43
SEAN
We exchanged horrified looks.
“That’s not possible!” said Louise, her voice cracking. “They can’t just—”
“They can,” I said, running my hand over my face. “They just have to give us notice—this is notice.”
“But…” She looked around her. “They’re not ready! We need another month!” She was getting paler and paler by the second as the full implications sunk in. I knew, because my mind was making the same connections. The money. Kayley’s treatment. Kayley’slife.She stared at me, tears filling her eyes.
And I felt that same thing I had the first time I learned about Kayley—that deep, aching swell in my chest that for so many years I’d thought I wasn’t capable of. The feeling I’d been clamping down on as hard as I could, because it led to a fantasy I knew could never be real: Louise and me together and happy.
Only things were different now. I didn’t know if we’d work together—fuck, I didn’t know if I’d work withanyone.There was so much bad shit in my past that I kept locked away, I wasn’t sure if there was enoughmefor a relationship. But for the first time, I wanted totry. And so I let that pressure build and build in my chest, letting myself really feel the injustice of it the way she did every fucking day.
And I got mad. Only for once, I didn’t let it spill out as swings of hammer and fist. I had to be like her. For once, I had to be smart.
“We are going to move this entire operation,” I said, each word slow and deliberate.
Louise looked up at me. “How? We’ve got nowhere else to grow! We can’t rent a new placeovernight!And even if we could,look!”She waved her hand at the tables, the plants, the lights. “We can’t move all that by tomorrow morning!”
After all the months of grim determination and refusal to give up, she’d finally reached her breaking point. She needed someone to back her up.
I’d never fought for a fucking thing, my whole life. Onlyagainstthings. But I was going to fight for this.
“I’ve got an idea,” I told her, and held out my hand. “Let’s go.”
44
LOUISE
Sean’s ideawas one of those simple-but-brilliant plans that can only be born when your back’s against the wall. We couldn’t rent somewhere officially, not by tomorrow. So this had to be an off-the-books deal, strictly cash, no questions asked. Who the hell would agree to a deal like that?
Someone with a place that wasunrentable.
I called Stacey and asked if she could stay the night at my apartment. I could hear the smile in her voice when she told me to go have fun—she had the day off tomorrow and was happy to hang out at my place with Kayley.“So sleep in with him,” she told me.God, she thinks I got lucky on my date!I just wished I could tell her the truth.
We took both cars, splitting up to cover more ground. We needed somewhere big enough to house all the plants, away from prying eyes and in enough of a state that no one else would want it...while still having power, water and a roof. We trawled property ads and internet sites and, when all else failed, just drove around likely areas looking for places. We were frantic, driving to one place while calling another, swapping information between us and crossing places off our list. Since it was late evening, all the offices were closed...so we had to track down the owners’ cell phone numbers and call them direct.
The first four places I looked at wouldn’t work—disused factories and workshops sounded good at first, but they were all owned by big companies who’d want forms filled out. The fifth place, an “artist’s studio” I found on the internet, turned out to have no roof. The sixth was too small, the seventh was perfect...and the owner was on vacation and couldn’t be contacted. By now, the battery indicator on my phone was eaten down to a slender red line, my list was a mass of crossings-out and my throat was raw from talking. I was close to giving up.
I saw the place completely by chance: a mansion all on its own on a hill overlooking the city. Three floors, lots of windows...there were even honest-to-goodness turrets. It reminded me most of all of the Addams Family house. It must have been worth a fortune, once.
A very long time ago.
Now, half the windows were broken and the shutters were drooping or had fallen off entirely. The iron fence around the property was bent and broken in places, the lawn was up to knee height and I thought I could see vegetation growing on the roof.
It was awful...and strangely wonderful. And quite possibly, perfect.
There was a faded realtor sign in the garden. A phone call revealed that, yes, the house had been for sale several times over the last decade, but the owner—a Mrs. Baker—had taken it off the market. The realtor gave me her number just to get rid of me.
Esmeralda Baker turned out to be pushing eighty. Her accent was pure old-money Boston. “Where we should have stayed,” she sniffed as she walked me across the overgrown yard. “But my great-grandmother wanted to run off with the stable boy, andhein turn decided he was going to join the California gold rush. To everyone’s astonishment, he actually struck it rich. He built my great-grandmother this house just to spite her father.”
She unlocked the front door and swung it wide. “Of course,” she said, “it’s seen better days.”
My jaw dropped open. I took in the dark wood staircase thatswept up to the second floor, the galleried landing, the once-beautiful black and white tiled floor.
But mostly, I stared at the tree.
