Coming Up Daffy
by Sandra Sookoo
Published by Astraea Press
www.astraeapress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
COMING UP DAFFY
Copyright © 2013 SANDRA SOOKOO
ISBN 978-1-62135-145-0
Cover Art Designed by For the Muse Designs
To my friend, and fellow Hoosier, Leah Guinn who said something profound to me during a black moment in my career and personal life. Always find the joy. I’ll never forget that. Thank you. It’s made a huge difference.
Chapter One
Alice Attler slid out from behind the wheel of her old-school station wagon. Painted a faded lime green over rust spots, and with its fake wood paneling, it was given to her by her dad and never failed to put her in mind of the vacations her family had taken every summer, all piled into the hideous car with no air conditioning. Man, she’d hated having to get into that car for fear that her friends might see and deride the “Family Fun Mobile”. Now, in this phase of her life, she didn’t mind. The wagon ran like a dream, thanks to her dad’s meticulous care, plus it saved her from having to buy a new one and thereby incur a payment she might not be able to afford. Owning a business was much like gambling. Easy come, easy go sometimes.
She patted a hand against the side of the wagon, now emblazoned with a magnetic banner that advertised for her business, Flower Power. Florist, gardener, purveyor of bulbs, and worker of dirt; if it involved growing things, Alice did it. Her fingertips glided over a small dent, and as always, she snickered. She’d put that ding in the car back in her senior year of high school with one crazy off-course softball, two days after Dad had had the whole vehicle detailed and repainted. Boy had her dad given her a what for, but he’d left the dent in the side “so she’d always remember”. Her dad was a good egg. Ten years later and that dent still made her thankful for her parents’ nurturing wings — especially since she still lived with her dad.
As she moved to the rear of the vehicle, she smiled and pulled on her gardener’s gloves. The ladybug print always lifted her spirits and reminded her how great it was she’d chosen gardening for her line of work. Only when she had her hands buried in dirt or while smelling the scent of growing things was she truly happy. After swinging open the back door, she hefted out a box full of live, nearly bloomed daffodils.
“Alice! You should have called me.” The chiding shout carried over the chilly mid-morning April air as Melissa Carlisle ran through her front yard. She stumbled to an awkward stop on the street where Alice stood with the box of flowers. One of the woman’s pink bunny slippers had come halfway off a foot, which was funny since her friend owned a vintage lingerie shop specializing in Edwardian- and Victorian-style underthings. Bunny slippers, in Alice’s opinion, just weren’t sexy, and they certainly didn’t go with Melissa’s lingerie image. “Let me help you carry all of this.” She hopped on one foot while readjusting the renegade slipper.
“Okay, but really, I can handle it.” She shoved the box into Mel’s hands and then grabbed her bag of gardening tools from the car. Once she’d slung the strap over her shoulder, she lifted the second box of daffodils and swung the door shut with a hip. “So, none of the bulbs came up?” She followed Mel over the newly-green grass to a flowerbed that stretched beneath two windows at the front of the house.
“Most of them haven’t. There is one or two that sprouted but never had a bud. The greens came up. I don’t know if the squirrels got to them or if the bulbs were just duds.” Melissa set her box on the ground. “Thanks for coming out here to replace them.”
“Hey, it’s my business name on the line. If you’re not happy, and my bulbs are defective, it’s my job to replace them.” She’d planted the bulbs last fall. Of course, there’d been no way to know they were defective until blooming season. Alice set her box of flowers next to Melissa’s, dropped her bag, and then sank to her knees near the pink brick border. “I guess I’ll get to work.”
Melissa perched on a decorative boulder at one corner of the flowerbed. Her pink, terrycloth robe gaped open to reveal a lace-edged and rosebud-embroidered cotton nightgown. It was pretty, and Alice made a mental note to visit Mel’s shop soon. “Can I ask you a question?” She twirled a strand of long, red hair around a forefinger. Between the sleepwear, the slippers, and her wonderful hair, she resembled a teenager at her first slumber party.
