Wild Roses (8 page)

"I don't get this. What's going to happen here?
Is he just going to keep getting worse? He's going to start thinking he's
Jesus?"

She didn't answer. I guess she didn't know
either. Great. Terrific. What did this mean? "Cassie?" she said finally.
"There's one more thing. I didn't want to tell you, but you'd probably see the
truck." She was quiet for a moment.

"What?" I meant, What now?

"He cut our cable, too."

"Are you kidding me? Why?" I didn't know what
to think or feel. None of this seemed real. I guess I felt a little panicked. My
voice was high and shrill.

"He said ... he said he did it so no one could
listen in on his work in progress."

"Oh, my God."

"I've got a call in to the doctor." I felt a
gathering in my chest, an on-alert tightness. Then, I knew what I felt. I was
afraid.

That day at school, I looked at the people in
my classes and thought about how different my yesterday must have been from any
of theirs. No one in those rooms would have guessed what happened in my house
last night. There was

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something about it that made me ashamed. And it
was big. Too big to hold all by myself, even if it was embarrassing as hell.
Zebe is the best listener in the world, even patiently hearing about your dreams
in boring detail (And then I turned into a fern. A talking fern, and then I got
onto a bus heading to Miami, only it wasn't really Miami. It looked like the
living room, and my second-grade teacher Mr. Bazinski, was wearing a kilt and
sitting on an ottoman teaching long division . . .), so at lunch I tried a
little of what happened on her. Not all of it. Just enough so I could handle the
rest on my own. She had all of the basic facts--we'd been friends for a couple
of years, and she knew my family. "Dino's going nuts," I said.

"What? That cuddly, cutesy-wootsy teddy bear? I
think you should write an essay and nominate him for Stepfather of the
Year."

"Don't even call him that. My mother's husband.
Okay? I don't even want father in the same sentence as Dino."

"I noticed you weren't acting like yourself,"
Zebe said. "Here. Have some Cheetos. Nothing like overly orange food to give you
comfort. Think about it. Orange sherbert. Orange Jell-O. I'm going to dye my
hair orange."

"Don't you dare." Zebe had this long, jet-black
hair that was so shiny you could practically see your reflection in it. That day
she was wearing fishnet stockings and a plaid skirt. She could wear anything and
make it look cool.

"So what's Senor Loco done now?" she
asked.

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"Dino's paranoid that someone can hear the new
stuff he's writing," I said. "Through the television cable." I used my
can-you-believe-how-stupid-he-
is? voice. It was Zebe and I loved her, but
this was as far as I was willing to go. I couldn't speak about how afraid it had
made me. This craziness happening in my family, for God's sake. People might
think it was catching.

Zebe twirled her finger by her head. "Oh, my
God, what a freak! My dad got real paranoid when my parents got divorced. He
climbed in a window of my mom's to steal her journals. He was sure she was going
to post nasty stuff about him on the Web. She was even going to press charges,
but decided it wasn't worth the hassle."

Zebe and I ate Cheetos. I thought about what
she said. Really thought about what it must have meant to her. A ladder against
a window. Your parent rooting around like an intruder. A police car in front of
your house as the neighbors looked on. Maybe I was wrong when I thought no one
at my school would believe what had happened to me. I looked around the
cafeteria, the rows of tables jammed with people, scattered lunches, noise, crap
on the floor. John Jorgenson grabbed some sophomore's baseball cap and threw it
to his friend, and Danielle Rhone was trying to find something she dropped under
a table, and three freshmen were huddled together over open books, doing their
homework. Reese Lin shoved what looked like a full lunch bag in the garbage, and
Todd Fleming brought three small pizza boxes to his table. Angela Aris and
James

what's-his-name leaned against the wall, making
out. I

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wondered what went on behind the closed doors
of these people's houses. A mother that drank too much, a father that hit.
Parents that fought, or tried unsuccessfully to hide an affair, or who couldn't
leave the house out of fear. Maybe we all had our secrets.

