Years Ago
When Rosie got to her favorite willow tree by the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir for the fourteenth time in fourteen days, she took off her helmet and leaned her bike against the rugged bark of the trunk. Then she started climbing. The fourth branch up on the left side was Rosie’s favorite to sit in. She could hear the ripples of the water and the murmurs of conversation below, but no one ever saw her up there. She sat up in the tree and made drawings, scribbled doodles and wrote notes to friends in faraway cities.
Two weeks ago, she walked out of Blooms Flower Shop after Rex came in yelling, and she decided she wasn’t going back. And if she had ever bothered to check her messages, she probably would have learned that she had been fired anyway.
Rosie pulled a few straggling Pixy Stix out of her tote bag and tore them open. She poured some of the sugar into her mouth and the remainder onto her notebook. The purple crystals scattered so beautifully on the page. She added some orange and then some red and swirled them around with her fingertips.
Art, she thought. Ha. She stuck her tongue in the pile for a taste, and then blew the rest of the sugar off the notebook. Rosie watched the colorful crystals scatter into the air and trickle down toward the ground.
“What the fuck?” boomed a familiar voice from below. She couldn’t forget that voice. The incisive way with which Rex Thorpe said “fuck.”
Normally, Rosie might have apologized, but there was no way she would say she was sorry to that handsome jerk of a man. Not after the way he treated her. Not after the way he treated love.
She shimmied down the tree prepared to walk away from him for the second time in two weeks. And as she did, her dress flipped up above her head revealing her polka-dot underwear. As soon as the paisley fabric fell back into position, Rosie and Rex locked eyes.
There was a pause.
“Hey, I know you. You work in the flower shop. You wrote that card to my girlfriend. The one with the crazy e. e. cummings love poem.”
Another pause.
“That was fucked-up.”
Rosie adjusted her dress, squinted her eyes and decided to do battle. But only for a second.
“Your note was fucked-up.”
“Yeah? What about it?” Rex came back quickly, ready to spar.
Rosie almost walked away with her grimace, but then something just slipped out.
“Even Maleficent had something original to say to Sleeping Beauty.”
Instead of firing back, Rex just stood there staring at her. And then he laughed. He found Rosie’s retort bizarre, immature and adorable.
Rosie tried to make her escape from Rex for the second time, tote bag in hand. Rosie’s body jerked just as awkwardly and charmingly as it had two weeks ago at Blooms Flower Shop. But this time there were strange comebacks and endearing polka-dot underwear.
Rex thought about Anabel. She never moved like this. Or dressed like this. Or talked like this. She always had a tall spine and a straight neck and a freshly dry-cleaned shirt.
Rex was surprised to find that everything about Rosie right here under this willow tree was warming his heart. Especially the awkward manner in which she tried to wiggle out of their encounter. Rosie marched determinedly in one direction. Then abruptly she turned around and marched equally determinedly in the opposite way.
But Rex had positioned his body right in front of Rosie’s and stared down at her.
And Rosie slowly lifted her head and stared right back into his eyes.
Rex saw right through her big brown eyes and into her soul. Her bones that had finally stilled. And into her heart. Her heart that was racing.
Rex felt his heart do the same, and right then and there started to believe in the nuanced, invisible, loving force of the world.
And it made Rex want Rosie. So wholly. So viscerally. And when Rex Thorpe wanted something, he made it happen.
So right there next to the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, Rex Thorpe pressed Rosie Collins up against the bark of a willow tree, and then pressed his lips against hers so gently.
It was the best kiss Rex ever had.
Even though there were Pixy Stix in her mouth and in his hair.
Rosie still had her eyes closed when she asked Rex slowly and calmly, “Think I’ll ever see you again?”
Then Rex stared into Rosie’s still-closed lids and said simply and honestly, “Sure do.”
Rex Thorpe went home, made a reservation at the most impressive restaurant he could think of and told Anabel simply and honestly that he was sorry, but he didn’t love her.
Because Rex Thorpe finally knew what love was. And she tasted like Pixy Stix and wore polka-dot underwear.
Willow dragged her feet getting onto Bus #50. How it was one of the most difficult parts about going to Robert Kansas Elementary School. Because #50 was cruel to a fifth grader with tightly coiled hair that sprung out in all directions. It was cruel to a fifth grader who preferred a CD player to hopscotch with friends. And to a fifth grader who sat in her seat engrossed in word searches. It was cruel to a fifth grader who wore the same outfit every day or had once, just once, even peed in her pants at recess in front of everyone.
Bus #50 was a nightmare for Willow Thorpe.
Willow couldn’t go back on that bus. Not one more time. So she told her father about Bus #50. She told her strong, sturdy father. About the hair-pulling while having the word boing yelled in her ear. About the pointing at her favorite black T-shirt with the horseshoe while everyone laughed and laughed and said “she’s wearing it again.” About the tearing of her word search pages right when she was going to circle S-L-I-T-H-E-R on a backward diagonal. Willow’s voice crept over the lump in her throat as she told him.
But Willow was devastated when her father’s only suggestion was to fix it herself.
“Stop sitting near those kids, Willow,” he said nonchalantly. “Sit in the seat right behind the bus driver. He can help.”
Willow did her best to clear the lump in her throat once more to protest, but as usual her father was insistent and unwavering. Rex walked Willow all the way up into the bus, pointed at that green vinyl seat with the duct tape covering up a hole in the back and said, “Sit here, Willow.”
He said it in front of everybody. He was already making things worse.
“Sit, Willow,” the fifth graders, and even some fourth graders, mocked as they patted on their legs like they were talking to a dog.
Willow might have been even more upset if she didn’t think those fifth, and even some fourth, graders had it right in some ways. Her father did talk to her like she was a dog. A dog being trained. And not just this one time on the bus. All the time.
“Eat
