Season of the Dragonflies

by Sarah Creech

  “I’ll get it,” he said, and went to the refrigerator.

  Lucia sat down at the round kitchen table, and Ben joined her with two beers in hand. “Cheers.”

  “To old times.” She clinked his beer’s neck with hers.

  “You know, we never cooked together.”

  “No?” Lucia said. “I guess not.”

  He nodded and glanced down the hallway. “Think she’s okay?”

  Lucia shrugged and said, “Which one?” Mya could retreat for days or weeks at a time and Willow was like a poker player. Though these days she wasn’t as impenetrable as Lucia remembered. Mya and Willow always isolated themselves when things went wrong, while Lucia sought company to work through her problems. “There’s been a lot going on here lately,” Lucia said.

  Ben drank his beer and said, “My mom’s ill.”

  “Oh,” Lucia said, taken back by his non sequitur.

  “Lung cancer.” He said it like he needed her to know.

  “Is that why you came back?”

  He nodded. “She didn’t have anybody.”

  “That’s sad, Ben,” Lucia said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I just got tenured.” He shredded a paper napkin from the holder on the table.

  Lucia said, “Not surprising.”

  “I couldn’t do both,” Ben said. “Worked out okay. They gave me a semester sabbatical for fall and I came back this summer. Spending the summer farming instead of writing papers.”

  “Always your first love.”

  “One of them,” Ben said with a small smile, not looking up from the table. Lucia blushed and stood up to check on the pizza.

  He piled the shreds of napkin and placed his beer on top. “What about you? I heard your voice on Animal Planet one time. It was so strange, like you were in the room.”

  “Really?” she said, and returned to the table. “I figured no one heard those announcements, they’re so short.”

  “I did,” he said. “I wanted to contact you but I didn’t know how, and you were married and everything, so I didn’t want to bother you, but I wanted to tell you congratulations.”

  “That’s sweet. The support would’ve been nice, actually.”

  “Better late than never,” he said. “So congratulations.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Lucia said, and took another sip. When she finished she added, “But it’s all done now, so that feels a little weird.”

  “You’re not going back?”

  Lucia smelled the baked crust. “Hold on,” she said, and stood up and turned on the oven light again. The mozzarella cheese bubbled into small brown mountains. She put on oven mitts and pulled out the pizza.

  “Can I help?” Ben said.

  “I can handle it, but thanks,” Lucia said, and placed the pizza stone on a wooden board and carried it to the table. She sliced the pizza and they waited a few minutes for it to cool. She said, “I don’t know what I’ll do next. I just don’t think acting will be that next thing, you know? I gave it a good shot.”

  “You did,” Ben said, and removed a slice from the stone. “I can’t wait, sorry.”

  “Go ahead,” Lucia said, and followed him.

  Ben took a bite and his eyes rolled back. “It’s the best.”

  Lucia smiled as she took a bite. “Better than Willow’s?”

  He took another bite and nodded.

  “Liar,” she said, but the bite she took was amazing, she couldn’t deny it.

  He said, “It’s not for nothing you know. There’s a reason you went; you experienced a lot, right? Did cool things, met cool people.”

  “It’s true.”

  “And there’s a reason you’re back too.” He used his thumb to wipe pizza sauce from his lips.

  Lucia paused and put her pizza down. Ben always did have a penchant for fatalism. She almost told him about her mother’s decision to retire. When they had dated, any time she needed to make a decision about a school project, quitting her job at the clothing store in town to take acting classes, or how to handle Mya, she had consulted Ben. He took time to think ideas through and never hurried his decision, but when he did decide, they both knew it was best.

  “Think you’d like to check out the farm sometime before you go?” he said, and helped himself to another slice.

  “I’d love that.”

  “No city wear though. I’ll put you to work.”

  “Stilettos at least?” She faked a pout.

  “Only if you’re on composting detail.”

  “I might have some old boots in my closet. My room looks exactly the same. It’s weird.”

  “I don’t think I remember.”

  “Oh yeah?” Lucia said. She hadn’t had sex in more than eight months now, and drinking beer with the guy who took her virginity was a dangerous combination. It would be too easy to invite Ben back to take a look and then sit on the bed and flip through an old photo album, and soon they’d kiss once and then again, deeply and fully, until he leaned her back on the pillows and she wouldn’t be able to control herself. Just like teenagers. That is, if he’d even want to. “It’s as confining as I remember.”

  They finished half the pizza. “Save some for Mya,” Ben said. “And your mom.”

  “Good idea,” Lucia said, and stood from the table. She wrapped the rest of the pizza in aluminum foil and put it away in the fridge.

  “I wish I could stay longer,” Ben said, his hands in his pockets. “The farm wakes up early.”

  “That’s fine,” Lucia said, but she couldn’t help wondering if that was the real reason he had to go or if he had somebody else waiting for him.

  He walked to her with confidence, wrapped her in a big hug, and said, “Let’s do this again before you go.”

  “Sounds good,” she said, her body folding into his like warm clay.

  “Tell your mom I’ll call her tomorrow.”

  “Will do,” she said, and walked him to the door. They paused in the frame and waited for the dragonflies to part. Lucia wanted him to kiss her, on the cheek even, but he smiled and turned to go. She shut the door and leaned against it with one hand resting over her breastbone; she hadn’t experienced desire of this kind in far too long.

  CHAPTER 19

  Shredding the Numbers

  WILLOW HAD FALLEN asleep on the sectional sofa in her office, her stomach aching from hunger and aggravated by the smell of baked crust, but she hadn’t wanted to interrupt Lucia and Ben. Their voices rose and fell, and laughter punctuated the conversation, reminding Willow of the time when Ben was the only one who could put Lucia in a good mood. He’d been Willow’s last hope for keeping Lucia in Quartz Hollow all those years ago, but her daughter had a stubborn streak Willow couldn’t blame her for. If anything, she’d inherited it. Willow had underestimated Lucia’s desire to get away. Willow admired what a valiant effort she’d made, considering how miserable she had been for much of that time away. Lucia couldn’t deny it; Willow knew, the way mothers always do. Last night was the happiest Lucia had sounded since she’d arrived home.

  Mya had stayed in the woods and probably spent the night in her lean-to. Willow sat up from the couch and her feet landed on the reading material that had put her to sleep last night. She gathered the accounting report and placed it on her desk. Normally she read the annual report as soon as she received it, but she hadn’t been as punctual this time around, figuring it hadn’t changed much since last year. In fact this past year the profits were higher, since they’d signed a few new clients, and she’d increased the price on a few of her top clients, Zoe included, a systematic adjustment made when clients experienced significant strides in their careers. Other than equipment replacement, building repair, new hires, insurance hikes, and other day-to-day costs, Willow hardly worried about major losses, not like the loss of an entire crop. She stared at the bottom line on her accounting report and subtracted three-quarters of the seventeen million they’d made last year to project next year’s potential loss if the new formula for Zo
e didn’t work and she blackmailed major clients. Willow worried that was a conservative estimate, but it was a prettier scenario than going into the negative, which would inevitably happen if the crop failed to produce again. How had this become her life, and so suddenly?

  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.

  CHAPTER 20

  Snakebite

  SLEEPING 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 wat
er 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.”