I walked home alone from school that day, no
Siang or Courtney. Zach and I had apparently had a successful operation to
separate Siamese twins, at least for the moment. I was coming down our road,
trying to ignore the fact that it was Tuesday, the day of Ian Waters's next
lesson, and so of course was consumed by thoughts of nothing else. Please let
Dino act normal, I said over and over in my head. Please, please. I had decided
under no uncertain terms not to fall for lan Waters, but I still didn't want him
to think I lived in a nuthouse. Here was the thing--Ian was going to go away to
school, and that was that. Letting myself fall for him was only going to lead to
pain. I, for one, didn't need to jump headfirst into some overwhelming feeling
that would lead to disaster. I could make a rational decision about where I was
going to put my heart, or if I was going to put my heart anywhere at
all.

I was what you would call Steeled with Resolve
when this old Datsun, a horrible shade of banana yellow, drove up behind me on
our road. It stopped in front of our house as I walked up, and this beefy,
motorcycle type got out of the passenger's side, flipping up the seat to let Ian
Waters and his violin out of the back. Rocket leaped out after him.

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"Hey," Ian said when he saw me.

God, he had beautiful eyes. Gentle brown. Like
deer fur, or those elbow patches on the jackets of college professors. A soft,
comforting brown. I'd forgotten what effect the sight of him had on me. Goddamn
it.

"Hey," I said eloquently.

"You've got to meet my brother and his best
friend. Chuck, this is Cassie. Dino's daughter." I didn't bother to correct him
with the real version of our twisted family tree right then, as huge Chuck was
holding out this bear paw for me to shake, and the driver of the Datsun, a twin
of the other guy, was turning around to see me. "And that's my brother,
Bunny."

"Howdy," Bunny gave a wave.

Either Ian or his brother must have been
conceived in a petri dish, because they were the unlikeliest brother combo you'd
ever seen. Bunny was outfitted in a motorcyclist's black leather pants and a
vest with a T-shirt underneath. He was older than Ian, by maybe seven or eight
years. He had a wild bunch of dark brown hair, and was solid as the side of a
mountain. You wouldn't dare point out the fact that he had the name of a cute
fluffy animal. He looked like he could kill with his bare hands.

"Be good," Bunny said as Chuck got in and shut
the door. Boy, I'd be good if he said that to me. I'd sit and embroider Bible
verses, I'd be so good.

The car pulled away. I saw something that
surprised me. They had a bumper sticker: trust the process.

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"We're twins," Ian said, and
grinned.

"I could tell by your matching outfits," I
said. Rocket had curled up on the lawn. I could hear Dog William whining on the
other side of the fence.

"He's my stepbrother. He moved us out here when
my stepfather died. He thinks it's his personal responsibility to look after us.
He comes over and makes, like, six boxes of macaroni and cheese."

"Wow," I said. "I like his bumper
sticker."

"Oh, man. Don't ever get him started on that
stuff. I'm serious." We headed into the house. "Chuck and Bunny are into the
whole metaphysical thing. They've been friends since they were, like, two. They
go around to their motorcycle groups giving talks on The Wisdom of Your Inner
Voice."

"Okay this time you are kidding."

"I wish I was."

"That's hilarious. Metaphysical
motorcyclists."

"It's worse. Neither of them has a motorcycle.
Jeez." He shook his head and laughed. Okay, great. Ian Waters was nice, too.
Beautiful, talented, nice.

"Shall we get started?" Dino said when we came
in. I tried to check him out for any sign of irrational paranoia. His shoes were
on. His eyes looked normal. I allowed myself the thought that maybe we'd all
overreacted about yesterday. Or maybe Mom got Dino to take his medicine. This
super-fast-acting medicine.

Dino grasped Ian's shoulder and squeezed it in
warm greeting. It looked like the lesson was going to go okay,

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and I went upstairs. After a while I heard the
music starting. God, if I could only explain it. You wanted to let it take up
residence inside you. Let it flourish there, like a garden of wildflowers. You
wanted to possess it, hold it, become a part of it. It wrapped around you like
the cape of a wizard, full of magic color.

