by Libby Malin
Not back yet from a visit to her folks’ new home in Connecticut, she’s left her chipper voice mail message on.
“Hey, Wen, give me a call when you…”
A vicious crack of thunder breaks the constant beat of rain. Then the lights go out. And the phone goes dead. Guess I’m not godly enough.
A half hour later, I’m still mostly in the dark and sitting in my living room trying to read a murder mystery by the waning light of day. This isn’t going to work. A watched pot never boils. A waiting house never…has the electricity go on when you’re thinking you’d like it to.
After grabbing my keys and purse, I’m on the road not really headed anywhere except away. That song about driving in a fast car comes on the radio and I turn it up loud and sing along. I’m a nanosecond behind the singer as I struggle to remember the words.
As if by instinct, my car heads into town. I let it take me there, the late daylight gray as my heart. Everything’s wet and grumpy and I fit right in.
On Saturdays, I can park on the street, so I do, and head into my little shop. The blue neon sign in the window crackles to life when I hit the switch inside.
Because it’s in the heart of the business district, we’re only open Mondays through Fridays, so I’ll take this opportunity to catch up on some work. I flip on the computer and head to the bookkeeping program, sifting through some old invoices. While I wait for the machine to fire up, I try Wendy again.
Wendy, like my sister, has been ragging on me lately about getting “into the swing of things again.” Dating is like riding a bicycle, they tell me. You don’t forget how to do it once you’ve learned.
No, dating—after you had a fiancé—is more like having your BMW replaced with a bicycle. You might remember how to ride it, but do you really want to?
Wendy has even fixed me up a couple of times with some very randy fellows. She thinks some sex will make me feel better. I can’t get angry with her after all she’s done for me. Besides, I admire her spunk. After following a medical student to Baltimore after graduation, she dumped him when she realized she was only sticking it out because her parents expected her to marry a doctor. Her father is a retired surgeon.
I reach for the phone and try her again. Eureka! On the last ring before the voice mail message clicks in, she answers.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Wendy, you sound out of breath!”
“Oh, hi, Ame. Just got in. What’s up?”
As I talk, I hear her walking around her apartment, then the sound of water, and then a toilet flushing. Didn’t I tell you we were close?
“Nothing’s up. I was wondering if you’d like to go grab a beer or a coffee or something. I’m in town. Catching up on some work.”
“Oh, Ame, I’m beat. Just drove six hours. Traffic on 95 was a bitch. And then my parents. You’d have thought they just got married the way they were squabbling. Put the couch here, hang that picture there. It was a nightmare.”
“Guess you don’t want to talk about it,” I say.
“No. Yeah. I don’t know. I haven’t even had a chance to check my messages.”
Aha. She wants to see if her boyfriend, Sam, has called. My guess is she’ll opt for a beer with him even if she’s struggling to remain upright. In fact, my guess is she’d prefer not to be upright with him, but might prefer to struggle.
“Do you want to call me back?” I ask. “I’m at the shop.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I stand and meander to the window, looking out on the rain-soaked street. The smell of wet concrete drifts into the store. It reminds me of when my sister and I were kids and we used to sit in a tent on the front lawn during a storm, oblivious to the fact that the camouflage-patterned cloth was not waterproof.
Not too many cars go by. Downtown Baltimore on a Saturday evening is like downtown Baltimore on a Sunday. Dead, except at Harborplace, where tourists scurry around soaking up all the atmosphere, sucking it clean from the rest of the city.
Ten minutes go by. Then another ten. I spend them pretending to do things, brightening up the flowers in the display refrigerator, checking for messages, cleaning up the counter and the shelf beneath it, starting a list of items that need to be ordered.
Soon I won’t have any excuse to linger. Maybe my electricity and phone will be back on by now. Wendy’s not going to call. She probably reached Sam, and is at this moment changing into her leopard-print thong.
I turn off the computer, tidy up the papers, look around the store one last time and flip off the blue neon sign.
“Omigod!” I jump when I see a dark figure standing at the front door. My heart starts thudding, my hands break out in a sweat.
He knocks. Bam, bam, bam.
“Hey, open up!”
“I’m closed!” I shout back.
“Come on!”
“I’m leaving!” I turn to get my purse. I’ll head out the back way. Ugh. That alley always scares me even when I’m only putting out trash.
“I want to talk to you!” he yells. The flowery decoration of the store’s window masks his face.
“I’m closed, I tell you.” I will not be bullied into being robbed. Grabbing my purse and keys, I go into the back room to wait it out. I even turn on the light for a second, then turn it out again, hoping he’ll see the flash and assume I left. After a few seconds, I don’t hear any more banging. But I do hear some ringing. The phone. Probably Wendy finally calling back. Dammit, I feel like talking. He has to be gone by now.
Staying close to the wall and out of vision of the door, I skulk to the counter and pick up the phone.
“Hello?” I whisper.
“Amy?” Wendy’s voice.
“Yeah.”
“You okay? You sound like you have a cold or something.”
“No, no. Just being quiet, that’s all.”
Bam, bam. The irate robber is back, pounding away. “Hey, I thought you were closed!”
“What’s that noise?” Wendy asks.
