here to discuss business. Botanical business.”
“Botanical? Business? You’re acting very strangely, Bliss, but come in if you must.”
She drifted through the foyer toward her living room of gleaming oak floors and artfully placed furnishings, with me following behind like a stray cat.
She draped herself over a cream leather couch and took a sip of wine. I plopped myself down, uninvited, on a matching loveseat facing her and watched her wince when I planted my soiled runners on her Persian area rug. I remembered my wet, muddy butt and hoped I wouldn’t leave a stain on the leather.
“What have you been doing, Bliss? You look more like a hobo than usual.”
“Well, let’s see. I spent the day tending graves at the cemetery. You do know I work as a groundskeeper in the cemetery on Saturdays, don’t you?”
She answered with a slight wrinkling of her nose.
“Then I went to Dougal’s, where I ate supper and he offered me a very interesting proposition. Want to hear what it is?”
At the mention of Dougal’s name, Glory’s face underwent a transformation, like from a human to a werewolf. I suddenly saw, not the socialite who spent her days playing tennis and lunching with her peers, but a primal creature with claws and teeth. And I distinctly saw the whites of her eyes turn red. What had Dougal done to warrant this reaction from his former wife? Nobody seemed to know, but it must have been nasty.
Her fingers squeezed the stem of her glass so tightly I expected it to shatter and splash wine over her turquoise silk trousers, but it remained intact.
“I think you know, Bliss, that I have no interest in anything relating to that worm, Dougal Seabrook. And I wish you would tell me why you are here.”
“Yes, well, I don’t disagree that Dougal can be a serious pain, but since I was married to a weasel, I think I have the edge on bad marriages. At least Dougal didn’t leave you flat broke and living in a trailer in Hemp Hollow.”
“I had my own money, don’t forget, and that bastard couldn’t get his hands on it, not that he was brainless enough to try. Spit it out, Bliss.”
“Okay, then. Dougal’s Titan Arum is about to blossom, and he thinks yours might be at the same stage. For some reason, he’s keen on pollinating his Titan and getting the seeds or whatever happens when two plants mix up their pollen.” I still wasn’t sure about the mechanics of the whole scheme but, since Glory had the same plant biology degree as Dougal from the University of Waterloo, I figured she would get the idea.
“What makes you think I have a Titan Arum?” Glory got up and poured herself another glass of white wine. She didn’t offer me any and I licked my parched lips.
With a sniff, Glory gazed at a twig sticking out from the top of my tee-shirt. Pinky in the air, I pulled it out and placed it carefully on the teak coffee table. Most of my hair had exploded from its ponytail and, given that it had been over a year since I’d seen the inside of a salon, I knew I looked like I had just stepped away from a weed whacker.
“I picked up some brush crawling through your mini-forest. Before disturbing you, I wanted to see if you had a Titan Arum in your greenhouse and, hey, what do you think? You do. So how about it? Would you like to trade pollen with Dougal’s Titan?”
Glory shook her glass, but it was empty again. She slammed it down on the coffee table and again it didn’t break. Had to be Waterford.
“I hardly know what to say to you, Bliss. You admit you have been sneaking around like a spy? And now you want me to do something that will make Dougal happy?”
“You could say that.”
“I can’t believe it! I should fire your ass right now. I don’t accept disloyalty from my employees.” I wondered how many glasses of expensive Chardonnay had passed those glossy lips before I arrived. I really itched to slap her Lancômed face.
“Go right ahead. I have a waiting list of women who would die for me to clean their houses on Wednesday mornings.” We both knew I was right. I could clean two houses a day, five days a week, and not make a dent in the list.
“Well, I just think it’s rude, that’s all.” Glory wasn’t going to pursue my ass, as in firing of.
“Look, Glory, I don’t know anything about these enormous ugly plants, but if they’re as rare as Dougal says, wouldn’t you like to get some seedlings or saplings from the mother plant you’ve had for so many years?”
“Tubers,” she said absently, tapping her long pink fingernails against the empty glass. “They’re called tubers, or corms, once the seeds have matured enough to start growing the plants. And I wouldn’t mind having a few new specimens of Amorphophallus titanum in my greenhouse, but I don’t see why I should do Dougal any favours.”
“Okay, so he’s a jerk, but if both plants are pollinated, you’ll both benefit. Think about it, lots of little tubers, enough to go around.”
She sat silently for so long I thought she had nodded off into a drunken coma with her eyes open. I was ready to get up and pour her another glass of wine to revive her when she glared at me and said, “No, I’m sorry Bliss, you can tell Dougal I’m not interested in his proposition.”
“Are you sure?”
“What’s the matter with you? Are you deaf or something? I said no deal.”
“I know you don’t respect me, Glory, because the Weasel dumped me for a politically connected woman five years older, and I ended up with barely more than the clothes on my back. But don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m stupid.”
“Well, you should have seen it coming and raided the bank account.”
We were off topic. And she was pissing me off.
“Here’s the thing, Glory. I’m smart enough to know what marijuana looks like. If you co-operate and let me do the cross-pollination, I won’t tell anybody about the grass growing in your greenhouse, setting a very bad example for Sif.”
Glory’s reaction to blackmail was spectacular. I backed away to a safe distance, wishing my old BlackBerry had a camera feature to capture the Kodak moments as they unfolded.
Chapter
FOUR
Dougal’s face was bloodless. “I can’t go over there! That woman knows I can’t go outside. Why does she want to talk in person anyway? I’m paying you to handle it, so go handle it.”
He kept shaking his head and backing away like I was threatening to drag him bodily over to Glory’s. Although it might come to that.
“I don’t know why, but she wouldn’t budge on that point. You have to go there tomorrow evening at eight o’clock, or no deal.”
Watching Glory throw a tantrum was the most fun I’d had all day. It was the first time I had witnessed someone drumming her heels on the floor while tearing at her hair and shrieking she was going to kill herself. After killing me, Dougal, and, I believe, the Pope for good measure.
Her