I wanted it. That music, him. I put my pillow
over my head. That boy and his violin scared the crap out of me. My heart was
beating so hard it felt like it was trying to make an escape attempt.

An eternity and an hour later, I heard the
front door close as Ian left. Mom came home shortly after, and we shouted
greetings to each other from different floors, something that never failed to
piss off Dino. Soon, dinner smells rose up the stairs.

Dino's face was tight at the table, stern and
rocky. The favorite game of temperamental people is Try to Guess Why I'm Ticked
Off. (Contestant number one, Why do YOU think he's pissed off? Why, I'm not
sure, Bob, but I'm going to go with 'Because I Left the Faucet Dripping. BEEP.
I'm sorry, that's incorrect. The correct answer is: 'Because You Happen to
Exist.') Even if I'm determined not to play, I get sucked in. My brain just does
what it wants anyway, same as when I'm sitting in calculus, wondering if Mr.
Firtz could possibly have a sex life, even though the thought is revolting. The
brain can be a sicko, out-of-control thing sometimes, and at dinner I started
wondering who did what wrong this time. Likely Dino was doing a Mount Rushmore
imitation because we'd shouted at each other

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across the house. I put my money down on that
one.

"How did the lesson go?" my mother asked Dino.
She seemed more relaxed than she did that morning, in spite of Dino's obvious
attitude. Like me, she was probably relieved to find Dino more "normal" again.
Which meant, back to his old asshole-ish self.

"A beautiful lesson with the boy. Except for
the fact that he was late. Cassie was entertaining him."

I never thought Dino was very attractive--if
you've never seen a picture of him, his nose is chunky and his forehead is
broad, and he's got full lips. He's pretty short, too, just a little taller than
Mom unless she wears heels. His crowning glory was his headful of curly
gray-black hair, but it's like the game you can play with the blond girls at
school--imagine them without the hair and there's not much there. I'm not sure
why women liked him so much. But right then, he was downright ugly. That's the
thing with mean people. Eventually their spirit shows through like mold on
cheese.

"Entertaining him? I talked to the guy for
maybe a minute and a half," I said. I let the irritation show in my voice. I
didn't care. I plunked a dollop of guacamole on my taco salad, took a forceful
bite.

"The lesson started late."

So that's what his problem was. In forty years
when he got Alzheimer's, he might forgive me.

"He needs to focus on his music. Nothing else."
"I said hello. He introduced me to his brother." "Sounds harmless to me," Mom
said. "She's not having

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a love affair with the guy, Dino. Hello won't
kill his focus." She speared a tomato.

"This is not some high school boy, Daniella. We
are attempting to train a genius. He has no room for kissy face."

"Darn, and I thought you didn't see my tongue
down his throat," I said. I got up. Shoved back my chair. I wasn't hungry
anymore. If there is something that can make you as angry as being unjustly
accused, tell me. Or being disproportionately accused. You do well in school and
you don't do drugs or have sex, but they get mad at you for not making your
bed.

I went outside to the shed, got out my
telescope. Swore under my breath at the psycho creep. It was late October and
cold out, and I'd wished I'd interrupted my anger by getting a sweatshirt. Too
late now. The clouds were doing this manic fleeing, in a hurry to get somewhere,
and as they whipped past, they'd reveal these bursts of brilliantly clear sky I
hauled out my equipment and set up in the open grassy patch by the front of the
house. It was the perfect viewing place--open sky, the garden ringed with
hydrangeas and a view of the sound. The water smelled cold and deep and swampy
in the darkness, the smell of thousands of years of whale secrets.

I sprang out the tripod legs of my telescope,
swore at the fact that I only wore socks, which were now wet from dewy grass.
Hey cool. Now I could take them off and be a lunatic like Dino. Dog William
whined for my company from behind the fence. If I was lucky I'd see Mars
in