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5. Chlorophytum comosum-1

Five

Chlorophytum comosum

I power walk as quickly as my tight skirt will allow toward reception, the long, skinny leaves of my new plant bouncing frantically with every step. I’m glad when some other suckerfish opens the glass double doors for me to exit the office suite. I’m furious enough that I might break those too—and enjoy it.

This building has an elevator attendant. Like we’re in some New York City high-rise. As if.

“Ma’am?” he asks.

“Do I LOOK like a ma’am to you?”

He even has the white gloves. “Miss?”

“Exactly,” I say. The doors ding closed, but we don’t move. He’s waiting for me to give him a floor number. “The penthouse bar. Now.”

“Um, ma—I mean, miss, the penthouse was bought and converted last year. It’s a private residence now.”

“Probably one of those snakes sitting at the conference table,” I mumble.

“Pardon me?”

“Nothing,” I growl. “Ground floor, then.”

He pushes the L button. I’ll go to The Lobby Lounge at the Fairmont. They never let me down.

He stares at me for a beat too long.

“Can I help you with something?”

“No, miss. I mean, will you be needing a cab or car service?”

“Of course,” I say, my return stare pointed.

As soon as the car stops and the doors open, the attendant scurries across the lobby and mutters something to the huge Black dude sitting behind the security desk. He lifts an eyebrow at me but then stands, walks around the counter, and meets me just as Elevator Kid nods and hurries back to push the buttons in his box.

“A car?”

“Yes, ma’am, right this way.” He emphasizes the ma’am as he holds out a hand to direct me toward the building’s front doors.

The click-click-click of my heels echoes around the monolithic, sterile lobby.

It’s raining again. A lone yellow taxi sits at the curb of the half-round driveway in front of the building. The security guard signals for it, and the taxi’s roof light goes off. The driver slides to a halt in front of us; the security guard opens the door for me, but he doesn’t make eye contact as I shimmy into the back seat. I really need Olivia to talk to my tailor about how tight these pencil skirts are.

“Hotel Fairmont Pacific Rim,” I say. The door slams closed behind me. I give the guard a dirty look, but he’s already walking away.

“That’s close enough to walk. You sure you want a ride?”

I glare at the driver in his rearview mirror, not looking at the seat under me for fear of what germs are waiting to soak into my flesh.

“I’m just saying, it’s a minimum charge—”

“I will give you fifty dollars right now to please just drive.”

“Ten-four,” he says, shifting his Prius into motion. The fact that he’s even driving a Prius—yes, my grandfather had a lot to do with the expansion of hybrid vehicles used as taxis in Vancouver after the first one was put into service in 2000 by a smart-minded cabbie named Andrew Grant. My grandfather’s fingerprints are everywhere. He did a lot of good for so many people. He loved this city, this country. He loved the whole planet, even though it’s filled with bloodsucking sycophants who didn’t deserve him. He had a pure heart.

And that’s why those people on the fifteenth floor are taking advantage of him by thieving me out of my birthright.

My rage reasserts itself in the five minutes it takes for the cabbie to deliver me to the hotel’s front entrance. As promised, I hand him a red fifty-dollar bill and climb out without a backward glance.

The bar is right where I left it. When was I here last?

Who cares.

I hustle through the lobby and into the lounge, scooting onto a stool at the bar. I set my new plant on the counter next to me, and remembering the vicious martini headache that never seems to go away, I order a mojito. “Two, actually,” I say.

“One for your plant?” The bartender, a cute young thing who probably can’t even grow a respectable Stanley Cup Playoff beard, smiles.

“She’s thirsty. Her former owners mistreated her.” The bar top in front of me needs to be wiped down again before I will touch it. I tap a fingernail to the granite.

“It’s clean,” the bartender says.

“Wipe it anyway, please.” He lifts his brows and grabs a white towel perfumed with eau de bleach, sweeps it across the counter, and then follows with paper napkins.

“Thank you.”

He nods once and then busies himself with my drinks.

I pull out my phone, angry that Olivia hasn’t gotten back to me today but not surprised to see the messages from Connor: Are we rich? LOL …

As if my family’s money has anything to do with him.

I startle when the phone rings in my palm. I slide my thumb across it. He talks before I even say hello.

“Hey, babe! Where are you? I’m just finishing up—one sec, Lar,” he says, the phone away from his mouth so he can talk to someone else. “Yeah, bye, Suze!” The sound of cheeks being kissed twice. You’re not even French, you i***t. “See you guys next week!—Hey, sorry, babe. Class just ended. I’m so exhausted. You know how draining monologue workshops are.”

Certainly as exhausting as a real job, like digging a ditch or curing cancer.

“Anyway, where are you? How’d your meeting go? Did you get my text?”

“I’m at the Fairmont.”

“Which one?”

“Pacific Rim. Always the same one, Connor.”

“Ooooooh la-la,” he sings.

The bartender slides the mojitos in front of me and my plant and offers a polite smile. “Join me if you want.” I hang up and drop my phone into my bag. At least if I get sauced before Connor gets here, we can check into a room and I can sleep through whatever new s****l position he wants to try this week.

My mojito goes down smooth and quick, just as I like it. “You don’t mind,” I say to my plant, grabbing her mojito. “You don’t seem in the mood.” I lied to the bartender, though. Her former owners did take good care of her. She’s very healthy and green. “I hope I don’t kill you.”

