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Chagrined and feeling an immediate sting of tears, Sally set the plant down. “I should leave.” Kicked out and banished once again, and this time by the one person who had never done it before. Seeing as rejection lived like an inoperable tumor just under her ribcage, it really shouldn’t hurt. But it did.
“No, no,” Paul rushed to say. “Come as often as you like. Just keep it to nighttime, and you’ll be okay. I’ll keep her away from the window for you.”
She should be happy, but something about her existence always came with conditions, and conditions made a person tired. She supposed with her father gone, she was the natural target of everyone’s deflected hate, but that didn’t make it any easier to take. Hate’s a heavy burden for anyone to bear, like being pelted with bullets with no hope of them ever letting up. Eventually, the day would come when she would give up trying. She felt the rubber band of tolerance pulling tighter and tighter with each passing day. It was only a matter of time before it snapped in half.
If she had a place to go, somewhere to start over, she would. But all her worldly possessions were here. Meager as they were, they were hers.
“Okay, I’ll only come around after dark. I guess I should thank you for letting me come at all.”
Paul shoved both hands in his pockets and looked up at the ceiling. “Sally, it isn’t like that.”
“But it is,” she said. And it was, even if he didn’t want to admit it out loud. Whether it came from Paul or his wife, either way, he was the one telling her to stay away. And she understood, really, she did. He was married now. They couldn’t go back to being friends, no matter how much she wished for it.
“If I had it my way, you would be here all the time,” he whispered, so low she almost didn’t catch it.
But she did, and she wanted so badly to ask what he meant. Did he wish for it too? The idea alone made her heart take flight, even though she knew it was wrong. You can’t stop the wind from blowing though, can you? Trying to deny her reaction was as futile as holding one’s breath and attempting to die. A losing effort even before it starts.
Paul sighed long and slow. “Sally, about that night…”
She locked eyes with him and shook her head, working to stop it anyway. “Don’t worry about it. Your momma was right. I shouldn’t have been in your house.”
“She was wrong. Completely wrong. I should have said something to you before graduation, definitely before I left for college. I wanted to, but I chickened out like the coward I was. My mother was wrong to kick you out, and I was wrong to let her. If I could go back and shake some sense into my eighteen-year-old self, I would.” He sniffed. “It was wrong to let you go back into the house alone. She shouldn’t have sent you there, and I shouldn’t have let you go. You have no idea how sorry I am.”
Sally softened at the apology. It was odd knowing that only one thing stood between her and insanity, but Paul was that one thing. One nod of acknowledgment from him gave her the ability to feel almost normal.
“You’re forgiven. I promise I won’t get you in trouble with the wife. Neither of you will ever know I’m here. I just really like looking at the plants…”
Paul smiled. “I’ll know, and I’ll come out here to check on you from time to time, I promise. Meanwhile,” he picked up the big boy tomato plant and another just like it and extended them to her. “Why don’t you plant these in your backyard? They’re supposed to be the best ones around if you want to try them for yourself.” She was so surprised by the offering that for a moment, she just stared at the plants. Paul chuckled, finding her reaction amusing. “Take them, Sally. And stop being so wary of someone trying to be nice to you. Especially me.”
If Paul knew that he was the only person nice to her, he might not say such things. She reached for the plants and gathered them to her chest, working to stay neutral when his hand brushed against her knuckles for longer than necessary. Paul glanced up at her when it happened, and for the tiniest moment, she swore she saw regret.
What could he possibly regret?
“Thank you, Paul. I’ll be quiet walking home.” She opened the greenhouse door and slipped through it, careful to keep her new treasures safe. She had made it only a few steps before she heard his voice behind her.
“Goodnight, Sally. It’s good to see you again.”
It was the second time he’d said it. She didn’t tell him goodnight back, but it was. The very best night she’d had in a long time.
Her friend was home. But just like before, she would have to be careful if she wanted to keep him around.
By the timeearly summer rolled around at the only shack in Silver Bell, Sally had a whole garden of thriving plants that she could talk to anytime she wanted. Which she did daily, sitting among the zucchini and red peppers, gazing at the marigolds on the edges of her garden, planted there to keep unwanted critters away. Marigolds were magnificent to look at but painful to breathe in, their scents reminiscent of a teenage boy’s underarms after a few days of skipping a shower. She remembered gym class in middle school and the unpleasantness of it all.
“You got quite a mess of vegetables back here,” Paul said, walking up from his house. He did that, snuck up on her sometimes just for a short chat, but never in the middle of the day. Something must be wrong for him to show up now, either that or he was bored. Or that Sherry-girl he was married to was going off on one of her bleak tangents she seemed to be so fond of. The girl was barely shy of twenty, but she had the tongue of a rusty nail and the temper of a matchstick, all hot and crackling. As far as Sally could tell, Sherry was used to getting her way. Living here in Silver Bell didn’t afford a girl much opportunity to throw her weight around, but Sherry managed as best she could. Usually on Paul. Sometimes on Sally. Occasionally on both, but for no good reason.
“I saw you throwing your newspaper away in our bin! You need to keep your trash in your own receptacle!”Sally had never heard anyone call a trash can a receptacle before. What an odd way to speak. Like she was from another country or something.
“Is that your dog barking all night long? You need to learn to keep it quiet! Some of us are trying to sleep!”Sally didn’t respond that she’d never owned a dog, and why would she when it would just be another thing to feed?
“Are you ever going to fix the broken board on your fence? It’s an eyesore that some of us would appreciate not having to look at every time we pull into our driveways.”Sally didn’t explain that repairs cost money and that having the manpower to fix something was impossible when you didn’t have access to an actual man that might help.
“I know my husband doesn’t mind you walking on our property, but I do. If I see you out here, I’ll call the police and turn you in for trespassing; I will. Stay in your own yard, you hear?”Never mind that Sally always walked alone and only because Paul said she could. How can you charge someone with trespassing when they have permission? She figured she was safe enough in the middle of the night, but she made a vow to herself to be more careful.
The girl was in a perpetual bad mood, but Paul seemed to love her enough, so Sally kept her mouth shut. As long as Sherry stayed in her own yard and learned to keep her nose out of Sally’s business, her mouth would stay that way.
“I have more than I know what to do with, thanks to you,” she said, shielding her eyes to squint up at Paul, his frame haloed by the late-morning sunlight. The day was warm, but not too much so her skin was on the verge of perspiring but not headed for a full flop sweat. It was the perfect day, temperature-wise. It wasn’t so perfect earlier when someone threw a rock at her front door. It bounced and landed on the front walk, the word “freak” painted on the top in scraggly black letters. All she did was live alone and mind her own business, but some people didn’t take kindly to it. Being different often came with nasty labels, or at least they did with her. “I think maybe you gave me too many.” One person couldn’t possibly eat this much zucchini. She would be eating bread and pancakes all summer.
“That was part of my master plan. Now you can drop zucchini bread on my front porch every day. Either that or you can invite me over to dinner, your call.” Paul lowered himself to sit cross-legged on the dirt to face her, far enough away for decorum’s sake but close enough that she remembered all those quiet nights spent in his basement playing cards and laughing to themselves.
