Cursed Boys and Broken Hearts, page 20
I hit Send, close the app, and shut off my phone.
There—that’s enough growth for one day.
* * *
We finally complete Vero Roseto’s reconstruction when Ben and Uncle Paul rebuild the sculpture garden’s trellis. They erect several free-standing pillars, connecting them with beautiful, draping canary-yellow fabric—a unifying color for the festival, I determined. It’s light, airy, summery, and perfectly offsets the vibrant red roses.
I stroll through the sculpture garden, which Ben has resodded with alternating types of grass—lighter and darker, so it resembles a chessboard once again. It’s stunningly detailed work, but Ben just magicked it into reality as if he were picking up nails from the store.
Later, just after midnight in my room, I squeeze a pair of pliers until my hand is red. The wire girding spills down from the half-body mannequins I brought from Chicago, but the shapes aren’t behaving. The living sculpture that’s going to be filled with lilies has a wide-hooped ball gown silhouette, which I thought would look cute because that shape is usually so rounded and lilies are sharp, piece-y little buggers. However, this particular piece of chicken wire refuses to bend to my will.
Cross-legged on my floor, eyes blurry from staring at these cages all day, I take a deep breath, relax my grip on the pliers, picture the curvature I want, and then pull…
It works!
The rigid wire leading down from the corset loosens into a smooth bend, giving me the wide arc I need to fit the fluffy petticoat underneath for the model.
“YES!” I cheer, flopping onto my back and dropping the pliers loudly.
Aunt Ro, lingering outside my open door, peeks in. “What was that?” she asks.
“The pliers,” I say, not moving. “You can come in and snoop, Ro.”
The door thrusts open on a creaaaaaak, and she storms into the room. “Wow,” she gasps, brushing her palm against the wire silhouette. “So this is all gonna be filled in with flowers. I don’t believe it.” Then her hand finds the corset around the mannequin’s waist, and she darkens. “Don’t know if I love corsets. A bit old-fashioned…”
“Ro, please,” I say, crawling up to sitting. “It’s late. We can have your TED talk on reductive feminism in the morning. This corset isn’t a lady prison. Gowns with this big of an undercarriage need the girding of a corset, or the model won’t be able to move. They’ll throw their back out carrying the thing.”
Casting me a sour look, Ro cinches her robe and sweeps toward the door. “La-dee-dah, thank you for mansplaining.”
“It’s not mansplaining. You said something wrong about my work, so I’m explaining.”
“And now you’re mansplaining mansplaining!”
“Okay, my apologies.” Standing, I guide my aunt out of the room. “Good night, Sister Suffragette.” As I shut the door, she curses me under her breath.
The next morning, Paul, Ben, and I finally move the six wire gown structures down to the sculpture garden, where we install the custom irrigation pumps within the frames. After the pumps are in place, Ben and I spend an unforgettable—and oddly quiet—day assembling the floral patterns into the gown frames. It’s just the two of us, the birds, and the frogs along the lake. The flowers are mostly preassembled onto platters that contour to the dress dimensions, but Ben’s job is to fill in the gaps and make the vision seamless. It requires delicate work, but his toughened hands manage it beautifully.
He loops a red rose stem around the wire like he’s hanging an ornament on a tree.
While he works, I press the platters of roses flush to the wire frame to keep a uniform line. As Ben loops the next stem—and the next—his hands come closer to mine until they touch.
I watch him work. He’s so careful.
Finished, Ben looks up. I’m staring. He knows I was.
“You all right?”
Don’t go to Edinburgh. Stay here, and I’ll stay, too. We can be happy here.
“Nothing. You’re just doing a really good job,” I say, praying he doesn’t catch me lying.
Ben shrugs. “You and dresses, me and flowers.” He snorts. “Five years ago, I thought our whole fucking lives were gonna be about Nintendo.”
Giggling, I kiss his ear, and he kisses my nose.
