The Opposite of Love (20 page)

51

ROSE

As the launch date of her plan approached, Rose started to wonder if maybe she should leave something behind for the Parsimmons to remember her by. Rose flipped through a dark brown photo album, one of four or five thick matching albums chronicling her childhood and, after an hour or so, found the perfect picture.

She must've been seven or eight, and there she sat, smack in the middle of rows and rows of strawberries at Underwood Family Farms, her lips and cheeks stained red, and wisps of hair splaying around her face. Mr. and Mrs. P. held baskets of their own, but they posed for the picture by leaning in and smiling at the person behind the camera. Rose seemed to be focused on the strawberries piled high in her basket, and her face literally glowed with pleasure and anticipation.

Rose slid the picture out of its protective plastic sleeve and propped it up against her computer so that she could get a good look at it. As she smoothed out a large piece of sketch paper and moved the charcoal lightly across the page, she relaxed.

She would sketch this picture, this memory of them all together and relatively happy, and as a gift, she would draw her own face tilted upward toward the Parsimmons, rather than downward at the strawberries, so that it would appear her pleasure came from being with
them
rather than from the anticipation of sinking her teeth into another juicy strawberry.

Nala swished her tail around Rose's legs, purring in that deep throaty way of hers, then leaped up onto Rose's lap to take a look at the evolving picture.
See? I'm not a complete monster—I'll leave this behind when I go. It's way better than a letter. What would I say in a good-bye note anyway? “Yeah, gee. Thanks for feeding me for the past eleven years. Sorry for the trouble.” No—a sketch was the way to go, definitely easier than struggling to find the right words.

Rose paused to listen for the Parsimmons, but heard nothing. They'd gone out grocery shopping forty minutes ago. A couple weeks ago, when the Parsimmons were at speech therapy for Mr. P, she'd beelined for their home office. Time to delve back into the Rose file. The same file in the third drawer that she'd found at age eleven. Back then it meant nothing to her. Thick—with all kinds of info from shrinks, psychological reports, articles on reactive attachment disorder, and school report cards.

She searched for any kind of documentation related to why or how the Parsimmons had been able to keep her mother from visiting, but she came up dry. Finally she found something worth looking at. Adoption paperwork and a copy of her birth certificate. The birth certificate had been altered, of course, to protect the identity of her birth parents. Didn't she even have a right to find out her original last name?

On a whim, Rose did a Google search and found that in order to have the county share information about her birth mother (including her name or Rose's real last name, or both), she'd have to be eighteen. At age eighteen she could file paperwork requesting to find out about her biological mother. If, and only if, her biological mother was also willing to fill out paperwork allowing that information to be shared, she could find out her true identity. But there were a lot of what-ifs in that, and Rose was only sixteen. Eighteen felt a lifetime away. So clearly she couldn't go about this the legal way. She'd have to be more creative.

This whole process of finding her mom reminded her of those thousand-piece puzzles she used to attempt in middle school. Every time she got stuck, she'd turn the piece round and round in her hand, getting the feel of the smoothness and just generally stalling. Just when she was about to give up completely, she got it. Turned the piece thirty degrees to the left, and suddenly she could see the shape of its partner nearly leap out of the puzzle to meet it. Perfect fit.

Rose turned to a fresh page and began to sketch an outline of a woman, all in black charcoal. She'd give it to her mother, if she ever found her again. Rose shaded the sketch carefully, darkening the woman's face. She pressed the charcoal hard against the paper, curling lines across the woman's body until she was made of puzzle pieces herself. Her mother's friends and the pastor from the Lutheran church—where she sometimes went to pray—he called her Jewels. The pastor always brought out paper and crayons for Rose while he pulled Jewels aside to talk.

Rose set the charcoal down and scratched underneath Nala's chin, the cat making a sound from deep within her throat that could only be described as pleasure.
First name Jewels, last name Taylor?
Rose thought she remembered her mother calling her “Rose Taylor” that time she got in trouble, when she hid her mother's mascara so she wouldn't be able to get ready for work. Jewels had been irritated, and that was a punishment worse than anything the Parsimmons could ever try to do to her. All Rose wanted was for her mother to look at her with regular eyes again, not those hard, tired old eyes.

Rose had handed the mascara back over as quickly as she could, but Jewel's eyes didn't soften for a long time. When they finally did soften, her mother pulled her onto her lap, her makeup all done for the night out.

“I don't like leaving you,” her mother told her, so close their noses nearly touched. “But don't worry, this won't be forever. I'm putting aside a little every day. Pastor Isaiah is setting up a bank account for us. When we have enough, we'll find ourselves an apartment in some sweet hick town and I'll waitress or bartend. Maybe I'll even go to school. Be a nurse or something.”

