When the Lilies Turn Orange (Chapter 5)

 

 

Five

 

 

 

Maidenhair

 

 

 

The night rolled out in old-fashioned revelry.  

Being my mother’s mini-assistant for the night, I was allowed no luxury of sitting down together with the guests and enjoying the spread, which, may I point out, looked really good, given that I was starving like you wouldn’t believe. Trust me when I say being a PA was hard work.

I was in charge of making sure the entertainment department flowed smoothly, which may sound like a piece of cake, but actually wasn’t quite so. Some band-members kept leaving for a puff or to sneak some food from the catering van; some had to disappear for a while to touch up their makeup, or check that they had not bruised their instruments. It was all I could do to not scream at them to stay put.

“Damn, Joey, you’re lucky you don’t have to work tonight! I’m running my butt off around here!” a caterer in a white shirt said as Joey/Crew snuck some tortilla chips with salsa from his tray.

“You work as a caterer?” I couldn’t help but ask, forgetting that I was supposed to shove him back into the backstage tent.

“Not on a regular basis. I just do random crap here and there, sometimes as a roadshow promoter, sometimes as the guy who approaches you along the streets to get you to do a survey, sometimes as a caterer. I think I like the catering thing best,” he added thoughtfully, as though it had just occurred to him. “You get to sneak free food in between serving them. Crabcakes are always a plus. What about you, flower girl? Your mom’s PA tonight?”

“Slave by default, if that’s what you mean,” I replied. He laughed and his hand whipped out so quickly, reaching for a crabcake, that it was a blur out of my peripheral vision.

“What?” he said when I eyed him pointedly, and stuffed the pastry into his mouth.

“You’re up next, after Jade,” I said sternly and gave him a physical shove into the tent.

“Jeez,” he grumbled through a mouthful of food. “Just ‘cause you have an awful bump on your head doesn’t warrant you the right to be cranky, you know.”

I scanned the crowd. I couldn’t see Reilly or Connell around, and figured Reilly was probably with Aunt Mimi and Connell with his family. They had just moved in, after all, and Wroughton was so close-knit that everyone got an invitation, especially the newcomers.

Joey/Crew’s band was the last act for the evening, before Howard gave his customary thank you speech and promotion of the latest issue of Culinary, so my job was considered almost done.

I checked to see if anyone was looking, then parroted Joey/Crew and stuffed a crabmeat pastry into my mouth, whole, and then entered the backstage tent again. Come on, I was hungry!

Jade was crooning When You Believe by Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. It was a really cheesy song, but Jade, only sixteen, infused such sweet innocence into it that everyone seemed to pause and properly listen to her.

“What a crooner,” Carly/Austen remarked. “I’d be as proud of her as Ri is if she were my sister.”

“She’s Reilly’s sister?” I asked, genuinely surprised.

“Yeah, sort of,” Carly/Austen replied. “It’s complicated,” she replied to my raised brows. “Crew, if you mess with that guitar one more time, I’m going to smash it into the head of the Chauvinist.” The way she said it, it was indeed as though the word was capitalised.

“You would? Please do,” Crew said, his eyes twinkling mock-beseechingly. “She means Connell’s dad,” he said to me. “It’s a joke. Connell doesn’t mind.”

“Like hell he would,” Carly said, as roof-raising applause could be heard after Jade had ended her song. We applauded along backstage, along with the other performers.

I had initially expected Carly and Crew to perform some hardcore heavy metal with Carly as an angry rocker chick screaming along to Crew’s electric guitar. But they were doing a duet, a sweet rendition of At the Beginning with an acoustic guitar instead of a piano. It was good, even better than Jade’s. You could say it aroused the romantic in me. I bet mom was swooning.

Scanning the crowd, I spotted Connell finally, slunking out of his seat to get closer to the stage. Nobody seemed to notice, apart from his sister, who was doggedly ignoring him. Chauvinist was immersed in a conversation with some other guy at the table, and his mother was nowhere to be seen.

“Hey,” I said, as I walked closer to Connell. He was standing in the shadows, by the beverage counter, which no-one was manning, hands in his pocket. He had changed into a white striped shirt and jeans, but his hair was just as messy.

“Hey,” he replied, his gaze still fixed on the pair onstage. A slight smile was playing on his face. “They used to be together.”

