Season of the Dragonflies (2 page)

SERENA PLANNED THEIR SECRET DEPARTURE
as her father slumbered. She and Alex escaped from New York Harbor on the
Princess Anne
liner to the south. She'd left her father a brief note about her desire to travel without disclosing an exact location, and she prayed he might forgive her, though she doubted he ever would; there was much she couldn't forgive him for, and thus, they were even. They sailed beyond the Caribbean, South America, Cape Horn, places Serena had only read about in travel books. The ship stopped at seventeen ports, but she spent much of the time ill in their windowless berth, only partially from seasickness. Almost nine months later they docked on the north coast of Borneo, an area governed by British rule. Here she found medical assistance for the birth of her daughter, a girl whose first toys were palm fronds, rocks, and dirt sculptures of her making, not dolls. No one would force her daughter to wear a corset.

Serena and Alex grew more deeply in love and more infatuated with each other's company in the isolation of the jungle. Alex did not let a day pass without reminding Serena how happy she made him. Their conversation was restricted to each other and the children they raised together. They lived happily with their two daughters, the second one born in their mud-and-bark hut far inland from the coast of the South China Sea. Serena and Alex were more in love seven years later than either had imagined possible.

Serena's hips widened from childbirth, her breasts softened from feeding, and her back grew stronger from carrying her babies slung across it like the local Dayak women did. Serena had transformed in those seven years from a girl of eighteen to a woman of twenty-five with more firsthand knowledge of the world than any of the girls she had tutored with in New York. Serena missed many things about New York, like her bathroom and its running water; her father, whom she loved more now that she lived far away; and her brownstone, because her mother had decorated it. But the pristine rain forest, the uncultivated privacy of the world she'd grown to understand, had become her chosen reality. Her daughters wore loose-fitting clothes to ward off mosquitoes, but inside their dwelling they were as naked as the orangutans that loomed in their stick-and-leaf nests in the trees. Stinking peels of durian fruit signaled a nearby ape, and Serena's children found playmates in the young ones and tasted those huge, spiked fruits that smelled of burned milk custard and onion. Serena loved her life. Most of all she cherished Alex, the only scientist daring enough to bring a woman to a place like Borneo.

Some families lived in more Western villages, but Alex and Serena did not often go to visit them, as it took a day's boat ride. With two young children it was only worth it if they needed supplies. They battled together as a team—fevers, bouts of malaria, strange carnivorous insects, bites so unusual only the local tinctures could heal them—and they survived together. Even prospered together. Only during the comparatively quiet nights in the jungle did Serena question whether she had a purpose other than raising her girls and supporting Alex's research, both of which she loved doing. Her daughters gave her laughter, and she enjoyed tagging plants and helping Alex organize his notes. Alex had discovered so many different species of plants with such promising possibilities that he believed they would be wealthier than Serena's father when he developed them in America.

News of America's financial collapse reached Borneo almost a year after the market crashed. Alex had been the one to share the news with Serena. She thought of her father and wondered how he had fared. Alex and Serena debated the severity of these events after sunset when the girls had fallen asleep and only the forest and its wild symphony were still hotly awake. He held her in the hammock they shared and said, “Investments are down; the company doesn't know how much longer they can support us.” The company had postponed his return twice already.

“Maybe it's time,” Serena said. She almost added “to go home,” but the hut was home, and she had no idea what they'd find when they returned to the States. A few weeks later, the company requested Alex's return. His years of work had not been in vain. He had treated multiple local children for malaria in the past year with a formula based on an oil extraction from a small purple flower shaped like a honeysuckle that the Dayaks ritually rubbed on themselves for good health. He needed more advanced laboratories to develop his TB cure.

During their final days, Alex and Serena and the little girls sang sad songs about their hut and jungle and made jokes about a return to civilization. Serena told them, “It'll feel like a jungle of buildings.” She knew it would feel as foreign as Borneo had the first moment she stepped from that godforsaken ship and stared at a wall of untamed trees so unlike any she'd seen in Central Park. Her girls would feel the same deep sense of fear at their first sight of a Model T.

On their last afternoon in Borneo, they cleaned up their hut for the next scientist and placed their few belongings by the curtained door in preparation for their boat the next day. But the girls worked slowly, and Alex continued to wrap a splintered bamboo shaft fifty different ways. Serena said, “Let's take a walk and do this later.”

Serena led her family outside but stopped when she heard chanting. The voices lowered and heightened in waves. Alex pulled on her hand. “Shouldn't we go a different way? They're worshipping.”

And even though their children trailed her and normally she would've avoided interrupting a local custom, she couldn't resist the sound of those voices. She felt compelled into the depths of the forest. The sounds grew louder until she saw a group of bare-breasted Dayak women hovering together over a single spot on the forest floor.

Serena advanced until she stood directly behind the circle of women and tried to peer inside, kneeling just as they did, as it was the only way to glimpse the small white flower barely visible amid the brush. One woman's dark hands gently pushed the woody leaves away from the plant, and each time her skin brushed the petals it looked as if the plant wilted on the spot. Each time the woman moved away, the plant grew healthy again and the group made noises of astonishment. The women had never seen this particular gardenia flower before, that much was clear.

Serena needed to touch that plant. She pushed through the crowd. A velvety red dragonfly fluttered nearby, a much larger species than the ones she and the girls had chased during their stay. Without warning it dropped down near the plant and then disappeared into the surrounding trees. Serena closed in. The plant's white petals grew larger, and a woody branch appeared beneath it and reached in her direction. The Dayak women pulled away with small shouts of horror, and one woman tried to hold Serena's arm back. Alex and her daughters stood far away. Serena pulled herself forward and reached her small hands down to the plant as an invitation. The moment her finger touched its stem, the plant began to shake itself free from the ground, exposing its long white roots, and nearly leaped into her palms. A scent more heavenly than any she'd encountered in the forest invaded Serena's nostrils and filled her entire body with more glory than motherhood or love or sunlight could.

