Vamps: Human and Paranormal (24 page)

“Don’t worry,” I told her.  “She’s been coming here for thirty years.”

This perked up the little sales girl.

“Anyways, she does Sacks on Tuesdays.”  And I walked after Mother, losing her momentarily in the sparkle and glitter of the diamonds.  Half of them in the display cases, half on the clientele.

*****

After Mother finally dismissed me I stopped for an impromptu jazz quartet play on the corner of Bank and a hundred and twenty-first street.  The men were in their early sixties, their instruments looked even older, but their music was unquestionably lovely.  I found myself losing track of time and just listening to them play and play, each song swinging right into the next seamlessly.

When they finally packed up their instruments my feet were numb and the sun was going down.  But their music played on in my head as I strolled without a care in the world through the streets of New York.

I stopped at my favorite pizza shop and got a large pepperoni and extra cheese, and then headed for home.  Ate the entire pizza by myself while watching reruns of
The Golden Girls.

*****

Late that night I lay in bed, the sheet jumbled at my feet.  The air conditioning was on the fritz, so the intermittent sounds of passing cars wafted in with the wind through my bedroom window.  I couldn’t sleep ... couldn’t even close my eyes ... I just couldn’t get that goddamn plant out of my head!

I kept on seeing it, brown and crusty, lying at the bottom of that waste can.

Next thing I knew I was stumbling through my apartment in the dark tripping over the Bergdorf’s box my shrunken shoes were still in, finally clicking a lamp on when I came to the wastebasket in question. 

I could just leave it in there, I thought.  Out of sight out of mind ... of course that was a freaking lie.  Couldn’t see the blasted thing but it refused to leave my thoughts.

I reached down and pulled the potted plant from the balled-up papers and the empty cardboard container my last take-out order of Sesame Chicken had come in.  I blew out a disgusted breath when I saw a half burned cigarette butt snuffed out in the black soil, the filtered tip smudged in my Mother’s favorite shade of lipstick.

*****

I remembered the plant again a few days later.  All but two of its long fronds were brown and brittle.  “Oh god,”  I told myself stifling the sudden urge to cry.  “Get a hold of yourself!” 

I went to the kitchenette and turned on the tap, pulled a tall glass from the shelf and filled it.  I poured the entire glass over the parched soil, watching air bubbles percolate from pockets in the earth, then decided I’d done all I could do.  It was up to god or fate or Mother Nature now.

*****

The next day the two surviving fronds of the spider plant looked greener, thicker, and more alive.  So I repeated the glass of water thing.  Each day for a week I did the glass of water thing, not really looking at the plant that hard but knowing that it was on the mend.  That was until the fifth day when I did actually look at the poor thing.

It was all brown, only the slightest touch of green remained in the mushy looking fronds.

This is stupid
, I told myself. 
This means nothing.

But ten minutes later I carried the rather heavy potted plant down the two flights of stairs to my apartment and hauled it down two blocks, past three florists--after all, they only dealt in dead plants--until I found the first botanical store. 

Gus’ Plantery.

The door to the shop clanged with tiny, tinny bells, as I pushed through it.  Banks of potted flowers lined every wall.  Every inch of counter space had a potted plant or fern or bush or vegetable on it.  Even the walls were thick with lush vegetation. A man in his early thirties popped up from behind the checkout counter, a large plastic sack of soil perched on his shoulder.  His hair was neat and straight and golden blond, his green eyes obscured by wire framed glasses -- his face was sweet and boyish and he looked absolutely terrified at the sight of me.

He stood there for a few very long, very awkward beats, then lowered the sack of soil to the floor and tried to shake off his shyness.  “May I ... may I help you?”  His cheeks flushed.

I held out the limp brown spider plant. “I think I killed it.”

“Yep,” he said, taking the potted plant from me and then sticking his thumb down into the dirt.  “Almost killed the poor fella.”  He moved toward a back counter, planting his hand on top of the surface of the soil and then tipped the pot over.  A steady stream of brackish water drained out into a large stainless steel sink.  “Almost drowned it.”

