It's You

by Jane Porter

  Thirty minutes into the game, we’re in between hands, shuffling cards and sipping our iced drinks (which you’re not allowed to have in the Reading Room but that’s another rule that’s ignored) when she asks me why I chose to become a dentist.

  But before I can answer, she tells me I don’t look like a dentist.

  I’m not sure what to make of that. Do dentists come in certain packages? We can’t be petite and blonde, with a wide mouth and a freckled nose?

  “I’m good with my hands,” I say, reaching up to rub the bridge of my nose, feeling the bump near the bridge that I got when I took a softball to the face in eighth grade.

  According to Andrew one of my nostrils is also a hair wider than the other. He’s right. But only a perfectionist would notice. Or care. He didn’t care. I’ve never cared.

  I’ve never gotten that hung up on looks. But I do like teeth. Straight white teeth. A great smile.

  That’s what I noticed about Andrew first. His smile.

  “And I make decent money,” I add, because it’s true.

  “You’re not one of those altruistic people who choose medicine because they like helping people?”

  I hear the bite of sarcasm in her voice. I get the feeling that Edie isn’t particularly fond of me. And that’s fine. I don’t need her approval, or her friendship.

  “No,” I answer, smiling, but it’s to hide my irritation. Edie seems to enjoy taking jabs at me, or maybe she just feels entitled to take jabs at everybody. Either way, I’m tired of it. I’m tired, period. This “vacation” to Napa has been rather grueling. Going back to work would be easier. “I wanted to make a good living. And I wanted to do something that not just anyone could do, and dentistry is challenging. Both in dental school, and in practice.”

  “So you’ve a mercenary streak.”

  “I have an independent streak. My mother worked, her mother worked, and I wanted to work. And if you’re going to work, why not make money?”

  “But you are a good dentist,” she says.

  “I think so.” I can see from her expression that wasn’t the answer she was looking for. “And my patients seem to think so, too.”

  “Have you killed anyone yet?”

  “I’m a dentist, Edie.”

  She sniffs and reaches for her cards. “It can happen.”

  • • •

  During the game Diana texts me that she’d love to go get a drink after work and would I like to meet her?

  After hours of bridge at Napa Estates, I need a drink, as well as the company of someone a little closer to my age.

  I meet Diana at the restaurant she suggested. Angele overlooks the river and we’re seated outside on the patio. It’s a comfortable evening and I sigh with pleasure as I settle into my chair.

  “I am so glad you texted. I needed this badly.”

  “Are you still spending every day with your dad at his retirement home?”

  “Not all day, but I usually meet him for lunch . . . and sometimes stay until dinner.”

  She wrinkles her nose. “How’s the food?”

  “Not bad. Could use more salt, so now I keep my own salt shaker in my purse.”

  “Do you really?”

  Grinning, I reach into my purse and pull out the cardboard salt and pepper shakers I bought at the grocery store. “It makes a difference.”

  The waiter returns to take our appetizer and salad order. Diana also selects a bottle of wine. It’s not until we’re on our second glass of wine that she confides she’s had a really shitty week. She lost two of her staff within a day of each other, and this weekend she has a huge wedding and she’s panicking about being able to get all the bouquets and the centerpieces done.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to get it done.” Her brown gaze meets mine, expression unhappy. “I even considered flying my mom and sister up from Phoenix, but that’s stupid. I need to hire someone now. Someone from around here.”

  “Have you posted a want ad?”

  “I’ve got an ad on Craigslist and I’ve taped a discreet sign in the window of the shop, but nothing yet.”

  “It’ll happen.”

  “Hopefully sooner than later.”

  I see the stress in her face, her lips are pinched tight, and I feel bad for her. I know what it’s like when you feel it’s all resting on you. “Is there anything I can do? I’m not a designer but I can stick flowers in a vase. Show me a picture or give me a sample arrangement, and I can try to copy it.” I lift my hands, wiggle my fingers. “I’ve got good hands. Or so my professors used to say.”

