Chapter 8

The Wishing Rose

That night, I return to the scene of the crime. I know what I have to do.

Nobody in Vero Roseto is awake except me and the spirit of Mama Bianchi. Ro and Paul are in bed, and Ben went back to his dad’s house in Valle. I pull on the gray sweats my uncle lent me and creep downstairs with a flashlight. Pausing in the hall beneath my great-grandmother’s portrait, I whisper, “Sorry to bother you so late.” Her oil-on-canvas face—warm yet stern—seems to brighten as she stares downward. I draw an angry breath. “You only knew me as a baby, and you probably don’t like who I fall in love with—which is why you had your rose backfire on me—but tough shit. Because I’m gonna save your house. And without me, your portrait is gonna get sold online to some wine snob, and your magic rose garden will get bulldozed into condos.” I flash my dimples. “Which would be fine by me, but a lot of people care about that ugly weed, so I’ll save that, too!”

My respects now paid, I cross the hall toward the under-construction West Wing. Curtains of protective plastic still drape from the upstairs landing where the workers left it. As quietly as I can, I grip the plastic curtain and pull it free of the painter’s tape fixing it to the railing. It plummets softly to the ground, collecting in a massive pile. The plastic crinkles noisily as I fold it into a shape I can more easily carry.

I can’t be any quieter, so I at least try to be quick about it.

When I’m finished, I listen to the silence in the hall. No voices. No doors opening.

Everyone’s still asleep.

Exiting outside to the backyard is easy, but making it over the lawn to the rose garden is far more treacherous. Knowing what I know about the yard, there’s a million ways to get killed or maimed in the dark. I could fall into the drained pool or into the collapsed deck—and I need a shattered leg like a hole in the head, so I keep my flashlight on and take the journey slowly.

The night is pleasantly warm. A symphony of crickets and frog song keeps me company as I retrace my steps from the night I cursed myself—the night Ro apparently followed me. The closer I get, the more the moonlit sky disappears behind the massive shadow that is Valle Forest. With the sculpture garden trellis still lying in pieces, there’s fewer obstacles to maneuver around on my way inside the rose garden. The entire garden is housed within shrubbery walls. It’s like something from Alice in Wonderland.

Or the hedge maze in The Shining.

Next to the archway is a switchboard buried in the shrubs. When I made this nighttime trek at thirteen, I was so short I needed a stick to throw the light switch. Now, as a fully grown beast, it’s a cinch. The lights still work—the interior garden illuminates with cool footlights and overhanging stadium lamps. It’s not oppressively bright, just enough to pretty up the space.

If Ro looks out her bedroom window, she’ll be able to see the lights, but I won’t be long.

Gathering a courageous breath, I cross under the arch…and find a mess. The rose garden used to be the grand centerpiece of Vero Roseto—an open-air topiary masterpiece with fountains and rose-covered walls of green. Walking inside used to feel like you had shrunk down to the size of a bee and were walking inside a rose itself. Today, the fountains are as dry as that swimming pool—and they’ve become toilets for forest animals. The rose vines covering the walls are still there, but they’ve withered. Blackened corpses of rose bulbs droop pathetically off their stems.

However, one piece of the rose garden remains untouched.

When I see it at the end of a long stretch of horticultural death, my heart stops.

The Wishing Rose.

It’s actually several roses filling a large, spherical bush. The bush is brightened by its own ring of overhead lights, dimmed softly so as not to overheat the flowers. The dim lights lend the Wishing Rose bush a romantic aura of magic. I can almost see tiny pixies encircling the bountiful, cherry-red hybrids, which (unlike the rest of this garden) continue to be meticulously cared for. Looking at the Wishing Rose, it’s easy to believe in its myth, its magic, its power.

The hairs on my arm frizz and stand at attention.

I’m a child again.

Five years wasn’t that long ago, but it feels like a century. I was so little. Not a drop of anger in me. The beast wasn’t awakened yet, but it was there, just under the surface—a hurt child, begging for help but given claws instead.

“Hello there,” I say to the Wishing Rose. Particles dance through the light surrounding it. “Don’t worry. I’m not here to wish. Not making that mistake again.”

In under five minutes, I’ve dressed the scene. I toss three plastic curtains over the garden—the fountains, the rotting walls—everywhere but the Wishing Rose. No one needs to know how dreadful it looks under the curtains; we’re just undergoing some remodeling.

Rule number one in social promo is conceal everything that would distract from your narrative. My narrative for Vero Roseto is mythmaking—we remain as powerful as ever. Everything can rot except the Wishing Rose, our family label. People used to come from other countries just for the chance to trust their heart’s desire to Mama Bianchi’s roses. That’s what matters. The rest is window dressing. So, if the rest looks like garbage, cover it.

