“Do you have an EpiPen?” Frantically, I search his pockets, noticing the silver MedicAlert bracelet beside his watchband. I don’t find the EpiPen, but I do find his cell phone. I dial nine one one.
It rings once, twice, three times. Why doesn’t anyone answer?
As the phone continues to ring, my nose guides me to the sting, which is right under his bicep. There’s a deep scratch mark where he failed to remove it. The black stinger sits just under the skin. Carefully, I dig it out with my fingernail.
Ring. Ring. “What is your emergency?”
“My friend got stung by a bee. He’s allergic.”
“What is your location?”
“Arastradero Park, about a hundred yards from the giant lemonade bushes.”
“Thewhat?”
I look wildly around me for another landmark. “We’re in a grove of gum cannabis.”
“Cannabis? Is this a crank call?”
“Oh no, not that variety . . . Er, east of the tennis courts? Hundred feet from a water fountain?”
She pauses for at least four seconds. “Okay. I’ve dispatched the ambulance.”
After I answer more questions, we hang up.
“You’re okay,” I tell Court. “They’ll be here soon. I need to fetch something.”
Court’s eyes are bloodshot and watering. I pillow his head with his sweatshirt. Dumping the lichen out of my specimen jar, I scurry off in search of plantain weed, which grows everywhere except when you’re looking for it. I try to follow the scents but the lemonade bushes and buckwheats are interfering, and an uneven breeze stirs everything together.
I drop to my knees and sniff the ground. Got it. The zesty trail leads me to a strong patch just a few yards from where I harvested the lichen.
Court’s nearly unconscious when I return. Fighting down panic, I stuff plantain leaves into the jar, add stones, then shake the whole thing to release their oils. I pull my sleeves down to cover my hands and lift his head onto my lap. Then I undo the jar and hold the opening to his mouth and nose, praying the anti-inflammatory weed will reduce the swelling.
At last, his chest moves a fraction, and soon he’s breathing in short shallow breaths. I set the jar back down. Sweat trickles into my eyes and I wipe it away with my sleeve. His bicep is taut and curved, even at rest. I take a plantain leaf and hold it against his bee sting, being careful not to touch my skin to his, even though I already touched him to get out the stinger. I’ll take care of that later.
I listen hard for the wailing of an ambulance. His head feels heavy and hot in my lap, and I shift around to get comfortable. It strikes me that this is the closest I have ever come to a boy, much less one so popular. His pheromones pelt my nose from all angles; it’s like being hit by a confetti canon.
Court moans and turns his head to one side.
“Can you hear me? Court?” I should talk to him. But what about? I could ask him some questions.
Right. Poor guy can barely breathe, let alone answer questions.
I could do something to distract him from his pain until help arrives. Sing? Dance? Tell a joke? If I did any of those, I might make things worse. Maybe I could tell him a story, if only I could think of one. Well, I do know one.
My throat has gone dry and I swallow hard to get my voice working again. “My mother says we’re related to the Queen of Sheba. You see, the queen gave King Solomon rare spices for the chance to pick his brain, which led to the world’s first power couple. They had a son, and when he began to crawl, they discovered he could sniff out a single poppy seed stuck in a hundred-foot-long carpet.”
A siren wails. The paramedics will be here soon. Time for the neutralizing mist, which Kali dubbed Boy-Be-Gone, or BBG for short. When you live and breathe flowers, it’s not just the bees who are drawn to you. If I touch individuals predisposed to liking me—most often boys, but sometimes girls—residuefrom the thousands of elixirs Mother and I create transfers off my skin, like the dust from a moth’s wing, causing attraction. It’s why I always wear hats and long sleeves in public, though I draw the line at gloves, which would just make me look like a germaphobe. BBG nixes any mushy feelings that may arise from contamination by this “aromateur’s pollen.”
From my bag, I pull out a crystal atomizer that fits into my palm and is as small as a perfume bottle. My finger feels for the pump, and just as I’m about to spritz, Court’s eyelids flutter open. I catch my reflection in his startled eyes, bewitched and bewildered, like I was the one bitten.
“I, I—” Closing the door on my doubts, I spray. One dose lasts a lifetime.
He watches the beads of mist float in the air. A gentle breeze carries some of them away. He turns his puzzled eyes to me.
“It’s just something I, er, do. It’s calming. I feel calm. Don’t you feel calm?” Living with a human polygraph, my mother, means I lie as well as grass.
I hear the chatter of girls and raise my voice. “Hello?” Maybe someone can flag down the ambulance when it comes. “Can someone help me?”
