(no subject)
A day after Seymour’s first kiss, a call comes in from TIME magazine. They’re going to do an article on the plant. “You might even get cover,” the reporter, James Gilson, says. “The plant’s photo-friendly.”
(It isn’t very photo-friendly now - its vines are turning brown. It’s been barely two weeks since the dentist, but the plant grew from five feet to nine. Bigger body, bigger appetite.)
“We should start looking at agents,” Mushnik tells him that night over dinner (roast chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and carrots - not frozen good, actual vegetables that Mushnik steamed himself). “Eddy and I were talking; he said we could probably get some reality TV show type deal.”
Sometimes Mushnik’s poker buddies have some good ideas. Seymour looks up agents on the Internet - he goes to an Internet café nearby instead of the library. He writes down a few phone numbers and addresses. The café’s clientele are mostly college kids who sip trendy coffees (double-shot expresso no foam frappe grande something somethings) as they look at Youtube videos and update their ‘blogs’. With contact lenses and some new clothes, Seymour feels he could be one of them.
He mentions this to Audrey as they close up shop and she claps her hands together gleefully.
“Yes! We’ll take you from geek to chic! Seymour, this is your best idea ever!” Seymour didn’t suggest anything, but isn’t about to mention that. “I’ll bring some magazines in tomorrow then we can go shopping on the weekend. I’ll be your Stacy London!” Seymour looks at her blankly, but she’s too enthused to notice.
He and Audrey have slipped quickly back into the roles of being friends. It’s comfortable, it’s normal, it’s their foundation. Audrey seems to be feeling better, and Seymour’s been getting to sleep lately, so he certainly is. They give no indication, to Mushnik or each other, that they kissed.
Apparently Twoie gets bored of that - a few minutes after Audrey proposes their shopping trip, she trips on a vine and goes flying at Seymour. He staggers under her weight. Their foreheads slam together.
“Shit!”
“Goddamit!”
“Are you okay?” They rub their foreheads, then each other's, then Seymour brushes his fingers over her cheek and her’s tickle his neck as they remind themselves that they’re building on their foundation.
Seymour has nerves in his skin that he never knew existed. He has blood vessels, too; his face is burning. Audrey’s begins to colour as their hands keep moving - she gives a nervous giggle, replied to by his faint chuckle. They’re close, they’re touching, and suddenly kissing in the middle of the store is the only way to go from here.
His fingers slide through her hair as he presses closer to her. Her lips twitch in a smile as her tongue slips into his mouth. He has no idea what to do in response, but catches on after a few moments of demonstration.
He hears the noise she makes, like a kitten’s purr, in the back of her throat, hears his enthusiastic grunt-
-- hears the door to the back open, then silence, and Seymour should do something about it but finds he just can’t-
-- hears Mushnik bellow, “Keep it out of the store!”
Seymour’s “Sorry, sir!” is quick and sheepish; Audrey’s is quick but not terribly concerned, and when she turns away from Mushnik she rolls her eyes. Seymour loves her even more for that.
“That is so weird,” Audrey comments before she leaves. “I was sure that vine wasn’t there a second ago.”
Once she’s left, Seymour sends Twoie a glare. What the hell was it thinking? Then again, he can’t argue with the result.
During the commercial break for ‘Deal or No Deal’, Mushnik tells his son, “Seymour, you be careful with that girl.”
“Sir?” The word is terse. Seymour doesn’t glance from the screen, but thinks he can feel Mushnik glance at him.
Mushnik gives an unimpressed grunt. “Her boyfriend’s gone barely two weeks and here she is throwing herself at you. That’s the definition of ‘rebound’, right there. And coming from the kind of relationship she did-”
“I don’t care,” Seymour says in someone else’s voice; he’s never been this terse, this cold. “I just…want her.”
“Ah, yes, I forgot, you’re young and you’re in love.” And stupid, his tone says. “That solves everything, of course. Silly for someone with decades more experience with women to give the tiniest objection!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Seymour tells the screen. “We’re together now, and I’ll do anything to keep it that way.”
Mushnik is silent for a while, then comments, “Some people are like black holes; they suck in everything around them. I should know, I married one and managed to get out after eight grueling years. I see a lotta Sophia in our girl Audrey.”
She is NOT OURS. “Maybe you’re wrong, sir. Ever consider that?”
“Don’t talk back to your father,” Mushnik growls.
For once, Seymour breaks their rule of ending conversations when the show they’re watching comes back on.
“You know, I honestly thought you’d be happy for me when I told you.” The boy’s not gay, ‘least he’s getting some - those are the things you care about, dad.
“Any other girl, and I would be.”
Jealous, dad? Seymour opens his mouth to say that, but at the last minute decides that watching ‘Deal or No Deal’ is better than continuing their confrontation.
*
Three days after his conversation with Mushnik, the prof from the University of California’s agricultural department stops by. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” Seymour apologizes profusely, “things have been so busy, I totally forgot you wanted to take a look at Twoie.”
The prof - Darren Van Linge, mid-forties, receding hairline, bit of a cold - examines the plant with wide green eyes. “Amazing,” he murmurs. “What kind of supplements do you use?”
Seymour rattles off the brands he’s always named. Mr. Van Linge, like Officer Warkentin, takes a lot of notes. Seymour’s gaze tracks the pencil as it moves across the page.
The prof frowns. “Don’t believe I’ve heard of Nutri-Fine.”
Seymour remembers that he made that one up. He wants to grab the notebook and throw it away. Maybe he could spill something on it? “New on the market.”
