Season of the Dragonflies (6 page)

“Can I help you?” Willow said, a flush of warmth pooling in her cheeks.

He smiled and cast his eyes down to the floor before looking up at her again. He said, “I was hoping—well, now I'm hoping this won't sound strange to you. But I was hoping I might interest you in dinner tonight.”

Strangers asking strangers out to dinner—that's how people operated out here now? Willow said, “Oh, thank you, but no. I'm exhausted.” She continued walking.

He caught her elbow to slow her down and she stopped abruptly, with a look of outrage on her face that she couldn't prevent. He straightened his back, adjusted his shoulders, and said, “Now, hang on, I'm the new head of AGM Studios, and those two women and their careers are very much a concern of mine. And I'd like to talk it over at dinner.”

Willow said, “But what business would you have with me?”

“I knew your mother,” James said.

This startled Willow. Had she met him before? She must've, but she couldn't identify him. With a soft tone she said, “Oh, I didn't know. I apologize if I was rude just then. My assistant couldn't make the trip with me and my daughter canceled at the last minute . . . and of course you don't care to know any of this, I'm so sorry. I'm just travel weary. Would you consider a late lunch instead? I'm staying at the Beverly Hills Hilton.”

James said, “I'll meet you in the lobby at two.” He handed her his business card, a hard stock with bold black lettering.

“That's fine,” Willow said. This was a business lunch, so she needed to stop wondering if he was divorced or dating anyone.

“Willow,” James said, “don't you remember me?”

“Should I?” Willow said, taken aback, and she felt that same icy sense of encasement, like when she forgot words from time to time, or people's names. She stared at his face, the gold hue in his eyes and the lovely amber-colored rings around his brown irises, but no, she felt nothing like recognition.

“I hoped you might,” he said. “We had dinner many, many years ago, on your first trip out here with your mother.”

Willow continued to shake her head and squinted as if this might force a recall, wrinkles be damned. Still, she couldn't place him.

“A walk on Sunset Beach?” he said. “You wrestled me in the sand and won? No? Nothing?”

She wished he would stop. The more he remembered, the more her body numbed. Nothing made her feel as powerless as forgetting. “I'm sorry” was all she could say.

“A long time ago,” James said. “I believe you were married not too long after.”

Willow smiled. “That explains it, then,” she said. “I excised all memories of that time in my life. Except for my daughters.”

James said, “That I can understand. So I'll see you in a couple hours? Maybe I can jog your memory over sushi.”

Willow said, “You can try.”

“I'll take it as a personal challenge,” he said, and ran his hand through the side of his thick hair.

She smiled and said, “Until then.”

WILLOW SAT ON A CRANBERRY-COLORED
chaise lounge in the Presidential Suite, hugging an orange cashmere pillow and staring out at bare mountains in the distance, wishing she could be home looking out at the lush Blue Ridge. She opted to stay inside rather than sit on the wrought-iron terrace to drink cappuccinos brought up by a handsome waiter from Saudi Arabia. Willow tried hard to imagine the lilt of her mother's southern accent. Was this normal to forget? A mother's voice? As normal as forgetting that dinner with James on her first trip out here? Would Mya and Lucia forget Willow like a to-do list they'd made and misplaced? Lucia already had, it seemed, as wrapped up as she was in her marriage and career and a “normal life” in New York City.

Small moments she still recalled, like her father's black boots flanking each side of the John Deere tractor; her mother's ironing board and the cinched-waist dresses she loved so much, the ones she always wore to meetings like the one Willow had today; her mother, who stayed up until three
A
.
M
. each night for business and woke up early to make her father scrambled eggs and bacon so he could spend all day taking care of the land; her mother's deep-set wrinkles, like the bend of a bow around her mouth, after he died.

