“Have you eaten?” I’m not sure why I asked, but it seemed like the right question at the time.
She nods. “Soup, mostly,” she replies. “I threw up a lot after the operation.”
“Is your mom staying with you?”
Jenny’s mother, Jean or Jennifer, I’m not sure of her name, lives on the West Coast of Washington State. She got a job over there a couple of years ago and Jenny stayed in town with a friend to finish high school. I’m not sure of the relationship between the mother and daughter, only that she did make it back for graduation last year and that she called when she found out her daughter was engaged.
I’m doing the flowers for the wedding. Gerberas. Standards and minis. Loveliness, Bella Vistas, whispers, a few flamingoes. Jenny likes pink. I got Cooper to order me a bunch of the Bella Vistas to put in the arrangement I made for her a couple of weeks ago. I wanted it to look like the wedding bouquet we discussed with just a few stems of orange fabios.
I added the orange to her hospital arrangement because I know that the color is a gentle energizer, boosting a weak pulse rate and lifting exhaustion. It helps to strengthen the immune system.
She shakes her head. “She came to the hospital. I told her to go home. I didn’t want her to come back here with me.”
I don’t respond.
“She’s very anxious,” Jenny adds.
And I recall the phone conversation I had with her last month. She asked me what Jenny had wanted and spent a lot of time sighing as I explained the kind of flower arrangements Jenny preferred. She wanted pictures and a detailed price list and asked if I planned to be in attendance at the wedding in case the flowers needing tending. She wanted to know how long the blooms would last and if the mother of the bride had any say about the wedding décor. I expect “anxious” is a polite way to describe Jenny’s mother. I smile sympathetically.
“I came because I thought maybe you might help me.”
I wait.
Jenny drops her head. “Justin’s been so good to me,” she announces.
“Yes,” I agree.
“He buys me flowers every birthday and every year on the anniversary of our first date.”
I nod.
“It’s been five years,” she adds.
I smile. I know because it’s in the customer notebook I made for Justin.
“And that was a lovely bouquet he gave me at the hospital. I wanted to tell you thank you for that.”
I wait for her request.
“He hasn’t seen me since the surgery,” she says haltingly. “He hasn’t seen what I look like.” She lowers her gaze.
And suddenly, I start to understand why she’s here.
“I’m crooked and scarred. I look like a boy.” She won’t face me.
I walk around the counter to her. “Jenny, Justin loves you.”
She doesn’t respond.
“I will never forget the first time he came in here wanting to get you flowers. He paid me all in single dollar bills he saved from mowing lawns. He wanted to propose to you on your first date.”
Jenny smiles. “He did.”
I laugh.
“Come sit behind the counter.” I motion her to the stool that I keep in the back of the shop. Clementine gets up and walks over to her, dropping her big head on Jenny’s knee. Jenny smiles, gives her a rub, and I lean against the table in front of her.
“He doesn’t care about what you look like. He just wants you to be okay,” I tell her. “He has never cared about what you looked like. He fell in love with your heart. He would think you are the most beautiful woman in the world no matter what body part is missing from you. He’s in this for the real reasons. He loves you.”
“I don’t want him to feel sorry for me.” She shakes her head. “I don’t want him to stay with me, to go through with the wedding because he feels sorry for me.”
Clementine returns to her spot beneath the table.
“Jenny, it doesn’t matter if you have breasts or not. Justin Dexter loves you and I know these things. His affection for you is real.”
She nods but doesn’t appear convinced.
“Okay.” I sigh.
She raises her face. “Do you have anything?”
I don’t reply. I know why she’s here. She was in the shop when I was making the arrangement for Tonya Lipton when her sister called and claimed Tonya was depressed. She watched me put in several stems of white flowers, lilies, orientals and long narrow callas. She asked me a lot of questions about the choices I made, and I had explained that the color white promotes healing of spirit, that white light is a natural pain reliever, increasing and maintaining energy levels and relieving depression and inertia. White dispels negativity from the body’s energy field. Ever since Jenny watched me that afternoon, talking with Tonya’s sister and arranging white flowers, she’s asked me about the healing and stimulating properties of flowers. She is learning my work.
“You don’t need anything,” I explain, studying her.
She is so frail, so thin, and she doesn’t believe me.
I sigh. “Okay, jasmine will help. It’s good for bringing love, increasing sexual desire, and promoting optimism; it alleviates doubts. Justin does not need it, but you do.”
I head over to the storage room and take out a few stems of jasmine. I walk back, wrap them in tissue, and hand them to her. “Just put them in a tall, narrow vase near your bed.”
She takes them from me and smells. “It’s nice,” she says.
“Don’t worry about Justin,” I tell her. “There is not a thing wrong with his mind or heart. I saw him when he came in and placed the order. He’s only concerned about you. He’s not having second thoughts about your wedding. You just concentrate on getting better. You just get better.”
She nods. “How much do I owe you?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Just bring me some mint from your garden when you feel better.”
She nods. “Okay.”
And she slides off the stool gingerly, walks around the counter, and stops at the door. She turns to me. “We haven’t changed the date,” she announces. “Not yet anyway. I may have to have treatments. That means I may lose my hair too. But for now, we’ve kept everything like we planned.”