“Sure. What’s up?” She grabbed a trowel from her bag and began digging up the defective bulbs.
“When I was at the market yesterday, I heard a couple of kids refer to you as Daffy. What’s that about?” Her brown eyes twinkled as she found the whole thing funny.
Alice cringed from the dorky nickname she’d acquired in recent weeks. “If it’s the fourth-graders, they call me Daffy for two reasons.” With more of a savage thrust than she’d intended, she plunged her shovel into the rain-softened earth well past the green plastic handle. “First because a lot of my gardening and floral business right now relates to daffodils, and that’s what they see me carting around town.”
“And the second reason?”
Heat blazed in Alice’s cheeks. “My habit of jumping subjects in conversation without finishing the first thought. The kids think it makes me sound crazy.” She poked around in the dirt. Once she located a bulb, she pulled it out and tossed it out of the flowerbed. “Hey, you know what would be great here? Purple tulips. The yellow and purple together would look awesome.”
“Daffy because you change subjects, huh?” Melissa snorted with laughter. “Like you just did right now.” Her smile rivaled the sun. “Ignore them. It means your head’s so full of everything you’re interested in, it can’t hold all the goodness. You like to share.”
“Or it means I’m full of scattered thoughts that make no sense to anyone except me.” She continued to dig up bulbs. As much as Alice enjoyed Melissa’s company, she didn’t like having to think of conversation. One reason she’d chosen gardening for an occupation was the fact she didn’t need to talk if she didn’t want to. On occasion, she’d talk to the plants, but there were no witnesses and no mockery if she topic-hopped.
“Any luck in the dating department?” Mel brushed at a spot of dirt near the hem of her robe.
“Not really.” Alice glanced at one of the daffodils that had come up but never produced a bud. That’s what my love life is like. A dud. A fizzle.
“Oh, too bad. What about that one guy you were dating a while back?” Genuine sympathy wove through Mel’s voice. “You seemed really into him.”
“Frank? Yeah, I liked him.” Alice shrugged. Their relationship had ended six months ago, and not even with a big break-up fight. It was more of a “so, this really isn’t working for me…” and by a text message no less. She heaved a sigh. “He decided the commute back and forth from Indy on the weekends was too much. I guess I wasn’t worth the mileage or the gas.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I just can’t seem to make a relationship go the distance.” She continued to dig up bulbs and then savagely pulled up the greenery, chucking them all out of the flowerbed. Of course, being too eager to please a guy in the physical department could have been the cause of that relationship’s early demise. Maybe next time I won’t let things rush into the
bedroom, and I’ll actually get to know what a guy is really about first. “I need a new tactic.”
“Maybe you just need to spruce yourself up, you know, like you’re doing with my flowerbed.” Melissa’s smile held nothing except warmth and encouragement. “Put some highlights in your hair, get a manicure, and wear something that’s not streaked with dirt.”
Alice snickered. It seemed like her fingernails were perpetually stained as well as her clothes. “All of that is expensive, but I’ll think about it. I guess I always thought if a guy liked me, he’d like me, no matter what I look like.”
“True, and that would work if we lived in a perfect world. Too bad dirt’s not attractive, huh?” She wiggled a bunny slipper. “It’s such a bummer, though.”
“What is?”
“You’ve got the magic touch when it comes to plants and flowers. I mean, goodness, you sold every single one of your orchids at the Winter Carnival, and to folks who don’t have a hoity toity bone in their bodies. Can you focus your talent on growing yourself a relationship?” From somewhere inside the house, the electronic shrill of the phone sounded. Melissa bounced up from her perch. “I’ve got to take that, plus if I don’t hurry, I’ll be late to the store. Will you be okay here?”
“Yup. Don’t worry about me.” Alice heaved another sigh, more than a little glad when Mel disappeared inside the house with the door firmly closed behind her. “As long as it’s plants, I’m real good.”
