Season of the Dragonflies (20 page)

Willow's office phone rang and she looked down first to screen the call. Grateful it was her assistant and not Robert, she picked up. “Brenda?”

“How are you?”

“I'm fine, and you?”

“Great,” she said. “I've got next year's orders squared away and I'm dropping by with those receipts this afternoon, along with two new client profiles. Did you know Leya Miner was a ballerina before she began modeling? I didn't know that.”

Willow did know that. Leya had already appeared as a contestant on a modeling reality show when Willow interviewed her, an example of a model in progress. The industry had matured, the superstar models had aged, and Willow believed the time had come for a new face that would secure book deals, clothing lines, cheap perfumes, major catwalks during fashion week, and perhaps a talk show or two. All signs pointed to Leya's being ready, but now her ascending career might be stopped short. What would happen if Willow no longer had a product to sell to these women? Would they just drop off and never fully actualize their talents?

“You there?” Brenda said.

“Sorry. What time were you coming by?”

“When's best for you?”

“Late afternoon,” Willow said. If anyone anywhere in the great wide universe loved her at all, then Ben would be in touch beforehand.

“How's six? Too late? I'll stop by the factory for an evening check-in too, if you want.”

“Sounds fine,” Willow said. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Brenda hung up.

What else could she say without raising Brenda's suspicion? She wasn't ready to confide in her, and knowing Brenda she'd go into a doomsday scenario—she loved apocalypse theories, said they gave her comfort. Willow never quite understood it, but she wasn't against comfort. She could have used some at the moment. She placed the phone on the floor and let the operator act as her bodyguard against possible interruption. She could tolerate the sound of a prerecorded voice but not the sound of a live human being in need of something from her.

Willow collapsed into the chair at her desk. If she sold the company and the factory, she could avoid the total destruction of Lenore Incorporated. Ben might discover that the plants couldn't reproduce ever again, and it wasn't like Willow could order new ones from a catalog. Grandmother Serena had turned a single plant into acres of a thriving business, and Willow might be the one to destroy it all. She could liquidate. They could all travel the world for years at a time. Go to Borneo again. Travel to Iceland for the first time. The girls had loved Scandinavia when they were little, so they could go for an extended stay there. And Paris. Who ever tired of Paris?

But a person can't travel forever. What would they come home to if not the business? What would become of the Lenore women after them who would never know the flower or the fortune? Wealth could be wiped out in a single generation without a source to replenish it. Willow's chest buzzed like a beehive. She massaged her breastbone to calm down. She couldn't leave her girls with nothing. And her future grandchildren and great-grands. A multibillion-dollar business split three ways meant nothing to Willow, not after a lifetime of building that number, but it would mean something to Lucia and Mya. If they knew how much
Forbes
had underestimated her holdings and how much they'd inherit, they might urge her to liquidate. But Willow didn't have it in her to kill the family business. She wanted to retire and look on as her daughters ran Lenore Incorporated successfully.

Willow searched under her desk for the black trash-can-looking device that Brenda had so expertly used all these years. Now she couldn't remember what the hell it was for. Why was she looking under her desk in the first place? She tried to sit up too fast and hit the back of her head on the bottom of the desk. She balled her fists to keep herself from shouting. She looked on the other side of her desk, and apparently that was where Brenda kept it. The black thing was what she needed to get rid of these papers and it was already plugged in, thank goodness. She straightened the edges of the accounting report and fed it into the slot on the black trash can—that was what she'd call it for now, until she remembered the name for what she was doing. It was exactly what she should do, just in case her daughters came looking.

S
LEEPING BY THE
creek was the only way Mya could nod off last night after her accident. Without the trickling sound of the water navigating smooth stones, she would've stared at the snaking crack on her bedroom ceiling until the first light of dawn. At least out here no one could come knocking to see how she was doing. No one would bring her coffee and breakfast. She didn't want pity. She just wished it hadn't happened. At least the black cloud was gone, no longer an albatross above her. If that thing never showed up again for the rest of her time on earth, Mya'd be grateful.

