Season of the Dragonflies (4 page)

Now they moved through the reading room, with every wall encased in books about perfumery, art, botany—so many books only her mother read. Mya's vegetable stock continued to simmer in the kitchen, filling the house with the earthy smells of onion, carrot, celery, and potatoes. She opened the red front door, where a dried bunch of eucalyptus and rosemary branches hung upside down on a hook. A family of wrens nested there, and each time Mya opened the door, one or more of the family members flew inside. Luke dodged them. They stepped onto the porch together and Mya said, “I'll make food for us tonight.”

“Or we could go out,” Luke said.

“That's not us, remember? I like us here,” Mya said, and this had always been her response because she always felt the same way: she didn't like going to town unless it was for business. But he hated this answer. “You know I'm too old for you,” she said, and she brought his mouth to her own and kissed him.

Luke patted Mya on the hip and said, “You're going on a date with me sometime, Mya Lenore. I mean it; I don't know when and I don't know where, but I want to take you out and buy you a drink and some food, and I don't give a damn who sees us.” Then he crossed the threshold of the ivy-covered front porch; there was so much of it that the porch fans had been choked by the vines years ago. Long strands hung like a beaded curtain on all sides of the porch, and no one could see past the flora that led to their house. Not that anyone was around, not with a thousand and seventy-seven acres of buffer and the Blue Ridge Mountains just above like a fortress. He jogged down the slate front steps and walked to his Toyota pickup truck.

“There's always hoping,” Mya called after him. Before he closed the driver's-side door she added, “Text me, if you're coming tonight,” and he said, “Okay,” and waved good-bye to her. Mya leaned against the wooden support beam on the porch and pulled her long hair over her bare breasts to shield them. Luke drove down the driveway with a thick cloud of Virginia red dust trailing behind his truck. Mya bent down and searched for buttercup flowers dotting the summer grass, and she wished she could rest there. But she couldn't, no matter how much her body insisted.

If she was going to fix her mistake, then Mya needed this time alone in her workshop with the musk pod she and Luke had collected at the waterfalls. Zoe's poor decision to cross industries jeopardized the business, but Mya had no intention of letting anything happen to Lenore Incorporated. The family business was Mya's only future. Without some convincing, her mother would never allow Mya to alter Great-Grandmother Serena's perfume formula to solve this problem, but the formula had to be changed, just this once, for this very special case. Willow would have no choice once she returned from her meeting with Zoe in L.A. Willow wasn't well, no matter how much she tried to cover it up. Mya respected her mother's privacy, but for the sake of the business, Willow needed to pass her title over to Mya soon, and then Mya could deal with the consequences alone.

Mya went back inside and turned to close the front door. Luke's cloud of dust dissipated, and in the green field that sloped down into a valley full of hay barrels, a thousand or more cobalt-blue dragonflies hovered like a standing army. With her blond hair rolling down to the small of her back, Mya pushed the door open again and ran down the steps, across the dirt driveway, and into the middle of the field. Lucia's dragonflies were amassed in a greater number than Mya had ever seen, and they parted as she approached. Mya grew nervous, and she looked up into heavy cumulus clouds, like giant peaks of meringue. In the center of a large billowing cloud, she saw her sister's face, so similar to Mya's with the high cheekbones and tiny chin and wide-set eyes. But it was most certainly Lucia.

Just as quickly as the image had arrived, the cloud broke in half, with the summer sun piercing through to Mya. She closed her eyes to feel the heat on her entire body. Why had the dragonflies returned? Lucia didn't have a place here anymore; there was no way she'd come home, not now, not after so many years away. But the dragonflies surrounded Mya until she felt cocooned, and Mya swatted at them and screamed, “Back off!” They spun all around her like a dust storm, and then they lifted upward and escaped into the surrounding trees.

