Secrets of the Tulip Sisters

by Susan Mallery

  “You would say that.”

  Isaak slid in next to her and reached for a fry. “We have made our musical selections.”

  “Great.” Jeff was already standing. “Can’t wait to hear what they are.”

  “Someone’s enthused.”

  Isaak grabbed two more fries, then rose. Helen followed, then moved close to Jeff.

  “Chick, chick, chicken,” she chanted softly.

  “You know it.”

  * * *

  Kelly spun back and forth on the stool at the counter. Helen stood at the cash register, making change for her last customer of the day. It was a little after two and the diner was quiet. The kitchen staff had cleaned up and gone for the day.

  Helen walked Mrs. Pritchard to the door and held it open, then closed and locked it. She turned to Kelly.

  “You could have texted me or something. I can’t believe you confronted Griffith and waited all this time to tell me.”

  “It’s been less than two days.”

  Helen put her hands on her hips. “That’s like eight years in best-friend time. Are you mad at me or something?”

  The question was more teasing than serious. Helen always had a dramatic flair. She was so alive and present in her life. Not in a scary way, like Kelly’s mother or sister, but from a place of positive energy. Being around Helen always made Kelly feel better about everything.

  “I’m not mad and you know it. I just needed to process.”

  “Let me grab us drinks, then you’re going to tell me everything. You’ll start with you said hi and he said hi and go from there. Remember, no detail is too small.”

  “I promise you will hear them all.”

  Kelly moved to a booth. Helen got herself a diet soda at the dispenser, then made Kelly an Arnold Palmer and carried both to the booth.

  Her dark blue Parrot Café shirt brought out the deep blue of her eyes while her black jeans emphasized her curvy hips. Her long black hair was pulled back in a French braid. She was sexy and voluptuous and by comparison, Kelly felt practically two dimensional.

  Helen rested her elbows on the table. “Start talking.”

  Kelly drew in a breath before exhaling slowly. “I went to see Griffith, which was, by the way, your suggestion.”

  “Yes, I’m the brilliant friend. Go on.”

  “He said...” She still had trouble wrapping her mind around what he’d said, let alone repeating it. “He wants us to get to know each other with the idea of entering into a long-term relationship. But he doesn’t want to fall in love or get married. So we’d be friends having sex in a committed way.” She sipped her drink. “Committed to each other, not the sex.”

  “You don’t actually know that,” Helen said, before leaning back. “He really said all that? Just blurted it out?”

  “He didn’t blurt as much as explain. He’s not interested in getting married again and he’s not a one-night-stand kind of guy. He wants a long-term monogamous relationship. With me.”

  “Of course with you. You’re amazing. He’d be an idiot to pick anyone else, but jeez. Nobody just says that.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s interesting.”

  Kelly could have come up with about twenty-seven other words. “Interesting? How?”

  “It’s kind of your thing. You were with Sven for five years and you never once thought of taking things further.” Helen stared at her intently. “You never did think of it, did you? Because I asked all the time and you kept saying you didn’t want to marry him.”

  “I didn’t, I swear. He was great and all, it’s just, I wonder if maybe I wasn’t exactly in love with him.” A thought that had haunted her since the breakup. They’d been together five years. Shouldn’t she have been crushed when he ended things?

  “Not everyone has to fall in love and get married. People have wonderfully happy relationships without going that route. And some of us who do get married choose incredibly badly and end up divorced.” She smiled. “What did you say?”

  “That I would think about it.”

  “And?”

  “It’s been less than forty-eight hours. I don’t know what to do or think or say.” She picked up her drink. “What do you think?”

  “What went wrong with Sven? Why wasn’t he the one?”

  Kelly blinked at the question. She’d thought they would be discussing the pros and cons of Griffith.

  “I’m not sure. On paper we were the perfect couple. We have similar interests and all but there wasn’t any spark.” Sven had been way too into sex. “He liked to walk around naked. That didn’t make me comfortable.”

  “Just randomly naked?”

  “After sex.”

  “Well, sure. He has the body for it. You couldn’t appreciate the show?”

  “Not my style.” She shrugged. “He was nice and all but there wasn’t anything special between us. Not that Griffith is offering me magic, either.”

  “Do you want magic? You’re always so careful when it comes to guys.”

  An excellent point, Kelly thought. “I guess I want more than I had with Sven. I want to be intrigued and have fun.” All within the careful confines of being sensible. “I should tell Griffith no.”

  “Why? Don’t say that. He might be exactly your style. Maybe he dresses after sex. Come on, don’t give up without trying. You need someone in your life.”

  “Why? You don’t date.”

  Helen reached for a napkin from the holder and began to wipe the table. “That’s different. I was devastated by the end of my marriage. Not because he broke my heart, but because I was an idiot to trust him the way I did. Griffith is a great guy. Aren’t you the least bit tempted?”

  “Maybe a little.” More than a little, she thought. If she were being honest.