The sun hung low in the tree line and Mya couldn't get a clear view, but it felt like a quarter to nine, maybe later. She walked out of the lean-to she had built many summers ago, surprised by how sturdy it remained. The throw rug on the ground needed a beating, so she dragged it out, hung it over the branch of a short locust tree, and found a sturdy stick to swing. Puffs of earth rose each time she connected, covering her naked body in brown dust like a powdered Parisian courtesan. The main purpose of perfume from its inception had always been to mask the unpleasant smells of life happening, especially urine, feces, and death, all of which Mya had smelled at close range as she buried Spots in the ground. But the scent of detritus and vanillin from split and rotting trunks could not be captured in a bottle; despite Mya's devotion to the art of perfume, she often preferred the scent of real life found unaltered in the woods.

Mya smoothed out the rug in her lean-to and then decided to wash off. The nearby creek ran clear with small red crayfish visible on the bottom rocks, and twenty feet downstream the water created a pool three feet deep. As girls she and Lucia had used this spot as their personal swimming hole and preferred it to the murky ponds on their land. Clear waters gave them comfort, and they swam without concern, throwing their bodies against the creek edge and dangling their legs, over the mossy banks. One time Lucia had created a bridge with her legs, and when Mya swam beneath, Lucia peed right on her back. Mya had probably deserved it.

Back then the water had come to their chins, and now it rose to Mya's waist; to submerge her body she had to lie down on the rocks. Fanning out like a starfish, she took up the entire pool like she was floating in a teacup. Mya looked upward to the break in the trees, where clouds passed quickly overhead. One paused, and as Mya watched it formed the shape of an open mouth, not quite human but not quite beast, and then collapsed and moved with the other clouds. A stick popped in the forest, and Mya sat up immediately, held on to a mossy rock, and kept her head low. The sound of feet in the brush neared, and then Luke appeared from behind the lean-to. He peered inside her space and called Mya's name, then straightened up and scanned the trees. Why would he come to her so early? He'd only come if he knew something was wrong with her mother or her sister or the factory.

Mya stood and Luke immediately turned to see her downstream, without her even needing to call his name. He shook his head and hopped over a wall of boulders to come to her. Luke held himself against one of the large rocks, his torso flexed and tight in his white tank top. “Bathtub's broken?” he said.

She wanted to tell him to turn and go, that he shouldn't have come looking for her. Space was important in a relationship, if that's what he wanted to call it. He'd have to learn this at some point. But all she could say was “I slept here.” Mya stepped out of the pool and Luke watched her every movement.

“You should've texted me.” Luke stepped closer to her.

Mya wiped the water from her face. “I hit a fawn with my truck last night.”

“I know; Willow told me,” he said. “I wish you would've called, though.”

“It happened so fast.” She walked past him and back to the shelter to get her clothes. “Sorry if I didn't think to pick up a phone. It's not my first impulse, not like your generation.” Did she
really
just use that phrase? How old and crotchety could she be? It was too early for a conversation.

He trailed behind her. “Not just that.”

Mya didn't pause as she gathered up her clothes from the leaf mulch outside her tent area.

Luke said, “The flowers.”

“What about them?” Mya put on her shirt slowly.

“Johnny Bern overheard Robert talking to one of the floor inspectors about a bad batch and how it might be the whole crop, and they don't know how bad it is. Johnny told his guys at lunch and, you know. My father told me this morning,” Luke said. He tossed a stick onto the ground.

Robert shouldn't have been talking so freely about all this. Her mother would have to deal with that, on top of everything else. “Not your business,” Mya said. “It's not anyone's business but ours, and no one needs to spread any rumors. You especially.” Her tone was hurried and she could hear it, but she couldn't stop it.

“Yes, ma'am,” he said.

