Shine

Ingratitude

Wow, Edward must be pretty busy to miss both Friday and Monday of class. I happened to get up early though, and noticed a bit of pink in the top of my newest succulent though, so I was over the moon about that—either it had tiny blossoms or it was really happy with the fact that I'd brought him home and loved him nonstop since finding him. Gently, of course. Some succulents are more fragile than others. My variegated jade was still my favorite, for reasons I couldn't entirely articulate, but I tried not to let the others get jealous, rotating them throughout various places on my multiple windowsills so no one got too much more sun than the others, and rotating their pots as well so they wouldn't grow any more crooked than they may already be.

"You're cheerful!" Angela noted as she passed me in the parking lot, practicing my wheelies. I'd taken my backpack off because it threw off my balance.

I clattered back down onto four wheels. "Girl. Sun. Socialization tonight. Plus my plants are doing really well! They don't always move well, houseplants. They don't like being outside, for one. Plus the temperatures and direct sunlight and humidity and water and other things may be different."

She smiled. "I have an ornamental pepper plant. Its prime season is fall, then it gets these red, orange, yellow and white peppers only an inch long all over it."

"Is each pepper a mix of those colors or are those the solid colors they can come in?"

"Solid colors. You should come see it sometime."

"Yeah totally! I don't have much experience with leafier plants. Love them all, but succulents and I just get along better."

She set down her bookbag and took a seat on the picnic table nearby. "Have you ever had other plants?"

"Once or twice, I just couldn't seem to get the watering right. With cacti and succulents you just dump a bunch of water on them once every week or two, depending on how much sun they've been getting. Gotta wait for a sunny day though, so it can be hard keeping succulents healthy in Washington without a grow light. So far I've yet to need one though."

"That's great! Does your aunt keep any plants?"

"She has an aggressively healthy aloe plant in the kitchen. So if you need any aloe or just want to try out a succulent I can get you a rooted clump to start with. Seems to grow ridiculously fast for a succulent."

"How fast is ridiculously fast?"

I pursed my lips. "Oh, the clump I took from it last year was about ye big, and each of its tips has grown at least an inch since then. Maybe growth rates differ between plants within the same family—probably do—but it seemed fast to me in comparison with my other guys."

"When did you start collecting succulents?" She brushed some of her lovely brown hair out of her face. She had a quietly pretty face, Angela. The sort others noticed but forgot about when shinier people walked by. But the kind of face you then remembered, when you most needed comfort or just a smile or a friend.

"I've been collecting them since I was a kid. My mom had a few, and I took cuttings from them before I left, since she'd taught me how. I don't remember why I didn't take the entire plants. I wish now that I had. But I slowly collected a few more of them after Aunt Clara took me in. I'm afraid my collection rate has increased in the last few years."

Her eyes lit. "How many do you have?"

"Uh. Well."

She nudged my arm. "Go on!"

"I have, well, I have twenty-three."

Angela laughed. "How on earth did you manage to accumulate that many? Where do they all go? Do you really have that many windowsills?"