Wild Roses by Deb Caletti Page A

we're
talking about. He needs this scholarship. Think about him, too. Dino had to have
a talk with him last night."
    "Oh, great. Just great." Humiliation. Like we
were a couple of kids caught playing doctor. Shit.
    "He can't be coming over here with you on his
mind when he needs to be dedicated to that violin right now. There's a lot at
stake here. Yes, for Dino, too. The structure,
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    the chance to help this kid succeed--it's a
stabilizing force. It means a lot to him to have the chance to help Ian make it.
Cassie, let's just ... if we keep things . . . uncomplicated ..."
    "I already told you, I'm not going to get
involved with him. You can tell Dino to relax. Ian's going away, I know that.
It'd be stupid."
    "Exactly. I don't want to see you get your
heart broken, either."
    "It'd be stupid," I said again. "Nobody has to
talk to anybody anymore."
    "Dino's record deal, this concert--it's all
final. His three pieces have got to be finished by March. He's got to write.
Ian's audition is right before that. Let's just get through those two things.
Remember what's best for Ian, if you care about him. Help me out
here."
    "Mom, okay." Jesus. I got it. It was over.
Finished. I'd decided that before she even opened her mouth. Before Dino ever
opened his to Ian.
    "Things will calm down after March."
    "All right," I said.
    "I love you, and I'm sorry things are crazy
right now." "I love you, too," I said.
    "You got toothpaste there by your collar," she
said.
    I walked past their open bedroom door and could
see Dino's figure in bed, the hunch of his bare shoulders. Even as he slept
there you could feel the unease in his form. I resented the lack of peace he had
brought my mother and me, resented the fact that you could look at
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    that sleeping back and see a possible eruption,
a mountain of problems rather than the quiet security that sleeping shoulders
should make you feel. I wanted the safety of someone folding warm laundry, or
plunking down a bag of capably chosen groceries, or fixing a broken lawn mower.
But in that bed was the meteor we lived with instead, who brought unshaven
torment and sheets of notes written in almost cliched fury and shoved in the
kitchen garbage along with the coffee grounds and crushed Cap'n Crunch box. It
occurred to me then that all we want a good part of the time is to feel in safe
hands.
    If you've ever made a decision not to have
something you really want, you'll know how I felt over the next few days. Sure,
there were these moments of resolve, of Zen-like peace that lasted all of a few
seconds. But mostly I was pissed off. At my mother and at Dino and at the world
that didn't arrange things in a better way. At my own chicken shit
self.
    It wasn't the kind of pissed off that was
raging and full of energy, but the variety that was flat and snappish and
lethargic. I was going through life in a fog, an expression that was true in
every sense. I felt like I was watching and not really participating, like my
life source had called in sick and was wrapped up in a quilt somewhere, zonked
on cold medicine. And the fog was a literal truth, too--for those days it lay
around in wispy streams, around the water and on the lawn in the morning, as if
the clouds had pushed the wrong elevator button. That's what fog is
anyway--lazy
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    clouds. Clouds without ambition. The fog was
eerie and beautiful, soft and thoughtful, and it usually lifted in the afternoon
to an annoying display of sun that made the October orange colors so bright that
they hurt your eyes. Everything glistened with dew, and it was vibrantly cold
out. I didn't want that, the cold that made you want to put on a big coat and do
something useful and happy, like rake leaves. I wanted the rain again, or just
the fog, looking miserable and spooky.
    I went through the motions at school, caring
even less than usual about the fact that Kileigh Jensen highlighted her hair or
that rumors were flying about what