The Alchemy of Attraction
by Peter Mangiaracina
part 1
“Who are you and what do you want?” snapped the young woman at the door of her cottage. Barely over five feet tall, she had a long vanilla-blonde ponytail and green eyes like Monstera deliciosa leaves. She wore denim overalls over a white V-neck t-shirt and held small flower clippers in her hand.
Her name was Calathea Pomona. I would do anything to be near her.
Even this.
The late spring day was humid, and my prosthetic mask with its full, graying beard felt like it was melting. Sweat pooled under my prosthetic beer gut. I answered with my practiced, craggy voice. “Hello, ma’am. My name is Vince Sylvan. I’m a gardener.”
A lie. My name is Bert. Bert Tumnus. And I’m no gardener.
Calathea waved her hand. “I do all my own gardening.”
“Yes, I noticed you have quite the greenhouse.” I motioned to a large glass structure to the right and toward the back of her little house.
“I’m a botanist,” she said, and snipped her little clippers three times to drive home the point.
“But your lawn and bushes need cutting, ma’am.” I gestured toward the road. “I’ve got my mower and clippers in my truck.”
She shook her head. “No need, no need. I’ll get around to it sooner or later. I have more important things to do right now.” She lowered her eyes, no doubt noticing the battered shoes I’d rescued from the dumpster behind the movie studio, and began to close the door.
I reached my hand out brazenly to immobilize it. “Yes! I’m sure you do!” I exclaimed and took a deep breath. The air was thick with the heady sweetness of spring flowers, a riot of fragrances that even the priciest perfume couldn’t mimic. I nearly forgot what I was going to say.
I shook my head to clear it. “A superlative lawn is an invitation. It says, ‘Walk up my smartly manicured path with its mosaic of pastel stones in red, blue and yellow, and knock on my door. I welcome all visitors.’” I frowned with avuncular admonishment. “An unkempt front yard, young lady, is as blatant as a ‘No Trespassing’ sign.”
Calathea raised the clippers to eye level. “I want it that way. No... trespassing.” SNIP.
I stamped my foot and pumped my arms theatrically. “Surely, no, ma’am! Think of your house!” My throat was irritated from the phoney old-man voice. I coughed. “It has feelings, too. And this lovely cottage is like a warm smile.”
She stepped out onto the porch and looked up. Her little home was festooned with vivid passionflower vines, purple like longing, intermixed with a swathe of Golden Trumpet, yellow like a streak of fear.
She stepped back inside. “I don’t see it. The warm smile. I don’t see it.”
I fiddled with a button on my gray work shirt. “It’s there, ma’am.”
Calathea shrugged. “If you say so.”
“I’m sure you’d see it if you gave yourself the chance.”
“Right! Now, if you don’t mind, I’m busy.”
“Exactly why you need a gardener! You’re much too busy with lofty pursuits to deal with something as mundane as cutting the lawn. Give me the opportunity, ma’am. I’ll even mulch your monardas and mums. I won’t disappoint!”
She was silent for a moment, and then I saw the hint of a smile on her face. “You are persistent. What was your name again?”
“Sylvan. Vince Sylvan.”
She nodded, amused. “Sylvan. From the Latin silva, forest.”
I’d done my research.
She extended her hand. “Hello, Mr. Sylvan. My name is Calathea Pomona.”
I took her hand lightly in my spotty, gnarled claw hoping the makeup wouldn’t rub off on her. Her fingers were like the petals of a pale pink rose, delicate and perfumed.
“You can call me Vince.”
She tilted her head back as if to nod but stopped and wrinkled her brow. “How much will this cost?”
I waved my hand in a wide arc. “The first session is free. If you are satisfied with the results, I’ll leave my card, and you can call me when needed.”
“Very well, then, Vince. Turn my front yard into a welcome sign, as long as you do it without annoying me.”
* * *
By the time I’d finished working in the heat, prosthetic bits were separating from my face. Also, the swell of my fake belly was smothering me, and one of its aluminum buckles was digging into a kidney.
After I stored the mower and electric pruner in the truck, I looked over at the bungalow. Calathea had separated the front window curtains to peek. I waved with a wide, gapped-toothed smile (also prosthetic). She didn’t wave back.
Then my nose fell off. I quickly turned away, caught it, and pressed it back on my face. When I looked over again, Calathea was gone.
* * *
“Aren’t you done with the eyebrows yet, Bert?” said Jeff Torres, my boss.
“Jeff!” I exclaimed, dropping the punching needle. “It takes four hours to construct an eyebrow.”
