If They Had All Practiced JEFFREY PENDO
“And what does the power of hope mean to you?” Cassie looked around. The porte cochère reached off the side of the Wrigley mansion–home to the Tournament of Roses–like a stray limb, the old Italian architecture giving way to an addition that looked like a bunker. Behind her, dozens of girls lined up beneath the arbor in the rose garden, and she wondered if they had all practiced their smile in the mirror. Each rose had a label beneath it. Sweet Surrender, Sexy Rexy, Gold Marie, Crowd Pleaser, Miss All-American Beauty. She imagined pruning the roses, clipping them down to the roots and watching them bloom again. It was like a Monet piece she’d seen at the Norton Simon. Birds of paradise and sundresses, floating in a sea of floribunda. She wondered if all those seventeen-year-olds thought they would be the Rose Queen, parading through Pasadena on New Year’s Day. Maybe some of them were aiming to be a princess, or some just wanted a ticket to the dance. Cassie just wanted the scholarship. She looked at Sydney next to the KTLA van parked on the grass, entertaining a reporter, before returning her gaze to the panel of adults in front of her. “I think hope is about, um, always believing in the–” “That’s time. Next!” *** Every morning and every afternoon since they were eight, Cassie and Ray walked across the Colorado Street Bridge between their homes and school. They knew it as the suicide bridge. New barriers framed the sweeping structure, stopping those who wished to take one final flight into the dry Arroyo. They hadn’t gotten rain last season, so the concrete river carried nothing but lizards and trash. They
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