Still, Mel’s words echoed in her head. Grow myself a relationship. She snorted as she searched for any straggler bulbs. Yeah, I’ll get right on that. Putting in the time, effort, and money to alter her appearance just to catch a guy’s notice made her stomach clench. Not to mention, it wasn’t as if Francesville was a hotbed of the single, attractive man scene. For heaven’s sake, she’d met Frank at a gardener’s convention in Indianapolis. Well, not at the convention but at a bar next to her hotel while she was there.
While she planted the daffodil plants into the rich soil, she hummed a tune to a popular song she’d heard playing on the car radio earlier. Honestly, the fact she didn’t have a boyfriend or any prospects didn’t bother her. I’m twenty-seven, not near death’s door. She scratched an itch on one cheek. “I’ll worry about it when I’m thirty and the alarm on my biological clock goes off.” With a nod to the plant nearest to her, she continued with her work until jaunty green flowers filled the entire flowerbed. Unopened buds sat atop the healthy stalks, some with bright yellow color just beginning to peek through.
Then she frowned.
After stripping off her gloves, she buried her hands into the soil, letting it run through her fingers. It could be a bit richer, could be aerated better. Maybe the dud bulbs lacked nourishment. The best way to fix it was to introduce earthworms to the mix. Alice grabbed her gloves, stood, and gave a cursory dust-off to her jeans. The best place to find earthworms was Francesville Bait and Tackle. Though it was a good twenty minute jaunt to reach the Kincaide farm, it’d be worth it. She’d used their services before, and they really did get in the best insects and bait.
“Mel?” Alice banged on the front door and then opened it a crack and hollered in, “I’m leaving for a bit. I want to put some worms in your soil. See you later!” Once she’d gotten a muffled confirmation, she closed the door, picked up the discarded bulbs and boxes, then toted everything back to her car.
****
Mark Kincaide removed his ball cap and wiped the sweat from his brow. The goats had been unusually crotchety this morning. The feisty Rascal had butted him when he’d tried to fill their food and water buckets. One of them had even overturned a water tub, which meant he’d had to start over. And that was after one of the llamas had spit in his direction. Thankfully, he’d moved out of the way in time, but he just knew the llama laughed at him, and he also knew the ungrateful pack animal would try again. Both of the llamas looked at him with blatant plotting in their long-lashed dark eyes. Dumb llamas. If it were up to him, he’d sell them, but oh no. His brother liked them for whatever reason, so the llamas stayed. He stared back at the bolder of the two. “Don’t even think you can try your funny business with me. I’ll lock your furry hide in the barn and won’t feel bad.”
The male llama — Sarge — snorted, most likely in derision, while the female — Pippa — glanced between Sarge and Mark as if trying to decide which one of them to side with.
He heaved a sigh as he entered the sheep pen. With Matthew gone for a week on his honeymoon, the animal chores fell to Mark. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy them, it was more that the animals resented him. At the end of the day, he was not his brother. Never would be. And that’s the whole crux of the problem. Just once he’d love to have a woman look at him with adoration in her eyes like Lucy did for Matt, but no. Finding dating material in the fishbowl that was Francesville sucked; finding a woman who’d be content to live in said fishbowl was a whole different matter.
It was tough when the town didn’t even have a big box superstore or a movie theater.
Mark filled the food and water pans for the sheep and then exited their pen. The sheep, unlike the goats, gazed at him with placid expressions and didn’t make a play for the food until he’d watched them for a few minutes. The occasional calls of the animals reminded him of the Winter Carnival. That had been three months ago. He’d seen Lucy first, but the moment his brother kissed her at that dumb kissing booth, any thought Mark might have entertained about dating Lucy had been stomped on.