“Someone wants to come into the shop.”
“Why don’t you let him in? You could make a sale.”
“I’m closed.”
“That’s no way to run a business. The customer is always right, remember?” Wendy is working on her MBA part-time.
The thudding increases, then stops as the man puts his hands in his pockets and peers through the glass. Dark complexion, dark hair, gold chain around his neck, bright white shirt open at the collar, gray slacks.
Well-dressed thief.
“Go ahead, answer it. I’ll wait.”
“Okay, okay. But if I have a problem, I’ll say a code word and you hang up and call the police.”
“What’s the code word?”
“Pineapple.”
“Amy, how in the world would you work the word pineapple into a conversation?”
“All right, something else. Tuberoses,” I say, remembering the missed order from the other day. “They’re flowers. This is a flower shop.” The man starts pounding again.
“Just go get the door. Who knows, he might be some millionaire with a standing order for a dozen roses.”
I put the phone down on the counter where Wendy will be able to hear the conversation. Then I casually walk to the door, not wanting to give this irate thief any satisfaction, regardless what Wendy says. After turning the key and cracking open the door, I smile.
“How can I help you?”
The man’s jaw muscle works in fury and a vein in his temple bulges like some alien implant. “You can help me by telling me what imbecile fills the flower orders around here.”
“Uh, that would be Brad.”
He rolls his eyes and takes a deep breath. “May I come in? I would like to discuss an order.”
Without a word, I gesture to the interior and he walks by, leaving a whiff of Tommy Hilfiger cologne in his wake. Rick used to wear that.
I saunter back to the counter, which I figure will provide some sort
of protection. Plus, the phone is over there. Tuberoses. Tuberoses.
He follows and stands with his hands, balled into fists, on the counter in front of him. He’s just my height, maybe even a half inch shorter, and I’m no tower.
“I would like a refund, a new order of flowers and a letter of apology,” he announces, staring me in the eyes.
“Excuse me?” I say, staring right back.
“Yesterday, I called in an order. One dozen yellow roses. To be sent to a Miss Diana Malvani. Miss Malvani received no roses. But Miss Tess Wintergarten did. It caused me a great deal of distress.”
So this is Henry Castle. Despite myself, I giggle. An image teases my brain. Tess Wintergarten luring Henry Castle with her syrupy voice to her apartment, then bludgeoning him with the roses.
“What kind of distress?” I ask innocently. I must know.
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“You said you want a note of apology. I should at least know what I’m apologizing for.”
“You’re apologizing for screwing up my weekend, goddammit.”
“I see. You had to make restitution.”
“What?”
“My guess is you had to take her out, buy her dinner, maybe take her to a club, spend some money on her.” I look him over. After-shave. He must have seen her today. I can’t help it. I laugh again. “My God. You had to spend all day with her. You were just with her.” I sniff. Maybe I can detect just the faintest hint of her perfume? Naw, too hard to do with that Hilfiger thing going on.
“It’s none of your business.”
“She made you spend all day with her.” I am in awe. Tess Wintergarten does have magic powers and they are from the Dark Side. Getting a gigolo to give up his entire Saturday just because he sent her flowers when he wasn’t supposed to? That is akin to levitation. I wonder if she offers lessons.
His dark face darkens even more. “It’s none…of…your…fucking…business!”
He reaches into his pocket and now I’m thinking, “Gun!” He’s going to exact revenge. He’s not a thief. He’s a maniac! Tomorrow’s headlines flash through my brain: Angry Customer Shoots Florist. No—Angry Customer Shoots Beloved Florist. Lovely Florist. Well-Regarded Florist. Whole City Mourns Loss of Adored Florist….
“Tuberoses!” I shout. “Tuberoses!”
“What?” He pulls out…his wallet. I sigh with relief as he opens it and throws his card on the counter.
“Nothing. I was just thinking how I didn’t get my tuberoses order. That Brad.” I smile sweetly while I peruse his card. Henry Castle, attorney-at-law. My heart goes cold. Downs, Macklin, Peterson and Squires is his firm. Rick was a Squires. Henry Castle works for Rick’s father’s firm. Gulping, my eyes as big as saucers, I push the card aside.
“So, what can I do? Who should I send the new flowers to?”
“Credit my account for the old ones. Send a dozen to Diana. And a dozen to Tess.”
“Thanking her for an incomparable night.”
“An incomparable weekend,” he says, his lip curling.
“An incomparable weekend,” I repeat.
“Charge it as usual?” I ask, blustery business attitude showing. Wendy would be so proud of me.
Uh-oh. Wendy! She is still on the phone. And I’d said the code word—tuberoses.
Grabbing the phone to my ear, I scream, “Wendy, Wendy, are you there? It’s all right. Don’t do anything!”
But the phone is dead. She’s hung up. Henry Castle is looking at me like I’m nuts. Nuts is fast becoming my natural state of mind.
“Is there a problem?” he asks me.
Funny he should say that because that’s exactly what the police say about thirty seconds later when two of Baltimore’s finest wander into my store.
One’s tall and skinny, with strange bushy red eyebrows. The other’s a “regular guy”—average height, average hair, average everything. I wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a lineup five minutes from now.
