Page 52 of Butterflies and Hazel Eyes
“Apparently,” I joked, but the rush of emotion clogged up my throat and made a tear leak from my eye. Gulliver wiped it away and tightened his hold on me.
“It’s okay to feel overwhelmed by it all, Charity. You’re experiencing a paradigm shift in how you approach life. That can’t happen without strong emotions of fear and excitement.”
“A paradigm shift, huh? Maybe that’s what it is. I know my approach to life is shifting, and I don’t feel like an active participant in that shift, if that makes sense. I need to sort out what my life is shifting into.”
I poked the fire to give myself time to think while Gulliver’s warm hand massaged my neck. I finished my wine cooler and grabbed a bottle of hard lemonade from the cooler. If I had enough to drink, all the complicated parts would fall away until morning and I wouldn’t have to think about them. Not exactly a healthy way to deal with life, but for tonight I would allow it.
“You need to stop working at Butterfly Junction so you have some time to yourself,” he said pointedly.
I drank half the bottle of lemonade and shrugged. “I have plenty of time to think. You’ll be done with the formula soon enough, and then I’ll have even more time on my hands.”
“As long as you aren’t using my business as a way to run from your life,” he said, finishing his bottle and setting it back in the cooler. I noticed he didn’t take a second one.
Hmm, so he wanted to play that game? I would volley, but I’d do it with far more tact.
“I was finishing up the formatting on the last book you gave me,” I started, waiting for a reaction that didn’t come, so I plowed on. “I was wondering if I should upload the two manuscripts we have ready and order proofs? Then we can go over them, and you can tell me what needs to be changed or what you don’t like. After the changes are made, we can decide what to do for the printing options of the field guides.”
“If you think they’re ready. What did you decide to do for covers? We hadn’t discussed possible cover designs.”
I held up my finger while I dug around for my phone. “I found a few samples from premade companies and made three new ones. I chose a design we could use across all three so people would recognize them as being from the same author, yet they’re graphically pleasing and eye-catching.”
I handed him my phone, and he flipped back and forth between the three pictures several times. “I like them. They’re what I would have done the last time if I’d had a choice—A Butterfly Lover’s Guide to the Americas, Central Americas, and Asia.You did good, young grasshopper,” he said, winking.
I took my phone back from him with a grin on my lips. “Good, then I’ll get it all set up and order the proofs to be delivered. I think the faster we do it the better since summer is half over. We’ll want to get a classroom set of them as well.”
Gulliver’s shoulders hunched, and he leaned toward the fire. “There’s not much time for classroom work right now, so no hurry, but I am anxious to see the final product. I spent so much time gathering those images and the information and paring it down into quick, bite-size pieces. It was a ton of work that has sat useless for years. Then you show up and suddenly the books are almost a reality. I can’t thank you enough, Charity.”
“It was my pleasure, Gulliver. I’ve learned so much about butterflies since I drove into this little town, which is honestly the strangest but coolest side adventure I’ve ever experienced in the years I’ve been on the road.” I copied his posture and twisted my almost empty bottle of lemonade in my hand. He had started the game, and now I would change the rules. “I’m confused about something, though,” I said and waited for him to respond.
His head swiveled in my direction, and he wore a curious expression. “About the books?”
“No, about your life. What did you originally start Butterfly Junction for?” I asked, finishing the last few drops of liquid in my bottle.
“You know this,” he said, his words short and pointed. “I originally started Butterfly Junction as an educational company. I added the research side to protect butterfly and bee habitat.”
“How many years ago?”
His gaze pivoted back to the sky for a moment while he did the math in his head. “I guess about a decade now.”
“And during those ten years, how many of them did you spend being an educational company working to protect butterfly and bee habitats?”
“I don’t know, maybe five. Why? Does it matter?” he asked, his hands out in front of him in question.
“I think it does. Somewhere in there you had a paradigm shift to this obsession with finding a safe pesticide.”
“It goes along with protecting butterfly and bee habitat, Charity. You know this.”
I did the so-so hand in the dark, the sharp inflection of his words a loud and clear sign that I’d hit the nerve I was looking for right on the head. “It depends on how you approach it. You can protect butterfly and bee habitats without being knee-deep in the production of eco-friendly pesticide.”
“No, you can’t!” Gulliver exclaimed with his hands thrown up in the air in frustration. “You can have the best habitat in the world, but if a bee or butterfly carries a pesticide with them from another part of the country—and they will—your habitat is gone. It will be completely wiped out, and all your work goes down the drain.”
“Why can’t you let Mathias and Thomas do the pesticide research, and you continue to do the educational and habitat research? Why do you, as a lepidopterist, have to be involved in something outside of your field? You aren’t a chemist or a biochemical engineer. You can offer insight to the creatures they’re trying to save, but why does the research side of the business have to wholly consume everything you do while squeezing out the one thing you love the most?”
“I’m not going to discuss my business with you like this, Charity,” he said, his words seething and his teeth mashed together. He wouldn’t make eye contact, and his side profile told me I had pushed him too far. “Butterfly Junction is my business, not yours. I’ll do what I want, when I want, and how I want. You have no right to tell me otherwise, suggest I’m doing it wrong, or meddle in the way I do business.”
I jumped up from the log, a fire of anger and hurt roaring through my veins. “You know what? Fine. You’re right. Butterfly Junction is yours. You can do what you want, when you want, and how you want, but so can I. I may not have a right to suggest you’re doing it wrong, but I’m going to say you’re doing it wrong. I watch it every damn day I’m here. The only time I ever see you happy and content is when you’re working on the books with me. You can keep burying your head in this damn sand as much as you’d like, but I’m out,” I said, grabbing my sweatshirt from the log and running up the beach and through the marina yard.
With each step, my heart broke a little bit more. Every time Gulliver called my name, desperation in his voice, my heart cracked open further. When I stumbled and my hands dug into the gravel, tears welled in my eyes. A few more steps and the tears stopped welling and started to fall, so I swiped angrily at them, determined not to be a girl about this. I would go back to the campground, load up Myrtle, and motor on down the road. Gulliver was just another person in my life who couldn’t stick around when the going got tough. He couldn’t share his darkest fears and dreams with me because he didn’t trust me. I guess that told me more than his words ever could.