“September twenty-third,” I say, recalling the wedding day and not saying anything about the consequences of chemotherapy. “It’s the anniversary of your first date,” I add. “You’ll have your gerberas. I have already talked to the supplier. The church will be filled with pink daisies. It will be beautiful, just like you.”
She nods slowly, puts the jasmine under her nose, and heads out the door.
I watch her walk to the corner, turn right, and move in the direction of the small duplex she shares with her best friend, Louise Tate. It’s not more than half a mile away, but I worry she shouldn’t have walked so far so soon after her surgery, and I decide I should telephone her just to make sure she made it okay.
•FIVE•
IT’S after five o’clock when I walk over to the door and turn the sign from Open to Closed. I glance out the window and see the boy again, the one from earlier in the day, the one I do not recognize. He’s leaned his bicycle against the brick wall of the building across the street, and it seems as if he’s looking for something in the tall grass around his feet. I watch him for a second and am suddenly surprised when Henry Phillips is standing right in front of me on the other side of the door.
“Am I t-t-too late?”
I read his lips, even the repeated letters, his stutter, shake my head, and open the door. “Hi, Henry,” I say, and make room for him to enter past me. “You’re early.”
Henry is the barber across the street. He buys a small bouquet of flowers every week and places them on his mother’s grave. He likes roses, the spray variety, any color, or the tall stems of Marianas and green tea, cool water and whites. He told me his mother always had a small vase of roses on her kitchen table, flowers she picked from the bushes she grew when they lived in Colorado. I
always have them ready for him on Thursdays. He only works half a day on Fridays, closes at lunch, and drives over to the cemetery to change out the arrangements, so he usually comes by on Thursday evenings to pick up the flowers. I typically never see him except then.
“I-I want to buy flowers for-for . . . someone.” He walks in and stands at the counter.
Henry has stuttered for as long as I have known him. He’s a very intelligent man, an excellent barber, and extremely shy. The men say he doesn’t talk much when he cuts hair, hums to the music on the radio, is pleasant to all of his customers but rarely engages in conversation. Everyone is used to his introverted ways, and most of the men seem to like to go to a place where they get to do all the talking. He has kept a steady business for as long as I have known him.
“Great,” I reply, walking around him to the other side of the counter.
He doesn’t respond.
I wait.
We stare at each other for a few seconds.
“Do you know what kind of flowers you want?” I finally ask, not trying to hurry him along, but just trying to be clear about what I’m arranging.
“I-I . . . think she likes yellow,” he says quietly. “Sh-sh-she wears a lot of yellow.”
I smile. “Then yellow it is,” I respond, and I walk back to the holding area and pick some of the best stems of yellow flowers I have. I come back with my arms full. “I have daffodils,” I tell him. “Just got a fresh bunch over the weekend. It’s early, but Cooper can find anything.”
I lay them all on the table behind the counter where I am standing. “The freesia is nice too, and I have a few stems of golden alstroemeria. How do these look?” I hold up the flowers and wait for his approval.
“Ye-yes.” He nods, and I get to work.
I am cutting and sorting and arranging when I notice Henry is humming. I don’t look at him, but I smile. I like it. I go back to the cooler and pull out a few stems of greenery. While I’m there I see the leftover blazing stars I picked a week or so ago. I was surprised to find them so early in the season, and I picked a few. The blooms are still vibrant and strong. I take what’s left, deciding to add them to Henry’s yellow bouquet. When I return to the front, the boy from outside, the boy with the bike, the one I hadn’t seen before today, is standing just inside the door. I had not heard the chime ring.
“Oh,” I say, surprised to see another customer. “Hello.”
He lowers his gaze, and I notice his hands are behind his back.
“I’ll be right with you,” I say, and return to the task at hand. “Henry, would you like a vase or leave these long-stemmed?”
He appears confused. “I-I don’t know.” He slides his fingers through his hair as if the question has troubled him. “Which is be-best?”
If I knew the person receiving the flowers I could tell him, but I have a policy of not asking a customer who is getting the flowers. I figure if they want me to have that information, they will tell me. To ask such a thing feels like an invasion of privacy, and discretion is a professional and personal courtesy I always extend.
“Long-stemmed is not as formal,” I tell him. “It’s more of a gift of the moment. It’s like the roses your mom picked from her bushes,” I explain. “To give long-stemmed flowers is to say, ‘I saw these and just picked them for you, to brighten your day, to tell you I was thinking of you.’ It’s a random act of kindness with just a hint of intimacy.”
He blushes but then nods as if he understands.
“To give flowers in a vase,” I continue, “is to demonstrate that more thought went into the gift. This kind of arrangement says, ‘I was thinking of doing this for you because I remember that it’s your birthday or our anniversary.’”
Henry looks away.
“Or I want to acknowledge a special occasion or honor an important achievement, and having given this much thought, flowers seem most suitable.”
He chews on his lip, runs his fingers through his hair again. He’s thinking, thinking. I turn once more and glance at the boy waiting behind him. He is very patient.
