Wallflower In Bloom (6 page)

“Welcome to Lake Austin Spa Resort. How can I help you?” a disembodied voice said from the box.

Steve leaned forward and called out from his seat. “Hi. Steve Moretti. I should be on your list. And I hope you don’t mind, but I brought a few friends with me.”

“Enjoy your visit, Mr. Moretti.”

The huge gray gate swung open soundlessly.

We drove through and parked along the edge of a cobblestone drive. My father pushed a button and the child-safe side door of the minivan opened on its own. Maybe if we sat there long enough, he’d come around and let us out of our car seats.

Tag jumped out and reached two hands back to the Tambourine Twins. Tracy/Stacy ground the heel of one cowboy boot into my instep on her way past me.

“Excuse you,” I said, but she didn’t seem to notice.

My guru brother draped an arm around each of his groupies’ shoulders, and the threesome sauntered off toward the twinkling lights.

I turned sideways in my seat and tried to lift my foot up high enough to inspect it for damages. “What a long strange trip it’s been,” I said, mostly to myself, “and what a stranger longer trip it’s becoming.”

“Ha,” Steve said. He jumped out of the van and leaned back in so he could make eye contact. “Need a hand?”

“Sure,” I said. “Unless you happen to have an extra pair of crutches.”

When you dig in the earth, the earth digs you
.

L
ake Austin Spa Resort was spectacular. Vine-covered arbors dotted the property and framed a meandering promenade that shaded a long row of connecting cottages. I recognized wisteria climbing up one arbor, and Steve identified bright orange trumpet creeper swirling around and around another. The guy knew his greenery.

Soft, inconspicuous lighting illuminated trees, bushes, and garden after garden after garden. I knew somebody must have put them there, but the plants looked so natural it was as if they’d all just sprouted up spontaneously one day.

“Wow,” I said. “Everything looks so happy here.”

“When you dig in the earth, the earth digs you,” Steve said.

My mother clapped her hands. “Good job, honey. Your first chiasmus.”

Steve bowed, his right hand in front of his waist and the left one behind, then he switched hands and did it again. He had a nice, easygoing way about him. Back at the conference center garage, when we’d gotten into the whole who-rides-with-whom thing, I liked the way he’d left his own rental car behind and jumped in the minivan so we could all ride together. Maybe I could ask him for a spontaneity lesson.

“Hey, Dee,” Tag said. “Write that down. I might be able to use it.”

I ignored him.

He gave me his I’m-not-kidding look.

I sighed and took out a purple marker from my purse and started writing Steve’s chiasmus on the palm of one hand.

“Oh, grow up,” Tag said.

“You grow up,” I said.

The Tambourine Twins giggled. “I used to do that for math tests,” one of them said. “I could get all the multiplication tables on my hand without writing on any fingers.”

“Impressive,” I said.

I’d expected the resort to be one of those stuffy, relentlessly upscale places, but it wasn’t like that at all. It was laid-back in the way a truly beautiful woman can throw on jeans and a T-shirt and some pink lip gloss, and look stunning.

On that thought, I hiked up my pashmina for a little more upper arm coverage, then bent down to fish out a pebble that had wedged its way between my sandal and my instep.

Guests strolled the gently lit walking paths, many in white bathrobes and flip-flops. A black-and-white cat stretched out decadently across the steps leading up to some guest rooms as if waiting for the delivery of a bedtime snack to cap off a perfect evening. The day’s sweltering heat had mellowed, and the air carried the peaty scent of garden soil and hints of sweet flowers. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a moment to notice the night air, let alone to breathe it in.

We checked in at the reception desk, and then our group headed out to the patio where a duo was performing some kind of jazz/folk fusion. I stood for a minute listening to a woman with a haunting voice sing, “I Could Get Used to You.” Then the male half of the duo began to play the saxophone, rich and sexy. My parents started to
dance off in a corner of the patio, and I knew it was only a matter of time until everyone else in our group began to couple off.

I wandered down to the lake, midnight blue under a big Texas moon and a sky full of stars. I stepped out onto a softly lit dock edged with kayaks and hydrocycles. How much fun would it be to come back here one day and stay for a week, maybe two. Tai chi in the morning, then breakfast and a hike up into hill country, and then maybe a paddle around the lake. After that, a perfectly prepared spa lunch, followed by some water aerobics and a massage.

Maybe I’d come here solo, all self-sufficient and serene. Or I’d finally call the old friends I never got around to calling anymore and plan a girlfriend getaway. Or, wonder of wonders, maybe I’d even come here with a guy someday. We’d burn off the calories from our spa meals by making mad, passionate love. We’d pool-hop our way around the resort, taking leisurely swims in each one before dripping our way to the next. We’d curl up side by side on lounge chairs, sharing the shade of a big thatched umbrella, and read for hours on end. When we needed a break, we’d head up to the spa in our matching white robes for a Swedish couple’s massage.

A text message triple-beeped as it landed, interrupting my little fantasy. I fished my cell out of my purse.

Hey, where r u?

“
Aaahhh!
” I yelled. I dialed down my personal volume to what my mother would have called my inside voice. “You are driving me
crazy
.”

“Already?” a voice said behind me.

I jumped, then whipped my head around. The sole of one of my
sandals caught in the space between two deck planks, and I pitched forward.

