Season of the Dragonflies (13 page)

Inside the open-air market, Lucia scanned the stalls. One table had baskets filled with local blushing cherries. Lucia picked up the taut fruits and gently pushed her thumb into the pink flesh to check their ripeness, then she popped one in her mouth just to be sure. Perfectly sour and juicy. Since Mya hadn't asked for a specific amount, Lucia filled the offered grocery bag to the maximum. How she would carry this bag plus her rolls and coffee, she didn't quite know, but she wasn't willing to sacrifice any of it. Just as she was about to double-bag the fruit, she heard a man's voice say, “Lucia Lenore?”

Her stomach dropped like an elevator. The familiar voice made her afraid to turn around, but she did. With one arm cradling the cherries like a newborn, Lucia said, “Ben?”

She couldn't quite believe that Ben White was standing there, back in Quartz Hollow, right in front of her after so many years. And Lucia hadn't taken a shower this morning. She also held an unusually large bag of cherries and an unnecessarily large bag of cinnamon rolls.

“Look at you,” Ben said. He didn't even try the stock phrases like “You look great” or “Wow, you haven't changed a bit.” Just “Look at you,” like he might say “Look at that rhinoceros” at the zoo. If only she could say the same to him, but he
did
look great. His thin, lanky, and sinewy teenage body had filled out into a man's physique. Bigger muscles, broader shoulders. But his face had remained just as youthful as ever, framed now by a handsome beard. He had genial brown eyes, sandy blond hair, and skin that tanned easily and was already on its way to that cinnamon color. He had a strong and pronounced jaw that she had kissed many times. It was incredibly awkward. “I can't believe I'm seeing you,” Lucia said, and immediately felt like an idiot.

“Me either.” Ben took off his gloves and wiped the sweat from his brow. He pointed to a truck behind the market stalls and said, “I deliver here once a week, right around now. Good timing.”

“Imagine that.” Lucia took one step back. She hadn't seen him in fifteen years and now he was two feet away from her, the smell of him so familiar it shocked her. A salty smell mixed with soil.

“I see your mom sometimes. She didn't say anything about you coming to town,” Ben said, smiling like he was happily misinformed.

“I'm not.” Lucia swallowed. “I mean, I am obviously, but just for a short visit. Like a day or two.” Lucia knew her mother had a lot going on with business matters, but a casual comment about Ben White's residence in Quartz Hollow would've been appreciated.

“You never did visit,” Ben said. “Everything okay?”

Lucia nodded, not wanting to list the many things not okay in her world. “So you live here now?”

“A sabbatical. I've got an organic farm near my mom's.”

“Sounds nice.”

“You got married, right?” he asked timidly, perhaps taking notice of her bare ring finger displayed prominently on the grocery bag of cherries.

“I did,” Lucia said. “But that ended. Recently.”

“That's too bad,” Ben said. “I'm sorry.”

The pain in her chest refused to dissipate. She couldn't bring herself to use the word “divorce.” She might as well have stapled the word “failure” to her back. Lucia glanced around for the stall owner. Ben whistled at a short man in overalls standing at a nearby stall with an elderly woman who sold canned relishes and goat's milk soaps. The man walked over and patted Ben on the back. Lucia placed a twenty on the table. He broke her change and thanked her.

Lucia said, “Thanks,” to Ben.

“No problem. I better go,” Ben said, and nodded at his truck. Why, of all days, would she see Ben White, and did he have to be so damn attractive?

“It was nice seeing you, good luck with your farm.” Lucia picked up her coffee and forced a smile before she turned and walked back up Main Street. She hustled down the sidewalk until she heard a truck slowing down beside her.

Ben rolled down the window on his red Ford pickup and said, “You dropped some fruit.”

Lucia stopped right before Blue Ridge Books and looked behind her at the trail of cherries. She lifted the bag above her head to find the hole in the bottom, and then the entire bag ripped open, raining cherries on the pavement. Ben parked his truck and hopped out with a potato sack. She bent down to scoop up the bruised fruit with him, and now their faces were only inches apart. Ben looked at her, his big eyes so happy to see her, and she felt sixteen again, just for a moment. He wiped his palms on his ripped jeans and they stood up together. He handed her the sack.

