Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
NORA
Text conversation with Pansy
I CAN’T wait for our double date.
You and Cormac are just so cute together.
Would it be illegal for you to get married?
Jesus Christ, Pansy. We’re not blood-related.
When I show up to help Nathaniel do his weeding on Monday, my usual day off, he meets me at the door in an exceedingly dorky hat with side flaps. His tan cargo pants probably have two dozen pockets. Even the hat has pockets. The effect is endearing as hell.
After a lightning-quick tour of his two-bedroom, sage-green bungalow, which is full of blooming plants and natural light, he presents me with one of Cormac’s T-shirts.
“The boy popped by with this yesterday evening, and he brought over some cream to help with my rash. Calendula. He said he got it from a friend.” Nathaniel points to his face, which has returned to its normal shade, aside from a slight pink imprint where his goggles sat.
“Nothing like home remedies. The pharmaceutical companies don’t want you to know, but there are thousands of therapeutic plants you can grow yourself. ”
I’m sure I’ll hear all about them over the next hour, but I can’t stop smiling as I study Cormac’s donated T-shirt.
It’s my favorite of his shirts—a graphic T celebrating Half-Life, the game we both played in high school.
Something awful happens in my chest as I grip the shirt in my hands. It’s as if my walls are losing their delightfully strong titanium coating, leaving behind concrete. Everyone knows concrete can crumble, while titanium is supposed to be forever.
All these years have passed, but he still remembers.
He’d acted so dismissive about the game…
I didn’t know him then, though, and it feels like I’m finally starting to understand him. He didn’t know what to say, so he said the first thing that came to mind—and I walked away before he could say anything else.
I tug the shirt on. It smells similar to Cormac’s house, like that old-fashioned deodorant every man used to wear forty years ago.
I let myself take a deep inhale. “Well, shall we get started?”
“We shall,” Nathaniel replies happily. “I have a couple of paper bags for each of us, and I went ahead and made us some sun tea.”
He grabs three reusable water bottles, which look alarmingly murky, from the fridge.
“Three?”
“The boy said he was going to stop by to help, but no worries, there’s plenty of weeding to be done.”
My heart lifts for some ungodly reason. I shouldn’t want to see Cormac again so soon. As recently as two weeks ago, I would have bemoaned my poor luck. But things have been changing between us. They’re still changing.
“Let me show you the yard,” Nathaniel says.
I whistle as he leads me out through the back door off the kitchen.
The yards in this neighborhood are mostly postage stamps, since a lot of the big lots have been apportioned to developers so they can execute House Tetris and fit in as many properties into as little space as possible.
But this yard is huge, and his garden, protected by a chain-link fence, is probably the size of my apartment.
It’s separated into four equal-sized quadrants, with a walkway leading around and through them.
The square closest to the gate is teeming with overgrown vegetable plants.
“Holy shit,” I murmur.
Nathaniel’s smile is full of earned pride. “And every plant has a purpose. I’ll be happy to explain each of them to you.”
I believe him. He enjoys talking, particularly if it involves agonizingly drawn-out stories that don’t have a definitive beginning, middle, or end.
But Nathaniel looks so happy to have someone else here, and honestly, I did pepper-spray the man in the face.
So I listen without complaint as we start pulling the weeds.
We’ve worked through the vegetable patch by the time Cormac comes around the side of the house, wearing another gaming T-shirt, only his says Half-Life 2.
“We’re one of those fake couples who matches now?” I ask with a grin, dropping my weeding bag. “I think I have conscientious objections.”
“Yes, I thought you might. But I figured we could take a photo for you to share with Pansy.”
“I’m covered with dirt and plant gunk.”
He grins, taking me in, his eyes sliding down my body. “Exactly. She’d never believe it was posed.”
“Did I hear something about a photo, kids?” Nathaniel asks cheerfully, setting down the bottle of sun tea he was just glugging from. I might have mentally mocked his dorky hat, but I currently wish I had one.
“Okay, fine,” I say grumpily.
I circle out of the garden, and Cormac puts a hand around me. “You weren’t lying about getting it sweaty,” he comments.
I poke him. “Just you wait. You’re going to be begging Nathaniel for his mystery tea.”
“It’s good, isn’t it?” Nathaniel says brightly.
It’s not. It tastes like what it is—water with plants left to molder in it.
“Cormac comes to my stand at the farmer’s market every week to buy some,” Nathaniel continues.