I wondered if he meant for me to know this, or if he had forgotten whom he was speaking to.

“Yeah, they look like they belong together,” I said. Their onstage chemistry was like an ember glowing in a dying fireplace. “What happened?”

“What?”

“You said they used to be together. What happened?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess they’re, like, too used to being friends, that being romantically involved felt weird.” That theory sounded somewhat familiar, but still weird when you heard it described out loud. “How’s your bump?” he asked, turning to me, his eyes immediately flicking up to it.

“Swell,” I replied with an old-fashioned thumbs-up sign and a toothy grin, and burst out laughing at its cringe-worthiness. He gave me a pained look, but chuckled nonetheless.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“I’m almost done for the night,” I said with a heave of relief. “Just need to make sure those performers clean up every grain of dirt in the backstage before leaving. Then, hopefully, there’ll be some leftovers for me to scavenge.” He nodded, still looking at me with that bemused look, as though he wasn’t sure whether to take my words seriously at all. “How’s the party coming along for you?” I asked, not meeting his eyes and not knowing why.

He didn’t respond for such a long moment that I thought he decided to ignore my question, but before I could come up with another question to fill the tightness suddenly wrung about us in our quiet shadowed corner, he said, “My grandfather would’ve been psyched to be here. He loves such stuff – loved. You know, homecoming parties that involve the whole neighbourhood, outdoor gatherings, kids and balloons and finger food and old friends … He didn’t admit it, but he was a great fan of Gilmore Girls. He would’ve loved this place.”

I smiled. “He sounds great,” I said softly. It wasn’t the most original thing to say, but I served it from the heart. Connell loved his granddad, and through the way he described him – perhaps not so directly – he made me love his granddad too.

Connell nodded. “He is great. But totally stubborn. He smokes – cigars. At least five everyday. It’s totally old-fashioned, but I can’t imagine him without those cigars, you know? They’re like his trademark. That, and his … zest. Eccentric, is what my mom always said.” He smiled. It wavered a little and he clenched his jaw. “He taught me to appreciate things for what they are, however insignificant they may be. ‘No-one is worth too little for the world to discard him’ is what he always said.”

I stared at him, outlining his profile with my gaze. “That’s true,” I said. “But we might have missed that, once too often.”

He nodded. “I miss him.”

“Why don’t constants ever stay so?” I said softly.

He looked up, his eyes bright. “Because there’s no such thing as constants,” he said simply. “We just live in a series of renewed life, essentially the same, but embellishments are always changing. Eventually, even the essence gets ruined.”

“Maybe there isn’t even an essence in the first place,” I suggested. “We’re just tools in the whole make and break process, but we grew to cosmic proportions that we feel that we are the essence around which everything else revolves.”

“You’re losing me.”

“Sorry.”

The song ended, with the ghost of a guitar’s strum melting into the darkness we were in. I clapped and cheered, and Connell clapped with his arms raised.

“Raven, honey! There you are!”

I turned around. My mother was drifting towards me in her customary way. Even when she was rushing around as the head of the Homecoming Committee, she still retained that ethereal essence that not only marked her as a dreamy old helpless romantic, but also drew many male customers to the Garden ordering anything that she suggested.

“Thanks for holding the fort here. You can go grab a bite. I saved some baguettes and curry for you,” she said and held my hand, then catching sight of Connell beside me. “Oh, hello. Is this your friend, Raven?”

“I’m Connell,” he said, offering his hand.

“Raven’s mom,” mom said, shaking his hand. “Just call me Ruth. I haven’t seen you around before. Are you new?”

“We just moved in here.”

“Connell … Connell….” mom was saying, flipping this name over in her head, as though it would jolt some memory. “You’re Amanda’s son, aren’t you? That’s right!” She snapped her fingers, but her expression suddenly turned sad, and she wrapped Connell’s hand into both of hers.

The thing about mom is that the sad, doleful look looked right at home on her face. It went with her warm doe-like brown eyes, so full of love, and her sweet sharp chin and lips. With an “Oh, honey,” and a hug, it was a look that could make a grieving person dissolve into tears all over.

“Oh honey,” she said, just like I knew she would, “I’m sorry about your granddad.”

