Blue Dahlia

damp.”
    “Then you made the right career choice.”
    “It could be a career, couldn’t it?” Those clear blue eyes shifted to Stella. “Something I could learn to be good at. I always thought I’d run my own place one day. Always figured on a bookstore, but this is sort of the same.”
    “How’s that?”
    “Well, like you’ve got your new stuff, and your classics. You’ve got genres, when it comes down to it. Annuals, biennials, perennials, shrubs and trees and grasses. Water plants and shade plants. That sort of thing.”
    “You know, you’re right. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
    Encouraged, Hayley walked down the rows. “And you’re learning and exploring, the way you do with books. And we—you know, the staff—we’re trying to help people find what suits them, makes them happy or at least satisfied. Planting a flower’s like opening a book, because either way you’re starting something. And your garden’s your library. I could get good at this.”
    “I don’t doubt it.”
    She turned to see Stella smiling at her. “When I am good at it, it won’t just be a job anymore. A job’s okay. It’s cool for now, but I want more than a paycheck at the end of the week. I don’t just mean money—though, okay, I want the money too.”
    “No, I know what you mean. You want what Roz has here. A place, and the satisfaction of being part of that place. Roots,” Stella said, touching the leaves of a seedling. “And bloom. I know, because I want it too.”
    “But you have it. You’re so totally smart, and you know where you’re going. You’ve got two great kids, and a ... a position here. You worked toward this, this place, this position. I feel like I’m just starting.”
    “And you’re impatient to get on with it. So was I at your age.”
    Hayley’s face beamed good humor. “And, yeah, you’re so old and creaky now.”
    Laughing, Stella pushed back her hair. “I’ve got about ten years on you. A lot can happen, a lot can change—yourself included—in a decade. In some ways I’m just starting, too—a decade after you. Transplanting myself, and my two precious shoots here.”
    “Do you get scared?”
    “Every day.” She laid a hand on Hayley’s belly. “It comes with the territory.”
    “It helps, having you to talk to. I mean, you were married when you went through this, but you—well, both you and Roz had to deal with being a single parent. It helps that you know stuff. Helps having other women around who know stuff I need to know.”
    With the job complete, Hayley walked over to turn off the water. “So,” she asked, “are you going to Graceland?”
    “I don’t know. I might.”
     
    WITH HIS CREW SPLIT BETWEEN THE WHITE PINES AND the landscape prep on the Guppy job, Logan set to work on the walkway for his old teacher. It wouldn’t take him long, and he could hit both the other work sites that afternoon. He liked juggling jobs. He always had.
    Going directly start to finish on one too quickly cut out the room for brainstorms or sudden inspiration. There was little he liked better than that pop , when he just saw something in his head that he knew he could make with his hands.
    He could take what was and make it better, maybe blend some of what was with the new and create a different whole.
    He’d grown up respecting the land, and the whims of Nature, but more from a farmer’s point of view. When you grew up on a small farm, worked it, fought with it, he thought, you understood what the land meant. Or could mean.
    His father had loved the land, too, but in a different way, Logan supposed. It had provided for his family, cost them, and in the end had gifted them with a nice bonanza when his father had opted to sell out.
    He couldn’t say he missed the farm. He’d wanted more than row crops and worries about market prices. But he’d wanted, needed, to work the land.
    Maybe he’d lost some of the magic of it when he’d moved north. Too many buildings, too much concrete, too many limitations for him. He hadn’t been able to acclimate to the climate or culture any more than Rae had been able to acclimate here.
    It hadn’t worked. No matter how much both of them had tried to nurture things along, the marriage had just withered on them.
    So he’d come home, and ultimately, with Roz’s offer, he’d found his place—personally, professionally, creatively. And was content.
    He ran his lines, then picked up his shovel.
    And jabbed the blade into the earth