Season of the Dragonflies (34 page)

Her neck wouldn't move, but she could turn her eyes to the left, and she looked into the aching blue sky. So perfect, not a bad thing could go wrong beneath it. “Help me,” Mya tried to say. “Somebody help.” She hurriedly scanned around and noticed the trunk of a small sedan hanging over a mangled and badly bent guardrail. She began to cry. She didn't know how much blood they'd lost, but her body felt lighter and unburdened. What had she done?

Luke was right here, and she loved him, and he had to know that. “I love you,” she said, and it came out as a grunt, but his body still didn't move. She squeezed her eyes, looked back out into the sky, and searched for clouds that would move for her, to show her what was to come. Not a single cloud moved, and she wanted to scream just to feel less alone. She looked back up and said, “I'll never ask to see another vision ever again, I'll never do another thing wrong. Strip me of it all, I swear, strip it, just take it away. But send someone for us. Please, God, I don't want us to die right here.”

Mya felt a weight move above her, like a bird's nest being lifted from the crown of her head, and for the first time she witnessed the cloud, darker than a ripe blackberry, more frightening than a gathering tornado, like deep space or a black hole or just an endless nothing. It moved out through the broken windshield. Her heart rate quickened. She wanted to touch it, but it moved steadily away from her and across the road and up, like a helium balloon disconnected from a child's wrist. She watched it fly away, and then she wanted it to come back, because at least when it was with her she was still alive. She didn't know if this meant she would now pass into whatever came next, a “whatever” she wasn't prepared for. “Come back,” she said, but it moved up faster, and a single white cloud in the sky broke open and swallowed the blip of black. Mya waited, for the world to go blank before her, for her thoughts to cease streaming, as they might have already for Luke, whose blood trailed down the hood of his truck. She was Zoe, just dying, all the same no matter how it comes, no matter who you are. She deserved this little death, all alone. Why wasn't it here, why wouldn't it come? She wished to go now, not to prolong it anymore. At least then she would've made up for all the wrong. But Luke was good, had always been so good, and it wasn't right for him to die too. Mya closed her eyes for death to come and settle, and she said, “Just me, strip me of all my power. But leave Luke behind; please don't take him too.”

L
UCIA DIDN'T PANIC
as they hiked out of the fields, or as they snuck past the cabin, or as they loaded Ben's truck and sped out of the driveway, or as they drove through the town of Quartz Hollow to reach Ben's house. Only after they pulled into his driveway did panic settle in her chest like a thousand pounds of dirt. The dirt packed down even harder when his house came into view. She rolled down the passenger-side window to breathe and tried to push the air down farther in her abdomen, but still it was shallow.
Will I live here? In this house with Ben for the rest of my life?
Lucia asked herself this over and over again, and it shortened her already rapid breath. The future had never felt so close, yet she wasn't sure what Ben wanted. They were first loves. But a lifelong commitment? She thought he must regret running into her at the farmer's market.

“Are you okay?” Ben asked after he turned off the ignition. Lucia hadn't noticed that they'd stopped moving. Inside she couldn't slow down.

“Maybe I'm spacing out a little.” She massaged her knees.

He dropped back against the headrest, and his hands held the steering wheel like he was still driving. Ben said, “Let's just have dinner and some beer and relax a minute.”

“Beer won't help.”

“You're right. Tequila's better.”

They exited the truck, and Lucia walked beside Ben to the porch. The front door wasn't locked, and as soon as they entered, Ben dropped his work bag in the foyer. Lucia smelled beef roast and rosemary. Ben led her to his kitchen, and she took a seat at the tan-and-brown granite bar, where a Crock-Pot sat. He opened it up and ladled au jus onto the roast, then cut off the heat. He retrieved hummus and carrots from the refrigerator for appetizers.

“I can't believe how good that smells,” Lucia said. Ben smiled and then retrieved a bottle of Jose Cuervo and a salt shaker from the liquor cabinet and a lime from a basket next to the phone. He brought out a knife to slice it. Lucia said, “You weren't joking.”