It’s so easy. Falling in love with him would be so easy. If I just bend the Secret Rule a little…
Finally, each gown’s flowers are in place—the silhouettes are as different as the flower selections. Half of them are massive pieces with flowing trains. But the most special of all is the red rose, shaped in the formfitting cocktail dress of a lounge singer. She’s my heartbroken diva.
The loneliest and loveliest of the flowers. Bursting with mystery.
That afternoon, Eshana texts me that she’s locked in another two models for the living sculptures. Sadly, she’s at her limits with people who can make it happen. There’s still one spot left—for someone small and slender who could make the rose diva come to life.
Well.
I know a tiny diva hungry for the spotlight.
Continuing my forgiveness tour, I offer Hutch the role, which he gleefully embraces. Hutch, Ben, and I—torn apart by a rose, or so I thought—will be healed by a rose.
I’m just so operatic like that.
The final thing the sculpture garden still needs is the protective tent. The sun can be merciless, and Uncle Paul says we’ve got summer storms rolling our way this weekend—just in time for the festival.
Aunt Ro and I order him never to mention storms to us again, and we go on pretending nothing was said. As for the tent, I’ll have to check if Uncle Paul can get it in canary yellow, or at least see if we can drape the color over it. A similar canary curtain conceals the arched entrance to the rose garden next door. That curtain, I sewed to be twice as thick. It’s heavier, so it requires guests to literally push their way inside.
A magical barrier between worlds.
Maintaining the mystery of the rose garden is key.
When I part the curtains, Ben is waiting for me. He stands atop a ladder, trimming stray branches from the fresh garden walls with hedge clippers. We redressed the walls—once thick with vines—with hundreds of roses, bound intricately to latticework dyed green to make it invisible against the garden walls where we hung them. We’ve created a paradise away from the world.
Because that’s how I see it. The world—the future, and anything beyond the next few weeks—is my enemy.
Now comes my moment. The centerpiece. The big finish.
Long into the night, I create the artificial riverbed surrounding the Wishing Rose bush. “You’ve done enough,” I tell Ben as I set up my station of bandsaws, sheet metal, and rivets. “Put your feet up, and I’ll take it from here.”
Grunting, Ben plops down, his back against the garden wall, and opens another iced tea. “Will you quit showing off? We’re out of time, and I’d like to sleep at some point, right?”
I kiss the air, and he kisses back.
An hour later, his fun, jabby comments die off as I cut row after row of sheet metal—thin gutter walls, ten inches high—and lay them into the soil Ben dug earlier. The gutters cut like two veins through the garden leading to the Wishing Rose bush, which is surrounded by an already installed oasis pool that I’ll have to connect to my new artificial river gutters.
Blissfully, my thoughts leave me again as my hands take over. They know exactly what to do. Exactly how much metal to shave off the top of the gutter wall, exactly how curved the end piece will need to be to create a perfect flush with the curved, basin-like oasis.
I’m back. I’m in my art again, and this time I’m not letting the rush I feel slip away.
With a flash of a hammer and a drizzle of sparks, I seal the gutters to the oasis pool with rivets, and all the while, I catch Ben staring. Whether it’s at my metalwork or at my wet bicep, who’s to say? But my boy’s transfixed.
“Who knew you had that kind of salt in you, dressmaker?” he asks, brushing a cold can against his cheek as he stares like a leopard.
My chest heaves with how much strength it took out of me to seal the riverbed to that oasis, but still, if it’s got Ben looking at me like that, then I’m smiling.
“Let’s get this baby wet,” I say, hopping from my knees to my feet.
He joins me. “Thought you’d never ask!”
Now that the hoses are connected behind the oasis pool, Ben activates the faucets, and a mighty, Biblical flood races to fill my installation. In under two minutes, it’s complete. Water flows continuously around the oasis and through the rivers, and the rivers circle back to the oasis. Constant flow—no mosquitoes here. The rivers create two powerful, separate streams.
It worked. The Wishing Rose looks like it’s crying.
