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Six
Emilia helda hand above her brow and squinted against the sun above the expansive nursery yard ahead. A ten-foot wire fence edged the perimeter, while a small cottage-type building stood to one side. The rest of the lot sprawled with seemingly endless rows of potted plants and trees. Maureen’s directions to Aggie’s Nursery had been spot-on.
“Well, hello, Miss.” A woman who looked to be in her eighties trudged over, waving her wrinkled hand, her clothes consisting of loose, beige slacks and a gray-knitted sweater. Her hair was a long, white braid that tumbled over one shoulder. “You look like a woman on a mission.”
“Oh, I am.” Emilia smiled and shuffled a little closer, her gaze catching on the small pieces of dried straw mulch tangled on the older woman’s sweater sleeves, no doubt a hazard of working at a nursery. “I take it you’re Aggie McKey?”
“You betcha, child.” Aggie’s giant grin grew, and she turned toward the open wire gate, gesturing for Emilia to follow. “Now, come tell me how I can help today.”
“Wasps. I have lots and lots of wasps.” Emilia shuddered and prayed the woman could help. She’d already had to chase three of the bright yellow beasts from her kitchen this morning. “Maureen said to come here and ask if you had any advice. Otherwise, she and Frank will have to call in pest control, which could take a while.”
Aggie put her hands on her hips and scowled at the sky. “Hmm… I guess that depends. Have you found where they’re coming from?”
“The ground, there’s a hole just past my back veranda.”
Aggie threw a knowing wink before waving over a teenager busy potting plants on the yard’s farthest edge. The boy trudged over, his chin tilted so low Emilia struggled to see his face beyond a mop of strawberry blond hair.
“Get the lovely lady some wasp dust from the stock pallets, will ya?” The boy continued to stare at the ground while Aggie spoke. “I’d get it myself, but they’re buried right at the bottom of the stack, and there’s no chance I’ll reach.”
The boy failed to move, and the silence grew thick and heavy as he switched his gaze between the two women. Aggie not-so-subtly cleared her throat, startling the boy, whose eyelids flared, before he skittered away.
The remnants of the boy’s odd delayed reaction lingered in the air, and Aggie narrowed her blue-green eyes at Emilia, inspecting her anew. “Oh, I get it now. You’re the new girl who’s taken on Maureen and Frank’s old place.”
Something about the way she said it, as a fact rather than a question, left an uncomfortable heat burning through Emilia’s cheeks. “I arrived earlier this week.”
“Yes. Everyone’s talkin’ about some new thing just moved in from LA. The way that kid’s been talking, you’d think Marilyn Monroe herself had been reborn and taken up residence in our little old town. If memory serves me right, your name’s Emilia, ya?”
“Talking?” Emilia glanced over her shoulder and locked gazes with the boy. He averted his focus elsewhere, quickly dashing behind a metal shelf. She couldn’t imagine that kid talking, much less prattling, so she turned back to Aggie. “I don’t understand.”
Aggie rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t. Beauty and youth are wasted on the young. Now, lemme just scoot right past and you follow me, okay?”
Emilia frowned, uncertain where they were headed since they were meant to be waiting for wasp dust. Despite Aggie’s shrunken frame, the old woman moved quickly, and Emilia had to hurry to keep up.
“Ya know, I’ve been in Harlow my whole life.” Aggie’s papery hand moved to a stack of wire shopping baskets before she pulled one from the very top. “I remember when Frank and Maureen’s cottage belonged to someone else, long before they ever owned it. I know just what’ll suit that place.”
She guided them down a tree-lined row, grabbing a red potted flower on her way through and placing it into the basket. It was the kind of flower often found in window boxes, though Emilia had no idea what the flower was called.
“So, what brings a city slicker like you to Harlow?” Aggie stopped and gave her a full stare.
Emilia shrugged. “I guess I just wanted a fresh start.”
Aggie gave a slow and knowing nod as though she heard far more in Emilia’s few words than what she’d actually spoken.
“City life got difficult for you?” She narrowed her eyes, and Emilia’s heart beat faster for it. This woman and her unabashed stare seemed to look close enough to guess the small details that had forced Emilia’s exit. Then Aggie’s face relaxed, and the feeling of being interrogated faded. “It’s fine. You don’t need to worry about me. There’s always a story of why a person drops everything for a place like this. You wouldn’t be the first.”
Emilia’s gaze trekked over to the red brick building attached to the nursery, where a large ginger cat sunned itself on the inside of a window. Her mind slowed at the cozy image, falling back to that day in her kitchen when Blaine had described Maureen and Frank as “good people,” before implying she wasn’t…
Well, at least Aggie seemed to like her, and she wasn’t the only one. There’d been Ally and a whole bunch of people at Maynard’s, though it was weird that so many could be so trusting of a stranger. Meanwhile, she tied herself in knots second-guessing everyone and everything, including and especially her own family.
Aggie’s ocean-blue eyes softened, and she patted Emilia’s arm. “I hope Harlow has what you’re looking for, dear.”
Once again, she got the sense this woman saw into her soul. Still, she settled on expressing no more than a simple, “Thank you.”
Aggie’s eyes lit up, and her papery skin crinkled with her smile. “Hey, ya know we’ve got a boy in town who lived in LA for a while. Maybe you know him?”
Emilia released a shaky laugh, following as Aggie recommenced walking. “I’ve been here for a week. I doubt it.”
Aggie tilted her head to one side and gave another narrow-eyed I’m-rummaging-through-your-soul sort of gaze. “He’s about your age. I figured you mightta bumped into him in the big city back when he lived there some ten years ago. His family has a long history in these parts, and his dad used to run round this very nursery hangin’ off my trees and ripping out branches. His rascal boy did the same before they all moved West.”