  “Stop it.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Don’t tease me like that.”

  But she’s smiling a little and I smile back. “I have nothing else to do, Diana, and God knows, I cannot take another afternoon of bridge or keep up with this running. I’m getting shin splints. You’d be doing me, and my shins, a favor.”

  “You’re good,” Diana says, stabbing her salad with her fork. “I’m also tempted to take you up on your offer.”

  “You should. You’d be giving me a sense of purpose and providing me with some um . . . youthful . . . company.”

  She laughs. “As long as you don’t mind working for minimum wage.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  “You’re out of your mind, but hey, I’m not complaining.”

  • • •

  Although Diana won’t be making up the wedding party bouquets and boutonnieres, and the twenty-five centerpieces for the reception until Friday, she could use help tomorrow taking and fulfilling orders, and possibly delivering a few arrangements if her driver is a no-show.

  I promise to show up the next morning after I check on Dad, and I do, entering Bloom, the charming florist shop that looks more like a cottage than a store, with a quick step.

  I breathe in the scent of lilies and roses, freesias and hyacinths, so different from the smell of chemicals in my office in Scottsdale, and find Diana at one of the large pine tables in the work area behind the counter, putting together an all pink arrangement with sixteen pink roses. “For a sweet sixteen birthday,” she says.

  I watch her work, noting the structure of the arrangement, and how she creates a triangle and then fills in, creating a pattern that gives the arrangement fullness and balance.

  “That’s pretty,” I say.

  “It’s easy when you use one color,” she answers, drying her damp hands and standing back to check her work. “Some of my favorite bouquets are all shades of pink or violets and purples.”

  She grabs a French blue pottery pitcher and sets it on the table. “But for this next arrangement, I need something different. It’s for a seventh wedding anniversary and the husband said his wife loves jewel tones, and because she’s an artist and eclectic he said she would prefer something fresh that isn’t too staged. So I’m going to go for colors that contrast, to give it a bit of edge.”

  I watch Diana reach into the refrigerator for a bucket of dark red dahlias. “I start building my arrangements in my hand,” she says, showing me how she then wraps the stems lightly with a flexible twig. “You can also use twine, you just need to secure them so there is a shape when you put them in the vase. Once in the vase, you start filling in with smaller flowers, contrasting flowers, dark blues and purples, paying attention to the shape and height. For the height I’m using white snapdragons and some of the blue larkspur, and then rim the base with greenery—ivy and hosta in this case would both be nice.”

  She’s done in short order and it’s a striking and rather bohemian arrangement, reminding me of gypsies or the kind of flowers you might find at a Parisian flea market.

  “Very nice,” I compliment. “But you make it look very easy. I know it’s not that easy.”

  “I’ll show you one more, that’s our signature arrangement. You can do it in all colors and throughout the year if you have big, lush flowers. My favorite flowers to work with for this bouquet are hydrangeas, lilies, lisianthus, peonies, and ros
es. You need seven to nine flowers and then some height in the back—snapdragons for spring and summer, and pine or holly is always fun during the Christmas holidays. These lush flowers look extravagant, and they really do impress. They’re all terribly romantic, which is what Bloom is all about.”

  Diana gets me to work on one of these lush arrangements now. I’m to use a low silver bowl that she has bought at a local antique mall. She’s always on the hunt, scouring antique stores, thrift stores, and garage sales looking for unique and interesting vases, as the vase is as important as the arrangement at Bloom.

  I’m working with blue hydrangeas, dark purple hyacinths, and violet tulips, and Diana sets me loose to work. I do as she did, form a base with my largest flowers, in this case the hydrangeas, tie them loosely, and start adding the tulips and hyacinths in small clusters, but it looks drab to me. I glance uncertainly at Diana who is working with stalks of gladiolas, flowers I always associate with funerals so I’m glad she’s doing that one and not me.

  “Something isn’t right,” I tell her. “It looks flat.”

