Chapter 24
Electricity Meets Water
Two weeks pass in a heartbeat.
The Rose Festival is a few days away.
Ben and I have graduated from a sexy situation to a very exciting sexy situation. The word “boyfriend” hasn’t been uttered, and we aren’t affectionate and kissy around Ro and Paul—but they paid for our hotel room, so they’re clearly not clueless. Neither Ben nor I are comfortable defining this damn thing at the moment, because I’m so ungodly busy with the festival, and beyond the festival lies a horrible, uncertain future without Ben!
Whew.
“Sex with Ben?” Dr. Patty gasps in our sixth video session. Now seated at my sewing desk instead of the bed, I wince.
“It was really nice,” I confess. “He was like a different person, or no, I was like a different person. Well, not a different person, it was like I was me, finally me, the me who’s moving on, the me I’m gonna be in the future who’s got his career together and can be with a guy without overthinking, and—”
“Grant,” she giggles, readjusting her powder-blue neckerchief. “I’m happy for you.”
I smile, my eyes brimming with tears. “He was always on my side.”
“Do you think, perhaps, the others were on your side, too?”
I inhale sharply. Dr. Patty always knows how to shank me.
It’s my turn to pay Ben’s positive energy forward. After my session, with forgiveness on my mind and weight on my heart, I sprawl across my bed, suck in a deep breath, and dive into Micah’s DMs. My fingers are shaking and my sweat-slicked palm can barely hold the phone, but to calm myself, I hold my pumpkin-embroidered jacket. It always reminds me of Micah.
I was wearing it when we met. We were on a train and had been flirting so much, we forgot to tell each other our names. We got separated accidentally, and I’d left the pumpkin jacket behind. Somehow, using only clues from the things in my jacket, he found me again. It was so romantic, I thought it broke my curse wide open.
Do you think, perhaps, the others were on your side, too?
Ben, Micah, Dylan, Ruben, on and on…maybe they always were.
I linger in my ex’s DMs, not writing a thing, but I shouldn’t stay long. I’m just extending an olive branch. He didn’t cheat. He didn’t lie. He felt his heart moving toward somebody else, and he did me the courtesy of ending things truthfully. Should we have stayed friends? Maybe, but I was incapable.
Stop blaming yourself, Grant.
It helps to have a little vision of Ben pop into my head whenever my thoughts turn down a bad alley. Ben doesn’t like me because I’m an easygoing, untroubled person. He likes me because I’m finally being honest with myself. He also likes the hell out of my body. Sex with my inexperienced exes often left me feeling in charge. It was exciting, but I was really just helping young bunnies discover brave new worlds—but with Ben, he makes my body feel like the brave new world.
My ex’s DM window is a challenge. I haven’t messaged him since before our breakup. In fact, the last message sent was me sharing a post from the Art Institute account where we were about to do our show—the show where he broke up with me. As it happens, the anniversary of our show (and breakup) was yesterday. It’s also the anniversary of Micah getting with his new boyfriend. Navigating that anniversary post was like walking across hot coals.
My last message was an overenthusiastic TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT!!!
Three exclamation points and all caps. A year later, I’d be making fun of Ro for using both in the Vero Roseto ad. Did I change? No, I haven’t, but maybe then I thought fake sunshine would help me keep my boyfriend.
Dr. Patty calls it “my representative.” We all do it, bringing a sanitized version of ourselves to a new relationship. It’s technically us wearing a happy mask so we don’t frighten this new person away. Typically, our representative starts to fade around month three to six. That’s when the real us takes back control—the insecure us, the angry us, the us that farts, the us that doesn’t like our partner’s friends or family, the us that admits we actually don’t like rock climbing.
Sorry, New Partner. Don’t like this version? Too bad you’re already invested!
It sounds like we’re tricking and trapping people, but everyone who engages in a relationship does this subconsciously. We want to be liked. We need to be loved.
My exes only ever saw my representative. A charming, adventurous, trusting, understanding, enthusiastic boy. The one time they ever met the Real Grant was when they were dumping me.