“Huh.” Seymour’s lies have always been easy to accept until proven otherwise - and Mr. Van Linge can so easily prove otherwise.
“Could I see what you feed it?” Seymour replies that he was just going on a supply run later today. “Oh, too bad, I’ll have to stop by another time. Mind if I take a look at the composition of the soil?” Of course Seymour doesn’t. Mr. Van Linge takes a Tupperware container out of his car and puts some soil into it. “I hope I won’t have to pay five dollars to take some pictures,” Mr. Van Linge jokes, and Mushnik replies that that’s only for customers, so the prof takes quite a few pictures.
“I’d very much like to take a clipping to study further-”
“No!”
Audrey, the customers in the store, and Mushnik behind the counter glance at him. Too many eyes. Can’t speak, can’t think, can’t do anything….
“What’s wrong with letting him take a clipping?” Mushnik demands.
“I-I-I just…I mean, I’m just worried, any little thing, and it’s already not-not doing so great….” He gestures feebly to the browning vines.
“Yes,” the prof says thoughtfully, “I’d noticed the discoloration.” The green eyes look him over agaim; his expression gentles. “Mr. Mushnik, I assure you, a small section of your plant won’t harm it in any way. It might help us determine exactly what it needs to stay at full health.”
How can Seymour say no to that? He cringes as Mr. Van Linge scrapes off a piece of the stem - but Twoie does nothing. Van Linge continues with a leaf, then part of a vine, and finally the pod.
The prof looks the plant over one more time. “Has this pod ever opened?”
Seymour shakes his head, unable to speak coherently if he wanted to.
“Here’s my cellphone number if you’d like to reach me. I’ll contact you when the results come back from the lab - I’ll make a few calls and get this fast-tracked. You should be hearing from me in a week or two.”
Seymour nods and manages a smile.
Mr. Van Linge blows his dripping nose into a handkerchief - Seymour thought people only used those in those old-time movies Mushnik likes him to watch - which he folds into his suit pocket. “Ugh, sorry. Well, Mr. Mushnik, thank you for your time. And good luck.”
That night, after Mushnik goes to sleep, Seymour slips upstairs and looks Van Linge up in the phone book. There are a few of them in L.A., three of them Ds.
“You got his cellphone number,” Twoie says. “You can call him. Invite him over.”
“Yeah, I could-wait, what do I say? Tell him I’m having trouble with the plant and please meet me at the store at midnight?”
“Don’t have to be midnight. How ‘bout during Mushnik’s poker game? You call the prof up, bawling about how you can’t fix your poor plant and you’ve got no one else to turn to….”
“That sounds good,” Seymour realizes. “Or I could schedule an appointment for then, too.”
“Now you’re thinkin’,” the plant replies.
Seymour feels the prof’s phone number burning a hole in his back pocket. He leans back in his chair behind the counter, examining the ceiling. Shaun Mullin’s “Lullaby” plays softly on the radio (she can't let go and she can't relax / and just before she hangs her head to cry / I sing to her a lullaby / I sing everything's gonna be all right / rockabye rockabye / everything's gonna be all right / rockabye rockabye rockabye).
“It doesn’t feel right,” he mutters eventually, looking back at Twoie. “It feels more wrong than the last one, and that felt pretty wrong.” Felt - past tense. It only bothers him now when he wakes up from the nightmares.
(A purple face and bulging eyes, pointed teeth glowing in the light of a dance club. Audrey is trapped next to the head, struggling against fingers twisted around her arm like vines. She screams, but Seymour is riveted to the chair watching blood trickle from the black shirt underneath that gasping, wheezing head….)
“Mr. Van Linge didn’t do anything,” Seymour continues. “Just his job.”
“His job is gonna expose us! Those samples he took are loaded with nutrients taking from what I fucking eat! Is that your big plan? Just let this guy do his job and ruin your life? In jail, you’ll be somebody’s bitch so fast it won’t be funny. Go from Audrey to Bubba. You can’t get cold feet now, boy!”
“He seems nice,” Seymour mutters. “Probably got a wife and kids.”
The plant sighs. “You want people to find out what you’ve done? Mushnik and Audrey and the Krelborns?”
“No,” Seymour breathes, chilled at the very thought. It’s the Krelborns’ disappointment he thinks of first, though the plant mention them last, Horace’s disappointed face and Wanda crying like she did on the night before they gave him away.
“I’ll do it, I’ll do it, I’ll do it,” he chants in a whisper.
“Soon,” Twoie adds.
“Soon.”
Seymour takes a deep breath. “How many more will you need after this one?”
The plant lifts his vines in a shrug. “I don’t know any more about me than you do.”
Seymour takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes.
“Speaking of being exposed,” Twoie says and Seymour’s eyes spring open. “While you were downstairs watching TV, Daddy came up here and checked the gun.”
“Guns need to be cleaned,” Seymour replies, not seeing how the two thoughts connect.
“This wasn’t cleaning. This was definitely checking.” The plant pauses, tilting its head lightly to one side the way it does when it’s considering something. Finally, it says, “You shoulda seen the look he gave you when you and Audrey were going at it. Like a man figuring something out.”
“I’m not hearing this,” Seymour murmurs, gaze darting to a spot on the wall he keeps covered because he knows what’s underneath it. “No. It doesn’t mean anything. He was looking at the gun, all right? People look at things all the time. The police haven’t come back-they don’t suspect. I cleaned everything. I-things’re fine.”
“Just letting you know,” the plant says.
Seymour nods, feeling weightless and disjointed, hearing a whistled version of Luck Be A Lady play in his head.
“They’re fine,” he repeats.