My Very Best Friend by Cathy Lamb

or one week. New man come in the life for you. Say hello.”
    “Sex could be better than gardening as long as he’s talented in the bedroom,” Olive said. “I’ve had both. Sex less stimulating than gardening and sex better than gardening.”
    “Talent in the bedroom is a requirement,” I said. “And lusty. Who wants a prim man in bed?”
    “Not me. I like the creative type.” Olive put a finger up. “Nothing hurtful.”
    “I agree with your opinion,” I said. “No spanking for me.” I thought of Toran. “At least not hard spanking.”
    “I have not making love in my bed for long years, so my garden feed my soul,” Gitanjali said, pressing her palms together. “The world down upside. Wars. Starving. I feel I do so little. But my garden is peace. A place for me.”
    “That’s how I feel,” I said. “I like to watch things grow.”
    “Watch things grow, plant, nurture, then drink Scotch,” Olive Oliver said. “Scottish Scotch only.”
    I nodded. “It does have a special smoothness after one has spent time cutting back the roses or tying up a wisteria just so.”
    “It is thrilling to the heart when pure dirt can be transformed with love and care,” Olive said, “with a shovel and your bare hands, to flowers, trees, vines, and vegetables.”
    “From dirt to color. From nothing to an Eden. From plain to a place where butterflies and birds come to visit.” I choked up. “Like friends.”
    Gitanjali reached for my hand and patted it. “We make the vegetables in dirt. We make the fruits bloomy. We talk, say hi to them, thank you for being over here with me. Then we share with others. Ah, gardening.” She tapped her chest. “Here.”
    “It’s a damn gift,” Olive said, dabbing her eyes with her dizzy white cat scarf.
    “Yes, a gifty.” Gitanjali smiled, a dimple in her right cheek. “Damn.”
    “And I will forgive you for having a chicken stealer in your home,” Olive said.
    “Thank you. I appreciate your understanding. I had no knowledge of it. I will replace your chickens.”
    “No need.”
    “Please. I insist.”
    “We’ll argue about chicken replenishment later,” Olive said. “For now, I would like to formally invite you to attend the St. Ambrose Ladies’ Gab, Garden, and Gobble Group.”
    I experienced some befuddlement.
    “We get together with a group of women and talk gardening. Plants, flowers, plans, failures, and successes,” Olive said, “then we gobble food, tea, wine, and gab. Talk.”
    “Would you like come?” Gitanjali asked. “Not much yelling at Gabbing and Gobbling Group. Sometimes. We control.” She sighed. “We try control.”
    She was a sweet, compassionate person, I could tell. I wish I still had that side to me. I think it left me when I left Scotland as a teenager, the land absorbing my tears.
    “We say what we please about men, marriage, women’s roles in our changing society, politics, and social issues after we talk about gardening,” Olive said. “We don’t always agree about those issues or how to kill slugs. One time one of the ladies threw a bag of daffodil bulbs at one of the women, and another time we had a yelling fight and one woman landed in my geraniums, but that was all the violence.”
    Violence? In a garden talk group?
    Gitanjali cleared her throat. “Not yet all. I be truth. We have one sad and scary incident with apple tree.”
    “It wasn’t sad,” Olive argued. “Two of the women were having an argument about who had better apple trees. They brought in apples for everyone to taste in a blind taste test. Well, the Obnoxious One, Lorna, lost and she threw a fit, then threw apples. One forehead was bruised.”
    “And there Hydrangea War.” Gitanjali shook her head, made cluck-cluck sounds. “That another problem.”
    Olive waved a hand as in, “Let’s not bother.”
    “People feel strongly about hydrangeas and soil composition,” I said. “The colors, acid, lime, pruning . . .”
    “I will admit our talks on politics