The cursed boy who always knew this was going to happen.
The boy who refused to text back for any reason.
The boy who will ice you out if you reject him.
Like I did to Ben.
Never again. My first order of business in breaking this cycle is an invitation.
Hey there, I message my ex. I’m going to make it a single, unbroken statement so he doesn’t have to ask follow-up questions or engage in conversation if he doesn’t want to. It’s been too long. I hope you’ve been all right! Congrats on your anniversary. Anyway—thank you for sharing my video. It really helped my family’s B&B. This place means so much to me, so thank you. Speaking of that video, this weekend is the Rose Festival at Vero Roseto. It’s my first time putting on a big show since our thing, and I wanted to extend an invitation to you, if you’re free or interested. It would be nice to see you again if you can make it.
I hit Send, close the app, and shut off my phone.
There—that’s enough growth for one day.
We finally complete Vero Roseto’s reconstruction when Ben and Uncle Paul rebuild the sculpture garden’s trellis. They erect several free-standing pillars, connecting them with beautiful, draping canary-yellow fabric—a unifying color for the festival, I determined. It’s light, airy, summery, and perfectly offsets the vibrant red roses.
I stroll through the sculpture garden, which Ben has resodded with alternating types of grass—lighter and darker, so it resembles a chessboard once again. It’s stunningly detailed work, but Ben just magicked it into reality as if he were picking up nails from the store.
Later, just after midnight in my room, I squeeze a pair of pliers until my hand is red. The wire girding spills down from the half-body mannequins I brought from Chicago, but the shapes aren’t behaving. The living sculpture that’s going to be filled with lilies has a wide-hooped ball gown silhouette, which I thought would look cute because that shape is usually so rounded and lilies are sharp, piece-y little buggers. However, this particular piece of chicken wire refuses to bend to my will.
Cross-legged on my floor, eyes blurry from staring at these cages all day, I take a deep breath, relax my grip on the pliers, picture the curvature I want, and then pull…
It works!
The rigid wire leading down from the corset loosens into a smooth bend, giving me the wide arc I need to fit the fluffy petticoat underneath for the model.
“YES!” I cheer, flopping onto my back and dropping the pliers loudly.
Aunt Ro, lingering outside my open door, peeks in. “What was that?” she asks.
“The pliers,” I say, not moving. “You can come in and snoop, Ro.”
The door thrusts open on a creaaaaaak, and she storms into the room. “Wow,” she gasps, brushing her palm against the wire silhouette. “So this is all gonna be filled in with flowers. I don’t believe it.” Then her hand finds the corset around the mannequin’s waist, and she darkens. “Don’t know if I love corsets. A bit old-fashioned…”
“Ro, please,” I say, crawling up to sitting. “It’s late. We can have your TED talk on reductive feminism in the morning. This corset isn’t a lady prison. Gowns with this big of an undercarriage need the girding of a corset, or the model won’t be able to move. They’ll throw their back out carrying the thing.”
Casting me a sour look, Ro cinches her robe and sweeps toward the door. “La-dee-dah, thank you for mansplaining.”
“It’s not mansplaining. You said something wrong about my work, so I’m explaining.”
“And now you’re mansplaining mansplaining!”
“Okay, my apologies.” Standing, I guide my aunt out of the room. “Good night, Sister Suffragette.” As I shut the door, she curses me under her breath.
The next morning, Paul, Ben, and I finally move the six wire gown structures down to the sculpture garden, where we install the custom irrigation pumps within the frames. After the pumps are in place, Ben and I spend an unforgettable—and oddly quiet—day assembling the floral patterns into the gown frames. It’s just the two of us, the birds, and the frogs along the lake. The flowers are mostly preassembled onto platters that contour to the dress dimensions, but Ben’s job is to fill in the gaps and make the vision seamless. It requires delicate work, but his toughened hands manage it beautifully.
He loops a red rose stem around the wire like he’s hanging an ornament on a tree.