When Rose remembered that conversation and the fleeting hope she'd felt, her blood turned hot in her veins.
What about our plan
? She ripped the paper out of the art tablet and held it, ready to crumple it up into a hard little ball.
Why didn't you come back for me? How did the Parsimmons keep you away?
She stomped her foot so hard that even through the carpet of her room, it startled Nala, and she darted into the open closet.

Then came that immediate pang of remorse, not so much for scaring Nala as for having those thoughts about her mother.
Sorry, Mom. Sorry. I'm not mad at you. I'm not. Don't be mad at me. Come back! Don't leave me!
She set the sketch back on her desk and smoothed it with her hands, not caring that the charcoal smudged as she did so.

Rose shook her head roughly, the way you'd shake a cereal box to get the colored marshmallows to float to the top. She had to focus. The clock was ticking, and the plan required a strict timeline. Just the facts.

• The name Jewels Taylor.
• Pastor Isaiah from some Lutheran church in Hollywood.

It gave her a place to start. She sat at her computer and Googled the name “Jewels Taylor.” Then “Jewel Taylor.” Then “prostitution arrests in the County of Los Angeles.” Nothing of interest surfaced.

But suddenly, that's when she saw the puzzle piece differently. What if it was Jules rather than Jewels—short for Julie. Julie Taylor? She Googled Julie Taylor. She came up with an actress, an author, pornographic pictures of a blond woman in a nurse's uniform, and a type of wine. Nothing that seemed related to her mother. She remembered the article she'd seen in Mrs. P.'s shoe box, something like “Prostitution Still a Problem on Hollywood Boulevard—Outreach Programs in Development.” So with a lump in her throat the size of a baseball, she Googled the title of that article, adding the year it was written.

That was when she came upon the link to an
LA Times
article from eleven years ago, shortly after she'd come to live with the Parsimmons. Brief, but long enough to make Rose's heart twist itself all up like a sopping wet handkerchief trying to wring itself out. “Found off Hollywood Blvd: Body of an unidentified twenty-one-year-old female prostitute, believed to be of Mexican American or Native American descent. Please direct any information surrounding her death to the Los Angeles Police Department, attention Detective Cutter.”

Rose's hands shook. She held them together tightly, trying to stop the shaking. The dead prostitute could have been any of at least ten hookers she remembered. It wasn't necessarily her mother. Still, her whole stomach tightened, and a dull ache turned sharp, making her wrap her arms around herself and rock. Her eyes brimmed, but she pushed the tears away with her balled-up, shaking fists.

She stood up from the computer, not wanting to touch the mouse again, as if it were a real mouse—or a rat, even. But she didn't want the Parsimmons to stumble (or snoop) onto the article either, so despite the hundred times she'd been told not to turn the computer off without properly shutting it down, she did anyway. Just pushed the power button and the computer died.
Died
.

Her thoughts felt unclear, murky, shaky like her hands, and she wished she'd written her plan down. She wished she hadn't logged it all in her mind. It was almost time to put the plan into action, though. She was sure of that—she could feel it in her body.

It doesn't matter if I'm scared. I can be scared shitless, but I still have to do this. Because what's the alternative?
Rose promised herself one thing. She would be with her mother one way or another. No matter what. She had to pull herself together so she could do this right. She couldn't get caught. That would ruin everything.

52

CHASE

Maybe it was the paint fumes or the numbing exhaustion of his right arm, but standing there doing community service, Chase felt somehow closer to God. Weird.

He held a paint roller in his hand and ran it up and down the wall. Slow. Even. Just enough pressure. He could feel little droplets of paint splatter from the roller onto his hair, face, and arms, but he didn't mind. Pastor Tom propped open the side door of the Boys and Girls Club, and Chase breathed in the crisp lightness of early December.

Roll up. Roll down. Dip in paint. Roll up. Roll down. Dip in paint. The rhythm of it calmed him. Just what he needed, now that submitted all his college applications. He'd worked up the courage to email Rose a few more times, mostly just updating her on his college application process and suggesting that she start keeping a portfolio of art pieces she could submit for college scholarships when she was a senior. That girl needed a plan. She couldn't just sulk, trapped in her room, for the rest in her life. No response from her, of course, which alternated between making him sad, worried, and royally pissed off.

Daniel had driven up again this weekend, Becca in tow, this time just to hang out. It hadn't been hard to convince Daniel to come help the youth group remodel the local Boys and Girls Club. Graffiti had taken over the teen room, some of it gang related, racial, and anti-Semitic. Becca griped and complained at first, but when it came down to it, she ran her roller against the wall like a pro. She and Daniel were working on repainting the bathrooms, and Chase could hear them arguing from where he stood. It made him smile.

