In the Garden Trilogy (8 page)

The same woman was at the counter, but this time she was waiting on a customer. Stella noted a small dieffenbachia in a cherry-red pot and a quartet of lucky bamboo, tied with decorative hemp, already in a shallow cardboard box.

A bag of stones and a square glass vase were waiting to be rung up.

Good.

“Is Roz around?” Stella asked.

“Oh ...” Ruby gestured vaguely. “Somewhere or the other.”

She nodded to the two-ways behind the counter. “Would she have one of those with her?”

The idea seemed to amuse Ruby. “I don’t think so.”

“Okay, I’ll find her. That’s so much fun,” she said to the customer, with a gesture toward the bamboo. “Carefree and interesting. It’s going to look great in that bowl.”

“I was thinking about putting it on my bathroom counter. Something fun and pretty.”

“Perfect. Terrific hostess gifts, too. More imaginative than the usual flowers.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. You know, maybe I’ll get another set.”

“You couldn’t go wrong.” She beamed a smile, then started out toward the greenhouses, congratulating herself as she went. She wasn’t in any hurry to find Roz. This gave her a chance to poke around on her own, to check supplies, stock, displays, traffic patterns. And to make more notes.

She lingered in the propagation area, studying the progress of seedlings and cuttings, the type of stock plants, and their health.

It was nearly an hour before she made her way to the grafting area. She could hear music—the Corrs, she thought—seeping out the door.

She peeked in. There were long tables lining both sides of the greenhouse, and two more shoved together to run down the center. It smelled of heat, vermiculite, and peat moss.

There were pots, some holding plants that had been or were being grafted. Clipboards hung from the edges of tables, much like hospital charts. A computer was shoved into a corner, its screen a pulse of colors that seemed to beat to the music.

Scalpels, knives, snippers, grafting tape and wax, and other tools of this part of the trade lay in trays.

She spotted Roz at the far end, standing behind a man on a stool. His shoulders were hunched as he worked. Roz’s hands were on her hips.

“It can’t take more than an hour, Harper. This place is as much yours as mine, and you need to meet her, hear what she has to say.”

“I will, I will, but damn it, I’m in the middle of things here. You’re the one who wants her to manage, so let her manage. I don’t care.”

“There’s such a thing as manners.” Exasperation rolled into the overheated air. “I’m just asking you to pretend, for an hour, to have a few.”

The comment brought Stella’s own words to her sons back to her mind. She couldn’t stop the laugh, but did her best to conceal it with a cough as she walked down the narrow aisle.

“Sorry to interrupt. I was just ...” She stopped by a pot, studying the grafted stem and the new leaves. “I can’t quite make this one.”

“Daphne.” Roz’s son spared her the briefest glance.

“Evergreen variety. And you’ve used a splice side-veneer graft.”

He stopped, swiveled on his stool. His mother had stamped herself on his face—the same strong bones, rich eyes. His dark hair was considerably longer than hers, long enough that he tied it back with what looked to be a hunk of raffia. Like her, he was slim and seemed to have at least a yard of leg, and like her he dressed carelessly in jeans pocked with rips and a soil-stained Memphis University sweatshirt.

“You know something about grafting?”

“Just the basics. I cleft-grafted a camellia once. It did very well. Generally I stick with cuttings. I’m Stella. It’s nice to meet you, Harper.”

He rubbed his hand over his jeans before shaking hers. “Mom says you’re going to organize us.”

“That’s the plan, and I hope it’s not going to be too painful for any of us. What are you working on here?” She stepped over to a line of pots covered with clean plastic bags held clear of the grafted plant by four split stakes.

“Gypsophilia—baby’s breath. I’m shooting for blue, as well as pink and white.”

“Blue. My favorite color. I don’t want to hold you up. I was hoping,” she said to Roz, “we could find somewhere to go over some of my ideas.”

“Back in the annual house. The office is hopeless. Harper?”

“All right, okay. Go ahead. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Harper.”

“Okay, ten. But that’s my final offer.”

With a laugh, Roz gave him a light cuff on the back of the head. “Don’t make me come back in here and get you.”

“Nag, nag, nag,” he muttered, but with a grin.

Outside, Roz let out a sigh. “He plants himself in there, you have to jab a pitchfork in his ass to budge him. He’s the only one of my boys who has an interest in the place. Austin’s a reporter, works in Atlanta. Mason’s a doctor, or will be. He’s doing his internship in Nashville.”

“You must be proud.”

“I am, but I don’t see nearly enough of either of them. And here’s Harper, practically under my feet, and I have to hunt him like a dog to have a conversation.”

Roz boosted herself onto one of the tables. “Well, what’ve you got?”

“He looks just like you.”

“People say. I just see Harper. Your boys with David?”

“Couldn’t pry them away with a crowbar.” Stella opened her briefcase. “I typed up some notes.”

Roz looked at the stack of papers and tried not to wince. “I’ll say.”

“And I’ve made some rough sketches of how we might change the layout to improve sales and highlight non-plant purchases. You have a prime location, excellent landscaping and signage, and a very appealing entrance.”

“I hear a ‘but’ coming on.”

“But ...” Stella moistened her lips. “Your first-level retail area is somewhat disorganized. With some changes it would flow better into the secondary area and on through to your main plant facilities. Now, a functional organizational plan—”

“A functional organizational plan. Oh, my God.”

