Season of the Dragonflies (38 page)

Willow nodded and sat down.

Lucia pulled out a small purple cloth from her purse and said, “Ben's mother isn't feeling well today and he wants us to go to her house to share the news with her, to cheer her up. If Mya's sleeping I was hoping you could do this.” Lucia handed the bottle to Willow.

“But you made it,” Willow said.

“I know,” Lucia said, “but I need you to finish it.” Willow didn't trust Lucia's story. She wanted Willow to be part of this. Even as a little girl Lucia had a mischievous way about her. If she wanted something from Willow, she found an indirect way to get it. And this time, she was doing it for the sake of Willow's relationship with Mya. Willow accepted the bottle from her.

“The sooner the better,” Lucia added. “And Luke too.”

“Luke?” Willow said. “I don't know how to see him.”

“They'll let you in,” Lucia assured her.

Willow remained seated and Lucia stood.

“This is the right thing to do,” Lucia said before waving good-bye.

James came over and sat down next to Willow as she watched Ben and Lucia retreat to his truck. Willow opened the top of the bottle but left it wrapped so no one could see. She inhaled deeply and couldn't believe what a simple mix Lucia had made. It wasn't a scent at all, not really. Their family's flower was never a base note, but Lucia made it one. How strange. Plus, there wasn't a top note that Willow could detect. Lucia might not have been the perfumer in the family, but she'd trained enough to know a scent needed a top note. Willow smelled again, searching for it, and smelled nothing . . . but then something, there it was. She looked at James; he raised his eyebrows, she leaned over and kissed him, and he kissed her back. “I love you,” she said. Her body filled with her need for him. Love in her toes and her fingertips and her cheeks. She pulled away from him and stared into his gold-flecked irises.

“That scent,” he said. “It's overwhelming.”

She capped the bottle and wrapped it back up.

He ran his fingers through the loose hair on her neck and said, “You know, there's never going to be a right time.”

“I know.” She rested her head on his shoulder.

“And we can put it off and put it off and work and work until we think it's the right time, and then we'll see the right time pass.”

“I want to be here for the birth,” Willow said.

“We can come back for that,” James said. “For as long as you want.”

“Give me two months,” Willow said.

James shifted against the wooden back of the bench. “That long?”

“Mya will need support as she recovers, and Lucia needs training.”

“I guess I could use that time too. I'll oversee the start of the production with Jennifer, and it'll give me enough time to broker a real estate deal.”

“You'll sell your house first?”

“I'm looking to buy.” He shifted his weight to the side to access his pocket and pulled out his phone.

“But why? Right when we're retiring?”

James tapped the screen and pulled up a document. He then maximized it and handed Willow the phone.

“What's this?”

“Our retirement.” James put both hands behind his head and watched her.

On the screen stood a two-story white stucco home with a clay roof, open marble patios, multiple infinity pools, two tennis courts, and a greenhouse. It had generators and water-treatment plants, all it needed to self-sustain. It was move-in ready with a landing strip. Just Willow and James on a property that promised a little over thirty acres and the gift of a second life.

“It's an island near Belize,” James said. “But my agent's still browsing.”

Willow handed him back the phone. “You're serious?”

“Quite.”

“I can't let you buy that.”

“A minor concern.” He put his phone back in his pocket. “What I need to know is that in two months you'll be with me on my yacht and packed and ready to go to this place. I need a promise.”

A streak of lightning illuminated the ridges of the storm clouds heading toward them. “I think we should go inside now.”

He grabbed her hand. “Willow, I need to know.”

She leaned over and kissed him again, his skin smooth and scented with clove from his aftershave. Willow said, “Don't you know already?”

“So I'll call my agent then?”

Willow stood and thunder crashed in the distance. “I'll start shopping for a bikini.”

He laughed and slapped both of his thighs before standing up. “Your girls will be surprised.”

