CHAPTER 27
I had to remind Petra to use her seat belt. She frowned and clicked it with a huff, then immediately dug through her bag and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
“You don’t mind if I smoke, right? I’ll blow it out the window. There won’t be a trace.”
She lit up before I could answer.
Petra sat in what my grandmother would call an “unladylike” fashion. She stuck one foot on the dash, like Trey often did, and hunched toward the passenger door.
“Where am I going?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t feel like sitting in that hotel room, that’s for sure. It’s all beige. Everything—carpet, bed, furniture. It’s like a doctor’s waiting room for the NHS.”
“So you really are from England . . .”
“Do ya think?”
I let that comment pass. I drove through town slowly, figuring I should let her finish smoking before I brought up stopping at Guh. Would they still be there? I regretted not texting Jackie when I got the car. Since I hadn’t shown up yet, maybe they thought I was still convincing Petra? I had to try.
“So that man who was talking to you?”
She snorted. “There’s one in every city. This one was going off about helping me advertise my business. What kind of idiot presents a business plan at an author signing?”
“He’s my boss.”
“Really?” She cackled. “Lucky you.”
On impulse, I decided to go with honesty. “I was also on a mission to talk to you. I’m supposed to convince you to come back to our offices for a presentation of our services.”
“That’s weird.”
“You got that right.”
I cruised past the municipal building, McAllister’s Café, and O’Malley’s Pub.
“God, I just want to get soused,” Petra said, her voice growing sad.
“We can stop at the bar if you want.” And I can text Jackie from the bathroom. Maybe the crew could move all the posters to O’Malley’s. We could wow Petra after she’d had a few American beers . . .
“I’m in recovery. Been to rehab twice. I’ll always want to get soused, but I don’t think I’ll actually ever do it again. I’m fucking twenty-nine years old. Could be a long life, you know? That’s just a pisser.” She tossed the cigarette butt out the window, which made me wince.
“Your book made it to the New York Times bestseller list. That is an incredible accomplishment. You’ve managed to persevere.”
“Fuck yeah,” she said, ear-piercingly loud.
That was the response of the woman who wrote so eloquently about the emotional life of an idea? I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. She held another cig in one hand while she chomped on the nails of the other.
“Where do you live?” she asked. “Are you close?”
“Not too far.”
“Let’s go to your house.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Why not stop by our offices and see what we have to offer? It’ll only take ten minutes.”
She put one small hand on my arm, lightly, so as not to affect my driving. “What’s your name?”
“Paige.”
“Paige, I don’t know how to say this without sounding mad, but Petra Polly doesn’t really speak to people. I don’t match my own image. People don’t want to hear someone like me give advice. And it’s fucking exhausting to be silent. For some reason I like you—you’ve got a face that tells me you’ve been through some shit. Let’s go sit on your sofa and watch the telly.”
“Okay,” I said, against my better judgment.
“You did all this yourself? It’s brilliant! Messy as all hell, but brilliant!”
Petra walked the haphazard rows of my garden. She couldn’t see much under the light of the moon, but she touched everything, gently, reverently.
“You’re growing a miracle here! You know that, right?”
Petra’s hair had come out of its braid and stuck out in all directions. Her silk dress had rumpled, and she’d peeled off the knee socks the minute we got to my house. She seemed lighter. Happier.
“I guess it is a miracle I’ve managed to grow something,” I said. “The tomatoes are almost ready. I feel like they’re my children, in a way. Isn’t that crazy?”
“Not if you cared for them.” She looked at me cockeyedly. “Have you read my book? I gave human qualities to corporations! I’m not going to question your feelings for your tomatoes.”
“Do you believe everything you wrote about?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. I think I do. I change my mind about things sometimes, but more often than not I stick to my crazy thoughts like mashed potatoes to a person’s ribs. My mum always said I was a stubborn cow, and she’s right.”
“Are you close?”
“We were. She’s passed on. Didn’t know my dad.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For all of it.”
“No need to be. I’m living a life, you know? If people went around apologizing for every bad thing that happened to everyone, we’d be bored out of our fucking skulls.”
I thought about all of the people who said they were sorry when Jesse died. I knew they meant it, and I appreciated it, but I wondered if there was something else I would have rather heard. “What do you think people should say to someone who’s just lost a loved one? I don’t think there are many options.”
Petra thought for a moment. “If you knew the person who died, I think you should share a memory, something you don’t think they’d know about. The wilder the better.”
“And if you didn’t know the person who died?”
“Then you should ask for a good memory that best describes him or her. Let the grieving person have a moment with that person again.”
