Wishing in the Wings (23 page)

Besides, tonight wasn’t just about Ryan. I truly wanted to work with Dani. I wanted to feel her potting soil beneath my hands. I wanted to build something, change something, make an impact on the concrete canyons of my adopted city home. I wove my hair into a loose braid, wrapping the end with a gray elastic. The rubber band was a sort of secret message, a silent alliance with Dani’s organization. I squared my shoulders and set off to do warfare.

“Becca!” Dani exclaimed as I slipped through the open front door. “Ryan said you’d be able to join us—I’m so pleased! I ordered some Chinese food. You just missed the delivery man. I hope you like it spicy!”

“I love it spicy!” I said. Dani handed me a rice bowl and a pair of paper-wrapped chopsticks.

“Dig in!” she said, pointing to the bright red and gold containers of food. “There’s Szechuan chicken and mu shu pork. And that should be lotus treasure, all vegetables. And rice, of course.”

Szechuan chicken and mu shu pork. See? There were advantages to eating with others, to giving up my ideal of a quiet night at home, alone. As I breathed in the scent of chili oil, I asked, “How did you know I was going to join you?”

She looked nonplussed. “We’re making seed bombs. Extra people always show up when we make seed bombs. It’s guerilla ethics, or something.”

“Mom always orders extra Chinese food,” Ryan contradicted, stepping out from behind the screen that set aside his makeshift bedroom. “It reheats well.”

“Don’t you give away all of my secrets!” Dani chided, but she was smiling.

Ryan came and sat beside her on the couch. He had shed the sweater and khakis that passed for his work clothes. Now, he wore a stained T-shirt and jeans that were shredded across his knees. The outfit suited him. He looked like he had just walked in from some dusty dirt road, from stretching his legs, from surveying his domain.

“So?” Dani said. “How was rehearsal today? Are you pleased with how the show is developing?”

The finer details of plum sauce and rice pancakes kept me occupied while Ryan raved about Teel. I pretended that the mu shu pork needed my full attention. By the time Ryan loaded up his bowl with spicy chicken, we’d moved on to safer topics, to the other actors, to Hal’s velvet-glove-and-iron-fist routine at the theater.

Ryan’s enthusiasm was contagious. As he expertly worked his chopsticks, he asked me what I knew about the show’s designers. He had grand ideas about the set—he wanted to re-create an actual Burkinabe hut, with a pounded earth floor. He knew that it would have to be open, that it couldn’t be completely accurate, but he hoped that the Mercer would remain as true to reality as possible.

“I haven’t seen any plans yet,” I said. “I know the general idea of how they meant to handle Crystal Dreams, but those designs all went out the window, of course. I’m sure Hal will keep you in the loop.”

As we continued chatting, we all ate more Chinese food than anyone could say was strictly necessary. Dani finally collected our bowls and carried them into the kitchen. “Go ahead and get started,” she said to Ryan. “As long as you have Becca to help you, I’m going to finish up my blog post.”

“What are you writing about this time?” he asked, surrendering his chopsticks.

“How to avoid arrest if the police intervene in street action.”

Ryan rolled his eyes, clicking his tongue in disapproval at Dani’s placid smile. He turned to me, as if he were cutting off an argument before it could begin and asked, “Ready?” He led the way over to the workbench.

Three buckets were already laid out on the table. Each was filled with a different substance. I recognized the dark brown of the compost, and white-flecked potting soil. The third container was filled with a variety of seeds. Some were tiny, scarcely larger than a crystal of salt. Others were larger, though; a few were the size of peas. They ranged in color from sand to mahogany.

As I rattled the seeds around their container, Ryan fished out two more buckets from beneath the workbench. “Watch,” he said, “and learn from the master.”

I laughed at his boast, pleased to see him so comfortable. He picked up a battered metal measuring cup, turning it in the purple-tinged glow of the grow lights, as if it were a work of art. Using the cup, he scooped out equal amounts of potting soil and compost, five measures of each. With a showy flick of his wrist, he added a single cup of seeds.

“What are those?” I asked. “I mean, what type of plants?”

Ryan glanced at Dani, where she’d settled on the couch with her laptop. “Mixed wildflowers, I assume.” She barely looked up from her computer and nodded. He explained, “We use different mixes for different seasons. By midsummer, we add in sunflowers. Those are my favorite.”