  She takes one glance at the flowers and nods. “You want the brightest flowers in the center. It’ll draw your eye to the middle, creating a pleasing focal point. Then keep the tulips in a cluster, all five together, and the two shades of hyacinths. You’re bunching the flowers in this bouquet and then going to finish off with some height at the back. The dark bearded purple iris would look wonderful. Or you could experiment with some snapdragons, too.”

  She’s right on all accounts. The bunched flowers make more impact, and the dark purple irises are stunning at the rear.

  “You’re good,” I tell her, finishing adding in the dark green veined hosta leaves here and there at the base.

  “I love what I do. I get to work with my hands and make people happy. I can’t imagine a better way to pay my bills!”

  • • •

  It’s a hectic few days at the flower shop, but the time passes quickly and I’m having fun. By the end of the day my legs are tired from being on my feet all day but I don’t mind. Diana is fun and she’s training a new girl who is young and sweet but not learning very quickly. Every night Diana thanks me for playing backup, and every night I go home feeling as if I’ve done something good.

  By late Saturday afternoon I’m exhausted, though. We finish all the bridal bouquets and I deliver those to the church while Diana puts the finishing touches to the reception centerpieces. I return to the shop to help load up the truck she’s rented for the occasion. Together we head to the winery, and place each arrangement on the twenty-five rounds, and the lush pink, cream, and coral arrangements look stunning against the cream and gold embroidered tablecloths.

  It’s going to be a beautiful wedding.

  I return home to the house on Poppy Lane, and I’m exhausted but also very wound up. Too wound up to relax.

  I was going to be an April bride. It was to be such a beautiful wedding with the reception at the Phoenician. A black-tie wedding with a big band for dancing. The Morrises had invited everybody from Arizona’s high society. It was important to them that everyone got an invitation for their only son’s wedding. They wanted everyone to celebrate how handsome and successful and happy Andrew was.

  And yet, as it turned out, Andrew wasn’t successful and happy.

  He wasn’t happy at all.

  I suddenly feel trapped in the house. I feel trapped with my thoughts. I can’t handle the emptiness and anger and pain.

  I change into shorts, a T-shirt, and running shoes and go out for a late-afternoon run now, heading down Poppy Lane. I know that eventually the road dead-ends, but there’s a dirt path that cuts behind one of the old farmhouses and leads to an old orchard with gnarled and dying fruit trees, and then past a farm with a handful of horses with swishing tails, before the flat farmland rises up turning into a hill of grapes.

  I found the dirt path by accident and I love the soft thud of my feet and the poofs and clouds of dirt. The ground feels good as my feet pound it and I don’t even need music. I just need my feet slapping the dirt and my heart pounding in my ears and the sweat burning my eyes so no one knows I cry.

  I want my life back.

  I want my life back.

  Dear God, give me my life.

  I charge to the top of the hill, running fast, faster until I’m at the top, doubled over, gasping for air.

  I do this every time—run so hard that at the end, as I crest the hill, I’ve run myself ragged, run myself to drain the pain and longing out.

  When there are no more tears left, I jog down and the white horse that always looks at me, lifts his head and I look back at him.

  My jog turns to a walk as I reach Poppy Lane. I walk even more slowly as I pass my favorite farmhouse, the one with the white picket fence. The fence is bordered with early blooming pink climbing roses that tumble in wild abandon across the white pickets. Dark blue, almost purple salvia has been planted between the rosebushes with low mounds of golden creeping Jenny for ground cover. I can bend forward and smell one of the elegant pink blossoms, wondering if this climber rose is an heirloom rose, since it is unabashedly fragrant. Once I would have asked my mother. Now I make a note to ask Diana.

  • • •

  It’s Sunday morning brunch with Dad. And eight of his closest friends.

  When I first arrived here, I didn’t understand why Dad would prefer to live at Napa Estates rather than moving to Scottsdale to be with me, but I’m beginning to understand.

