A Garden Dream

by Jea Hawkins

  Crystal moved the schedule toward her so she could read it. The shuffle of paper brought Emma back to the moment. “Yeah, a water garden has things like waterfalls and ponds and all that stuff. They’re supposed to be soothing. It might be nice in our backyard.”

  “Our backyard is so small, though. It’s been tricky to do everything we want, let alone add something just because it’s pretty or soothing. I don’t think that’s the most valuable use of our space.”

  “True.” Crystal continued to scan the program and then jabbed at it with her index finger. “Then we definitely need to check out this one.”

  Emma had to bend a little bit to look and her shoulder brushed against Crystal’s, sending an electric shock through her body. Was she that starved for touch? “Space-Saving Gardening,” Emma read. “Interesting. Something about vertical planting. I can’t imagine what that’s about, but I agree. We should go to it.”

  “We’re too old fashioned if we don’t know terms like ‘vertical planting’.” Crystal laughed lightly and folded the program up, then tucked it into the back pocket of her jeans. “Okay, we’ll go to the water gardening workshop at one and then Space-Saving Gardening at three-thirty. For now, let’s check out these vendors. I set aside our expo budget in cash, so we can get whatever we think might be useful. Though we might want to wait until after the workshops, in case we get an idea we want to try.”

  Without waiting for an answer, Crystal turned and strolled through the first row of vendors. Emma followed, realizing the entire room smelled of rich, dark earth and flowers. It made her blood and energy sing, a feeling she had not experienced in a very long time. The past year had crushed her, first as she dealt with her mother’s illness and then with Crystal’s cheating. Here in this place, surrounded by all that was natural, she felt something blossom in her own being.

  At first, she thought it was hope, a sense of renewal, teasing at her from within. But as she walked among the vendors and exhibits, touching plants and admiring products, she wasn’t so sure. Even though she felt lightheaded, she kept up with Crystal, who did most of the talking. Emma was too dazed to do anything but stand at her side.

  If the workshops were useful, Emma didn’t know. In both cases, she sat there looking at the speaker, but not really listening. The presentations, questions, and answers went in one ear and out the other. Why here, of all places, did she realize just how disconnected she was from everything?

  Not just from Crystal, but her own power. The earth itself.

  Was that the source of the trouble? Had she gotten so caught up in mundane life that she forgot both her spiritual and emotional sides?

  Something must have shown in her expression because Crystal’s brow furrowed with concern as they left the second workshop. “Are you okay, Em?”

  Emma looked around the hotel convention center and then rested her gaze on Crystal. Then her focus shifted and she recognized the blurring at the edges of her sight as the onset of a clairvoyant vision.

  It was the first time she ever saw herself in one, but it was clear enough for her to know. She saw herself and Crystal standing on opposite sides of a fire, leaning toward each other. There was an abrupt flare, then she saw their bodies entwined, hands caressing, and legs entangled. It was night and the shadows that played across their skin alternated with golden light cast over them by the fire.

  Whatever their answer was, they would find it in fire, that destructive force. The absence of fire witches at the garden show was a reminder that it was their world’s most unwelcome element.

  Yet the destruction it wrought was usually necessary and followed by rebirth. Emma knew that was what she was seeing and she turned to Crystal as her vision cleared.

  “We’ll only be lost until we let fire in,” she whispered.

  Chapter 9

  “I don’t know what it is.” Emma sat with her arms folded, her elbows resting on the table in the restaurant. “But for the first time, I saw myself in a vision. I think the fact that it was about you, though, might be why.”

  “Well, other than the fact that I’m famished, now’s the time to talk about it.” Crystal poked at the wine list. “Would something like this help?”

  “No, definitely not. I want my head on as straight as possible because I need to figure this out.” As much as Emma wanted to continue the conversation, the waitress stopped to put their appetizers and glasses of soda on the table. Emma thanked her and reached for her soda.