“Sunflower seeds I would recognize.”

Ryan plunged his hands into his bucket, sifting the earth between his fingers. His forearms clenched and unclenched as he worked the contents together, taking care to distribute the seeds evenly. The motion of his fingers was mesmerizing, the smooth, confident flow of his muscles as captivating as any tattoo sparkle that Teel could ever broadcast.

He spoke as he worked, his voice as relaxed as his physical stance. “The first seed bombs were thrown in the seventies. You know, radical gardeners, working to overthrow The Man. They built their bombs in old glass Christmas ornaments, or they used water balloons.”

“Did they really throw them?”

“Oh yeah.” He grinned as he poured water into his mixture, working the resulting mud as if it were bread dough. “To hear Dani’s old-time friends talk, an underhand lob worked best for the ornaments, but the balloons required substantial initial momentum.”

“Initial momentum?”

“They threw them overhand. Hard. Like a baseball—splat!” I laughed, picturing the spray of subversive dirt and seeds and water. Ryan said, “Of course no one wants to bother cleaning up glass shards or slivers of rubber balloons. Now we mold the bombs into dirt balls and dry them out. If we bomb the target on a rainy night, the seeds sprout in just a few days.” He shaped some of his seed mixture into a sphere the size of an apricot and set the finished bomb on a waiting tray.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Why don’t you get started on your own?”

I caught my lower lip between my teeth and picked up the dented measuring cup. Five scoops of potting soil. Five scoops of compost. One scoop of seeds. I only hesitated a second before plunging my hands into the mixture. It felt good between my fingers, warm and crumbly. I stretched my spine as I worked, hunching my shoulders up to my ears, and then relaxing them, taking a deep, satisfied breath.

The water was cold. The potting soil resisted absorbing it, but a little patience worked wonders. When the entire mixture was thoroughly combined, I rolled my first bomb. At first, it held together, but when I tried to transfer it to the tray, it crumbled back into the bucket.

I tried again, taking care not to make it too big. The soil compressed between my palms; the grit of the seeds rubbed against my skin. As soon as I tried to move the ball to the tray, though, it fell apart.

Ryan looked up from his last bomb. “You need more water,” he said. He scooped some into my bucket, but my hands deflected the flow. I jerked to the side, barely avoiding creating a miniature cascade. My quick action saved the surface of the workbench, but it moved me precisely in front of Ryan. With a sudden heat, I felt the whole length of his torso against my back.

“Easy,” he murmured, steadying my bucket with both hands. The motion brought his arms around me, pinning me between him and the worktable. My heart jackhammered in my throat, and I darted an embarrassed glance at Dani, certain that she must have heard my sudden intake of breath. Dani, though, was no longer sitting on the couch.

Ryan’s lips were dangerously close to my ear. With my hair pulled into a plait, my neck felt exposed, vulnerable. I closed my eyes, overcome by a rush of memory from that night, from a week before. Ryan folded his hands over mine, ostensibly helping me to work the water into my seed mixture. The pressure of his fingers was steady. Deliberate.

And then, we both heard Dani emerge from her bedroom. One of her Birkenstocks caught on the doorsill as she joined us, and she clicked her tongue in patent exasperation. Ryan eased back half a step, his hands sliding away from mine in the bucket, his fingers automatically gathering up a ball of dirt, rolling it into a perfect, regular shape. My breath ragged, I followed his example.

“You two work fast,” Dani said, as she approached the workbench to survey our creations.

“Any job worth doing,” Ryan said, his voice perfectly normal. A quick glance, though, confirmed a shadow of a canary-eating cat grin.

“Is worth doing well,” Dani finished. “I’m going to ask Lorraine to check out our computer router. The wireless signal in here was practically nonexistent. I was able to post from the bedroom, though.” She set her laptop on the coffee table as she crossed to the workbench. “Those look perfect! They should only take a couple of days to dry. The next rainy night, we’ll call a bombing party. You’ll join us, Becca?”

I finished rolling the last of my bombs. “Absolutely. That is, if Hal doesn’t schedule a rehearsal,” I said. My voice shook a little more than usual, but Dani was apparently willing to accept that I was particularly fervent about theater. In the midst of my relief, I was surprised to catch a yawn against the back of my teeth. I glanced at my watch, startled to see that it was nearly ten o’clock.

