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I rode the second wave of adrenaline all the way over the twin bridges and to Fortuna, where I’d end up needing it.
“You’re not sitting on the curb in your state.”
Jeanne rolled her eyes as I tugged her to the bench that was situated in a small alcove carved into the corridor. She sat down, huffing in a decidedly ungraceful manner, and rubbed her bump. “You know, I’d be more annoyed if I weren’t really enjoying this assertive side of you.” I sat beside her, and she leveled me with a stern look. “But use that tone with me again and see what happens.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied, aware that Jeanne was only in her midthirties.
“None of that. Don’t backslide now.”
Nodding, I repeated, “Yes, ma’am.”
She snorted. “Well, first I need to apologize. I was in a state when I left you that voice message and probably made it sound like I had an arboral emergency and needed your urgent help. I just didn’t have anyone else to vent to. I’ve cooled off now, but I appreciate you coming right over from… wherever you were.” She eyed me curiously.
I waved her off. “Later. I want to hear what’s up with you first.” It was immediately clear that Vinh had been right. I wasn’t here to fill in for someone. There was no work to be done.
She nodded and raised her gaze to the domed ceiling, and I did the same, taking in the afternoon light that streamed through the glass and highlighted the greens and browns of the vegetation that reached toward it. “I’ll give it to you straight. I want to quit.”
I came right back to Earth. “What? Because of the magnolias?” Imagining Fortuna without Jeanne was unfathomable. Painful, even.
“Now that I’ve had some days to process it, I’ve only gotten angrier. Look up there.” She kept her hands on her bump and tilted her chin at Angie. “A bunch of men in suits walked up to one of my trees and sent a boy up a ladder with a staple gun.” Her laugh was sardonic. “To be fair, they did ask me—well, no, they demanded that I fix the patchy spots.”
She tore her gaze away from the tree, her pride and joy, and turned her icy-blue gaze to me. “It’s natural for trees to drop leaves. It’s their best form of self-protection. No amount of care or fertilizing can stop it. As soon as those leaves aren’t useful to the tree, they shed them. Just because these magnolias are stuck indoors doesn’t mean that they are immune to their nature. Dropping leaves gives them room for regrowth, for when the sun shines brighter and the days are longer.”
I wasn’t sure if it was a sympathetic response to the sheen that had formed in her eyes or the passion behind her words, but either way, I had to blink rapidly to keep my own tears from falling. Jeanne looked away, appearing to do the same.
Eventually she cleared her throat. “You can’t staple fallen leaves back onto a tree that neither needs nor wants them and expect it to thrive.”
I rolled my lips inward before asking, “So you’re leaving?”
“No, Bree. I’m not.”
Bree.
I turned toward her, searching her face. “What do you mean?”
“I said I want to quit.” She studied her belly, pain crossing across her features. “I’m having this baby sometime in the next two months. I have three other children and a husband who won’t—” She cleared her throat, then corrected herself. “—can’t work. I’ve given this casino everything, and even if they disrespect that, I don’t have the option to change course. Everything else would fall apart.”
We sat in grim silence for several long minutes as the world of Fortuna carried on around us. Eventually she made to stand, and I jumped up to help her, glad she was allowing me to fuss.
Once we were up, she squeezed my hand in thanks. “You look like you need a coffee. Come on, it’s on me. I need to check on my Jumanji plants anyway.”
I laughed despite the somber turn of our conversation as I escorted Jeanne, my friend Jeanne, to Caffeina.
She wandered through the café with her paper cup of decaf coffee while I took my cappuccino in a steaming mug and situated myself in the back corner to sip and watch Jeanne inspect her plants.
After a few adjustments, she came by my table and squeezed my shoulder. “I’m heading out.” She hesitated by my side for a minute and then lowered her voice. “It maybe wasn’t fair for me to have dumped that on you, but I appreciate you coming so quickly. No one else on my crew cares about the plants as much as you do, and you’re the only one I could trust to keep my confidence and to understand what I was talking about.” She studied me intently before adding, “And you do know, Lady.”
And with that, Jeanne left the café, and I stayed behind, wading through a gulf of thoughts and the subsequent tidal wave of feelings, my cappuccino forgotten on the table.
“You can’t staple fallen leaves back onto a tree that neither needs nor wants them and expect it to thrive.”
My thoughts turned to Mom. Had she been thriving before the aneurysm took her? Was Lady Luck one of the leaves she needed to shed? Was it mine? Grandmother wasn’t capable of reminiscing about her without it turning negative and ugly, and my dad…
I hadn’t heard a word from him since he’d shed me.
Was he somewhere, thriving? Did he have a nice new family that took up that space?
I’d only allowed myself to wonder once, shortly after my eighteenth birthday. I’d just gotten my new ear piercings and was hiding out with Cody at Willows. We’d taken his laptop inside a motion theater pod and searched my dad’s name in every database we could think of, but Aidan Faust had proved to be a ghost. I’d taken that, along with the complete lack of contact, as a sign to let it go. He didn’t want me to find him.
