“I like to think it was a draw,” Stevie said, with a self-satisfied air.“What about you?Did you have a wild night—or, at least, a wild night, for Corinthia?”
“I resemble that remark,” Corinthia said.“Nothing too wild.Just…” And she confessed to all of it, because they were about to go in the backyard anyway, and Stevie would see the evidence for herself.
“Anothersleepover?”Stevie said, when Corinthia was done.
Corinthia blinked.“Did you miss the part about magically growing a new forest in my backyard?”
“Sure, sure.Forest, backyard, got it.But you had her sleep in your papasan chair?”
“I didn’thaveher do anything.She wanted to sleep there.She said it was like a nest.”
“I see,” Stevie said.“And you, what, slept in your bed?By yourself?”
“I believe that was clear in the first place, yes.”
“Man,” Stevie said.“That’s a slow burn.”
“I thought you liked controlled burns.”
“Yeah, for forests, not my love life.”
“Well, it’s my love life,” Corinthia said, feeling oddly proud but also slightly embarrassed at the same time.
“Aw!”Stevie threw her arms around Corinthia and squeezed her.“You have a love life!”
Corinthia smiled to herself as she was crushed with the strength of true friendship, then politely pointed out, a little breathlessly, that she couldn’t breathe.
“I’m so happy for you!”Stevie cried.Then she let go.“Is Rosemary coming to the Wildlife Festival?”
“Yes, I already asked her.Come on,” Corinthia said, leading the way.“Let me show you the back before Drew gets here to work on the fence again.”
They made their way around back via the side yard.Like the front yard, it still looked just as it always had.But where the side yard would normally have opened up to the full backyard, there was an arch of trees, like a gateway, and the beginning of a white sand path.
“Whoa,” Stevie said.
“I know,” Corinthia said, as they walked through the arch.“I can hardly believe it myself, even after seeing it last night.There’s something different about seeing it in the daytime.I think,” she mused, “that at night it seemed like it would disappear with the sun.”
Stevie stopped to marvel at a shrub filled with fragrant flowers.Her fingers grazed the petals.“I have to admit I’m a little bit jealous.”
Corinthia did not quite have the words to express her deep sense of gratitude for her own good fortune, so she remained silent and let Stevie stroll the miniature maze slowly, like it was an art museum filled with treasures.
When they reached where the small path opened up into the Refuge itself, Stevie stopped.“Oh, Corinthia,” she said.“It’s all so beautiful.”
“I know,” Corinthia said.It was at that moment she noticed her own dress shirt hanging from the top of the fence.She collected it, brought it swiftly and covertly to her face to breathe its scent, and then folded it fussily over her arm as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.
When Corinthia’s phone dinged to herald Drew’s arrival, it startled both of them.
Stevie jogged off to collect Drew from the driveway.
When the two of them returned to the opening into the Refuge, Drew stopped short.“Dude,” she said, “what happened to your yard?”
“I re-landscaped it,” Corinthia said.
“Huh.”Drew dropped her tool bag by the fence, then crouched where the fence met the ground.“You know the only thing holding this up is the trees?”
“Really?”Corinthia said, feigning innocence, and probably not very well.
“What happened to the posts I put up?”
