Season of the Dragonflies (9 page)

Lucia plopped down next to Mya, and her cheeks were red. “Sorry,” she said, “I followed the path.”

Mya and the deer left thin, winding paths in the tall grass. Her mother had never needed to concern herself about Mya's whereabouts, even when she was a little girl. The beaten meadow paths acted as her trail of bread crumbs. “How'd that go?” Mya said.

“Easy enough,” Lucia said. “I'm here, aren't I?”

“I meant with Mom,” Mya said.

“Not great,” Lucia said, and picked a piece of wild wheatgrass and began to braid a crown. “She's clearly preoccupied about something.”

“We made a mistake,” Mya said, and she immediately wished she hadn't divulged this detail.

Lucia said, “Oh?” in a tone that Mya recognized—Lucia always spoke in a detached and cold way about family matters. She might've inherited Great-Grandmother Serena's beautiful black hair and skin as blemish free and fresh as the flowers around them, but growing up, Lucia always copied Mya's spell work because she had no intuition for such things. Lucia had excelled where Mya had not, with normal stuff like school and extracurricular activities and boyfriends, but she did so to compensate for not being gifted in the only way that mattered in the Lenore family.

“What'd you do?” Lucia said.

“Why do you just assume I fucked up?” Mya said, though the only answer to Lucia's question would reveal that she had, indeed, fucked up.

“Come on, Mya,” Lucia said.

Mya covered her face with both hands. No reason to hide it now. She said, “I saturated a market.”

“Which one?” Lucia said. She stopped braiding the grass.

“The worst one,” Mya said, and then lifted her hands from her face to see her sister's reaction. If only she looked more surprised.

“Zoe Bennett, isn't it? She came out of nowhere,” Lucia said. “I knew it, had to be when she got nominated for that small supporting role in
The Break Away
last year.” She placed the finished crown on top of the soft tan head of one of Mya's favorite fawns, Little Spots. “Wasn't she in music?” Lucia continued. “I thought I remembered seeing her videos.”

Something bit Mya from the grass below, a red ant probably, and she rubbed her elbow. “She was,” Mya said. “She seemed right for it, but then she took the role in
The Break Away
and we had no idea she was even considered for it. She kept the audition hushed up, that's for sure.”

“What about her contract?” Lucia said as she petted the fawn resting beside Mya.

Mya said, “I didn't add a clause to keep her from crossing over. I didn't know I needed to since we told her in her interview. It was made as clear as moonshine. Mom would've caught it, and I know I asked her to check it. She was at her desk and looked right at me and said she'd do it that afternoon, and I sent it off the next day.” Lucia remained silent except for the sound of her breath. What could she really say in response? “Anyway,” Mya said, “it wasn't a huge deal until she got
Arrow Heights
and Jennifer Katz confronted her and figured it out.”

In an exact imitation of Jennifer Katz, Lucia said, “Excuse me, Zoe, but may I try a spritz of that perfume? Smells an awful lot like the one I use.” She laughed and then returned to her normal voice and said, “I bet that was an awkward moment in the ladies' room.”

Mya couldn't help herself and had to laugh too. “I never asked.”

They were quiet for a few minutes before Lucia said, “Mom forgot Jonah's name.”

“Not like they were close or anything,” Mya said. She was always quick to defend their mother, even when Willow wasn't pleased with Mya. It was a response as automatic as blinking.

Lucia narrowed her eyes and said, “But she never forgot names. ‘Good business starts with names.' Wasn't that what she always said?”

Mya scratched the ground with her fingernails and exposed the roots of the grass.

Lucia said, “She forgot to read that contract, you know she did. Is something going on?”

“I don't know,” Mya said. “Feel free to ask her.”

“No way,” Lucia said. “You saw how she just acted. I'm just a weekend guest at the Lenore bed-and-breakfast; she made that very clear. The weekend might be too long of a stay even.”

“Do what you have to do,” Mya said, and wiped the dirt from her nails on her jeans. Lucia's leaving in the next day or two would be just fine with Mya, but she didn't want to seem too eager. Mya said, “She's in there waiting for me.”

