“I am so effing aggravated with that woman!” Sharon ground
out. She rounded the bar and leaned against the stool next to Jenny.
Jenny shook her head, lips twitching. “I hate to say I told
you so—”
Sharon held up her hand. “Don’t! I know, you told me not to
take the job. She’s difficult and never satisfied, and I’ve sworn after the
last three jobs I would never so much as drop a dandelion seed in that woman’s
garden again. But Jenny, the Foundation grounds? How could I say no to that?”
“And it’s all come together beautifully, just as you
promised, so what’s the problem?”
Sharon glared at her. “Do you know how many nights I’ve been
up till the wee hours growing those seedlings? Do you know how exhausting it is
to pull three years’ growth in three months?”
Jenny stood and gave Sharon an encouraging hug, then tugged
her arm to walk out onto the patio, overlooking the very project that had
overtaken their lives for the last three months. “Yeah,” she said, “I’ve been
right here, Sharon. I have a pretty good idea.”
They watched as the shadows crept across the central English
gardens and the jasmine maze on the eastern wall, and fireflies began to flash
their patterns in the twilight blue sky.
Jenny grew up in greenhouses. Her father was the head
gardener for the Stedham Family Gardens, the largest supplier of fresh flowers
in the Southeast. She had found Sharon sleeping under a pile of unused frost
covers in her father’s research greenhouse, when she was sneaking in to see his
latest hybrids. Sharon had no memory of where she came from, but she had a gift
for gardening that ensured her place in their family from that day forward.
Sharon could make seedlings sprout in minutes, newly planted
flower beds bloom in days, trees push down roots and grow at a visible rate
over weeks. Jenny’s father called it a gift from God and said she should
cherish her gift, and share it with the world. They tried it on everything, but
she could do nothing for grains, legumes, fruits or vegetables. Her gift would help
to make the world more beautiful, but it would not feed the starving. And it
exhausted her, drawing the energy out of her own body, so that she slept for
days and ate voraciously once she recovered.
Sharon and Jenny were best friends—sisters by choice, they
liked to say—inseparable from the day they met. They shared a room, clothes, interests,
homework, boys, and dreams. After college, they started their own landscaping
business in Atlanta, backed by the prestige of the Stedham family reputation.
They had their share of successes and a handful of failures.
And one notoriously difficult client. They had ambitiously bid to design the
landscaping of her new home south of Stone Mountain. She micromanaged,
criticized and generally drove both of them crazy, without one word of
acknowledgement or appreciation. Except that she referred everyone she knew to
them, making their business an overnight success. The second job had seen similar
results: great frustration and gnashing of teeth, followed with a complete lack
of appreciation, accompanied by a big fat check and still more business.
Jenny told Sharon they should just say no, because the woman
aggravated Sharon so much. But Sharon couldn’t resist the challenge that each
new project posed, including this last one, the 120 acre grounds of the Rencroy
Foundation estate. With the added twist that the project must be complete and
the landscaping mature within three months for the annual Foundation Gala.
With only one week remaining, Sharon had been working night
and day, pulling new growth from all the plantings around the estate grounds.
The maze was fragrant with blooming jasmine. The patterned English gardens
featured flowers and herbs that took years to establish. The rose beds perfumed
the patio. Lavish beds spread riots of color and scent across the front lawn in
a dramatic Celtic knot design that wrapped around the sides of the main house.
Dogs in house:
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Buddy (we are visiting)
|
February word count:
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13989
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