“Thanks,” she said.

Ben's hand didn't let go of the bag; her face flushed like one of those cherries.

Ben said, “I want to hear all about New York, before you go back.”

“There's not much to tell.”

“Then I want to hear about that.”

He wasn't giving her a choice in the matter. “I guess you could come by the cabin.”

“Will Mya be there?” He sounded like he was hoping she'd say no.

Lucia refused to look him in the eye as she nodded. “You should come anyway. It's been a long time. I'll make dinner and maybe we can go for a hike.” Already she was saying the wrong things to him. Lucia didn't know how to cook, and she couldn't remember the last time she went on a hike.

“Tomorrow's good for me.”

“Five thirty?”

“Is six okay? Gives me time to shower.”

“Sure.” Lucia hoped he wasn't making a polite suggestion about her lack of hygiene today. She held the sack of cherries to her chest and watched him trot back to his truck. An azure dragonfly landed between his shoulder blades like the hand of a dear friend and traveled with him to the road. Ben had no idea. He turned once and waved good-bye to her. She worried he'd squish the bug against his seat, but then a second dragonfly swooped down and grazed Ben's shoulder, and the duo circled each other like they were dancing and flew across the road together before Ben had the chance to close his door. Lucia stood there and stared at this figment of her past, the boy he once was still present in the man he had become. She stared until Ben pulled out into the slow traffic of Main Street.

Lucia replayed her entire trip to town, almost minute by minute, on her drive home. She chastised herself for buying so many of those cinnamon rolls, for dropping the fruit, for not having showered, and for saying things like “That ended” instead of “I'm divorced.” Why did she hide from him? He'd been her best friend at one point in her life, and more than a decade had passed between then and now, plenty of time to relieve the hurts. He'd forgiven her for breaking his heart—that seemed obvious to Lucia—and she had no reason to skirt the truth about her life. Yet she knew if the same situation recurred, she would hedge just the same.

Memories of young love materialize from the slightest provocations, and this alone had created tension between Lucia and Ben. Standing with him in the market had forced her to remember that he'd been the only boy she loved. He could name the world, every flower, every tree, every insect in their forests, and he obsessed over it. Lucia was attracted to his focus and spontaneity, and how he chronicled their hikes and camping trips in letters and dropped them in her purse from time to time. He was the kind of boy who stopped if he walked past two dandelion weeds in the field and picked them, entwined them, and presented them as a symbol of Lucia and Ben. Flowers were his specialty, and he loved to give her bouquets of wild roses after her high school theater performances, for which he never missed a rehearsal.

He first asked her on a date after the closing night of
Our Town
. She'd always known about Ben White, had watched him play soccer and heard what an ace he was at science, but she'd never spoken to him. Lucia could still picture him sitting in the first row of the empty auditorium after the final performance. She'd wondered if he was lost or waiting for one of her friends to come out from the dressing room. She was pretty certain she'd asked him both of those questions, but instead of answering, he stood up, presented her with a bouquet, and asked her to go on a hike with him the next afternoon. Apparently, he'd wanted to ask her out for an entire year but hadn't mustered the courage. He'd attended every performance of
Our Town
because he'd been struck by the beauty of her hair beneath the stage lights. She agreed to go on a hike with him, and he introduced her to the Cascades, the famed waterfalls in Quartz Hollow, which quickly became their favorite make-out spot. A beautiful place to visit, and Lucia promised herself she'd stop there for a hike before she returned to the city, if she could remember the directions.

Lucia pulled into the long, winding driveway canopied with treetops that led to the cabin. After being married for so many long years, she had completely forgotten what going on a first date felt like, or even a platonic dinner. Maybe it felt like being a child on the upswing of a seesaw or a final yellow maple leaf on an autumn branch. Her history with Ben had long since passed, and she was glad he wanted to catch up as old friends.