While he works, I press the platters of roses flush to the wire frame to keep a uniform line. As Ben loops the next stem—and the next—his hands come closer to mine until they touch.
I watch him work. He’s so careful.
Finished, Ben looks up. I’m staring. He knows I was.
“You all right?”
Don’t go to Edinburgh. Stay here, and I’ll stay, too. We can be happy here.
“Nothing. You’re just doing a really good job,” I say, praying he doesn’t catch me lying.
Ben shrugs. “You and dresses, me and flowers.” He snorts. “Five years ago, I thought our whole fucking lives were gonna be about Nintendo.”
Giggling, I kiss his ear, and he kisses my nose.
It’s so easy. Falling in love with him would be so easy. If I just bend the Secret Rule a little…
Finally, each gown’s flowers are in place—the silhouettes are as different as the flower selections. Half of them are massive pieces with flowing trains. But the most special of all is the red rose, shaped in the formfitting cocktail dress of a lounge singer. She’s my heartbroken diva.
The loneliest and loveliest of the flowers. Bursting with mystery.
That afternoon, Eshana texts me that she’s locked in another two models for the living sculptures. Sadly, she’s at her limits with people who can make it happen. There’s still one spot left—for someone small and slender who could make the rose diva come to life.
Well.
I know a tiny diva hungry for the spotlight.
Continuing my forgiveness tour, I offer Hutch the role, which he gleefully embraces. Hutch, Ben, and I—torn apart by a rose, or so I thought—will be healed by a rose.
I’m just so operatic like that.
The final thing the sculpture garden still needs is the protective tent. The sun can be merciless, and Uncle Paul says we’ve got summer storms rolling our way this weekend—just in time for the festival.
Aunt Ro and I order him never to mention storms to us again, and we go on pretending nothing was said. As for the tent, I’ll have to check if Uncle Paul can get it in canary yellow, or at least see if we can drape the color over it. A similar canary curtain conceals the arched entrance to the rose garden next door. That curtain, I sewed to be twice as thick. It’s heavier, so it requires guests to literally push their way inside.
A magical barrier between worlds.
Maintaining the mystery of the rose garden is key.
When I part the curtains, Ben is waiting for me. He stands atop a ladder, trimming stray branches from the fresh garden walls with hedge clippers. We redressed the walls—once thick with vines—with hundreds of roses, bound intricately to latticework dyed green to make it invisible against the garden walls where we hung them. We’ve created a paradise away from the world.
Because that’s how I see it. The world—the future, and anything beyond the next few weeks—is my enemy.
Now comes my moment. The centerpiece. The big finish.
Long into the night, I create the artificial riverbed surrounding the Wishing Rose bush. “You’ve done enough,” I tell Ben as I set up my station of bandsaws, sheet metal, and rivets. “Put your feet up, and I’ll take it from here.”
Grunting, Ben plops down, his back against the garden wall, and opens another iced tea. “Will you quit showing off? We’re out of time, and I’d like to sleep at some point, right?”
I kiss the air, and he kisses back.
An hour later, his fun, jabby comments die off as I cut row after row of sheet metal—thin gutter walls, ten inches high—and lay them into the soil Ben dug earlier. The gutters cut like two veins through the garden leading to the Wishing Rose bush, which is surrounded by an already installed oasis pool that I’ll have to connect to my new artificial river gutters.
Blissfully, my thoughts leave me again as my hands take over. They know exactly what to do. Exactly how much metal to shave off the top of the gutter wall, exactly how curved the end piece will need to be to create a perfect flush with the curved, basin-like oasis.
I’m back. I’m in my art again, and this time I’m not letting the rush I feel slip away.
With a flash of a hammer and a drizzle of sparks, I seal the gutters to the oasis pool with rivets, and all the while, I catch Ben staring. Whether it’s at my metalwork or at my wet bicep, who’s to say? But my boy’s transfixed.
“Who knew you had that kind of salt in you, dressmaker?” he asks, brushing a cold can against his cheek as he stares like a leopard.
