Wild Roses (16 page)

I watched as already the flame was beginning to
lick its way up the curtain. I could see my mother through the glass, her mouth
frozen in an O.

I grabbed the curtain with my hands. My bare
hands, I just grabbed it and crumpled it up. It was the only thing I could think
to do. No, let me say that again. I did not think at all, I just acted. I
gathered up the fabric in a ball and extinguished the flame. The quartet kept
playing in the other room.

Before I knew it, my mother was beside me. She
was holding my hands in hers. There was ice in a towel. I didn't know what
happened to Dino, but I guess Andrew Wilkowski had brought him to his room and
calmed him down, telling guests he wasn't feeling well, implying he had had too
much to drink, which was a sin forgiven with an amused smile. I couldn't stop
shaking. My body just shook and trembled until I threw up. There was a call to a
doctor, but my hands were okay. I was okay finally, and I stopped shaking after
I was wrapped tightly in my blanket. The only thing that remained of the night
was a small scar, which I still have. It sits in the curve between my thumb and
forefinger, the place that looks like a small boat if you hold your hand up in
the air.

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I will never forget that night. The mark
reminds me what fear can do to you, how fear can distort what is real to the
point that the damage is permanent.

It was the same shape, come to think of it, as
the scar on Dino's neck.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

Zebe called the next morning, asking if I
wanted to hang out with her and Sophie, but I told her I was going shopping with
Mom. I didn't think I could stand acting normal and pretending that things were
fine, and my other option, letting myself fall apart with them, sounded like it
would take more energy than I could stand. I wanted to be away. It didn't matter
where away was. The air was low on my own bike tires and I didn't want to stop
and pump them up, so I grabbed Dino's bike, the one with the basket on the
handlebars, and started to ride out to the ferry docks. The burned curtain lay
in a heap on the floor after Mom took it down, and the whole house looked
hung-over from the party. On top of everything else, the caterers had done a
crappy job of cleaning up and there were cups set in odd places--the potted
plant, behind the toilet

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--and bits of food on napkins. Two people had
forgotten their coats. Dino had still been sleeping when I got up, but Mom
looked haunted and stressed and she snapped first at me when I dropped my toast
on the floor and then at Dog William when he lunged at it with greedy
opportunism. God knows what she'd be like when Dino woke up, or what would
happen then.

My hands were freezing on the handlebars and my
legs were cold even through my jeans, but I didn't care. The fresh air felt
good. The atmosphere inside that house felt doomed. It felt fatal.

It's mostly downhill to the water, and the
ferry dock is the end point of the bay. I had Brief Fantasy Number Four Thousand
Twelve, of sailing straight down that hill and flying off the end of the dock,
destructo-movie style. I like those kinds of movies. Things blowing up and
strong, definite action. Zebe and I go together because we can't stand the
frilly-ass movies of girls fighting their way to the big cheerleading final, or
some such dance-movie-drama crap. We both like the certainty of action
movies.

I sped past the bakery, warm smells catching up
to me a block later, and the haircutting place and the bookstore. I passed the
new Thai restaurant, with the surprising name of Phuket. We couldn't believe it
when they put the sign up. Even Dino laughed. Brian Malo told us he called the
place a few times, just to hear them answer the phone. I have no idea if this
was bold humor on the restaurant owners' part, or if these poor people had no
idea they're telling the nice folks of Seabeck to Fuck It.

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I set the bike down on its side. I was so cold
my nose felt like it could break off, making me one of those Roman statues you
see in the museum. I sat on one of the benches on the dock, shoved my hands into
my pockets. There were a few fishing boats tied up, though what you'd fish for
that time of year, I have no idea. My fish knowledge is on the slim side. It
smelled like green out there, murky. The smell of fish/seaweed/cold depths.
Seagulls were walking around with the aimless air of those with nothing better
to do, or were perched on pilings, wearing the cool, unaffected looks of those
secretly sure they are being admired. Kind of like the jocks in the cafeteria at
lunch.

I watched a ferryboat come in, knocking into
the dock, reminding me of my stint during driver's ed when I backed into the
side of the garage. The boat unloaded and reloaded, glided away again. There was
something about watching the ferryboats come and go that was calming-- the
rhythm of the departure and arrival. I was wondering how many people on that
boat led simple lives where they ate meatloaf and worried about their lawn
having weeds and their bathrooms being shiny. That's how it was supposed to be,
wasn't it? But maybe supposed to be was what was wrong. Maybe supposed to be was
like a child's drawing of a night sky--stars all alike, a yellow moon--simple
and pretty and nothing to do with reality. It seemed cruel to feel all this
shame because we had more than weeds to worry about.

I was deep in my own profound (ha) line of
thought when I saw Rocket trotting down the dock. I was surprised

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and so glad to see her. I was just so happy to
see a creature who was so nice and simple and cheerful. I patted my leg, and she
came to me. She set her chin on my knee, and I gave her a good scruffing under
her ears, all the while looking around for Ian. My stomach was lurching around
like crazy with sudden nerves-slash-excitement. I couldn't see him anywhere,
though, and wondered if Rocket just regularly went off on these small,
independent adventures.

I was already planning my return of Rocket to
her home--I thought she might be lost--when I saw Ian walking up the dock. I
almost didn't recognize him--he wasn't wearing his long black coat, but instead
had some puffy ski jacket on. It was good to see him. God, it was so good.
Happiness was spilling over.

"I saw you ride down here," Ian
said.

"Fly down here," I said. It was so freezing out
there that when I spoke I felt like a member of those African tribes you see in
National Geographic, with the discs in their lips. I sounded the way you do when
you get back from the dentist.

