The next day came, and the one after that, and neither the plants nor any papers to do with the handover of Plantagion customers showed up. I called Jeremy Tripp several times that week but he didn’t answer, so I called the Plantagion warehouse and spoke to Vivian. She didn’t know anything about sending us any plants and in fact said they were too busy right then to spare any. It was at that point I realized that Jeremy Tripp had never had any intention of stopping his attacks against us. The promise of customers and plants had just been his twisted way of inflicting even more damage.
Plantasaurus was in serious trouble. We couldn’t sign up any new customers, something we desperately needed, because we had nothing left to build their displays out of. And, for the same reason, we couldn’t even properly service the customers we already had. It was more than three weeks to the end of the month when our customers made their payments and we’d have some cash again to buy plants. We might get lucky and ride it out, but it seemed pretty much inevitable to me that people were going to start canceling contracts.
Stan and I did the best we could, but by the end of the second week we were starting to get complaints about the scruffiness of our displays, and at the beginning of the third, despite our promises of impending improvement and offers of reduced fees, six of our best customers in Old Town canceled and told us to remove our displays.
Carrying their planters out to the pickup felt like a public humiliation. After we’d finished at one of the places Stan sat in the cab and broke down crying. Whatever the truth of the situation, whether I could have managed the business better or whether it had been doomed from the start, I felt an overwhelming sense of failure. Not only had I not been able to stop this happening, but I was, in a sense, its cause.
As bad as the loss of customers was, though, it was not the worst thing life decided to throw at my brother that week.
That Friday he and I stayed longer than usual at our warehouse, sweeping the place out and washing down empty planters. It was a futile exercise. No amount of tidying up was going to save the business from its downward slide. Our reputation was damaged beyond repair, the number of clients canceling was increasing each day, and inquiries from possible future customers had stopped entirely. We worked on the warehouse out of some notion of pride and affection for the business-a desire not to let it die without a measure of respect.
By the time we got back to the cabin at Empty Mile Marla was already home. She was sitting beside Rosie on the couch, rubbing her back with one hand, as though she wanted to comfort her but knew a full embrace was out of the question. Rosie had her knees pressed together. Her hands were laced tightly in her lap.
As soon as he saw her, Stan began to shake. “Rosie, what’s wrong!”
Rosie didn’t look at him.
“Johnny, something’s wrong.”
Marla reached out with her free hand and passed me a large brown envelope. “She was waiting for me when I got home. She had these with her.”
Stan sat down on the other side of Rosie and put his arm around her. She pressed herself stiffly against him.
The envelope was unsealed. I reached into it and took out a set of five photos which, from the look of the finish, had been printed on a home computer. As soon as I saw what was on them I knew I should have opened them somewhere away from Stan. But it was too late. He’d caught a glimpse of what they showed and he leapt from the couch to stand beside me. I tried to put them back in the envelope but he grabbed my wrist.
“No, Johnny, show me!”
I gave him the photos. Rosie was the lone subject of each one-naked, her body white, the soft tuft of pubic hair sharply dark between her legs. She stood as though frozen in the center of a large room with a polished wooden floor and white walls. A room both Stan and I knew.
“That’s Jeremy Tripp’s house!” Stan started to wave his arms rapidly back and forth in front of his face. “That’s Jeremy Tripp’s house! What’s happening? Rosie, what happened?”
He stumbled back to her, clumsily taking her hands. Rosie stared at her knees and spoke in a voice that was empty of emotion, as though she had been so crushed by life that she could not fully react to this latest bout of its unkindness.
“I was cleaning the house for him, in the big room that always seems so quiet. I never see him there, but he was today. He told me to take my clothes off and then he took pictures. Then he went away, then he came back and gave them to me. I didn’t want Granny to know so I came here instead.”
Stan was aghast. “He shouldn’t have done that!”
Rosie turned her head toward him but didn’t lift her eyes. “He said if I didn’t, he’d make it so you couldn’t keep doing Plantasaurus. He said I had to show you the pictures.”
Stan balled his fists and let out a bellow. His neck constricted and his entire head turned red. Another man might have punched holes in the walls but Stan had no experience with this level of rage and it bound him like a straightjacket.
There was no saving the situation, but Stan was so upset I had to try to at least eliminate the possibility that anything worse had happened.
“Did he do anything else besides take the pictures? Did he touch you?”
“No.”
“Did he say he was going to hurt you?”
She shook her head. “Just Stanley’s business.”
“I think I should go get Millicent.”
Rosie’s head snapped up. “I don’t want her to know. She’d be upset.”
“But will you be all right?”
“I guess I don’t feel much different than before.”
She got up and went out to the stoop and through the windows at the front of the cabin we saw her stand for several minutes looking out at the meadow then sit on the bench against the front wall.
Stan looked confused to the point of fear. “Johnny, this is bad.”
“I know.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“I do, Johnny, I have to make sure I act the right way. For Rosie. I don’t want her to be disappointed. If I don’t say the right things or if I don’t do what I’m supposed to it might be something she always thinks about.”
Marla spoke from the couch. “All Rosie wants is for you to be with her.”
Stan looked uncertain, as though he was sure a lot more than that was required, but after a moment he went outside and sat next to Rosie. A little while later they left the porch and headed to Millicent’s house. Marla shook her head in disgust.
“What an asshole. What does Rosie have to do with anything?”
“He didn’t do it to hurt Rosie.”
“Not Stan, surely?”
“Me. Hurt Rosie you hurt Stan, hurt Stan you hurt me. Telling him that Gareth made the video hasn’t changed anything.”
“Fucking great.”
Marla and I went to bed early. Around midnight I was woken by Millicent banging on the front door. She was carrying a flashlight and had a shawl around her shoulders. She looked frail and worried.
“Stan and my Rosie have gone off in the car. I heard them talking. He wanted her to drive him someplace.”
“Where did they go?”
“I don’t know. I tried to ask him but he wouldn’t say. I’ve never seen him like that before. He was angry. I think you should go after him.”
“I will.”
“Because he took the can of the kerosene we use for the heater and I don’t know why he would want that.”
Marla and I left Millicent making her way back up the slope to her house. We took Marla’s car. I drove. I knew where Stan had gone. Kerosene and anger made a pretty obvious sum.
I made it to the Oakridge commercial precinct in under twenty minutes. By that time the fire had just started.