How could Willow be sixty-one when she still felt like her mother's irresponsible little girl? A mistake like this one wouldn't have happened under her mother's care. Lily's time as president had been golden: she'd nurtured the pool of clients Serena had established in the entertainment world, but Lily spotted an outside opportunity and decided to branch out to college coeds who wanted more from their degree than just a husband. She visited elite universities, posing as a company interested in hiring talent for the summer; spoke to professors; and scouted the best of their students. From these endeavors she expanded into medicine, law, politics, science, and engineering. Willow admired this about her mother and added to her work by focusing on information technology and entrepreneurs. She used her mother's networking tactics and continued to manage the client pool that Lily and Serena had established. But Willow didn't care much for the entertainment world, especially pop music. This petty dislike had resulted in her foolishly letting Mya take charge on the Zoe Bennett deal.

A knock on the door ushered Willow out of her stasis, and a bellman handed her a small white box. She thanked him and carried the box to her bedroom. She opened the note on top.
Let's play fair. —James Stein.
A generous bottle of the newest perfume from the House of Chanel rested on a bed of red crepe de chine fabric. At first she thought it a joke, but then realized it was a polite suggestion. Don't disarm him; wear this instead. Let's play fair. Lenore women didn't need to wear their own perfume; they'd never had a reason to before.

It was one
P
.
M
. when she received his gift, and this prompted her to shower, freshen her makeup, and walk through a wall of the Chanel perfume. A decent product, though artificially powdery and not nearly as pure as the artisanal scents Coco Chanel herself oversaw many decades ago. So many companies now opted for cheaper, more efficient ingredients and methods, but Willow prided herself on her family's strict adherence to the original formula and growing methods created by Grandmother Serena. That quality was her sole responsibility to maintain.

Willow put on a black Dior dress and her size-seven Prada pumps and rode the elevator down at 1:50
P
.
M
. James awaited her in the lobby. One bowl of steamed edamame and two dirty martinis later, Willow still didn't know why they were having lunch together. Seated next to a large aquarium with suckerfish glued to the sides and yellow-and-black-striped angelfish lazily swimming from one end to the other, Willow wondered at what moment during their swim the fish forgot they had made the same turn a million times before. The couple at the table next to Willow fed each other dragon rolls and salmon sashimi.

James had the tall, lean frame, wide shoulders, and tapered waist of a swimmer. She wished she could stop thinking he was so damn handsome, but so far, she'd failed. Her first thought when she stepped off the elevator and onto the marble floor of the lobby was
Oh, he's so good-looking,
and as they strolled side by side in the open-air lobby and he led her by the arm to their table next to the aquarium, her only thought was
I wonder what he looks like underneath that suit
.

James smiled at Willow, giving her a look more charming than a waltz, and said, “Let's order.”

Willow forced herself to stop wondering what he'd do if she undressed him, and said, “Surprise me.”

James's eyebrows lifted and he said, “My pleasure.” He ordered fifteen different rolls with names like Sunshine Burst and California Dreaming, as well as miso soups and seaweed salads. More food than Willow could manage to eat for lunch, but James said, “A tasting,” as if to reassure her.

The waiter brought two more dirty martinis and Willow decided to stop keeping track.

James drank his martini, and as casually as if he were complimenting the sesame flavor of their seaweed salad, he said, “You smell nice.”

Willow said, “It's good to compare the market.”

He swallowed a bite of seaweed and said, “How'd I do?”

“Decent,” she said, not expecting him to be the kind of man to seek compliments. “There are so many outstanding perfumes, it's hard to say.”

“And you're biased,” he said, his chopsticks aimed in her direction like a pointer finger.

Willow thought for sure that his perfectly polished Oxford shoe was now touching the tip of her Prada pump. She shifted the position of her legs.

The waiter brought the miso soups and left just as quickly as he had arrived. James said, “I've got a detail for you.” Willow slowly sipped her warm soup and James said, “Cold tequila shots out of a pair of goggles on a white surfboard,” and Willow was already shaking her head no when he put his hand up and said, “Hold on, I'm not done.” He continued: “Duke Ellington's ‘Mood Indigo' right before a biker brawl erupted outside the Sandy Secret Bar at Sunset Beach.”

