The Language of Flowers

by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

  Elizabeth startled, and when she turned, she looked surprised to see me sitting there, as if in her focus on the phone call she couldn’t make, she’d forgotten my very existence. Exhaling, she pulled me off the kitchen chair and into the garden, where I waited.

  Now she emerged from the back door, clutching a muddy shovel in one hand, a steaming mug in the other.

  “Drink it,” she said, handing me the cup. “It’ll help your digestion.”

  I grasped the mug between my gauze-wrapped hands. It had been a week since Elizabeth cleaned and wrapped my puncture wounds, and I’d grown accustomed to the helplessness of the gauze. Elizabeth cooked and cleaned while I lay around day after day, doing nothing; when she asked me how my hands were healing, I told her they felt worse.

  Blowing on the tea, I took a careful sip and then spit it out.

  “I don’t like it,” I said, tipping the cup forward and letting the liquid spill onto the path in front of my chair.

  “Try again,” Elizabeth said. “You’ll get used to it. Peppermint blossoms mean warmth of feeling.”

  I took another sip. This time I held it in my mouth a little longer before spitting it over my armrest. “You mean warmth of bad taste.”

  “No, warmth of feeling,” Elizabeth corrected me. “You know, the tingling feeling you get when you see a person you like.”

  I didn’t know that feeling. “Warmth of vomit,” I said.

  “The language of flowers is nonnegotiable, Victoria,” Elizabeth said, turning away and putting on her gardening gloves. She picked up the shovel and worked the soil where I had uprooted a dozen plants in my search for the spoon.

  “What do you mean, ‘nonnegotiable’?” I asked. I took a sip of peppermint tea, swallowed it, and grimaced, waiting for my stomach to settle.

  “It means there’s only one definition, one meaning, for every flower. Like rosemary, which means—”

  “Remembrance,” I said. “From Shakespeare, whoever that is.”

  “Yes,” said Elizabeth, looking surprised. “And columbine—”

  “Desertion.”

  “Holly?”

  “Foresight.”

  “Lavender?”

  “Mistrust.”

  Elizabeth put down her gardening tools, took off her gloves, and knelt down next to me. Her eyes were so penetrating, I leaned back until my lawn chair started to tip backward, and Elizabeth’s hand flew out to clutch my ankle.

  “Why did Meredith tell me you couldn’t learn?” she asked.

  “Because I can’t,” I said. She took hold of my chin and turned my face until she could look directly into my eyes.

  “Not true,” she said simply. “Four years of elementary school and you haven’t learned simple phonics, Meredith warned me. She said you’d be put in special education, if you could make it at a public school at all.”

  In four years I’d done kindergarten twice and second grade twice. I wasn’t faking inability; I’d just never been asked. After the first year, my reputation of silent volatility was such that I was isolated from every class I entered. Stacks of photocopied worksheets taught me letters, numbers, simple math. I learned to read from whatever picture books slipped out of my classmates’ backpacks or I stole from classroom shelves.

  There had been a time when I believed school might be different. My first day, sitting at a miniature desk in a neat row, I realized the chasm between me and the other children was not visible. My kindergarten teacher, Ms. Ellis, spoke my name softly, with emphasis on the middle syllable, and treated me like everyone else. She partnered me with a girl who was tinier than I was, her thin wrists brushing mine as we walked in line from the classroom to the playground and back again. Ms. Ellis believed in feeding the brain, and every day after recess she placed a paper cup with a sardine on top of each desk. After we ate our sardine, we were to flip the cup upside down to see the letter written on the bottom. If we could say the letter’s name and sound, and think of a word that started with the letter, we could have a second sardine. I memorized all the letters and sounds the first week and always got a second sardine.

  But five weeks into school Meredith placed me with a new family, in a different suburb, and every time I thought of the slippery fish, I angered. My anger flipped desks, cut curtains, and stole lunch boxes. I was suspended, moved, and suspended again. By the end of that first year, my violence was expected, my education forgotten.

  Elizabeth squeezed my face, her eyes demanding a response.

