Season of the Dragonflies (23 page)

Lucia continued to smile even as she hung up the phone.

What a stunner, her daughter. Peter Sable had always been a hard-ass, but he talked to Lucia like he loved her. Willow said, “That was good, right?”

“Peter told me to tell you that I'm fabulous,” Lucia replied, and made a small curtsy.

“You do have something, I'll give you that,” Willow said. Lucia cast down her eyes and smiled at the compliment. “You've always had a magical voice.”

“And Zoe's using the perfume. ‘Adores it,' or so says Peter.”

“This'll cheer Mya up.”

Lucia sat down at Willow's desk and placed both hands on the top as if she owned it.

“How's that feel?” Willow asked.

Lucia withdrew her hands like she'd been caught trying to steal. She tied her hair into a pile on top of her head and then paused.

“What?” Willow said.

“Are you sure this is right?” Lucia said.

Willow adjusted herself on the couch. She said, “I really have thought this through, and continuing to provide our product to Zoe after the threats she made is a defeat for our company. I'd rather not work with her, honestly. There's no good way to quit a client.”

“But why should Zoe be ruined if Mya wasn't clear in the contract?” Lucia said, and tapped her nails on the desk.

“Zoe knew better. This wasn't some innocent mistake, Lucia. It was calculated. The sooner you accept that, the better. Mya didn't put it in writing, but on very select occasions I haven't either; it depends on the client and the industry. With Zoe, considering how immature she is and the competition in music and film, I would've made sure to do it, and it's my fault for not checking the contract, but Zoe knew. It's always made clear in the negotiation, verbally anyway. She just didn't care. What was best for Zoe was all that mattered.”

“I understand all that,” Lucia said. “You don't want Zoe to get hurt though, right?”

“Of course not.”

“But Mya's hair—well, it's her hair. And you let her add it to the formula,” Lucia said.

Willow nodded, but what could she say to this point? She would not admit aloud that she wanted Zoe brought down.

Lucia stood from the chair and walked to the window. Willow watched her. A dragonfly landed on the glass panel. Lucia studied it for a moment and then she said, “If this scandal with her boyfriend is a result, it's working fast. Almost too fast.”

“That's hard to say.”

“You're not concerned? Even a little?”

Willow stared at Lucia. She had a hard time feeling any concern for Zoe Bennett.

“Then I won't worry,” Lucia concluded.

“I think that's best.”

Lucia sat down on the couch, placed her chin in her hands, and let out a long sigh. “Jonah left me a message.”

“Did you listen to it?” Willow rubbed her daughter's back for the first time in years.

“Not yet,” Lucia said. “Probably just a thing with the apartment.”

“Then why haven't you checked it?”

“I don't know.”

“You feel like telling me what happened between you two?” Willow asked softly.

“Not really.”

Willow didn't worry about Mya's heart breaking, but she always worried about Lucia. She attached herself too much to goals, plans, places, what people should be like, and what life should look like. Only disappointment came from such high expectations. “I won't miss him,” Willow said.

“You hardly knew him,” Lucia said defensively.

How irrational even a broken heart could be. Willow'd had one before too. She said, “He didn't want me to know him.”

Lucia folded her arms and rested them on her stomach. This was her response, a quiet resignation. Jonah wasn't family and never would be, and Lucia was on the way to accepting it, Willow hoped. If she did, maybe she'd see a different kind of life awaiting her.

A few moments later Mya tossed open the curtain sectioning off the office and limped into the room on crutches. Willow hadn't heard the truck pull up. Luke held her waist to steady her, but she didn't seem to notice him. Her face was red and her blue eyes large.

Lucia stood. “Your leg's so swollen.”

“Can we talk?” Mya said.

Willow looked from Mya to her lover boy and back to Mya.

Mya said, “I don't care if he hears.”

Luke looked around the room at everything except a Lenore woman.

Willow said, “Maybe you should ask him; maybe he doesn't want to be here to listen.”

Mya whipped around. “Luke?”

“Plow needs a new blade.”