"You can see this whole area from the bedrooms
upstairs," Ian said.

"Wow."

"It makes up for the fact that the rooms are
midget-size. I heard you came by."

"I just ... I don't know. Something possessed
me." "Hey, I'm glad. I'm glad you didn't go in too." "Why? Your mom seemed
great."

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"She is great. The house, you know, we're still
moving

in."

"Tres Zen. Feng shui."

"We might've had that for dinner last night,"
he said. God, I liked him.

"My lips are so cold I can barely talk," I
said.

Ian reached out his fingertips, set them on my
mouth, the way you would shush someone you loved. That gentle. Then he moved his
hand to the tip of my nose. "Your nose is cold, too."

I took hold of his fingers, held them in my
hand. We were just standing there on the dock, me holding Ian's hand, and Rocket
looking on to see what might happen next. We were both smiling away at each
other.

"I haven't seen you in a while," I said. I
hadn't really seen him since we kissed. Except for when he was at my house last,
when he left in a rush after that horrible, humiliating lesson.

"I'm quitting."

"What? What do you mean? Don't let him do that
to you. If this is what you want, don't give in because he's an asshole.
..."

"He's an amazing player. Amazing, God," Ian
shook his head. He settled his hand more comfortably in mine. "Amazing doesn't
even touch how he plays."

"But he sucks as a human being."

"I don't know how you take it. I don't think I
can. Is he always like that?"

"Domineering?" I asked. "Critical? Mean?" I
didn't say

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crazy. The other things were bad enough. "Yeah,
pretty-much. He's got a few really likeable moments, and that's about it. I
don't know how I take it. I've been thinking about moving in with my Dad." I
didn't know I'd been thinking that--it just came out. One of those times the
subconscious is clicking along doing its own thing, like when you're walking
home and realize you're there but don't even remember the trip.

"What about your mom? She needs
you."

"Maybe." I thought about the lesson I'd
overheard. You must save your mama, Ian. . . . What had Dino meant? There was
something about this comment that seemed unapproachable, but I wanted to
approach it anyway. I decided to tread carefully, to give Ian an open door in
case he wanted to go in. "My mom can take care of herself, though. I mean,
doesn't yours?"

"Sure, she does," he said. He ignored my open
door. Maybe the comment was more of Dino's usual craziness. "I just thought
you'd worry about hurting your mom's feelings by moving out."

"You're right. It's the only thing that's
keeping me from getting out of there." I cared about Mom. Too much to let her
think she failed me.

"Rocket!" Ian yelled. The dog had trotted off
and was smelling a net that a fisherman had thrown onto the dock. "Come on,
girl."

Rocket looked up to see if Ian was sure, and
when he clapped his hands, letting mine go, Rocket came reluctantly back. Ian
sat down on the bench, and I sat beside

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him. He told me about Thanksgiving, how Chuck
and Bunny made lasagna and garlic bread. Bunny had brought over some incense and
it stank so bad Ian's mom had to open the windows and they all had to wear their
coats as they ate. I told him about mine, but left off everything about Dino's
behavior. I only told him about the food, and the guests, and the two waiters on
the brink of a passionate affair.

"See everything you'll miss if you quit?" I
said. I don't know why I was encouraging him. His continuing meant one
thing--that Dino would do whatever he could to help get him into Curtis. That
Ian would move a zillion miles away. Still, I'd rather have him go away than
quit what he loved because of Dino.

"Everything I'll miss? Everything I'll be free
of, is more like it," Ian said. "Pretentious people."

"Endless practicing?" I offered.

"Nothing but music. I'm so goddamned sick of
it. I want other things in my life." He looked at me then, and a jolt passed
between us. At least, I felt it. He took a strand of my hair, wound it around
one finger. My hair had never been so happy.

"Free of Dino's nastiness," I said.

"That accent." Ian shook his head. "I hear it
in my sleep."

"And all of the endless stories about Italy.
God, I get sick of that."

"He tells me them too."

"His mother teaching him to play the piano,
which he

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couldn't do, but when they brought out his
father's old violin ..."

"He played some song like he learned it in the
womb," Ian interrupted.

"I hate when he gets to the 'in the womb' part.
Womb is a creepy word anyway, but when he says it. . ."

"Wuuum," Ian tried out an Italian
accent.

"And the bicycles," I said.

"In the canals," Ian said.

"I've heard it five thousand times."

"I never understood why they threw them in,"
Ian said.

'"We were hooligans.'" I tried out my Italian
accent. Mine was better.

At that moment, that very second, we both
looked at Dino's bike, lying on its side there on the dock.

"That's his bike, isn't it?" Ian
asked.

"Mmm hmmm."

"It had to be."

I turned to Ian. "Are you thinking what I'm
thinking?" "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" "Let's do it."

"Ve are zuch hooligans," Ian said. He sounded
kind of German.

I picked up my end of the bike by the
handlebars; Ian lifted the back tire. I was giggling away like mad. "Ze bicycles
in ze canal," Ian said. "Is ze serious matter." He was more German by the
second.

We lugged the bike to the end of the dock.
Rocket was

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looking on, giving us the Those wacky humans
dog look.

"Hold ze bicycle in ze air," Ian said. His hair
was in his eyes.

"A moment of victory," I said.

I tried my best, but it was heavy. My end was
drooping during that part of the ceremony.

We counted. One, two, three. We heaved it as
far as we could, which was maybe a few feet. It landed in the water with a splat
more than a splash, and lay on the top for a minute before the back wheel
started heading down.