Is it crying because the love the roses bring can be unrequited—or because even if it’s a match, it will end someday? I’m a thornier soul, so I believe the latter.
Ever since my night in the hotel with Ben, as happy as I am, I can’t shake this demon.
Will he leave me for Scotland?
Will I leave him for somewhere else?
Where is life taking us after the festival is over?
“Hey, you,” Ben says, walking over for a kiss. He slips off his cap to run his fingers through his hair, flattened at an odd angle by too much hat time. Nuzzling my cheek, he turns to take in the rose garden with me. “We made her into something.”
“You did,” I whisper.
“We did.” Ben’s voice taps into a pocket of annoyance. I’m downplaying myself again.
“Now we’re going to see her look really special.” I walk back to the switchboard beside the archway and rest my palm against all four toggles. Ben crosses his fingers. We haven’t tried this yet—the lighting grid was only installed this morning.
Grimacing, I flip everything at once.
Sapphire-blue light fills the cavern. Not only does the Wishing Rose’s faint, magical spotlight illuminate, every footlight we placed along the rivers and oasis ignites. Blue as a Caribbean beach, dotted with cool white lights to soften them. It’s summery, but it also could be snow. The white and blue look like a pattern of icy snowflakes covering a window.
Ro could keep these and give winter tours.
My heart races. Oh my God, I’ve got to show her.
Ben covers his mouth and stares at me. The biggest smile of my life explodes.
More than that, this installation is us. I’m passionate and unpredictable, like the lights, like electricity. Ben is calm, deep waters. Water and electricity—volatile and beautiful.
It’s almost too perfect.
* * *
That evening, I’m reminded exactly how too perfect it is. Ben and I lounge on the sofa in the East Wing parlor, a fire blazing, his legs slung over my lap as he dicks around on his phone. Still no response from Micah. Which is totally fine. He probably doesn’t want to get into all that with me again. I didn’t make it easy on him. And to come out three hours for such a not-easy time—it makes sense. I’m disappointed in myself, but it makes sense. Still glad I reached out, though.
While I’m drafting a post reminding folks about Rose Festival details, an email pops up. The University of the Arts London. One of the schools I emailed during my spiral.
Tension grips me like a bear, but I don’t make any sudden movements. Something inside me says not to let Ben know something just happened. I glance up, and he’s still blissfully scrolling.
With a trembling thumb, I open the email:
Dear Mr. Rossi,
Thank you for inquiring about admission to the University of the Arts London’s design program. While we’re at capacity for the fall, we will gladly consider your portfolio for the winter term. Please submit any relevant materials by the end of the month.
The end of the month—this month.
It’s not too late. My portfolio is waiting for me outside in the gardens.
Like a child being pushed on a swing, I soar into the air, my hope freshly renewed that my talents could still be needed and wanted by a top program. But like a swing, I hurtle backward with a dizzying churn.
If I go, would Ben follow? Is that asking too much?
London and Edinburgh are about four hours from each other. That’s not so bad, right?
Not much farther than the drive between Valle and Chicago, and that distance was more than enough to hide Ben from me for the last five years.
Did I repair a damaged relationship—one of the most important of my life—just to lose him all over again? The parlor’s portrait of Mama Bianchi gazes at me with a cruel reminder:
The curse is still in play. The curse is me.
Worse than before, I have so much more to lose now.
Chapter 25
Nightmares Return
That night, I dream again of Vero Roseto.
But not as it is, as it was. Not even as it was in my childhood, but on the day the last brick was laid in 1945 at the end of World War II. In the dream, I leave my bed and go walking into a sunny, misty afternoon. I’m wearing luxurious satin pajama bottoms, champagne colored with a violet pinstripe. I’m bare-chested except for the expensive silk robe flowing openly behind me like a cape while I stroll the grounds in a serene haze. The house is empty but lived-in, as if everyone vanished, leaving behind their knitting and loaves of rosemary bread cooling on the stovetop. The scent of fresh paint is everywhere.