Mya froze. He'd never treated her like an older woman before. She turned to him and stood in her T-shirt, no pants or shoes, and said, “Is that all?”

“Guess so.” He kicked a log into her fire pit. “I just wanted to know if it was true and see if you're all right. But Mya Lenore's always all right. She doesn't need anybody.”

Anything she said now would only spur a fight, and that was the last thing she needed.

He began to move, and before he passed her he stopped and said, “The other night at the movies I thought you were so fucking happy, and now you're just bitchy. One minute you're hot, super hot, and then you just shoot me down. I never know what end's up with you.”

She tied her hair into a loose bun and put her hands on her hips. “It's who I am,” she said. “If you can't handle that, then stop coming after me like some lost damn dog.” As soon as it left her mouth, she knew she didn't mean it and wished she could take it back.

He stared at her until she had to look up. Luke laughed once and said, “I don't have that kind of loyalty.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“I don't need you. I wanted you, but I don't need you. I don't need this shit.” His voice was venomous, and she'd never heard him talk with such anger before. He turned his back on her and left. This was a real fight, the first they'd ever had—usually they were so easy together. That's when she knew she didn't want him to go.

“Luke,” she called after him, but he didn't stop. “Luke, wait a minute!” As if he couldn't hear her, he moved farther into the maze of trees. He was a farm boy who shot injured animals for work without hesitation. He could leave her here and cut her off for good. Naked from the waist down, she began walking cautiously, but he was gaining speed, and then she sprinted after him, shouting his name and watching his back recede in the distance.

“Damn it, Luke,” she said, “I didn't mean it. I'm sorry.” A sharp, warm pain spiked in her right shank, and Mya shouted Luke's name. She stopped running, looked down, and saw that bleeding welts had formed into a dark triangle just above her ankle. Her heart sped up, and she immediately scanned the forest floor and saw a gaggle of baby copperhead snakes curled inches away from her feet. Mya hadn't been paying attention, and the snakes were hard to see in the brown leaves. “Fucking shit,” she said to herself first, and then she looked up, desperate to see Luke.

He came bounding to her, shouting, “What is it?” before he reached her.

Breathily, Mya said, “There.” She stared down at the tan snakes with black markings. She remained as still as their long bodies.

“Are you bit?” he said, and five of the snakes escaped into holes in the forest floor.

She nodded. Luke picked up a nearby stick with a prong at the end. “Hold still now.” In one smooth motion, he swept the other snakes at least twenty feet into the distance and then pulled Mya into his arms.

“There's no kit or anything,” she said. Her mother always warned her about snakes, but she just didn't listen. Mya's body began to shake, and she tried to control her shock so it wouldn't encourage the venom to spread.

“You need a doctor,” Luke said.

They were deep in the woods, at least a forty-minute hike out, not to mention the drive to town. Mya said, “Suck it out. I know they say not to, but just do it.”

Luke lifted Mya onto his back and took her to a clearing where soft green grass provided a blanket. He eased her down. Her leg was on fire, and she wanted to put pressure on it or cut it off entirely. Luke took of his tank top, ripped it in half, and made a constriction band above the bite to keep the poison from traveling toward her heart. He pulled out his Buck knife from his pocket and a lighter from his cigarette pack and quickly sterilized the blade. “This'll hurt.”

She grabbed a fallen piece of bark and shoved it in her mouth to clamp down on.

He looked up. “Ready?”

Mya closed her eyes, and the hot blade sliced into her skin like it was carving a turkey. Tears ran from the corners of her eyes without her consent, and the blood gushed down to her bare foot. Luke immediately covered the bites with his mouth, sucked hard, spat, and sucked again. He gripped her leg with both hands. He sliced open another set of bites and she shouted, “Mercy!” and then bit down on the bark.

She wanted to wrap him up in her arms, but her body was in too much pain to move. If only she had white willow bark tincture out here to subdue the inflammation. Luke finished and wiped off his mouth, and Mya said, “Get the moonshine.”