Of course, some kids couldn’t be bothered. This was real life, not some touchy-feely after-school movie. But every year four or five students got into it, enough to convince the principal and the school board to front them the money to enter a borough-wide contest that they ended up winning. Jamal Harrington was among them.
At least one of her fellow teachers thought Jamal was too much of a favorite and secretly suggested Lauryn’s botanical teachings were helping Jamal cultivate a garden less likely to result in an appearance on Martha Stewart and more likely an appearance before a judge—charged with growing and intending to distribute a controlled substance—but Lauryn took the high road and ignored them, even though Jamal had been in trouble in the past.
Not all the Big Apple participants had appreciated the lifelike rubber rat Jamal had used to adorn his part of the school’s garden exhibit—a fire escape trellis. According to Lauryn, he had thrown himself into the project and had even confided his dreams of becoming an artist or set designer. But that wasn’t something he wanted spread around. In Jamal’s neighborhood that kind of talk could get the crap knocked out of you.
I thought the fake rat sounded clever, but apparently it had been responsible for a few rapid heartbeats during setup, so the students were personae non gratae with some attendees, including Allegra Douglas.
“To paraphrase Jamal, these other entrants think their manure smells better than ours does.” After my own encounter with Allegra, I tended to agree with Jamal. Forewarned about the rat, I promised to check on their exhibit the next day.
On the way out, we bumped into a woman who was dressed like an extra from the film A League of Their Own—baseball cap with the bill worn high like a 1950s gas pump jockey and a peach-colored romper that suggested gym bloomers from the same time period. Maybe her own. She gave us a tired smile and kept walking.
“What’s up with the retro baseball outfit?” Lauryn said, once the woman had passed.
“She’s selling something. I’m sure she’d be happy to tell us at great length. Want to go back?” Neither of us did.
Eleven
The really huge New York conventions—the boat shows and the car shows—were held at the Javits Center. The Big Apple Flower Show had remained at the more intimate Wagner Center, and that was probably what had kept both alive. If the Javits Center was all glass and as much natural light as possible, the Wagner was a throwback, dark and stuccoed. Some considered it a landmark, one of the last vestiges of an early postmodern era. Others found it an eyesore, an unfortunate reminder of a bleak time in American architecture and a blight on its up-and-coming neighborhood now filled with as many galleries and event spaces as there were taxi companies, auto repair shops, and one-room Caribbean music studios. Lucy’s apartment was ten blocks south of the Wagner, and I looked forward to walking and people watching on the way back to her place.
Every once in a while I felt the pull of the city—the excitement, the stores and the styles changing, the hot new show or restaurant. The newest thing in Springfield was a garden shop two friends were opening and the girls’ high school soccer team, which was faring pretty well considering their star player’s recent bout with bulimia. Soccer was the great equalizer in the suburbs. In the city it was still something foreigners did, except every few years when the World Cup was played and hipsters tried to show how cool they were by pretending to be interested.
I returned to the booth for my laptop and before leaving, stopped at a concession stand for an afternoon caffeine fix. The octopus caught my eye instantly. Connie Anzalone stood in line ahead of me. Her body language screamed almost as loudly as she had that morning, only this time it was saying, Stay the hell away.
The ancestors advised me to try anyway.
“How are you doing?” I asked. No answer. I repeated it in case she hadn’t heard me.
“Just peachy.” She barely turned her head to see who’d spoken.
Last time I listen to a bunch of dead people. I’d overheard security guards saying the flower show crowd was proving to be just as cutthroat as the dog show people had been the week before—“just two-legged b*tches not four-legged ones.” I stared straight ahead, studying the items on the blackboard menu as if there were going to be a quiz. When it was Connie’s turn, she placed her order in a small, childlike voice at odds with the snappish tone she’d just used with me. She thanked the cashier and left a bill in the cardboard tip cup. Moments later, on my way down the escalator to street level, someone touched my arm. I was startled and sloshed hot coffee on my gloved hand.
“I’m so sorry. Are you okay? That was terribly rude of me, upstairs. I don’t know what’s come over me. I’m not usually like this. Most people think I’m nice. I am nice.” The tough-girl mask had fallen away, and Connie’s face had totally changed. For a minute she looked like a girl playing dress up in her mother’s clothes and makeup, much younger than the heavy paint job and cotton candy hair suggested.
We reached the street level and stepped over to a counter, where I peeled off the wet glove, turned it inside out, and shoved it in my pocket.
“I’ll replace those.”
“No need. Three dollars from any street vendor except when it’s really cold. Then the price goes up to five.”
“This is my first time. Some of the others have been, well, mean to me. One of the exhibitors even made a comment about seeing too much when I bent down. Muffin top.”
It was a more personal remark than I expected. “If you’ve got muffin top, it’s a low-fat minimuffin,” I said. “It’s not you. There seems to be an acceptable level of hostility toward the newbies. Some sort of horticultural hazing ritual.”
Connie looked at me as if I were speaking a foreign language.
“Gardeners can be compulsive. Everyone gets so crazed about their booths and their entries. It’s business, not personal.” Did I really say that to a woman who looked like a Mafia princess? She burst out laughing, and so did I. Maybe in the city, The Godfather was the great equalizer.
“Let me make it up to you,” she said. “How about something stronger than coffee? Can I buy you a glass of champagne? My husband, Guy, says it’s the only thing I can drink without getting loopy.” Loopy? Not a word you hear every day in that context.
Perhaps I should listen to the dead relatives more often. Five minutes ago, I thought she was going to hand me a smackdown. Now she wanted to buy me a drink, and I rarely say no to champagne—especially when someone else is buying.
“I’d like that,” I said, “but I can’t tonight. I’m just settling in at my friend’s apartment. Can I get a rain check?”
Most people would have recognized the gentle brush-off, but Connie pressed the issue and I found myself agreeing to meet her for a drink the following night.
Twelve
The cool early evening air off the river gave me more of a second wind than the coffee. Even at that hour I could see a dusting of electric-green buds in some of the trees, specks of pink or white in others. It was that time of year when changes in the cityscape were evident every day, sometimes every few hours.
I walked across the street from the park. New York was one of the safest big cities in the world and had been for as long as I could remember, as long as you didn’t do anything stupid. And I prided myself on not doing too many stupid things. I resurrected my New York walk—fast, no sightseeing or window shopping, don’t smile too much lest someone think you’re drunk or stupid, which would make you easy prey. New Yorkers could navigate a crowd of tourists like sea lions, slipping in and out quickly but never touching one another.