“Is there a problem here?” the tall one asks.
Henry bristles before I have a chance to answer. “Why do you think there’s a problem? Just because a Latino is in a store alone, you think I’m up to something?”
“Well, are you?” the average one asks, and he sounds as if he enjoys asking those kinds of questions.
“What I’m up to is no damn business of yours,” Henry says. Spoken like a true lawyer.
The tall officer moves to the right side of Henry while the average one stays on his left. The tall one looks at me.
“Everything all right here, ma’am?”
I’ve become a “ma’am”? When did this happen?
“Uh, yes, sir. Fine. Everything is A-OK.” I sound as phony as a cubic zirconia scraping glass. The tall one looks at Henry, then at his partner, and nods.
“Maybe we should talk to you outside, sir,” the tall one says.
“I’m not finished in here,” Henry seethes.
“I think you are,” the average cop says, looking at me.
Now, there are times in life when clear choices present themselves. There are times when the lines to good and bad are as straight as highways in Kansas. And this was one of those times.
If I speak up for Henry, all is well. If I stay silent, he gets hassled by two cops who’ve decided racial profiling of young male Latinos is kosher. It should be easy, right?
And yet…I look at Henry—smug, dozen-flowers-a-month, thanking-you-for-an-incomparable-night Henry. And I think “Who am I to stand in the way of some cosmic karma too complicated for me to adequately comprehend?”
Henry looks at the cops, then at me. His eyes widen, his jaw works again. He is either mentally cursing me, or frantically issuing a telepathic command for me to tell the truth.
“I was just straightening out an order,” he says more quietly now, in an altar-boy voice, obedient and small. He does not look at them. He does not look at me. “Right?”
“Right. Straightening out an order. No problem.” But I’m a little too enthusiastic, which makes the cops even more suspicious, so I have to throw in something extra to leaven the moment. “And we were making plans to go grab a beer. Right, honey?” I wink at Henry, who is beginning to look like Ricky Ricardo after Lucy tells him she accidentally burned their life savings.
The tall one backs off. “Okay, ma’am. We’ll be cruising around the block. Just give us a holler if you need help.”
The phone rings after they leave. It’s Wendy.
“Jesus Christ, girl, are you okay? I called the police, but I kept thinking you were being held hostage or something. I was afraid if I called it would send him over the edge—the phone ringing, I mean—so I didn’t call. But then Sam suggested I try in case he wanted to send a message to the cops.”
So Sam is there already, helping my best friend plot my escape from a mad customer between orgasms. How thoughtful.
“I’m fine. In fact, he and I are going out for a beer.” I wink at Henry again, and this time, he smiles back.
A flash of remembered hopefulness tingles my toes and prickles the back of my neck. It’s an emotional déjà vu rippling through me, lifting my heart a half inch off the earth. For one hairbreadth of a second, I’m back in the Summer of Sheila V’s pool, where every burst of sunshine was a guaranteed promise of good things to come and every jump into the crystal-blue water an affirmation of life itself.
I look at Henry, and I dive into the deep end.
chapter 3
Yarrow: Cure for heartache
Rick and I never argued. The closest we came to fighting was when, three months before the wedding, he developed a throbbing toothache. He hated dentists—but he was blessed with perfect teeth that would have made any dental hygienist proud. He tried everything to avoid going to “the man with the drill”—analgesics of all shapes and colors, and herbal treatments like yarrow, but nothing worked. Finally, I snapped at him and told him I’d call off the wedding if he didn’t take care of t
he problem. I remember he sat at the kitchen table and mournfully stared at me, his chin in hand. He didn’t say anything, and for a fleeting second his silence scared me. But he went to the dentist all the same.
So this is how I start dating Henry Castle.
Mission accomplished at my store, his mood changes from irate customer to roving wolf. He suggests a bar in Fell’s Point that’s full of atmosphere and noise and smoke. So I head there, half expecting him to stand me up and half wondering what the hell I’m doing anyway.
Then, I hear the voices in my head—didn’t I tell you I was crazy? The voices are Wendy’s and my sister’s and they’re both saying the same thing—“give love a chance”—except they’re really kind of singing it in some weird sixties-type girl-group harmony. They’re singing so loud that I can’t argue with them that this is not about looking for love, but going out for a beer, and it’s really more about curiosity than anything else. Or maybe it’s about guilt for almost getting Henry in trouble with the law.
After I park my car, I sit quietly for a moment coming up with a good excuse for leaving if the date doesn’t go well, but as soon as I think the word date, I get very happy and proud of myself. Yes, a date. A date I’ve managed to snag on my own, not some fix-up from well-meaning friends and relatives. Not bad, Ame. Everyone will be so proud. So whatever this little meeting started as, it’s turning out to be a notch in my dating belt that I can brag about later. It will come in handy the next time Wendy tries to tell me I’m not trying hard enough.
I’m so fixated on this feel-good attitude that I eventually settle on the feeble “my cat has been unwell” excuse if I need to leave in a hurry. Once I’m in the bar and seated with Henry, however, I don’t want to leave. Maybe because my expectations are so low, I actually manage to have fun.