The Care and Handling of Roses With Thorns Read Online Free PDF Page B

about fifty minutes, and they have almost forty left.
    I sit at my workdesk in the back of the class, where I have a good clear view of them all and they can’t see me. Despite spending the weekend resting, I feel run-down and hope I’m not coming down with something. A kid near the front coughs and I listen carefully. Sounds like a dry allergy cough to me. After nearly twelve years of teaching, I can tell the difference now. Aware that I was holding my breath against the germs, I allow myself a big yawn.
    On the desk is my water bottle, filled with half a liter, half my daily allotment. If you’re a patient that still makes urine, you’re allowed more than this. It’s not much, but it’s better than the first time I was on dialysis, when I was allowed the equivalent of only one can of soda per day.
    This lack of liquid gives my skin the lizard look of lotion commercials. A bottle of plain white hand cream sits on my desk. In a locked drawer are the pills I’m supposed to take regularly, and my nondelicious, low-phosphorus, low-potassium, dialysis-friendly snacks. Eat too much of these and you could trigger a heart attack. I should market my own diet. The slogan will be, “It’s so unappetizing, you’ll lose weight.” I grin.
    I open my rose file on the computer. The family tree of my roses spreads out before me. G42 should bloom any time now; I hope it’s sweet-smelling. Its parents were the multiblooming rose from last year and another multiblooming rose. The grandparents of these roses have fragrance. In my strains, the fragrance seems to appear about once every other generation, like blue eyes do in some brown-eyed families. This is what I’ve intuited, though I’m not always correct. It’s always a surprise in the end.
    Dara appears beside me, quiet in her black ballet flats. She has no students right now; it’s her prep period. A twinge of irritation wells. She shouldn’t be interrupting my class because she’s bored. Also, I admit, I was doing something I’m not supposed to, thinking about my roses during class time. I click off the screen so she can’t see what I’m doing. Dara has been known to lecture about such things before.
    “Finally come to learn about osmosis?” I swivel around in my seat. “Or is there a matter of importance I should attend?”
    She sits in the hard plastic chair next to mine. “I was walking by and saw you weren’t busy.” She looks pointedly at the computer screen. “I just had a great idea while I was drawing up plans for next semester.”
    Teachers really aren’t supposed to visit with each other like this. I can see why. All the kids are interested in us, not in their projects. “We can talk at lunch, Dara. Not in front of the kids.”
    She ignores this. “What if we do a joint project? Biology and art.”
    “My students can’t draw. That’s why they’re in biology.” I wink at the watching students.
    She blinks, and I notice how much mascara she has on, and how heavy her eyeliner is. It’s run into the small creases beneath her eye. “First of all, plenty of biologists can draw. Plenty of artists can do biology. Who do you think illustrates anatomy textbooks?”
    “All right. I was just joking.”
    “It didn’t sound like a joke.” She crosses her arms. “Darn it, Gal, this is a good idea. Don’t shoot it down.”
    I realize what I said wasn’t just a joke, and if I think it was, I’m kidding myself.
    I open my mouth to apologize, to explain myself. The kidney. It’s always the kidney. I shouldn’t use my illness as an excuse for anything anymore. I should know how to control my mood swings. This lack of water might be drying out my brain. My eyes are dry and I rub them behind my glasses.
    I had snapped at Dara the weekend before last, arguing over where to sit in the movie theater for a showing of
Black Swan
. She said middle. I said I didn’t even want to see the movie in the first place, therefore we should sit on the aisle like I