White Oleander

I gazed up as if I hadn't heard, but what I was thinking was, tell me more about the pretty girls. I was embarrassed for wanting it, it was base, what did pretty matter? I had thought that so many times with my mother. A person didn't need to be beautiful, they just needed to be loved. But I couldn't help wanting it. If that was the way I could be loved, to be beautiful, I'd take it.

 

"She still looks good," I said, thinking that it wouldn't be so hard on her if he didn't follow me out into the star-filled night, if he didn't watch me the way he did, touching his mouth with his fingertips.

 

But I didn't want him to stop. I was sorry for Starr, but not enough. I had the sin virus. I was the center of my own universe, it was the stars that were moving, rearranging themselves around me, and I liked the way he looked at me. Who had ever looked at me, who had ever noticed me? If this was evil, let God change my mind.

 

Dear Astrid,

 

Do not tell me how much you admire this man, how he cares for you! I don't know which is worse, your Jesus phase or the advent of a middle-aged suitor. You must find a boy your own age, someone mild and beautiful to be your lover. Someone who will tremble for your touch, offer you a marguerite by its long stem with his eyes lowered, someone whose fingers are a poem. Never lie down for the father. I forbid it, do you understand?

 

Mother.

 

You couldn't stop it, Mother. I didn't have to listen to you anymore.

 

IT WAS SPRING, painting the hillsides with orange drifts of California poppies, dotting the cracks in gas stations and parking lots with poppies and blue lupine and Indian paintbrush. Even in the burn zones, the passes were matted with yellow mustard as we jounced along in Ray's old pickup truck.

 

I told him I wanted to see the new development up in Lancaster, the custom cabinetry he 'd been working on. Maybe he could pick me up after school sometime. "You know how funny Starr's been," I said. Every day I came out of school hoping I would see his truck with the feathered roach clip hanging from the rearview mirror. Finally he had come.

 

The development itself was bare as a scar, with torn and dusty streets of big new houses. Some were already roofed and sided, others finished to the insulation, some skeletal and open to the sky. Ray led me through the house where he was working, clean, the exterior finished, smelling of raw sawdust. He showed me the solid maple cabinetry in the eat-in kitchen, the bay window, the built-in bookcases, the backyard gazebo. I felt the sun glinting off my hair, knew how my mother felt that day long ago at the Small World bookstore, when she had seen my father and stood in the window, beautiful in the light.

 

I let him show me around like a real estate agent — the living room's two-story picture window, the streamlined toilets in the two and a half baths, the turned banister, the carved newel post. "I lived in a house like this when I was married," he said, running his hand along the flank of the heavy banister, pushing against the solidity of the post. I tried to imagine Ray in a two-and-a-half-bath life, dinner on the table at six, the regular job, the wife, the kid. But I couldn't. Anyway, even when he was doing it, he was going to the Trop instead of coming home, falling in love with strippers.

 

I followed him upstairs, where he showed me the finish work, cedar-lined linen closets and window seats. In the master bedroom we could hear the hammering from the other houses and the sound of the bulldozer cutting a pad for a new one. Ray looked out the smudgy casement at the surrounding construction. I imagined what the room would look like once the people moved in. Lilac carpets and blue roses on the bedspread, white-and-gold double dresser, headboard. I liked it better the way it was, pink wood, the sweet raw smell. I watched the browns and greens of his Pendleton shirt, his hands spread on either side of the window frame, as he looked down into the unplanted yard. "What are you thinking?" I asked him.

 

"That they won't be happy," he said quietly.

 

"Who?"

 

"People who buy these houses. I'm building houses for people who won't be happy in them." His good face looked so sad.

 

I came closer to him. "Why can't they?"

 

He pressed his forehead to the window, so new there was still a sticker on it. "Because it's always wrong. They don't want to hurt anyone."