Season of the Dragonflies (25 page)

Lucia tried not to trip on the pebble walkway. Ben wore a pair of jeans and a button-down shirt like a professor; the two of them together seemed so mismatched, and Lucia felt completely self-conscious in her garb. If she could've teleported home and changed into a tank top and skirt, she would've done it.

He said, “Good to see you. Ms. Lenore, Lucia, this is Vista.”

“Nice to meet you.” A large, beaming smile spread across the girl's face, and her eyes energized Lucia the longer her stare lingered. Lucia imagined her saying phrases that made people feel good, like “the universe listens and responds” and “you must focus on positive energy for positive results.”

“You too,” Willow said.

“I manage Mya's shop,” Vista said, like she needed to remind somebody.

“That's right.” Willow nodded. “Good to see you again.”

“I've been trying to reach Mya,” Vista said. “Could you ask her to call the shop today or tomorrow?”

“I can,” Willow said. Vista smiled that smile again at Willow.

“Come inside,” Ben said. Vista rubbed Ben's back before she walked to her car, which was parked in his garage.

“I'll call you later,” he told her, and then he led the way up the staircase and Lucia reluctantly followed. She had zero desire to tour the gorgeous house Ben shared with Vista. They passed through a heavy oak door, and the inside of the home vaulted up to a stained-glass skylight in the center of a winding staircase. The house was all wood and tile and Persian rugs and leather furniture. Could this really be Ben's taste? Lucia never knew he cared about interior design. Maybe it was Vista. Maybe he'd developed this interest during Lucia's long absence.

“This is a beautiful home, Ben,” Willow said before Lucia had the chance.

“Dad's dream house,” Ben said.

“Oh, is that right?”

“Just a couple years too late,” Ben replied. “Mom and I chose everything we thought he'd want.”

“I was sorry to hear that,” Lucia said, and Ben nodded.

“I'm sure he'd love this.” Willow looked around her. “He was a good man.”

“Thank you,” Ben said. “It's good to hear that.”

“An awful lot of space for just you,” Willow said, as if she'd overheard Lucia's thoughts.

“That's true. Thought about getting a roommate or two but I keep putting it off. Depends on how long I'll be here.”

“I'm sure the space all to yourself is nice though,” Lucia offered.

Ben nodded, and Lucia was so relieved she didn't know what to do.

He said, “Can I get you a drink or some food?”

“I'm fine,” Willow answered. “You?” she asked Lucia.

Lucia said, “No, I'm fine, but thanks.”

“This way then,” Ben said, and led them through a commercial-grade kitchen with sleek stainless steel appliances. Ben's family had always been well-off, and you could see that in their home and cars. Lucia had always felt like the poor one in the relationship, though technically she knew that wasn't the case, not by a long shot. Yet even now she felt that way. Her mother dressed in couture but mostly drove a truck from the nineties, even though she had a Lexus SUV. People probably assumed her clothes were knockoffs. Willow never seemed to care either way.

Ben led them to a greenhouse with a door that opened on an expansive view of immaculately cut rolling fields with horses standing in the distance, their bodies like toys against the distant mountain range. The room allowed light to filter through, and all along the walls Ben had hung clear vases with cuttings in water, some with roots growing. Orchids of all different shapes and colors stood on one long wooden table against the far wall, and in the center of the room, Ben's workstation was as organized and clean as the rest of his house. He had a large microscope and slides along with goggles, latex gloves, and multiple pads of paper at his workstation, next to field guides for gardenias and rain forest flowers. One wall served as an incubating station with small peat moss containers and lights suspended close above them. Mya had one of those also. Lucia wasn't sure what the metal container was for: it looked like a beer keg with a circular door on the side. “Your personal robot?” Lucia said, and pointed at the silver container.

“An autoclave,” he said, and since it was obvious that Lucia had no idea what that meant, he added, “Sterilizes my slides and stuff.”

“Oh.” This only clarified it a little.

Ben offered Willow a chair and then half seated himself on a metal stool in front of the table. Since there was nowhere else to sit, Lucia stood.

