The Art of Arranging Flowers

by Lynne Branard

  There was a pause.

  “Have you ever felt connected to something or someone, had a sense that you had always been together and that no matter how much distance there is between you, you are always and forever linked?”

  I immediately thought of Daisy, how deeply attached I was to her when we were together and how it is that even after her death I feel her with me, around me, inside me. I know she is still here.

  I nodded.

  “When I was in space and saw the stars,” he continued, “I felt as if I were seeing something of myself, something that belonged to me but that I hadn’t seen before. I didn’t feel it was something I had conquered or mastered. I felt as if I were somehow connected to these great beings, these masses of light and gas, as if everything I was made of could be found in them as well, that everything lines up, like the sun and the moon and the Earth, that everything is ordered and intersects.”

  It was quiet in the cockpit as I considered such a thing.

  “Is it strange, what I am saying?” he asked.

  And when I turned to him I simply shook my head.

  “For the longest time,” he said, “I couldn’t find anyone to understand. My family thought I was a little off, that I had been in space too long. My colleagues, even though a couple of them had experienced a similar kind of thing when they were up there, didn’t want to discuss what happened. I know it sounds odd and perhaps I shouldn’t have told you about this, but somehow I thought you might understand.”

  I smiled.

  I turned to watch the sky again. I could see blinking lights below, the moon ahead of us. I could see how he would discover such a thing.

  “When I arrange flowers,” I said, thinking about my craft, “I know which stems belong together. I feel a certain energy that guides me. I think of the person who placed the order, their emotion when they call or stop by. I think of what they want to tell someone, what they need to say, and somehow, when I go into the cooler, the refrigerated storage room where we keep the inventory, the flowers have this kind of energy to them and it’s as if I know which ones need to be taken and exactly how they should be arranged.” I turn to Dan again. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”

  He nodded.

  And that was when he told me about the cancer, how he had been healed twice before but that this time there was a kind of weight to the doctor’s pronouncement, a different view on the x-rays. This time, he told me, was a final time, and he found this information not unsettling at all. He felt almost comforted by the news, he said.

  “There used to be this janitor at the NASA headquarters,” he told me. “His name was Josiah but everybody just called him Jo. Jo must have been a hundred when I met him, but he worked another twenty years after that and he never missed a day.”

  “I’d see him every morning. He’d stand and salute all the astronauts when we came in the building and he’d always say the same thing when we asked him how he was doing. ‘Everything’s good with my heart,’ he’d tell us, and being young and brash we’d just hurry past him, slap the old man on the back without too much thought; but you know, I always knew that what he said was important and I always thought that was the thing I wanted to be able to say, too.”

  I sat, listening.

  “And it took a while, but you know, I can finally say the same thing as Jo. Everything is good with my heart.” And he tapped his chest and nodded. “I have a few more things I need to do but mostly I am finished with my time on Earth. I feel ready to return to stardust. Everything is good with my heart.”

  And I reached over and took his hand and we stayed that way, in darkness and silence, touching and linked until we began our descent. Except for my brief thank-you and a moment when we stood at my truck, the breeze stirring all around us, a polite and tender kiss good-bye, we said nothing else.

  What we had shared was more than enough.

  •TWENTY-SIX•

  I AM counting the Easter lilies, making sure I ordered enough, when I see the old Jeep pull across the street and park. It’s John Cash and he’s going to get his hair cut. He glances in my direction but he can’t see me through the tinted window. He goes inside Henry’s shop. I realize I haven’t seen him since before Valentine’s Day, when he stopped by the shop to tell me about the house he bought, and I wonder how it is that we can live in such a small town and not run into each other. I have not heard whether he’s moved into the Chatham house, if he’s settled into his practice. I haven’t heard much talk at all about the handsome veterinarian, which is certainly peculiar in Creekside since we have a fair number of both gossips and pet owners.

  It’s a busy week but not overwhelming. Once I get the lilies delivered to the three churches, I have only a couple of birthday bouquets to make. Stan’s mother turns ninety and I have ordered her a china doll plant, a healthy one in a ten-inch pot, and Jessica turns eighteen and Steven asked for that many tulips, all different colors, and that they be tied together in tissue; a spring wreath of ivy and yellow bells for the nursing home; and a few arrangements for a banquet at the country club, orange Asiatic lilies, hot pink roses, miniature red carnations, with a few stems of myrtle, nothing too difficult.

  Lucky for me, there have been no deaths and no births this week and the school dances don’t start for another month or so. On Saturday, I may close early and go exploring at the lake or take a drive to the Cascades. I don’t usually pick the wildflowers since the blooms are fragile and because it’s not healthy for the landscape, but I do enjoy seeing how Mother Nature arranges her meadows and hillsides. Her color palette and her choices of combinations are always inspiring. I am writing down the numbers when the front door opens, the tiny bell sounding.

  “You’re early,” I say to Will, who has come to walk Clementine. He usually doesn’t arrive until later in the afternoon.

  Already, my dog is up and coming around the counter. She recognizes the boy’s name or his smell, I don’t know which, but somehow she is ready for the outing even if it is a couple of hours ahead of schedule.