“I don't joke about tequila,” Ben said.

“The one-two,” Lucia said, and he handed her a shot glass and a lime.

“You remember.”

“I do.” They had spent many summer days at the Cascades taking two back-to-back body shots and then swimming in the frigid pool at the bottom of the waterfall and making love on the moss-covered rocks. Too many afternoons to count. Of course she remembered. Of all the memories she'd wished she could forget, the ones with Ben were the ones that haunted her. Even on her wedding day with Jonah at the courthouse. Jonah wore jeans, sneakers, and a button-up shirt, and they had walked in together like they were purchasing tickets at the movies. Lucia wore a secondhand dress that she'd given back to charity shortly thereafter. They were low-key people. Who needed the fuss? She'd said these very words, yet as she stood before the judge who instructed them as if he were reading her rights, her arms down by her sides, her shoulder touching Jonah's, she wondered about Ben and what he was up to and if her wedding day could've been different with a different kind of man.

Ben held out his hand, and she offered her wrist. He kissed and then licked it and dashed a bit of salt there. His warm tongue gently removed it, and then he swallowed a shot and Lucia placed a lime in her mouth so he could take it from her. And then he did it again. “Your turn,” he said. She stood up and picked her favorite spot on his neck where his collarbone dipped, and he said, “Really?” She nodded with a sly smile. He had to bend his knees so she could reach it. The tequila burned and calmed her, and then she took her second one off the spot between his thumb and pointer finger. The liquor did its job quickly and Ben said, “Don't you feel better?”

Since the tequila made her instantly loose, she had the courage to say, “You and my sister never did anything like that, even after I left, right? I know it's stupid but I just need to know.”

Ben's shoulders slumped. “She tried to kiss me just that once, and I've regretted that day since. You didn't forgive me, but I swear nothing happened. Mya was just jealous of you.”

“Of me?” Lucia said incredulously.

Ben gave her a look like she should've known better. “If you've forgiven me after all these years, you should probably forgive her too.”

“I know you're right,” Lucia said, and dipped a carrot in Ben's homemade hummus—anything to chase down the liquor. “And Vista? I feel bad about how this all happened.”

“I broke up with Vista. I didn't get the chance to tell you out at the fields.”

“But you were with her at the fire,” Lucia said, and sucked on a lime just because.

“When I saw Vista standing beside you, I knew I didn't feel for her the same way she did for me. Last night I told her. We'd talked about needing space before, but it was time.”

“I see,” Lucia said, and then they were quiet.

Ben washed his hands in the sink. “Do you remember that time we took our sleeping bags up Buffalo Mountain and stayed up all night and waited to see the meteor shower?”

“I do,” Lucia said, and ate another carrot.

“And we wanted to close our eyes and go to sleep, but we knew that if we did, we'd miss that window of ten minutes when the sky would light up like snow flurries. It was a long shot and it was freezing. We didn't think we'd see it; I know I didn't. It took hours, but it did happen, and we felt like the luckiest people in the world.” He turned off the sink, dried his hands, and stared at her.

For some reason this memory made her anxious, and she didn't know how to add to his story. “You hungry?” she finally said.

“Not really,” he said, and he pulled her close.

“I thought we'd talk and eat or eat and talk about all that; wasn't this your idea?” she said.

“It was,” Ben said. “But now I have another idea.” From Lucia's short distance, his mouth smelled like citrus, and she wanted to lick his lips.

He swept the hair from her forehead, looked her in the eyes, and said, “The entire drive, it's all I thought about.”

“You could've shared with me,” she said.

“I couldn't,” he said. “Too nervous.”

Lucia said, “Hence the tequila.”

“Lucia,” Ben said, and his voice became so controlled and serious that she stopped smiling and stared up at him. “You left me; that was your choice.”

“I know. And I'm sorry.”