I saw the muscle in Connell’s arm tense, which made mom’s hands slip right off. Connell nodded, shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and strode off, his jaw clenched.

Mom didn’t say anything, but watched him go with those sad glistening eyes. I opted to catch up with him. He was walking pretty fast, probably not really realising where he was going, because he was walking away from the festivity and deeper into the shadows provided by the trees lining the edge of the field. Howard was going to give his speech soon, after everyone had settled down in the marquee. I could hear my mom inviting everyone into the marquee already. But I caught up with Connell nonetheless.

He didn’t acknowledge my presence, but continued walking till he had reached the road a distance away from the marquee. The streetlights cast a soft orangey glow on the road, and the night was slightly chilly – just the kind of night I loved.

“That’s just my mom,” I said, feeling the strangulating need to say something. There was a faint roar of cheers emanated from the marquee. I guessed Howard had just taken the stage. “You know, like, ‘do you want to talk about it, sweetie?’ She once made a lady who just lost her dog burst into tears when she did that touchy-feely thing.”

I was babbling, I know. But the silence was making me nervous. I hardly knew Connell, but that was not quite the reason why I was nervous. Sometimes, the unknown didn’t make you feel insecure; it was the fear of not knowing that made one so. With Connell, I felt safe in his shadow, blurred but defined, but beyond that shadow, I felt like I barely knew him. What I saw of him, or knew of him so far through his friends, merely took me to a position where I skirted around the boundaries of him, peering into a well.

“Go away, Raven,” he said, sitting down on the side of the road. It was quiet. No car would be travelling along this road, since everyone was in the marquee, and we were a really closed neighbourhood, so we seldom got many visitors.

“Wow, okay,” I said plainly, “but you’re coming with me.”

“Which part of ‘go away’ do you need me to translate for you?” he snapped.

“Hey, I have a brother who yells that in my face even in my dreams. I’ve learnt how to pocket that and turn it around,” I said, shrugging, and plopped myself right next to him on the ground.

His shoulders slumped in exasperation and he looked at me. “Can’t you tell when people need to be alone?”

“Sure I can,” I said, “but I’m not really good at actually leaving them alone. So – are you ever going to tell me why you’re having therapy with my dad?”

“No.”

“But you promised!” I’m embarrassed to say that I was kind of whining.

“Raven,” he said with vexed snappiness. “There are two kinds of silence. One, you sit together in a companionable one, shut up and enjoy the company; two, you make so much noise that you end up creating a silence so charged with more things left unsaid and unexplained. Guess which type we’re experiencing now?”

I fell silent, more embarrassed than offended, knowing he was right. Sometimes, the more you said, the more you felt the need to explain, and the silence that bloomed as a chilly aftermath was more yawning than ever before.

“Look,” he said, snapping me out of my thoughts. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“It’s … okay, don’t worry about it,” I said, unsure if that was true. Silence then swelled, pushing us further away from each other, even though the distance between us was a mere couple of inches.

“Do you ever have a secret that you feel is so shameful that you can’t ever tell anyone, because then they’ll despise you?” he suddenly asked.

I stared at him, into those deep brown eyes, bright but hooded. How was that possible? I found myself wondering absently. How was it that you felt as though you belonged in the space of someone, yet not know the slightest thing about him? The streetlamp behind him traced a delicate outline of him with its dimmed glow of earthly intensity. From the marquee, faint laughter rang out like a faraway peal of a cathedral bell.

“Despise you?” I echoed. “How do you mean despise?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Well,” I began, and rubbed my arm, “sure, yeah. I mean, everyone has secrets they’re embarrassed of –”

“I don’t mean ‘I stole ten bucks from my dad when I was eight’ kind of secrets.” He raked a hand through his hair, but the cool night wind messed it up again, whipping it into his face. He brushed it away with an impatient swipe of his hand. “Those aren’t secrets; they’re just lies you tell others, and convince yourself of.”

“You wonder,” I said, staring at a dead leaf in the middle of the road, in the spotlight of the streetlamp like an opera singer with all the attention of the audience, “what the point of keeping secrets actually is.”

“To seem like the person everyone thinks you are, of course,” he replied, without much hesitation. It sounded as though he had pondered over this question many times and this was the answer he always came up with. “Isn’t that the whole point of keeping things, hiding them from others’ sight – to keep up that image of who they are?”

