The Fortunes of Indigo Skye (38 page)

"It costs a fortune. The climate controls, the
shipping. See that one there? The bits of yellow leaves? It's a juniper bonsai.
Maybe eighty-five years old. I'm guessing it was exposed to a poison in the air,
maybe a weed killer. That azalea?" He points to a medium-size tree with tiny
oval leaves. "It's recovering from chlorosis, it's a mineral deficiency. I keep
any plants infected with vine weevils or other insects isolated. The vine weevil
will kill the root system. You have to repot, remove the devils by
hand."

"Oh, man."

"The problem comes if I get them too late.
Their system gets too fucked up and the damage is beyond repair. Mostly, people
mess it up. Too much water. Not enough water. But I can save them, usually. When
the plant is a hundred years old, you know, you do what you can."

"Leroy. This is a whole other world
here."

"I know." He looks out over the land of tiny
trees and smiles. "It's a hell of a lot of work. People think I'm out partying,
and I'm here, clipping the mold off leaves."

"Can't you charge the people who send
them?"

"Oh, I do. But still, some just leave them.
They get forgotten, like some kid in an orphanage. I want to start a business,
selling

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them. I save plants, get them to good homes.
Let the cycle take care of itself. But you've got all these fucking start-up
costs ..."

"But Leroy, why are you embarrassed? Why
doesn't anyone know this about you?"

"I get so much shit for my tattoos. I don't
have an endless capacity for that, you know? People wouldn't get why I take a
second job to take care of these guys. I deal enough with people's expectations.
It's not what anyone
expects
of me. You don't follow convention, you know
the shit you take? And this is my passion, corny as it sounds. My art, like my
tattoos are my art. And the trees--what do they care if I have tattoos? Can I
treat them right? That's what they care about."

I leave Leroy to his miniature real worlds,
peaceful worlds, temporarily out of balance. I call Dad when I get into the car.
"Several minor alterations to Plan A," I tell him.

On the fifth ring Trevor picks up.

"Indigo, please stop calling me," he
says.

"But Trev--"

And then he is gone.

I go home and fetch Ron the Buddha. I put Ron
in the passenger seat, buckle her/him in. I rub his/her tall, bumpy cone hat for
good luck.

I drive over to Trevor's house. No one is home,
so I sit on the porch with Ron beside me, and I wait.

I wait, and I wait. My phone rings, but it's
only Mom. Cars pass, but not Trevor's car. When you are waiting and wanting to
be with someone again it is not one disappointment you feel, but thousands of
disappointments. I hear a car, but it is only Mrs. Jaynes's son, come over to
water her plants for her. It is getting

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dark, and then it gets seriously dark. I'm
getting so hungry, my stomach growls long and low. "You didn't hear that," I say
to Ron.

I'm not sure what to do. Maybe he isn't coming
home. Maybe his mom has taken one of her occasional trips to see her sister in
Vancouver. Maybe he's met someone new and is spending the night.

Oh, man. God, have I messed up. Maybe I've
tipped things too far, like Leroy's bonsais. Maybe I've killed something
beautiful. I look over at Ron, who just stares serenely ahead. I try to decide
what to do, but no great plan comes to mind.

And then, suddenly, there are the two circular
headlights of Bob Weaver coming down the street. Two perfect round circles in
the now black night.

Trevor doesn't see me. He parks the car in the
driveway, slams the door shut. Walks with his head down up the path. I say
something like, "Boo," or "Hey!" because Trevor shrieks. "Holy shit!" he says.
And then "Christ, you scared me!" He holds his hand to his chest. "Indigo, I
told you. I don't want to see you." His eyes shine in the streetlight. God, it's
so good to see him.

"Trevor, you can't just throw
away--"

"Don't even start with that. Don't even go
there. You were happy to throw away ... What's that?"

"What?"

"Beside you."

I'd forgotten all about Ron. "It's Ron. Our
Ron. Our love child."

Trevor sighs.

"He came to plead my case. She came to plead my
case. He's still a little gender confused. But he's not confused about the fact
that I love you, that I'm asking your forgiveness for being an ass.

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For letting money get to my head. I don't care
about it. Trevor, I want you to have some, for your business--"

"No, In. No. I'm not going to start my business
now. Not right away, anyway. I've been doing some thinking. I've decided I'm
going to go to business school first. If I'm going to do it, I need to do it
right."

"Trevor, that's great! That's so
great!"

"So, you know ... I don't need it."

"Trevor, Ron ... He can't stand the idea of
being from a broken home. I mean, listen, Trevor, he'd have to have joint
custody. He'd have to be on my lawn every week, and then on yours on the weekend
and for two weeks of summer, and it's not right, because family belongs
together, and anyway, he needs stability to keep his ... sereneness. Serenity.
Whatever."

"Oh, In." Trevor sighs again. He runs his hand
through his hair.

"I missed your hair," I say.

He shakes his head.

"I missed your head," I say.

"Goddamnit, In, I missed every part of
you."

I start to cry. From relief. From joy. From
upset and anger at my own stupidity. "Trev-- I'm so sorry."

He puts his arms around me. Like everyone else
did. Because that's what people do who love you. They put their arms around you
and love you when you're not so lovable. My throat is full and tight with tears.
There are probably a hundred types of crying. Fatigue crying and despair crying
and loss crying and relieved crying and narrow-escape crying. This is crying
that's the sudden knowledge of love and its fullness. And right then I learn
something very simple and fundamental about love. That it is there or

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it is not there. That some of our biggest
troubles probably come when we try to convince ourselves it is there when it
isn't, or that it isn't there when it is.