  “Then at least continue the conversation. What have you got to lose?”

  “You’re right.”

  “My two favorite words ever.”

  Kelly laughed. Maybe she should talk to Griffith again and figure out if he meant what he said. She supposed there was no harm in that. As for what had happened in high school—she couldn’t hold that against him forever. It didn’t speak well of her.

  “Maybe it’s time for you to start dating, too,” she said. “Sven’s available.”

  “Let me think about that.” Helen tilted her head. “No. Did I say no? No. He’s your ex. That would take us places neither of us wants to go.” She raised her voice. “And that little mole on his inner thigh. Isn’t it darling?” Her voice returned to its normal pitch. “I love you like a sister, but there are some things we simply aren’t meant to share. Although I could totally get into Sven being naked. When it gets hot and he takes his shirt off...” She sighed. “You could bounce a quarter off his stomach.”

  “I never tried.”

  Helen pointed at her. “See, if you’d been in love with him, I’m sure you would have tried. It’s a sign. Go take advantage of Griffith, then tell me all about it. I want to live vicariously through your exciting life.”

  “It’s not exciting yet.”

  “That is just a detail.”

  5

  Kelly left the diner and drove back to work. She passed the acres of tulip farmland long before she reached the main offices. Only a few weeks before, the blooming flowers had been a sea of color. After the harvest, there was nothing left but dark soil and the promise of flowers next spring.

  It was a ridiculous waste of land, she thought as she turned into the driveway. Not only was the crop uneatable, the ground lay fallow nearly nine months out of the year. Still, the Murphys had grown tulips for five generations. The flowers were in her blood, so to speak, and she had no interest in doing anything else.

  She pulled into the parking lot and saw Griff
ith’s truck in the spot next to the one she generally used. The man himself leaned against the driver’s door. As she pulled to a stop, he straightened and walked around to greet her.

  In the few seconds it took him to make the trip, she found herself feeling oddly flustered and out of breath. Did he expect her to make a decision right that second? She needed time to know what on earth she was going to do.

  He pulled open her door and smiled. “Kelly.”

  “Griffith.”

  “You had an overnight package.” He held out a small box. “It was delivered to me by mistake. I thought it might be important.”

  She stared into his brown eyes and found herself oddly unable to speak. What on earth? No. No way. She might be interested in dating Griffith and possibly sleeping with him, but there was no way she was going to fall for him. That would be the complete definition of stupid.

  She took the box from him and recognized the mailing label and return address. Her nerves immediately calmed and her throat unconstricted.

  “I have no idea how this got to you, but thank you for dropping it by.”

  “It’s important?”

  She smiled. “It is to me, but I doubt you’d agree.”

  “Now I’m intrigued.”

  He stepped back so she could get out of the truck, then he followed her into the building.

  The farm offices were in front of one of the largest greenhouses. They were basic at best, with only a half-dozen offices and a small waiting area. The real work was done elsewhere. At least Kelly’s was. Her dad handled sales and scheduled deliveries, so he spent plenty of time in his office, while she did her best to always be out in one of the greenhouses or in the fields.

  They didn’t employ a receptionist, nor did they have a company phone system. If someone needed her, they called her cell phone. The same with her dad. Most of their orders were done online. Only special orders or panicked begging happened on the phone.

  She dropped her battered, woven handbag on the counter and reached for a pair of scissors sticking up from a juice can of pencils. She slit the tape on the box and opened it.

  Inside lay a half-dozen bulbs. They were on the small side and nestled in cotton. There was nothing special about them, nothing to indicate what they would be. A card had been taped to the inside of the box: 8756-43.

  “That’s a letdown,” Griffith told her.

  “For you. I’m all aquiver.”

  “Seriously? Over bulbs?”

  “Not just any bulbs, Griffith. These are special. A hybrid or maybe a new color or shape.”

  “You don’t know?”

  She showed him the card. “That’s as much information as I have.” She picked up the box and nodded toward the back of the office. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  She led him through to the big wooden door in the rear, then out along a gravel path. When they reached the smallest of the greenhouses, the one that was hers alone, they went inside.

  The temperature was warmer, the air thicker and more humid. The scent of plants and life and water filled every breath. There were tables lined with square trays and in each tray were rows of bulbs.

  “In the main greenhouses, each of these can hold up to a hundred and fifty bulbs,” she said. “We only have a single level of planting here, but there are farms where they have tall buildings with roofs that open and close and machines that raise and lower pallets of plants.”

  “Somebody has greenhouse envy.”

  “You know it.” She motioned to the various trays. “These are all experimental tulips. Different horticulturists develop them, then send them to me to grow them. I keep track of everything that happens to them—from how much water, to the nutrients used, to the amount of light and ambient temperature. I document the life cycle and report back my findings.”

  He pointed to the box she held. “What is that going to be?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “They don’t tell you?”

  “No.” She laughed. “That’s part of the fun. I haven’t got a clue. It’s like unwrapping a present.”