“So what secret is it that you’re keeping from everyone?” I said, deciding to go for the kill. We were circling about the issue, the thing that he appeared very much tempted to confide in me, but still did not exactly have the guts to, by making all this vague philosophical talk. Might as well try and get it out in the open.

He kneaded his right thumb, falling silent again. I was beginning to get used to his conversation-making pattern. Make some chat, fall silent, make some more chat, and think hard about what to say next and what not to. It was like he was constantly sifting out the things to say to serve up to you. According to dad, that was the mark of a person with either a guilty conscience, or with something about himself to hide. Actually, now that I’m experiencing it, I realised that you don’t exactly have to be a professional psychologist to know that.

I heard a distant rumbling on my left. Turning, I squinted and saw a bright speck of light looming in the distance. It cruised up towards us, gliding up and down the gently undulating stretch of road.

“That looks worryingly familiar,” remarked Connell, from my right.

I turned around. “What does?”

“That biker. That bike. Everything,” he said, getting up.

I scrambled to my feet too, and heard a dry leaf crackle in the trees. A rustle. The motorbike rumbled louder as it neared us. It got close enough for us to make out the physique of a male.

“Oh, no,” Connell muttered, as I kept my eyes on those trees expectantly.

With more careful rustling (even though I don’t know why he or she bothered, since no-one was out here apart from us anyway), the slim frame of a pretty girl slightly younger than me emerged, her light yellow tube dress and olive green sweater cleaving the trees into a mini clearing.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Connell muttered some more from behind me as he stared at the girl making her way out of the trees and grass, walking pretty ungracefully as she tried not to get her heels stained with mud.

“Is that.…?” I began.

“Charm!” Connell called out.

The girl, her expression contorted with disgust at the mud that were supposedly clinging to her shoes, looked up. I realised the rumbling of the motorbike had stopped. Turning around, I saw the biker dismount and remove his helmet, revealing a guy, twenty-ish, with pretty-boy wavy locks and a sharp nose that made his features more defined. I could almost hear mom swooning over him as a ‘dashing, young Romeo come to save his imprisoned, tormented lover’. It’s scary how my mom can influence the way I look at guys.

Anyway, the biker was staring at the girl with a look of such anticipation I can only describe it as predatory. I’m sorry, but that is really the only word I can come up with.

“Charm, what do you think you’re doing?” Connell demanded, standing right before her, blocking her from the biker.

“It’s none of your business, psycho,” Charm spat, and tried to sidestep Connell.

“It is, too,” Connell retorted. “Do you really think I’m going to let my sister elope with some guy on a motorbike in the middle of the night, without, I’m pretty sure, mom or dad’s knowledge?”

“It’s none of your business, psycho!” Charm screamed again, glaring hotly up at her brother. “Go back to your ward, Connell, and stay out of my life. You’ve got more than you can handle in yours.”

Connell suddenly reached out and gripped his sister’s slight wrist. It was a motion that scared me, even though I had Dean constantly manhandle me when I was being particularly obstinate too. I let out an involuntary, short gasp.

That was nothing compared to Charm’s reaction. She began screaming her head off as though Connell had driven a dagger into her. The crickets fell silent and the only that could be heard on this deserted, lonely night was her shrill wailing rising in a panicked crescendo.

Connell dropped Charm’s hand as though it had scalded him, just as the guy behind me uncrossed his arms and leapt off his bike.

“Hey, brother or not,” the biker said, in what I supposed he felt was a menacing growl which looked out of place with his delicate features, “I can’t have you physically abusing her like that, okay?”

Connell was ignoring him, still staring at his sister with that stunned expression, as though he could not believe he had just convicted his sister of first-degree murder.

The biker laid a hand on Connell’s shoulder. “Hey –”

Connell wrenched away from him vehemently. “You shut your mouth! I don’t need your input when I’m keeping my sister in check.”

Charm laid both her hands on Connell’s chest and pushed hard. “You have no damn right to keep me in check, psycho! Don’t talk as though you’re some responsible big brother who’s in control of everything, especially when you’re not even in control of yourself! This is my life, and I’ve made my choice. And guess what? You’re not part of it. You never were.”

