“Shhh. Up on the roof.”
Reid leans out from the railing, trying to get a look. “She spend a lot of time up there?”
“Just when I have company like you.”
He ruffles her hair. “What does she do—for money?”
“Social Security, I guess. She’s old. And there’s me. My rent helps her make ends meet she says. She grows things, too. See over there—the garden? Some of it’s mine, too. She gave me a plot of ground. I actually planted rutabagas. Can you believe that?”
“You’ll be here that long?”
Zoe runs her hand along the railing, searching for a grain or two of dust that needs to be brushed away. “Opal gave me the seeds and told me what to do. It’s not hard, really.”
“My cousin Cord moved out for two weeks. That was all he could handle. Expenses were too much. It’s always more than you think. He couldn’t—”
“They’re really turnips, you know. A type of one anyway. That’s what Opal says. Murray serves turnips.” Smoke curls from the tip of her cigarette. Into the air. A foot. Maybe two. And then gone. But the line continues to be replaced by another line and another. She pulls it to her lips, inhales, and then breathes out the smoke in a fast, shapeless gust. “I never had turnips before. Not until I started working at Murray’s. They’re good with butter and brown sugar. Really. You had ’em? I bet the rutabagas will be even better. At least that’s what Opal says.”
“But how are you going to make it that long, Zoe? Can you swing it just waiting tab—”
“I’ll have to put brown sugar and butter on my shopping list.” She turns and narrows her eyes at Reid. She stretches the moment, hoping he grasps what she cannot say. “I have one of those now. A shopping list. Did I tell you? Who would’ve guessed?” She takes a last puff of her cigarette and stoops to mash the stub in the ashtray she has placed on the porch. She stands and reaches for the door. “C’mon. Let’s go in before Carly and Monica eat all the cookies.”
He grabs her arm. Holds the door shut. Holds her still against the railing. “Zoe,” is all he whispers.
What does h
e want from her? She can’t give it. “I’m okay, Reid. Give the drama a rest. There’s cookies waiting. Chocolate.”
He doesn’t move toward the door. She knows it’s more. Not just the room, the knowing or the not, the rutabagas, the rent. It’s the needing but not getting, the skimming, the hurry, the take with no give. She has no give for him. What does she have? Only rutabagas. Will it keep him to her?
Keep him in that friend way, not best friend or boyfriend, but friend something, someone who is there. Someone who connects her like a dot to this world.
The possibility of a dirty yellow root is all she has.
“And if you’re nice, I’ll share my rutabagas with you, too.”
The ghost flits between them. The shadowy, shameful one she wishes she could take back like an inhaled breath that never was. He twirls his finger. “Yippee,” he says. And he is giving again, Reid again, Carly’s little brother, opening the door, plopping in the chair, and reaching for a bag of chocolate cookies.
Cookies, chips, and chopped-up conversations get her through again.
Carlos arrives an hour later. By now, only two taquitos, three cookies, four sodas, a dusting of chips, and three beers courtesy of Monica’s older brother are left. No introductions are made. They remember him from Yolanda’s party. But a glance from Reid, an odd exchange of glances, and timing that is off tell her she should have prepared Reid in some way. Shit. It’s not like I’ve been the only one. Get over it. But then she knows the odd exchange has settled over Carly. She shifts on the window seat, her hand comes up to her mouth, gently, hovering and then back to her thigh. “We gotta go. It’s late,” Carly says. “I work early shift at the cleaner’s tomorrow.” They gather up to leave like the bell has rung at school. Only Monica winks and offers a secretive thumbs-up as she leaves.
“Get out of here,” Zoe whispers to her.
Carly kisses her cheek. Her expression is serious. “Call me,” she says.
“I will.” But she doesn’t want to explain she has no phone, only Opal’s for emergencies.
“Bye, Reid,” Zoe calls from the landing. He is already an indistinct lump being sucked up by the darkness at the bottom of the stairs.
“Yeah,” he answers.
Thirty-Three
“Sorry,” he says.
“I’m late,” he says.
“I didn’t mean to break things up,” he says.