by Sarah Gay
“For what?”
“Our next project. When we come back this summer to interview refugees who’ve been relocated to Salt Lake City.”
My, she had a way of getting into things. He wasn’t going to allow her to wiggle her way in that easily. “Our project?”
“Well, yeah! I had lunch with a local administrator of refugee affairs on Monday.”
She was craftier than he had given her credit. “Annie, I’ve been coordinating this for two years.”
She lowered her eyes to the ground and then raised them back up to meet his. It was harder to say no to her than a starving, wet, naked child on the street. It was useless to argue. He couldn’t say no to her. Was it her innocent face and beseeching eyes? Or that she was now family, like an annoying kid sister.
“I get the book rights, and you do the documentary. I have the administrator’s contact info right here.” Annie scoured through her shoulder bag. “Shoot.” she stomped her foot. “Where did that go? It’s okay, I can look her up online.”
Zee gazed at her massive bag. “You could fit in that thing.”
“Ooh.” Annie held an ounce sized, chestnut bottle up in the air. “Look what I did find.”
“What’s that?”
“Essential oil. Here—give me your feet,” she said, grabbing his right foot and removing his shoe.”
“What are you doing, crazy lady?”
“Call me crazy in ten minutes. I dare you.”
“Ten minutes. Go.”
“When I bought this, I was taught all the secrets of essential oils.” She dotted her palm with oil, and, with serious concentration contorting her face, smoothed it into his bare foot.
“Your facial expressions crack me up.”
Annie dug her fingers deep into his heel. “Happy to oblige. I would bet that in your profession you’re around a plethora of Botox beauties who are physically incapable of utilizing their facial muscles.” Annie restricted the movement in her face as she spoke. “Psychologists call not showing emotion, or no facial expression, the flat effect.” Annie’s face remained perfectly still. “How’s my Botox-flat-face?”
Zee threw his head back in laughter. “You’re one funny lady.”
“Funny, not crazy. We’re making progress.”
“Keep massaging my feet, and we’ll see about progress.”
“You got it. I do owe you.”
“Don’t worry about the room.”
“Thanks, because I charged my spa treatment to my room.”
“Always wanted a kid sister.”
“Thanks, bro. Although, I’m not sure Meri’s going to like sharing the limelight.”
“Meri isn’t your typical kid sister. She can be frightening.”
Zee was only half-joking. Meri was a business woman to the core. Nothing was getting in her way, especially not her altruistic, artistic, elder brother.
A renewed energy seemed to zap through Annie. “When we come back to Salt Lake, I’ll be meeting with Tori again.”
Annie wasn’t giving up. She played the pestering younger sister beautifully.
He sighed. “Stop meddling.”
“She’s into you.”
“No, she’s not.” It would be a lot easier to erase Tori from his mind if Annie weren’t so dang persistent. “I asked her out. She turned me down. End of story.”
Annie stopped rubbing Zee’s foot, appearing slightly stunned. “Do you feel like a slug?”
He wiggled his toes to initiate more rubbing. “You think I’m snail-like?”
She shook her head, continuing the massage. “No. Snails have shells they can crawl into when they’re threatened or injured. A slug is naked. She’s vulnerable to any, and all, insults.”
“Now, I’m a female slug?”
“I’m the female slug.” Annie crossed her arms and sat back in her seat. “When I started writing, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. You wouldn’t believe how mean and biting some reviews can be.”
“It lends credibility.” Zee tried to sound upbeat. “There’s something fishy when a movie doesn’t get at least one good burn.”
“I know authors who refuse to read their reviews. They say it’s too damaging to their mental health. And these are successful authors.”
“I deal with the same thing in film.” That first critical review, void of art or expression, had sliced Zee, but it gained him additional viewers and reviews, positive reviews. He vowed to laugh in the face of critics. “Crummy side of being a slug. We’ll be fellow slugs in crime.”
“Let’s own it.” Annie raised her chin. “Word Bender, Film Maker: Slug’s the name, creating’s the game.”