  “I can read,” I said.

  Elizabeth continued to search my face, as if she was determined to dig out every lie I had ever told. I shut my eyes until she released me.

  “Well, that’s good to know,” she said. She shook her head and went back to gardening, slipping on her gloves before dropping into shallow holes the plants I’d uprooted. I watched her work, replacing the topsoil and patting gently around each trunk. She looked up when she finished. “I’ve asked Perla to come over to play. I need a rest, and it would be good for you to make a friend before school starts tomorrow.”

  “Perla won’t be my friend,” I said.

  “You haven’t even met her!” Elizabeth said, exasperated. “How do you know if she’ll be your friend or not?”

  I knew Perla would not be my friend because I had never, in nine years, had a friend. Meredith must have told Elizabeth this. She’d told all my other foster mothers, and they warned the children in their homes to eat quickly and sleep with their Halloween candy tucked deep inside their pillowcases.

  “Now come with me. She’s probably already waiting by the gate.”

  Elizabeth led me through the garden, to the low white picket fence at the far edge. Perla leaned against it, waiting. She was close enough to have heard every word we said, but she didn’t look upset, just hopeful. She was only an inch or two taller than I was, and her body was soft and round. Her T-shirt was too tight and too short. Lime-colored fabric stretched across her stomach and ended before the waistline of her pants began. Deep red lines circled her arms where the elastic bands of her cap sleeves had been, before they inched up and got lost in her armpits. She dug out the elastic bands and pulled down her sleeves one at a time.

  “Good morning,” Elizabeth said. “This is my daughter, Victoria. Victoria, this is Perla.” The sound of the word daughter made my stomach hurt again. I kicked dust at Elizabeth until she stepped on both my feet with her right shoe, her fingers clamping down on the back of my neck. My skin burned under her touch.

  “Hi, Victoria,” said Perla shyly. She picked up a heavy black braid from where it rested on her shoulder and chewed on the already-wet ends.

  “Good,” said Elizabeth, as if Perla’s quiet words and my stubborn silence had established something. “I’m going inside to rest. Victoria, stay out here and play with Perla until I call you.”

  Without waiting for a response, she walked into the house. Perla and I, alone, stared at the ground. After a time, she reached out hesitantly and touched the tip of my wrapped hands with a thick finger. “What happened?”

  I pulled at the gauze with my teeth, all at once desperate to use my hands again. “Thorns,” I said. “Unwrap them.”

  Perla pulled at the edges of the tape, and I shook loose of the material. The skin, uncovered, was pale and wrinkled, the scabs small, dry circles. I picked at the edge of a scab with a fingernail, and it flaked off easily, fluttering to the ground.

  “We’ll be in the same class at school tomorrow,” Perla said. “There’s only one fourth grade.”

  I didn’t respond. Elizabeth thought I would start school. But she also thought I would be her daughter, and thought she could force me to have a friend. About all of this, she was wrong. I walked toward the garden shed. Perla’s heavy footsteps followed. I didn’t know what I would do, but suddenly I wanted Elizabeth to understand exactly how wrong she’d been about me. Snatching a knife and a pair of clippers from a shelf by the shed, I crept around the side of the garden.

 
; On the other side of the almond tree, I followed a pattern of gray-and-green succulents until they faded into gravel. There, at the place the dusty dirt road collided with the lush garden, was an enormous, tangled cactus. It was bigger than Meredith’s county car, and the trunk was brown and scabby-looking, as if it had been cut over and over again by its own spines. Each branch was built like a collection of flat hands growing one out of the other, right, then left, then right again, so that each branch was balanced enough to stand straight and tall.

  I knew what I would do.

  “Nopales,” Perla said, when I pointed to the cactus. “Prickly pear.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a prickly pear; see the fruit on top? In Mexico, they sell them at the market. They’re good, as long as you peel them well.”

  “Cut it down,” I ordered.

  Perla stood still. “What? The whole thing?”

