The Language of Flowers

Quickly, I began to dress: two tank tops followed by three T-shirts and a hooded sweatshirt, brown stretch pants, socks, and shoes. My brown wool blanket would not fit in my backpack, so I folded it in half, wrapped it around my waist, and secured a pleat with a safety pin at each inch. The bottom I gathered and pinned in bunches like a formal petticoat, covering the whole thing with two skirts of varying lengths, the first long and lacy orange, the second A-line and burgundy. I studied myself in the bathroom mirror as I brushed my teeth and washed my face, satisfied to see that I was neither attractive nor repulsive. My curves were well hidden beneath my clothing, and the extra-short haircut I’d given myself the night before made my bright blue eyes—the only remarkable feature on an otherwise ordinary face—look uncannily large, almost frightening in their dominance of my face. I smiled into the mirror. I didn’t look homeless. Not yet, at least.

I paused in the doorway of my empty room. Sunlight shone off the white walls. I wondered who would come next, and what they’d think of the weeds sprouting from the carpet near the foot of the bed. If I had thought of it, I would have left the new girl a milk jug full of fennel. The feathery plant and licorice-sweet smell would have been a comfort. But it was too late. I nodded goodbye to the room that would no longer be mine, feeling a sudden gratitude for the angle of the sun, the locking door, the brief offering of time and space.

I hurried into the living room. Through the window I saw Meredith’s car already in the driveway, the engine off. She studied her reflection in the rearview mirror, her hands clutching the steering wheel. Spinning around, I snuck out the back door and onto the first bus that passed.

I never saw Meredith again.

4.

From the brewery at the bottom of the hill, steam rose smokelike into the sky day and night. I watched the spread of white while I weeded, the image infusing my contentment with an edge of despair.

November in San Francisco was mild, McKinley Square quiet. My garden, except for a sensitive matilija poppy, survived the transplant, and for the first twenty-four hours I imagined I could be satisfied with an anonymous life, hidden in the safety of the trees. I listened as I worked, prepared to run at the sound of footsteps, but no one wandered off the manicured lawn, no one poked a curious face into the forest where I crouched. Even the playground was empty except for a fifteen-minute window before school, when closely monitored children swung (one, two, three times) before continuing down the hill. By the third day, I could match the children’s voices with their names. I knew who listened to their mother (Genna), who was loved by their teacher (Chloe), and who would rather be buried alive in the sandbox than sit through another day of class (Greta, little Greta; if my asters had been in bloom, I would have left her a bucketful in the sandbox, so desolate was the voice that begged her mother to let her stay). The families couldn’t see me, and I couldn’t see them, but as the days passed I began to look forward to their visits. I spent the early mornings thinking about which child I would have been most like, had I had a mother to walk me to school every morning. I imagined myself obedient instead of defiant, quick to smile instead of sullen. I wondered if I would still love flowers, if I would still crave solitude. Questions, unanswerable, swirled like water at the roots of my wild geraniums, which I soaked deeply and often.

When my hunger grew to the point of distraction, I climbed onto buses and rode to the Marina, Fillmore Street, or Pacific Heights. I toured high-end delis, lingering at polished marble countertops and sampling an olive, a slice of Canadian bacon, or a sliver of Havarti. I asked the questions Elizabeth would have asked: which olive oils were unfiltered; exactly how “fresh” was the albacore, the salmon, the sole; how sweet were the season’s first blood oranges? I accepted additional samples, feigned indecision. Then, when the attendant turned to another customer, I walked out the door.