The White Rose (15 page)

All right—it was a rush, Oliver thinks now, recalling the morning not long after his visit to Kent that he decided the mother roses were ready. “Do early,” his scrawled note read, and so he had risen at six and bounded upstairs to the roof without pausing to make coffee. The White Wings, six of them, procured from a rose nursery in Oregon, were nodding happily in the June sunshine. He had removed the petals from each bloom, then gingerly extracted the stamens, taking care not to injure the pistils they had surrounded. When, that afternoon, he had returned to the roof garden with great anticipation and peered through a magnifying glass at the pistils (and the dozen or so stigmas that constituted them), he could barely contain his elation.

On each stigma a sticky nectar had materialized.

“This is getting worse and worse,” Marian teased, when he called her at her office.

“It's for you,” he had said, a little wounded. “Remember, this rose is for you.”

“Of course it is,” Marian said, more kindly. “It's just that I can't really process words like ‘sticky nectar' and ‘stamen' and ‘stigma' when I'm supposed to be thinking about Georgian economic trends in the port cities.”

To this, Oliver made a suggestive suggestion and let her return to work. Then he got down to business.

Having retrieved the baby food jars from his refrigerator, Oliver brought them back to the roof and slowly began to apply the first of his three pollens to the stigmas of some of the prepared White Wings. He used a pipe cleaner for this operation—Joe Murray's favored implement—then immediately covered each inseminated bloom with a white paper bag, to prevent any bees or other insects from getting near them. When he was finished with the first of his baby food jars, he carefully labeled the completed plants with the name of the father, then repeated the process with the rest of the White Wings and the remaining two jars of pollen. It was painstaking work and took most of the afternoon. When it was completed, the rooftop garden bore strange fruit indeed: thorny green stalks capped with fluttering white bags.

Afterward, it was a matter of soil fertilization and patience, but Oliver was rewarded in late summer with the appearance of many rose hips, particularly on the White Wings he had crossed with White Bath, an old English rose that—and this, he knows, would please Marian no end—dated to the very period when Lady Charlotte was herself stooping to conquer England. To protect these precious hips from the birds and the tenacious Village squirrels, Oliver had again taken Joe Murray's advice and wrapped a small piece of tin foil around each, pinching it just beneath the neck. As they fell to the ground he collected them, labeled each with its parents' names, and placed them—still in their foil sacks—inside the refrigerator to stratify.

Now, taking a bowl of water to the kitchen table, Oliver attempts the fairly medieval-sounding method Joe has suggested to sort the most viable seeds. Using a razor blade, he carefully slits each hip, removes the seed, and drops it in the bowl.

The sterile ones float, and he throws them away.

The sinkers are fished out and sorted into their three paternal piles. Once again, Oliver notes, the White Bath crosses have trumped the competition, and he finds that fact strangely satisfying, as if he had long ago decided to root for this particular “bonk” (rose slang for cross, Joe had informed him, and wouldn't Marian love that?). Then he takes the good seeds downstairs to the shop and back into his office.

Oliver doesn't do much growing, either here or even at home in his mother's garden, but he has acquired a few specific materials—ordained by Joe Murray—in anticipation of this day. Now, clearing an area of his worktable, he assembles them: three seedling trays, Canadian sphagnum peat, medium vermiculite, and silicon sand, as well as captan to prevent mold. In a large bowl, he mixes together equal portions of the peat and the vermiculite, then fills the seedling trays and saturates them with water. He lays seven seeds, the products of his least fertile hybrid (Aimée Vibert, a Victorian English noisette) in the first tray, and spreads the twelve from his slightly more promising cross (with the old French Bourbon Boule de Neige, a favorite of Marian's) in the second. Twenty-five seeds from the White Bath cross fill the third, and Oliver labels each tray with care. Then he covers the seeds with three quarters of an inch of silicon sand and moistens the sand with captan. Placing the trays at one edge of his worktable, he switches on a four-foot HydroFarm fixture, which promptly floods them with fluorescent light. (On the wall above them, Barton Warburg Ochstein's double order of white roses is illuminated, too.)

And then, as so often in the world of flowers, there is nothing else to do but wait.