Her fair dewy complexion that made her look like a Neutrogena ad princess was glowing red now. It’s unfair how she still manages to look so pretty when she was angry, but I digress. I noticed how her voice had wavered, wobbling so dangerously it was on the verge of breaking. Her large almond-shaped eyes were wide and bright now, like opals that caught the light and broke into a scattered spectrum.

I understood this scene well enough. It was the protective big brother trying to keep his wild-child younger sister in line so that he won’t wake up to find her lying dead in some ditch in the papers the next morning. I also understood that Charm was furious with her interfering older brother.

But wasn’t it a little too extreme, all that she said to him? He was only a big brother, after all. But I may not be the most neutral party here.

In the silence that followed, Charm mounted the bike purposefully and strapped on the helmet herself. “Go, Alex,” she ordered the driver. He went, the motor stuttering into the night.

I was about to say something, but the next moment my cellphone rang from my pocket, sending urgent vibrations down my leg.

“Raven, where on earth are you! You missed Howard’s speech! Get back here right now! You have to make sure the deejay’s ready for the rest of the night. I’ve been looking for you all over….”

“My mom,” I hissed to Connell, covering the mouthpiece. Returning to the phone, I said, “Yes mom. I’m heading back in now.”

“Go,” Connell said after I hung up. “I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure? I mean, you – your sister….”

“It happens all the time,” he shrugged. “You know.” 

I didn’t want to leave him there all alone with his thoughts. Especially on a quiet night like this, everything that swims around in your head could drive you mad. At least, it makes me particularly weepy. Dad said guys would most probably channel their aggression inwards, which doesn’t sound very comforting now.

“I’ll meet you back here in a bit, okay?” I said, realising that it wasn’t so much as a question as it was an order. Hey, call me bossy.

“Whatever,” he snapped. “Just leave me alone and do your s**t, okay?”

I took a step back. It was a long moment before I found my voice and said, “Fine.”

And I left him there on the side of the road, pacing in a circle to the returned calls of crickets, and returned to the noise of laughter and heady insanity inside the marquee. My heart was beating loud and fast, an incessant drumming in my ears. I had no idea why.

 

*

 

“Where’ve you been?” Rox demanded the minute she spotted me entering the marquee through the back entrance. She was with Dean, who was sticking to her like a parasite.

“Howard totally killed us with that joke about the Egyptian dish called foul!” Dean said animatedly. “He said he was in some restaurant called Soup of the Nile and was being served foul and he was like, ‘Do I get a red card?’”

The pair burst out laughing.

I wasn’t exactly in the mood for laughing. I guess Rox saw that almost immediately. Like I said, she knew me too well sometimes. It was impossible to hide anything – and I really mean anything – from her.

“Alright, pig,” she said, dropping her smile. “What gives?”

“Nothing, I’m just bored –”

Rox rolled her eyes. “Please. Don’t insult my position as your best friend by feeding me that crap. Is this about Connell? Did something happen? Is that why you went AWOL during Howard’s speech? Come on, Raven, I’m your best friend! Stop hiding crap from me!”

Dean’s eyes widened, as though sensing danger.

“I’m not –”

We heard a huge crash behind us, deafening. Dean actually raised his arms in a defensive stance. I would’ve laughed if I had been in the mood for that.  What we saw after spinning around in alarm were the remnants of Mrs Betsy’s doing.

“Oh, Betsy!” cried Mrs Flora Lee dismally. “Now look what you’ve done!”

“I think she’s trying to say oops,” Mr Gold said thoughtfully, surveying the mess and Mrs Betsy. I looked at Mrs Betsy. She, with her snowy peak and wrinkled hands, had scrunched up her face.

Mrs Betsy’s husband had been recruited as a soldier to fight in the Second World War, and he never returned. And that was where everything went downhill for her. She was so worn down by grief and she cried so hard that she went blind. After she got sent into the Rose by her only son, she refused to utter a single word. But she didn’t exactly sit around moping; she engaged herself with Mrs Flora Lee wordlessly and somehow, the two of them became friends.

But occasionally, she would feel some sort of pent-up frustration within her trying to break loose and she released them by wrecking the place she was in. It’s not particularly problematic. I mean, I can understand if the love of your life got wrenched away by you and you became blind from too much crying. But it was tough cleaning up the mess for her. It was a good thing Mrs Flora Lee was a nurse before she retired, so it wasn’t that much of a chore for her than it was for those caretakers at the Rose.