She closed her eyes, and just as forcefully as a wave from the Pacific, Willow saw James nearly forty years younger, his hair thick and curly and down past his ears like a band roadie's, his bare feet in the dark sand, his washed-out jeans rolled up at the ankle; he carried her out of that bar—she was too drunk to walk herself—to shield her from the flying beer bottles when the fight moved indoors. The sunset boasted a bright purple and orange at the horizon, and the white frothing ocean covered Willow's sandals. What a terrible and huge crush she'd had on James Stein that first visit, and how forcefully she had to forget him after she got married a few months later. He had a girlfriend too, if she recalled correctly. But those obligations had no longer mattered, at least for a moment, once James kissed her that night. A full moon was rising on the ocean's horizon. That's what Willow could remember now, and that nobody had ever kissed her like that before. This memory returned so effortlessly from the ether, she felt as giddy as she had the night she met James.

Willow placed her chin on her outstretched fingers, as if they were a small table, and said, “I can't believe my mother let me go out with you.”

James wiped his lips with a napkin and said, “All I've ever had going for me is charm, and it worked on her.”

“It sure did,” Willow said, and remembering such a distant memory and the feeling of that night with James made her elated. She said, “Weren't you just an assistant then?”

“Not even,” he said. “Mail boy.”

“How did you rise?” she said, and continued with her soup.

“My mentor Donald Briggs, who was head of A-List Talent then, snatched me off the mail cart that day your mother came. His note-taker called in sick, and she approved of me. I moved up fast after that and ran the talent agency for a few years.”

“I do remember that,” Willow said. “But didn't you leave?”

“I went to New York with my wife for a long while,” he said, “or ex-wife, I should say.”

“That explains it,” she said.

“Do I look much different though?” James said. “You didn't seem to recognize me.”

Willow shook her head, though she'd be lying if she said he looked
exactly
the same. Boyishness hadn't fit him as well as this seasoned look. She said, “I had a difficult meeting today, that's all. I was distracted and not expecting to see you.”

“Your mother liked me,” James said.

“She did,” Willow said. “She was so selective and revealed the perfume only to the people who needed to know about our business, and she chose to give you access that day.” This move had confused Willow; she remembered feeling that at the time. And when she asked her mother why, she had told Willow that the boy had talent. She could see it in him, and he'd probably be a powerful force in the industry someday. A good ally.

“And Lily's opinion about the industry mattered to Donald and just about anyone important out here. I've got her to thank for a lot, that date included.”

Willow smiled and placed her spoon on the table. “How long have you been with AGM?”

“Six months,” James said. “My second ex-wife was a junior agent at an agency I ran in New York, and when we divorced I moved back.”

Willow finished her martini. “A junior agent” translated into a younger wife, and a younger second wife at that. And recently. How silly for Willow to think he'd be interested in her. She glanced around the room. So many thin and big-busted women. For a brief moment Willow with her oyster-white hair and naturally aged skin felt as old and unattractive as that suckerfish in the tank. She reminded herself that she had more than enough money to afford any of those chemical peels and Botox injections and cheek implants. She chose to be wrinkled because no procedure truly reissued the vitality of youth.

“Can we talk about your meeting?” James said.

“I'd prefer to forget it,” Willow immediately quipped. “And it was a private meeting, as I'm sure you know. I won't ask how you found out I was here.”

James wiped his hands with his linen napkin and said, “Willow—”

“Lunch first,” she said, and continued to enjoy her soup.

“We can make small talk, if that's what you'd prefer. The soup's good?” James said. He stopped eating and stared at her, and now the rest of their time together would be forced. “You have elegant hands,” he added.

She sat back in her chair and said, “What's on your mind?”

“Zoe Bennett.”

“Mine too,” Willow said.

James leaned into the table with his strong hands clasped together. “The bigger she gets, the more toes she steps on,” James said. “The public demands her and she knows it. I've never seen a career take off that fast, not even Jennifer's.
Arrow Heights
is a big one. One I specifically set up for Jennifer. She kindly auditioned for a roomful of studio execs and they all agreed she was the one. But Nick Schol gave it to Zoe for some reason only he knows, and no one's willing to fight him on it. But Zoe's not right for it. She's already threatened to drop it for some indie project with her boyfriend. I've got a lot of money wrapped up in this one, and it won't do what I think it can without a strong lead. And there's no way Jennifer will take the role now if Zoe quits.”