“It won't be much of a shock, I don't think.” Raindrops began to fall, and the leaves on the nearby maple trees trembled. “I need to go see Mya once more. It won't take long. You can wait in the lobby and then we'll get lunch, I promise.”

“How come I'm always waiting for you?” James said as they began to run back to the entrance, a wall of rain falling behind them.

Back inside, Willow wiped the water from her face and said, “Because I've waited so long for you, since Sunset Beach.”

“I've waited just as long.” He caressed her cheek with his thumb and sat down in a leather chair. “I'll be waiting right here.” James picked up
Entertainment Weekly
. Zoe's face, lush like cream, her bright auburn hair cascading in curls down her shoulders, took up the entire cover.

Willow placed one hand on his shoulder. “She really was beautiful.”

“More beautiful now than ever before.” He began to flip through the magazine.

Up and off the elevator once more, Willow drew in a deep breath and walked to the front desk. She asked to see Joanne's daughter, who graciously directed her to Luke's room as long as she promised to be just a few minutes. He was still recovering.

“And the other driver?” Willow said.

“Still recovering,” the nurse told her, “but on the mend.”

Inside room 302, Luke slept alone, his face bruised and stitched, a black patch over his left eye. The monitor tracked his heartbeat with green lines. There was a tray of untouched hospital food.
His parents must be out to lunch,
Willow thought. She glanced over her shoulder and out the glass windows and waited for the hall to be clear of passersby before she opened the bottle. His fingers twitched. Using the dropper Lucia had wrapped with the bottle, Willow anointed him from toes to heel to ankle to calf to thigh to hand to wrist to arm to shoulder to neck to ear to eye on his left side, the center of his forehead, then back down his right side. He didn't move once, but the room filled with Lucia's scent, and all Willow could think about was James and that island and the ballooning of love she felt for him. She loved this hurt boy before her, and she loved her daughter on the floor below, and her daughter in the truck with Ben, and the little child forming in Lucia's uterus. She loved and loved as she walked out of Luke's room unnoticed, took the elevator down to Mya's room, and double-anointed her from head to toe.

S
OMEONE WAS NEAR
, seated in the chair next to her, or closer even, like a cat on her chest. Mya lifted her head off the hospital pillow and glanced around the room, but no one was around. The morphine drip helped relieve the pain in her jaw, and after she hit the button she reached for the remote to the television. Settling back into her inclined bed, she wondered when her mother and sister would return. She needed an update on Luke, and if they didn't come back in the next twenty minutes, she'd find a way to go to the nurses' station and ask. But for the first time since the accident, she felt zero panic.

Mya turned to channel 36 and waited out a commercial for Premier Mortgage Lending. No scams. No down payment. No closing costs. All the convenience you could imagine: A Best Fit for the American Consumer. She muted the television. A large golden E spun around the screen, and then a picture of Jennifer Katz, with her hair curled, her blue eyes lined and dazzling, appeared on the flat-screen. She escaped into a limousine after a
Vogue
fund-raising event, smiling and waving at the paparazzi. A dark-haired guy with a neon-blue streak in his hair and impossibly tan skin said, “And Miss Katz is back from her long vacation in Hawaii. Welcome back, darling.”

A picture of Jennifer at a press conference took over the screen. She was dressed in all black. In a mournful voice she said, “I'm so sad about Zoe Bennett. It was a tragic loss for Hollywood and I want to do justice to her in this role. I hope that my performance will live up to what she would've expected from herself. She had high standards, and I can't believe she's gone.”

The entertainment host returned, the diamonds in both of his ears flashing: “There you have it, folks. That's why she's America's sweetheart. Such grace. Such compassion. We love you, Jennifer. And for all of you watching, until next time, be fierce, be glamorous.” And the signature bouncing music ushered the host's image away.

Wasn't this what Mya had wanted, for Jennifer to be back on top without having to worry about Zoe anymore? Mya had wanted to put Zoe in her place for breaking their agreement, but not to put her in an early grave. It was this she'd have to live with for the rest of her life.

