Into the Garden (Wildflowers 5)

"It's got to be either pink or a light blue," Misty insisted. "I say we paint it black," Jade suddenly suggested.

"What?" Star said. "Black? Are you crazy? A room painted black?"

"It will be our ceremonial room," Jade continued, walking around the room. "We don't need it to be a bedroom. We'll clear out all this thrift shop furniture and we'll buy pictures and things for our organization."

"Like what?" Star asked.

"I have some ideas, some good ideas," she said, nodding. "Trust me." She turned to us. "Well? Don't you want a ceremonial room? We'll use it for our special meetings and for our private talks. No one will be permitted up here but us. That's a cardinal rule of the OWP's."

"You and your hideaways," Star remarked. Jade stared at her, waiting, impatience firing up her eyes. "Okay, okay, I agree."

"Misty?"

"Sounds ... interesting," Misty said.

"Cat?"

"What are we going to do with the furniture?" I asked.

"We'll give it to the Salvation Army or someone. That's the least of our worries. If we're going to rid this house of Geraldine, we should do it right," she insisted. She nodded and smiled as she looked around. "It will be a perfect special place. Let's get started. Misty, go with Star and get plain, flat black paint, gallons, and more brushes and rollers and pans," she ordered. "Cat and I will empty the dressers and closets and pack up the clothing, except what we think we might need for some reason or another. You were right when you suggested one of us might have to parade around in Geraldine's clothing occasionally.

"Well?" she said when no one moved. "Do we need to take another vote or what?"

Misty looked at me and I looked at Geraldine's bedroom. Black? All the furniture given away? It would be as if she never had existed. I nodded.

"Be careful with the car," I told her. She smiled and looked at Star who raised her eyebrows.

"I don't know what you have in mind, Jade, but it better not be something weird," she warned.

Jade laughed.

"Like what we've already done isn't weird, right?" She stopped smiling. "We've got to keep building ourselves, building our confidence, building our union. We're better than the families we were born into," she said. "Better together."

"I like that," Misty declared. "Better together. A new slogan. I'll get us all T-shirts that say it."

Jade nodded.

"That's it, Misty, now you're thinking like an OWP. Well, Miss Star?" she asked her.

Star shook her head and laughed.

"Are you going to help paint, Miss Beverly Hills, or just watch us work?"

Jade reached for Geraldine's robe that was hanging on the inside of the closet door. She slipped it over her clothing and turned back to us.

"Absolutely," she said.

"Okay. Let's go, Misty, before she realizes what she promised."

They hurried out. Jade turned to me. Geraldine had that robe so long, I couldn't remember when she didn't. I would never even think of putting it on, but Jade had no reason to have my inhibitions.

"Let's start on the drawers. We don't want to throw out anything valuable," Jade said, and I joined her as she pulled out the top dresser drawer and began to pluck Geraldine's clothing like she was plucking feathers. She dropped them almost immediately, as if they were all diseased, and the pile began to build on the floor. When she reached the third drawer, she stopped and turned to me.

"Whoa," she said, "what do we have here?"

"What?"

Slowly, she brought out an exquisitely embroidered sheer silk bra designed with underwire cups.