Pastor Tom came up behind him. “You need a break here?”

“Nah,” Chase said, even though he was losing feeling in his hands. The tips of his fingers tingled.

“You've been at it a long time.”

Chase chuckled. “Isn't that the point?

Pastor Tom dipped his own roller in the paint, pushing it back and forth to get the entire roller covered evenly. “You're on the cross-country team. You've been to six youth-group meetings, two sermons, and a handful of community service events, but I'm still trying to figure you out.”

“Am I that hard to read?” Chase switched arms for a moment, trying to paint with his left. It didn't go on as smoothly, but it gave him an excuse to keep working and avoid meeting Pastor Tom's eyes.

“Okay. Here's what I know. You're a hard worker. Focused. Disciplined. You don't seem to mind pain. Maybe you even like it.” Pastor Tom slapped Chase on the shoulder in a way that felt more coach-like than pastorly. “These are qualities that make a good runner, so I'm not knocking them. But the pastor in me wants to know why you're so hard on yourself.”

Chase considered Pastor Tom. His calves ached from the cross-country meet on Thursday. Finally Chase turned to him and asked, “Have you ever made a mistake? A big mistake that you just couldn't go back and redo?”

“Hasn't everyone? Isn't that just a part of life?” Pastor Tom had paint splattered across his nose like freckles.

“I'm talking about something you knew was wrong but you did anyway. How do you make yourself okay again?” Chase asked.

“Ask for forgiveness.” Pastor Tom gave the cookie-cutter answer, and it pissed Chase off.

He sighed. “I apologized, if that's what you mean.” What else did he expect, talking to a pastor?

First Pastor Tom asked, “Have you been forgiven?”

Then Chase said, “I think I've been forgiven by the person I hurt.” His mom had forgiven him, he was pretty sure. Rose maybe not so much.

“Yeah, but the bigger issue is, have you forgiven yourself?” Pastor Tom set down his roller.

“No. I guess not.” Chase set down his roller as well, stretching his arms and fingers. Everything ached. “I suppose you think I should go confess it to God and ask for forgiveness.”

“You think if God forgives you, it just goes away?”

“I don't know.” Chase
had
kind of thought of it that way.

“Let me put it this way,” Pastor Tom started, “If God lives in all of us, doesn't it follow that first you have to forgive yourself?”

“Easier said than done. How am I supposed to do that?” Chase sighed. Weren't pastors supposed to give him answers instead of just asking more questions?

“Forgiveness is different for every person. But you can start by realizing you're human. By doing kind acts for others, like you are right now. By trying to be a good person. The Bible talks about restitution and reconciliation—all ways of giving back.”

Chase picked up the roller again. He dipped it, coating it in paint. “So if I'm doing all those things, why is it still hanging over my head?”

“Forgiveness is a process. Maybe you're still in it. Maybe you have to shift the way you look at things. Don't forget that human beings make mistakes. You can't change what happened, right? All you can do is try to move past it and learn from it so it doesn't happen again,” Pastor Tom explained.

Chase considered this for a good minute or so. Although he'd made this promise to himself before, this time it somehow felt more secure.
I'll never let it happen again.
These last months had changed him. He could feel it.

Pastor Tom went on. “You're a work in progress. Just like every person in this room.” He turned back toward the smattering of people painting the walls and chatting throughout the large auditorium. “Just like every person in this world. Just like me.”

Chase set the roller down and cracked his knuckles. Maybe he
would
take a little break. Pastor Tom picked up the roller Chase had just set down. “Go grab a soda or something. It's an early Christmas gift from me, since I won't see you over the holiday.”

Chase grinned. “You talked me into it.” He'd be going back home to Candy's for the holidays and returning to Simi High second semester. Maybe there'd be a way to reach out to Rose. Throw pebbles against her window or something like that. He'd miss Pastor Tom a little. The guy had kind of grown on him. He'd miss Walter a lot. But, Chase figured, it didn't have to be three whole years before he saw his father again. Now they actually had a relationship.

“I'm not letting you off too easy,” Pastor Tom reassured him. “I promise you there'll be work left even if you give yourself a five-minute breather.”

Chase laughed and said, “If you're telling me not to push myself so hard, you better watch out, because you just might talk me out of a good race time.”

“I doubt it.” Then it was almost as though Pastor Tom jumped into coach mode. “Work hard. Play hard”—and then he cracked a smile—“and pray hard. Just cut yourself a little emotional slack while you do it. Got it?”