The man then broke off some of the brittle brown fronds.  “Looks like dehydration played a hand too.”

I was suddenly feeling stupid, I was suddenly starting to hate this guy, the way he was saying how bad a person I was--not that technically he was saying that, but it sure sounded like he was!

“Will it live?”  I asked, pulling the clay pot from the man’s hands.

“Ah, sure.  Just remember to water it every week, just once a week, bottled water not from the tap.”--
Oops
--“and do you have it sitting in direct sunlight?”

I thought about where it had been the last week--on the coffee table by the couch.  About twenty feet from the nearest window.

“That would be a no.”  I shook my head.  Maybe I was stupid.

“Well, plants like sunlight, so if you want this little guy to live I’d move him to a window, one that has an eastern exposure.”

“Huh?”

“Just because it’s a window doesn’t mean light comes through it.  Morning sun is the best.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling my eyebrows knit.  A sure sign I was getting rattled. “Makes sense.”

He smiled, a brief flash of white teeth, and then it was gone.  “If it bounces back it should start looking like this.”  He held his hand up to a giant green plant, its fronds a bright green, cascading over the sides of its pot like an emerald waterfall.  “If not, I can sell you another one.” 

Back came the smile, looked real happy to help me either way things turned out.  I suddenly decided I really did hate him.     

*****

Chapter 2

“She’s wrong!”  I peered down at the still brown spider plant.  My best friend Bess was still laughing at me.    “And it’s not funny, so knock it off!”

One manicured hand held Bess from falling over, the other held her Prada clad, flat as hell belly.  “Your mom’s a real rip!”

“No she’s not.  She’s a menace.”  I glared at Bess, silently hoping she’d chip one of her nails on my crummy stucco wall.  “And she’s not right.  I don’t date because I don’t want to.”

“Face it, cupcake.”  Jesus, I thought, she’s calling me cupcake!  This is really bad.  She only calls me that when I call her about getting dumped or on my birthday.  “That woman has you down cold.”

“But I’m not unhappy ...”  But to even my ears there was a questioning to my voice.  “And anyways, don’t all the experts on TV say that love will find you when you’re least expecting it?”  Bess’ eyes shot open wide with shock. 
Why the hell had I said the L word!

Suddenly Bess’ phone rang, Donna Summer’s Last Dance.  But she didn’t answer, just read the text message on the screen.  As her deep burgundy nails clicked out a text message in answer, she started in on me.

“First of all, you don’t go out looking for love.  Love comes after having great sex--”

“I’m not listening to this!” Pulling my hands up to my ears.

“Great sex only comes after you’ve gone out and met a guy.  And you, my dear, don’t go out.”  Bess’ right thumb thumped out a succession of the same letter--probably exclamation points--and then a thump to send her message.   If you’re thinking religiously, or fate wise, God helps those who help themselves.”  She smiled wickedly.  “So your mom is right.  You give your love life the effort you put into keeping your plants alive.”

“They have nothing to do with each other.” 

Bess gave me a level stare.  She knew I didn’t believe that bit myself--she waved the thought away with a dismissive swat of her hand.

“I know for a fact that no man has passed through that door of yours in over a year.  Not since the UPS guy, what’s-his-name?”

“Thomas.”  I hadn’t thought of him in forever.

“Yeah, him.  And you were always telling me how lousy he was in bed, yet week after week you kept sleeping with him.  He didn’t even take you out for a date or anything, just kept coming over for what he passed-off for sex and then he’d leave.”
              “He was nice enough.” 

Bess scoffed.  “He was
you
settling.  He made it easier to not go out and find someone decent.”

Bess was right.  I had felt that entire time like I was a success, even though he wasn’t my boyfriend, didn’t sleep over, didn’t take me out.  At least he’d been there, and sometimes he’d come close to getting me off.

