Page 39 of My Unscripted Life

Mom climbs the steps and leans back on the railing next to me. She crosses her arms and sighs.

“I know he’s a big star, and that’s got to be really exciting,” she says. “But that can suck all the oxygen out of the room.”

She’s describing the breathless feeling I’ve had so often when I’m with Milo. The feeling that someone is sitting on my chest. But it’s not bad, though. It’s just…a lot.

“I really like him, Mom.”

She pulls me into a hug. “I’m glad,” she says. “But I just don’t want you to forget that you’re a big star, too.”

I take a deep breath and let it out into her shirt, smelling the sweat and dirt that are mixed there. When I lean back, she offers me a small smile.

“You want to help with the yard?” she asks.

“Do I look like I want to help with the yard?”

She laughs, then puts her arm around me as she leads me down the porch steps and into the grass. “Weeding is good for the soul, I promise,” she says.

Well, my soul is in definite need of some TLC. The thing that was distracting me from the misery of my future was Milo, and now that’s not even working. In fact, it’s only adding to the misery. I have no art school, and possibly no boyfriend. My liferocks.

“So how do you tell the difference between the weeds and the actual, on-purpose plants?” I ask.

“Well, mostly it’s a gut thing,” she replies. She plops down in the garden bed closest to the porch, rocking back on her heels in the dirt. “Your eye just goes to the thing that shouldn’t be there. I’ll show you. You’ll pick it up really fast.”

She motions for me to scoot next to her, so I drop to my knees in the soft grass and perch at the edge of the flower bed.

“This,” she says as she runs her hands over the leaves of a big green bush covered in hot-pink blossoms, “is an azalea. Everything popping up beneath it thatisn’tan azalea needs to go.” She points to a patch of clover-looking greenery near the edge of the plant. I reach over, grab the leaves in my fist, and yank. They snap off, and I come away with a fistful of crumpled leaves.

My mom shakes her head. “You want to pull the whole thing out, root and all, otherwise it’ll be back lickety-split.” She takes her thumb and forefinger and sinks them down into the soft brown dirt right at the base of the now-decapitated clovers. She pinches and pulls, and after a second up comes a bright red root system that looks like a jumble of nerves wrapped around a tiny clump of dirt in her hand. She gives the thing a shake, dirt raining back into the small hole where the clovers once were, then tosses the weed, root and all, into a small pile in the grass behind her.

She nods as if to sayNow you,and so I do. I scan the dirt and spot another patch of clovers. Instead of reaching for the leafy green top, this time I push my fingers down into the soil right at the base of the stem. I can feel the cool, damp dirt bury itself into the half-moons of my fingernails, but I ignore it and pull. I’m surprised by the resistance such a scrappy little plant can give, but after putting a bit of muscle into it, the roots let go and out it comes.

I pull all the clovers I can find, and then I start in on the other stuff. Random green fuzzy things and little yellow flowers that Mom says will choke anything else we plant. It feels good, yanking out all the bad stuff. Despite the sweat rolling into my eyes and the Jurassic bugs flying around my head, I find myself grunting and sighing and nearly cheering with each weed I eradicate. I let myself imagine that some of the weeds are Lydia, while others are the hot-pink screen names calling me a skank and a slut and all manner of other ugly words. I close my eyes, visualize, and yank, as if I can rid my life of them as I rid the garden of the weeds.

I work for a while, long enough that I completely lose track of time. I only stop when my pile is overflowing with evil, fuzzy greenery and my knees are whining, telling me they’re done being perched upon, even on the soft grass. I yank one final root, a tough one that doesn’t want to let go. I actually have to plant both feet firmly on the ground and put my back into it, and when the weed finally gives, I topple over onto my butt. I can feel the last remaining moisture in the grass that hasn’t been sucked out by the hot early-morning sun soaking into my shorts. But still, I hold the weed in front of my face and give it a shake.

“Takethat,” I say, tossing it in with the rest.

“When you’re done taunting them, take them over to that yard-waste bag.” Mom points toward the largest paper lunch bag I’ve ever seen. I glance down at my hands, which are caked with dirt, my nails now topped with little black crescents instead of the usual white.

“I was thinking of leaving them here as a warning to the others.” I gesture to the next garden bed, the one we haven’t started in on yet, where I swear I spot a stray dandelion cowering in fear.

“I don’t think so,” she says. She points at the bag again, but she’s got that smile she gets when she finds me amusing, one she tries to suppress to keep me from becoming insufferable. I start gathering the weeds in my hands. I hold them away so the soil won’t streak my shirt, but this just causes me to drop half of them back onto the grass. I give up and gather the whole pile in my arms and hug it to my chest. What do I care, anyway? It’s not like my next stop is dinner or dancing.

Standing, I realize that my knees are none too happy about me sitting on them for the last half hour. I can practically hear them creak as I take a few tentative steps. I stop to flex a few times, feeling like the Tin Man and wishing for my own can of oil.

“Therapeutic, huh?”

“Yeah, not bad,” I say. “What are you needing therapy for?”

Mom hops up from the grass and takes off her gardening gloves, dusting them off on the leg of her shorts before stuffing them into her back pocket. She takes off her hat and swipes at the sweat over her brow. “Oh, the usual,” she says. “Prerelease jitters. Fear of terrible reviews. Worry that I may never write another book ever again.”

I gape at her. “Holy crap, seriously?”

“Well, yeah. What did you think?”

“Uh, that by the time you’re on book seventeen you’re feeling pretty confident in your awesomeness?”

Mom bursts out laughing. “Some days I feel pretty awesome, sure, but others I’m a mess. And it’s not like it’s been a path of rose petals for all seventeen. You remember my fireman series?”

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