Greenhouse Effect

4.

I glance at the door for the thousandth time since getting here. Maybe the thousandth-and-first will actually make her appear on the other side of those glass panes.

I look away and look back.

Nothing.

I texted her Potter's address last night right after we'd exchanged phone numbers. Then, after I'd made it home, I sent a second message telling her to just walk around to the back of the house when she got there.

It crosses my mind that I could text her again and ask her when she plans on coming, but she didn't respond to my messages from last night. I'd rather not tack a third message onto that train, so that idea exits my mind as quickly as it came.

"She's coming," Potter assures me, noticing my anxiety as always. I automatically glance at the door, still nothing on the other side of it, before realizing he was just reassuring me that she would be, not that she's here now.

"How could you know? The pH of the ficus soil a little lower than normal or something?" He chuckles at that.

"Just intuition," he says. Boy, he's gonna love her. "And also the pH of the ficus soil is a little lower than normal."

Now it's my turn to laugh. I shake my head at him.

"You've still got it," I tell him and he grins bashfully. There's a pause before he speaks again.

"Why are you so anxious for her to get here anyways?" he asks me with one white eyebrow raised.

"Well, uh, I don't know. I guess I'm just nervous for you to meet each other, or worried that she didn't want to come, but was trying to be polite, or-"

"I see," Potter concludes my anxious babbling. I purse my lips and go back to watering plants. I look back up at him a moment later to see that he's smiling to himself.

As I'm about to ask him what he's smiling about, the loud creak of the door sounds and my heart jumps in my chest.

When I look towards the entrance, Nina's standing there surveying the place happily.

"You're here!" I exclaim a little too eagerly, dropping what I'm doing to go over and greet her. She looks at me with a wide smile, excitement clearly matching my own.

"I am! And man am I happy to be... this place is incredible," she says, looking around once more. Potter makes his way over from inspecting the second row of plants, drawing her eyes from surveying the greenhouse to look at him. "You must be Potter."

"Yes. Guess that would make you Nina, the only other of Annie's two friends. It's a pleasure to meet you," he says in his rumbly voice, extending a hand that she shakes immediately. I feel the heat rush to my face.

"Guess that would," she says, glancing at me with amusement clear in her features. "The pleasure is all mine. Would it be alright if Annie showed me around a little? Would hate to distract her from her duties, but I'd really love to get a closer look at the place."

Potter smiles warmly at her. "Of course, I mainly pay her for her company anyway. To have two lovely souls wandering my greenhouse? Stay as long as you'd like." With that, he heads off into the house.

Nina then turns to me expectantly. I blink at her, thinking of where to start.

"Okay, so really I do a bit of everything. Whatever he needs help with really... like checking up on the plants, watering them, pruning them, grafting them, changing their pots..." I ramble.

"Sounds like there's a lot you need to know," she says with her eyes wide. "I wouldn't have the slightest idea of the right time to do any of those things you mentioned," she giggles.