Page 79 of Kiwi Sin
“Gardenias. I was thinking roses last night, when I shopped for them, maybe because that’s about the only flower I know besides lavender, but I saw these. I hadn’t seen them before, and I thought maybe you hadn’t, either. You can’t grow them out of doors here. Too cold. I thought they were a bit like you, though, the way they’re so simple and beautiful, and the way they smell. Not like roses. Not … not usual. I’m glad you want to put them in the caravan. It’s pretty there already, and these would make it prettier.” He had those patches of red on his cheeks again. “They mean something, too, gardenias.”
At this moment, Gray came out of the bedroom, fastening his belt, and said, “Heading over to work, Gabriel?” in a meaningful sort of way, and Gabriel said, “Yeh. Just going. Anyway … thanks, Oriana. For the hand and all.” And left.
I glanced back at Gray, who was still looking at me. Then I opened the door again and ran.
Gabriel was almost to the house already. Taking long strides, moving fast. I called his name anyway, and he stopped on the porch. And turned.
I stood at the bottom of the steps, still holding my flowers, then had to step aside as Uriel and Raphael headed up them, carrying a wooden cabinet between them, casting me a surprised look along the way.
I said, calling it out, because Gabriel wasn’t close, “I’m babysitting for Laila tonight after work. Until nine-thirty or ten.” Uriel turned his head and grinned, but I didn’t care.
“Oh,” Gabriel said. “That’s extra money, then.”
“Yes. I’m saving everything I can.” Idiotically, because what did he care? “Anyway. Have a … have a good day. I’m glad you have your hand back.”
“Yes,” he said. “So am I.” And smiled. Slow, sweet, and heart-melting.
I barely felt my feet on the walk back to the house.
* * *
Now,itwastonight. Nearly nine, the girls in bed, and Priya and me on the couch. I was knitting, but not on the front porch this time. I was on the couch in the flat instead with Long John curled up on the carpet at my feet, but I couldn’t settle. I kept wanting to go sit on the steps for whatever was left of the night, just in case Gabriel turned up. I could be doing that for the next hour, though, getting cold and feeling stupid, and what kind of babysitter would it make me? How would it look to him, even if he did turn up? Like I was desperate.
Like a girl who’d had a crush forever.
Or just since she was twelve.
Oh. Texting. People would normally text, wouldn’t they? You said something like, “Want to chill?” I didn’t know his number, though, and he didn’t know mine. We weren’t used to texting, at least I wasn’t. Also, I’d feel like a prize idiot texting, “Want to chill?” to Gabriel. Maybe because Ididn’twant to chill. I wanted tobewith him, to sit with him and look at him and walk with him and feel, deep in my bones, the person he was.
I’d asked Laila about seeing him, of course. I wasn’t going to make that mistake twice. She’d said it was all right to sit outside with him, so that was good.
If he came.
Meanwhile, Priya was alternately watching TV and going through her schedule for the school year, when she’d be back in a classroom again. I had mine, too, but I hadn’t paid it much attention yet. She said, “I didn’t get French and have to take Spanish instead, but that’s OK. I got Theatre, though. That’s so cool.”
“Really?” I asked, ripping out the row I’d been knitting and going back to pick up the stitches again, because I’d done the cables backward. I wouldn’t have made that mistake when I wasten.“Why? I can’t think of anything worse. Being up on stage with everybody looking at you?”
She said, “I thought it might help.”
I looked up from picking up my stitches, because there’d been something desolate about that. “How?” I asked. “How would it help?” She flinched, and I said, “I’m not criticizing. I’m asking. You mean—help with adjusting? Because I have trouble sometimes with that.” I didn’t want to admit it, even though she’d already pointed it out. It was a sore spot, you could say.
She didn’t pounce on it, to my relief. She said, “It feels like … I’m already playing a part, most of the time. I’m looking at other people, studying how they seem to feel, how they act. How girls are around boys, for one thing, but really … everything. And I thought, maybe if I learn about acting, I can …” She trailed off, then said, “I don’t know. It sounds stupid.”
I set my knitting down. “No, it doesn’t. It makes sense to me. I usually just get quiet, but …”
I had to stop, because I’d just realized something. I got quiet when I was unsure, and I stood back. Daisy, and Frankie, and Priya … they worked to get into the same flow as other people instead, and they’d put a mask on to do it if they had to. They charged forward. They chargedin.I said, “I think you should take the class and use everything you learn. Just don’t let it …” I stopped again.
“What?” Priya asked. “Don’t let it what?” She wasn’t watching TV anymore. She was watching me.
“Don’t let it … change you,” I finally said. “Or that’s wrong, because everything changes you. Going to school, being Outside, whatever—it all changes you. But I think you should try not to feel like the way you are inside is bad. Or wrong.”
“Excuse me?” she said. “Ofcourseit’s bad. That’s why we left! Having to do whatever a man says? Having fourteen kids? Never getting to decide anything? Daisy says thatallthat is bad, and that we should get to choose what we do! Iwantto choose what I do. Don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. “I do. But … isn’t there part of you, the God-given part, that feels themostreal? And if God made you that way, deep down, can it be bad?”
She said, “God doesn’t work that way, on just one piece of you, inside. God says howeverythingis.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “That doesn’t make sense, if wedoget to choose. I just know that when I do the things that matter most to me, even if they aren’t the things other people like, I’m happy. That hasn’t changed, so that must be the part of me that God made. At least, I think so.”