  I shook my head no. “Just that branch, the one with all the fruit. I want it, to give to Elizabeth. But you have to do it, or I’ll hurt my hands.” Perla still didn’t move but looked up at the cactus, twice as tall as she was. Flaming red fruit grew like swollen fingers on top of each flat palm. I shoved the knife in her direction, its dull blade pointed low toward her abdomen.

  Perla reached out, tested the point of the blade with her soft finger, then stepped closer to me and took the knife by its handle.

  “Where?” she asked quietly. I pointed to a place just above the brown trunk where a long green arm began. Perla rested the blade against the cactus and closed her eyes before leaning forward with the weight of her whole body. The skin was tough, but once she broke through the outer layer, the knife slipped through easily and the branch fell to the ground. I pointed to the fruit, and Perla cut off each one. They lay on the ground, bleeding red juice.

  “Wait here,” I commanded, running through the garden to where I had discarded the dirty gauze.

  When I returned, Perla was right where I’d left her. I held the fruit with the gauze, picking up the knife and carefully removing the spines from each prickly pear as if I was skinning a dead animal. I held the ripe, edible fruit out for Perla.

  “Here,” I said. She looked at me with confusion.

  “I thought you wanted these?” she asked. “For Elizabeth?”

  “So take them to her, if you want,” I said. “This is the part I need.” I wrapped the strips of spiny skin in the gauze.

  “Now go home,” I said.

  Perla cupped the fruit in her hands and walked away slowly, sighing, as if she expected something more from me for her act of loyalty.

  I had nothing to give her.

  12.

  Natalya was Renata’s youngest sister. There were six siblings, all girls. Renata was second in the birth order, Natalya last. It took me all week to gather this information, and for this I was grateful. Most days Natalya slept until late afternoon, and when she was awake she was quiet. She told me once she didn’t like to waste her voice, and the fact that she considered conversation with me a waste did not offend me at all.

  Natalya was the vocalist for a punk band that, as she put it, had “made it” only within a twenty-block radius of the apartment. The band had a spirited following in the Mission and a few scattered fans around Dolores Park, and were unknown in every other neighborhood and every other city. They practiced downstairs. The rest of the block comprised offices, some leased and some empty, but all closed after five. Natalya provided me with a box of earplugs and a pile of pillows. Between the two I could reduce the music to only the vibration of the sound on the fur carpet, making it feel even more alive. Most nights her band didn’t start practicing until after midnight, so I had only a few hours of attempted oblivion before I rose.

  I didn’t work until the following Saturday, but every morning that week I found myself wandering the streets around the flower market, watching wholesalers back overflowing trucks into the crowded parking lot. I wasn’t looking for the mysterious flower vendor; at least, I told myself I wasn’t. When I did see him, I slipped down an alley and ran until I was out of breath.

  By Saturday I had settled on a response. Snapdragon. Presumption. I got to the flower market at four a.m., an hour before Renata, with a five-dollar bill and a new mustard-colored knit hat pulled low over my brow.

  The flower vendor was bent over, unloading bushels of lilies, roses, and ranunculus into white plastic tubs. He didn’t see me approach. I took advantage of the time to return the unabashed stare he had released on my body the first day we met, scanning from the back of his neck down to his muddy work boots. He wore the same black hooded sweatshirt he had the first day we met, dirtier this time, with white-speckled work pants. They were the kind with the loop to hold a hammer, but the loop was empty. When he stood up I was standing directly in front of him, my arms overflowing with snapdragons. I had spent five dollars on the flowers, and at wholesale prices that bought me six bunches, mixed bouquets of purple and pink and yellow. I held the flowers high so that the tip of my hat ended where the snapdragons began, hiding my face completely.

  I felt his hands close around the bottoms of the stems; his fingers, where they touched my own, were the temperature of the early-morning November sky. Fleetingly, I had the desire to warm them: not with my own hands, which weren’t any warmer, but with my hat or socks, something I could leave behind. He withdrew the flowers, and I stood exposed in front of him, heat rising in pink patches to my face. Turning quickly, I walked away.

