Season of the Dragonflies (22 page)

“I don't see it,” Lucia said, trying to reassure her. “I swear I don't. It's gone.”

Willow said, “Luke?”

“I'll call,” he said, and lifted Mya so he could secure her in his truck. She let him. She even let him help her with the seat belt. Maybe it was just the poison that made Mya so vulnerable. Luke got in the driver's seat and Mya rested her head on his shoulder. Lucia stood beside her mother as they backed up in the driveway and prepared to turn around. Like a quick blip on a television screen, the black cloud flashed above her sister's head. Lucia raised her hand in the air and sprinted after them, but the truck was out of sight completely, leaving a cloud of Virginia red dust in its wake.

T
HREE THINGS,”
Dr. Kent said with Mya's chart in his hands. “Have a kit when you're that far out. And don't ever, and I mean
ever,
cut a snakebite and suck out the venom. Promise me?”

Mya nodded. Dr. Kent looked at Luke and waited for him to nod as well.

“And lastly, make sure you get here immediately. Cutting into those bites damaged your tissue, and beyond having a scar, it's likely you'll lose feeling in that area. We'll know in the next few weeks. So make an appointment up front to come see me for a follow-up.” Dr. Kent handed Mya her discharge papers. “How does a woodsy woman like you get bit like this?”

Mya gave him a strained smile. “I'm not sure.” She had been asking herself the same question. She'd seen copperheads and rattlesnakes before; she'd encountered them many times, but she'd managed to spot them, to sidestep them. This time she didn't even notice, just like she hadn't noticed Spots when she was driving up to the house.

“Just be careful,” Dr. Kent said.

“I'll try,” Mya said. Dr. Kent's family practice had been a fixture in Mya's memory since she was a little girl. He was the one who first introduced her to Fig Newtons. Though his hair had turned white and the top of his head had begun to bald, he still kept a tray of cookies in the white cabinet above the sink where he stored gauze, tape, and cotton swabs. He patted Mya on her knee like he always had and handed her a cookie.

Dr. Kent checked her wrapped, swollen leg where the nurse had administered the antivenin and tetanus shot. “Looks good,” he said, and then he closed the door.

Luke rested his back against a faded red poster of the circulatory system. “I'm sorry,” he said.

His face had fallen, and she limped over to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “You did what I thought was right.”

“Still.” He refused to look at her.

She took his chin in her hand and directed it toward her. She said, “If you hadn't been there, it would've been hell getting back to the cabin.”

“Your leg's real messed up,” he said. “I cut too deep.”

Mya shrugged her shoulders. “Don't become a surgeon,” she said, but he didn't laugh like she expected him to. “What is it? Worried you won't find me attractive anymore?”

“God, no.” He squeezed her.

“Then no big deal,” she said. “And thank you.”

“You're welcome.” Luke pulled her into his chest and rested his chin on top of her head. Whenever he did this she felt like the younger one. A nurse knocked on the door and entered, then quickly left, saying, “Sorry.”

Luke said, “I love you, Mya.”

Without thinking, she tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let her. He said it again: “I love you and you don't have to say anything, I just need you to know that.”

No one had confessed love to her in a doctor's office before. She didn't feel well enough to respond. The antivenin had made her exhausted. To respond to Luke now wouldn't be right. Someone knocked on the door again and Mya said, “Coming out, hang on.”

Luke opened the door for Mya and supported her as she made her way on crutches to the checkout window. The white halls gleamed from bleach, and the smell of rubbery ACE bandages filled the air. Mya stood behind the glass panel of the checkout counter and waited for the receptionist, Shirley, to finish up a call, her circus-animal scrubs a delightful display of personality in an otherwise sterile environment. Shirley hung up and in a deep Appalachian accent said, “That was your mama. Says your boyfriend didn't call her.”

On impulse Mya almost said “Not my boyfriend,” but she was able to stop herself.

Luke said, “I forgot.”

“You know how she is,” Mya said.

Shirley laughed like she knew a long-kept secret about Willow from their school days together. “You're over eighteen, so I couldn't say nothing to her about you visiting here. You call her, will you?”

