May had only one sexual fantasy—and it was impossible. She wanted to make love in the Lincoln Park Conservatory, in the little water pond filled with spare change under the trees decades old. But of course she couldn’t do that. It was a public place, and she was crazy, but not that crazy.
It was really the opposite of erotic, it was about the safety and comfort and beauty of it all. It was the closest thing to cleanliness she found in the city; its air was fresh and heavy with carbon dioxide and H20, vomited up from the pores of the exotic and silent plants. Whenever she went there she felt happy and thankful.
She went to the conservatory out of the exhaust fume muck of early city spring, when the snow-mud hadn’t cleared from the curbsides and under the shrubbery. It was desolate in the park that weekday afternoon, and she walked down the brick cobblestones of the glass-domed conservatory path happy not to have another’s pace to slow her down. She stopped occasionally to read the small brass label signs in the botanical language that lay-people think they can link to popular names.
“What a gigantic elephant plant,” echoed a male voice in a twang. From the boots, silver belt buckle, and buxom big hair sidekick, they looked like a pair of Texans on vacation here to check out the Chicago Merc. May quickened her pace so as not to be encountered. She knew it was actually a split-leaf philodendron, Philodendron bipinnatifidum, native to Brazil. She browsed through the pre-historic fern room and into the special exhibits area.
An older man with soft red hair and large ears stooped over a small flowering tree. In his hands were a pair of bent pruning shears. His head popped up as May inched in the room.
“We’re closed now,” he said, in a bouncing germanic accent.
“Oh no, I missed it.” May took in the whole room in. “It looks like World War three.”
Scattered all around the room were azalea blossoms, fuchsia and Maybelline pink, chablis and jungle red. It was as if the island of Hawaii had sent them as a gag gift with a note reading “Acme Instant Leis.” An explosion of fallen petals patterned the floor, the wish-ponds, and the Dutch man’s heavy work boots.
“It’s over now. It’s past their time.”
“I know how they feel.” She half-smiled, her stomach twisting and recalling all the shit she’d been through lately, and how stupid she felt about it all. She knew she had to forgive herself and move on, but she didn’t quite know how.
“Did you see it?” His smile was charming, meek and hopeful.
“No,” said May. “I saw the last special exhibit, though…”
“Christmas? The poinsettias?”
“No. The mums.”
“November,” he nodded his head dejectedly and set down his tool. He cupped his hands around a clay pot, filled with a bright round burst of blooms.
“Here. Take this,” he said.
“I couldn’t possibly,” said May.
“Last one standing. It has a few more days, I think.”
“No, really. I’d just kill it. I just like to come here and see the good work you do,” said May, thinking what a hassle it would be to carry the plant home.
“Tanks,” he said, not pronouncing the “th.” But he still held the gift in his hand.
“Keep it for next year, I’ll back and visit it then.”
“Please,” he said, all heart, pushing the pot towards May, who shrugged it and him away and escaped unburdened.
***
Later, standing in a shower that kept on running hot and then cold, May thought that she probably should have taken the gardener’s azalea.