“You need to hurry up. The props department needs the prosthetics by this afternoon.”
“I can’t work any faster.” I flexed my cramped fingers.
“You’re too meticulous, Bert. Just shove them suckers in there!”
Art and deadlines can’t coexist. I clenched my jaw. “Go away, Jeff,” I said, and returned my attention to the mask created from the face of a lovely actress. She’d sat patiently for hours as we piled on the plaster to make the mold. I owed her the same duty and respect.
She was a character actor, one of those special individuals who had the ability to step into another personality for the duration of a performance. I wondered how they felt when they had to return to themselves again. Did they feel loss, or relief?
Instead of leaving, Jeff sat down next to me, his long, mousy brown hair tumbling over his squinty eyes. His feet barely reached the lower rung of the stool.
He looked around the workshop, then he shifted his weight to the front of the tall chair and leaned in close. “You know Stephanie?” he asked in a conspiratorial whisper.
“Stephanie, the body painter?”
“Yeah, the one who designs the henna tattoos.”
“I’ve seen her around,” I answered, carefully implanting another hair into the eyebrow.
“I think that hottie’s got a special moistness for you.”
I grimaced. “Cut that out, Jeff.”
He sniggered at his turn of phrase. “I heard her describing you to Connie.”
“Who’s Connie?”
“The production assistant.” He licked his lips. “Not so bad herself.”
“Stephanie was telling Connie what I look like. So what?”
“It’s not that,” he said. His eyes widened. “It’s the way she described you. ‘Hunky,’ ‘hot,’ ‘Adonis.’” He laughed, which sounded like annoying bursts of white noise.
I pursed my lips and looked over at him. “Wait a minute! I get it. Let me guess. Stephanie has a friend...”
Jeff rocked his head from side to side. “Well, yeah. I figure, you ask Stephanie out, get her to bring Connie, but casual, you know, drinks, a get-to-know-you kind of thing. I come along, bing-bang-boom.” He clapped his hands once. “Kismet!”
I put down my hair punch and folded my arms. “Why don’t you just ask Connie out yourself? I mean, what am I? Bait?”
Jeff jumped off the stool and clasped his hands together. “Come on, Bert! Do this for me. I’ll owe you one.”
“Self-confidence is a gift you can only give to yourself.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Gee. Thanks, Dr. Phil.”
“Hell! Why do you always have to hide behind me? You do this every time we go out.”
“Not everyone looks like you, dude. Some of us normal guys need a little help. What do you say?”
I grunted, threw up my arms. “Fine! I’ll do it.”
Like hell I would. I had no intention of talking to Stephanie. My tongue quickens like cement in the presence of the gentler sex. I can’t look them in the eye. I can only nod, smile and harrumph at the appropriate markers in a conversation. Five minutes with me and women move on like a cool breeze on a sweltering afternoon.
But just to get Jeff off my back, I said, “The next time I see Stephanie, I’ll feel her out.”
“That’s all I’m asking, man,” said Jeff, relieved.
He walked away rubbing his hands together. I liked the guy, but sometimes he was an irritating homunculus.
My phone chimed. I looked at my screen and smiled. Calathea had just scheduled another session of lawn care.
* * *
The Roman philosopher and statesman, Seneca, once said, “Fate leads the willing and drags along the reluctant.” A few months ago, disregarding my vehement protests, my sister, Virginia, had arranged a date for me with Soraya, a friend of hers who owned a florist shop in North Hollywood. I wrung my hands for a week. I didn’t want to disappoint my sibling, but the thought of cold-calling a woman made my stomach feel like a black hole.
Apparently, Soraya became fed up with my inaction, and little gray bubbles started popping up in my messages app:
Sooooo looking forward to your call.
A few days later:
Keeping my phone charged to one hundred percent.
Finally:
The fresh paint in my living room is drying quite satisfactorily.
Unable to cope with the passive-aggressive goading any longer, I called. Stumbling all over my words, I invited her for coffee. I figured a quick trip to Starbucks for a double shot of espresso and a one-sided conversation while I hid behind a menu would satisfy everyone.
But she was having none of that. I simply had to accompany her to a talk on exotic orchids. I thought: WTF. Not only would I be uncomfortable, I’d also be as bored as a sloth wrangler.
* * *
Soraya was twenty-five, petite and Pilates fit, with short brown hair and hazel eyes. Her great-aunt had left her a successful florist shop. I pieced that description of her together from snippets of her monologues and quick glances, as I kept my head turned the other way most of the time. Women’s eyes frightened me: so deep and wide and sable-dark.
