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“He came to a football game at school. I knew he wasn’t the sort of boy you wanted me to date, so I had Ben cover for us. He was mysterious and perfect and charming.”
“If you tell me that he wooed you by reciting passages from Twilight as if they were actual conversation, I’m going to have to bludgeon you with that tire iron.”
“You promised you wouldn’t judge!” she exclaimed.
“I promised I wouldn’t judge, not that I wouldn’t mock. I don’t suppose you managed to sneak your phone in here with us, did you?”
“It’s in my back pocket,” she said, her eyes alight with excitement. It took a few tries for us to roll over, with our hands bound, then get my hands lined up with her pockets.
“No, not that one,” she said as I blindly patted her cargos.
“Seriously, how many pockets do you need in one pair of pants?” I grunted. “Shift your butt.”
Gigi shifted as John turned a corner. Just as my fingertips found the solid, square weight of the cell phone, the turn sent Gigi rolling across the floor of the trunk, her head thunking into mine.
“Ow!” I yelped, wincing as the bruised spot on my head grazed the tire iron and Gigi’s head-butt landed. I closed my eyes, clenching my teeth as the pain radiated through my head. The scent of Gigi’s shampoo—lavender, wisteria, and jasmine—wafted up to my nostrils. It was a calming scent. It reminded me of the relative safety of our bathroom at home, of sitting out in the garden with a glass of lemonade. And something else.
The car slowed. I patted Gigi’s pockets, frantically trying to manipulate the phone out of her awkwardly wrinkled pocket. I had no idea how I would dial it or talk, but it had to be better than lying there like a hog waiting for slaughter.
“You got it?” she asked.
The car stopped completely.
Gigi whimpered. “What’s going to happen, Iris?”
“I don’t know, Geeg,” I whispered back, still working the phone out of her pocket. “We’re going to be OK.”
I heard her sniff. “You don’t know that.”
“No, but I’m the big sister; it’s my job to lie.”
The trunk popped open, and John’s face appeared overhead. I pulled my hand away from the phone and pretended that I was trying to comfort my sister. He tsked indulgently, pulling the cloths back over our eyes. “Naughty, naughty. What have you two been up to back here? I could hear you talking, you know. I’ve always wondered what two sisters talk about late into the night. I’m definitely going to keep you around long enough to find out …”
Ugh. Evil, creepy teenagers.
John hauled us out of the trunk by our elbows and set us on our feet. He cut the tape away from our ankles and then linked his arms through ours, like he was escorting us to a garden party.
“Step carefully, my pretty things,” he said, helping us down a long, uneven path as he hummed a happy tune. He pushed us gently onto a bench, the cool metal unyielding against our awkwardly positioned hands. I heard a low, threatening growl to our left. Gigi shrank into my side. I shushed her. “Now, you two just sit there and look appetizing. No funny business.”
There was silence. I assumed that John had stepped away. The humming had stopped, and my head cleared. We were surrounded by pleasant earthy scents. A strange sensation niggled at the corner of my mind. Something I should be remembering. Wisteria. The light citrus of commuter daylilies. Mulch … no, ginkgo. The sour “earthy” scent of ginkgo. Where was I when I’d last smelled ginkgo?
“Oh, sonofabitch!” I yelled.
Gigi gasped at my right. “Iris, you said a cuss word!”
“And I’m about to say a few more. Sonofabitch!”
“No, that’s the same one,” she reminded me.
“Wisteria, ginkgo, crepe myrtle. Those weren’t black-thumb plants!”
“Have you been drinking?” Gigi asked.
“His garden is chock-full of temperamental wonders.” I continued to rant. “He has flipping Mexican heather. Do you know how temperamental Mexican heather is? I’m astonished that he could keep it alive. Our winters are too cold. Our summers are too hot. If you let the soil dry out the least little bit—”
“I get it, I get it. You’re a big plant geek,” Gigi said. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Mr. Marchand. He said he had bad luck with plants when I visited him last week. He acted like he didn’t know anything about gardening. But I don’t care how good your landscapers are, unless they’re sitting outside your house twenty-four hours a day with a hose, Mexican heather is going to die without constant, focused care. The kind of care that might go into growing large batches of rare plants used to drive vampires into a frenzy.”