The walls are blank, though. That’s the biggest difference.
No memories yet, no family pictures. Not even a family yet, but there will be. I’m filled with certainty about that much. Romance, children, grandchildren, an empire. It’s all coming.
“Is anyone there?” I call out, to no response. “You don’t know me yet, but I’m your family.”
When I emerge outside onto the deck, the crisp newness of the wood makes me smile. The world has turned black-and-white, like an old movie, but I’m in color. Somewhere, big band music plays, faint and ghostlike. It’s disorienting, but somehow, I know where to go:
Straight ahead, to the rose garden.
When I cross the lawn and pass under the archway, I see the first speck of color that isn’t me—a young woman stands by the Wishing Rose bush. Her collared farm shirt, tied in a knot above her belly, is as screamingly red as the rose she’s holding. Her hair is raven dark. Her cheeks are round, cherubic, and pretty.
It’s my great-grandmother. The original Mama Bianchi.
Only it isn’t her, it’s me. I’m dressed as her: long black hair, crimson lips, and in sensible, feminine work pants. It’s me, but I know it’s really her inside. I’m so lovely.
As I approach Mama Bianchi, the vines that once smothered the rose garden walls pulsate and shift, as if they’re living tentacles. My silk robe billows in the growing wind, the cape-like hem somehow longer than before. I am commanding and elegant, and so is Mama Bianchi. We are worthy opponents on a battlefield. Our meeting has an adversarial energy I can’t explain.
She’s been expecting me.
When she looks up, she extends a rose. “Want to do the Lindy Hop?”
I shake my head. “There’s no time for that.”
Sadly, she nods. “I’ll wait here for my husband, then.”
“He’s not your husband yet. He’s overseas.”
Mama Bianchi chuckles and smacks my shoulder playfully. “Do you really think I’d build all this if I wasn’t sure he’d be my husband?”
My great-grandmother gestures beyond the garden archway. It’s true, Vero Roseto was her handcrafted love letter to an impossible man. Was it faith in him that drove her to invest this much in an uncertain prospect? Or was it delusion? Overhead, the big band music changes to the melancholic Duke Ellington song “(In My) Solitude.” Piano and brass notes fill my heart with heaviness.
There’s no way I’ll ever have an ounce of that kind of faith in a guy.
I scowl at my great-grandmother, my robe flapping like a flag in the windstorm. “Your rose is ruining my life! You made up this whole rose myth, and now everyone in our family thinks it’s the only way to find true love!”
She smiles—it’s my smile. And a happy tear falls. “I have a family?”
“Yes! And I’m part of it. You die when I’m six, but you keep controlling our lives.” My chin trembles, but I refuse to cry for her. “I need you to take back your curse. I’m in love with a boy, and I can’t lose him again.”
Her hand—my hand—black-and-white except for brilliant, scarlet nails, grazes my cheek. Her eyes—my eyes—fill with pity, the kind you have for someone sick. “My roses don’t curse.”
“They do,” I whisper pathetically. “I can’t be Ben’s boyfriend if you don’t take it back. Something’s going to happen to ruin it. I need him in my life. Please. And yes, I’m with a boy!” My heart shakes with rage inside my chest. “That’s why I wished on your rose to make me different. I wanted what the rest of you had! You didn’t make space for me in the rose myth!”
Gently, Mama Bianchi pulls me into her arms—my arms—and cradles my head. I’ve never hugged myself before. It’s nice. As she pets my curls, she whispers, “I didn’t make space for you. My father didn’t make space for me. My husband didn’t make space for me.” Her tone intensifies into an ominous growl. “Make me make space. Show me what you’re worth. I showed them and turned this filthy sheep farm into Vero Roseto—stone and clay and vines and myth. Roots so deep they can never be pulled out. This is the moment my family began, not when my husband came back from France. If I didn’t show strength when I had it least, I would have never trusted it. Show me. If you say there’s a curse, break it yourself.”
