Steady (23 page)

“One time?” he asked, looking at her in disbelief.

“Okay, twice. But I must say in my defense that I needed to see the competition.”

“I’m not and never will be your competition, Katrina,” he said, reaching for her hand again. He walked her through his living room, which sat in the back portion of his home, toward the bank of windows that separated him from the outside. Katrina’s head whipped around as she tried to catch glimpses of his eco-friendly home. He stopped at his windows, looking outward.

“It’s nice to be able to see outside whenever you want,” she said, coming to stand next to him, looking out.

“Yes, it is. Typically, a Japanese home offers some primary viewpoints into the garden from inside, even if it’s only into a small courtyard or Zen garden. Japanese gardens are designed to provide a break from the outside world, a respite, a spiritual place, leaving the profane beyond the fencing outside.”

She turned to face him, listening.

“In some ways I need a disconnection from the stress of life and work, and this garden supplies that for me. Almost unconsciously, peace and calm seep in,” he said, growing quiet, looking out his window. “I also wanted to create a garden that would be in harmony with my home, and I wanted to be able to see the whole of it.”

“I certainly understand your feelings. I get that, too, from my garden,” she explained, adding, “Although its design is very different from yours.”

He held a door open for her and she stepped out onto the patio, he following behind and then moving to stand beside her.

“This is it,” he said, looking around. Her eyes wandered over the trees next to his home, reaching to his roof, their trunks clean except for clusters of green on the top branches, as were most of the trees in his yard.

“Japanese gardening isn’t a total complete design so much as it is a mix of about five different parts, ideas, or theories, and not all may be found in Japanese gardens at once. Some aspects are uniquely Japanese, others with influences from the Chinese and Korean cultures.”

They continued to stand on the patio overlooking his yard as she took in his mini-history lesson.

“My garden, I hope, is Japanese at heart, but mixed in with my own take on gardening and bits and pieces taken from my travels,” he said, walking further out into his yard. He pointed to the tall fencing at the back. “I like my privacy, thus the need for above-standard fencing,” he said, pointing. “The hedges and shrubs, when fully grown, will hide the fence,” he added.

He put his palm outward, reaching for hers again. She looked at it for a second and shook her head. He turned and started walking toward the waterfall and pond, not hurt by that small rejection.

“The lawn before I made changes to it was basically flat, although it had a bit of a slope upward toward that corner,” he said, pointing to where the top of the waterfall stood. “I had soil brought in to build the corner up further, to find the rocks to form the waterfall. I spent too many weekends looking for that main rock,” he said, laughing at her expression. “I know, one rock, but it needed to be perfect, and it is.”

“Yep, it is,” she agreed, tracking the flow of water as it fell onto the rocks below and flowed into the pond filled with fish. They walked over to the pond to get a closer look.

“I was hoping to do something similar to the pond feature at the neighborhood gardens.” He stood and walked over to the enclosed courtyard, standing outside its doors.

“This is my favorite spot in the whole garden. It’s my take on the courtyard style. Usually courtyards are more for viewing from inside the house than for using, but again, I’ve combined the typical courtyard with my own ideas. I added the mister in deference to the heat. The lanterns and chimes take me to another place, sort of like the hammocks in your design,” he said. She nodded in acknowledgment.

“I loved this space for the reasons you just gave,” she said, walking over to his side, passing him to open the door and step in. He followed her.

“I love the soft glow that the lanterns create, while the chimes create a rhythm that I listen to. I try to breathe to their sounds. It’s a very relaxing, calming exercise,” he said, taking a step closer to her, lining up behind her back. She could feel him there.

“I’ll have to try that,” she said, stepping away.

“You really are welcome to come over anytime. The gate is never locked.”

“You sure?” she asked, turning to look into his face. He moved closer to her, in front of her, his eyes matching the want she’d heard in his voice when he’d called.

“Feel free. It would be nice to know that someone is watching over my home,” he said, looking over her face, seeing the beauty she tried so hard to hide; the brown eyes, lovely long lashes, and enticing lips.

She turned away, stepping out of the door and back into his garden. “So what about this area?” she asked walking, over to the rock and stone bed.

“My stone garden,” he said, pleasure in his voice, walking over to the largest section of his backyard. “I took this trip once to the city of Kyoto, near Osaka and Kobe.” Noting her blank look, he chuckled. “Like you, I’m interested in history, and there’s a large number of temples in and around that particular city, most with beautiful gardens surrounding them. I try to incorporate what I like from those places, too, sort of like what you did in your garden with what you saw in England.

“What you see here comes from my take from some of the dry gardens in and around those temples. There’s this one, the Ryoan-ji Temple gardens, often referred to as the embodiment of Zen art and perhaps the single greatest masterpiece of Japanese culture. It’s a stark assembly of fifteen rocks sitting on a bed of
white gravel. No trees, no hills, no ponds, no water features. As far from romantic as you can get. Strangely enough, the absence of all of what could be considered a distraction focuses your mind, or my mine, at least,” he said.

She could tell he was back at that garden in his memories.

“There is a plain garden behind the temple that overlooks the rock garden and in it there is a stone washbasin called Tsukubai, which displays a simple yet profound four character inscription.
‘I learn only to be contented,’—
a
personal goal of mine,” he said, chuckling a little at the serious turn the conversation had taken. “I loved that place,” he said, surprised that he shared that with her.

Katrina listened, nodding at his comments, aligning this Will with her earlier impressions of him, more than a little surprised by his knowledge and the personal aspects of why he gardened. He was more like her than she’d known, confirming that her intuition to put distance between them had been the correct one. This gardening Will, along with all the others, would be so damaging to her, way more than she could handle.

