How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
A pretty, old carob tree stood near the door of the liquor store, throwing dappled shade on the sidewalk. I knew that its twisted, woody-looking pods could be crunched between the teeth and tasted like cocoa. I sat on a concrete block and leaned my back against the trunk. [...] I looked up at the leathery leaves. Hallie had told me carobs were dioecious, which means that male and female parts are possessed by separate individuals. In plain English, they're like us; it takes two to tango. This one was loaded with fruit, but there wasn't another carob tree in sight. I looked all the way down the main street and down toward the depot. No male carobs. I patted the trunk sympathetically. (7.28)
Codi would like someone to make carob pods with. It's interesting that she compares herself so strongly to a tree here, given that it's Hallie who's supposed to be the plant in this family.
Quote #5
Needing to be awesome to appreciate plants [...] It's hard to get people interested in animals that have no discernable heads, tails, fins, or the like—and plants, forget it. There's no drama [...]. They don't even eat, except in the most passive sense. In college, I knew a botany professor who always went around saying, "It takes a superior mind to appreciate a plant." Halie and I were a case in point, I guess. We divided the world in half, right from childhood. I was the one who went in for instant gratification, catching bright, quick butterflies, chloroforming them in a Mason jar and pinning them into typewritten tags with their Latin names. Hallie's tastes were quieter; she had time to watch things grow. She transplanted wildflowers and showed an aptitude for gardening. At age ten she took over the responsibility of the Burpee's catalogue. (11.45)
This is yet another example of Codi treating Hallie as if she were a foil, when really the two sisters are much more similar than they are different.
Quote #6
The tropics are such a gaudy joke: people have to live with every other kind of poverty, but a fortune in flowers, growing out of every nook and cranny of anything. If you could just build an economy on flowers. I stayed in a house that had vanilla orchids growing out of the gutters and a banana tree comping up under the kitchen sink. I swear. (12.9)
This is interesting in the context of Codi's characterization of Hallie as semilla besada—a seed that's been kissed—because, again, where Codi sees something blessed and miraculous, Hallie sees something that, while lovely and good, is still desperately inadequate. We wonder if Hallie also feels desperately inadequate to the size of the challenges facing her?