Oliver washes his hands and puts away the bags of soil, peat, and sand. From out in the shop's front area, the sound of conversation makes a gradual claim on Oliver's attention: Bell, laughing. Bell is always laughing. He is talking to a customer.

Oliver looks at his sandy trays beneath their bright light. What's in there? he thinks. Will they grow and then fail? Will they open into stubby, unlovely blooms? Will they be sound but not special? He knows enough about this spectacularly unlikely process not to hope for anything in particular—to be able to report an actual flower to Joe Murray would be an achievement his first time out—but he can't help himself. Before his eyes the bloom conjures itself: a rose so lovely that it silences him, a rose blindingly white and lushly full, as if entrusted with the passion of its creator. He believes in this possibility, because he has once seen it happen, up close. The White Rose—his White Rose—was named in tribute to that.

Bell speaks. Paper rustles. The front door opens to another greeting, and it occurs to Oliver that much of the day has slipped past him as he worked his fingers in the seeds, water, and dirt. He turns from his trays and rises, stretching, to discover that he is very hungry and it is nearly four. The shop area is not jammed—it is never jammed—but it is unquestionably full, and Oliver is embarrassed to think that he has not offered assistance to Bell. He offers it now, helping a short woman with a tight cap of gray hair to four bunches of yellow tulips and wrapping an unwieldy tangle of curly willow branches for two men in their twenties whose border collie accompanies them. When, quite by chance, he looks at the window display, he notes that the black calla lilies are no longer there.

“What happened to the callas?” Oliver asks.

“You kidding? Sold out by noon. I should have bought twice as many.”

Oliver nods. “Yeah. What were you thinking?”

Bell harrumphs, good-humoredly.

When this group leaves, Oliver goes upstairs to begin dinner. Caroline, unlike her old friend, does not care for artichokes, so he leaves them for another day. He removes the ribs from their wine marinade and dries them, then sears them in oil as he chops onions and garlic. The hum of activity from downstairs dissipates, and the apartment darkens to early evening. After the meat is ready, he cooks the vegetables, some of the wine, a can of chopped tomatoes, and some chicken broth. Then he throws in Worcestershire sauce and a bit of rosemary. When it boils, he puts the seared ribs back in and leaves the whole thing simmering while he takes a bath.

From belowstairs come the sounds of the ending workday. Drawers scrape open as Bell attempts, in his imperfect manner, to put things away. A knock at the street door goes unanswered: it is after five. Oliver hears the refrigerator doors slide open and shut repeatedly as the last flowers are picked over and put back. He hopes Bell isn't throwing the weak ones away—Oliver likes to bring them upstairs as long as they'll last. He does not mind being surrounded by dying blooms.

The apartment begins to smell rich with cooking meat. Oliver closes his eyes. All day he has pushed Marian from his mind, but now she returns, and with her their lost possibilities for the hours past and now at hand. It is not that Oliver is sorry to see his mother, but the burden of what he can't tell Caroline—at Marian's request—feels heavy. He does not like having to hide from her these serious, wonderful things: the content of his happiness. He does not like having to lie, and having to remember his past lies, in order that the lies to come will not trip over them. He begins a fantasy, relaxed by the heat of the water and the sweet smell from the kitchen, of a sort of intervention, staged by himself and featuring Marian, Caroline, Marshall…even Henry Rosenthal, his stepfather.
We're going to sort this out right now!
(This is Oliver himself, strutting through Marian's living room with his hands on his hips.)
I don't care what the rest of you do, but I am marrying this woman!

Oliver smiles.

Bell bangs on the apartment door, then opens it. “I'm going,” he calls.

“Okay. See you Monday,” Oliver shouts.

“Want to come?” Bell says. “There's a reading at KGB.”

“No thanks. My mom's coming to dinner.”

“The lovely Caroline…”

“Shut up, asshole,” Oliver says, chivalrously.

Bell laughs from the bottom of the stairs. “Not my fault your mom's hot, my man.”

“Good-bye, Bell.”

Oliver hears first his own door shut, then, a moment later, the shop door with its heavy click. He sinks back in the bath, oddly depressed. It has suddenly occurred to him that a man his own age might desire his mother, even as he desires Marian, a notion that fills him with vague distress.