My phone buzzes again in my purse. Hoping it’s Olivia responding to the dozen messages I’ve sent—we’re definitely going to have to talk about this situation because I can’t pay her out of my yearly stipend—but upon further inspection, it’s just Rupert. “No.” I zip my bag closed. I order a third drink, and the bartender slides a menu in front of me too. He’s trying to slow me down so he doesn’t have to cut me off. I know how this works.

While I still can walk a straight line, I ask the young cutie to babysit my plant and excuse myself to the front counter where I arrange a suite. Then I don’t have to worry about getting home, and the bartender will continue serving until I black out.

I flash my key card at him once I resume my position at the bar, which is still mostly empty other than some loud tourists across the lobby.

“Do they think that draping themselves in red maple leaves and T-shirts printed with moose will help them blend in?”

“Not with those accents,” the bartender says, winking once.

He’s actually kind of adorable with that mop of brownish-blond hair and the tattoos his long sleeves aren’t quite covering. The mojitos are sanding down the edges of my earlier fury and letting my inhibitions out into the pasture, which is their absolute favorite place to hang out.

“Chlorophytum comosum,” the bartender says.

“Gesundheit.”

“Nooo, I mean the plant. It’s a spider plant. Some people call it a St. Bernard’s lily or an airplane plant.”

“Definitely less threatening than spider plant.” I squint to read his name tag. “Benny … what’s a green thumb like you doing in a place like this?”

“Waiting for my big break?” He smiles again. It’s wide and natural, not an overprocessed white like Connor and his small-screen friends. Benny regales me with tales of his intoxicating life in rural Calgary, how he disappointed his father by not taking over the family’s canola farm after graduating from the University of Manitoba with a BSc in plant biotechnology, about his move out here after graduation to try to break into the burgeoning m*******a industry.

“Right. Weed is big business here,” I say.

“Especially now that it’s legal.”

I hold my tongue before telling him about my grandfather’s investment in industrial hemp initiatives. Instead Benny opens his mouth and an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of hemp falls out: it originated in China around 2800 BCE, is super durable, grows fast, is one of the strongest natural fibers in the world. Like he said, he’s still waiting for his cherry job to open in the cannabis sector, so until then, he’s serving cosmopolitans to Vancouver’s elite.

“So, cannabis—not canola.”

“Yep.”

“And your dad is displeased.”

“Yep.” He chuckles.

“I’m well versed in the practice of disappointing family.” I pour a healthy swallow into my mouth. “What do you know about organic farming?”

“If I answer that, it will reveal what a huge nerd I am.”

“Probably.” I crunch an ice cube. “But therein lies the irony. I’ve just inherited some minuscule island where a bunch of hippies live and grow their own food, and I’ll be lucky if my new plant child survives the week.”

“An island? Impressive.”

“It’s not.”

“Want to talk about it?” he asks.

“No.”

Benny smiles and wipes the surrounding counter. More bleach wafts by. I’m grateful.

“How do you like Vancouver?”

“This city is cold. Not the weather—the people. Tough to make friends.”

“You sound like Olivia.”

“Who’s Olivia?”

“Never mind,” I say, uninterested in talking about my homesick assistant who misses Toronto and never stops whining about it. “Maybe you should ride around in a pickup truck and wear a cowboy hat. Chew on a piece of hay or something. That will get the city girls fired up. Plenty of romance novels written about cowboys.”

Benny laughs again. “I have never chewed a piece of hay in my life.”

“Maybe you should try it. Besides, big and cold is better than a small and nosy. Under a hundred thousand people and everyone knows your business.”

He shrugs.

“Tell me, Benny, and then make me another mojito: Do you farm folks really romp in haylofts where there are bugs and dirt and actual cow poop?”

He laughs loudly, startling a woman down the bar.

“I can’t speak for my fellow Calgarians, but I, for one, have never romped in cow poop.”

“But there is dirt. And bugs.”

“You and your plant should probably stay in the city.” Benny—which doesn’t sound like a cowboy name, or does it?—obliges with that fourth mojito, pausing his chitchat only to serve the other guests who trickle in. He’s deep into a discussion about the multitude of insect pests that threaten healthy canola crops when a body wraps itself around me from behind and bites my earlobe. Benny’s eyebrow hikes, and I push Connor away.

“God, gross. Keep your saliva to yourself,” I say, my words not quite slurred yet.

“That’s not what you said the other night,” Connor purrs. Ick. He knows how I feel about PDA.

“Benny, this is Connor. He’s an ac-tor.”

“Hey, Benny,” Connor says, reaching over the bar. “I’ll have whatever she’s having, though it smells like she might be a little ahead of me.” He pinches my ass; I backhand him across the chest.

Benny’s whole demeanor changes as he makes Connor a drink. “That’ll be $18,” he says.

“Oh, just throw it on Lara’s tab.”

“How chivalrous,” I say. Benny offers a tight smirk and disappears with his bleach towel. I guess that’s the end of the story of Benny the Cannabis Cowboy in the Cold Coastal City.

Connor sips at the mojito and shivers. “Damn, that’s strong.” He tries to spin me in on my white-leather bar stool to face him. “Sooo, babe, tell me how today went.”

“It was a meeting. Like any other meeting.”

“And?”

I finish my drink, nausea prickling at the edges of my stomach. I slide the menu in front of me and flop it open. “I need bread. Benny!”