5. Calder
CALDER
I hear their voices before they appear in the doorway of the greenhouse. Tyler, Elowen, and her friend Lila.
Elowen’s eyes meet mine, but she looks away before I can decipher the meaning of the look. An apology for disturbing the quiet? Or did she bring Lila along because I asked Tyler to help out?
Okay, so maybe I didn’t think it through. Lila wanders around touching the pots and baskets Elowen didn’t get to yet keeping up a steady stream of chatter.
“This one is all roots and no plant. Ew, this smells like the cat pooped in it. Maybe she did poop in it. Where is the cat by the way?”
Elowen watches her friend, and I see it in her eyes, she’s teetering between answering the onslaught of questions and wanting to be alone with the plants.
Juniper wanders out from underneath a bench and rubs against Lila’s legs, tail twitching.
“She likes you.” Elowen smiles.
“Of course she does. What’s not to like?” Lila crouches to say hello to the cat and, within moments, starts sneezing.
We all watch her back away from Juniper towards the doorway.
“I must still be allergic,” she manages between sneezes. Her eyes are already puffy and streaming. “I thought I’d grown out of it. Does anyone have any antihistamine?”
“No, but I’ll come with you to the infirmary.” Elowen’s bag is already on her shoulder.
“I have some in my room,” Tyler says. “I’ll walk back with you,”
Elowen hesitates for only a moment. “Stay. I’ll go with her.”
“No, Elowen.” Lila manages two words before she has another sneezing fit, this one more violent than the last. “You only just… got here. I’ll go… with Tyler.”
Tyler holds the door open with one last glance in Elowen’s direction, then he leaves with Lila, and peace settles back inside the greenhouse.
“The antihistamine will kick in quickly,” I say.
Elowen nods and shrugs her bag back over her shoulder. “I should’ve gone with her, to make sure she’s okay.”
“Tyler will look after her.”
She pulls a trowel from her bag, checks the seeds she planted over the weekend, and finally meets my gaze. “How well do you know him?”
I smile. “I trust him if that’s what you’re asking.” I spread the tools I brought with me across my workbench. I’m not in any rush to leave.
If I’m honest, I only came because I thought she might be here. I don’t know why, but she has a kind of calming influence on the greenhouse, and I spent all morning counting the minutes until I could come back.
“Is that why you asked him to help?” She sorts through stringy baskets while she speaks.
“Partly.”
She studies me closely. “What’s the other part?”
“I think the greenhouse deserves better.”
Elowen smiles, and I wonder if she even has the smallest clue how beautiful she is. “You’re right. It does,”
We work in comfortable silence. I lose myself in the grain of the wood I’m sanding down. The smell has always made me feel safe for some reason, ever since I was a little kid and my uncle used to take me to his workshop.
When I finally look up, Elowen is kneeling on a workbench to reach the shriveled bunches of herbs hanging from overhead racks.
"What are you doing?" Without thinking, I navigate the tables and hold it steady. Her scent hits me like a blow to the gut, honey and green shoots. Her color. Already so familiar, I can recreate it in my imagination when she isn’t around.
"The rosemary and thyme are salvageable." She peers down at me while her arms are still stretched overhead, and sways.
Acting on instinct, I let go of the table and reach for her waist, realizing too late what I’ve done when my hands close around her.
“Calder?”
A familiar voice carries across the greenhouse, and I set Elowen down on the floor and stand back. My fingers tingle from where they touched her. “Sophie. What are you doing here?”
“What does it look like?” She’s wearing sunny yellow overalls with white long-sleeved tee.
She peers down at her clothes before her eyes skim the loose soil scattered across the floor and workbenches, mouth turned down at the corners.
“I thought it would be nice to spend some time with you.” She looks at Elowen. “Alone.”
A flush spreads across Elowen’s face. “I’m almost finished,” she says. “I have to get back anyway.”
She spreads the herbs on a clean section of the workbench and pulls some glass jars from her bag. Strands of black hair are working loose from her braid, and I have to stop myself from tucking them back in.
“You don’t have to rush.” I sense Sophie’s scowl the instant I say the words out loud. “Sophie can help.”
“Do you know about herbs?” Elowen asks her.
“Uh, no,” the word turns down at the end like it left a bad taste in her mouth. She doesn’t come inside. Any closer, and there’s a chance she’ll get dirty.
