanchored bear would be. Bingo? Dave? Timmy? I ignored the goddamn beautiful sounds coming from downstairs. I wondered how Sabbotino Grappa, full of lemon trees and curved, cobbled streets could produce a man with a stone hear
t.

  “Cassie!”

  A knock at my door. Shit, a knock. I dropped the bear on my bed. I guess the music downstairs had stopped some time ago. It was Ian. At my bedroom door.

  “Are you crazy?” I said to the door. “Dino will kill you.”

  “Open up. Come on. Cassie, come on!”

  “Ian, what are you doing?” I said through the closed door. “He’s right downstairs.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Go away.”

  “I’m not leaving until you talk to me.”

  “Jesus,” I said. I opened the door. “Get in here before he sees you.” I yanked his sleeve, shut the door behind him. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking I’m in love with you. I’m thinking I miss you and I’m sorry you feel I’ve let you down.”

  His brown eyes were soft. I wanted to put my hands in his hair, inside his coat, around his waist. Pain versus happiness, I’d told my mother. There must be a simple mathematical solution to figure it out.

  Some strange memory came to me then. A story from when I was little, told again and again by my parents. I was climbing the attic stairs as my mother stood behind me. Are you afraid of the stairs? My mother had asked. No, I had said. I’m just afraid of falling.