The Care and Handling of Roses With Thorns by Margaret Dilloway

Author:Margaret Dilloway [Dilloway, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Contemporary Women
ISBN: 9781101588871
Google: s3rdiOQPSL4C
Amazon: B0073XV4Y8
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2012-08-01T16:00:00+00:00

Shares of Alchemy Tech plummeted today at the news that CEO and founder George Morton is stepping down. Amid rumors of a takeover, Morton sold his majority shares last week and has no plans to remain in operations. “I have every confidence that our teams will continue to produce the best work and fulfill all our contracts,” he said in a statement. The company primarily deals with developing new synthetics for the polymer industry.

Dara should know about this. I’d want to know. I reach for the phone.

The door slams. Riley pauses dramatically near the entrance, holding aloft the chrome Craftsman tape measure my father left here. “I learned how to read it. Want me to show you?”

I have the phone in my hand. What should I say, good job for learning how to do something everyone else learned in sixth grade? Is she going to learn how to skip rope next? The mean thoughts make me flush. I’m still angry at her for joining the science team behind my back, though the fault really lies with Mr. Morton. I decide I won’t bring up the science team at all. “Not right now, Riley. I have to make a phone call.”

Disappointment crosses her face. I was supposed to want to see her read a tape measure? I suppose a real teacher would. I put the phone down. “Measure the couch. Show me.” The couch would be easy; I know it’s exactly eight feet, two and a half inches.

“Maybe later.” She tosses her tape measure unceremoniously on the couch, where it bounces off and crashes into the TV remote on the coffee table, knocking it off. “Oops.”

“There better not be a ding in my table.” I get up and inspect its white paint. It’s what Dara calls a Shabby Chic table, one with curlicued sides. I found it by the side of the road. Dara painted it pink, then white, scratching away part of the top to reveal the color underneath. It reminds me of some of my pink and white roses.

“It’s made to look old, Aunt Gal.” Riley flops down in the chair, sending small clouds of dust into the shafting sunlight, where they hang glittering in the air. “Sorry.”

I run my hand over the table. Smooth. I check a sigh, pointing instead to the dust. “You used to call those ‘dust fairies’ when you were little.” I smile at the memory, of little Riley sitting at my parents’ house, absorbed by watching the “fairies” that sprung up from the dust my mother could not be bothered to clean up. My mother had jumped up, got wet paper towels, and wiped down all her furniture.

“I did?” Riley smiles.

I nod.

“Do you remember any other stories from when I was little?” She leans forward, her elbows on her knees.

I honestly can’t think of any at the moment. My head is still wrapped around George Morton and Dara, the image of him with his wife burning behind my eyes. The fairies were incidental, a result of seeing the dust motes.

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