“You're stalling,” Lucia said.

“Yep,” Mya said, and rested her back against the ground again. She lifted her long hair up and spread it over the grass. The feel of the earth on her bare neck centered her. Lucia didn't join her; instead she stared off into the distance like she'd dropped her keys somewhere but didn't have the energy to search for them.

Mya stared up at her little sister, so unlike the girl Mya had known, the girl who was so sure of what the future held for her. “I just don't get it.”

“Get what?” Lucia said.

“Why you always refused.” Every single time Mya sent Lucia a small vial of the family perfume, she always returned it in the original bubble wrap. If she'd used it, she'd have had an Oscar nomination by now and she wouldn't have been sitting here.

“I just . . .” Lucia paused. She glanced at Mya and then looked toward the woods again. “I wanted to know that it was my talent alone or I'd never think I deserved it, and that always seemed much worse than never getting it.” Lucia laughed in a low and defeated way. “All I ever wanted was to be an actress, and I suppose I didn't want to find out that I was meant for something else.”

A neon-blue dragonfly spiraled down like a falling leaf and made a delicate landing on Mya's fawn. The fawn rested its chin on Lucia's thigh. Lucia said, “Remember when I fell out of that weeping willow and broke my arm and that huge deer carried me back to the cabin? For the longest time I thought he was one of Santa's missing reindeer.”

Mya laughed and then said, “I do remember that.”

“Does he still come around?”

“He died a couple days ago.”

“Oh,” Lucia said. “Sorry.”

“He was old.” Mya sat up, stretched her arms, and looked back at the cabin. It was as still as their mother's anger. Mya said, “She'll come out here to find me.”

Lucia said, “Should I go with you?”

“Why would you?” The last thing she needed was Lucia to be tangled in their affairs.

“What else is there to do? Sit out here? Go for a hike?”

That was exactly what Mya would have preferred to do.

Lucia finished the crown of dandelions she'd been working on and placed it on her head. “I'll be quiet,” Lucia said.

Mya didn't want Lucia involved, especially not now, but she didn't know how to tell her. She said, “She might kick you out.”

“If she does, then fine,” Lucia said. “Let her. But you don't care, so why should she?” Lucia stood up and stared down at Mya.

“Now?” Mya said.

“Yes, now, let's get it over with,” Lucia said. “You're sure you don't mind, right?” The way she said this suggested she knew how much Mya didn't want her in there.

“Why would I mind?” Mya said, and accepted Lucia's offered hand. “It's not a huge deal or anything.”

“Exactly,” Lucia said. “So no reason to keep me out.”

Lucia led the way, and they left the deer and dragonflies in the meadow and hiked back through the cherry trees to the family cabin, where Willow awaited them.

M
YA WALKED INTO
their mother's office first, Lucia trailing behind her into a room she had almost forgotten. It was more like a shrine to three generations of clients than a home office. Her mother kept gilt-framed photographs on the walls the way some people mounted the heads of deer: actresses and jazz singers from the “talkies” era in Hollywood, their hair short and curled with black ringlets popping out of cloche hats; models from the mod era of the 1960s with tiny legs and go-go boots and A-line paper dresses; pop stars with big hair and lots of glitter from the disco era in the 1970s; female politicians with shoulder pads and blunt haircuts from the 1980s and '90s.

The portrait of Great-Grandmother Serena hung above the fireplace directly behind the grand teak desk in the center of the room. Her wavy black hair and pale skin reminded Lucia of herself—or how she used to look before her wrinkles began to show. Next to Serena hung the photograph Lucia had adored since she was a little girl sitting across from Willow during business calls and playing tic-tac-toe with Mya. The black-and-white image caught a very happy Great-Grandmother Serena with an arm around Marlene Lovett, a famous screen beauty from the 1930s and one of the first women to wear a smoking jacket on film. Androgynous with the sharp lines of her jaw and nose, yet glamorous with her waterfall of blond curls—she was a dream, and Willow had made sure to re-create her in the girls' imaginations.

