The greenhouse looked like it would be hot from the outside, but that was nothing compared to what Hitomi had imagined. Sun beat in through the open glass and fell in bright, slanted lines over the flower-covered tables. The moment that she walked through the translucent plastic flaps that hung over the entrance, the heat hit her like a wave; an ocean wave, because it was that wet. Condensation clung to the glass, giving it a misted appearance. She breathed deeply, smelling the faint, mixed floral scent of blooming flowers and the deeper, heavier scent of wet earth.
The open space of the greenhouse was blocked only in the back left corner, where large green-metal shelves stood, heavy with packets of seeds, bags of fertilizer and topsoil, and taped-closed cardboard boxes. The rest of the space was taken up by tables. The grey, folding kind that sat low to the ground. Each flat face was covered in small, plastic black rectangles, each one containing a single plant. Through a pair of swinging doors, far to the right, the greenhouse connected to the larger structure of
Crow's Nest Greenhouse
. Hitomi had driven about forty minutes, from her families farm in Newport, down to the smaller town of Prices Fork.
There were closer greenhouses. She didn't know why she came to this one, most of the time; well, that wasn't exactly true. She came here for two reasons. Firstly, because it was one of the few places in the area that sold Japanese plants--not that
all
of the plants that she grew were Japanese, but she tried--and second, only slightly less importantly, because of a beard.
Not the beard, specifically. That had been the first thing that she'd noticed, but it wasn't the
reason
that she came here. Today, she saw him almost immediately. There were only two other people in the greenhouse, besides her and
the beard
; an elderly white couple, who Hitomi put in their late seventies or early eighties, browsing between the metal shelves near the back of the glass building.
She didn't know the boy's name. Perhaps
boy
was a little bit unfair; after all, he was probably about the same age that she was.
Young man
, then. Probably in his early twenties, though you'd be mistaken for not realizing that fact at first glance. He looked well into his thirties. Mostly it was the beard. A clump of well-trimmed dark hair that covered his chin and the two lines of his jaw in front of his ears, rising to meet a head that was more curls than hair. His shoulders were broad, a fact accentuated by the sleeveless black shirts that he wore. At 5'11, Hitomi was used to looking most men in the eyes when she spoke to them. It was for that reason that she knew the young man stood a couple inches over six feet--somewhere, she guessed, between 6'3" and 6'4".
It was only his eyes, that gave away his age. Dark circles which had yet to let go of the wide, guileless stare he must have had, as a child. They were the exact color of rich, newly-turned soil. Most times, they passed as black; except when the light caught them at just the right angle, bringing out the small striations of lighter brown toward either round edge. Soft-looking eyes, which weren't helped toward adulthood by the downturned, slightly round point of his nose or the curled length of his eyelashes.
Late twenties, then. Maybe pushing the edge of thirty. Definitely a couple of years younger than her, but not by many.
Hitomi couldn't see any of these things, as she approached. He stood with his back turned to her. A pair of khaki work pants led down to old boots. There were a pair of clippers tucked into the back left pocket, handles-up, and a pair of gardening gloves in the other. Even so, she found her eyes lingering on the space around them; where the beige fabric tucked in slightly where the bottom of his bum met the top of his legs, how the tucked-in black of his shirt bent in to create the arch of a powerful back.
She very nearly pulled up short, when she realized what he was doing. A small wooden bucket sat beside his right boot, filled with leaves and twigs. His arms were raised, accentuating the curves of muscle that made up the top of his arms, folding the skin in deep lines where they met his shoulders. But Hitomi wasn't looking at that any longer. She was looking at the plant in his hands, coming apart slowly under the pushed-out blade of a boxcutter.
Japanese Wisteria
. She knew the variety as that of her homeland, because of the color. Unlike the natural purple-blue of the Chinese variety, or the bred-in deep purple of the American, these flowers were mostly white. Seeing each petal alone, you'd be easily forgiven for not noticing the faint touch of purple at the edge of each. Only when they were together, turning over in the breeze--or in this case, the gentle movement of air from the humidifiers--did their
purpleness
become obvious. Lavender, like the first touch of sunset coming to the evening sky.
This one was young. She could tell, because it stood slightly under the man's height. They could easily grow to three or four times that. She could see the twisted, scratchy-looking wood that made up the center of the plant, curling clockwise around what looked a bit like a broken-off broom handle. It wasn't the plant, that suddenly made Hitomi feel as if she were holding her breath, despite that she was still breathing evenly. It was his hands--white hands, in the purple-white petals. White men didn't trim wisteria; they were not subtle enough for the plant, they took too much, they reached too deep. You
probably
couldn't kill a tree, at this age, by mistrimmed it, but you could still hurt it.
She almost went to speak, getting as far as opening her mouth. They were separated only by the distance of about five feet, and the plant-heavy top of a folding table. Then she stopped herself. Not because she thought better of it, but because something about the young man's hands had caught her attention. The boxcutter was folded against one palm. Both hands brushed the outside of the plant, his fingers moving lightly over the curled-up flowers. The drooping racemes hung down around his forearms and elbows. He wasn't cutting the plant; it was almost as if he were... brushing it. Only once and a while did his hands pause, the knife clicking out and moving carefully between the outside of the branches, taking away a small strand where the bark split in opposite directions.
Hitomi watched, feeling a small knot forming between her eyebrows. Not in displeasure, but in confusion.
"Who taught you to do this?"
He turned, looking a bit surprised, giving Hitomi her first look at his face, that day. A line of dirt stuck to the bridge of his nose, wiped left across the top of his cheek. A sheen of sweat clung to his brow, which he pulled out a gardening glove to wipe away quickly before replacing in his back pocket. Hitomi could feel herself sweating as well, in the heat of the greenhouse; the slight itch of it against the front of her hairline, the light dampness of her blouse, though part of that was likely the overhead mist-lines.
"What part?" Each time, she found herself surprised by the young man's voice. It wasn't deep--not nearly as deep as the body which it came from indicated that it would be; instead, it was like the sound of a shovel going through dirt. A sound too breathy to be considered rough, and too gritty to be considered smooth.
"How to trim that plant," she blinked, indicating the wisteria behind him with a tilt of her forehead, "who taught you that?"
He frowned slightly. Not a real frown, but just a slightly tightening of his eyebrows toward the round circles of his eyes, "Nobody. My father, I suppose. He taught me to prune."
"But the hands--" she raised her hands flat in front of her, miming the action he had been doing a moment earlier, "who taught you? This--fanning?"
"Nobody."