She walked through the front door of the cabin and found it silent. “Hello?” Lucia said, but no one answered. Her mother's assistant, Brenda, had placed the mail on the center island, and on the very top was an envelope addressed to Mya from Zoe Bennett. Lucia placed the bag of cherries on the table and removed her sunglasses. Lucia placed her pinkie finger in the small gap on the seal, too tempted to put it down. The sound of the screen door opening in the back of the cabin made Lucia drop the letter, and then her mother walked into the kitchen with a bouquet of wildflowers. Lucia held the letter up for her mother. “What's that?” Willow said.

Lucia didn't want to tell her. Willow looked more relaxed than she had since Lucia arrived.

Willow exchanged the flowers for the mail, and Lucia found a vase in the cabinet above the stove and filled it with tap water.

“Where's Mya?” her mother said.

“I'm not sure,” Lucia said.

Willow secured Zoe's correspondence between her hands and left the kitchen without another word.

W
ILLOW NEEDED A
manicure—her cuticles were as overgrown as the kudzu she noticed in the southwest section of the forest, about which she made a mental note to alert the groundskeepers. That greedy plant could not come near her flowers, not even close. She had forever been afraid of soil contamination by an invasive species, and kudzu was one of the worst offenders, though it did prefer to climb rather than spread. Still, if it had the chance, her hedges would be smothered in one season.

And she had to make an appointment at Joanne's Salon in town to take care of her dry hands and the cracked heels of her feet, along with a haircut and a cucumber facial. Willow put the letter down on the desk and covered Zoe's inked name with her hands. Her mind was so far away from business, the farthest it had ever been. Nails were her priority. And James Stein. He had specifically complimented her hands while they ate sushi, and now she noticed them with embarrassing admiration as she typed on her laptop or washed the dishes or shaved her legs. These were the types of distraction that had always made women less powerful than they should be.

Willow straightened her back and tapped her fingernails on the envelope. She had never taken Zoe Bennett for the handwritten-correspondence type. More like a texter—abbreviated and impersonal.

Willow had no clue when Mya would return home. She wasn't in the habit of leaving a note. Ever. Important information or requests could be inside, and as president of Lenore Incorporated, Willow had the right to access requests or complaints. But how could she prepare her daughter for the business if she didn't respect her correspondence with clients? Then again, Mya didn't deserve this consideration. Maybe in the future, but not right now.

Small beads of sweat formed on her upper lip, and she wiped them away with the envelope. Willow slid her silver letter opener into the envelope, opened it, and lifted out a gold-flecked piece of handmade paper. It smelled heavily of the perfume, as if Zoe had enough to waste on a letter to the very people who created it. She had never once worried that Willow would cut her off.

Mya,

I received your letter and I absolutely love the idea of a perfume with more sex appeal. That's right for me. Go ahead and send your mother out here for a meeting anyway to make her feel a part of things. And I absolutely agree with you, she's done. She's too old now and she's lost her touch. Encourage her to retire, but no matter what she says, you need to make this happen. I already told Jennifer about your plan and I've contacted some of your biggest clients in case your mother resists. Call Justice Anne Reed of the Supreme Court and Jan Dorset at CNN and Lauren Dall at her investment house in New York if you don't believe me. They'll quit ordering as long as I promise not to expose them. But if the new formula works, all will be well. Contact me when it's ready.

Until then,

Zoe Bennett

The girl didn't have enough sense to make sure this letter arrived before Willow's trip. And this whole time Mya had planned to set her up and urge her to retire, and worse, just like a middle school girl, she'd gossiped about Willow with Zoe.

Willow pinned the letter underneath the gold lion paperweight her mother had left behind, then stood up with both hands gripping the black leathertop desk and let out the longest, most deeply pent-up scream she'd ever screamed. She could feel all the trees and the flowers and the deer and the dragonflies pausing to let her have this moment. Not a single wingbeat, not a blade of grass bent to the wind. Lucia came running in with a face as deeply panicked as it had been when she was a toddler running to her mother's room during a thunderstorm. Willow grabbed her chest and collapsed in her chair.