Matt won the girl, and even Mark had to admit, the two were perfect for each other. Now that Matt had married and left Mark holding the proverbial bag regarding the farm, Mark didn’t have any other recourse except to do the chores and get over the ego. Such was life, but just for once he wished he’d have a tiny bit of the good luck his brother seemed to get without even trying. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his windbreaker and hunched his shoulders. There was a decided grumble on his lips while he headed toward the house.
“Mark, it’s almost opening time. You need to get your backside out to the store.”
He glanced up from his contemplation of the dirt path leading between the barn and his house. His grandma stood on the back porch in all her five-foot-seven-inch gray-curled glory, as tall and thin as the string bean she called herself and clad in a hideous pink and yellow housecoat. A shiver rippled through him. That piece of clothing looked as if a daisy field had vomited all over it. He held back a snort. At least she’d taken the curlers out of her hair this time. He’d long ago lost count of all the instances of good ole Grandma showing up at various functions throughout his life wearing questionable attire. She was like Maude-meets-Lucy Arnez-meets-Cloris Leachman.
“I know, Grandma. I’m heading that way.”
“Not in those mucking-out boots you’re not. Go put on something respectable.” The teasing in her voice did nothing to lift Mark’s spirits. “Your brother wears cowboy boots. Go get a pair of those.”
Lord, save me from pushy grandmothers. Mark uttered a sigh as he joined her on the back porch. “That’s Matt’s thing. I think they’re uncomfortable.”
She clucked her tongue while she ushered him into the big, farmhouse kitchen. “Mind the mud.”
“I always do.” Though he loved his grannie, at times, her interference in his life became trying. “Why are you here, anyway? I’d think now that Matt’s bugged out of here, you’d make yourself scarce.” His grandma lived in a small, two-bedroom house on the other side of the Kincaide farm land. A few evenings a week, he went over and ate dinner with her. A couple of evenings, she would come over to his house. Plus, he ran Francesville Bait and Tackle with her. After a while, seeing that much of a well-meaning family member grated on the nerves.
“Don’t be jealous, boy. We each have our strengths and different contributions to the world.” She padded across the cream-tiled floor, dragging her house slippers with each step.
Mark gritted his teeth. As long as he lived, he’d never gott
en used to that sound. “I guess my contribution is being the guy who gets the bad luck.” He toed off his boots and then carried them to the door and set them on a mat.
“That’s not the attitude I instilled in you.” Grandma poured a cup of coffee and also filled a travel mug. The rich aroma of the brew wafted through the kitchen and made his stomach rumble. Though he’d grabbed a quick breakfast before sunrise, dealing with the animals had burned it up. “Your brother’s time just came before yours. That’s all.”
“Maybe.” He jammed his feet into a well-worn pair of sneakers before tightening the laces and tying them off.
His grandma chuckled and sounded just like the hens in the chicken coop. “If everything goes well and Lucy’s not one of those women’s libbers, she might come back from her honeymoon with a bun in the oven.”
Mark’s neck and ears warmed. He didn’t want to think about Lucy pregnant nor how lucky his brother was to get her in that state, so he focused on his relative. “Grandma, I don’t think folks call women ‘libbers’ anymore. Besides, it’s not a crime to want to start a family later in life.”
“No, it’s not, but I want great-grandchildren, and don’t you dare tell me how I should talk. I’m an old woman. I have the right to say what I want, when I want to.”
“Oh brother.” Mark straightened. He snagged the keys to his truck from a hook near the door.
“And you know, young man, once your brother and Lucy get back, you’re gonna need to find your own place. A newlywed couple won’t like having a bachelor roomie. They’ll need space to get used to each other.”
“I know.” His stomach clenched. Moving wasn’t what he wanted to deal with right now. He’d lived in the house all his life. He’d grown up there. He’d mourned his grandpa’s passing in that house. No way did he want to be shoved out just because Matthew had married. It wasn’t fair, and another reminder of how life was changing all around him, leaving him behind. “I’ll see what I can do about finding a house or apartment to rent.”
Coming Up Daffy Page 1