Chapter 5
“The devil” being a gorgeous white woman with catlike green eyes who entered with her face hidden behind a large potted plant.
“Dr. Powell said you needed to fix this, Felicity.” Courtney’s cropped blond pixie cut suited her angular features.
Every other time Felicity had seen Courtney, her hair had been blue or purple, grown to nearly her waist. Courtney slid the pot onto the counter and hopped up to sit beside it.
“Has Sam asked about why you’re avoiding everyone yet? Hi, by the way. It’s been forever.”
“Christ, I’m not avoiding—oh my god.” Felicity’s focus zoomed in on the plant. “What have you done with that poor monstera?” Felicity poked at the black spots on the leaves.
Courtney gave her best friend a wink. “Dr. Powell says Sam’s overwatering it.”
“Hey.” Sam frowned at the plant like it was a partially starved puppy.
Sam had always vacillated between her boardroom and her enthusiastic but academic bookseller self, but now she’d added an occasional mommy-mode tone that was jarring in a Did the aliens body snatch her?
kind of way. “I’ve become very nurturing in pregnancy. ”
Felicity lowered the sad plant onto her large potting counter. “You’ve nurtured this poor plant baby to an early death.” Felicity took a closer look. “This a really rare variety too. Thai Constellation with beautiful variegation … or at least it probably used to have beautiful variegation. Yikes.”
“We took away her watering can and let the soil air out, but it’s getting worse,” Courtney said. She pulled the strap of her gray linen jumpsuit back over her shoulder from where it had fallen. “Have you told her…” Courtney’s unsubtle jerk of the head obviously meant something to Sam.
“Was just going to. Wait, who’s watching the—” Sam sighed and switched to her boardroom voice. “Abbott’s watching the store, isn’t he? He said he was going to bring me lunch too, but he hasn’t texted yet.” She checked her phone, then scratched at the continuous glucose monitor on her arm.
“He’s such a dork. He was staking out the place for a shipment, so I decided to put him to work.” Courtney arched an eyebrow.
Sam affected her best imitation of her husband. “It’s so great we got pregnant now, Sami, so I can get all my bar exam studying done before the baby comes.” She snarled. “Abbott had me confiscate his library card last night, but now he pulls this shit?”
“Hey, so, I got the sense that you were about to drop a bomb on me just now.” Felicity pushed the plant aside because it made her sad to look at. “Can we focus on that rather than your boyfriend’s procrastination and attendant dorkiness?”
“Are you okay, Felicity?” Courtney scrutinized Felicity. “You looked extra flushed when I saw you outside this morning too? The heat getting to you?”
Sam chuckled. “Oh, in a manner of speaking.”
“News,” Felicity persisted. “C’mon, now. How much more fucked is my life?”
“It’s about a four on the fucked scale,” Sam said.
Felicity cracked her back, but that only made it worse. “So—”
“Wait.” Courtney tilted her head in consideration. “Are we using a five-point scale or ten-point? Because that would make an enormous difference for a level four.”
“Oh my god.” Felicity rested her head on the shiny counter. “Why am I fucked?”
“Grandpa and Marshall’s dad met for coffee this morning, and they decided they want you to let Nic use the patio. And they want to apply for the pocket park grant.” Sam grimaced. “Grandpa asked me to come talk to you about it.”
“Nic hinted that was coming … but they actually agreed?”
With a nod, Courtney gave Felicity a small shoulder squeeze before heading to the back corner of the room to answer a phone call.
Once Courtney was mostly out of earshot, Felicity’s shoulders slumped. “I can’t believe Mr. Greene and Dr. Powell are against me,” she whispered.
“They’re not against you.” Samantha shook her head.
“Grandpa doesn’t want his pregnant granddaughter to fall into the mud pit the courtyard’s become, and he thinks if we get this grant, it will help us bring in more business to the area long term.
He also thinks the only way we’re going to convince the council to stop Bruce from this parking garage idea is if we present a united front.
Mr. Greene’s sick of watching his son’s businesses crash and burn after he finally convinced him to retire from football.
Marshall’s finally had something go right for a change, and he wants it to keep being successful for him. ”
“Okay. That all makes sense. And I know they’re right. The courtyard’s a wreck right now.”