“No vase,” he finally decides, and I nod in approval.
“Will these be given right away or should I put them in little tubes of water to help them last longer?”
“R-ri-right away,” he answers.
I smile, take in a deep breath, pull out three sheets of green tissue, smooth them down on the table in front of me, and begin placing the flowers. The daffodils are central, their long golden heads still tight in the thin band of skin wrapped around them. I put in a branch of emerald palm behind them and a few freesia, two medium daisies, and even up the ends of the stems. I add the alstroemeria, the blazing stars, and one long, full branch of bright yellow snapdragons. I push and pull at the blooms, add a few sprigs of narrow grass, shape and mold, exhale, and then step back for my last inspection.
I pick up the bouquet and carefully wrap the tissue around and around, securing it at the back with a tiny straight pin. Then I fluff up the top of the green edges and place it once more on the table. I look behind me and pull a long piece of wide grosgrain ribbon, purple to make the flowers pop, cut it, and tie it around the bottom of the bouquet. I walk over, handing my work to Henry.
He doesn’t speak for a moment and I think the silence is particularly golden. He is admiring my work.
“I-i-it’s like sunshine,” he finally says.
“Thank you, Henry,” I respond, thinking it’s the most beautiful compliment I could receive.
He reaches for his wallet.
“Why don’t I just add it to your bill?” I ask him. “The end of the month is next week and you can just pay for them when you pay for the others.”
“Th-th-thank you, Ruby,” he responds, cradling the bouquet in his arms, like a baby.
“Not a problem,” I say. “I’ll see you Thursday.”
He nods, turns, and walks around the boy and out the door.
I wait until he’s on the sidewalk, and then I turn my gaze to my next customer.
“He’s giving those to Miss Peterson, the librarian,” the boy announces, and we watch Henry head across the street to his barbershop.
The news surprises me. He turns back to face me.
“I’ve seen him there on Saturday mornings,” he explains. “I go to the library on Saturdays because that’s when Grandma comes to town and gets her hair done and she thinks that’s the best place for me to wait for her.”
I nod. I still don’t know who this boy is.
“He has a crush on Miss Peterson. He checks out a stack of books every weekend. Is that a dog?”
“Maybe he just likes to read,” I say, and move the mouse on the computer pad, waking up my computer so that I can get to my files and add the arrangement to Henry’s bill. “And yes, that’s Clementine.”
Clem stays where she is, but her tail wags.
“Nah, nobody likes to read that much,” he surmises. He’s still watching the dog. “You can bring her to work?”
I type in the numbers and close the files. I study my newest customer. “One of the perks of owning your own business: You can bring your pets to work.” I smile at the boy. “Is there something I can help you with?” I ask.
He nods, faces me. “I need a job,” he says. “I know a lot about flowers.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
“I can work afternoons.”
“Why aren’t you in school today?”
“Teachers’ workday.”
I pause. I got nothing else.
“Okay,” I reply, not quite knowing how to respond. I was not really in need of another employee.
“I could pick flowers for you. I found some real pretty ones over near where I live with my grandmother.” And then he pulls his hands around to the front, holding out a bunch of paperwhites. “I know where a lot of these grow.” He places them on the counter in front of me. “I figure I can find a lot more when spring comes.”
I smile. “You know that
you’re not supposed to take flowers from other people’s property, right?”
“Oh, these are from my grandparents’ farm,” he says. “Grandma said I can pick all I want.” He pauses. “She plants a lot of flowers every year.”
“And just who is your grandmother?” I ask.
“Juanita Norris,” he answers.
And then I place him. He is the son of Diane Norris, who died a couple of months ago. She lived somewhere over in Montana but was buried here in Creekside. I did several flower arrangements for her funeral. I recall some of the sentiments written on the cards that accompanied the two peace lilies and the small basket of winter flowers. We will miss her so much, and the customer had requested that it be signed, Everybody at Bill’s Barbecue and Bourbon. Another had only wanted to leave the message, I’m so sorry. No name given. A small white card pinned to the white ribbon at the base of the plant.
Jimmy had delivered all of the arrangements and had said that he knew the girl when she was small. He remembered her from school, where he worked as a bus driver for thirty years. He said that she had starting hanging out with the wrong crowd before she got to high school, was pregnant at fifteen. Her mother and daddy had raised her son, the boy standing in front of me, until he was five or six. Diane completed a stint in rehab and spent a few years in prison, but when she got out she wanted custody of her child.
Jimmy said it almost broke her parents’ hearts and they fought her in court, but the judge sided with the mom, and the boy and Diane left town and moved to Billings. That had been about four years ago. She died from an overdose and her son was returned to Creekside and to his grandparents.
I did a spray of white and pink carnations for her coffin and a large basket of pink sweetheart roses to stay at the grave. I added a sprig of lavender in the bottom of the basket since I know it helps with grief and guilt. I’m never sure what flowers do for the dead but I figure even a spirit, especially a sad one, is still able to gain something from beauty.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“William,” he answers. “I like Will best.”
“Then Will it shall be.”
The Art of Arranging Flowers Page 3