“Take it easy, this really won’t hurt. What you need is a chain of responsibility for your functional area. That’s sales, production, and propagation. Obviously you’re a skilled propagator, but at this point you need me to head production and sales. If we increase the volume of sales as I’ve proposed here—”

“You did charts.” There was a touch of wonder in Roz’s voice. “And graphs. I’m ... suddenly afraid.”

“You are not,” Stella said with a laugh, then looked at Roz’s face. “Okay, maybe a little. But if you look at this chart, you see the nursery manager—that’s me—and you as you’re in charge of everything. Forked out from that is your propagator—you and, I assume, Harper; production manager, me; and sales manager—still me. For now, anyway. You need to delegate and/or hire someone to be in charge of container and/or field production. This section here deals with staff, job descriptions and responsibilities.”

“All right.” On a little breath, Roz rubbed the back of her neck. “Before I give myself eyestrain reading all that, let me say that while I may consider hiring on more staff, Logan, my landscape designer, has a good handle on the field production at this point. I can continue to head up the container production. I didn’t start this place to sit back and have others do all the work.”

“Great. Then at some point I’d like to meet with Logan so we can coordinate our visions.”

Roz’s smile was thin, and just a little wicked. “That ought to be interesting.”

“Meanwhile, since we’re both here, why don’t we take my notes and sketches of the first-level sales section and go through it on the spot? You can see better what I have in mind, and it’ll be simpler to explain.”

Simpler? Roz thought as she hopped down. She didn’t think anything was going to be simpler now.

But it sure as holy hell wasn’t going to be boring.

EVERYTHING WAS PERFECT. SHE WORKED LONG hours, but much of it was planning at this stage. There was little Stella loved more than planning. Unless it was
arranging
. She had a vision of things, in her head, of how things could and should be.

Some might see it as a flaw, this tendency to organize and project, to nudge those visions of things into place even when—maybe particularly when—others didn’t quite get the picture.

But she didn’t see it that way.

Life ran smoother when everything was where it was meant to be.

Her life had—she’d made certain of it—until Kevin’s death. Her childhood had been a maze of contradictions, of confusions and irritations. In a very real way she’d lost her father at the age of three when divorce had divided her family.

The only thing she clearly remembered about the move from Memphis was crying for her daddy.

From that point on, it seemed she and her mother had butted heads over everything, from the color of paint on the walls to finances to how to spend holidays and vacations. Everything.

Those same
some people
might say that’s what happened with two headstrong women living in the same house. But Stella knew different. While she was practical and organized, her mother was scattered and spontaneous. Which accounted for the four marriages and three broken engagements.

Her mother liked flash and noise and wild romance. Stella preferred quiet and settled and committed.

Not that she wasn’t romantic. She was just sensible about it.

It had been both sensible and romantic to fall in love with Kevin. He’d been warm and sweet and steady. They’d wanted the same things. Home, family, future. He’d made her happy, made her feel safe and cherished. And God, she missed him.

She wondered what he’d think about her coming here, starting over this way. He’d have trusted her. He’d always believed in her. They’d believed in each other.

He’d been her rock, in a very real way. The rock that had given her a solid base to build on after a childhood of upheaval and discontent.

Then fate had kicked that rock out from under her. She’d lost her base, her love, her most cherished friend, and the only person in the world who could treasure her children as much as she did.

There had been times, many times, during the first months after Kevin’s death when she’d despaired of ever finding her balance again.

Now she was the rock for her sons, and she would do whatever she had to do to give them a good life.

With her boys settled down for the night, and a low fire burning—she was
definitely
having a bedroom fireplace in her next house—she sat on the bed with her laptop.

It wasn’t the most businesslike way to work, but she didn’t feel right asking Roz to let her convert one of the bedrooms into a home office.

Yet.

She could make do this way for now. In fact, it was cozy and for her, relaxing, to go over the order of business for the next day while tucked into the gorgeous old bed.

She had the list of phone calls she intended to make to suppliers, the reorganization of garden accessories and the houseplants. Her new color-coordinated pricing system to implement. The new invoicing program to install.

She had to speak with Roz about the seasonal employees. Who, how many, individual and group responsibilities.

And she’d yet to corner the landscape designer. You’d think the man could find time in a damn week to return a phone call. She typed in “Logan Kitridge,” bolding and underlining the name.

She glanced at the clock, reminded herself that she would put in a better day’s work with a good night’s sleep.

She powered down the laptop, then carried it over to the dressing table to set it to charge. She really was going to need that home office.

She went through her habitual bedtime routine, meticulously creaming off her makeup, studying her naked face in the mirror to see if the Time Bitch had snuck any new lines on it that day. She dabbed on her eye cream, her lip cream, her nighttime moisturizer—all of which were lined, according to point of use, on the counter. After slathering more cream on her hands, she spent a few minutes searching for gray hairs. The Time Bitch could be sneaky.

She wished she was prettier. Wished her features were more even, her hair straight and a reasonable color. She’d dyed it brown once, and
that
had been a disaster. So, she’d just have to live with ...

She caught herself humming, and frowned at herself in the mirror. What song was that? How strange to have it stuck in her head when she didn’t even know what it was.

Then she realized it wasn’t stuck in her head. She
heard
it. Soft, dreamy singing. From the boys’ room.

Wondering what in the world Roz would be doing singing to the boys at eleven at night, Stella reached for the connecting door.

When she opened it, the singing stopped. In the subtle glow of the Harry Potter night-light, she could see her sons in their beds.