Free Season of the Dragonflies by Sarah Creech

already.
    â€œWillow didn’t tell you?” Lucia said, and she finally turned around but dodged Mya’s stare. She pushed the dirty laundry she’d brought home to the floor and sat on her bed.
    â€œTell me what?” Mya said.
    â€œI just thought she’d tell you first,” Lucia said.
    Mya lined up tacks on the empty message board above Lucia’s dresser. “Sometimes she forgets things,” Mya said.
    Lucia tied her oily hair into a long braid down her back and said, “Last year I landed a role playing a mother in North Carolina who leases herself and her fifteen-year-old daughter to a pimp. Rehearsals were fine and preview nights were fine, and then opening night with the theater critic for the New Yorker sitting in the front row, I had a panic attack, and it made me blank out on the Acorn Theater stage. They fired me and gave the part to my understudy, but that didn’t keep the critic from mentioning it in his review. And I just couldn’t get past it, and then my voice-over contract for that teenage soap opera show wasn’t renewed, and that had been my steady income. My agent hasn’t sent me anything since. So, any other Band-Aids you’d like to rip off for now, or could we take a break from playing twenty questions?”
    Mya stood to the side of Lucia like she might sit down, but Lucia crossed her arms. Mya said, “You need a facial. Something with strawberry and honey.”
    This was a kind way for her sister to tell her she looked like shit. Lucia said, “I’m fine.”
    Mya nodded, but for once, she didn’t tell Lucia what she was thinking. For that Lucia felt grateful. “Is there coffee?”
    â€œIf you make it,” Mya said, and turned to leave the room.
    â€œAnd moonshine?”
    â€œSame place it always was,” Mya said.
    Lucia massaged the base of her neck, then walked out of the room and instinctively went to close the door behind her. Still no doors, just curtains. Mya liked that no doors blocked her energy in the house, but for Lucia, it just meant less privacy. She walked into the open reading area and looked up at the loft. When they were little girls, Mya had spun tales of the men who would surely come into their futures, and she’d always led the way, just as she did now. Mya would crumble dried red rosebuds in their palms with three drops of lavender oil. She tied yellow ribbons around their fingers and described the men who would sweep them away. Mya’s man lived for adventure—caving, biking, swimming, climbing, hunting. Lucia’s man lived for enterprise—amassing wealth, building a home, and creating a family. Back then Mya and Lucia were friends and wanted to live next to each other and have husbands who would be like brothers. Together they blew away the pieces of petals from the loft above to the couch below and let the ribbons fall like confetti on their mother. “Watch out for my books,” she’d say.
    Books were still scattered about the room, along with mountains of overflow paper from Willow’s office and dirty plates and cups from the kitchen. The space had never been tidier or messier than this. No matter how much time passed, the same thought still haunted Lucia: Why, if her family had so much wealth, did they live in such an outdated, cluttered, and small way? She had never understood her mother’s need for simplicity. Willow invested in small businesses in the town of Quartz Hollow and in conservative bonds and concentrated on personal savings, just like Grandmother Lily and Great-Grandmother Serena. Willow kept investing in the fund Serena had chosen in the thirties with a reliable 30 percent return. But for what? Willow rarely spent money. She preferred to watch it grow, like the flowers.
    â€œHow’s business?” Lucia said as she poured grounds into the coffeepot filter. She seated herself at the circular kitchen table and checked underneath for