Ryan followed my gaze. “Time flies when you’re having fun.” The words were innocent enough, but they sent my belly ski-jumping. “Let me walk you home.”

I shot a meaningful glance toward Dani. “I think I can find the way.”

Nevertheless, he washed his hands meticulously at the kitchen sink, drying them on a rough cotton towel that seemed to hang nearby for just that purpose. I followed suit, using the pure familiarity of the action to restore my emotional balance.

I turned to Dani and thanked her for dinner. “My pleasure, Becca,” she said. “And thank you for all your help. Have a good night.”

Ryan held the door for me as I stepped into the hallway. Like a consummate gentleman out of some 1950s movie, he took my keys from me. He turned all three locks easily, using the last motion to push open my front door. When he went to return my keys, though, he held them precisely between two fingers, letting them dangle from their leather fob.

They hung between us, like a mouse, caught by its tail.

I wasn’t sure if the mouse was about to be freed forever, or if it was about to drop into the maw of a hungry snake.

When I hesitated, Ryan said, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“I could say, for helping with the seed bombs.”

The tone of his voice implied all the other things that he could say instead. I wondered if his chest hurt as much as mine did, if his heart was pounding as brutally as mine. “Ryan, I—”

He stepped closer, raising his free hand to rub a thumb across the tip of my nose. “You had a smudge there,” he said, without stepping back. “A hazard of guerilla activity.”

The gesture was so simple. Disarming. Innocent. And yet the air crackled between us.

I was free to choose. I knew that. I could take my keys, say goodnight, send him across the hall. We would never, ever have this conversation again. He would respect my choice. I knew he would.

But I could also choose to kiss him.

His ready arms closed around me, crushing me close. His fingers traveled up my spine; one hand tugged gently at my braid. My lips opened, and his tongue was waiting, teasing, punctuating his silent argument with playful determination. I summoned every last molecule of logic in my naggingly mature brain to gasp, “We can’t, Ryan. Dani.”

“I’m a big boy, Bec. I can do whatever I want to do.”

After a longer kiss than any theatrical director would dare depict on stage, I remembered the other reason we couldn’t be doing this. “We can’t,” I said again. “The show.”

His hands froze. Even though he didn’t move, didn’t take a step away, I felt him pull back, poised on the edge of letting me go. He said, “You’re a big girl, Bec. You can do whatever you want to do.” As if he weren’t certain of the power of that line, he added, “We can make this work.”

“But I… But you…” I knew all the arguments that were scrambling around inside my head. I was tired of all those arguments.

But there was another reason I should step away. Another reason I should forget about Ryan, leave him behind, for as long as we both worked in New York theater. That reason still hurt, though. That reason was still raw, still sharp-edged. “But Dean—”

Even as I whispered my ex’s name, I sucked in my breath. I didn’t want Ryan to misunderstand. I didn’t want him to think that I was saying I still loved Dean, that I still wanted him, longed for him. In fact, I meant exactly the opposite. I’d seriously misjudged Dean Marcus, completely ignored all the warning signs, overlooked giant flashing signals of Right and Wrong. I never again wanted to lose myself in a man the way I’d lost myself in Dean. I never again wanted to forfeit my self-respect, to give away the core of my honor. I never again wanted to risk my job, my professional identity, just for a man.

“I’m not Dean. You’re not the same person you were with him.”

I should have known that Ryan would understand. We’d only known each other for a short time, but he really, truly got me. He understood people; he studied them. He used his intuition to figure out what they believed, why they did the things they did. That was the power that had drawn me into However Long. That was the power that lit his eyes now, that spread a scant blanket of patience over the fire that sparked there. That was the power that waited for me to decide.

Life was never easy. Sometimes, your boyfriend turned out to be an embezzler. Sometimes, your scheduled play turned out to be a legal minefield. Sometimes, your genie turned out to be a lead player in your hastily assembled cast.

But I could deal with all of that. I could make things work. I could do whatever I wanted to do.

I took Ryan’s hand, weaving my fingers between his as I pulled him inside my apartment. The skyline of New York City sparkled all the way to the river. Our guerilla seedlings glinted in the moonlight, leaning toward the window with the instinctive yearning of all living things.