Chapter 2
I have a new boyfriend, see. His name is Josh Hogan, and he’s a reporter at the local TV station. I won him. No, really. The news show did a Cleveland takeoff on The Bachelor, and Josh was the bachelor, because he’s the best-looking of all their reporters. And he’s a bachelor, of course. So there was this whole weekend where he hung out with a bunch of bachelorettes, two cameramen taping every moment. Faith was visiting, and you know Faith. She had us both signed up before I could tell her to go jump in a lake. She was pretty sure she was going to win– she’s confident that way. But it didn’t take too long to figure out that Josh wanted more from a girl than two impressive breasts and three double entendres and four unbuttoned blouse buttons. He wanted, he said right upfront, a girl he could take home to meet his mother.
Well, Faith’s not dumb. She knew at that moment that she was not the Bachelor’s ideal Bachelorette. But she decided I was. And so she set about sabotaging the other contestants. I had an inkling what was going on– I mean, all those other girls having PMS the same moment and getting into a catfight? I don’t think so. I think she was riling them up, the way she did with the slayerettes when she wanted to take over leadership. Maybe it helped, I don’t know. Josh told me later that he knew from the first moment I was the one for him, and he just talked with the other girls for the sake of the show. I believe him. I mean, I felt it from the start too– a specialness between us. Like we were soulmates or something. Like we communed on some deep level. You know. All that stuff.
The show was just supposed to end with him choosing (me) and a fancy dinner at a restaurant that had paid dearly for the publicity. But the next day he called me, and we’ve been going out ever since. It’s really nice. It’s like how I felt when I was first dating Riley, that there really was a chance for me to be normal, to have a normal relationship with a normal guy. Not that Josh is just normal. I mean, he is good-looking in a great All-American way, like so many of the guys here in Ohio. He’s kind of a big guy, so he makes me feel nice and petite. He’s got big brown eyes and a wide smile, and his hair is dark and flops over his forehead, and he’s always pushing it back. Messing it up. He’s not the usual blow-dried TV reporter, believe me. But he’s a great listener, which I guess is a useful trait when he does interviews. Sometimes I find myself telling him really personal things, like how I resent Dawn because Mom loved her better (not more– Mom wouldn’t love her more… but they got along so much better). And how I thought maybe I had a learning disability or something, because I always did so well on standardized tests but never got grades good enough for the honor roll.
I haven’t told him about being a Slayer. I mean, that would open up all that stuff rational college graduates like him wouldn’t believe– vampires and demons and ….
Anyway, I’ve told him all sorts of other private things. So it’s not like I don’t trust him.
He just has two hours between finishing the evening news and doing standups for the late news. So we just go to dinner at a restaurant near the station. We eat Italian, and I go ahead and have several pieces of garlic bread, because he’s got to work and won’t be coming home with me tonight. So it’s okay if I reek.
Besides, I think, it’ll keep the vampires away. Except that is just a myth. Or at least that’s what Spike used to say as he ate handfuls of Dawn’s special garlic-butter popcorn. Garlic didn’t bother him, he always said, plus it seriously lowered his blood cholesterol.
That was Spike’s idea of a joke. Dawn’s too. She just laughed and laughed.
Josh is asking me something about my day, and I almost tell him about the garden, and then I realize that he’ll probably ask to see it, and — and I don’t want to take him there. I tell myself it’s because I don’t want him speculating how I got it. But really, it’s because the garden is my place. Just mine. Just for me.
So instead I tell him about the history exam, and about my Napoleon-worshipping professor, and eat garlic bread. And when we come out of the restaurant, we have to run to his car, because it’s started to rain.
The next day, I end up taking Xander there. It’s noon, and he’s on his lunchbreak, so when he meets me there, he’s got a burger in his hand, and a french fry sticking out of his mouth. I unlock the door and ask him to look at the work on the planters and the trellis– who could do that, and when it was done. And that waterfall. He starts walking along the perimeter of the garden, pausing here and there to touch a planter box, to test a joint.
“What do you think of the workmanship?”
He shrugs. “Amateur. But it gets better. See?”
I rise and join him by a raised area held back by railroad ties. “What?”
He points to the juncture between two pieces of wood. “He’s learning. Back there, he couldn’t get the joints flush. But now, he’s figured it out. Got some potential.”
I see the same thing with the planting. The gardener must have started along the back wall, because that’s where the beds are the most disorderly. It looks like he got a bunch of seeds mixed up and just gave in and jammed them into the ground all willy-nilly. The colors even clash– red and purple all mixed together.
But over there, by the door, there’s this cool effect, like a rainbow of pansies, yellow and then pink and then red and then purple, the colors easing into each other and intensifying, so that the last bunch of them is almost black.
“What about the waterfall?” I ask. “There must be some connection to electricity and water.”
