Johan Birch

Marci looked at the button board and saw that I had selected the sixteenth floor. She politely asked if they could come up for a glass of wine. I took a moment to think about it and told her that I was expecting Petra's surprise very soon and she'd have to take a raincheck.

Marci didn't seem upset, tapping her penthouse access card against the plate so that the doors would close and we could get on our way. Marci didn't look at the doors after they closed, she took to studying Nora. Then I felt something, like the air getting caught in my lungs. I couldn't move, but I could see, that's how I knew I was partially trapped in a dilation wave.

The wave didn't last beyond Nora smacking Marci in the face. Marci got sober as Nora took the remainder of the trip to our floor to berate Marci about misusing her power. I had to pull Nora out of the car with me, she was laying into Marci so hard. In that last blink of an eye before the doors closed, I saw genuine pain in Marci's eyes.

Nora was absolutely terrified that she had done something wrong. She kept saying that Marci shouldn't have been misusing her power, and that she had the moral obligation to put Marci in her place. I pulled her into a hug and told her that she had done good and that I'd give her a Gold Star.

In my second month as owner of Birch America, Petra had introduced me to Nora. Evidently, Nora had been caught having some relatively x-rated thoughts about her new boss, and Petra had asked her if she wanted to act them out. Nora, being a wiccan and knowing how that invitation worked coming from the wife, eagerly agreed.

Despite being over one hundred years older than me, Nora had a daddy complex. Petra explained how that wasn't at all uncommon among female wicca, the gender disparity and all.

Every time that Nora did something special, or even plain normal, for me, she beamed at me with this wonderful smile. I often gave her a smile back, or a little peck on the cheek to reward her for that. I talked to Petra and she said that Nora enjoyed that validation.

The next time I planned to go to Arumas, I sent an order ahead for a packet of gold stars, actual gold. I picked the packet up with the rest of my order and went on my way. The first time I handed Nora a Gold Star, I thought she was going to faint. Petra helped steady Nora on her feet and told me that I was a good boy.

From then on, me telling Nora that I had a Gold Star for her put her into an orbit of happiness. I didn't understand it, but as long as everybody was happy, I was too.

I was right about Petra's surprise and doubly right about not letting Marci in. Petra had put flower boxes back into the condo. There were even the special light kits so that the flowers could flourish behind uv-opaque glass.

That was good. There was even a short pallet of dirt in bags, so I could get started right away. My flowers were ready to be planted, a pump attached to a pressure tank that could only be the high-nitrogen fertilizer mix. Erin had it down to a science, she could probably market it if she wanted.

Nora was standing there in the entrance way, beaming, telling me the flower boxes surprise was partially her idea. I was going to give her more than a Gold Star this time.

***

Petra made it home just as we finished planting the boxes. Nora gave me a little peck on the cheek and went to take a shower. Petra shed her jacket and knelt on the floor beside me.

Erin had included a brief manual, in normal English, about how she had designed the spray can so that the output pressure remained constant throughout the release.

"She had designed that especially for Jaci Stone," Petra explained. "When I told her that I wanted it to try my own flower boxes. Erin had gotten that strange look on her face, almost like she didn't want to part with it. Then she handed it over, asking me to bring it back to her. She'd fill it back up if me or Aysun wanted to keep the gardening feeling alive."

"Thank you," I set the manual down and clasped her hand. "This is an amazing gift."

"I could see it in your eyes, how it tore you to not be able to garden in public anymore. I mean, to do the public greenspaces like you used to."

"You're right, if anybody sees me out there, my secret is out."

"In Los Angeles? It's a pretty big place, but what about, say, Houston?"

"You're pronouncing it wrong," I warned. "It's 'hew-ston,' not 'how-ston.'"

"Nobody is going to say anything if you're by my side," Petra gave my hand a squeeze. "But, what do you think?"

"Petra, I would have to see. Jaci Stone enjoyed the support and protection of every social club in the Greater Los Angeles area. People in different cities may have problems with me doing my drive-by gardening."

"Drive-by gardening," Petra snorted. She always got a kick out of me saying that. "It never hurts to try, right?"

"No, it doesn't."