“Couldn’t that be too painful?” I asked.
“It’s all painful. Listening to a hundred people apologize for something they had nothing to do with is excruciating, isn’t it? They can’t reverse anything with their apologies.”
I wasn’t sure I agreed with her, but it was a fresh perspective. Petra was rough around the edges, but she had wisdom I suspected was hard-won.
We walked back inside. I sat Petra in my living room while I put a tray together—lemonade, some zucchini bread I’d made myself, and the last of Mykia’s blueberries. I could hear my phone blowing up in my purse, but I didn’t text Jackie. I didn’t check my texts. I just made my way back to my guest.
“So, forgive me if this seems rude,” I said, not worrying about it all that much, “but how in the world did you decide to write a book about business? You seem so, I don’t know . . . earthy.”
“I really did write the damn thing, if you’re thinking I cribbed it,” Petra said, though she didn’t seem offended. She settled into the soft cushions of my couch and scooped up some blueberries.
“Sorry if I implied that it wasn’t yours,” I said, trying to be sincere. The thought had crossed my mind that she’d at least gotten help. “I guess the better question is how did you come up with the idea?”
Her smile was sardonic. “Never finished university. My family needed me working, so I got a job fronting the office of the head of a public relations firm. I was busy, but not that busy. No one paid me much mind, so I could pay them all the mind I wanted. I watched as the company slowly went under. I saw all the fuckups and petty, avoidable disasters. I was bored out of my ever-loving mind, so I took notes. Eventually, I typed them up at the lunch hour.
“When things were really getting bad, my boss started showing the effects of the strain. He looked a mess. I got to thinking how the way the company fell apart was quite like how he was unraveling. That started the whole thing. I got up at five in the morning to work on the book every day. I’ve always been good with words on paper, so I knew it wasn’t a total nightmare. When I was done, I shared it with a friend who knew some literary agents. One agreed to take me on before having met me. He’d already sold the book before he realized I was from Birmingham and talked like a Brummie.”
“That seems a little archaic. Is it really such a big deal you don’t speak the Queen’s English?”
She shrugged. “It’s all about branding. I’m this ethereal, spiritual presence, or something like that. Not someone who curses like a sailor and smokes two packs a day.” She pointed a finger at me. “Don’t lecture. I know it’s unhealthy.”
“I wouldn’t lecture.” At least I wouldn’t now. “But I have to ask, you obviously want to expand your business and brand. How do you expect to do that without being a physical presence at things like trade shows and interviews?”
She drummed her fingers on the armrest, and I knew she was itching for a smoke. “I dunno. I’ve been working on some sort of solution, but nothing’s come yet.”
My mind reeled. “We could help you rebrand yourself,” I said, wondering if I actually believed it. “You could be the voice of common sense. And in America, we’re fascinated by British accents but not all that interested in your class system. So if you can ditch the f-bombs, you’ll be in good shape.”
“That’s a habit even my mother couldn’t break.” Petra smiled. “Is this what your company does?”
“We’re a boutique advertising firm, but we like to help our clients establish an overall presence. If you’d come with me to the office tonight, we could have shown you. Of course, the work we did was fairly generic, as it was completed before we got to know your lovely personality.”
Petra snorted.
“But it’s solid work.”
She nodded. “I don’t want to go back to that empty hotel and stare at the minibar all night. Tell ya what, if you let me sleep on this comfy couch here, I’ll stop by your office in the morning.”
Everything inside me jumped for joy. Everything outside remained calm. “That sounds like a deal.”
“But now I need a fucking smoke. Is it okay if I go out back?”
“Only if you stand at the fence and exhale toward my neighbor’s house.”
She smiled. “He a wanker?”
“That is an incredibly apt description.”
She stood up and held out her hand. “Come with me. Let’s go stand in your garden for a while. Maybe all that Zen will curb my need for nicotine.”
I decided at that moment that I liked Petra Polly, very much.
We made it to the sliding glass door before I noticed the figure in the garden. I flicked on the porch light and saw him, hunched over the tomato plants. The plants, the ones I so lovingly, painstakingly cared for, lay on the ground in tangled heaps. They’d been yanked violently from the ground, roots exposed and pathetically reaching in the wrong direction. The crimson tomatoes, some crushed, others split, but all . . . ruined.
Petra screamed.
Trey shuddered.
“What have you done?” My voice shook with the energy required to keep control of my anger. “Trey!”
He turned to me, face stained with tears. “I’m so sorry, Mom. So sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean any of it.”
