Sharmin Aunty snorted. “You know you don’t have to sanitize your language for me, June. Is your brother okay?”
“Yeah, it’s just the usual. Dad and him were”—Juniper made air quotes with her fingers—“‘discussing his options’ again this morning. More like Dad was talking and Row was sulking.” Juniper turned back to me. “Dad refuses to see that we’re not little kids who want to be just like him anymore. He still calls us his ‘little saplings.’ You’d think he’d be okay with his oldest sapling wanting a career in gardens.”
I must have looked confused, because Juniper grinned. “Rowan and I are both named after trees.”
Ah. Cute.
“Tahira is a cool name,” Juniper continued, dropping her trowel and joining me at the table. “Do you ever shorten it? Because I don’t want to call you something you don’t like.” I shook my head, but Juniper was still talking. “It’s funny—we’re kind of a flower family since my grandma was a florist, but Dad used to work more with trees when he was starting out in botany, so we got tree names. But now he’s working at the nursery, and Rowan and I are all about gardensand flowers. Can you imagine if Dad named us after flowers? We’d have been Chrysanthemum and Clematis. Chrissy and Clem! Maybe we would have fit in here more...did Shar tell you I’ll be working at Lilybuds with you this summer?”
I cringed. I’d been making a genuine effort not to think about the fact that the store I was depending on to get fashion experience for FIT was called Lilybuds. Terrible name.
Sharmin Aunty picked up the teapot. “Can I pour you a chai, June?”
“Ooh, yes, please. Is it from Hyacinth’s?” She grinned at me. “Hyacinth’s is this café downtown that has custom tea blends and these amazing Bakewell tarts. Did you know that Bakewell is named after a village in England? And Bakewell tarts are named after that village. Hyacinth’s Bakewell tarts are sooo good. I want to see the real Bakewell one day. There’s this big house there that was used as Mr.Darcy’s house in thePride and Prejudicemovie. Not that I’m into Jane Austen or anything; I’m more of a contemporary or urban fantasy reader myself. But I hear the gardens are spectacular. Row and I want to go one day.”
I raised my brow. On one hand, I liked Juniper’s innocence, and she seemed nice enough. On the other hand, considering I’d be both living next door to and working with this girl, it kind of sucked that we had nothing in common. Also, her chattiness might get exhausting after a while.
Sharmin Aunty and Juniper started asking me about my art school. It got a little intense, with both of them peppering me with questions about what courses I was taking and what programs they offered, so at a lull in the interrogation, I stood.
“This garden is so pretty. I’m going to look around,” I said. I pulled out my phone as soon as I was ten feet from the patio and texted Matteo.
Everything in this town has flowers on it. People drink tea from flowered teapots and train rabbits and fantasize about visiting gardens in England.
When there was no answer, I tried Gia.
The backyard we’re living in makes your Nona’s garden look like a parking lot. Flower overkill.
But even for flower overkill, I had to admit it was impressive. The garden had three clusters of plantings, each with different flower varieties in them. Even though there were so many different types, the colors in each bed were all coordinated. In one corner was what I assumed was a vegetable garden, based on the round cage things like the ones Gia’s grandmother used on tomato plants. In front of the greenhouse was a big weathered-wood workbench with some trays of plants on it. Maybe Juniper was planning to plant those in the garden where she was digging.
As a whole, the garden was very full, very colorful, and it was obvious a ton of work had been put into it. It was probably even more work to maintain. Honestly, if someone was into the whole English country garden vibe, this place would be a dream. I knew more than a few Instagrammers who would kill to do a photo shoot in the wildflower-looking spots near the greenhouse. Me? I was worried about sneezing. I was normally okay outdoors, but this was far from a normal amount of flowers.
Sharmin Aunty turned to me when I was at the back of the yard. “Everything you see is Rowan’s doing. He redid all this last summer. He has a real eye for landscape design.”
Interesting.
My phone vibrated with a call in my pocket. Probably Matteo. When I looked at it, though, it was Gia calling.
“I’m going to take this inside.” I rushed into the granny flat and accepted the call. “Hey, Gia. What’s up?”
“Is the pool saltwater or chlorine? That turquoise suit I bought in Miami will fade with too much chlorine. It’s really for the beach.”
I plopped on the sofa/bed thing. “What pool?”
“The pool at the house.”
“What house?”
“Your aunt’s house. Did you forget I’m moving in with you tomorrow?” Gia giggled.
I frowned. “There’s no pool here.”
That made the giggles stop. “Yes, there is.”
I glanced out the window to where Sharmin Aunty and Juniper were sitting and not swimming at all. “Seriously, Gia. No pool. Just flowers. We did buy a fountain on the way up, but you wouldn’t fit in it. By the way, donotstop at the garden center right outside town.”
“Stop messing with me, Tahira! Thereisa pool! You said we’d be living in a pool house!”
“I said ‘granny flat.’ It’s like a pool house, but without a pool in front of it. It’s a guesthouse.”
