Blood & Flowers Read Free

a dream, and he always makes enough food for at least a dozen people.
    Lucia and I got out at the Ringley stop, turned right off of Conroy, and took Ringley four blocks to Max and Tonio’s. Four grubby blocks, with squashy trash underfoot and papery trash flying overhead. Nice people, mostly, just not a lot of cash. Still, every once in a while you catch a dust deal going down, like a relic from another time. Usually by the time you turn to face it straight on, the deal’s done and what’s left is a shoe heel, or the tail of a coat disappearing around the side of a Dumpster. But you can catch remnants of what just happened hanging in the air. Things feel, for one long second, a little jittery, a bit jumpy. And you realize for that same long second that you’re holding your breath.
    All of this makes stepping onto the corner ofBarnard, a kind of upscale block in the middle of downscale, feel warm even when it’s cold and rainy. Then you might step into Max and Tonio’s, and the feeling changes all over again, because stepping into their place is like stepping into a circus.
    WHY MAX AND TONIO’S IS LIKE A CIRCUS
    The walls are scarlet and gold, maroon and blue, grass green and Day-Glo yellow.
    The ceilings are so high that the lights can’t get all the way up. I always feel like golden lion tamarins are hiding up there, waiting to swing down on me. Or like there are hidden trapezes.
    Everything looks cheerful. And messy clean. And the place smells like good food and sharp wine and wheat paste glue.
    Confetti shreds of newspaper dance on the floor with pieces of silk ribbons and fake flower petals—leftovers from puppets and masks.
    There’s always music. Sometimes classical (that’s Max), sometimes sad folk (Tonio), and sometimes gypsy caravan guitar (that’s both of them). Nicholas andI switch things over to singer-songwriter and punk when we feel like it. Floss sings long complicated songs about Faerie that I never quite understand. Lucia quietly appreciates all of it.
    When Lucia and I opened the door, Nicholas almost rammed us. “Sorry,” he said, his voice light and breathless. “Mushrooms.” And he clattered down the stairs, leaving a scent of lemon in the air.
    I leaned over the railing to watch him slam out the front door. Nicholas. Preppy law student Nicholas, who loves lighting sets as much as he loves the law, is why I can just look at Lucia and never act. How can the drug droppers’ kid be interested in an almost-lawyer? Who knows? The world’s a mysterious place.
    Lucia and I banged the door closed and I yelled, “We’re here,” and Tonio yelled back, “How many flyers did you get up?”
    Lucia said, “We ran out of paste.”
    â€œBut it’s okay,” I said, “because we got pretty much everything blanketed between Paris and Milan.”
    Floss floated into the dining room and bellowed,“Waxed thread?” Floss’s dandelion hair and almost see-through presence contrast strongly with her dock-worker voice. Some people say Floss is scary strong. When they describe her it’s as if she’s bigger than life, some mythological creature. I don’t get that. To me, she’s just Floss, sort of ethereal and solid at the same time. Still, Floss is not someone you want to upset.
    â€œOops,” said Lucia on a barely blown breath.
    We stood there, looking guilty. Then Max walked into the room. “Where are the mushrooms?” The question was calm. As always, his voice had that lilt that made him sound Jamaican, even though he didn’t have the dreads to go with it. Max shaved his head because “There’s not that much to start with. And because it makes me look tough when I’m boxing.” I always thought he looked kind of like a semisweet chocolate Easter egg, but I kept this to myself.
    â€œMushrooms,” I said, because that one I could answer in a positive,