Cormac nods, but when I meet his eyes, I see a glimmer of amusement on his face, and I know he doesn’t do it because he has a taste for the rank tea. He does it for Nathaniel.
I don’t want to care, but I damn well do.
Cormac takes a few selfies of us because his arms are much longer than mine, and also because Nathaniel doesn’t even like to handle other people’s cell phones.
We get back to weeding, this time the herb patch, and Nathaniel tells us fifty possible uses for rosemary, which is good, since he has enough to supply his own spice company. It’s when we get to the third quadrant of the garden that things get interesting.
“This is the medicinal quadrant,” he announces.
Morning glories climb the fence, and within the quadrant, tall plants present their leaves sunward, waving in the breeze.
Is that…pot?
A closer look around suggests it’s not the only less-than-legal entry in Nathaniel’s garden.
“Ayahuasca?” I ask in shock, pointing. I’ve only seen photos of it on the internet, after José went on a trip a few years back, but the leaves on the shrub in front of me are veiny and distinctive.
“It’s perfectly legal when you grow it yourself, for your own use,” Nathaniel proclaims with unwarranted confidence. “There are some mushrooms too. Feel free to bring a handful home.”
I sneak a glance at Cormac, wondering if he’s going to rat Nathaniel out.
He’s definitely more of a rule follower than I am, but he gives his head a microshake, meant just for me, before meeting his friend’s eyes.
“I don’t know who told you that, Nathaniel, but they were lying. I wouldn’t bring any cops back here.”
“Or narcs,” I put in. “We’re not, obviously.”
“No, we’re not,” Cormac agrees. “And only partially because Nora sprayed you in the face with homemade pepper spray. Some laws don’t make sense. I’ve made a few additions to my house that don’t adhere to code.”
I bump my shoulder against his. “You wild man, you.”
He lifts his hand and brushes something off my face. “Dirt.”
“First you pointed out the pepper in my teeth, and now you’re cleaning dirt off my face.”
“I guess I like grooming you.”
I have butterflies. Fucking butterflies.
I want to be mad about it, but it’s hard with the sun warm overhead and Nathaniel’s illegal plants blooming so abundantly all around us.
It’s a beautiful day, and we’re outside, and we’re doing something odd and fun together.
It’s a good moment. I’m glad to be here, and right now, I don’t want to be anywhere else.
The three of us keep talking as we pull weeds and drink our gross tea. Nathaniel tells us stories about his time working at the WNC Nature Center, particularly about a cougar they used to have—Jonesy—who loved fresh pears.
“You know,” Nathaniel says thoughtfully, “I love pears too.”
“Who doesn’t?” I ask, grinning at Cormac.
“As long as it’s a good one,” Cormac says seriously. “There’s an art to the perfect pear.”
“Oh, do enlighten us.”
His smile suggests he knows I’m teasing him and doesn’t care much. “Not too ripe, and not too firm. You want it a little tart, a little sweet, and a little firm.”
Nathaniel snaps. “I’ve got just the thing.” And he darts through the back door into the kitchen.
“Do you think he’s going to come back with a pear?” I ask Cormac in an undertone. “I vote that it’ll be something completely different.”
He laughs. “Of course he’s getting a pear. But will it be the perfect pear?”
“Want to put money on it?” I ask.
“All right. A hundred bucks that it’s a subpar pear.”
I shake my head. “Nah, I don’t want your money. I want…”
I consider, then land on what I really want.
I’d like to know why he kept that note from high school. It’s stayed in the back of my mind, tugging my attention away from other things.
“I want you to answer a question honestly.”
“I’d do that for free.”
He would, at that.
“But you might not want to answer this particular question.”
He studies me before nodding. “All right.”
So I’m disappointed when Nathaniel finally comes out with a package of pears he dehydrated himself. No offense to him, but dried fruit is not where it’s at. Technically, they are subpar pears.
“I win,” Cormac says. Then his forehead wrinkles. “But what was I supposed to get for winning?”
“I guess you get to ask me any question you’d like, and I have to answer honestly.”
He appraises me, his gray eyes serious. “I’m going to have to think this through.”
“I don’t have any idea what y’all are talking about,” Nathaniel says. “What do you say we smoke a blunt and enjoy the feeling of the sun against our skin?”
We turn him down. Cormac says weed makes him paranoid, and I don’t like feeling out of control. After we help Nathaniel arrange the bags of weeds along the side of the road for street pickup, he pats us both on our sweaty backs, thanks us, and heads inside.
“Wait right here,” Cormac says, and before I can say a word, he runs back to the garden.