“That's not what I mean.” He sat down at the bar so they could be at eye level with each other, and he pulled her to him. “It hurt like hell when you got married. I moved on. What choice did I have? Met other women and had good relationships but nothing deep. And then you showed up again. I never pretended for a moment that I stopped loving you. I wanted to. But I never did.”

“I feel awful,” Lucia said. She'd been so selfish for so many years. Only her own path had mattered to her during her twenties. Other people's desires and feelings had been second to her own.

He raised her chin with his hand and said, “You had to go. I hated that, but I accepted it.”

“You don't hate me now, not even a little bit?” she blurted out, a question only the tequila would've let her ask.

“I did,” he said, and put both of his hands on her hips. “I let that go the moment I saw you at the market. A life with you is what I want. Always have.”

Lucia caressed one of his cheeks and smoothed down his hair. She had let him go back then to love him better now. She loved him. She couldn't deny it. “Make a baby with me,” Lucia said, but it barely came out.

He tilted his head to the side. “What's that?”

She leaned in, put her cheek to his cheek, and whispered in his ear. He pulled her back just enough to look her in the eyes. “Okay, but after we eat,” he joked.

Lucia laughed and pinched his side, and then he stood without warning, took her hand, led her away to the staircase, and then lifted her up and carried her up the stairs slowly, kissing her in a different place with each step he took. At the top of the staircase he put her down and they went side by side into Ben's bedroom, where Lucia closed the door.

W
ILLOW GAVE JAMES
a tour of Main Street at dusk, the sun closing in on the mountain line beyond them, the sky a bruised purple and a thousand shades of orange and yellow. James especially liked Willard's Hat Shop, established 1937, and promised to stop there before he left town. Willow took pride in this town and the way James enjoyed Garden 2.0; he was shocked by the quality of the grass-fed venison roast with a currant and coffee sauce, as if only large cities could have that kind of artistry in the kitchen. Of all the businesses she'd loaned start-up money to, Garden 2.0 was one of her favorites. The chef had started a sustainable-food movement in Charleston, South Carolina, and believed he could start a trend in Quartz Hollow too, attracting locals and tourists alike. His restaurant turned the biggest profit of all the businesses she'd helped and continued to grow. He'd be opening another restaurant in Charlottesville soon. These were the offshoot achievements of Lenore Incorporated. Willow felt a greater sense of purpose when she supported local entrepreneurs. What would become of them if Lenore Incorporated faltered? Quartz Hollow could dry up like a lonely western town after the gold rush, and she'd be to blame.

James slapped a blue mailbox on the corner of Main Street and Laurel Lane and said, “It's like the world doesn't happen here.”

No cars passed by, it was true. Traffic almost ceased altogether around eight
P
.
M
. “I like it like this,” Willow said.

“Reminds me of being a boy in Brooklyn and walking with my mother to pick up my father's suits at the tailor,” James said.

“What else don't I know about you?” Willow asked, stopping to pick up a stray candy bar wrapper and toss it in a trash can. “Or is that a question for our pending retirement?”

They continued walking to Willow's truck. James said, “It was so long ago—I talk about other things now.”

“We don't have to,” Willow said.

“There's no legend to it,” James said. “My mother taught preschool and my father sold bonds, but he wasn't very good at it. We never had much, me and my three brothers.”

“Where are they now?” Willow said.

“Two are dead and one is an art director in Ontario. Don't see him much,” James said, and shook his head. “All I wanted was to leave Brooklyn and make a lot of money—I didn't know how I would, but I decided I would. Hollywood was the only place where I didn't need a plan to do that. That's what I believed anyway, and somehow it worked. I wanted to take care of my mother, but she died before I had a chance.”

“I don't want you to talk about these things if it hurts too much,” Willow said.

He shrugged. “You smother some things too long and they don't define you anymore.”

“My sister's dead too, and I miss her. She died completely alone. It took days for a neighbor to check on her, and I've never forgiven myself for not being there. She didn't want me in her life, but the guilt doesn't go away. It's strange to be the only one left of a generation.”