Zee snapped his phone into a cord connected to the aircraft and tapped his screen. “Sometimes, we just don’t get no respect.”
She needed her spirits lifted. There was a song in his cue that would do the trick. It was impossible not to groove to that song. Should work on Annie. He started dancing in his chair as the music began. Aretha Franklin’s sultry voice boomed her need for respect.
“All I’m askin’,” Annie immediately chimed in, joining Zee in his dance.
Zee took a swig of his ginger ale as the song ended.
“You gotta share your zest for life.” Annie gave him a lively smile. “I don’t know how you could ever respect yourself, if you allowed Tori to slip away.”
His irritation rose, causing his body to stiffen. She was bordering on obnoxious. Definite kid sister syndrome. “Drop it.”
“Okay, but she’s seriously attracted you. I saw it.”
“You really think she likes me?” A renewed hope suddenly multiplied in his mind like uncensored celebrity gossip.
“A woman in love is often flustered. A widow in love is often apprehensive. You’ve got a flustered, apprehensive woman to woo.”
“What’s it gonna take to get you to stop matchmaking?”
“Hm.” Annie tapped her cheek with her pointer finger as she gazed out the window momentarily before turning back to him. “I’ll make you a deal. If you promise to think about how to woo a widow, I’ll rub your other foot without saying one more unsolicited word.”
Zee brought his right arm to shoulder height, with his elbow bent at a right angle. His pinky nail poked his thumb slightly as he covered the thumbnail and pressed it back. The Boy Scout oath, affirming duty to God and country, his fellow man, and self, ran through his mind as he held his three middle fingers upward and together. He then brought the promissory salute to his lips, signaling for her to remain silent.
She acknowledged his promise with a soft smile and resumed rubbing.
He closed his eyes, breathing in the essence of lavender and lemongrass oil saturating the cabin. Thoughts of Tori’s appreciative, heart-stopping face rekindled the dying embers—like he’d been leaking propane gas since he’d met her; and Annie clicked the sparker, causing Zee to become instantly engulfed in the fervid flames of lovesickness. Tori’s casual ease at that first chance encounter was different than his visit with her later that evening. She had been natural and confident. At her home, she was drenched in heavy perfume and make-up. She was still beautiful, but not quite as attractive to him.
Back at his hotel room that night, he had to air out his suit on the balcony to eliminate the powerful scent she had left on him. Why did women think that men liked the overkill, perfect façade? Zee wanted depth. Someone to travel the world with. Someone to share that vision of change with.
His mission suddenly became crystal clear.
5
Tori wiped down her white countertop after Ethan’s messy breakfast of cinnamon-sugar toast. The essence of cinnamon caused her to lick her lips. She loved when her house smelled like cinnamon. Perhaps she would make rice pudding before Ethan got home. He always gobbled down the sweet treat, and boiling the cinnamon stalks for hours made her house smell like the Christmas season.
As she finished wiping the last of the sticky mess from her counter, the front door chime signaled
a visitor.
“You gonna start locking your door?” Gussie’s voice echoed through the empty house.
“Then you wouldn’t be able to just walk in, Gussie.”
“True,” she said, bringing Tori into a hug and giving her a kiss on the cheek. “But I would find my way in somehow.”
“What are you up to? You hungry? I make a mean cinnamon-sugar toast.”
“Thanks, but I can only eat 500 calories today, and something tells me sugary toast would exceed that. I came to help you vacuum.”
Tori shook her head. She remembered those days of modeling when she had to eat like a bird. That was something she didn’t miss. “Vacuum?”
“I remembered that I never got to your library after the romance writer did her interviewing in there.”
Tori’s muscles tensed, remembering the disappointing end to her conversation with Zee in that very spot at the counter a few days earlier. “Sorry I wasn’t much help that night.”
“You’re royalty,” Gussie said with an upturned nose. “You shouldn’t have to clean.”
Tori shrugged her shoulders. “Really? You don’t think the royal family cleans their own floors?”