***

Nora pronounced my schedule clear that Friday, and Petra left an information packet for me. Inside was a landing ticket for a private airport owned by Sheaffer Landings, LLC, on the north end of the city.

There would be an Audi sedan in the lot, and I would go to a small house which would double as a business front. My pilot, satisfied that he knew where he was going, started the plane. Aysun popped into existence right as I was getting to climb into the cabin, scaring the shit out of me.

Aysun, who helped with my garden at home, was fired up about helping me plant in a completely different city. I also had a feeling that Petra had nudged Aysun along so that she could be my protector.

I knew Houston a little bit, well enough to know the residents took affront when you pronounced it 'how-ston.' Petra had spent some time in NYC, and there was a Houston street there, and that's how she picked it up. And wouldn't let it go.

Sure enough, there was an Audi in the airport parking lot, it wasn't new or anything, but the rumble of the engine told me it had some balls beyond what was normally offered to the consumer. The directions to the house were very precise, Aysun and I arriving a half-hour later.

There was a pickup truck in the driveway, it looked like it was the current model year, but faded. On each side was the logo for 'J-Sun's Gardening Company.' That was actually an idea Jaci had toyed with years ago, and only Samantha and Petra knew about it.

Attached to the truck was a trailer complete with the customary gardening tools and the mysterious black tank which was an older-model nitrogenator. I was happy that Petra had found a house with a wraparound driveway, I wouldn't have to do any car-and-truck dancing at the end of the day.

"Boring little neighborhood," Aysun observed. "What's with all the signs?"

It wasn't until I saw signs in the other yards that I noticed the one in my own. The signs were all small, hard to read at a distance. "Got me."

"On the way here, I saw at least a dozen parks that could use some loving," Aysun smiled.

"Jaci liked to do one site at a time. More than one per day and she thought she would be rushing herself."

"Dad, doesn't it get tiring talking about yourself in the third person?"

"You know the reasons, Aysun," I replied.

"I can't wait until you find that evil bitch and stomp on her," Aysun growled. Then you can be yourself again."

"Even then, I would have to deal with the people I've been lying to for the past three, almost four, years."

"Marci would forgive you," she said after I turned the car off. "She still misses you."

"Marci misses Jaci," I warned.

But Marci had said that phrase in that tiny little voice of hers: "I can't imagine any universe where I didn't meet you."

"Yes, father," Aysun rolled her eyes. "Marci still misses Jaci and would forgive Johan for the necessary deception."

"I know," I whispered.

The inside of the house was roomy and warm. There was no stark furniture, no bare walls or shiny floors. The walls were wood instead of drywall, and had the age lines of oak as opposed to pine. The floors were ceramic tile, and cool to the touch. The kitchen was island-based, the appliances were stainless, but not the bright, brushed kind.

There were two bedrooms plus a study. The study was the most modern room in the house, and was almost an exact replica of my office at Jacer Semiconductor. I didn't need much to manage the empire, just a communication line to the nearest Birch server and I was good to go. I tapped a few keys on the keyboard and the screen came to life.

Petra's face appeared on the screen a minute later. She was in her office in LA, going through some papers on her desk. "How are things, love?" She asked.

"Some day you're going to have to tell me how you manage to cater to my every desire and still have time for all that?"

"Magic," Petra smiled. "You should know that better than most."

"What is with the neighborhood?" I asked.

"Those houses with the little signs? Most of those are shell addresses to establish incorporation rights in the State of Texas. The house was for sale, and it fits your needs, so voila!"

"You're too good for me, Petra."

"I know," she smiled. "Have fun, I'll see you tonight."

My truck, my tools, flowers? Yes. Fun. "See you tonight."

***

The first park we chose was definitely a two-day job. Aysun cleared the flowerbeds and planters while I took to slicing at an overgrown grapevine with my bush knives. The vine would need a new arbor, but I could build that. A deputy sheriff pulled up when Aysun and I were unpacking our lunch.

Aysun and I got settled while the deputy took a walk around my truck. He made a show of checking out my tools and then tested the edge of one of my bush knives.

What he did, his walk, moving between my truck and the picnic table, could easily be called 'ambling.'

"Howdy folks," he tipped his head at us. "Doing some fixing up?"

