Free The Barbarian Nurseries by Héctor Tobar Page B

are high-maintenance, no doubt about it,” the nursery manager concluded, after hearing Maureen describe her garden’s decline. “Probably your succulents are something you wanna look at.” The nursery manager was a sun-blanched woman of about thirty in jeans and a wide-brimmed straw hat, and she led Maureen and her retinue through aisles of potted vincas and roses underneath a canopy of translucent fabric, to a section at the back of the nursery where the sun blazed down on a crowd of mini yucca plants and other succulents filling several tables, alongside some potted cacti that were as tall as Samantha. “Over at our Desert Landscaping location in Riverside we’ve got a spectacular saguaro, five feet tall. A majestic plant, really, a centerpiece to an entire garden. With your succulents, drainage is key. Of course, it’s all low-maintenance once you get it in … For a small fee, we’ll do the landscape design for you.” When you first encountered them, Maureen thought, these plants possessed a menacing aura: the armor of their spines, the short hair of barbs. But their architecture was graceful and sturdy, especially the baby saguaros, with their interlocking arches. Pastel-green was the predominant color, but when you spent time looking at them you noticed subtle variations in hue. Maureen examined a plant that looked something like a desert sea urchin, and detected orange-red highlights in the tips of its spiky arms. They soaked up the noonday rays with the same gusto with which the banana treessoaked up water. “You’re gonna save a ton on your water bill, no doubt about that,” the nursery manager said, as if reading Maureen’s thoughts. “And you’ll save on labor too, because these things practically take care of themselves.”
    “Brandon,
cuidado,”
Araceli said.
    Maureen turned to see her oldest shaking his finger and mouthing the word
Ouch,
and then laughing. “Didn’t hurt,” he said. Yes, Maureen would have to build some small barrier to discourage the boys and Samantha from wandering into the desert garden—if she decided to go ahead and follow her instinct, which told her that replacing the water-starved tropicals with a succulent garden was the perfect solution to her problem. Their thick, sunproof skins would forever remove from her property the humiliation of the Big Man reciting lines about weeds and “gross nature.”
    Walking up alongside Maureen, getting a glimpse of her from the side while trying not to stare, Araceli saw her employer’s eyes focusing. Clearly her
patrona
was planning some big, dramatic statement with these plants. The nursery manager was explaining things and studying Maureen, examining her reactions. The nursery manager could see
la señora
was a moneyed person: Araceli’s Mexican presence trailing behind the children was equivalent to that of a German luxury vehicle, or a piece of gaudy jewelry hanging from Maureen’s neck. Add to the picture Maureen’s regal bearing, the long languorous crescents of her recently styled hair, and her air of pampered distraction, and it came as no surprise to Araceli that the nursery manager was giving her that special treatment
norteamericanos
reserved for people with serious money to spend. She answered Maureen’s questions with “Sure,” “Of course,” and “We could probably do that.” For a moment the unctuous manager added to Araceli’s lingering, growing, and not entirely explicable sense of dread. She didn’t like walking between these armored plants, every one of which was designed to inflict injury, and she didn’t like the anxious and impatient look on the face of her
patrona.
Maureen was pulling at the crescents of her hair again, biting the ends.
    “Well, we’ll be in touch, then,” Maureen said to the nursery manager. After looking absentmindedly at the collection of small succulents arranged haphazardly on the table before her, she turned to Araceli and announced, “Let’s go to the