“They may do it behind closed doors. Could be the royals’ dirty little secret.”
“Touché.” Tori acknowledged a hit in their verbal fencing. “Let’s vacuum.”
The library was one of Tori’s favorite rooms. She designed the built-in bookshelves with rolling ladders to coast on the hardwood floors, the kind that causes you to stop and gasp with bibliophilistic excitement. The library of leather-bound books spanned three full walls.
French styled glass doors opened into the surprisingly lit room, illuminated by the light flowing in through the stained glass windows above each of the bookcases. Tori had commissioned a local glass blowing company to replicate her royal ancestors’ coat of arms. The stained glass art depicted two black jaguars, one above the other, both positioned in a pounce position. Above the cats’ heads stood a red-feathered bird with its wings raised in victory, like a pro-wrestler who’d just won the match.
“Where is that…” Gussie said, circling the antique drafter’s table set in the center of the room, “darn plug?”
“On the right side of the desk.”
“Finally,” Gussie said, plugging the vacuum cord into the outlet. “Why did you put an outlet into the floor?”
She was neat, not obsessive compulsive. At least Tori enjoyed telling herself that. “I didn’t want cords running helter-skelter through the middle of the room.”
Tori grabbed the vacuum from Gussie, set it to wood and maneuvered it carefully around the room. The vacuum started to wheeze as she ran it under the desk. When she rolled it out, she noticed a piece of paper flapping against the spinner. On closer examination, it was a business card. It read: Director of Refugee Affairs. Salt Lake City.
“Gussie, you know what this is?”
“Yes. It’s called interesting.” Gussie took the card from Tori’s hand. “Let’s call her.”
“Why? We don’t know her.”
Gussie lifted the receiver of the replicated 1920s antique copper, candlestick phone. “Only one way to find out.” Her voice grew excited as she began dialing the number.
Tori tried to grab the card from out of Gussie’s hand. “What are you doing?”
“Getting us out of this house.” Gussie dodged Tori.
A muffled voice floated out of the handheld receiver Gussie held to her ear. Tori elongated her neck to shorten the distance to Gussie’s head, attempting to eavesdrop on the conversation.
Gussie leaned over to speak into the base, causing Tori to stumble. “Is she available to speak with me?” Gussie said before pausing to scribble on the decorative notepad, only used by insubordinate sisters. “Volunteer opportunities? Absolutely. Name it.” She tapped the pen on the table as she listened. “I see. Thank you for your time.”
Tori raised an eyebrow as she tapped her leg with an open palm. “What did you commit us to?”
“How are your gardening skills?” Gussie winked, playfully exerting her insufferable tenacity.
Zee stared at his computer screen. Should he click the Add Friend button on the social media site? Tori’s photo lingered in the corner of his screen. He had promised Annie he would at least try.
He took in a deep breath and clicked the button, then sat back in the black leather recliner in his man-den. Is this what Indie 500 drivers feel like in their cars as they sit in the driver’s seat, expending thousands of calories due to sheer stress.
Although Zee’s eyes looked up at the TV screen above the wall mounted gas fireplace, his laptop screen taunted his peripheral vision.
Five minutes turned into ten and ten into thirty. He clicked off an old episode of Seinfeld. The sitcom had seemed to cheer him slightly.
As he reached over to the end table to close his laptop, a happy sound emanated from his computer. She had accepted his friend request.
Now he would need to start posting. He loathed social media. Annie had tricked him into joining a few sites. She had explained to him that a person wasn’t considered normal if they didn’t have an online presence and at least a few hundred friends. Zee now had eight hundred and fifty-six friends, but all he seemed to care about was the last one.
How could he be charming online? He had a few months to impress her. He’d know if it had worked when he returned to Salt Lake and made his move.
6
Sweeping snow blew across the winding, mountain interstate; like a billowing white sheet, rippling into place on a freshly made bed. Even with drifting snow, the twenty-minute drive into the valley was pleasant.