The vision of him crouched over the dead plants tugged fiercely at my heart but, unlike the plants, not enough to rip it from the roots. I heard the sorrow in his voice. It was enough to bring me back, and I took in the scene more carefully. Trey wasn’t pulling the last plant out—he was trying to pack the ground around it.
He was trying to save it.
“You just wanted one thing,” he sobbed. “That’s it. You deserved for this to work out. I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so, so sorry. I gave you a hard time about it because you found something you loved. I thought you didn’t need me anymore.”
I knelt beside him and wrapped my arms around his substantial shoulders. “You are everything I ever wanted. I need you more than I need air. Don’t ever forget that.”
We both lost ourselves to tears, until I heard Petra say, “Well, that fucking plant is going to live if I’ve got anything to do with it. Let your mom baby it a bit. Come on, get a bucket for these tomatoes, and let’s see what we can salvage.”
“Who the fuck is she?” Trey said.
“Language,” I said automatically.
“I’m fucking Tinker Bell,” Petra said. “Stop crying. When life gives you tomatoes, you make tomato sauce.”
Trey stared at Petra for a moment before silently leaving in search of a bucket. Before he walked away, he squeezed my shoulder, a loving gesture that brought a surge of emotion.
“Why are you crying?”
A male voice.
Mr. Eckhardt leaned over the fence, taking in the mayhem that was once my lovely garden. “Well,” he said. “Well.”
The anger rose swiftly and mercilessly. I launched myself at him. “You! You did this! Do you hate me so much? Do you hate seeing people happy?”
“But you’re not happy,” he said.
“How would you know?” I spat. “How the hell would you know?”
“Is this the wanker?” Petra asked.
“Yes,” I said. “This is exactly the wanker.”
“You think I did this,” Mr. Eckhardt said dully. He squinted at the destroyed tomato plants, eerily lit by the porch light. “Why would I do a thing like that?”
“Are you kidding me?” I screeched. “You’d uproot this whole garden if you could!”
Mr. Eckhardt calmly walked around the fence to my side. “Does your water line have a filter?”
I nodded.
He turned to Petra. “You. Get a pitcher of room-temperature water and a glass.”
“Excuse me?” Petra said. “Are you fucking ordering me around?”
“Yes,” Mr. Eckhardt said. “I am. If you want this plant to have a chance, you’ll do it.”
With a frown, Petra retreated to the kitchen.
Mr. Eckhardt knelt in the dirt, gently patting the earth surrounding the remaining plant. “If the main stem wasn’t injured, this one should be fine. We’ll give it a careful watering so as not to disturb it further.”
I joined him on the ground. “Why are you being nice? Do you feel guilty? Did you psychotically rip these from the ground in a fit of rage? Remember, I found your wife’s dress buried in this backyard. Did you bury other dresses in this backyard? Are you looking to dig up all the evidence?”
Mr. Eckhardt stiffened beside me. “You’re embarrassing yourself. I’m just trying to help.”
“We don’t need your help,” Trey said. He carried a large blue bucket that had seen better days. “This is what I could find, Mom.”
“Let’s gather as many intact tomatoes as we can see,” I said, fighting the urge to lie down and sob until my tears soaked the ground. “I think you should leave, Mr. Eckhardt.”
Petra returned, and Mr. Eckhardt reached for the water. He poured some into a glass and slowly fed it to the survivor. “You need to do this again in the morning. I can manage it if you don’t have the time.”
“I think I can water one plant. I’ve been watering twenty-five all summer.”
He sat back on his heels. Trey watched him, still holding the bucket in one hand, the other curled into a fist.
I nudged Mr. Eckhardt with my elbow. “I think you should go. It would be best.”
“I don’t . . .” He paused. Whatever he had to say took great effort. He glanced at Trey’s angry face and Petra’s puzzled one, and then finally locked eyes with me. “I don’t want to go. I’ll help you pick up the tomatoes. I’d really like to do that. Or I can work on making a nice tomato sauce. I cook for myself all the time.”
In the strangely bright porch light, the deeply etched lines in Mr. Eckhardt’s skin mapped his face like rivers leading to the tributaries at the corners of his tired, sad eyes. What had this man been through? There was a story, and part of me wanted to hear it.
“Tell you what,” Petra said. “Young Ponyboy here will help me pick up the tomatoes. Paige, why don’t you and the wanker go into the kitchen and prep it for some major cooking. Have you got some dried pasta?”
I nodded.
“Then pasta with tomato sauce it is.”
Mr. Eckhardt had only stepped foot in my house once before, yet he got up and walked in like it was his own. I followed the man into my own kitchen.