Failing Upward

"You're welcome," I said. The lady started to close the door and then hesitated.

"I see you have greenhouses... do you know anything about growing roses?"

"A bit, we raise them. The ones you have in that bud vase we grew."

"How perfect! Would you mind much coming out to the back garden and looking at ours? I'm afraid we have some rather sick tea roses. Em is beside herself. Her grandma gave her the cuttings from them...won a distinguished award in Great Britain for them. She was a true horticulturalist. Let me just set these down and if you would be a sweetheart follow me out to the garden?"

I wanted to get to the beach and beers, but no need to be rude-- and I was here on business. Damn that Alan. I followed her.

"Yes, right back here is our little garden." We walked on what looked to be deer path through the tall grass and weeds-- I yanked off burdocks that leapt up and stuck to my crusty old levis as we walked. As I stumbled, I noticed some beautiful perennials among the weeds. This once was a garden, too. Beebalm, coneflowers and different varieties of hostas spotted the pathway but were being choked out by wild garlic. In front was a large fieldstone wall with old grape vine, nightshade and Virginia creeper invading its crevices. I stepped around the poison ivy. As I walked behind this Lancaster woman watching her nice hind end sway back and forth, I noticed the 'deer path' was not a deer path at all. Years of rain and topsoil half buried the old yellowed bricks of the walkway. So this was Glenda, the good witch from the north walking ahead of me! I half giggled at the thought. She was beautiful-- had an other-world look to her. She would look right at home inside a bubble-- all she needed was the gown and a wand.

Or maybe not. I recalled Alan and the man with too many questions. It didn't help that I stayed up half the night before watching the old Alfred Hitchcock movie, North by Northwest. I imagined the woman ahead of me as something evil. Glenda was not what she appeared... I wondered if she had a dagger in that paisley apron. Next she'll turn slowly and pull that six inch shiny dagger out, and I'll be so much chuck roast.

I ducked. Hey, wake up. It's just a low elm branch.

I ducked again and pushed aside the vines in the way of a threshold. Was I daydreaming again? It did look a bit like Oz.

"This is a little garden?" I wondered aloud. "Why, this is magnificent. If mom was alive and saw this, she be in paradise. She'd swoon."

"Why, thank you," she said. "That is so sweet. I didn't know young people still used the words like 'swoon' anymore. Hmmm... The roses are over here. Hmmm, yes. As you can see they are in dreadful condition, dreadful. We are stymied as to what ails them." The Lancaster lady even sounds like Glenda the good witch.

I bent down for a look and touched the leaves. The brown edges crumbled beneath my finger tips. I noted the buds on the plants were malformed and turned the leaves examining them further.

"I don't see any pests," I said. " It seems to only be affecting this particular variety here and none of the others. No, I'm sure it's not pests gnawing-- and definitely not mildew. I'm no expert though. I'll ask my boss on Monday. I'll need to take a sample of the leaves. He'll probably have to come out and look at this himself to make a diagnosis. I'll need your phone number."

"It's 555-3691. Here, I'll write it out for you," she reached into her apron. I flinched. Good. No knife. Just a pad and paper. Over-active imagination running away again.

"No, that's fine. I have a memory for numbers, phone numbers. I don't forget them," I said. "They just stick in my brain along with all the useless trivia I know-- like the complete history of the Beatles and REM or everything you ever wanted to know but were afraid to ask about the Trojan War."

"That's nice," she said. I realized I was rambling and standing up I caught my Levi's on one of the afflicted rose branches. As I pulled it off, a thorn caught in my finger.

"Oh dear," Glenda said. "I'm sorry."

"I work in a flower shop. Happens to me all the time." True, but I still hated it. I caught the thorn between my front teeth and pulled, spitting it out into the poison ivy. Sometimes the tip of the thorn will break off and start an infection. I'd always bleach my hands at work, partly to get off the green tinge that comes from cutting stems off flowers all day, and partly to way-lay any infections from noxious rose thorns.

I said good bye and walked to my car, sucking at the sore spot on my damaged finger. She seemed nice enough. Distracted, I put the car in reverse and backed out. Gripping the steering wheel on the way down River Drive, I brushed the tender part of my finger and felt an invisible spark of pain. Yep, part of that darn thorn was still lodged there, probably festering already.

That's when I noticed the card sitting on the passenger seat.