“You are extraordinarily handsome!” Soraya had remarked at one point as we walked from her car to the arboretum. “Why do you keep hiding your face?”
I didn’t respond. The only thing that came to mind was that I only attended Halloween parties, and that sounded daft in my head.
* * *
The flower show so tested the limits of my patience that I wanted to thrust a garden trowel into my superior vena cava.
Occasionally, Soraya would nudge me with an elbow, and I’d turn to her with a wide grin plastered on my face, mumbling words of engagement, bobbing my head like a jolly little sock puppet. It was grueling! And the whole auditorium smelled like a freshly dug grave.
After what seemed like a life sentence fully served, a bespectacled middle-aged woman in a floral print dress (surprise, surprise) who’d been flashing images of flowery things on an electronic whiteboard, suddenly stopped prattling and I heard: “And that concludes our in-depth discussion on the care and feeding of the Paphiopedilum, more commonly known as the Lady Slipper.”
It’s over! Thank God! I rose from my chair and heard my knees crack as if with gratitude, but Soraya put her hand on my arm. “Sit down, Bert. There’s more.”
“More? Oh, shi—” I corrected my tone, smiled with sham enthusiasm. “Ah! More. Of course. How... delightful! More to come. I’m vibrating with anticipation.” I rubbed my hands together.
Soraya giggled and slapped me playfully on the arm. “Oh, shut up. I know you’re not interested in this. But I’m impressed. You’re a real trooper. Sit tight. Just one more speaker, the keynote. Then we can get some dinner.”
I sat and steeled myself for another eternity of incomprehensible botanical blather.
Soraya squeezed my left bicep as if to reassure me. Then she said, “Oh! Mmmm. Sexy muscles. Do you work out?”
“Does anything ever really work out?” I answered, distracted.
Because that’s when I caught it at the corner of my left eye. Something ethereal had glided across the stage from left to right, then paused at the podium. “Thank you all for coming. My name is Calathea Pomona.”
* * *
Soraya told my sister that I possessed the body of an Apollo, the raw sexuality of a Dionysus, but the romantic aptitude of a ghoul at a garden party.
I didn’t care. I busied myself subscribing to every botany and horticulture club from Santa Barbara down to San Diego. I read every society email and took note of whenever Calathea Pomona would speak.
I went to every one of Calathea’s events. I hung on Calathea’s every word. I inadvertently learned a lot about orchids at those gatherings, such as their care and feeding (apparently, they’re very finicky), how much they are like people in their complexity, diversity and adaptation (People? News to me).
After her talks, well-wishers would gather around her. She shook hands. She smiled, dazzling them with blinding incisors, captivating bicuspids. I took note that young men — there weren’t a lot of them at these shows — tried to flirt with her, but she seemed repulsed by any hint of sexual overture. I rehearsed how I would approach her with my guard down, keeping my torso and hips free of any inappropriate body language.
Months later, I finally got up the nerve for first contact. I put on green horn-rimmed glasses to make myself look unthreatening and intellectual. I went to the L.A. arboretum where she was giving a talk on the ghost orchid. I had an interesting question prepared. I sat through the presentation rehearsing it, getting the Latin right, lips moving silently as I sat in my chair, truly quivering this time with anticipation.
When Calathea finished, I went to the front of the stage where she stood beaming and thanking everyone for coming. I awaited my turn. I approached. A group of supporters watched as I took her hand. It felt cold.
Then I dropped her hand, took a deep breath, and spit out the question. “What specific environmental conditions in the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary contribute to the successful pollination of the ghost orchid by the giant sphinx moth, Cocytius antaeus, and how do these conditions impact the orchid’s mycorrhizal associations?”
Slowly, Calathea Pomona’s eyes met mine, but she didn’t seem to be listening. She studied my face, my body. She bit her lower lip and began to tremble. When I’d spat out the last word of my query, she fidgeted, cleared her throat, made little clipper motions with her right index finger and thumb, and tried to speak. Her plump lips opened and shut like those of a hooked carp flopping on the bottom boards of a rowboat, but no sound came out.
Then she spun on her toes and walked away.
Though her reaction might have appeared rude to the casual observer — evidenced by the murmurs of disapproval from the botanists around me — I understood it stemmed from the same conflicting forces of longing and fear that raged daily within me.
The scars. I saw the scars.
* * *
Copyright © 2025 by Peter Mangiaracina