  Dad has friends here. They joke, they talk, they argue, they laugh.

  Dad laughs. And even with the splint on his wrist, he looks healthy.

  Happy.

  Mom would be happy for him, too. This is what she’d want. This is why they chose this place.

  So if Dad is happy, and Mom would be happy for Dad, then I just need to be happy for him, too.

  I need to let go of the idea of needing him . . . even though he is all I have left.

  Conversation is easy until someone says something about “today’s kids” that sets the men off. Before I know it, everyone has something negative to say about the younger generation and I glance at Dad, wishing he’d defend my generation, or at the very least, defend me, but he doesn’t. He just lets them talk, and criticize.

  “Kids nowadays, they don’t know,” Walter says grimly. “They have no idea what life is really like. They’re entitled. They think they deserve it all. They think they know it all. But truthfully, they know nothing—”

  “Now that’s a little bit harsh,” George interrupts.

  “But true,” Walter retorts. “They’ve never lived through war. Not a real war. Not like us.”

  “But did the war make you a better person?” Jerry asks quietly. “I’m not sure it made me a better person.”

  “Taught me to work hard,” Walter said. “Taught me the value of a buck.”

  “That’s true.” Harold sighed. “It teaches a war ethic, an ethic kids today don’t have. Kids today don’t think they should have to work. They think it should all be handed to them, just because. My grandson, for example. He got an offer last year after graduating from college. He didn’t like the offer. He said it wasn’t good enough. That he deserved better. So what did he do? Turned it down and has spent the past year living at home, living off his parents. Easier to sponge off your folks then stand on your own two feet.”

  Walter pounds his fist onto the table. “Exactly. But why do they deserve a red carpet? What makes them so special? What makes them deserve more than we did?”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Harold says, looking around the table. “Can you imagine any of us saying to our parents during the war, I shouldn’t have to go, I’m better than this? I shouldn’t have to work, so you go do it for me?”

  Harold’s gaze locks with mine. “Alison, explain your generation to me. What makes a twenty-two-year-old feel entitled to stay home while his mother and father work forty-, fifty-hour weeks? How can a twent
y-two-year-old man justify allowing his mother to do his laundry and clean his room while he lays around playing video games and reading Japanese comics?”

  All eyes are now on me and I don’t have an answer. I’m not the twenty-two-year-old doing that. I’ve been making my own school lunch since sixth grade and doing my own laundry since my freshman year of high school when I needed a clean PE uniform and Mom had back-to-school night and couldn’t do it.

  I started helping grocery shop as soon as I got my driver’s license and I’d even make dinners once or twice a week if Mom worked late, so Dad wouldn’t go hungry.

  I’m not the lazy boy or the entitled girl. My friends aren’t, either. In fact, I don’t really know those young adults he’s talking about. Maybe there is something else wrong. Maybe his grandson has a mood disorder or a learning quirk. Maybe there is more to the story. But right now everyone is waiting for me to say something and I just know I can’t throw his grandson—who I’ve never met, nor will probably ever meet—under the bus.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “But if your daughter, his mother, doesn’t have a problem with it, maybe it’s okay?”

  “It’s never okay to shirk one’s duty,” Harold says fiercely.

  George gestures broadly. “We understood duty. We understood responsibility, because we all went through it. We all lost someone. We all struggled. We went hungry. We’re different, and we know we’re different.”

  The men nod and murmur agreement. The tension dissipates, the anger, too, leaving them quiet and reflective.

  A few return to their meals, others begin to rise and walk away. Dad and I remain even after the others are gone. Dad is still silent, though, and I’m silent, waiting for him to say something. But he doesn’t.

  “You all right?” I ask him as seconds stretch into minutes.

  “Just brings back a lot of memories,” he says.

  “But you didn’t serve in that war.”

  “No, but I was a kid during the war and I remember how hard it was on my mom and brothers. Dad was away, you know, serving in the navy. Mom had to raise us three kids on her own.”