“Well, I’d better go. I bet you have a thousand things to do before you leave.”

“No, I’m fine. It doesn’t take me long to pack, and I don’t leave until the morning. Sorry, didn’t mean to get carried away.”

“No, I understand what you feel,” she said, looking at him seriously. “It’s beautiful here. What you’ve created is amazing. I love it, as different as it is from mine. I’d better get going, anyway. Let me know if you have any questions when you get back about the budget or planting schedule.”

“Sure,” he said.

“And thanks for the tour. I’ll just see myself out through your back gate,” she said, walking around him and out of the courtyard doors and over to his back gate. She unlatched it and after a final wave, left. He turned and followed, stopping as he watched her leave.

***

May

She left work early Thursday evening to drop off Will’s plans to the city. The Garden City committee headquarters was located east of town in one of the older neighborhoods, and it was one of the original founding neighborhood gardens. This was one of her favorite gardens in the city and one of the three original gardens still in existence and still competing. This garden’s volunteers were aging hippies. Once they got past the idea of growing marijuana, they became the city’s main and first growers of basic herbs, specializing in the hard to find.

Katrina also loved their flower garden, walking through it now on her way to the building where she needed to turn in Will’s design. She knew most of the people who worked in it, either through her time spent as a board member or through Abernathy and Co. This garden was unique and popular because it had incorporated five Volkswagen beetles into its design. Herbie’s Garden was the name selected for it; a throwback to the old 60s name for the VW Beetle. There were about five of them, painted new and wild colors each year, where they sat among patches of wild flowers that someone took the time to plant to coordinate with the cars’ colors. It was an awesome display of creativity combined with nostalgia. The wildflowers had made their appearance in force this spring, due to the bounty of rain they’d gotten during the late fall and early winter this year. The east side was almost always a finalist in the competition.

Katrina opened the door to the main building; one large room was filled to capacity with neighborhood representatives submitting designs for both the flower and vegetable categories. There were two lines, and designs were being accepted by two people sitting at a table at the front of each line. She knew all those sitting behind the flower garden tables; she’d worked with all of them at one time or another. Katrina stood in line, submitted the design, spoke to a few old garden volunteers, and left.

***

Will needed a break from people, so he had taken himself to one of his favorite restaurants for yakitori. It was more a hole in the wall, but that worked for him most days. It was called the Captain and run by an ex-Japanese naval officer who retired and opened this place. It was located near his hotel in Tsuchiura, outside Miho, where his company’s plant was located. It was quick and convenient after a long day, and it was usually dark when he finished up with work. Not a big place at all, it held about twenty or thirty people comfortably.

He sat drinking a Kirin, his favorite Japanese beer. He had just ordered and was waiting for his food to arrive. He was back to thinking again, aggravatingly enough, about Katrina. He was going to call her in a few minutes, his mind searching for a suitable excuse to call. Checking in to make sure the garden plans were dropped off was the best he could do; lame though it was, but he was going to use it, anyway. He liked talking to her, and he wasn’t ready to relinquish the possibility of having her in his bed.

He had a week left to go on his trip, and for the first time ever, he was ready to get home. Restless for home was an unusual feeling for him. He had fallen asleep with the image of her, her skin next to his, fixed in his mind. Thoughts of her filled the moments during the day when he took a mental break from work.

Okay, he would call, reaching for his cell and dialing her number before he could talk himself out of it. He looked at his watch and saw that it was eight in the morning back home. He hadn’t changed his watch to Asian time; it was easier for him not to.

***

Driving to work, Katrina answered her cell. It was Will; this was a surprise.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hi, it’s Will.” Her breath left her body in one sudden whoosh, but she played it off.

“Aren’t you in another country?” was all she could think to say. No other words seemed to want to form in her brain.

“Yes, I am. I wanted to make sure you were able to drop off the plans to the city without any problems.”

“No, no problems,” she said, trying to sound professional.

“I felt a little guilty about leaving it to you.”

“No, don’t worry about it; It was no trouble,” she said, a very professional answer, she told herself, internally patting herself on the back for having the wherewithal to give it.

“How are things going otherwise?” he asked.

“Things are going okay,” she said.

He was silent and so was she.

“Well, I better let you go.”

“Sure. Thanks for checking.”

“No problem. Thanks for helping me,” he said, disconnecting the call, disappointed. What had he expected her to say? She was distant again, leaving him wondering what, if anything, he should do about it. Maybe pulling back was for the best. This wouldn’t be a long-term thing for him, anyway. Would it?

***

“Hello, Mr. Franklin. How are you today?” Katrina said into her telephone. Mr. Franklin was one of her favorite customers. He called on behalf of one of his four boys, all with separate trust funds set up by their great-grandfather to fund their college. The trust allowed a little discretion over non-school items, but it had been established primarily to fund college.

“Hi, Katrina,” he said. “I got a little bit of a problem with Andrew.”

“Okay,” she said, waiting for him to continue.

“Andrew went to a party at someone’s house and had too much to drink. The parents of the child having the party weren’t home at the time. Andrew left with a friend in a car—he wasn’t driving—the other kid was—but both had been drinking.

“They were stopped by the police on the way home, tested, and both were arrested. Andrew started arguing with the officer and was more than a little belligerent, I’ve been told,” he said, blowing out a big breath, before continuing. “We’ve raised the funds to have him released after I let him sit in there for a while. Anyway, I will need some assistance from the trust to help cover court costs and attorney’s fees for this incident. I’m calling to see if the trust can help?”