  Renata was waiting for me at the door, flustered and frantic. She had another big wedding, and the bride was straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster, demanding and irrational. She’d provided Renata with a pages-long list of flowers she liked and disliked, specifying color with paint swatches and size in centimeters. Renata tore the list in two and handed half to me with an envelope of cash.

  “Don’t pay full price!” she called after me as I hurried away. “Tell them it’s for me!”

  * * *

  The next morning, Renata sent me to the flower market alone. We had arranged flowers and tied nosegays until five for a six-o’clock wedding, and the stress had launched her into bed rest. Her shop was to be open every Sunday from now on; she’d created a new sign and told all her regulars I would be there. She gave me cash, her wholesale card, and a key. Taping her home phone number to the cash register, she told me not to bother her for any reason.

  When I arrived at the flower market, the sky was still dark, and I almost didn’t see him standing to the right of the entrance. He was still, and flowerless, his head bent to the ground but his eyes up, waiting. I walked to the door with a purposeful step, eyes on the metal handle. The market would be busy and loud, but outside it was nearly silent. As I passed he raised a hand, holding up a rolled paper tied with a yellow ribbon. I took the scroll like a runner taking a baton, never breaking stride, and opened the door. The noise greeted me like the roar of a crowd. When I peeked back over my shoulder, he was gone.

  Inside, his booth was empty. I crouched inside the white wood, untied the ribbon, and unwrapped the scroll. The paper was visibly old, yellowed and flaking at the corners. It resisted straightening. I held the two bottom corners down with my big toes, the top corners with my thumbs.

  The paper held a drawing in faded graphite, not of a flower but of the trunk of a tree, its bark textured and peeling. I ran my fingertip along the bark; although the paper was flat, the drawing was so realistic I could almost feel the rough knobs. In the bottom right-hand corner were the words White Poplar in a curving script.

  White poplar. It was not a plant I knew by heart. Taking off my backpack, I withdrew my flower dictionary. I scanned the W’s first, then the P’s, but neither white poplar nor poplar, white was listed. If there was a meaning, I wouldn’t be able to glean it from my dictionary. I rerolled and tied the scroll with the ribbon, but stopped midway through the bow.

  On the underside of the ribbon, in a scratchy hand I recognized from flower prices on a chalkb
oard, were the words Monday, 5 p.m., 16th and Mission. Donuts for dinner. The black ink had spread into the silk so that the words were almost unreadable, but the time and place were clear.

  I bought flowers that morning without thinking, without bargaining, and when I opened the shop an hour later, I was surprised by the things I carried.

  The morning was slow, and I was grateful. I sat on a tall stool behind the register and flipped through a heavy phone book. The number listed for the San Francisco Public Library had a long recorded message. I listened to it twice, jotting down hours and locations on the back of my hand. Main Library closed at five p.m. on Sundays, as did Bloom. I would have to wait until Monday. Then, based on the meaning I uncovered, I would decide whether or not to meet for donuts.

  At the end of the day, just as I had transferred the display flowers from the window to the walk-in, the front door opened. A woman stood alone, looking confused in the empty space.

  “Can I help you?” I asked, feeling impatient and ready to leave.

  “Are you Victoria?”

  I nodded.

  “Earl sent me. He asked me to tell you he needs more of the same, exactly the same.” She handed me thirty dollars. “He said to keep the change.”

  I placed the money on the counter and went into the walk-in, not sure if we had enough spider mums. I laughed aloud when I saw the giant bunch I had purchased that morning. What remained of the periwinkle sat forgotten on the floor, where I had left it the week before. Renata hadn’t watered the plant, and it was dry but not dead.

  “Why didn’t Earl come?” I asked as I began the arrangement.

  The woman’s eyes flitted between my work and the window. She had the energy of a trapped bird.

  “He wanted me to meet you.”

  I didn’t say anything, and didn’t look up. In my peripheral vision I could see her pull at the roots of her burgundy-brown hair, the color covering what was probably speckled gray.