Chapter 2

“Thank you?” she called out uncertainly into the empty street, reaching to remove the mesh.

“You’re quite welcome!”

Simone squawked and knocked the mesh all the way into the garden, over the gate. She recovered fast, she thought, with the ringing of deep, throaty laughter in her ears.

“I’m—”

“It’s all right. I’ll get it soon. Have some lemonade.”

Simone was already opening the low iron gate, though. “Really, I didn’t mean to just dumpyour shit. Lemme grab this—oh.”

Simone finally saw the mysterious Lemonade Benefactor. She wasn’t sure what she expected. Hell, she half-thought it was some sentient garden gnome.

The woman was absolutely no garden gnome. She was, however, sprawled in the grass—flat on her back, eyes closed, smiling gently. She looked like a contented cat, yellow sundress and long limbs, barefoot, earth-dark hair loose and fanned around her.

“Oh?” the young woman asked, half a smile hiding under her words. “Everything all right?” She cracked open one almond-shaped eye, squinting up as Simone hovered, still half-bending to grab the mesh dome.

“There’s a bee on it,” Simone said weakly. She realized exactly how lame it sounded as soon as it came out of her mouth.

The woman had sat up, and bits of grass were tangled in her hair. “You don’t like bees?”

Simone was aware that she was being judged, and being judged hard? but from someone with a garden like this, it sort of made sense. She hastened to explain herself.

“No, not like ‘oh, God, kill the fuckers!’” Haste loosened her tongue, and Simone winced as the cuss word came out. “They’re really important for the environment and—like, what you’ve done here, planting asters and sunflowers. I know that’s good for them and helps bolster the population of pollinators.” Oh, good, and now she was rambling. “I’m just. Not good. With the fuzzy, leggy bit if it decides to get lost in my locks. Like one did freshman year of college,” she finished, flopping the landing in a solid 2/10 for conversational grace. “Stung me right behind the ear ‘cuz it panicked.”

Of course, in the time it took for Simone to make a massive, awkward fool of herself, the bee had decided that it had enough and had flown away, leaving Simone to hastily replace the screen and, hopefully, flee.

“Eesh, that must have hurt.” The woman was suddenly much closer that Simone had expected. She had rolled to her feet and was now quite handily towering over Simone, eclipsing Simone’s solid five-foot-six frame by at least a head. “I promise I’ll keep an eye out for my errant friends while you drink your lemonade.”

Oh, right, that’s what had started this interaction in the first place.

“Nah, it’s all right, I had better just—”

“Miss Natia, what have we here?”

A huge postman with dark skin and an unapologetically bushy grey beard hulked on the other side of the gate, his rolling post bag in one hand as he surveyed the tray of drinks with undisguised delight.

“You said yesterday that you wished you had a lemonade stand around here,” the young woman, Natia, it seemed, called over cheerfully. She didn’t move from where she was almost sharing space with Simone. “So I said, why not? I can get lemons, water, and honey.”

“That you can.” The postman—Herbert, the nametag proclaimed—shook his head in wonder. “You really can.”

“I figured you weren’t the only one out in this heat who wanted some anyway.” Natia’s smile was big, too big and bright for her square, tan face, but positively genuine. She finally left Simone’s side, which was a relief, and went over to hand Herbert a glass. “Go on.” She laughed. “It took forever to get the recipe right, but I’m reasonably sure that it won’t poison you.”

She grabbed another glass and brought it over to Simone, who was watching and trying to politely disguise her horror at being forced into continuing this awkwardly flubbed social situation.

“You look like you need a break,” Natia said kindly.

“Well, hello there,” Herbert called over the fence. “You another friend of Miss Natia’s?”

Simone didn’t know how to answer, so she just said, “I’m Simone Jackson.”

“Simone and I were just discussing apiculture,” Natia said smoothly.

It took Simone a moment to remember that apiculture meant beekeeping, and then a moment longer to realize that she was being teased. By then, Herbert had finished his lemonade and was handing Natia her mail, which was a fat stack of manila envelopes of different sizes.

“Well, I’ll see you ladies tomorrow,” Herbert promised jovially. Neither Natia nor Simone corrected him as he trundled off.

Simone found herself staring into her glass in the ensuing silence, determining if she could make a break for it. She was so caught up in her spiraling social anxiety that she startled when Natia spoke again, smooth and seeming unbothered by the solid ten seconds of awkward.