When No One Is Watching(28)

“Your hair is different,” I say.

“Is it?” she asks, then pats at her head and makes an expression of smug shock. “Wow, I didn’t notice. I guess it just did that by itself. Magic!”

She smirks at me.

Oh boy.

“Did a rabbit steal your carrots or something?” I walk a couple of steps closer to her. “You have a real Farmer McGregor vibe going right now.”

She rolls her eyes, but the hardness softens a bit in the millisecond it takes her to do it.

“We have raccoons here, not rabbits. And they have nothing to steal from my garden because I’m killing everything edible.”

There’s strain in her voice in that last sentence, even though she tries to play it off as a joke.

“That sucks. Is it the weather or just a bad season? Those happen sometimes.”

I have no idea what happens sometimes in gardens, but that sounds about right.

She shakes her head and bends down to grab one of those travel coffee mugs—from the clink of ice cubes I’m guessing there’s iced coffee inside.

“I’m not my mom. That’s the problem.” She sips almost angrily. “She started this garden when I was a teenager. I was so mad when I had to waste weekends toting trash and helping set up plant boxes while my friends were outside the gates riding bikes, or off at the beach or doing other fun shit. But now . . . well, she’s not here to take care of things now. So I have to do it. And I’m the worst.”

Her mom owns a prime piece of land plus that fantastic house? I try not to be envious of what that kind of security must feel like.

“I would offer my gardening services in addition to my research services, but I’m not really good at stuff like this.” I glance at the plot where she’s been working. It does look a little less vibrant than the others, but it’s not a total loss. “That seems to be growing well, whatever it is.”

“It’s a weed,” she says miserably, then laughs a little helplessly. I recognize this laugh, the one you make when you feel like you’re just caught up in life’s gears, slowly getting ground to dust.

My envy retreats. Mostly.

“Some weeds are edible. Dandelions? You can make salad with that.”

“Are you some kind of prepper or something?” she asks.

“No. Just something I picked up as a kid. I was briefly fascinated with things you could eat for free.”

Great. I guess that’s one way to reveal you grew up poor and hungry.

“Look,” she says on a sigh. “You don’t have to do this research thing, you know. I got it. It was nice of you to offer, but—”

“Are you firing me?” I place both hands over my chest. “Wow, kick me when I’m down.”

“You haven’t started yet,” she reminds me. “A lot of this week’s research is focusing on . . . shit that’s going to make you uncomfortable. For example. All this land originally belonged to indigenous tribes, right?”

“And then they sold it,” I say automatically. I know this history. “For some beads.”

“Not really. Land sale didn’t work the same for them. Mostly colonizers took what they wanted. And that’s what keeps coming up as I research.” She bites her bottom lip, releases it. Sighs. “I don’t wanna have to worry about your little white feelings, okay?”

“Wait. Do you think I’m racist or something?” My body tenses and my cheeks go hot, and Sydney throws a hand up in the air.

“See? This is what I’m talking about. It doesn’t matter if I think you are—even if you aren’t, you’re gonna need me to reassure you about it. Like, Preston got arrested this morning. I don’t have the energy to make you feel better.”

“Okay. Okay, I get that.” I don’t get the connection between a teenager getting arrested and me helping her, but I can deal with that later. I look at her, try to figure out her mood. I smile. “I still want to help. I’ll try to keep my white feelings, which aren’t little, in check.”

She purses her lips, and I can tell she’s trying not to laugh. “Fine. Whatever. But we need a safe word.”

“Do we?”

She looks at me sharply.

“A safe word for when you’re being dangerously white,” she clarifies.

I grimace, but say the first thing that pops into my head. “Hmm . . . how about ‘Howdy Doody’?”

Her laughter comes out in a peal that makes her face scrunch up and her eyes close tight. I don’t even care if she’s laughing at me. It sounds so much better than the being-ground-by-gears sound, and I want to make her laugh like that again.

“Perfect,” she says. “I was gonna go with ‘mayonnaise,’ but let’s be real, Miracle Whip really hits sometimes. ‘Howdy Doody’ it is.”

The sounds of squealing children interrupt us and then she shrugs and points at the group of young kids streaming in through the gate, followed by Len, who waves at us. “Day camp kids, here for a visit. Can you come to my place at like five o’clock? We can go over what I have so far.”

“Your place?” I feel like I just stepped off the treadmill all over again.

She tilts her head. “Yeah. Directly across the street from you?”