“Perfect,” I mumble.
“So, uh, I hope you don’t mind rolling with me?”
Yusef stands behind me, dangling the keys to his truck as folks from the meeting pile into each other’s cars.
“All the other cars are full,” he explains. “We weren’t expecting a new member today.”
“Rolling . . . where?” I ask.
“For today’s project. We’re planting some trees on the freeway.”
“Oh, uhhh . . . sorry. Maybe another time.”
Yusef frowns, his voice turning serious. “Yo, that’s how it works, Cali. You volunteer, you get free use of the tools and all the compost and soil you want. So, you coming, or nah?”
I weigh my options with a huff. “You got leather seats?”
FACT: Bedbugs prefer cloth to leather.
We drive a few minutes in silence and I’m once again wishing alcohol was my drug of choice so I didn’t have to jump through all these damn hoops. I hate hangovers and beer looks like foamy piss.
But I don’t mind going for a ride, gives me a chance to really take in my surroundings—the trash in the abandoned lots, crumbling old churches, rubble of foundations peeking through tall weeds. For the briefest moments, I forgot I’m not on vacation, that I actually live here, in a whole other city, miles away from everything and everyone I’ve ever known, among the wreckage of . . . what? I’m not even sure. It’s like a bomb exploded here that no one ever reported.
“Guessing you decided to start that garden after all,” Yusef says.
“Uh, yeah,” I admit, scratching my arm, out of habit.
“Well, my offer still stands. You gonna need a good cultivator to work that yard. We don’t have one in the shed, but you can borrow mine from home.”
I’m about to blow him off when it hits me: I need him. He knows how to work the land around here. Probably the best resource I could ask for next to Google.
“Yeah, that’d be cool. Thanks. And I, uh, sorry that it’s all . . . weird and stuff at school. It’s just that I’m new and really don’t want any trouble, you know?”
He follows the caravan of cars down the freeway. “Yeah, I get it, I guess.”
I laugh. “You guess that seventy-five percent of the girls in our high school want you? Humble flex.”
He smirks, turning up his music. “It’s not as cool as it looks.”
Closer to downtown, we pull off near a stadium, parking behind a large truck with eight new baby trees in the bed. The garden club starts unloading stacks of soil and tools. From this position off the freeway, we’re closer to those large gray cement blocks I saw when we first arrived in Cedarville.
“Hey, what are those buildings over there?” I ask Yusef. “They’re, like, really huge! Are they factories?”
Yusef follows my gaze and his smile drops, jaw tightening.
“Those are prisons,” he says, hard.
“ALL of them?”
He snatches a shovel out of the truck bed, storming away. “Yeah.”
The garden club spends the afternoon digging deep holes and planting the new trees along the freeway exit, the place looking instantly better for it. It’s kind of nice, doing something useful, being a productive member of society rather than a screwup. Or at least how I feel, how my parents’ disappointment makes me feel. They don’t say it, but I know. It’s written on their faces.
Yusef is quiet, keeping his back to the blocks as we work. He strips off his hoodie and . . . damn. Dude is kinda ripped under that tank top.
Stop staring, you idiot!
When we’re done, he gives me a tired smile. “Ready to go home?”
Yusef’s tree-lined block is almost identical to ours, except the houses aren’t abandoned relics. They’re well lived in, peaceful, the porches perfect inviting spots for some fresh mint iced tea. But the calm is interrupted by the reverend’s eerie voice, blaring out of open windows.
“And I say unto you, be mindful of sinners dressed like angels. For they will take you on a wrong path.”
Yusef’s house is in the middle of the block, a brown one-story colonial with a picture-perfect lawn, lush front garden, and a birdy on the mailbox. I recognize Mr. Brown’s truck in the driveway, dripping dry after a recent wash.
“Is that the new girl?” Mr. Brown emerges from the shadows, wiping off his hands. “Thought I recognized you.”
“Hi, Mr. Brown.”
“Well, come on in. Want a pop?”
Inside is a sweet, homey trip to the past. A jar full of strawberry hard candies and white Life Saver mints greet us at the door. Pictures in brass gold frames hanging in the wallpapered hallway. A canary-yellow sofa set with a pea-green recliner facing an old TV, where I can see the top of a brown bald head as Scott Clark’s voice bellows . . .
“Are you of faith? Are you of healing? Trust in the Church of Jesus Christ. . . .”
“Who’s that there?” a rusty voice asks.
At first, I thought the old man was referring to Clark, but he swivels his recliner in my direction.
“Pop-Pop, this is Marigold,” Yusef says. “Family just moved over on Maple.”
The old man gives me a once-over. “Maple Street, huh? Humph.”
Mr. Brown comes out of the kitchen with two cans of ginger ale.
“Here you go. You can have a seat.”
The couch looks like it’s from the early 1980s—worn cloth with a fading flower pattern. My throat tightens; I scratch my arm.
“Uh, no thanks. I’m good standing.”
“Don’t be giving away my ale!” Pop-Pop hollers with a hacking cough.
“Relax, Pop! We got plenty.”
“Thank you,” I say with a small smile, nodding in the old man’s direction. He snarls and returns to his programs.
“Hear testimony from one of God’s loyal children . . .”
The screen cuts to an image of a Black woman speaking on camera, seemingly at one of those megachurches with hundreds of people surrounding her.
“I was in debt for forty thousand dollars. I was dead broke and didn’t have anyone to turn to. Then one day, I called the number and planted my HOLY SEEDS just like Pastor Clark told me. Three weeks later they began to grow; next thing I knew I had forty thousand dollars in my account and God almighty, I was saved!”
The crowd cheers before the camera cuts back to Scott Clark behind his desk.
“You see that, children? GOD can move mountains! He is a deliverer! Cast away your sins and put all your trust in him and his prophets. I would not lead you astray. Trust me.”
Mr. Brown chuckles, returning to the kitchen. “Better get dinner started before he starts hollering about that too.”
I snort and whisper to Yusef, “What’s up with the creep show?”
“Who? Pop-Pop?”
“No! That Scott Clark dude.”
Yusef focuses on the TV and stiffens. “Oh, him. And his ‘Holy Seeds.’”
“Yeah, what’s his deal?”
He sighs. “Okay. It’s like this: you call Scott Clark’s hotline and put in an order. They send you this envelope that contains a pack of seeds and a letter that specifically tells you how to plant and water them. Even this prayer you gotta say over them. In return, you send the envelope back with your ‘joyful’ donation. The bigger the donation, the larger the blessing. If your seeds don’t grow, you ain’t praying and paying hard enough.”