Read Online Wild Roses by Deb Caletti - Free Book Online Page A

I'm-having-a-bad-life,
with complications ranging from not being able to get out of bed to feeling like
the world was out to get him. All things you want in a second
husband.
    Obviously, this depression also made him
incapable of seeing that he was luckier than 99 percent of the world's
population. Okay, I know it sounds unsympathetic, and I know most of the time
it's a chemical thing that happens to good people and can't be helped. But in
Dino's case, so much of it sounded like a spoiled child who needed to be sent to
his room. Really, did people who lived in third world countries with no running
water or indoor toilets and that had to sew thousands of faux leather jackets in
zillion-degree heat in order to eat get depressed and stay in bed? Could they
not function without their psychiatrist connected to them like those sicko
parents who put their kids on a leash? Call me cold, but his depression seemed
like a luxury. I mean, I
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    was depressed myself at having to live with the
guy.
    "Can't you make him take his medicine?" I
said.
    "Oh, sure," she said. She was right. It was a
stupid thing to say. No one could make Dino do anything he didn't want
to.
    "I don't get this. What's going to happen here?
Is he just going to keep getting worse? He's going to start thinking he's
Jesus?"
    She didn't answer. I guess she didn't know
either. Great. Terrific. What did this mean? "Cassie?" she said finally.
"There's one more thing. I didn't want to tell you, but you'd probably see the
truck." She was quiet for a moment.
    "What?" I meant, What now?
    "He cut our cable, too."
    "Are you kidding me? Why?" I didn't know what
to think or feel. None of this seemed real. I guess I felt a little panicked. My
voice was high and shrill.
    "He said ... he said he did it so no one could
listen in on his work in progress."
    "Oh, my God."
    "I've got a call in to the doctor." I felt a
gathering in my chest, an on-alert tightness. Then, I knew what I felt. I was
afraid.
    That day at school, I looked at the people in
my classes and thought about how different my yesterday must have been from any
of theirs. No one in those rooms would have guessed what happened in my house
last night. There was
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    something about it that made me ashamed. And it
was big. Too big to hold all by myself, even if it was embarrassing as hell.
Zebe is the best listener in the world, even patiently hearing about your dreams
in boring detail (And then I turned into a fern. A talking fern, and then I got
onto a bus heading to Miami, only it wasn't really Miami. It looked like the
living room, and my second-grade teacher Mr. Bazinski, was wearing a kilt and
sitting on an ottoman teaching long division . . .), so at lunch I tried a
little of what happened on her. Not all of it. Just enough so I could handle the
rest on my own. She had all of the basic facts--we'd been friends for a couple
of years, and she knew my family. "Dino's going nuts," I said.
    "What? That cuddly, cutesy-wootsy teddy bear? I
think you should write an essay and nominate him for Stepfather of the
Year."
    "Don't even call him that. My mother's husband.
Okay? I don't even want father in the same sentence as Dino."
    "I noticed you weren't acting like yourself,"
Zebe said. "Here. Have some Cheetos. Nothing like overly orange food to give you
comfort. Think about it. Orange sherbert. Orange Jell-O. I'm going to dye my
hair orange."
    "Don't you dare." Zebe had this long, jet-black
hair that was so shiny you could practically see your reflection in it. That day
she was wearing fishnet stockings and a plaid skirt. She could wear anything and
make it look cool.
    "So what's Senor Loco done now?" she
asked.
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    "Dino's paranoid that someone can hear the new
stuff he's writing," I said. "Through the television cable." I used my
can-you-believe-how-stupid-he-
is? voice. It was Zebe and I loved her, but
this was as far as I was willing to go. I couldn't speak about how