“If you know, why were you getting so mad at Nic for saying it?”
“The guy gets under my skin.” Felicity gritted her teeth.
“Sure, and you’re sure that’s not because you want something else to get under you?”
Courtney came back to the front desk, shoving her phone in her jumpsuit pocket. “Huh? Who’s getting under someone?”
“Nothing.” Sam gave Felicity an impish smirk. “All these hormones. The obsessive reading isn’t the only reason Abbott’s not studying. If you know what I—”
“La la la la.” Felicity stuck her fingers in her ears. “Please stop. I don’t want to hear about you and Abbott’s schmexy time. Stahhp.”
Sam wasn’t technically a relative, but they had grown up together. Most of her summers had been spent trying to keep up with Sam until Sam left for Yale.
Felicity glanced to Courtney for support, but Courtney’s attention was fixed on the large windows on the far side of the shop. Sun streamed in at this time of day. “That looks like more than a survey team, no?”
Felicity and Sam hustled to the window to see Bruce bossing around a team of surveyors. Some with clipboards and cameras on tripods. Some in suits. Some in construction attire. Bruce stood at the back beside the enormous bur oak tree. He was pointing and made several aggressive chopping gestures.
“That fucker.” Sam leaned on the windowpane. “That tree is hundreds of years old. It might not be a ‘Champion Tree,’ but cutting it down for a parking garage?”
Courtney looked up at the long row of oversized glass windows.
The windows were the very reason Aunt Jeannie had first fallen in love with the building after that condemned sign appeared on it.
“Wait, if it’s four stories…” She pointed to a few stakes with neon tape along them that seemed to mark the perimeter for the structure Bruce was planning.
“Yep. We’ll lose the light. Most of it.” Felicity stared across the shop.
Those lead-glass windows on three sides meant that her aunt’s shop had all different levels of sunlight.
She’d built platforms to maximize the space while not spoiling the architecture.
It allowed them to grow a large number of plants inside.
The upper areas of the walls had stunning stained glass that dated from the nineteenth century.
The exposure meant Felicity could provide the perfect amount of light for all different kinds of plants.
That perfect light depended on the empty lot, which was why her aunt had been fighting to buy it for years.
There had been a single-story building there at one point, but because the church sanctuary had been built above grade to allow for the Sunday school rooms in the basement, that small building hadn’t mattered.
But put a four-story parking garage there and her plant store would never be the same.
Felicity tapped her fingers on the window ledge.
“If the plans Aunt Jeannie has in the file cabinet are the ones Bruce wants to use, there won’t be any natural light in the greenhouse at the back because of where the elevator would be housed in the corner of the garage.
” Felicity’s breaths quickened as she scanned the crowd in the empty lot.
“That’s so much more than a survey team.
He thinks … he thinks he’s already won…” Felicity already paid a fortune for electricity for the seed-starting room her aunt had in the basement.
Would she have to bring electric lights for the other plants too?
She couldn’t afford it. “I’m going to fail … all because of a—”
“Felicity, breathe.” Courtney grabbed on to Felicity’s upper arms. “Deep breaths.”
“I—”
Sam stood on Felicity’s other side and stroked her hair.
Courtney tightened her grip. “You’re panicking. Stop.” Without using any more words, Courtney coached her to slow her breaths.
Felicity squeezed her eyes shut. “But what if—”
“Listen to Courtney. Breathe, Lissy,” Sam said.
Felicity sucked in a breath and forced it out again.
A lot of the shop’s business came from curating and caring for large decorative plants for local businesses, but that had taken a hit lately too.
Felicity would eat ramen before she laid off her aunt’s longtime staff.
Maude and Ethel had married each other when their husbands died.
They were the happiest people she knew, but as far as Felicity was aware, they didn’t have any other income beyond Social Security and what they earned at Grow Away doing plant maintenance.
Felicity blinked over and over to get rid of those thoughts.
“It’ll be okay. Bruce isn’t going to win, okay?” Samantha and Courtney exchanged defiant looks.
“How do you know that?”
Courtney spoke before Samantha could. “Because we won’t fucking let him.”