“First thing,” Mya said.

Shirley readjusted herself in her black rolling chair and banged on the antiquated beige keyboard. “Gotta wake it up, hold on.”

“Dr. Kent said follow up in two weeks,” Mya said.

“Just hang on.” Shirley stared at the monitor like she might smack it.

Luke tapped his boot on the floor and Mya looked in his direction, but the flat-screen TV mounted in the corner of the waiting area caught her attention first. The entertainment-channel news had a split screen of Jennifer and Zoe and a headline running beneath them that screamed:
BOTH
ACTRESSES
IN
HIDING
.
WHO
WILL
PLAY
NAUTICA
JONES
NOW
? Mya leaned closer to the glass panel, and the screen changed to a split of Zoe and her longtime boyfriend, the actor/director Clint Moore, a steamy twenty-first-century version of Paul Newman, a man Mya couldn't stop staring at even when she tried. The headline scrolled:
CHEATING
MAN
,
BROKEN
HEART
:
THE
REASON
ZOE
QUIT
HER
ROLE
? “More to come, just after this,” said a bouncy blonde with too much cleavage and teeth much too white. A commercial for RingTrue birth control began, and a skinny twentysomething vowed that her partner couldn't feel the insert.

Shirley said, “How's Thursday, July second, at nine?”

“I'm sorry?” Mya said, unable to concentrate and feeling pulled toward the television. She needed to find out if Zoe had already used the formula she sent last night. Mya had never expected that kind of efficacy. She must've used the perfume the moment she received it and applied too much of it in a desperate effort to renew her failing relationship. And her man's cheating revealed today? Could the large dose of perfume cause such a swift rejection? Mya suspected it had this power, but she never expected Zoe to douse herself.

“Does that work?” Shirley asked again.

“I guess so.” Mya accepted her appointment card and offered Shirley cash.

“Not that much, child,” Shirley said, and handed her back two hundred dollars. “Just a twenty for your copay.” Mya didn't keep up with things like health insurance; she rarely went to the doctor.

Luke led Mya away from the desk. He said, “You sure you're fine?”

Mya kept staring at the TV, waiting for the news to continue, but an erectile dysfunction commercial came on next. “Let's go,” Luke said. “Your mom's worried.”

He pushed open the door. The sunlight flooded the waiting room and Mya covered her eyes. He steadied her on the way to the truck and then opened her door. She said, “Can we stop by the pharmacy? I just need to pick up some ibuprofen.”

“Call your mom.” He handed her his cell phone, and she dialed her mother as he started the car.

Willow picked up after two rings. “Luke?”

“It's Mya.”

“Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Mya said. “Got some shots and a scar, but otherwise, fine.”

Willow paused, and she heard Lucia say in the background, “Tell her.”

“I saw the news,” Mya said first.

She heard Willow's steady breathing. “Do you think it's—”

“I do.” Mya couldn't help the excitement building in her body. “But I need to make some phone calls.”

“Her manager?” Willow said.

“Probably,” Mya said.

“Lucia can call.”

Luke took a sharp turn off Main Street, the road opening up to rolling green valleys. This was her business, not Lucia's. Why would Lucia make the call? “I can do it,” Mya insisted. “I'll be home in less than thirty minutes.”

“I want to know now,” Willow said.

“Mom!” Mya sounded like she was whining but she didn't know what else to say. Lucia had been home for exactly three days after fifteen years away, and now she was making official business calls.

“And you're ill,” Willow added.

“This isn't right,” Mya said. “This is my deal, she's my client.”

“It's still my business, for now anyway, and she's my client,” Willow said. “Lucia's making the call and we'll know something by the time you get here.”

Why was she acting like this? What had Mya done to make her mother so indifferent? And what was next? Willow would retire finally and hand over the business to Mya
and
Lucia? Or worse, give the president title to Lucia and let Mya hang on, live at the cabin, maybe oversee the factory and make the same formula over and over again like they had for the past century? Willow couldn't do that to her. Mya had years of experience raising the plants and managing the factory, and Lucia had none.

