Failing Upward

Chapter 1 (part 3): Tabula Rasa

Now I'll have to wash my car besides being inconvenienced. Of course the delivery had to be a rural one.

After working in the floral business for years, I understood rural addresses--odd on one side of the road, even on other, numbers east and west, letters north and south, county line the divider. I pulled the card off the flowers to second check the street name. Written clearly on the envelope was 48965 North 43rd. I drove down 43rd Ave and just past 48922 on the left-hand side. I knew the house I was searching for was on the opposite side and close. I drove right by the dented mailbox before realizing I'd gone past the address. Checking my cracked rear view mirror for other cars or large farm equipment, I backed up. The dirt driveway lay hidden behind an old sugar maple tree next to the letterbox. I turned in and bounced down the washboard driveway, praying my car's shocks would survive. Would this drive ever come to an end? The way curled left around a small pond--grass and tall weeds ate into the drive. The guy sure didn't help around his mother's much or anyone else for that matter. I put the car in park and pulled the card off the arrangement and read the name. Lestrade.

I grabbed the bud vase box and got out of the car. The house looked vacant--faded tied bundles of Newsweek, Time and the local papers stacked up high against the railings on the porch. People didn't get actual magazines much anymore. It wasn't vacant though. I heard Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" drifting faintly out from the white paint-chipped window frame.

I stepped up and knocked on the wooden screen door as Billie sang louder.

I wrapped on the door again--harder this time. I was about to leave the vase on the steps with a quick note when she came to the door. She sure didn't look like anybody's mother.

"Emma Lestrade?" I asked. Tall, strawberry-haired with stunning blue eyes and pouting lips. Skin perfect ivory with rich pink undertones and light freckles sprinkled her nose. Beautiful--without one swipe of artificiality. Her matronly apron and plain a-line dress didn't hide the classic hourglass figure beneath.

"No, I'm Glenda. Are those for Emma?"

"Yes, ma'am." I couldn't guess her age. Her dress was old, yet she looked timeless.

"Thanks so much." She played with her reading glasses to get a better look at the flower shop's packing box. She silently read our "propaganda" about the flower shop (shop name, phone number, address and some horse shit about wiring flowers anywhere in 24 hours). Then she looked up and studied me with the same intensity as she had just studied the box.

"You're welcome," I said. The lady started to close the door and then hesitated.

"I see you have greenhouses... do you know anything about growing roses?"

"A bit, we raise them. The ones you have in that bud vase we grew."

"How perfect! Would you mind much coming out to the back garden and looking at ours? I'm afraid we have some rather sick tea roses. Em is beside herself. Her grandma gave her the cuttings from them...won a distinguished award in London for them. She was a true horticulturalist. Let me just set these down, and if you would be a sweetheart, follow me out to the garden?"

I wanted to get to the beach and beers, but no need to be rude--and I was here on business. Damn that Anderson. I followed her.

"Yes, right back here is our little garden." We walked on what looked to be deer path through the tall grass and weeds--I yanked off burdocks that leapt up and stuck to my crusty old levis as we walked. As I stumbled, I noticed some beautiful perennials among the weeds. This once was a garden, too. Beebalm, coneflowers and different varieties of hostas spotted the pathway but were being choked out by wild garlic. And there were bee hives. Sherlock would love it. In front was a large fieldstone wall with old grape vine, nightshade and Virginia creeper invading its crevices. I stepped around the poison ivy. As I walked behind this "Lestrade woman" watching her nice hind end sway back and forth, I noticed the "deer path" was not a deer path at all. Years of rain and topsoil half buried the old yellowed bricks of the walkway. So this was Glenda, the good witch from the North walking ahead of me! I half laughed at the thought. She was beautiful--had an other-world look to her. She would look right at home inside a bubble--all she needed was the silken gown and a wand.

Or maybe not. I recalled Anderson and the man with too many questions. It didn't help that I stayed up half the night before watching an old Alfred Hitchcock movie, North by Northwest . I imagined the woman ahead of me as something evil. Glenda was not what she appeared... I wondered if she had a dagger in that paisley apron. Next she'll turn slowly and pull that six inch shiny dagger out, and I'll be so much chuck roast.

I ducked. Hey, wake up. It's just a low elm branch.

I ducked again and pushed aside the vines that were in the way of a threshold. Was I daydreaming again? It did look a bit like Oz.

" This is a little garden?" I wondered aloud. "Why, it's magnificent. If my mom was alive and saw this, she'd swoon and be in paradise."

"Why, thank you," she said. "That is so sweet. I didn't know young people still used the words like 'swoon' anymore. Hmmm... The roses are over here. Here, yes. As you can see they are in dreadful condition, dreadful. We are stymied as to what ails them." The Lestrade woman even sounds like Glenda the good witch.

I bent down for a look and touched the leaves. The brown edges crumbled beneath my fingertips. I noted the buds on the plants were malformed and turned the leaves examining them further.

"I don't see any pests," I said. " It seems to only be affecting this particular variety here and none of the others. No, I'm sure it's not pests gnawing--and definitely not mildew. I'm no expert though. I'll ask my boss on Monday. I'll need to take a sample of the leaves. She'll probably have to come out and look at this herself to make a diagnosis. I'll need your phone number."

"It's 555-3691. Here, I'll write it out for you," she reached into her apron. I flinched. Good. No knife. Just a pad and paper. Over-active imagination running away again. And too many outings with Sherlock. That's another story for my blog.

"No, that's fine. I have a memory for numbers, phone numbers. I don't forget them," I said. "They just stick in my brain along with all the useless trivia I know--like the complete history of the Beatles and Doctor Who, or everything you ever wanted to know but were afraid to ask about the World War II."

"That's nice," she said. I realized I was rambling and standing up I caught my Levi's on one of the afflicted rose branches. As I pulled it off, a thorn caught in my finger.

"Oh dear," Glenda said. "I'm sorry."

"I work in a flower shop. Happens to me all the time." True, but I still hated it. I caught the thorn between my front teeth and pulled, spitting it out into the poison ivy. Sometimes the tip of the thorn will break off and start an infection. I'd always bleach my hands at work, partly to get off the green tinge that comes from cutting stems off flowers all day, and partly to way-lay any infections from noxious rose thorns.

I said goodbye and walked to my car, sucking at the sore spot on my damaged finger. She seemed nice enough. Distracted, I put the car in reverse and backed out. Gripping the steering wheel on the way down River Drive, I brushed the tender part of my finger and felt an invisible spark of pain. Yep, part of that darn thorn was still lodged there, probably festering already.

That's when I noticed the card sitting on the passenger seat.