My chest heaves with how much strength it took out of me to seal the riverbed to that oasis, but still, if it’s got Ben looking at me like that, then I’m smiling.
“Let’s get this baby wet,” I say, hopping from my knees to my feet.
He joins me. “Thought you’d never ask!”
Now that the hoses are connected behind the oasis pool, Ben activates the faucets, and a mighty, Biblical flood races to fill my installation. In under two minutes, it’s complete. Water flows continuously around the oasis and through the rivers, and the rivers circle back to the oasis. Constant flow—no mosquitoes here. The rivers create two powerful, separate streams.
It worked. The Wishing Rose looks like it’s crying.
Is it crying because the love the roses bring can be unrequited—or because even if it’s a match, it will end someday? I’m a thornier soul, so I believe the latter.
Ever since my night in the hotel with Ben, as happy as I am, I can’t shake this demon.
Will he leave me for Scotland?
Will I leave him for somewhere else?
Where is life taking us after the festival is over?
“Hey, you,” Ben says, walking over for a kiss. He slips off his cap to run his fingers through his hair, flattened at an odd angle by too much hat time. Nuzzling my cheek, he turns to take in the rose garden with me. “We made her into something.”
“You did,” I whisper.
“We did.” Ben’s voice taps into a pocket of annoyance. I’m downplaying myself again.
“Now we’re going to see her look really special.” I walk back to the switchboard beside the archway and rest my palm against all four toggles. Ben crosses his fingers. We haven’t tried this yet—the lighting grid was only installed this morning.
Grimacing, I flip everything at once.
Sapphire-blue light fills the cavern. Not only does the Wishing Rose’s faint, magical spotlight illuminate, every footlight we placed along the rivers and oasis ignites. Blue as a Caribbean beach, dotted with cool white lights to soften them. It’s summery, but it also could be snow. The white and blue look like a pattern of icy snowflakes covering a window.
Ro could keep these and give winter tours.
My heart races. Oh my God, I’ve got to show her.
Ben covers his mouth and stares at me. The biggest smile of my life explodes.
More than that, this installation is us. I’m passionate and unpredictable, like the lights, like electricity. Ben is calm, deep waters. Water and electricity—volatile and beautiful.
It’s almost too perfect.
That evening, I’m reminded exactly how too perfect it is. Ben and I lounge on the sofa in the East Wing parlor, a fire blazing, his legs slung over my lap as he dicks around on his phone. Still no response from Micah. Which is totally fine. He probably doesn’t want to get into all that with me again. I didn’t make it easy on him. And to come out three hours for such a not-easy time—it makes sense. I’m disappointed in myself, but it makes sense. Still glad I reached out, though.
While I’m drafting a post reminding folks about Rose Festival details, an email pops up. The University of the Arts London. One of the schools I emailed during my spiral.
Tension grips me like a bear, but I don’t make any sudden movements. Something inside me says not to let Ben know something just happened. I glance up, and he’s still blissfully scrolling.
With a trembling thumb, I open the email:
Dear Mr. Rossi,
Thank you for inquiring about admission to the University of the Arts London’s design program. While we’re at capacity for the fall, we will gladly consider your portfolio for the winter term. Please submit any relevant materials by the end of the month.
The end of the month—this month.
It’s not too late. My portfolio is waiting for me outside in the gardens.
Like a child being pushed on a swing, I soar into the air, my hope freshly renewed that my talents could still be needed and wanted by a top program. But like a swing, I hurtle backward with a dizzying churn.
If I go, would Ben follow? Is that asking too much?
London and Edinburgh are about four hours from each other. That’s not so bad, right?
Not much farther than the drive between Valle and Chicago, and that distance was more than enough to hide Ben from me for the last five years.
Did I repair a damaged relationship—one of the most important of my life—just to lose him all over again? The parlor’s portrait of Mama Bianchi gazes at me with a cruel reminder:
The curse is still in play. The curse is me.
Worse than before, I have so much more to lose now.