Mya's stomach cramped. The dragonflies always favored Lucia. They had acted as an entourage for her during their games in the forest. They had guided Lucia to find Mya's hiding spots. The older Lucia had become, the less and less she had talked to Mya and their mother. If she wasn't with her boyfriend Ben, then Lucia was planning for the day she'd leave for New York City. The dragonflies had become the only way to know that Lucia was nearby. They hadn't congregated like this since she'd left. Mya had stayed in Quartz Hollow with her mother and devoted all these years to ensure she'd be the next president of Lenore Incorporated. She looked to the sky with its unmoving clouds and said, “Do not come home.”

A
FIT YOUNG MAN
stood up, his heavily gelled hair like fondant icing. He held a disc remote control between his palms in a prayer position and said, “I want to thank Ms. Lenore for making the long trip out here. It's such a rare pleasure to see you.”

How many times had Willow accepted these platitudes? As many times as she had said, “Thank you, it's good to be here.” Normally she'd add a name. She should have known his name. If he was present, he was important. But he sat down before Willow could recall who he was. Someone had hit the “flush” button in her brain; that's how it felt. She sent up a small plea to the language gods not to let her forget any words in this negotiation—
I need a free pass, just for today.

The track lighting turned on by its own volition. The actresses removed their shawls and Jackie O sunglasses, Jennifer passing her items to an assistant and Zoe tossing hers in a lump on the table. In her signature pencil skirt, Jennifer Katz sat down first, beside Willow, and ran her long, elegant fingers through her much-coveted real hair—no platinum extensions for her. Zoe Bennett's red hair fell over one smoky eye, and then she tossed her head and both eyes were visible. Their entourages stood behind them and tapped away at the devices in their hands, arms tucked close to their chests like a T. rex's.

Zoe's manager held out her seat for her. After she sat down, she crossed her long legs and said, “You must think taking me on was a mistake, but cutting me off can't be the solution.”

Jennifer said, “My manager thinks—”

Zoe said, “I think they all should go.”

“Fine,” Jennifer said, and waved a hand at her people, as did Zoe. Willow nodded to her driver and the man who had opened the meeting, then rested her laced fingers in her lap and tried to appear unconcerned about why they needed to be alone.

Once the door closed behind their entourages, Jennifer leaned onto the table and said, “We could flip a coin; the winner pays the other to fake her death.”

Zoe gave an insincere smile, her mouth like a copperhead snake's, and said, “But you're so old. Why flip?”

Willow said, “Cool it.” She'd said the same to her daughters when they were teenagers and fought like bobcats.

Jennifer no longer shared her Oscar-winning smile with Zoe. “I have other appointments today,” Jennifer said, “and I want this resolved.
Arrow Heights
should've been my script; that was my second Oscar. I need to know what you'll do for me, Willow.”

“For us,” Zoe said, and straightened her back, her heavy cleavage nearly pouring out on the table, her black bra visible beneath the ripped and diamond-studded tank top that dropped off one petite shoulder. She leaned forward, and her breasts caved and slumped against her forearm. Time would permanently do that to both of those fantasized-about mounds. Maybe Willow could find some way to get Zoe on a show like
Fear X: Celebrity Edition,
and she'd be forced to eat buffalo gonads with hot chocolate syrup. And Willow could keep Jennifer where she deserved to be. At the top of Hollywood.

Willow had chosen Jennifer fifteen years ago, when she was just a teenager and struggling for gigs with Disney. She'd been brought to Willow's attention at a time when Willow needed her passion for the entertainment portion of their business to be reignited. Everyone had underestimated Jennifer's energy, her cobalt-blue eyes and long blond hair. Willow knew that with a small boost from their perfume, her talents would flourish. She'd come to think of Jennifer as another daughter and felt more invested in her career than in those of her other clients, Zoe especially. In the short time Zoe had had access to the perfume (about three years, wasn't that right?) she had landed bigger roles than Jennifer had booked at the same age. No one should have been competing with Jennifer for the best roles in Hollywood, like this highly anticipated film by director Nick Schol. They both knew that Jennifer might not have the chance to land another role like this one. She'd transition into directing or producing and do beautifully, but Willow wanted this script for her.

But then Schol had offered the role to Zoe and refused to explain why. Willow didn't need a direct answer from him, however. She knew he wasn't sleeping with her. Zoe was an energetic new talent who used too much of the Lenore family perfume too quickly. What director could resist her? Altogether, this situation had become a migraine.