Her black hair fell loose from its bun and draped her shoulders. Serena placed the plant on top of her head and wrapped it up with her bundle of hair, the same pompadour style she had worn as a girl of eighteen. The Dayak women parted as she walked past, and a gentle rain followed them out of the forest. A perfumed wind surrounded Serena and her family with every step she took.

The plant she named
Gardenia potentiae
had chosen her, and it survived in her nest of hair for the voyage back to the States; it required only a splash of water in the mornings to keep its strength. With every day that passed on the liner, Alex vowed that Serena looked more regal than the day before. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, kissed her neck, and said, “Your skin's never smelled so good. This is your perfume.” Other people on the ship destined for New York deferred to her in all matters, and the waiters offered her nothing but the best service. Exotic orchids arrived in their room each time the boat docked, and the staff reserved the richest of desserts and rarest of fruits for Serena's daughters. She was the most powerful woman on the boat. She swore
Gardenia potentiae
would be the last scent she ever wore.

The harsh northern winters of New York could not accommodate a plant that Alex deemed the most impressive species of flower he'd encountered in Borneo. They needed privacy for Serena's flower to flourish, lest people start questioning how and why the plant moved. So they decided to dock early in the Chesapeake Bay, the plant hidden safely in Serena's hair without raising a single suspicion from an inspector. The family journeyed three days to the fertile ground of Quartz Hollow in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where Alex had been born. Serena wrote to her father upon settling in their cabin and notified him of her return, but he never responded. Alex turned in his research and gave up his post to take over his ailing father's farm, where Serena could graft and grow hundreds of acres of
Gardenia potentiae
. The flower moved only for her hands and the hands of her daughters, and it soon became the secret ingredient in the most enigmatic, expensive, and successful perfume in history. Serena appointed herself president of the perfumery and bestowed upon her business her name—Lenore Incorporated.

J
ONAH HAD LET
his curly black hair grow out the way Lucia Lenore always liked it, maybe even to spite her, and his blue eyes seemed even brighter. He dropped down on their organic futon, sending her side up like a seesaw. This final piece of their shared furniture was destined for the landfill, and with good cause. At least Lucia would never sleep another night on a worn-out cushion.

Jonah said, “The sublet starts next month. I'll make sure the paperwork's straight.”

“I'm out today,” Lucia said, her thigh touching his knee by accident. She signed her name on the last page and handed Jonah his pen. He placed the stack of papers on the cardboard box she'd set up as a coffee table. A prenup and no children made this transaction easy, almost too simple—like it had been set up to fail. Overall, they'd met little resistance from friends, and as far as family, only Jonah's happily married parents knew, and they refrained from offering wisdom: “We'd better not weigh in on this” translated into “We agree this is best.”

Jonah placed one long arm around her and squeezed. She let her head fall on his shoulder. Here was the moment he'd take it back, shred the papers, and finally apologize . . . and what was
wrong
with Lucia that deep down she wanted him to do exactly that?

He kissed the crown of her head before saying, “I'll always be here.”

“I know,” she said.

“Nina's?” he said quietly, perhaps to reduce how insulting it sounded that she would couch-surf at a friend's place, the very same friend who had introduced Lucia to Jonah at his MoMA opening eight years ago.

“Probably,” Lucia said, but she didn't know; she hadn't even asked Nina yet. Silence settled between them.

Jonah squeezed her one more time and then stood up and said, “Can I go back to get a few things?” Lucia nodded, and Jonah retreated to their bedroom for the final time.

Lucia would never hear his hangers slide on the short metal rack again or see his beard trimmings in the sink or dropped toenail clippings beside the couch. When they were in love she thought those little memories might comfort her when he died.
If only I could see those obscenely hard toenail clippings stuck one more time in the low-pile rug.
But for the past year, maybe longer (if she forced herself to pinpoint), wicked arguments about such things had become another tenant in their small apartment. He couldn't stand fishing her long black hairs out of the tub drain. They felt genuine hate for each other, and that's all they needed to know.

What she never wanted to reveal to anyone was how many holes Jonah had punched in their drywall, hidden for so long by his overpriced canvases, and how many times she'd thrown shoes, keys, purses, and infomercial scripts at him. Jonah and Lucia and their marriage had crumbled together like buildings during an earthquake, but no single person or event deserved the blame.

She stood up from the futon and stumbled over the Persian rug they'd found at the flea market. Four years later it still smelled like dog. Lucia opened the clear five-gallon storage tub that held their liquor, all going to Jonah's new place. The gin and vodka and whiskey had acted like kerosene for their fires, a sure way to embolden a fight that could've been avoided or start a fight if one didn't exist. Yet they couldn't keep themselves from drinking together, like it was their only sport. She squeezed the last bottle in and then tried to snap the top into place. But it wouldn't go. She sat on it and hoped weight and gravity would do the rest.

Jonah returned from the bedroom and said, “Here, let me help.” With her still seated on the top, he placed an arm on either side of her and closed the top with one forceful push down, his sinewy biceps bigger than she remembered—had he started working out? The sex had been hotter when they had separate apartments and no legal contract promising to be faithful, and suddenly this slight embrace on the storage tub made her horny for the first time in who knew how long. She wanted to tell him this, as if they could try again.

Jonah stared into her eyes. She let him kiss her, but she couldn't manage to relax her lips and she kept her eyes wide open. Too much had happened between them now to recover this element of their relationship.