I wait until Danielle is gone before turning back to my mother. One look at her face and I give in, just like we both knew from the very beginning that I was going to. “Look, if you really don’t like the Versace, I won’t wear it. But you’re going to have to come up with something else for me to wear because I have no time to go home and get another dress.”
She claps her hands like a little girl at my capitulation, all but jumping up and down in her excitement. “You won’t regret it! I promise. I already have the perfect dress in mind,” she says as she throws her arms around my neck.
I already regret it, but what’s done is done. As I head toward the backyard and my father’s gardens, I can’t help sending a prayer out to the universe that she doesn’t dress me like a total frump. Because while I buy her “you need to be seen as a more serious actress” argument to a certain extent, I’m also pretty sure the wardrobe change has just as much to do with her wanting to shine the brightest at the party tonight as it does with my image. Probably even more. Not that I have a problem with that—it is her birthday. And you only turn fifty seven times, after all. Maybe eight if you really stretch it out.
Besides, I assure myself as I throw open the French doors that lead to the side patio closest to the gardens, I don’t need a dress to make Ian suffer. If I’ve learned one thing from my mom in the last thirty years, it’s how to bring a man to his knees…and keep him there.
But one look at my father’s extensive gardens and thoughts of Ian on his knees, or anywhere else for that matter, abandon me. In their place is an abject and absolute horror, one that makes my head spin and my knees buckle. I have to be seeing things, have to be imagining—I lean into the closest outside column in an effort to steady myself, blink my eyes repeatedly in an effort to convince myself that I’m seeing things.
Neither effort works.
Frantically, I glance around for Miguel, the man who’s been in charge of my father’s prized gardens since I was a little girl. He’s nowhere to be found—and neither are the regular members of his crew. In their place is a bunch of strange men I’ve never seen before. Men who have just ripped out a huge swath of the English gardens Miguel has spent decades cultivating. Gardens my father designed when he built the house and that he continued to add to and expand all the way until his death four years ago.
All the flowers, all the bushes, even the sculpted hedges that made up this whole side of the yard, are gone. And in their place are…
I’m not sure. I can’t tell what plant it is from here, so I step closer, hoping to get a better look at what’s been done. And then immediately wish I hadn’t. Because my father’s beautifully formal English gardens, all the roses, all the marigolds and peonies and lilies, have been replaced by row after row of belladonna plants. Some are in the berry stage, others are already flowering with the distinctive purple-and-yellow blossom, but they are all definitely belladonna.
My blood runs cold and for a moment I can do nothing but stare in dismay. So much is gone, ruined, that it’s a little hard to comprehend. Especially considering all this work was done today. Then again, with a crew this big, of course it only took a little more than half a day to wreak havoc on what once was here. And while it’s true that I hated the gardens and only kept them up in honor of my father’s memory, that doesn’t mean I’d ever want to see them demolished like this. And belladonna, of all things, put in their place?
The destruction is inconceivable.
A man with a clipboard and an outstretched hand approaches me from the left. His eyes are wide and he looks a little flustered, like he can’t believe I’m standing right in front of him. Since I feel exactly the same way right now, I start talking before he’s stupid enough to ask for an autograph. “Who are you?” I all but screech. “And who gave you the right to do this to my property? I should call the police.”
I fumble in my pocket for my phone as I think about doing just that. This is vandalism of private property. Not to mention trespassing. He should be arrested. They should all be arrested.
Except my phone isn’t in my pocket. It’s still in my purse in the office, where I left it this morning after deciding I didn’t want to talk to anyone. And because I didn’t want to spend the day looking at it—or trying not to look at it—as I waited for a text or call from Ian that would never come.
Damn it. This is just one more reason to be pissed at him.
“I don’t understand, Ms. Romero.” I didn’t think it was possible, but his eyes go even wider as the huge grin he’s wearing slides right off his face. “This is what you wanted. I followed your directions explicitly.”
“My directions?” I demand, stepping back from him a little as it occurs to me that this guy might not just be a vandal. He might actually be delusional. “This is my father’s prized garden. Why would I tell you to destroy it? And how? I’ve never seen you before in my life.”