Now, though, it attracted the attention of almost everyone in the marquee. Glad for a distraction of any sorts, I busied myself surveying the damage Mrs Betsy had made. Plates and glassware were shattered, and food lied clumsily on the floor as though they were gawky preteen girls who had fallen while walking about in stilettos.

“A perfect waste of that sea bass in oyster sauce,” J Lo commented, shaking her head in the way people did when they were reading about a tragedy in the papers.

“There was nothing left anymore!” Mr Gold argued.

“I was planning to lick up that oyster sauce,” J Lo said.

“Come on,” I said to Rox and Dean, “let’s clean this up before mom gets here; you know she’ll freak.”

Rox pursed her lips, said nothing, and went off to get a mop somewhere. Dean followed her. I stood there for a lost moment and deciding I didn’t need to hear Mr Gold and J Lo’s usual bickering, went off in search of a broom to sweep up the porcelain shards.

“Raven!”

I groaned.

“Where were you?” mom demanded. When mom was nervous or pissed off – like now – she usually lost that blissful look. It would be replaced by a taut jaw, a thread for a lip and bright, flashing eyes that made her look like a hawk, a shrewd businesswoman instead of a poet.

“I had a stomach upset having those crabcakes floating around,” I lied.

“You’re lying,” mom proclaimed without even blinking. She dragged me to the back of the stage, where we wouldn’t be overheard. “Where were you? Howard only comes by once a year, so it would be nice of you to show some respect and at least sit out his speech. Besides, I thought you loved Howard.”

“I do,” I said, prying my arm out of my mom’s grasp. “I just – I … I had to make sure Connell was okay.”

“Connell,” mom wanted to confirm.

“Yes, Connell, the guy who just moved in, dad’s patient, whose grandfather has … That Connell.”

Mom’s features softened considerably. She placed her dainty hands on the back of my head. “I know you care for him as a friend, Raven,” she said, looking troubled. There was a ‘but’ coming. “But you can’t try to make everything right for everyone.”

“Who said I was trying to do that?”

Mom bit her lip. She actually did that. I thought only ladies in books did that, because they were trying to be a little dramatic. “Maybe you just need to give Connell more space, is all I’m suggesting. It’s been really trying for him this past one month. His family, his grandfather ….”

It is completely unfair that dad only tells her about his patients in detail.

“Give him some room, okay? He needs time to adjust to this place and everything that’s changing.” With a slight caress of my cheek, she left, her initial anger forgotten.

It was then that I remembered I’d left Connell by that lonely stretch of road, pacing in a circle. I burst out of the marquee, crossed the field, and looked around for him. Finding no-one save for some who were already heading home, I cursed under my breath.

“I knew it.” Disappoint struck me like it never had before.

“I knew it too,” said a voice behind me. Rox had her arms crossed and a grave smirk on her face. “You like him, don’t you?”

“Yeah, as a friend, I do,” I said. “Wait – like who again?”

“Oh, don’t play dumb. I know what your problem is. You find him better-looking, and more mysterious” – she waved her arm in a mocking way –“than Dom, don’t you?

“How is that a problem?” I said, then immediately regretted it.

Rox’s eyes widened. “So you’re admitting that you like Connell?”

“No!” I snapped. “And don’t make me out to be some superficial person who only likes guys who’re better-looking. He quarrelled with his sister –”

“Again,” Rox commented.

“Yes, again.”

“So what business is that of yours?” Rox said incredulously.

“The fact that he’s my friend makes it my business, okay? He’s supposed to wait for me here.”

“So he quarrelled with his sister – big deal. You fight with Dean everyday.”

I shook my head. “Not the way they did. You weren’t here; you didn’t hear the things she said to him.” Rox cocked her head, telling me to explain further. “She called him psycho. Not just once, but many times.”

“So? I call Dean a retard; I call you pig. Does that actually make you two into a retard and a pig?”

I knew she wouldn’t understand, despite all my explanations. I doubted she ever would.

“Forget it,” I said, and made my way back to the marquee, my thoughts with Connell all through the rest of the night.