Chapter Nine

I can't stop thinking about Grace.

I knew when I saw her a few weeks back that it would set off some pretty difficult reactions.

Derrico asked about her just the other day. I of course told him that I didn't know, hadn't heard from her in awhile, had no idea what she was up to.

Why is is that when you shouldn't think about somebody, you can't stop? I know at least half a dozen women who periodically bug the shit out of me about staying in touch. Oh, some of them go at it kiddingly, leaving me phone messages that I'm sure are intended to be light and airy and funny, stuff like, "John, this is Jenny; just checking to see if you're still among the living. Give me a call some time! Catch ya later!" One of my favorites was from a girl who's really more a friend than a girlfriend: "Hey. Sully. If I was a goldfish I 'd be dead by now. Call me." But the underlying message is still the same: "You shithead. You never call. What do I, have to show up naked for you to be glad to see me?"

The honest answer to that, sadly, is, "Pretty much. " It's not that I don't like the women I date, or that I don't care how they feel. But I just don't get seriously involved if I can avoid it. Like most guys, I have been hurt pretty badly a few times, and like most guys, I don't lay all my cards on the table at once. Also, like most guys, I probably say a lot of stuff I shouldn't in order to get laid. Funny how a phrase like "You're amazing," which I considered to be fairly safe and noncommittal, can come back to bite you in the ass months after the fact. I had one of my "one-week stands" come up to me at a bar where Derrico and I were downing beers and watching babes, dump a beer on me and say, "How amazing am I now, asshole?"

Look. It's not like I told her I loved her. It's not like I promised her anything. It's not even like we dated for a long time, or that I left her without goodbye. In fact, she left me. This might have had something to do with the fact that I didn't call her for two weeks after our last round in the sack, but it's not like I did anything evil or mean, like calling her best friend instead.

In fact, most of the trouble I get into with women seems to be directly related to things I don't do. "You don't call me enough, you never want to take me shopping, you didn't remember our one-month anniversary, you never tell me I'm beautiful, you never send me cards..."

My God. I don't keep lists, I don't do anniversaries, and if you want cards with kittens on them, call your Aunt Rose. If I am with you, I think you're beautiful. I don't mind fixing your front porch railing, changing your oil, picking up your kid from preschool in a blinding snowstorm or replacing the batteries in your smoke alarm. But for Christ's sake, don't expect me to dance like Astaire, feed you all the best lines or help you choose new outfits. If you want a guy who'll do all that, I hope you have male pals who are gay, because I'll tell you the truth -- most straight guys who will even think about doing that sort of stuff will only do it for about a week. After that, they're looking to get laid somewhere else.

Sometimes women get the mistaken impression I am a sensitive guy because I love roses. I really don't think so. Roses are real. They have genus and species, specific characteristics, history, growth habits, all sorts of interesting stuff. Some, like the tea roses, are very fussy and take a real expert to grow successfully. Some, like the floribundas, practically grow on their own, but you have to know what type of environment they like: soil acidity, climate and so forth. There are old garden roses, "collector" hybrids and species, and lots of different varieties even within the same group. They're interesting, they can be expensive, and it's necessary to know what you are doing.

In that way, I don't see how being a rose hobbyist is fundamentally different from having an enthusiasm for, say, sports cars or wild birds or horses or antique guns or woodworking. They do involve the care of a living thing, so I suppose you could call that a nurturing thing, but I don't see how my fondness for roses is romantic. But you can't tell women that. You can't tell the guys at the firehouse that either. If you're smart, you won't try.

I suppose the romance connection is obvious; it's the long association with roses as the flower of love. The standard American Beauty long stemmed thornless rose, deep red and in tight-budded perfection is a lovely thing, of course. But I have never thought of it as particularly romantic. McCann, one of the guys on B-shift, calls them "Get Out Of The Doghouse Tokens" and rates his adventures by the numbers -- "that was a six-token job," "that was a genuine twenty-four-token bitch-up", etc . Roses, at least the kind I like, are a lot more interesting than that, and I don't count many red varieties among my favorites.

Well, anyway. Like most things I have thought about this week, thinking about roses brings me right back around to Grace. She used to have quite a garden full of them that she took over when Uncle Eamonn died. Her mother remarried after a few years and eventually moved out of state, so when Grace returned to Cleveland after her divorce, she and her son, Sean, lived in the old house. Grace had always had an enthusiasm for plants and animals, and under her loving care the garden soon was overflowing with new and revivified old life.

I would come by some mornings after my shift and do a little pruning, sneak a new variety into the plot, add some bone meal to the soil. Even though Grace was at work and Seanny was at daycare, Grace's presence was somehow still there in the garden, and I don't think I ever felt as close to her as when I was alone planting roses in her garden, listening to a cardinal's song and the hum of traffic from the freeway nearby and enjoying some music on the little portable radio she always left out on the back porch for me. I didn't have a key and I didn't want a key. Grace was very independent and if the time came for me to have a key, I guess that's how it would have been, but I never pushed her for it. With a girl like Grace, it was always better not to push.

We would sit drinking beer on her sandstone back steps long after Seanny was in bed. We'd listen to the Indians on the radio and smell the amazing perfume of some of the night-blooming white roses, and we wouldn't say much. We'd maybe comment on an occasional play: "My God, is he actually going to pull Candiotti when he's ahead in the count? Christ!" We'd slap a mosquito or two sometimes we'd get a citronella candle going if they were particularly hungry. After the game, we'd turn off the radio, cuddle together on the big wooden porch swing and listen to the gentle patter of the lawn sprinkler as its jets made an arc through the tree leaves overhead. Generally, the thing I liked most about those summer evenings was the sense of deep peace. I don't think I've ever found that kind of peace before or since. There are lots of women who are easy to talk to. Grace was a woman with whom it's easy to be silent.

After awhile, we'd bundle up our empties, toss out the invitable Subway wrappers and maybe a Happy Meal box left from Seanny, and go into the house and up to bed. We'd make passionate, slow love. We never said much then either. We made the usual noises humans make when they are ecstatically happy, accompanied by very few words. We seemed to have in common that the happier we were during sex, the less we had to say during or afterward. I would always tell her I loved her right before we fell asleep, but I can't say that she always answered me, either.

Strange. You'd think that detail would have been important, and yet I can't recall it. Maybe I don't want to remember it. One thing is very certain at times like today, and that's that I wish I didn't remember anything about Grace at all. And yet such a part of my life would be missing if I didn't.

This is too much thinking. I almost wish the tones would go off and we'd get a working fire. Not that I want anyone in harm's way or that I want to see a building burn. But feeling useful right now, feeling needed and good and helpful and that I am fighting on the side of right, would go a long way toward getting my mind off things I have no right to think about.

Wherever Grace is, I hope she is well.