But it is early summer now. The spring flowers are gone. We’re entering drought again. It is the name of the season even here, which used to be famous for being one of the wettest places on earth.
* * *
• • •
“Should we bring our new neighbors a pie or something?” Daddy says.
“That’s just in the movies,” Papa says.
“And how would we even get through the gate to give them the pie?” I say.
“You sound just like your father,” Daddy says.
“Meow,” says our cat, Gotami.
* * *
• • •
One thing Papa and Daddy agree on is that Commodore Island is full of a bunch of people with money trying to look like they don’t have money.
Seattle rich is a special kind of rich. It’s jeans and hiking boots and expensive high-tech moisture-wicking shirts for people who never sweat.
* * *
• • •
I can feel something different before I see them. A shift in energy. A sucking toward.
They are not Seattle rich.
They are big sunglasses and big purses rich. Loud, bright-printed sundresses against flawless bronze skin. Sparkling jewels and heeled sandals. Nobody here wears heels until they go off the island.
They’re practically matching. I don’t know who is copying whom.
Mother and daughter. From a distance, they could be twins.
* * *
• • •
A hundred years ago, this used to be a sleepy rural town that had a few small farms, a few small businesses, and a few Seattle commuters. Now the A-Corp elite who live in the massive estates lining the waterfront pay a fee that goes directly to the private security force that patrols the island.
A-Corp uses the nature preserve as an example of how progressive they are and how committed to preservation. But the trees keep dying, the pine needles turn brown and brittle, and the lake is full of dead fish no matter how fast workers clean it out and fill it with new ones.
We live on one of the few country roads left. Most have been bulldozed and replaced by ultra-modern, energy-efficient, luxury housing developments. Every time something breaks in our house, Papa reminds us that we could move to one of those condos. “You could still garden!” he tells Daddy, trying to sound cheerful. “There’s a community pea-patch! There’s a gym with a pool!”
* * *
• • •
We are good at leaving rich people alone. They walk among us every day. Most are the kind of rich that is not famous, though occasionally you might hear their names in the news, with words like “fiscal quarter” and “acquisitions” and “international market.”
They are not faces. They are not voices. They are not entire bodies and stories we’ve known since we were young. They are just names made out of money.
But this girl is made out of a different kind of money.
A boy asks for her autograph. Her smile is pure oxygen and sunlight. All the flowers in the store turn to her and open their petals.
For a moment, I am seeded. I have fruit.
* * *
• • •
Our house is built of old stones, covered with ivy so thick, it looks like it’s holding everything together. Daddy assures us it’s structurally sound. When the light hits us just right, the inside glows with dusty multicolored beams from the church’s old stained-glass windows.
This is the kind of thing Papa says: “Tasteful Episcopal stained glass,” with that look on his face like he’s chewing something rotten. He calls it “Art Deco Christianity.” At least there are no bloody Jesuses, he says.
Before they adopted me, Daddy went to school for a million years to be an interior architect. His specialty was adaptive reuse. He knows how to take old buildings and build them new insides. He likes finding broken things and nursing them back to life.
* * *
• • •
The few people in the shop steal shy glances her way. One takes a surreptitious photo with her phone.
“Can I get some help or what?” says the star’s mother.
I wipe my hands on my apron.
* * *
• • •
Papa is an atheist. Daddy is a Buddhist who likes Jesus. He says maybe the Three Wise Men were monks from Tibet looking for the new Dalai Lama. I say, Okay Daddy. He has all kinds of ideas he tells me when Papa’s not listening.
* * *
• • •
My job is to be handed things. I am to hold as much as I can in my arms until I have to deposit the pile on the counter by the register. I go back and forth with the mom’s ceramic cats and tiny shovels and decorative blown-glass balls. I keep my eyes on the items. I nod and say okay. I try not to look at the girl, the one made of sun.
* * *
• • •
Papa likes things clean and tidy and empty. Daddy likes everything full and found and barely unbroken.
* * *
• • •
The mom goes from shelf to shelf. There is no method to her selections except for more more more.
The girl mouths “I’m sorry.” I mouth “It’s okay.” Our whispers meet and tangle.
* * *
• • •
People love these fake antique watering cans. They’re Island Home & Garden’s best sellers, besides the T-shirts of the otters holding hands. Daddy says they’re an abomination. He says the rust and chipped red paint are a lie. The watering cans should have to earn their rust like the rest of us.
* * *
• • •
“What’s your name?” the sunlight says.
“Fern,” I say.
I am made.
* * *
• • •
This is my origin story. This is my creation myth.
* * *
• • •
Some kids take ferries every morning with the A-Corp commuters to go to their Seattle private schools. Others, like me, go to the employee-only A-Corp school on the island. Some go far away to boarding schools and then come back at holidays and in summer to have parties and remind the rest of us what we’re missing.