Steve Moretti caught my shoulders just before I went over the edge and splashed into the lake. It didn’t come off as a particularly romantic gesture, like catching me in his arms or anything. It was more the way you might use a dolly to tilt a refrigerator until it was upright again.

“Thank you,” I said. I pulled in my stomach as if that might retroactively make the body he’d just lifted a few pounds lighter.

“You’re welcome.”

I adjusted my pashmina, which had managed to slide through my fingers until it stretched out behind me like a jump rope. Several boatloads of people were drifting in the center of the lake, listening to the music. A couple in a canoe waved. Steve and I waved back at the same time, as if we were the official Lake Austin greeters.

The sax player launched into a solo.

“Great music,” I said.

“Who’s driving you crazy?” Steve said at the exact same time.

Neither of us said anything.

“Nothing like the sax,” Steve said.

“My brother,” I said at the same time.

“You first,” we both said.

We laughed.

The deck started to rock, maybe from the wake of a passing boat, maybe from our hilarity. Steve touched my elbow. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go check out some gardens.”

We followed a path up a hill and peeked in the windows of a building that looked like a little book-filled parlor. Huge sunflower faces nodded at us as we walked by. Birdhouse gourds, just like the ones we used to grow as kids every summer, dangled from a white arbor that was mostly hidden by a canopy of foliage. Prickly pear cactuses flanked the path like spiked sentries.

“Wow,” I said as I looked around, trying to take it all in.

“Nineteen acres. Over a thousand species of Texas plants, vegetables, herbs, spices, and wildflowers.” Steve bent down to get a closer look at something. “Including much of the food for the resort and spa restaurants as well as the ingredients for the spa treatments. It’s a terrific example of organic, sustainable gardening.”

I could imagine him lecturing to an auditorium full of plant people, or pitching his design to a university committee as he clicked away at a PowerPoint presentation. He didn’t have Tag’s It thing, but he had an earnest enthusiasm that seemed like a quieter kind of magic. I found myself wanting to feel that kind of energy. About something. Anything.

We followed a path into the herb and vegetable garden, each variety marked by a rectangular metal sign stuck into the ground.

Steve whistled a long
woo-hoo
. “Will you look at those eggplants.”

I started to laugh, but then I turned to follow his gaze. Rows of sexy, curvy eggplants peeked out from under lush green leaves. “Wow. Who knew eggplants could be so gorgeous.”

Steve checked the label in front of a purple-and-cream-striped eggplant. “Pinstripe. Hmm, if I were an eggplant, I think I’d be Pinstripe.”

“How debonair,” I said. I scanned the row and chose my favorite, a gleaming magenta.

I read the label. “Dancer.”

“A beauty,” Steve said.

“Thank you,” I said.

We strolled on to the herbs. “Patchouli,” I read. “My parents will be beside themselves.”

“Can you believe all these varieties of basil?” Steve pinched off two leaves and held the first one and then the other close to my nose. “Which do you like better, lemon or Thai?”

“Lemon.”

I pinched my own leaves and held them up to him. “Cilantro or oregano?”

Steve laughed. “That one’s coconut thyme.”

I shrugged. “Okay, so it was a trick question.”

We followed a path along the water’s edge, passing a smaller dock that looked like it was designed for meditation or even tai chi. Maybe I could dump Tag and get a job here, so I could start and end every day out on that dock. I’d be an all new me in no time.

“Pizza or sushi?” Steve said.

“Pizza. Anchovies or not?”

“Not.”

I wiped a hand across my forehead. “Whew, that’s a relief.” I turned to look at him. “So, you love your work, huh?”

“Sometimes the politics get to me. Makes me wish I was still back in my landscaping days. Rake up some leaves, throw in a few azaleas, call it a day. But most days I still feel lucky to do what I do.”

“Must be nice.”

We passed a hammock tucked beside the lake, then the path led us to an open expanse that felt almost like a college quad or a New England town common. We stopped when we came to a crossroads in the center. I counted six separate paths in front of us.

“Sure looks like a metaphor to me,” I said.

Steve nodded. “I think we’ve got the high road and the low road here. . .”

I pointed. “That one’s the road less traveled and that’s the path of least resistance. I’ll let you decide—all these choices are making me nervous.”

Steve made a quarter turn right, and I followed. “So, what about you? Do you actually work for Tag, or does he just like to boss you around?”

“Ha.” I blew out a puff of air, my lips inadvertently vibrating like
a horse angling for a carrot. “That would be both. But yes, I work for him. I’m sort of his glorified personal assistant. A little bit of PR and marketing, but mostly making his tour arrangements, doing his social networking, answering five gazillion e-mails and phone calls a day—most of them from him, I might add. Helping him find his golf pants. Most days I feel like it sucks.”

“So why do you do it?”

The long cement slab walkway in front of us circled its way up a hill like a loosely coiled snake. Big stone steps sliced through the center, providing a shortcut to the top of the hill. I stepped up on the first one. “Because every time I quit, he offers me more money?”

I climbed to the next step. “Because his business owns the house I live in?”

I jogged up two more steps and noticed a waterfall ahead, which meant the crashing sound I heard only felt like it was coming from inside my head. “Because my family is like a giant soul-sucking octopus, and once they get their tentacles on you, there’s nothing you can do to get away?”