Willow said, “What I want is for Zoe to go back to the music industry and give up this role to Jennifer. In fact, this wouldn't be a problem at all if you'd stayed in pop and honored your word.” That last bit made Willow sound antique, but she didn't care anymore. It was how she felt.

Zoe tapped her cheek with her red fingernails and said, “My word is not my contract. Look, I can't help that Hollywood wanted me more. And I never agreed to stay in music. Just to start there. And I
did
honor that. Come on, Ms. Lenore, you're a businesswoman. This you can understand. Hollywood paid me for work I prefer.”

“So then you flew all this way for nothing?” Jennifer said.

“No,” Willow said, rather annoyed now. “I came all this way because you two refused a conference call.”

Jennifer wrapped her arms around herself and said, “But you came with no real solution? You know Zoe won't quit. I know I'm right for this role and Zoe knows it too, she won't admit it but she knows it, and Schol picked her anyway. It's like the perfume's losing its power for me. Or maybe I'm just too old. I'm so sick of it, the same scent year after year. I don't even want the perfume anymore but—”

“Good,” Zoe said. “Then it's settled.”

“No,” Jennifer said. “Stop being such a bitch, Zoe.” Her perfume scent changed to musk so suddenly that Willow knew she was frightened.

Zoe said, “Mya has a solution.”

“What?” Willow said, her throat suddenly dry.

“She asked me not to say anything, but you came all the way here and haven't mentioned it yet and I think we should discuss it,” Zoe said, and now she held all the power in the room.

Willow was stunned and wished, as she sometimes did, that she could spank Mya again. How could she offer a solution to a client and not consult Willow? If Mya had all the solutions, she should have been the one in this seat, but instead Mya chose to go hunting for morel mushrooms with her new boyfriend in the middle of the night. That's what a teenager does to skirt an obligation like this one, not a thirty-six-year-old woman and not the only woman poised to take over Lenore Incorporated. And this mess was Mya's fault in the first place. She didn't add the clause to Zoe's contract to restrict her to the music industry. Though if what her daughter said was true, she'd left the contract for Willow to review on her desk and Willow had simply forgotten to check it.

Zoe pulled her long auburn hair over one shoulder and said, “Mya will make variants of the perfume's formula just for Jennifer and just for me, and I quote, ‘to differentiate our strengths.' ”

“And what are those exactly?” Jennifer said.

“Well, sensuality, obviously, for me. For you I didn't ask. Probably sweetness or something,” Zoe said.

Jennifer's nose lifted like she smelled burned hair. Willow said, “Mya can't make decisions without my approval.” She rested her right palm on the table, the wrinkles in her hands like pleats in a skirt compared to Jennifer's and Zoe's smooth skin.

“Then you'll lose us as clients and I'll expose your other clients and your entire business,” Zoe said.

Willow looked over at Jennifer, who refused to make eye contact.

“Don't threaten me,” Willow said.

Zoe leaned away from the table and braced her hands on the edge like it might break. She said, “My career's still young, so I don't care if I lose your perfume, just as long as no one else uses it.”

“She's already contacted a few people,” Jennifer finally said.

“Like who?” Willow said.

Zoe laughed and cast her head back to look at the ceiling, and then she stretched her thin little arms above her head and hugged them together.

Jennifer said, “Important people, just trust me on that. And she's threatening to expose us all, and you.”

Willow pointed at Zoe and said, “The only solution I'm entertaining is cutting you off. That bright skin of yours will lose its glow within a few days. The ease with which you connect to a script and memorize lines will disappear as quickly as your wrinkles will start to appear, I promise you that. Give it a week, two at the most, and your career will be finished.”

Zoe laughed again and said, “Just imagine the headlines if I go public, Ms. Lenore. Jennifer Katz, Hollywood's golden girl: a fraud, addicted to a substance for her success. And she'll just be the first; you'll drown in PR shit. I'm young. I'll play the naïve damsel. I've got plenty of time to remake my image without you.”