I handed him a bottle of water from our cooler. "Sure, the park can use some help...you know...looking like a park."

"Councilwoman for this ward wonders why this park is being tended to. She didn't approve any Parks & Recreation budget this quarter."

Politicians at work. "We're doing the work because we want to," I offered.

"No community service slips have come through my office, either," he countered.

The radio attached to his shoulder went off. "One sixty-four, communications."

He reached for his radio and keyed the microphone. "Go for one sixty-four."

"Twenty-one communications, one sixty-four."

"Communications, I am currently code eight."

Aysun raised her right eyebrow at me. "On foot, investigating suspicious behavior?" She asked.

"We're suspicious," I shrugged.

The deputy glared at us. That particular code was probably native to Houston, and he was upset that civilians knew the 'secret code.'

"One sixty-four, communications. Twenty-eight returns foxtrot oscar mike."

"Communications, one sixty-four. Say again your last?"

"Roscoe, just call the shack! Damn!" That voice was male and pissed.

Roscoe, probably not his real name, took a few steps away and made a call on his cell.

"What was that, Aysun?" I asked after a mouthful.

"I didn't really catch it. Whatever that means, he's scared now."

"Twenty-eight, he ran the tags on the truck," I mused. "My tag number returned some kind of special status. Foxtrot Oscar Mike. What's that?"

"Friend of Mayor." The deputy answered. "You didn't know that?"

"I wouldn't say friends. My wife and I had dinner with the Mayor and his wife after I opened our offices downtown. I would call it friendly at most."

"So, you're the president of one of the largest non-oil companies in the state. And you're out here planting flowers in the middle of an abandoned park. That doesn't make any sense," the deputy said.

"Owner of," Aysun corrected. "Not president of. Hi, I'm Aysun Stonebrook, Johan's my dad."

He didn't immediately respond to Aysun's attempt to be polite, so I took the lead. "Deputy Norris, is it?"

"Sure."

"What do you do to relax?" I asked. "I'll bet you are a fisherman. You go out on the blue water with your buddies and tell fish stories?"

"Sure." I saw the light go on in his eyes. "So you plant in parks, in this heat, to relax?"

"Sure." It was my turn to say it.

"Okay. I'm going to go on my merry way then. As a side note, watch your backs. This area isn't populated by the most hospitable folk."

"Thanks," I nodded.

Aysun waited until Deputy Norris had driven off before she spoke again. "That man had very unpleasant thoughts."

"I gathered."

"When he came back from his call, he was pissed. At the end, his warning? He hoped that someone would actually come take care of 'the fairy gardener' and 'his half-breed daughter.'"

Neat.

"Let's just keep on going. The neighborhood will decide whether we should stay or go."

"All right!" Aysun giggled.

At fifteen hours, another truck and trailer pulled up beside mine in the parking area. Aysun looked at it, then at me, and gave me a smile. The driver came over and introduced himself as Rog and asked how he could help.

He had a half-full water tote on his trailer that would help a lot. I asked him if he knew someone who could get some lumber to build an arbor. He said he'd make a call.

Four men came with the lumber. I was going to help them build the arbor, but they waved me off. Aysun told me that they just wanted to do their part seeing as how we had done so much already.

There was a tiny part of me that wondered why they hadn't done anything about the park before. As I watched those guys saw and assemble and set the arbor, I realized that they had just needed someone to start the fire. The rest would take care of itself.

I was invited over to help thread the vine I had saved through the arbor. Most of the slicing I had done was to untangle, not to decimate. The assemblers had very neatly set the posts on the ground outside the vine hearts.

Aysun came over to help me, waving at a woman in the group who was observing us to come help. I worked from one end, Aysun and her helper from the other. It would take a month, but the vine would bloom and take hold of the skeleton that had been built for it.

The last vestiges of sunlight had cooked the contents of my nitrogenator to a useful state. Since the application hose was already out from the first batch, Aysun went through and injected her second batch of planters. I took the wand from her so I could use the remainder of the formula on the vine.

Petra joined us at twenty-one plus fifteen. She was impressed with the work we had done, and I indicated the men who had helped Aysun and I do the job. She knew that I had just given the collective neighborhood pride a little nudge, and their spirit had taken over from there.