Jennifer had received what she wanted. The contract was fixed. And Mya could still die because of it. Perhaps the family business was never meant for Mya, despite her devotion. This should have made her devastated, depressed. Where were those feelings now? “You aren't who you were anymore,” she repeated to herself. Each time she said it, she expected to feel crushed. Instead, each time she felt lighter. Who she'd become wasn't who she was meant to be. Ever. After thirty-six years, she needed to start over.

She pointed the remote at the television to turn it off. Mya watched her right arm like the stiff limb belonged to someone else. An iridescent sheen flashed in the sunlight. She swiped it with her other hand and lifted it to her nose, for a brief moment forgetting she couldn't smell. Absence—that's what she smelled, an immense clarity in her nose. She let her arm collapse to her side. She thought it might be an antibiotic cream, but then she saw the sheen on her other arm and her hands, and she ripped back the blanket and saw it on her legs. She was filled with a swooning feeling, and she loved it. It had to be the morphine.

She glanced at the clock. Only ten minutes had passed. Mya ripped the fluid IV from her arm and walked right out of her hospital room, her gown open in the back and flapping. Luke was upstairs, she knew that, but she didn't want to stop and ask for directions. The nurses would hurry her back to her room. She pushed the elevator button over and over, and when it wouldn't open, she took the exit and hustled up the gray stairwell. People stared at her in the third-floor waiting area, but she walked straight through and past the nurses' station, a woman calling, “Miss?” to her back. They were following her at this point, she was sure, but she searched every room in the hallway until she glanced through a window and saw Luke's father, with black hair covering him like a bear, standing there with his arms crossed.

Mya opened the door without knocking and there he was, awake, with a black patch over his left eye.

Luke's father uncrossed his arms. “What're you—”

“It's okay, Dad,” Luke said, “I want to see her.”

Three nurses barged into the room. “Miss Lenore, you can't be up here.”

“I have to.” She moved away from them and went to Luke's bedside, opposite his father.

“Sir?” one of the nurses said to his father.

His large hands scratched his forehead. He finally looked at Mya.

She said, “You have no idea how sorry I am. I love your son and never wanted to hurt him.”

Luke coughed and turned his head to Mya. She placed her fingers in his open palm. She bent down to Luke and stared into his one tired eye. “I mean it. I love you so much, and I should've told you earlier. Before all this. I've loved you this entire time.” Mya dropped her forehead to his blanketed chest and tried to smell him, because she always had, and not being able to made her feel a hundred feet away from him.

His father nodded at the nurses, and they left the room. “I'll give you some time.” He squeezed Luke on the shoulder. He didn't smile at Mya, but he didn't scowl anymore either.

Once the door closed, Luke caressed Mya's head. “Just in time.”

“For what?”

“Doctor just came in.”

“Oh no,” Mya said.

“Lost vision in my left eye.”

“No, no, no.”

“But I can walk,” Luke said. “I feel like I've been given another life. I don't care about the eye.”

“You're not upset with me?” He shook his head, and she leaned into him and kissed him softly. Her jaw ached but she didn't care.

Luke took a deep breath through his nose. “I woke up and the room smelled like flowers. I still smell it, but I don't see any.” He laughed. She hadn't seen him this happy in a long time. Maybe never.

“The accident,” Mya said, “was my fault. Took my eyes off the road.”

“What about the other driver?”

“She's okay,” Mya said.

“That's good, then.”

Mya gave him a weak smile, and she noticed the same shimmering oil on his body. “I came up here to tell you I love you. And I don't expect you to still love me anymore or want to be with me. I just needed you to know. I hate that I almost lost the chance to tell you. You have no idea how sorry I'll always be that you got hurt.”

He remained silent, and she backed away from the bed. She was suddenly aware of how little her gown covered, how exposed she was. It was hard to watch him in the bed, so weak. He was her mountain man and she had permanently injured him. Mya walked to the door.