Read Wallflower In Bloom Online
Authors: Claire Cook
Wallflower In Bloom (2 page)
Touchstone
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Claire Cook
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Touchstone hardcover edition June 2012
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Designed by Renata Di Biase
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cook, Claire, 1955–
Wallflower in bloom: a novel / Claire Cook.
p. cm.
“A Touchstone Book.”
1. Self-realization in women—Fiction. 2. Reality television programs—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3553. O55317W35 2012
813′54—dc23
2011044716
ISBN 978-1-4516-7276-3
ISBN 978-1-4516-7278-7 (ebook)
For late bloomers everywhere
.
ONTENTS
wallflower
in bloom
Who will buy the cow if you give away the milk for free, yet once you get a taste of the milk, who can resist coming back to the cow?
M
y brother was dazzling, as usual. “Do. You. Have. Passion?” he roared. His white teeth gleamed. His elegant hands beckoned. His bedroom eyes twinkled. The sold-out mostly female audience drooled.
My brother’s eyes were a big part of his It Thing. You couldn’t look away. They were blue. Endless blue. Deep, glittery blue, like the ocean when the setting sun hits it just the right way.
Of course, luck of the gene pool and all that, my own eyes were wallflower brown.
I watched my famous brother scan the room, somehow appearing to make contact with each and every set of seeking eyes in the audience. “The Ancient Greeks asked only one question at a person’s funeral:
Did. He. Or she. Have. Passion?
”
When he lifted his palms to the heavens, his crisp white tunic exposed just the right amount of muscular forearm. “Find yours. See it clearly in your mind’s eye. Design the life your passion desires. And remember, passion doesn’t sleep. It is always there, waiting for you.”
Everywhere I looked, people were scribbling in notebooks. Some of them were surreptitiously videotaping with cell phones and tiny
flip cameras, even though they weren’t supposed to. The whole point was to get them to buy the videos. But the world was changing at lightning speed, and now we were even posting our own video clips on YouTube and Facebook in the hopes they’d go viral. I mean, on one hand, who will buy the cow if you give away the milk for free, yet once you get a taste of the milk, who can resist coming back to the cow?
Ohmigod, I was starting to sound like my freakin’ brother.
He was really getting into it now. “The voice of passion. Is. Not. A book. It’s not a feature film. It’s short and direct, like a haiku straight to your heart.”
You could hear a clichédrop. Some people were nodding, but most were leaning forward in their seats, waiting for The Answer.
“But if you start from a place of self-criticism, of self-rejection, you’ll never hear what it’s saying to you. Accept yourself. Start where you are. And the voice of passion will speak to you. It will come like a bolt of lightning. And you’ll know. Your. Life’s. True. Purpose.”
When I stood up and dimmed the fluorescent lights from the back of the room, preselected audience members rose to light candles circling the front lip of the stage.
My brother reached behind the curtains at the back of the stage and pulled out a battered acoustic guitar. He plugged it into the amplifier, straddled a high wooden stool, crossed one distressed jean–clad leg over the other.
And then he actually sang “O-o-h Child,” that old ’70s song by the Five Stairsteps, the one about how things are going to get easier. And brighter.
Mine were the only dry eyes in the house.
“Hold the fort,” my father had said before he and my mother left me to babysit the concession table while they took their usual place in the front row. My parents stood up now, flicked on matching Bic lighters, and waved their arms high while they rocked side to side in time to the music. From the back, in their tie-dyed T-shirts that
proclaimed
TAG
! in fluorescent green, they could have been twins, except that my father’s gray curls dead-ended just over his ears, while my mother’s continued up to the top of her head.
My brother getting famous was the best thing that had ever happened to them. They’d been recreational Deadheads since the ’60s, and once my sisters and brother and I were born, they just threw us into the car whenever there was an outdoor Grateful Dead concert anywhere within striking distance. I grew up thinking summer vacation meant standing in a field somewhere, jumping up and down to “Sugar Magnolia.”
My parents took it hard when Jerry Garcia died. They’d been counting on becoming full-time Deadheads in their retirement. For a few years they followed tribute bands like Dark Star Orchestra halfheartedly, then they took up bowling. No one was happier than they were when my brother became the family rock star a few years ago.
Like everything else in his life, the whole guru thing had pretty much landed in my brother’s lap. One minute he was just another guy playing his guitar, with a gift for inspirational gab between sets. Then a fan put a snippet of one of his over-the-top motivational orations up on YouTube, and a week later a producer from
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
was on the phone booking him. And of course, my brother being my brother, he was a big hit. And the rest is history.
I yawned and stretched and got ready for the onslaught. Once my brother did his thing, his followers would buy anything that wasn’t nailed down. My parents handled this end of things, both online and at events like this one, and earned a retirement-friendly commission on every item sold. I straightened a pile of T-shirts packaged in little boxes shaped like guitars. I moved the CDs and DVDs a little closer to the books because they were blocking the energy beads.
A short group meditation was followed by deafening, mountain-moving applause. My parents hurried back and slid next to me behind the table.
My mother adjusted the No. 2 pencil behind her ear and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “I think that was his best job ever,” she said, like she did every time.
“That’s my boy,” my father said. He alternated this with “way to go.”
“How’d I do on the lights?” I asked.
My father laughed. “What a card,” he said, as he swung his arm over my shoulder. I noticed we were almost the same height now. Either he was shrinking, or I was having a vertical growth spurt to match my horizontal one.
I kissed my father on the cheek and ducked out from under his arm. I had to make my way up to the front fast so I could herd my brother to the signing table before his rabid fans waylaid him.
“Single file,” my mother was saying to the people already approaching the table as I walked away, “and no pushing. We’ll start when you’re ready.” There was no mistaking my mother’s former profession. She still had that fifth-grade teacher’s vibe going on, and everybody always obeyed her and funneled right into a single line. Two security guys from the hotel crossed their arms over their chests for reinforcement.
I entertained myself by turning sideways and chasséing through the crowd, homing in on Tag by the booming, melodious sound of his laugh. “Excuse me,” I said when someone wouldn’t get out of my way, and when that didn’t work, I used a discreet elbow.
“Unbelievable,” I heard my brother say. “What a blast from the past! What are you doing in Austin?”
I worked my way up to him, fully expecting to see some woman he’d once slept with and whose name he was frantically trying to remember. I knew the drill. I’d stick out my hand and introduce myself so she’d have to tell me her name. And then my brother would pretend he’d known it all along.
“Dee,” my brother said, turning to me. “You’ll never guess who showed up. Steve Moretti. I went to UMass with him.”
I swallowed back another yawn. The more famous my brother became, the more old friends came out of the woodwork.
“Steve,” my brother said, “this is my sister Deirdre.”
And then the Austin crowd parted to reveal the guy who’d last seen my underpants.
Failure is a brief and necessary layover on the way to success, but you’ll never reach success if you check your bags at failure
.
O
kay, so let me back up for a moment. I was my brother’s keeper. Literally. As in his gatekeeper. If you wanted to get to him, you had to come through me. The setup made perfect sense. He knew I had his back with the fierce loyalty that comes with family. I knew if I screwed up, he’d hire one of our sisters.
If you haven’t heard of my brother yet, you will. He’s well on his way to becoming the next big thing, coming soon to a town near you. His name is Tag, as in
you’re it
. He’s kind of a cross between a guru and a rock star. Think Deepak Chopra meets Bono.