It was my boyfriend who bought the bonsai. Every
year for my birthday, we went to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden to see the
cherry trees in blossom. Depending on the spring weather, sometimes the
magnolia blooms were better, or the tulips. This year, the lilacs were
bursting and perfuming the air with the smell of sweet grape juice.
We walked down the cherry esplanade holding hands.
A few of the petals were browning at the edges, but the blanket of baby pink
puffs overhead still transported me. This crush of pastel always made me feel
like I was in an animated film. One by Studio Ghibli, perhaps, or the garden
scene from Alice in Wonderland.
We then went over to the hot house and drooled
over the orchids. Fanned ourselves in the desert while surrounded by cacti.
Kissed in the wet heat of the rainforest room. Before we left the garden, we
checked out the plants for sale, and he found a bonsai he liked. A tiny juniper
tree.
His mother, who recently had passed away, took
marvelous care of a bonsai tree for decades. “I think I want to get it,” he
said, cradling the black lacquered base carefully in his hands. The whole
subway ride, he sat with the bonsai on his knees, peeking into the brown
paper sack every few moments to make sure it was all right, like it was a new
puppy.
When we got home, we didn’t know where to put it. “Should
it go in front of a window?” we asked each other. “On top of the bookshelf?” We
looked up the care instructions online. “Shit,” he said. “Juniper bonsai have
to be outside. They need lots of sunlight, and they have to get cold in the
winter.” He looked at me like it was already dead.
In the apartment I lived in before we moved in
together, we had made from a defunct fire escape off the kitchen a makeshift balcony
with box planters. We could have kept the bonsai tree out there. But now we lived in a third-story apartment over a bar, and the fire escape faced the
street. We would have had to keep the bonsai inside where it would surely perish. “I can’t let this die,” he said.
He had to go to work the next morning. He used to
walk to work then, over the Williamsburg Bridge all the way to Greenwich
Village. In fact, he had to go to work the next five mornings. With my editing
work, my schedule was more flexible. “I can take the bonsai back,” I said.
“Really?” he asked. “You got it,” I said.
I returned to the botanical garden the day after
the next. I read a Sherlock Holmes story on the 40-minute subway ride. I walked
past the fountain at the Brooklyn Museum, turned the corner, and saw a long
line snaking out the back of the gates. The cherry blossoms were still drawing a
crowd, even on a weekday.
I walked past the queue.
I’m just going to the shop, I thought.
I don’t have to buy a ticket to do that. A security guard stopped
me. I was mistaken. I did need to buy a ticket. I sighed deeply as I turned
around. “Okay, thanks,” I said.
Carrying the bonsai that my boyfriend bought, I took
my place on line. I checked my purse for the credit card my boyfriend, who is
now my husband, gave me so that the return could be processed. I read more
Sherlock while waiting. About ten minutes went by and I was at the front of the
line, purchasing a student admittance with a graduate school ID almost two
years expired.
I went directly to the shop and to the counter. A
lady wearing an apron helped me. She checked the date on the receipt and
skeptically looked over the bonsai for damage before confirming a return could
be done, as if irreparable harm could have come to the bonsai in the 48 hours
of our care.
The return was approved. The balance went back to
the card. I walked briskly to a different exit, past the fuchsia azaleas of the
Osborne garden and under trumpets of pale wisteria. Without the weight of the
bonsai, I had planned to take a different train back, the G train. The station
was about a 20-minute walk away, but it brought me through the neighborhood I
lived in when I had moved to New York.
I waved to the street of my very first apartment.
Smiled at the Hot Bird advertisements painted on the brick walls of the older buildings.
I remembered when the yolk yellow ads were there but a Hot Bird wasn’t. Before
a new Hot Bird opened, a bar with outside seating that had taken the
name of the original BBQ place, which had gone out of business in the nineties.
A couple of blocks from the station, I saw a bagel
spot I used to go to. I actually used to frequent the one closer to the park.
This seemed to be a new location. As a reward for returning the bonsai, I went
inside and bought a soda. A blood orange San Pellegrino, the kind with the
aluminum foil top. I dropped it in my tote and started heading again toward the
lit green ball.
When I reached the intersection where the station
was, I saw a teenage girl laying on her side on the sidewalk. Her face was
drained of color and beads of perspiration had formed on her brow. An older man
was on one knee, bent over her, and another girl was
standing and wringing her hands worriedly. Taking in the situation, but not
sure what to do here, I heard the man say, “Do you have any candy?” to the girl
standing.
I was near enough to hear, but far enough to keep
walking. I was going to stop and ask if they needed me to call for help, when
it occurred to me: diabetic shock. Unwell girl, candy — maybe that was what
was wrong. I turned toward the trio. “I have a soda,” I said.
The older man looked at me expectantly. I tore off
the aluminum top of the can, feeling like a nurse pulling back the film of a
sterilized tool pack. Her friend said, “You sure?” “Take it,” I said, handing it
over. The friend was now on a cell phone. It seemed that help was coming. I
crossed the street to get to the subway entrance of the train that was going my
way. Before descending, I looked back at the group, the older man bringing the
mouth of the soda can to the lips of the girl on the ground, now sitting up.
I got to the platform. An announcement began, so
fuzzy I could barely understand it. There was a delay. I opened my book of
Sherlock Holmes and pondered what we would do for dinner. Whenever the train arrives, I thought, it will be right on time.