I said goodbye to my new friends, telling them that we would be back to finish the job in the morning.

***

Petra understood why I was reluctant to sexually touch her until my hands were completely clean of the fertilizer solution. While the solution had amplified the sexual arousal of both Jaci and Samantha, there was no telling what a chemical solution like that would do to me and her together.

My body wasn't really understood, even to me. I was as far away from mortal than I was close to immortal. Pricking me hard would make me bleed, but I had run a blade through my hand and not lost a drop of blood.

Obviously nobody wanted to try dismemberment.

As far as sex went, Petra and I both knew the book. That's the book that tells us all the ways that bodies can fit together, and we didn't use bookmarks.

Aysun kicked us out of bed at eight hours, playfully cursing the 'old folks' for slowing her down. Over breakfast I hinted to Aysun that fathers still got to discipline their daughters no matter what their apparent age. Aysun was getting ready to quip something back when Petra cleared her throat. There was a brief silence, then Aysun started verbalizing a list of the things we should still do to finish the park.

It was my opinion that we should start rebuilding the playground. Petra agreed with that, adding that my company had a perfectly good asphalt compound that didn't absorb heat. She was thinking something else, then shared it with me: The compound was more expensive to make in small batches. If we would commit to making larger batches, the price per cubic meter would drop significantly.

Commiting to such a large batch wasn't a decision reached lightly. The mix was relatively permanent, having been formulated to last a century or more. Whatever we didn't use would completely solidify within days and be incredibly hard to break back down.

My mind went on a little trip. To make a two thousand kilo batch would cost six dollars per kilo. To make a twenty thousand kilo batch would cost two dollars per kilogram. It was a hard decision to reach, so I told Petra I wanted a sample.

The sample she brought to me was hard and had a light, gritty texture. About the same texture as concrete, but a darker grey. That one-kilogram sample, Petra told me, had been recovered from a three-kilogram nugget of asphalt from a street repaving project.

I asked her how much raw material we could get, and she replied that we had access to one hundred seventy-five thousand tonnes. There was a good side and a bad side. The good side was that we could get it for free, but we had to take it all. The bad side was that it was a huge, heavy pile of shit.

We could move it in trucks, but to where? Not to mention that we could only move twenty tonnes per truck per visit. At a three-to-one ratio, we'd only get six and a half tonnes finished material.

Petra told me that she was going to propose the project to me as soon as someone came up with a project that big. If I gave the go-ahead now, she'd task some people to look into making the processing unit portable. I agreed to the project, we would find something to do with that material. For now, we'd still do the playground. It would be worth it.

When Petra was done with her calls, I caught her unaware with the question that had been bugging me since breakfast: What was Aysun going to say to me?

She sighed and sat on my desk. One of Aysun's friends at college, Kylie, had a father who liked to totally control his wife and daughters. He had been particularly put out when Kylie and Aysun had stopped by her house to pick up a few things and saw how they were dressed.

Ashkoon had went totally off the handle, and proceeded to loudly berate Kylie in Hindu. Ten seconds was all it took for Kylie to burst into tears, and that's when Aysun had stepped between them.

Kylie's father hadn't thought that a woman should stand up to him, so he had grabbed Aysun and tried to shove her aside. In the space of a second, she broke both of his wrists with an upward sweep of her arms.

The subsequent police visit had concluded that Aysun was acting in self-defense. The relationship with Kylie and her mother and siblings became strained because of her friendship with Aysun, so they said their good-byes.

Right before I could make a note to apologize to Aysun, Petra put her hand on my face. Aysun knew the score, and shouldn't have even thought of snapping at me. She gave me a kiss and added that if I said I was going to spank her and didn't follow through, she'd be very disappointed.

Our project for the day was going to be cutting the grass and trimming the shrubbery, but the neighborhood residents had beat us to both. Nice piles of grass and clippings were set near the parking area, they knew what I was going to do with those.

While we were having our picnic lunch, Petra asked me about hiring Rog as a contractor to help out with the parks. I told her that there was a reason that I wanted to plant, and I really wanted to do that by myself.