I can't speak. "Trev--," I say.

"I know," he says.

"The trees turned yellow," I squeak. "Tonight,
before it got dark."

"I know," he says again. "I saw."

I get home very late at night. Mom has left the
porch light on for me. I could go inside and sit at the kitchen table, or on my
bed in my own room. But I stay here in the car. It is a plan that got made in a
car, and will be altered here, in another car. I take the pink slip of paper
from my pocket. I read it again, because reading it pleases me so
much.

1. Mom. A house of her own. Don't take no
for an answer.

2. Severin and Bex. College
fund.

3.
Car, Severin.

4. Charity fund in Bex's name. Overseen by
Dad.

5.
Bomba. Tickets to visit us, as often as
she can.

"Or, as often as she can stand," Dad joked. I
remember this and smile. I go back to my list.

6. Invest in Nunderwear.

I cross this off. Trevor, maybe his ideas
weren't so bad after all. I write:

6. Invest in Trevor. Business
school.

7.
Jane--a vacation.

I draw a black line through these words, too. I
fit in new ones:

7.
Invest in Carrera's.

8. Buy Nick a ticket out of Nine Mile
Falls.

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9.
Trina--get her car hack.
Strike
that.

9.
Trina--restore her car to its former
glory.

10. Joe: A trip to visit his new
grandchild.

11. Laptop for Funny.

12. Leroy--?

I click my pen again, smooth the slip of paper
out on my leg. I cross off the question mark by Leroy and write
Bonsai
Enterprises.
And then, finally, I add number thirteen. Because I know what I
love. I've known all along. I don't have to
Be
some big word other people
think I should be. I don't want to be a doctor or lawyer. I love being a
waitress. I love feeding people. And maybe a person's world can grow bigger in
all the right ways, not too wide that it becomes shallow, just large enough to
preserve its depth.

13
.
Invest in Indigo--College.
Restaurant Management.

I am running out of room; the words are merging
into the part of the pink slip that says,
If you wish to contest this
ticket...
But I write one more thing. I squeeze it in. It's too important to
forget.

Insist on yourself.

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18

"I'd like to call this meeting to order," I
say. I like the sound of this. I have brought everyone to the living room;
Severin and Bex and Trevor sit on the couch, Mom in her rocker, me sitting with
folded legs on the floor. Freud is lying on the "Homes and Lifestyles" section
of the Sunday paper.

"I see presents," Mom says. "I thought we
agreed on no more stuff."

"They're wrapped in Christmas paper," Bex says.
"It was all I could find," I say.

"Ho, ho, ho," Trevor says. "Me-rry Christmas,
boys and girls."

"I hope I got a pony," Severin says.

"And a Betsy Wetsy doll," Trevor
says.

"People, please," I say. Maybe I need a gavel.
"I'd like to officially welcome you to Plan A." They finally shut up. Bex even
folds her hands. "I know I said no more shopping, but these are thoughtful and
necessary items. From here on out, it's all about balance."

Trevor holds out his arms and wavers them
around like a doomed tightrope walker, but I shoot him a look and he
stops.

I read my plan. Everyone is silent. They sit
there, quiet. Even Mom. "I expect you to protest," I say to her. "And I'm ready
to take you on."

"I'm not going to protest," she says. "I can
see you know what you're doing."

"And there's one more thing and I don't want to
hear any shit

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about it," I say. "No jokes, because this is
serious. We're all going to drive cars that don't fuck up our planet. The others
get traded in. Any questions?"

"The Porsche?" Severin asks.

"Sayonara."

Mom. "The yellow Datsun?"

"Adios, muchacha," Bex says.

Trevor. "Bob Weaver?" He looks
stricken.

"Bob Weaver isn't a car, it's a
Mustang."

"Thank God," Trevor says.

Now that they've indulged my display of crazed
power and dictatorship, it's time for presents. "These are for everyone. I took
my time, this time."

I let Mom unwrap. First an iron. Then a vacuum.
Then a microwave oven.

"Oh, honey," she says. "We really
need
these things." She's a little choked up. Her voice is high and tight. She blinks
back tears. There is one present left.

"I know what it is! I know what it is!" Bex
sings. She's so loud that Freud flees under the coffee table, scrunching the
newspaper in his panic.

Mom pretends to shake the large, flat box.
"Hmmm, an umbrella?" she says. She unwraps. Holds the gift in her lap a moment
before she raises it in the air for us all to admire. There is a small round of
applause.

It is not gold. It is not padded. But the
toilet seat is perfect just the same.

This is not just a simple story of
Money
can't buy happiness.
Or maybe that's just what it is. And if it is, why
shouldn't it be?

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Because if this is something we are already
supposed to know, then why don't we know it? Why do we chase and scrabble and
fight for things to flaunt, why? Why do we reach for power over other people,
and through the thin superiority of our possessions, believe we have it? Why do
we let money make people bigger, and allow those without it to be made smaller?
How did we lose the truth in the frantic, tribal drumbeat of more, more,
more?

We're supposed to know this. We should know
better.

It took me nearly two months to get all the
pieces of my plan in place. We bought the Elberts' house, across the street,
when Mr. Elbert got transferred to Philadelphia. It has a bigger, sunnier
backyard, a flourishing flower garden in the back, a bedroom for each of us.
Freud didn't have to get to know a new neighborhood. We got Bomba a blow-up pool
with leaping dolphins on it for her first visit.