  Crystal picked up her plate of mozzarella sticks and stuffed one in her mouth. Even all these years later, it amazed Emma that Crystal could eat like that. Not just the heavy food, but the fact that she could cram it in her mouth like a football player scarfing down protein. How Crystal remained so slender was obviously part of her fantastic genetic make-up. Unlike Emma, who always had extra weight on her belly and hips. She didn’t really mind because her breasts balanced it out and Crystal often claimed to like her curves.

  “I always wondered if I could be like you,” Emma said before sipping on her soda.

  “Hmmrrf?” Crystal blinked at her.

  Emma pointed at the plate in front of her. “The way you don’t care about looking like a lady or something. You just do what you do. I’ve always admired how you live life without worrying about how you or your actions look to others. That’s what attracted me to you in the first place.”

  Mouth still full, Crystal nodded and chewed. Then she picked up a napkin and wiped her fingers off on it. “Thanks, I think. Well, life’s too short to worry about how we look to everyone else. If I put as much time as you do into looking and acting and speaking perfectly, I think I’d go crazy. But that’s what I like about you, you know?”

  “It is?” Emma cleared her throat and looked at her own appetizer – a simple side salad. Tilting her head one way and then another, she realized Crystal was right. She did live a very… intentionally-cultivated lifestyle.

  “It is because you have your shit together. I’ve never been even close to that, except when I’m with you.”

  “Thank you, but right now I’m feeling very lost.”

  “You? Lost? What makes you say that?”

  “I think…” Emma hesitated and considered Crystal’s words. “I think it’s because of that – what you said. It’s because I do everything so deliberately, that now I’m lost. Somewhere along the way, my life became about life all around me, instead of the life I have to live. Like, my clairvoyance, for example.”

  “What about it?” Crystal asked.

  This wasn’t a confession Emma was sure she wanted to make, but honesty seemed like the best policy. “For a while, I felt like I’d lost something in it. Not the gift, exactly, but how it works.”

  “What do you mean?” The look that crossed Crystal’s face was concerned and she wagged a mozzarella stick at her. “Don’t hold out on me, please.”

  Emma blew out a breath and poked at her salad. “I used to get more like flashes of inspiration. They weren’t always visual, you know? They were a feeling inside, something I was very sure of. That combined with clear visualizations guided me in how best to guide my friends. Easy, right? Pretty nifty gift, even if it comes with a lot of responsibility in using it right.”

  “I’ll say. I wish I had half your talent. Heck, even a quarter of it.” Crystal finished off her last piece of food just as the waitress brought their entrees. “Ooh, these are huge dishes. Good thing, considering how much it cost.”

  The waitress blanched slightly, but asked if there was anything else they needed. After she left, Emma looked at Crystal again.

  It was that kind of lack of couth that had somehow made Emma feel like Crystal needed her when they first met – like Emma could help her learn and grow and mature. After a few years, though, Emma had realized Crystal wasn’t maturing in the way she expected. She remained just as brash as ever. Instead, it was Emma who softened toward her.

  So why did it feel like they had circled around again, back to their differences
being more glaring than their chemistry?

  “I never felt so alive than when we were first dating,” Emma said. “You were different than any woman I’d ever met.”

  Crystal let out a rich, full laugh and cut into her steak. Emma could see for herself how juicy it was as red liquid pooled on the plate just beneath the meat. That was Crystal – rare all the way. While she sat there with her steak, potatoes, and beer, Emma looked at her shrimp scampi with parmesan shavings all over the top of it.

  This used to be something they celebrated but, lately, their differences were tearing them apart. Their lives were in pieces around them. And so was Emma’s heart.

  “It is me.” Emma stared at the plates, now unseeing as her vision clouded at the edges. “It’s always been me, trying to change you, trying to make you something you’re not. I did it years ago, I did it yesterday. Why haven’t I learned that you’re just going to be you? Maybe what we’re seeing is that I’m not enough for you. At least, not the way I am.”