Pardon our fairy dust. Vero Roseto is getting some work done to make it shinier than ever.

Rule number two for promo is get personal.

We do so much to hide our scars, but you can’t look shiny and plastic. There must be something organic, something imperfect, something raw and maybe even wounded. Show them one scar so they won’t go looking for the others.

That’s where I come in.

In my phone’s front-facing camera, I check my hair—bouncy but careless. I can’t look camera-ready. After some consideration, I pull down my hoodie’s zipper another two inches. This communicates that I’m in sweats, so I don’t care how I look, but here’s a flash of pec cleavage.

I’m depressed but still a cutie, America!

I position myself in front of the Wishing Rose, its magical, healthy light shimmering behind me in the dark. When you’re getting real, it’s best not to over-rehearse these things, so three, two, one, action—

“This is the Wishing Rose,” I say, recording. “These hybrids have been in my family since World War II. During the war, my great-grandmother—Mama Bianchi—grew these roses, started a winery, and built an entire mansion around it. Why? To win back my great-grandfather, who was fighting in France. Before the war, they were engaged, but he broke it off. She was rich, and it made him feel small. Not cool behavior, but it was the forties, and she loved him anyway, so she doubled down. When he came back, he saw this place—Vero Roseto!” I gesture grandly behind me, but never move the camera off the Wishing Rose. “The roses won him over, and eighty years later, here I am. There’s a myth that any bloom on the Wishing Rose bush knows true love. It’s brought together four generations of my family. My great-grandmother, my grandmother, my aunt, my parents, and my sisters.”

I pause to swallow painfully. Here it comes. Tell them, Grant.

“How it works is, um…” My voice cracks, but I don’t stop. “You hold one of the roses, think of the person you’d like to be with, and then you wish for a sign that they’re The One. It doesn’t work just for my family. People come from all over to stay at Vero Roseto and buy a rose to wish for the person they want to marry. We get dozens of messages from people saying it worked for them. Within a week of making their wish, they’re engaged.”

I brush back a tear, and on a wounded breath, I tell the truth:

“I wondered if the magic would work for me, too, because I’m gay. When I was a kid, I came out here when everyone was asleep. I had a crush on a boy—but I was with someone else. I felt so chaotic, I worried my problem wasn’t choosing between two boys, but the fact that they were boys at all. My family wasn’t homophobic, but you see stuff on the news, you hear people talk, and it gets you thinking maybe you’re the problem. I just didn’t want to be alone. I loved my family. I loved coming to Vero Roseto every summer for the Rose Festival. I never wanted to be the sad, alone person in the family.”

I take a deep breath and go on. “All I heard growing up was how the rose brought my family together and made it grow, but…I was a kid and didn’t think I’d be able to. I wanted to be part of the magic and the myth. So, five years ago, little me put my hand on the rose”—I walk backward and reach for a petal—“and I asked the rose to reveal my true love. But because I’d been society-poisoned into believing that my love couldn’t be a boy, I lost my courage. When I wished, I thought of the boy I wanted to be with, but for a split second, I thought about wanting to change. I said, ‘Or just take all these boys away. Show me my real love. A girl.’ ”

A quiet tear drops down my cheek, but I don’t let my phone drop.

I breathe out a loud moan and keep recording.

“Shocker, the rose didn’t change me,” I say. “That can’t happen. I was wrong to wish that, and my wish backfired. The next week, those boys I cared so much about got together with each other, and I did end up alone. But the curse didn’t stop there. Because I asked the rose to take all boys away, that’s what it did. Ever since then, no one’s stayed with me longer than a few weeks.” On a deep, cleansing breath, I deliver the closer: “I’m cursed, but I’m also proof the magic is real. We’ve got another Rose Festival coming up this August. Vero Roseto is a dream place, and there’s still reservations for rooms in our newly renovated West Wing.” I spin the camera around to show the tarps slung over the garden walls, and then pivot back to me. “We’re almost done with our renovation, and the Wishing Rose will be accessible to paying guests of the B&B, so snatch up those reservations quickly. But a word of warning…” I bring the camera closer, so they can see my tears are real. “Phrase your wish carefully.”

I flash a peace sign and stop recording. In the cricketing silence of the rose garden, relief floods my nervous system. I did it. My ugliest secret is now free. Hopefully, my confession should be enough mythmaking to draw in superstitious visitors.

Rule number three of promo: sometimes, a warning works better than a welcome.

Before leaving, I turn back to the Wishing Rose. Its petals stare blankly, unconcerned about the wreckage they’ve made of an innocent kid. I want to scream, How could you do this to me?!

But I’d just be yelling at a plant when I’m really yelling at myself.