“You could help fix this cabinet,” I suggest, pointing in the direction of the warped doors I was working on.
“Maybe I could water the flowers.” Sophie peers around, furrowing her brow when she realizes there are no flowers to water. “Or provide the playlist. It’s like a morgue in here.”
Elowen is busy labeling jars. She nibbles one corner of her bottom lip when she concentrates. She has a smattering of tiny freckles across her nose. And occasionally, when she’s thinking, she tickles her face with the end of her braid.
“Go, Calder. The cabinet can wait.” Her eyes flick back and forth between me and Sophie. Her voice doesn’t catch. There isn’t a hint in her tone that suggests she wants me to stay. It’s like she’ll be happier alone.
I’m torn. If I go with Sophie, she’ll convince herself that the one date we went on last year was the precursor to a full-on relationship. And if I don’t go, I’ll be encroaching on Elowen’s space.
My hesitation is clearly all Sophie needs.
“Fine,” she says from the doorway. “I guess I’ll leave you to it. You obviously have everything covered.” She doesn’t move. She’s waiting for me to ask her to stay.
Perhaps I should. But the words won’t come out. I watch her walk away. I feel bad, but it’s better this way.
“Maybe you should go after her.” Elowen’s eyes are searching, wondering why I’m really here.
She isn’t asking me to explain, but I want her to know the truth. I want her to know that there’s nothing between me and Sophie. Right now, that feels more important.
“We went on a date.” I don’t like how it sounds when I say it out loud. But it occurs to me then from out of nowhere that she might not even be interested. “That’s all.”
I go back to the cabinet and pick up where I left off. When I look up, Elowen is watching me with a serious expression.
“I still think you should talk to her. She obviously really likes you.”
Footsteps approach from outside, and I half-expect Sophie to reappear wearing a protective suit and wellington boots.
Tyler is back, minus Lila.
“How is she?” Elowen asks. “Was she okay? Did the antihistamine help?”
“She’s fine.” Tyler grins. “I walked her back to her room and told her to lie in a dark room with a cold wet cloth over her eyes.”
Elowen releases a heavy sigh. “Thank you.”
“It’s fine. I have allergies too. It’s exhausting when you can’t stop sneezing and your eyes and throat are itching,”
“He spent the entire summer in wraparound sunglasses,” I say. “Even inside the building.”
“Hay fever. It’s hereditary, but you have to admit I looked kinda cool.” Tyler shrugs when I don’t respond. “So, what needs doing?”
His eyes seek out Elowen, I notice, like she has some gravitational pull over him. Over both of us. I walk around the greenhouse with him, pointing out what needs fixing, and what will probably need to be recycled.
When we’re done, Elowen is ready to walk back to the main building.
She doesn’t ask us to walk back with her, but it seems like the right thing to do, me on her left, and Tyler on her right.
We’re almost at the quad when Sophie appears from nowhere. “Calder, honey.” Her voice is saccharin sweet. She somehow nestles between me and Elowen and latches onto my arm. “I said we’d meet the others in town.”
I unfurl her fingers from around my arm, conscious of Elowen’s presence. “Why did you do that?” I try to keep my tone light, but it’s a fine line; one wobble either way could make this situation a whole lot more difficult than it needs to be.
“I thought…” She glares at Elowen and Tyler and rolls out her bottom lip. “Why are you being like this?”
“Sophie, we went on a coffee date.”
The pout slides easily into a smile. “You said you wanted to do it again.”
I replay the date in my head. Sophie clung to my arm all the way back to campus from town, holding a one-sided conversation with herself.
When she realized I was only walking her back and had no intention of entering the residence halls, she made sure her friends were watching, stood on tiptoes, and kissed me on the lips.
They didn’t even save their squeals of excitement until I’d walked away.
“I…” I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of your friends? I’m not an asshole. Both are true, but I settle for, “I don’t think it’s a good idea. I’ve got a lot going on this year.”
She steps away, eyeing me up like I just grew horns. “Please tell me this has nothing to do with new girl.” Sophie doesn’t even look at her.
“My name is Elowen.” She stands her ground and juts her chin. “And you can leave me out of this.”
“You are in this though, El-o-wen.” Sophie enunciates each syllable with an unpleasant drawl. “I saw the way you—”
“I think we’re done here.” I cut her off before she can say something we all regret. “And I don’t think I need a reason to say no to a second date.”