Oliver picks up his watch from the sink ledge. It is nearly six.

He hauls himself out of the bath and dries off. He closes the curtains in his bedroom before turning on the light, then dresses in khakis, a dark tweed jacket, and one of his father's ties. In the kitchen, Oliver removes the meat with a slotted spoon and places it on a tray, covered with foil, which then goes into the oven to keep warm. Then he begins reducing the cooking liquid over high heat and puts water on the stove for the orzo. He is just spinning dry the frisée when he hears Caroline's tap on the shop door and then hurries downstairs to meet her.

Caroline lights up through the window, her skin taut over regal cheekbones. He pulls back the door and lets her enfold him in her long arms, indulging her need.

“Sweetie,” his mother says.

“Hi, Mom.”

He brings her inside. Oliver is glad to see that she is letting her silver hair grow out a bit—he thought the buzz cut of last spring a little severe, but hadn't wanted to say anything. “You look great.”

Her hand goes to her throat. “Henry gave me this.”

It's a chunky silver necklace, silver like rough stones forged together, and it suits her. “Pretty.”

“Thanks.” She looks around. “How was today?”

“Oh, Bell's single-handedly starting a craze for black calla lilies.”

Caroline makes a face. “How bizarre.”

“There was a big urn of them in the window this morning, and another bucket in the fridge. All gone.”

“Extraordinary. But it's Greenwich Village, I suppose.”

“Come on, I'm cooking.”

He brings her upstairs and gets her a glass of wine, opening the second bottle. “It smells so good,” his mother says, taking the glass.

“Short ribs.”

“Yummy. Though I'm sorry to put you to the work.”

“No, it's fine. I was cooking, anyway.”

“I didn't ruin a date or anything?” Caroline says, almost hopeful.

“No. Free and clear.”

At this moment, as if to belie the words, Oliver's telephone rings. He dumps orzo into the boiling water and goes to answer it. “Hello?”

“Oliver.” It is Marian. He is abruptly overcome with warmth.

“Hi.”

She pauses. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Hmm.” He is thinking. This particular circumstance is occurring for the first time, and no code exists between them to accommodate it.

“You don't sound all right. Oliver, I'm really sorry about—”

“Mom?” Oliver says, suddenly and loudly. “Would you mind giving that a stir? You can use the wooden spoon.”

Marian, on the other end of the phone line, collects herself. “Oh. Caroline's with you.”

“Yeah,” he says in relief.

“I didn't realize. We can't talk, then.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “But I'll get back to you.”

“All right.” But it isn't all right. The silence sits heavy on the line. Oliver watches his mother stir the orzo, tap the wooden spoon smartly against the pot's rim, and set it on the counter. She turns to him expectantly. “Oliver,” he hears Marian say, “I love you. Good night.”

“Yes, good-bye,” he says, and puts down the phone.

“Who was it?” his mother says, naturally.

His head swims. “Oh, a client. Kamikaze bride. The wedding's next week and she wants four extra centerpieces.”

“Why didn't she call the shop?” Caroline says, annoyed on his behalf.

“Oh, she has my home number, too. It's my fault, I probably gave her both. They get very frantic, these New York brides. It's like it's a big performance for them.”

Caroline sits down at the kitchen table. “Well, I think that's very rude, calling someone at home on a Saturday night.”

Oliver shrugs. “It's okay, Mom. Let's forget about it. I think we're about ready to eat.”

He goes to the stove, tests the orzo, and drains it, then tosses it with oil and spoons it onto the plates. Oliver takes the platter from the oven and pours the sauce over the ribs. “Should have bought parsley,” Oliver says.

“It smells great,” his mother says ignoring him. “Did you want me to toss that salad?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Oliver, to his distress, thinks of Marian as he watches his mother eat. He wants to steal away downstairs and call her back on the shop phone, but he stays where he is. Caroline leans forward over her plate and makes sounds of appreciation. She is beautiful—a beautiful woman of a certain age. He finds, to his surprise, that she is more intrinsically beautiful than Marian, in almost every way: thinner, more finely drawn, her colors separate and alive. Sitting here, Oliver can easily glean what Bell has so delicately termed the hotness of his mother. Caroline, always lovely, is now a shimmer of elegance.