The green watering can felt heavier than usual in my right hand, the dull ache in my knuckles flexing with the damp air inside the greenhouse. I moved down the row of pink hibiscus, checking the leaves for whitefly while the misting nozzles overhead hummed their steady, wet song.
Gerald stood near the propagation tables, his boots kicking at a stray pile of perlite. He was spinning his gold wedding band around his finger, a rapid, jerky motion he only did when he was pressed. His cell phone was pressed hard to his ear.
“We need to scale the synergy on this layout before the county meets,” Gerald said, his voice rising above the hum of the water lines. “I told you, the window is closing by the fourteenth of November.”
He saw me watching him from behind a hanging basket of Boston ferns. He turned his back immediately, his shoulders hunching as he lowered his voice to a sharp whisper. He mumbled two more short sentences, then tapped the screen to disconnect.
