Free Swarm by Lauren Carter Page B

now,” he said. “The city used to own it. It was built by citizens in the 1800s.”
    We had to pay to get in. Marvin pulled a fold of crumpled bills out of his pocket and handed one of them to the attendant. She took it and gave me a brochure, her smile disappearing as Marvin said, “It used to be free.” A security guard watched us as we went inside, his radio stuttering static.
    Under the curved roof, my eyes crawled up a skinny grey trunk to green fronds sprouting from its top. A palm tree. Plants with wide, ruby leaves grew around its base. Angular orange blooms jabbed out of the foliage. Birds of Paradise , the brochure said. In the sudden humidity I uncoiled the wool scarf from around my neck and shrugged out of my winter coat. It was another season in there. Summer. In the deep, cold hollow of winter, I still think about those gardens. A flickering memory I turn away from as quick as I can.
    â€œYou like it?” Marvin asked.
    â€œLove it,” I breathed.
    He gestured toward a plant with a fat stem amid its wide, flat leaves. A deep purple bloom that looked shiny like it had been greased. “Banana tree.”
    I stared at him, surprised. The tropical plants made a foreign wilderness, entirely unfamiliar. I fingered the edge of a huge waxy leaf, then a red one veined with lime green.
    â€œIt’s beautiful.”
    â€œYeah. But it’s fantasy.”
    The smell of humus and floral perfume reminded me of the farm in early summer. It seemed very real to me. I let go of a white trumpet-shaped blossom and wandered past the poinsettias. In a room for desert plants, a woman was sketching a barrel cactus. With a charcoal pencil, she tapped out the dark thorns. When Marvin started to speak, she looked up. “The only jungle we ever had was white pine,” he said to me. I turned down a trail crowded with yellow hibiscus, pink Allamanda, smoothly barked branches draped with Spanish moss. Fleshy leaves dangled from a hanging succulent, and I squeezed one like an earlobe. Marvin followed closely, whispering, his voice a hiss as his lecture continued. I felt overwhelmed, attached to him, as if every time I moved away whatever was tied between us tugged him along behind me. “Old-growth forests demolished by settlers to make fields for wheat farms that are now suburbs and housing developments like Parthenon’s. We’ve lost hundreds of farms by now, but long before that we had all these huge white pines.” He stretched his arms out to illustrate their girth, but I doubted him. The part of the world that I was from had farm fields all the way to the horizon.
    The outer walls were monochrome, dimmed by winter on the other side. A woman in a red coat stood like a large flower against the grey glass. Gold gleamed around her wrist and her slacks were neatly pressed. She looked up as we went past, Marvin’s voice crackling, and I felt self-conscious, wearing wrinkled, grimy clothes, smelling of sex, sweat, and wood smoke. I looked away, my eyes moving up to the curved panes of the glass dome held together with iron spokes, and I thought about Margo, wondering if I’d see her when I got home, if I’d be able to talk to her about my strange night or if she’d already gone off to work.
    Marvin kept talking, but I wasn’t listening anymore. Irritated, I interrupted him. “I’m hungry,” I said.
    He stopped mid-sentence and stared at me, his mouth slightly open. His arm swung forward, pointing. “There’s another wing.” I hesitated. He stepped closer. “You don’t like it,” he said, reaching for my hand.
    â€œNo, I do,” I said as his thumb slid over my palm and the memory of that morning resurfaced. I let him lead me through the next doorway into a room full of humid jungle.
    â€œImagine this place back then,” I said. “You’re living in this inescapable season and suddenly somebody makes this place and you