  “What? Are you kidding?” Even though Crystal’s mouth was somewhat full, she covered it with her hand and spoke again. “Take that back, Em.”

  Emma’s vision cleared, but she already knew it. “I can’t because it’s the truth. I think when I was focused on us and fully present in our relationship, it worked because I allowed myself to follow your lead. But when I started distancing myself from you, first with the shop and then my mom’s illness, I lost that thread of connectedness. It’s always been there, though. I know it. We belong with each other, but one of us has to change. That’s why I saw the fire.”

  The entire time she spoke, Emma knew Crystal was staring at her in horror. “No,” Crystal finally said. “Neither of us has to change. I love you the way you are.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not so sure I love me the way I am.” Emma looked down at her food again. It was perfect, like everything she tried to surround herself with. Perfect, but so what? Perfect didn’t feel or inspire feelings. Just momentary satisfaction.

  “Maybe it’s not us or you or whatever,” Crystal said. “Maybe this is some sort of Saturn return crisis you’re experiencing. I’m sure if you read up on your Z. Budapest, you would find she agrees with me.”

  A rumbling sound from her stomach reminded Emma that she was hungry, so she finally took several bites of her side salad. “Saturn return,” she mumbled.

  “Yeah. I mean you’re twenty-eight now. We’ve been together since you were twenty-one and I was seventeen, almost eighteen. As much as we’ve been in so-called ‘different places’ in our lives because of that little age difference, I don’t think that’s actually the problem.” Crystal cut her steak into small bites and Emma watched how effortlessly she sawed the knife back and forth through the meat.

  “Nothing has ever stood in your way,” she observed.

  Crystal chuckled and speared a piece of steak with her fork. “Exactly, so no planetary return is going to stop us now, either.”

  “While that’s a possibility – the Saturn return, I mean – that takes the responsibility for both of our behaviors out of our hands and places it elsewhere.” Emma shrugged and twirled pasta onto her fork. “And I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with that. I agree that the influences of the planets mean something, but how we work with them is up to us. So can we focus on what we need to do instead of outside aspects?”

  “Fine, then. We’re going to work through this together.”

  “Great. But how?” It was the question that had kept her up for many nights and Emma doubted Crystal had the answer, but it certainly didn’t hurt to ask. Crystal might not have Emma’s gentle sensibilities, but sometimes she had surprising insights.

  “I don’t know.”

  Emma deflated at Crystal’s words and she gathered another forkful of pasta. “Well, since that makes two of us, maybe we just need to accept that we’re going to flail along for a while. I guess it was silly of me to think this trip would change anything.”

  “It’s not silly and it already changed something.”

  “What’s that?”

  Crystal smirked at her. “You actually stopped avoiding me and started talking to me again. No offense, but when you want to freeze someone out, you do a bang-up job of it.”

  That was a damn good point. When Crystal admitted to her infidelity months ago, Emma hadn’t wanted to touch her. After a month of feeling sick to her stomach, avoiding Crystal became second nature. And then when she thought they might be able to figure out a way through everything, she froze.

  For months she had been in that state – immobile, stagnant, caught somewhere between the woman she had fallen in love with seven years ago and the woman who cheated on her when Emma needed her the most.

  “I’m in the strangest place,” Emma said in a low voice. “It’s been strange for way too long. For a moment, I thought being here, far from our usual environment, would help me make sense of it, but it hasn’t yet.”

  “Well, we’ve only been on the road for three days. I guess my expectations are more realistic than yours.” Crystal shook her hair back and rolled her shoulders. “So when we started out on this trip, I figured we’d have it out, and we did. I think the yelling was good for us.”

  “Screaming at each other was good for us?” Emma finally let out a laugh and shook her head. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, it did feel pretty good to get all of that out in the open.”