“And if that doesn’t have something directly related to this whole dead plant thing --”

“It’s not dead ... yet,”  I mumbled.

“Then just give up and go live in a convent somewhere... just make sure you don’t have to grow your own food.”

“Very funny,”  I said, sliding a reproachful glare her way.

Bess looked at her watch and sighed.  “Sorry, honey, but I’ve got an apartment to show in fifteen, so I’ve gotta go.”  She kissed me on the cheek and retrieved her Gucci purse from my thrift shop sofa.  “Just remember I meet more single men in a week than I can possibly go through.  Just say the word and I’ll send one your way.”

“I don’t need a man.”  I lied.  “But thanks.”

Bess gave the spider plant another long look, her eyes turning to dark slits.  “And get rid of this thing--it’s depressing.”  A moment later she was gone, but her words were floating through the air still like a rancid fart. 

No man has passed through that door... Just say the word... Your mom is right...

I looked down at the spider plant.  Something green had poked its head through the dirt.

It’s alive!  It’s alive...

I was suddenly gripped by the fear that I’d end up killing the thing again.  What if I forgot him again and he just died all the way this time.  I didn’t think I could bear that.

I looked down at the little green speck and pushed the pot closer to the windowpane.  “You’re not going to die on me, are you?”  And suddenly the damn plant had a name.  “Ozzie.”

*****

Ozzie’s new found greenness grew slowly at first.  For a while I thought the miniscule stem was more a figment of my imagination than an actual part of the plant--
dead potted plant denial. 
But then suddenly, just as the little guy suddenly had a name, I started talking to him.  At first it was just some straight forward questions.  Is it time for me to water you?  But that would have to be answered by the calendar on the wall, not by Ozzie.  Every time I asked he’d say yes.  Obviously he didn’t know what was good for him.  I could relate.  Would you like me to turn your pot around for you can get some sun on your other side?

Whatever it was, nature or my talking to the little guy, before I knew it that speck of green started growing longer like a thick blade of grass.  By the end of the week Ozzie sprouted a second blade.  I was suddenly filled with pride, both for Ozzie and for me. 

How bad could I be?  I was nursing a plant back from death.

You were the one who killed it!  My mind snapped at me.

Almost! 
I snapped back.  I almost killed it. 
Almost doesn’t count.

Two weeks later not only had Ozzie’s two shoots grown over an inch a piece, but I had started drinking my coffee by his window in the morning.  Telling him what I had slatted for the morning, what the weather was doing outside.  But never that I had a date lined up.  No, not that.  I was still holding onto the thought that love, lust, whatever, would come to me on its own.

But Ozzie never seemed bored that I had nothing interesting to tell him in this department.  Sometimes I thought I saw him grow a little as I spoke to him.  Sometimes I would swear his little frond would shake in laughter when I’d tell him that even my fat pants were so tight I couldn’t button them.  Monthly bloating was always funnier to those who didn’t have to endure it.

Then one morning I awoke, poured myself a cup of coffee and found Ozzie’s brightly painted clay pot lying on the hard wood floor of my apartment, broken in three pieces.  I dropped my coffee cup in my haste to get to Ozzie.  Dropping to my knees I started sifting through the debris, my fingers raking through the soil until I finally found Ozzie’s two tiny green shoots.  His roots were far bigger than his body, but both seemed so limp in my hand. 

Don’t die, please don’t die! 
I told him over and over.

I ran to the kitchenette and grabbed another coffee mug and deposited Ozzie in it.  I ran to the front door of the apartment, setting Ozzie down to throw on my raincoat and to slip my feet into an old pair of flip-flops.  I grabbed my keys and headed out the door, not thinking twice how my hair looked--probably had some severe bed head.  And I didn’t want to think about the fact I’d run out of my apartment wearing nothing under my raincoat except an old Nicks t-shirt and my underwear.