Ben said, “What number am I now among the people lucky enough to see inside this plant?”

“Let's just say you're not alone,” Willow said, almost too hurriedly. “My plant guy's in China.”

Willow had allowed Ben to put the plant under a microscope their junior year in high school, presuming Lucia would marry Ben, of course. She was going to finance his entire undergraduate and Ph.D. education, and she still offered to do so even after Lucia broke up with him. Possibly out of guilt for Lucia's breaking his heart. But Ben had refused, and Lucia had been very thankful that Ben chose to disconnect from her family.

“The good news,” Ben said, “is that for the most part, isolated from the chlorosis, the cells in the stamen and petals show no signs of collapse. They look healthy.”

“That's excellent news,” Willow said. “But you don't seem thrilled.”

“Because there's bad news.”

“You could've started with that,” Lucia said.

“I found phytoplasmas in the roots,” Ben said, “and I also found a small formation on an auxiliary shoot that will turn into witch's broom. Like a bird's nest on the plant bud. From what I can see, you have a phytoplasmal infection that will result in virescence and phyllody.”

“English, please,” Willow said.

“These are symptoms that will turn the entire
Gardenia potentiae
flower green and leaflike. It'll look as if no blossoms are on the plant at all.”

“No blossoms?” Willow said.

“And no scent?” Lucia added.

“Correct,” Ben answered in a calm and steady voice, just like a doctor delivering news about terminal cancer. He picked up a different slide, placed it on the microscope, and flipped on the light at the bottom. He moved out of the way so Willow could bend down and see, and when she finished, Lucia leaned over Ben, his earthy smell distracting her as she stared into the lens, the white light hurting her eyes at first. Once she adjusted, she saw tiny beads clumped together.

When Lucia backed away he said, “So to simplify, normal plant cells look like what you just saw. Do you mind?” He pointed at Willow's pearl necklace and she removed it for him.

“Careful,” she said as she handed it over.

He let the pearls settle randomly into his cupped hands. He said, “Normal, healthy cells look almost like this, and in your plant, they look like this in the stamen but not in the root cells. Those look flattened.” Ben placed a new slide under the microscope.

Willow bent down and looked again. “Like pancakes,” she said before moving out of the way.

“Almost,” Ben said.

Lucia examined the slide. “Will this happen to the stamen and petal cells too?”

He nodded, and Willow sucked in a breath of air so loudly it sounded like a whistle. In a gentle voice Ben said, “I want to go back to the field and look some more. That way I can give you a better sense of how much time before . . .”

Willow placed a hand over her heart. “Before what?”

“Before it can't be stopped,” Ben said.

Willow's hand dropped, and Ben reached out and grabbed it for a moment. He did this with such ease—not even Lucia felt comfortable holding her mother's hand like that.

“Could this kill our plant? And I mean totally, no coming back,” Lucia said. Her mother bit her lower lip like this was the one question she couldn't bring herself to ask him.

Ben's eyes softened, and that was all Lucia needed to know. “Doesn't look good,” he said.

“I need a drink,” Willow said.

“Like I said, I want more samples,” Ben said, “from the plants closest to the tree line. I didn't go back that far.”

“Anything you need. And can I please compensate you?” Willow asked.

“No way,” he told her. “After all those pizzas you made me?”

Willow pinched his cheek.

He didn't pull away. “Whatever I can do. Can I swing by tomorrow? Will you be free?” Ben addressed Lucia now, catching her off guard.

“I am,” she said.

“Dinner again?” he said. “My treat this time.”

She nodded. Would Vista come too? Lucia wanted to know but wasn't sure how to ask without sounding territorial.

Willow stood up and said, “I think I need to go home.”

“I understand,” he said, and walked them out of the greenhouse and then outside to their truck. Willow put herself in the cab, and he closed her door and then came around to close Lucia's.

“How's five?” Ben said, his voice much cheerier than it had been in his workshop. “We can go to the field and then I can take you to dinner in Quartz Hollow, if you want.”