  “Didn’t it?” Crystal shook with laughter and Emma couldn’t help but join in. Their giggle-fit left her belly and sides aching, and it took a few minutes for the chuckles to subside. “Wow, we haven’t laughed like that in a while,” Crystal observed breathlessly.

  Emma straightened in her seat. “I think that was good for us too.”

  Looking across the table at Crystal, Emma felt something she hadn’t in a very long time. At first, she didn’t recognize it – that inability to catch her breath, the electric tingle along her inner thighs. Warmth flooded her, radiating from her core and up through her torso.

  “I can think of something else that could be good for us.” Crystal’s flirtatious remark only exacerbated the heat and Emma felt that pull between them, the inexplicable thing that drew them together.

  And then she said the thing she didn’t want to say. “I can too, but not yet. I want to, but I think we should wait.”

  Crystal licked her lips and Emma wanted so much to lean in and taste them. But then Crystal nodded and said, “I understand. We’re on a new path and we’ve only just begun. We have a lot of sights to see before we get to the end.”

  The metaphor was appropriate and Emma nodded with appreciation. “Thank you for understanding.”

  “It’s cool. I mean, I love you so much, Em. But I think as much as I want you, I still need time to sort things out too. Forgiveness might be a good start.”

  Emma reached across the table and clasped Crystal’s hand in hers. “I do forgive you, with all of my heart.”

  “I know and I’m grateful for that,” Crystal said, rubbing her other hand over Emma’s. “But I’m talking about the fact that I still need to forgive myself.”

  Chapter 10

  Emma woke up with her arm draped around Crystal. Even though she hadn’t done that in a long time and it was almost a foreign feeling, she lingered there. She could almost hear her own heartbeat, strong and steady, matching Crystal’s. Her girlfriend’s body was nestled back against Emma’s, curled against her comfortably. In the overly air-conditioned hotel room, the warmth of being snuggled up to Crystal was just what she needed.

  It was unfortunate that they had to get up, but the vendor expo would open in an hour and she didn’t want to miss a moment of it now that she had a clearer head. Still, she stayed in bed, her body curved up around Crystal’s protectively, chest pressed to Crystal’s back. She watched her arm rise and fall with her girlfriend’s breath.

  “Hey there.” Crystal’s voice came out scratchy with morning dryness. “Are you memorizing my back or something? You�
��ve been lying there awake an awfully long time.”

  “Are you telling me you’ve been awake too?” Emma asked. She already knew the answer, but some part of her felt like playing just a little bit coy.

  “Mmhm.”

  That explained it, then. Emma could keep herself as still and calm as the earth itself, but Crystal was a water witch. She could feel even the most subtle differences in a person’s emotions from moment to moment. All Emma had to do was walk into the same room and, if her shields were down, Crystal could know her mood.

  Of course, growing up with her best friend, Waverly, Emma had learned from a young age to be careful about her emotions. She knew how to contain them, how to keep them to herself. It wasn’t just for the good of her water witch friends, but herself. Out-of-control emotions didn’t do anyone any good.

  Still, in the first light of dawn – that peaceful moment before the night really ended – she liked that she didn’t need to worry about concealing how she felt. Morning emotions were raw and unguarded and, generally, pleasant. With an exhalation of satisfaction, Emma closed her eyes and snuggled closer to Crystal.

  Crystal chose that moment to roll over, however, so Emma opened her eyes and tried to get a peek at her body. But the heavy white hotel comforter followed Crystal’s movements and hid all the interesting parts. Like her breasts. Emma had always envied her those breasts – so round and firm. Emma supposed what she lacked in perkiness and firmness, she made up for in solid curves that Crystal used to love running her hand along.

  “Hey there.” Now Crystal was smiling at her.

  “You already said that.”

  “I know, but you know me – I’m not very creative with the words. Help me out here.”

  Emma quirked her lips and said, “I don’t know. I think you are. You have to be creative to give people their readings without being over-dramatic or boring.”