After a long day of work, Willow had never failed to come to their room and rest in each of their beds for a little while to stroke their hair, ask about their day, and allow each girl to pose three questions. Then she'd tell one story before heading to her room to sleep, only to wake and do it all over again. Lucia would beg for her to tell the Marlene Lovett story; she asked to hear this story so many times that Mya often whined if Willow agreed. But both of the girls knew Willow secretly loved to tell it.

“The foundation of our business,” Willow always began. Marlene had been tutored with Great-Grandmother Serena in New York and learned to play the piano with her, and Serena had comforted her after her mother died. She had been Serena's best friend.

After returning from Borneo, Serena had tried to contact her father, only to discover he had lost his entire fortune during the crash and jumped to his death from the Brooklyn Bridge. Serena thought her tie to her birthplace had been severed forever, until she received a handwritten letter from Marlene. The Depression had been especially hard on her dear friend's family, and her passion for the stage had led only to burlesque shows on the weekends. Marlene needed a lucky break, and Serena needed a subject for an experiment. She invited Marlene to Virginia to meet her new family, whom Marlene instantly loved, especially the bewitching little girls, and Serena offered a bottle of her hobby perfume to Marlene as a parting gift. “But do give a call in the next few weeks to let me know how you are,” Serena had told her. (This was Lucia's favorite line of the story, one Willow always repeated verbatim and with a wink.)

Sure enough, Marlene Lovett landed one Broadway role after another, and not long after, she had taken over Hollywood. She had pink Cadillacs, many suitors, and a steady supply of dear Serena's unnamed perfume, which increased in price with each accolade bestowed upon Marlene Lovett. (Now the price of the perfume was fixed, adjusted only for inflation or major career advances.) Once Marlene established herself, she and Serena struck a deal: Marlene had to select a fledgling actress with potential, perhaps an extra from one of her movies, and direct her to Serena. And that's how the business continued to operate, as established during Serena's tenure: one woman tapped the shoulder of another woman for an amazing opportunity with a talent scout, but only when the president requested that she do so. And then the vetting and interview process began. Thus, each bedtime story turned into a business lesson for Lucia and Mya, quite like how this meeting would surely unfold, but far more pleasant.

Mya seated herself in a scarlet armchair in front of the desk, and Lucia sat in the matching one next to it. Willow moved into the room as quietly as a breeze, but the smell of freshly brewed coffee gave her away. She placed her ceramic mug on the desk and pulled out the chair. Her black linen dress did not have a single wrinkle. The house might be cluttered and old, but Willow's clothes were always neat. “First impressions happen outside the house,” she sometimes used to say, as if this was reason enough not to clean or have someone else do it for her. Her skin, however, did have wrinkles, many more than it had fifteen years ago, though somehow she still looked youthful. She and Mya had maintained their life force while Lucia had given hers to a doomed marriage and a career moving swiftly into obscurity.

Lucia couldn't stop examining her mother as she might a stranger who refused to make eye contact. “I asked to come in,” Lucia said, “but I'll go if it's a problem.”

Willow directed her attention to Mya. “Is it okay with you?”

Mya looked startled to be asked. “I mean, only if it's okay with you, I guess.”

“I'm sorry I was short with you,” Willow said to Lucia.

Lucia looked down at her hands and at the pale circle of skin where her wedding band used to be. “I get it. And I'm sorry too.” Certainly this apology could not heal fifteen years of estrangement, Lucia knew that, but the least she could do was finally apologize for so rarely calling to check on the family and the business, especially since they were in trouble and Lucia had had no idea.

Mya's mouth quivered.

Willow asked, “Does she know?”

Mya cleared her throat and then said, “Mostly.”

Mostly? What
hadn't
she told Lucia? That was so like her sister.

Willow folded her hands together. Her fingernails were long and unpolished. She never missed a manicure, not that Lucia could remember.

Willow said, “You know I know, Mya.”

Mya nodded. “I do.”

“I wouldn't do that to you, not that I should even need to say it,” Willow said, and then straightened her posture. “I've thought about what I'd say to you for an entire plane ride and I still don't know. Zoe Bennett knew more about our goings-on than I did as president. And you knew. How'd you expect me to handle that?”