Xander bends over the pond, his hand plunged into the water as he feels around in the piping. “Well, let’s just say you’re not going to get a bill from the water company.” He yanks his hand out and shakes it, sprinkling water on the hydrangea bush. “Or the electric company.”
“What do you mean?”
He squints at me through the noon sun. “It’s tapped into the water main that runs along the street. And the power line– hijacked.”
Oh, no. Here I am, committing felonies probably without even knowing it. “How is it done?”
Xander shrugged and dried his hand off on his jeans. “It isn’t really hard. I’ve done it myself, back when we put that shower in at Spike’s.”
Oops. I can see the appalled expression in his eyes. He probably just remembered that we don’t say that name out loud. They all think– well, I don’t know. That I can’t hear that name. But I can. Really. I just don’t say it myself. I try to make this casual. No big deal. “So you tapped into the city water main?”
Xander looks relieved that I’m not having a violent reaction. “Yeah. Plus we got electricity and cable in there too.”
I can do casual. I just don’t say his name, see. “Did you get paid for this?”
“Uh, sure.” Xander pauses, and I can tell he’s trying to figure out how to say this without, you know, mentioning the name. “I got paid $100. Plus, uh, the first Lord of the Rings DVD.”
“Oh,” I say carelessly, dropping onto my bench. “Well. Am I in danger of arrest?”
Xander shakes his head. “The amount is pretty minimal. They’ll put it down to the usual leakage. I gotta run, hon– late for work.”
And he goes to his car, ducking a little as he exits the low doorway, and I’m left there thinking about this garden and the generous felon, whoever he is, who made it for me.
Quick, I jump up and run out onto the street. “Xander!”
He stops halfway into his truck cab. “Yeah?”
“Did you teach him how to do that? Tap into the city utilities?”
Xander leans against the roof of the pickup and studies me for a minute before he replies. “I guess we figured it out together. You know how it goes. I had the technical know-how, and he had the criminal instincts.”
“A great team.” I laugh kind of carelessly. At least I hope it sounds careless. “But he ended up knowing how to do this, right? After you were done?”
He pauses again. Then, gently, he says, “Buffy, he’s dead. Three times over. Remember? Angel told Giles. Said he’d been killed in some big battle, along with Wes.”
I toss my head. Carelessly. “Of course I remember. It’s not like something I’d forget. But–”
“I know what you’re thinking. That he came back before.” His voice got real soft. “And you didn’t try to reach him then. So maybe you’re feeling a little guilty–”
“I don’t feel guilty!”
“I recognize the signs, Buff.” He shakes his head. “I used to have these dreams about Anya. Every night. Only they didn’t feel like dreams. They were completely rational, not crazy at all. We had conversations exactly like we’d have if she actually came back– conversations about death and what it felt like, and about our future. Me apologizing for treating her bad. I–” He sighed. “I didn’t tell anyone. But I thought it was her ghost.”
“What happened?” I whisper this.
“When I moved here, it just stopped. I needed to get away, see, for my subconscious to let go.”
Or maybe– but I can’t say it. I can’t say that maybe Anya’s spirit can’t find him now. That would be too awful to think about, Anya’s spirit waiting there in California, waiting for him. So I just say, “Grief is a funny thing sometimes.”
“Yeah. But we got to let go eventually. Can’t stay tied to the past. It’s not what they would have wanted for us. You got someone new. Don’t screw it up the way I always do.” He adds, “I got to get back to work. And you got to get to class. Maybe the garden is just a gift, Buffy. From the universe. Just accept it and enjoy it.” He starts to get into the driver’s seat, and then emerges for a moment. “Oh, and prune back that hosta, okay? It tends to take over if you aren’t ruthless with it.”
I watch him drive away, and slowly make my way back into the garden. I sit down on a planter box, next to the hydrangeas, and I think about having someone new. Xander is right. I don’t want to be like he is, always wrecking a relationship before it even gets started. He’s got this habit of getting drunk on the third date and telling the woman all about Anya and how he left her at the altar and then she died– and you can’t blame the woman for being unavailable for his calls from then on.
But I don’t have to worry about that. I’m not going to embarrass Josh by going on and on about how guilty I feel about Spike. No worry about that.
I reach over and pick a petal out of the dirt, and see something there. Fresh rake marks.
But it rained last night. I got wet running for Josh’s car, and then when I got ready for bed, I could still hear the pelter of drops on the roof, and it didn’t stop till right before I fell asleep.
The gardener must have been here after that. He must have been here within the last twelve hours. Raking and pruning and picking up fallen petals in the dark. In the cool rain-smelling dark.
I close my eyes and became the slayer. I feel around me, feel for the presence. But the fragrance of flowers all around distracts me. I can’t feel anything.