“See,” Willow said.

Luke kissed Mya on her cheek and then said, “I'll call you when I'm done. I love you.” And then he vanished behind the curtain.

Mya turned around immediately after he said what Willow thought he said, though she was getting older and perhaps her hearing wasn't so good anymore.

“Did he just say that?” Lucia asked.

“He did,” Mya confirmed.

At least my hearing is still good,
Willow thought with relief.

“How sweet,” Lucia said in a taunting voice.

“Shut up.” Mya eased herself to the floor and Willow tossed her a pillow. She slid it under her butt.

Willow said, “You seem so—I don't know, harried? Shouldn't you rest or something?”

“Can we get you anything?” Lucia said.

“Stop with this ‘we' stuff, please,” Mya snapped.

“I meant ‘I,' ” Lucia said. “Can
I
get you any—”

Mya cut her off. “I need to know something and you're making it harder for me to ask.” She pointed her finger at Willow and said, “Are you thinking, at least even a little teensy bit, about appointing Lucia president?”

Lucia coughed, and Willow assumed this gave it away. Mya said, “I knew it, Mom.”

“Should I step out?” Lucia said.

“No, obviously not,” Mya said. “You should never go, never again, not if you're running things.”

“I haven't even—”

“Doesn't matter,” Mya said. “It's the principle. She wants someone else to do it because I messed up and she doesn't trust me. You let me change the formula, Mom, and even if I fix the problem, that won't make a difference. That's right, isn't it?”

Willow had hoped to have a separate conversation with Mya about all this, but that black cloud had arrived and there had never seemed to be a right time. “It happened quickly, Mya.”

“She's gone fifteen years and then three days she's back and things happen quickly for you? Sorry, I don't get it. It's like you were waiting for her to return.”

Mya adjusted the pillow beneath her leg and winced in pain.

“I'm still sitting here, you know,” Lucia said. “I can hear you.”

“I really don't give a damn,” Mya answered. “If you can't handle hearing this, how will you be president? You're too soft.”

Lucia stood up like she might leave. In a calm voice, she said, “I'll tell you how, Mya: I don't rush.”

Mya's impulsiveness had always made Willow cautious about handing over the business to her. It had weighed on Willow for years, even before the Zoe issue, but she hadn't known how to tell her elder daughter, who had devoted her entire life to the business, that she was in the running for president only by default.

Mya asked her mother, “How do you know she won't get claustrophobic again and split?”

“Sit down,” Willow told Lucia, who, after a long silence, obeyed.

“This isn't how I planned to talk to you, Mya, but you brought it up,” Willow said. “I've mentioned this to Lucia and she hasn't said a word to me. Not one word in response. Nothing is settled.”

Mya stared at Lucia, as if to confirm, and Lucia finally nodded. Mya said, “Why'd you mention it to her first and not me? I've been here the entire time. You owed me that.”

Willow stood from the couch without another word, pulled out a drawer from her desk, and presented Zoe's letter to Mya. “This came for you.”

Mya read it over once and stared at the paper. She shook her head and rasped, “You shouldn't have opened it.”

“But I did,” Willow said. “You know, it's one thing to tell me that I should retire, but to conspire with a client, to plot about getting me to retire early? And for what? I don't even want to know what plans you had.”

“I didn't have any plans,” Mya said with deep remorse in her voice, so much that Willow almost believed her. “It's just—”

“Just what? Send me out to L.A. for a phony meeting? Push me in a corner to change the formula? Give Zoe the upper hand? Force me to retire? What excuse could you have for going against me like this?”

“You don't seem yourself!” Mya shouted. “For a while you haven't, and I thought it'd be best, but I knew you'd never agree unless you had to.”

Willow returned to her place on the couch and said, “I do need to retire. I'm struggling to remember small things and some big things too. I've been trying to carry on and pretend everything's fine, but it's been mounting, and I feel like I'm jeopardizing things by hanging on. But frankly, I haven't sensed that you were ready, Mya.”