  “Only it takes a couple of months to get to the good part.”

  “That’s okay.” She touched the bulbs. “They email me basic instructions, letting me know how long they think I should refrigerate the bulb before bringing it out to root, but that’s it.”

  “You refrigerate the bulbs?”

  “They have to think it’s winter before they can think it’s spring.”

  They left the greenhouse and walked into one of the barns. There were huge cooling rooms filled with thousands and thousands of bulbs.

  “Holy crap,” he said as he looked around. “You’re going to grow all these?”

  “In less than a year. I have a computer inventory program that helps me track when the bulbs are put into cold storage and when they’ll be ready to come out. Depending on the type of bulb, I know how long for them to root and from then, how long until they flower. We work backward to fill our orders. Some of the tulips—the kind you can get at any grocery store or florist year-round—are always in production. We vary the volume based on the season.”

  She pointed to labeled boxes of bulbs. “Those are red and white tulips for the holidays.”

  “Now you’re messing with me.”

  She laughed. “I swear. Come back in five months and I’ll prove it.”

  She put the new bulbs from the box into a square dish on a shelf by the door. After writing down the date on the card, she tucked it next to the dish. They walked back outside.

  “Impressive,” he told her.

  “It’s not housing for the homeless, but I like to think my flowers will make someone happy.”

  “They will.”

  They stood facing each other. There was a confidence about him, as if he knew his place in the world and was happy about it. Sven was plenty confident, too, so that couldn’t be what made Griffith feel different.

  “I’m sorry about what happened in high school,” he said quietly.

  The words were so at odds with what she’d been thinking that at first she had no idea what he was talking about. When she managed to find context and remembered that horrible day, she flushed and wanted to run away. Instead she forced herself to stay where she was. Her chin came up.

  “All right.”

  He looked at her. “I panicked. I knew your mom was in her room with Coach and I was pretty sure I knew what they were doing. I didn’t want you to walk in on that.”

  Because her mother had been having an affair with the football coach, along with countless other men. Everyone had pretended not to know, all the while being acutely aware of what was happening—Kelly most of all.

  As a teacher at the high school, Marilee had had a permanent classroom. One where the door was often locked at lunch. Kelly hadn’t even been thinking as she’d approached. She’d been too distracted by seeing Griffith with his friends.

  “I was stupid to say what I did,” he continued. “I know it was a long time ago, and this is late, but I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it.”

  “You couldn’t just ask me a question about homework? You had to announce you weren’t the least bit interested in me?”

  “I totally blanked, which is the truth, not an excuse.”

  She liked that he continued to hold her gaze, as if he wanted her to know he meant what he was saying. And the apology was nice, too. Yes, very late, but still.

  “I was humiliated,” she admitted. “Then my mom left and everything changed at home and what you’d said didn’t seem that important.”

  Her mom hadn’t just left, Kelly thought grimly. They’d fought. She still remembered the anger between them.

  “Why can’t you just be like everyone else?” Kelly had demanded of her mother. �
�Why do you have to be this way? You’re so selfish. You have a family. You’re supposed to take care of us.”

  What she’d really meant was that her mother was supposed to take care of her, but she hadn’t been able to say that.

  “I’m not like other mothers. Someday you’ll understand.”

  “I won’t. I hate you. If you’re so unhappy, why don’t you just leave?”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “Yes. Go away. You’re horrible. We won’t miss you at all.”

  Marilee’s green eyes had darkened with an emotion Kelly couldn’t understand. “Be careful, darling. Wishes like that can be dangerous.”

  The fight had ended then. Kelly had cried herself to sleep—an embarrassing truth for a fifteen-year-old. She told herself it was wrong to hate her mother, to wish her gone, but she couldn’t seem to think any other way. The next day, Marilee had left Tulpen Crossing forever.

  That was when everything had changed for all of them. Without Marilee, the dynamics had shifted. They’d all been in pain and reacting. Looking back, Kelly wondered if she hadn’t just lost her mother that day—if she had lost her sister, as well.

  “I’m sorry about that, too,” Griffith said. “I know it was tough for you and your sister.”

  Olivia had suffered far more than Kelly. While Kelly had wrestled with guilt, she’d still had her dad, and the relative peace that had followed. But Olivia had always been their mother’s favorite. With Marilee gone, she was alone. Jeff’s awkward attempts to fill the void had not been enough.

  Kelly knew she should have stepped in, should have done more. Why hadn’t she? A question that still had no answer.

  “What I said didn’t help,” he added.

  “It’s okay,” Kelly told him. “I appreciate the apology.” She managed a slight smile. “I guess based on our previous conversation, I should assume you’re over your distaste.”

  His brows rose slightly. “There was never any distaste.”

  “You say that now.”

  “You’re going to make me pay, aren’t you?”

  “I think a little, yes.”

  “Okay. I’ve probably earned it. Thank you for the tour,” he added. “I liked seeing where you work.”