Page 11 of The Delivery

The painting is a cactus in the desert, the sky is heavy with impending rain. The plant is in full bloom offering multiple prickly pears. The pears range from green like the color of their mother ship to a shockingly bright pinky-purple like the one in the forefront. If I look closely they look as if they’re covered in long silver hairs that glint off of the sun. But those are the spikes—the ones that draw blood. It’s stunning and simple and already means so much to me.

“Is it done in spray paint?”

“Yeah. Almost always, sometimes I do detail in oil. But I’m most used to the can.”

“Are you sure you want me to have it?” No one has ever painted me a real painting before.

“Are you kidding? I made it for you.”

“Is it supposed to be me?” This is his idea of a metaphor for Doc Finch, his prickly pear social worker.

“What? Naw! It’s my favorite fruit. Look, I brought some for you to try,” he says, opening his backpack. He pulls out a plastic bag containing eight or so tunas.

He disappears into Janey’s office, and I hear him rummaging through the silverware that sits in a mug by the microwave and coffee filters.

He comes back into the room with a plastic knife, paper towels and a smile on his face. He chops off both ends of the fruit and tosses them in the garbage. Then he presses the knife in to make one long cut along the side. The skin is indeed thick and the juice runs down his hand. He brings his hand up and licks the drip from his wrist. Is it just me or is Mozey always licking things?

He unwraps the skin from the fruit, which is an almost transparent green. He hands it to me, and it’s wet, cold and dripping everywhere.

“Just take a bite?”

“Actually, no. You can bite it but you can’t bite down all the way. Here, let me show you.”

He grabs the fruit back and takes a large bite, but he doesn’t really chew it, he sort of maws it around in his beautiful, wide mouth. His lips are wet with the juice. It’s almost too much to take.

“You can’t close your teeth because it’s full of rocks. Then you just have to swallow it all to taste the sweet part.”

Bullshit, he’s not speaking in metaphors. Thick skin covered in spikes. Put up with the rocks to taste the sweet part. Guess what, fuckface, I’ve taken a literature class.

He offers it to me, his lips glistening with the sweet juice, expecting me to bite from the fruit he’s already eaten. And God, how I want to. I’d love to taste it directly from his lips.

But this isn’t appropriate behavior from the director of the program. Truth be told, I shouldn’t even be in the room alone with him, let alone accepting personal gifts while daydreaming about kissing him.

“Can you leave one here? I just brushed my teeth. I don’t really want to eat fruit with my coffee.”

His face falls with my rejection, and I feel like a monster. I know how much bruised kids seek approval, but it’s just not safe for me to be the one to give it to him.

He crushes the fruit that was between us into the paper towels and tosses it into the garbage. He shrugs his shoulders and leans the canvas up against my barren wall.

“Amir said he’d come by after sign-in to hang it. I’d do it for you but participants aren’t allowed to use the drill.”

With that he walks out of my office.

I grab the fruit and study it in my palm. I run the tip of my finger over its smooth skin. I feel a painful prick and jump a little at the shock of it. A lone drop of blood balloons on my fingertip, and I watch it move from a pinpoint to droplet before I pop it in my mouth and suck it.

I slice the ends off of the tuna and split the skin down the side like he did. I peel it off by pressing my thumb under the thick flesh and it falls away easily. I bring the fruit to my mouth and bite with out closing my teeth. The fruit is so juicy that it drips down my face. I move it around on my tongue and savor the bright, and sweet, cucumber-fresh taste.

After lunch, Amir hangs the painting while everyone crowds around my desk in admiration and comments on his talent. I’m miffed that every time I look at the beautiful piece it will remind me of how Mozey sees me. I know I’m hard to reach.

But I tasted the damn fruit. It was delicious. It was well worth the pain it took to uncover it.

CHAPTER 6

“A

re you going home to shower or are we heading over straight after work?” Janey asks, peeking her head into my office.

I look around my desk at the pile of work that could keep me here all weekend if I let it.

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