  “We don’t have school this week,” he reports as he greets Clementine and then comes around to get the leash. He stands behind me.

  “I made a B plus on my math test.”

  “That’s a fine grade,” I respond.

  “I’ve never made a plus before. I think that’s good, right?”

  “Very good, yes,” I say with enthusiasm. “It’s like a super B.”

  I turn around and he’s grinning at me. “Super B, you’re funny, Miss Ruby.”

  “Am I now?” I have never thought of myself as funny. Daisy always had the gift of humor; I was better with money than jokes.

  “Yeah.” He walks back around to the front and attaches the leash to Clem’s collar. “Why do you have all those plants?”

  The counter is full; the design table is full. There are lilies everywhere.

  “It’s Easter,” I reply. “Everyone buys a lily at Easter in memory of someone who died. And they put them in the church for the Sunday service.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s just a custom, I guess, a way to remember loved ones, a way to celebrate life.”

  “Why those flowers? Why not daisies or roses? Why not those snapdragons? I like those.”

  He’s been hanging around the shop too long, I think, and I hope he doesn’t go around talking about flowers at school. That’s grounds for getting beat up, for sure.

  “Well, the white Easter lily symbolizes purity, hope, and life; I guess it’s like the meaning of Easter, Jesus rising from the dead, life coming from death, spring coming after winter. It’s a flower that everyone thinks of when they think of resurrection. But I have to say, I’m like you when it comes to this ritual. I’m sort of partial to the snapdragon as well.”

  He smiles, keeps glancing around. I think he’s counting the plants too. That B plus must have sparked a new interest in numbers.

  He stops counting, looks me in the eye. “Do you think Jesus really rose f
rom the dead like they say?”

  It’s been a very long time since I was asked that question. The last time I got that one was in front of a congregation when Daisy and I joined the Baptist church. I was about Will’s age. Daisy was a couple of years younger. She shrugged when they asked her and I’m pretty sure I jumped in and recited a Bible verse that my Sunday school teacher had taught me. I was quite proficient at memorizing scripture. Anyway, it got us both on the membership roll so we could go to summer camp, which was, of course, our real reason for joining.

  “I don’t know, Will.”

  He ponders his own question.

  “I think it was easier back then to rise from the dead. All Jesus had to do was move a big stone since they put the dead bodies in a cave. Now he’d have to dig out of all that dirt and grass. I think it’d be harder to come back now.”

  I consider his logic. I hadn’t really thought through the ease of resurrection in the first century.

  “Do you think anybody can do that?”

  It’s clear that Will isn’t all that interested in Jesus and the Great Christian Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body. Will wants to know about his mom.

  “You mean come back from the dead?”

  He nods.

  “Not like they say Jesus did; not like they can come back and be the same way we are, the same way they were before they died, but I think they’re still with us.”

  “Just in our hearts, right?”

  It’s easy to see the lesson of some well-meaning grown-up.

  “No, not just in our hearts.”

  He’s watching me very closely now; I better have something. I think for a second but I’m afraid I don’t really have what he needs.

  “Are you missing your mom?”

  He turns away, but I can still make out the slightest nod.

  “She liked Easter,” he answers.

  “Yeah, what did she like about Easter?”

  “The baskets, the chocolate bunnies, the ones with marshmallow. And she always made me go on an Easter egg hunt. It was pretty lame since I watched her hide the eggs and I always knew where they were, but she’d make me go outside and find them anyway.”

  He stops, looks up at me. “She’d make these teeny holes at the ends of the eggs with a straight pin. And then I blew out the yolks into a bowl because I was really good at that. And then we colored them with dye and watercolor paint, and when they were finally dry, she’d go in the front yard and hide them. After I found them all, we got to eat scrambled eggs with ham mixed in. It was good.”

  “Sounds good,” I reply.

  “Is your mama dead too?”

  It’s a fair question.

  “Yes,” I answer.

  “Is that who you visit at the cemetery? Is that where your mom’s body is?”

  I shake my head and then I wonder when he’s seen me there, since I usually only go at night.

  “My sister died too,” I say.

  “Daisy,” he responds. “I read her name on the stone.”

  I nod.

  “Do you ever wish she’d come back from the dead? Do you ever wish for her to resurrect?” He stumbles over the word, and it makes me smile.

  “I used to.”

  He’s watching me very closely.

  “I used to beg and cry and tell God that I would do anything if he’d just let her not be dead. I even used to pretend she didn’t really die.”

  He nods. I can see that he knows exactly what I mean.

  “But now, I think she’s happy and I try just to let her be with me in a new way.”

  “Like an angel?”

  I shrug. “More like a very smart person.”

  “Like thinking of an answer on a test that you didn’t know before?”

  “Yeah, something like that. Although I did still have to study in school.” I didn’t want him to try that kind of magical thinking, just getting his first B plus and all. “If I get very quiet and close my eyes and try to empty my mind of all the worries or the sadness and all the words I hear all day and just listen to the wind, I think I hear her talk to me.”