“Mya, you there?” her mother said.

“Bad reception.” Mya hung up on her mother. She handed the phone back to Luke.

Mya stared out at the blur of trees, and the more she thought about it, the more Mya believed her mother capable of changing the entire trajectory of her future. Willow and Lucia did seem closer. Either Mya was ill and paranoid, or she was close to losing future control over Lenore Incorporated. She had stayed in Quartz Hollow her entire life, had cared for the land and the business and their mother while Lucia was away following her selfish passions. Could her mother
honestly
make this decision?

Mya had to know as soon as she arrived home. “Please drive faster.” Luke shifted into fifth gear and pressed down hard on the accelerator.

I
S SHE OKAY
with this?” Lucia said after Willow hung up the receiver.

Willow didn't want to lie to her daughter, but Lucia had work to do and getting her feelings involved would only hamper her. This, above all else, was the most important business skill to master. “She's dazed, and you know how antivenin can be.”

“Not really,” Lucia said.

Willow didn't have firsthand experience with snakebites either, and Lucia had never spent as much time in the woods as Mya. “You know what I meant,” Willow said. “She'll be fine.”

“Did you tell her?”

“I decided against it.” Willow picked up the phone and handed it to Lucia. “Mya's got enough going on not to have to worry about that cloud. She needs to rest; after that we'll talk to her.”

“Do I call now?” Lucia said, and took the phone from Willow.

Willow opened an Excel spreadsheet and scrolled through the names and numbers until she landed on Peter Sable, Zoe's manager. She highlighted the number. “Here you go,” Willow said, and stepped aside so Lucia could stand at the helm of the desk.

Willow sat on her couch. It felt good to be on the other side for once. On many occasions while Lucia was in New York, a bitterness had brewed inside Willow, as if Lucia had purposely stolen the years away, years that she had longed for when her girls were little. She wanted to be near them as they came of age and developed their interests and careers and relationships. Whenever Willow went to the city for meetings, Lucia always seemed busy or only had time for a quick lunch. Jonah rarely came with her. Her own daughter, a mere acquaintance. Certainly she hadn't wanted Lucia to go through the heartache of a divorce, but she had longed for some event to bring Lucia back to the mountains, no matter the cost.

Lucia's long black hair, pale skin as smooth as gardenia petals, big blue eyes, and wide cheekbones mirrored Grandmother Serena's features so much that the daguerreotype of Willow's grandmother on the mantel seemed alive with Lucia standing in front of it. Lucia pinned the receiver in the crook of her neck and said, “No answer.”

“Try again,” Willow said, and Lucia gave her the same indignant look she used to when Willow asked her to clean the windows of the cabin. Willow valued a clear view.

“Mr. Sable?” Lucia sounded more confident than she had when she first called Jennifer. Willow couldn't be sure, but it seemed like Lucia enjoyed doing this, the way she'd always enjoyed helping Willow dry the dishes. Before she turned thirteen, of course.

“Sir, this is Lucia Lenore calling on behalf of my sister, Mya.” Lucia tucked her hair behind one ear, smiled, and said, “Yes. Yes, that's right. Yes, sir, I am. I know, that's what everyone says. I exist, I promise. Born April twenty-seventh. Is that right? How funny. How old is your daughter now? Oh, sixteen's a great time to be a girl. Uh-huh. Right.”

Willow leveled her eyes at Lucia, and Lucia held one hand up like she had no idea what was happening. Peter Sable
never
chatted on the phone.

“Sir—okay, Peter,” Lucia said. “I'm calling to check in with Zoe. Well, no, not about all that, though we're very worried and hope she resolves her personal problems without much interference from the press. You too, that goes without saying. But Zoe should've received a package from us, last night I believe. Did she mention that? She did? And—is that right? We're so glad to hear it. That
is
high praise from Zoe. I'm so glad we followed up then. Didn't want to bother her, of course, not in these times, but I'm very glad you could spare a few minutes for me and I hope to speak with you again soon. Yes, yes, Peter, I'll tell her, and thank you for being so gracious.”