“I don't know,” Lucia said.

Willow leaned over to the open window. “She'd love to.”

Ben half smiled the way he always had since middle school. “Everybody's got to eat.”

“It's a date then,” Willow said, and finally Ben looked as uncomfortable as Lucia. She knew her mother would make him uneasy at some point. Willow was a charmer that way.

Lucia said, “I'll see you tomorrow.” She pulled her door shut before he could close it.

“You'll marry that one,” Willow told her.

“Stop talking crazy,” Lucia said, and drove down the driveway.

“Oh stop.”

“I mean it, you embarrassed me back there,” Lucia said. “Clearly he has a girlfriend and he's happy, so leave it alone. Don't you have other things to worry about?”

“Huge things . . . ,” Willow said as her voice tapered off. She turned her head toward the window. “I'm sorry.”

Right when her mother had made peace with her retirement, there was a good chance there would be nothing left to give. They couldn't change what Ben had revealed, and it was easier to avoid talking about it for now. “It's okay,” Lucia said. She turned up the Nina Simone CD in the player and drove them back to the cabin.

L
UKE HAD SAID
he loved her, today of all days. Mya believed him the moment he said it, and she also knew she couldn't say it back and might never be able to. The finality of the phrase bothered her, as did its limited scope. Choices, that's what Mya valued, and the phrase that rolled so easily off Luke's tongue had not escaped Mya's mouth for any man thus far. She sighed and raised her head to look above her. She might've ignored the cloud, the fawn, the snakes, Luke's untimely pronouncement, all together in such a short span of time, but now with Lucia taking over the business, Mya understood beyond a doubt that she was cursed. Maybe the black cloud receded until all the terrible events had been carried out. Or the curse stayed from the moment it appeared and into the tortured future, her death the final sign of its disappearance. She should've never sold the perfume to Zoe Bennett in the first place. Or changed the formula for her. Why did she invite this upon herself? She should've done nothing and allowed Zoe to tell the entire world about Lenore Incorporated's product.

Mya pulled up her strapless purple dress and grabbed her crutches, which were leaning against the wooden table in her workshop. She hobbled her way up the stairs and down the hall to Lucia's bedroom, where Lucia's cell phone had been ringing earlier. Her sister's clothes were strewn about the floor and the bed. Mya patted down the covers on the bed as if she'd been authorized to search the place. Finally she felt a lump beneath Lucia's pillow. She'd been sleeping on her phone this whole time.

The greasy fingertip prints on the phone cover presented themselves in the sunlight. Mya wiped the screen on her dress and then tapped the phone awake. It had no lock code. Twenty-two missed calls in three days. Clearly Lucia had neglected her phone since she arrived. She probably knew Jonah had tried to call her many, many times, and she obviously hadn't phoned him back. His urgency made this so much easier. Mya sat down on Lucia's daybed with her crutches beside her and listened for her mother and Lucia, who'd gone out without even telling Mya. They'd cite her injury as the reason, but they left Mya out these days like bullies on the playground.

Silence in the house—she made the call. As the line rang it occurred to Mya that she'd never actually spoken to this guy before and he might not even know that Lucia had a sister. She couldn't be sure what Lucia had divulged about their family history, if anything. Back when Lucia had called out of nowhere to tell them she was getting married, Willow advised Lucia to sign the prenuptial agreement Jonah's parents wanted, but she told Lucia never to expose their business, not even to her “soul mate.” That phrase of Lucia's made Mya want to vomit. “Soul sucker” was more accurate.

Mya almost hung up the phone but then she heard static, and Jonah said “Finally,” in not the kindest tone. “Where the hell are you?”

“Jonah,” Mya said.

“Who is this?” he said, and he sounded pissed.

“This is Lucia's sister.”

“Mya?” he asked. So he did know about her. This was not a good sign. Of all the stories Lucia would've told him about her, Mya doubted the kindest versions were at the top of the list. She needed him to trust her. “Is Lucia hurt?”

“No,” Mya said.

“Then why are you calling me and not her?”