“What?” Mya slammed her hand on the floor. “I've been ready for the past few years, just waiting for you to give me more responsibility. I can't believe you're telling me this now.”

Willow said, “I've seen a spark in Lucia since she's been home; that's the truth. I see it in her and I have to follow my feelings, Mya. So I spoke up exactly when I felt it, and you weren't here.”

Mya bowed her head and took a deep breath. Willow watched her chest fill and then fall. “So what's there for me? Travel the world for the rest of my life? Snap photos? Shop? Did it occur to you that I wanted this job more than anything else?”

“It did,” Willow said, her entire motherly constitution softening for her daughter. “Of course it did.” Mya looked wholly like the toddler she once was, the girl Willow adored who sat at the kitchen table and pretended to play poker against her.

Mya refused to look at Willow anymore, and she couldn't blame her. This was all very difficult. Mya turned her stare to Lucia, and Willow did the same.

“So I can talk now?” Lucia said.

Mya tossed up her hands. “I guess so, you're the boss.”

Lucia tightened the corners of her mouth. “I haven't been sure.”

This response surprised Willow. “And now?”

“And now I think I want this,” Lucia said.

“Well, grand,” Mya blurted. “Sure glad you came to a decision. It has to be one of us, and clearly I can't be trusted, even though every single decision I've ever made has been in the interest of the company. Can you say the same for yourself, Lucia?”

Willow said, “The business chooses,” before Lucia had to respond.

“What a bunch of bullshit,” Mya said, and stood up from the floor. She wobbled when she put pressure on her right leg, then grabbed her crutches. “Maybe it's my time to go. Lucia had her time away, so why not me?”

“Maybe it is,” Willow replied, and Mya's face dropped. Some time away would be replenishing for Mya, but it would never happen. She was too attached to home.

“Now, hold on,” Lucia said. “You didn't let me finish.”

Mya said, “I need a bath.” She sounded defeated.

Lucia stood and walked to Mya. “I want to share this with you.”

“I don't need your charity.”

“That's not how things are done,” Willow said. “Too many cooks in the kitchen ruin a soup; that's what my mother always said. That's what Grandmother Serena knew and believed, and you can't just go and change it now.”

Lucia faced Willow head-to-head: “Changing the formula isn't the way things are done either, but you agreed to that. And I won't accept the position if I'll be heading it alone.”

Willow absolutely shouldn't have given the girls this ammunition against her. And now she fully understood Grandmother Serena's point—change one aspect of the business and the rest is vulnerable. Each president had made the same difficult decision. Serena had chosen Lily because she was the elder, and her younger sister owned a bakery in town and lived close by but didn't work for the business. Iris had too much anxiety about people and decision making to run the business, so their mother had never questioned her choice to appoint Willow. Now, as president of Lenore Incorporated, Willow had the right to choose, and she knew better than to give her daughters equal power over the company—frightful arguments and poor execution would result from that dynamic.

“Mya?” Lucia said.

“I don't know.”

“It's that or nothing,” Lucia said, and Willow couldn't believe she was being that forceful with her sister. Lucia was president. There wasn't a doubt in Willow's mind anymore. Lucia wouldn't share the job.

Mya turned for the door.

“Creative director,” Lucia offered.

Mya limped away on her crutches, and Lucia went to hold the curtain open for her. Clearly Lucia had been thinking about a lot more than she'd let on. One thing seemed certain, something Willow hadn't anticipated: Lucia wanted to see a change in the business. But how big of a change? Willow never intended for a mass overhaul. Mya sometimes mentioned expanding the line of products and becoming more visible as a way to protect the perfume from inquiry. Visibility was not a part of the business plan, only absolute discretion, and Willow had always doubted Mya's ability to adhere to that principle.

Lucia planted herself in Willow's chair behind the desk. Willow said, “Your acting skills come in handy from time to time.”

Lucia pursed her lips. “I was going to tell you.”

“I bet,” Willow said.

“It's for the best,” Lucia said, and her energy was so much larger and brighter, as if she were using the family perfume for the first time.