It wouldn’t be snowing once Tori reached the Salt Lake valley. Park City was an enchanting little hinterland, but it was also home to eight months of winter. Tori was still shoveling her driveway when lilac trees, purple crocuses, and tulips scented the air of the nearby valley, three thousand feet below.
Scott, the master gardener who Tori had spoken to twice over the phone, thought it would be wise for Tori to see the gardens during the cool, spring season.
Tori’s tires crunched over the gardens’ gravel driveway.
It was your typical wet April. Tori grabbed her mini umbrella and walked through the tall grass at the entrance to the gardens in the drizzling rain. Tori looked up at the towering mountain above her. Mount Olympus, the high peak above the refugee gardens, was dusted white; like a plate of stacked scones, freshly sprinkled with powdered sugar. When it rained in the valley, it snowed on the mountain tops.
A distinctive buzz flew by her cheek and into a red azalea bush. Her eyes found the first live whistle of the spring wind, the mountain hummingbird. That wasn’t its proper name, but mountain hummingbird was what she affectionately called the earliest hummingbird to the area each year. They arrived between the second and third week of April, like clockwork.
As the rapid-winged bird devoured the flower’s nectar, Tori took in a deep breath to capture the scent of the azaleas, but the overpowering stench of fresh manure cut her inhale short.
The sloped garden was established on the edge of a relatively affluent neighborhood. From what Tori gathered, the gardens were a product of a wealthy beneficiary, the city not utilizing the property (thus allowing it to be zoned agriculturally), and several like-minded public figures. Scott deferred all credit to others. She liked him.
Tori stood at the gate of the garden while she adjusted the hood of her yellow slicker overcoat. The earthy scent of uninterrupted rain was overwhelming, in an unforgiving way. She loved the way the sky offered rain, and the dirt replied—by offering tender greens.
Green sprigs peppered the garden, and not just in the ninety or so raised, wooden beds that provided fresh produce for nearly fifty families. It was as if a few refugees scattered the seeds unknowingly as they walked the path to their boxes.
Not all boxes were created equal. Perhaps they were built to a certain specification by the b
oy scouts who were working on their Eagle Scout awards. But, where some beds were meticulously groomed, others appeared to have been completely ignored.
Tori wondered the gardens to find a graying man with a confident smile.
“Scott?”
His hand shook as he reached to greet her. “In the flesh.”
“Tori.”
“I guessed as much.” There was a slowness in his movements and speech. “Could you help me with my buttons, please? I have a difficult time fastening them.”
Tori’s heart softened as she took his shaky wrist in her cold hands, and proceeded to button the cuff of his plaid shirt. She felt like a simpleton. Scott had Parkinson’s disease. Through their few phone calls, she devised that he gave seminars, sat on civic boards, and worked tirelessly in the gardens. Suddenly, her life of decorating multi-million dollar homes painted her as hollow and useless as the empty watering can at her feet.
“Come meet my friend from Bhutan,” he said, leading her passed a long picnic bench, shaded by a wooden pergola, then up the sloped rows of gardening boxes.
Other than a lone, elderly man working his box, the gardens were empty. The man stood less than five feet tall, with a bright red wool cap. His complexion was as dark and spotted as a cocoa bean. His high cheekbones pushed out from his face, giving the appearance that his eyes receded back into their sockets. He didn’t have any wrinkles in his advanced age, only a few deep creases. He raised a three-foot, homemade wooden stake into the air, drove it into his plot, then continued by hammering it into the ground with a stone mallet. It was slow and methodical work, and he appeared to have several more stakes to go.
When Scott introduced them, the elderly man bowed slightly to Tori while holding the salutation gesture of his palms pressed together with his fingers pointing upward.
Scott smiled warmly. “I love the customary Hindu greeting. Did you know that the gesture means I bow to the divinity in you?”
“I’ve practiced that salutation many times in Yoga, but never knew what it meant.” Tori brought her hands together and bowed, repeating the gesture to the elderly man.