  “Yeah,” he says, and then waits a second.

  I listen. I can see he has something else to say.

  “I dream about my mom sometimes. Do you think they tell us stuff in dreams?”

  “I do think that,” I answer, and resist the urge to ask him what his mother has told him. I think some things need to stay private.

  “Well, whether Jesus got through that stone or not, it’s a good story, isn’t it?”

  I nod.

  “We all really want to think people who die will come back, don’t we?”

  “Yes, I think we do.”

  He studies all the plants again. “Do you think I should buy one of those so my mom knows I’m remembering her?”

  “Nah,” I answer. “When you come back I’ll give you a few snapdragons and we can go give them to Daisy and your mom. And we can make colored eggs later if you want.”

  He grins and nods and walks out the door. Clementine is close behind.

  •TWENTY-SEVEN•

  HE was over here looking for you.”

  Nora is back from the shopping trip. I had run out of white satin ribbon that I tie around the baskets of lilies. She went to Colville to buy a few rolls, and then when she returned I left and made the deliveries.

  “Well now, who is he?” It’s closing time and Cooper has stopped by on his way back to Spokane. He brought me three more buckets of tulips. It seems the company ordered too many, so he’s giving them to me at a steep discount.

  Nora is helping us unload the flowers. She waited around because she wanted to tell me about the veterinarian. Apparently, he dropped by after his haircut.

  “Did he ask for me?” I am ignoring Cooper.

  “He asked how to take care of the bamboo, but he kept trying to see around me to the back of the store. I finally told him you were out.”

  “Even though he didn’t ask?”

  “He didn’t have to.”

  “Who is he?” Cooper asks again. He shuts the rear doors of his truck and follows us into the shop.

  I roll my eyes. “What did you tell him about the bamboo?”

  “I told him to use distilled water to prevent algae from growing in the vase.”

  “Does he have algae growing in the vase?”

  She thinks for a second, shakes her head, puts her bucket of tulips on the design table. “He said that he uses tap water.”

  “Are the leaves turning yellow?” I place mine beside hers.

  She nods. “I told him about the bottled water, how the spring variety is best.”

  “That’s good,” I respond, and start examining my discount flowers. They’re perfect and I decide I’ll give a few to Will for his mom’s Easter bouquet.

  “He wasn’t here about the bamboo,” she adds.

  “Who is he?” Cooper is not letting this go. He walks in behind me, jumps up on the counter, and sits.

  “And you know this because of your secret psychic powers?” I ask, still refusing to answer Cooper’s question; he knows I hate it when he sits on my counter. I throw him a look and he jumps down.

  “I know this because I understand a man’s hunger.”

  “He was hungry?” I walk over to get a pitcher to add some water to the buckets.

  Clementine moves away from her spot under the table. She knows that sometimes the water spills, and she’s not particularly keen on water spills. Nora waves away the comment. “You know what I mean.”

  “Will you please tell me the hungry man’s name?”

  We both turn to Cooper. “JOHN CASH!” we say together, and I pour the water, sloshing it over the sides. I glance at Clementine, who just shakes her head and settles down against the wall.

  Cooper looks confused.

  “I told him you’d call him this evening.”

  “What? Why?” I put down the pitcher and stare at her.

  “To help him with his bamboo.”
She grins. “Here’s his cell number.” And she hands me a piece of paper.

  “Johnny Cash is in Creekside? I thought he was dead or in Tennessee. What’s he doing here and why was he looking for Ruby?”

  I shake my head at Cooper.

  “Nora, I am not calling him.”

  She blows out a long breath. “Well, why not?”

  “Because he’s dead,” Cooper answers. “How is she supposed to call a dead man?”

  “Not Johnny Cash,” Nora says to Cooper. “John Cash, the new recently divorced veterinarian.”

  “Oh.” Cooper seems disappointed.

  “I am not calling him because . . .” I pause. “Well, because I’m not calling him.” I grab both buckets, put them under my arms, and take them to the cooler. I hear Cooper behind me.

  “What kind of mother names her son John Cash?”

  I let the door close and I put down the buckets. I can’t believe Nora has told him I would call him. Who does she think she is? And why can’t she just let me be?

  I glance around at my inventory and take out the stems I want to use for Will and me. I try to forget the conversation I just had, and I decide to go with the main colors of purple and yellow. Purple banishes what lies in the past, and yellow balances the emotions.

  I doubt the dead have any real need for the healing properties of flowers, but Will and I could certainly still use some help. When I’ve taken what I want, I head back into the main part of the shop. I stayed gone long enough that I am hopeful Nora and Cooper are getting ready to leave, but they haven’t moved from where they were a few minutes ago.

  “Cooper says you’re a bullet,” Nora announces.

  I place the flowers on the table. Cooper is leaning against the counter and Nora is standing in the doorway. Her arms are wrapped around her chest.

  I shrug. Calling me a rose that doesn’t open stings, but only a little.

  “He says bullets have turned in on themselves so tightly they can never release their fragrance.”

  “I know what a bullet is,” I answer. I have thrown away my share of the unopened buds.