by Maggie Way
Curious, I waved to the backdoor, thinking whatever he wanted to show me was there, and waited for him to lead. Instead of stopping, he continued to walk through the back room until we reached the stairs that led to his apartment. I had never been in his place. Curious, I followed him up the stairs. He'd won several awards as a florist, which I only found out when I did my research. Darwin was active in the floral competitions years ago, before the tragic death of his wife, Eva. He was the rock star of the floral kingdom, creating works of art with the use of foliage and blooms. Several certificates, and medals hung along the banister and up the stairs. From the dates, I realized that not much has happened since Eva's passing, and I suspected that Darwin's life still revolved around his business and flowers, and not much else, since the death of his wife.
Despite his size, Darwin was light on his feet. Only the steel-toed boots he wore made it sound like he had leaded feet. I, on the other hand, had had achy joints all day from the rain. The walls practically shook as I ascended the stairs. But it was enough to drown out the rapid thumping of her heart.
Why was I nervous all of a sudden? Darwin might be huge and grumpy all the time, but he would never hurt a fly, much less his one and only full time employee, the only person who could stand his mercurial moods on a daily basis.
A lump in my throat built while I waited for him to unlock his door at the top of the stairs. After hearing the telltale click of the bolt, he swung it open to show off a dimly lit apartment. Darwin switched the ceiling lights on, and I took a tentative step, not knowing what to expect. The place was immaculate, which is not a surprise. Darwin's a bit of a clean freak. The walls were painted a dark shade of purple, but it didn’t make the room look scary or small, not with the combination of vaulted ceilings and proper lighting. Together, with several large paintings hanging on the walls, accent pillows and coffee table books created interest in the space. Over on the left side of a well-worn caramel leather sofa, on a side table was a photo of a woman. It could only be one person—Eva. She seemed to be laughing in the photograph, her eyes crinkling at the corners, head slightly tilted back, and a dainty hand half-covering her mouth. A real bohemian beauty in her colorful dress and unique jewelry, and as I looked around the living space, I suspected that she was the one responsible for the decorations. And Darwin, to commemorate his wife, had not changed much of it.
"Something to drink? I have water, coffee, tea" Darwin offered, then quickly added, "or wine?"
Trying not to look shocked at the offer of wine, I nodded and smiled. "Wine sounds good."
Darwin left the room, without saying another word. Not knowing what to do or how comfortable I should make myself, I stayed standing beside the comfortable-looking sofa. Boy, what I would give to sit on it at this exact moment, lean my aching back on the soft pillows and prop my feet on the table.
While I waited, quietly, I let my eyes roam around the room some more. A wall of shelves, packed with books and carefully arranged knick-knacks, was used to create a division between the living room and dining room, and farther, I could see Darwin move around in his small, pristine white kitchen. I leaned over the wooden coffee table and thumbed the edges of a thick book, Canadiana Flora. I opened it to a bookmarked page of a purple and white orchid. As far as I knew, orchids didn’t grow in the Canadian wilds. I read the caption underneath the picture,
Epidendrum Eva, hybrid. Darwin Graves.
"He created the hybrid and named it after her?" I muttered to my self. How sweet. Who would have guessed that Darwin Graves was a closet romantic? Or was, at least, to his wife. Although the way he’d been treating me lately wasn’t anything to ignore. The only thing my husband had created for me was a rickety plant stand, which incidentally, made good fireplace logs.
There was an insert of a carefree, relaxed-looking Darwin, showing off straight teeth. His salt-and-pepper (a lot more pepper than salt) hair was much shorter than how he wore it now. I was intrigued by the appearance of a single dimple on his cheek. I’d never seen him smile this much, not close, at least. As I dropped my tired behind on the couch, pulling the book near the edge of the table so that I could read the article beside the photo, Darwin walked in.
He saw the open page right away, and paused. Deep lines appeared on his forehead. Instead of talking about the photograph or chastising me, he offered me a glass of deep red wine. "Sangiovese."
Feeling like I’d been caught doing something I was not supposed to do, it took a second for me to realize that he was talking about the wine. "Oh thanks." All I knew about wine was that I could only drink a maximum of two glasses, otherwise, I would ne in bed for two days, nursing a hangover. Never having been a party girl, unlike my ex-husband, I had never bothered to learn what was good wine and what was considered garbage. I’d always relied on the ex-husband’s taste. As horrible as he was to me, he had great taste in wine, preferring vintages. Too bad he didn't feel the same about his women, and had traded me for a younger model.
"The ah...thing is in the back." Darwin waved the hand holding his glass toward the dining area. He rocked on his heels while he sipped the wine, then turned to the direction he pointed at.
“Lead the way,” I said, getting off the couch.
Quietly, while taking gulps of the rich-flavored Sangiovese, I suddenly desperately needed, I followed him past the round dining table and through the tidy kitchen. On any other man Darwin's age, a shy smile would look dumb, but not on him. He pressed his lips together, the corners quirking slightly and producing a dimple on his left cheek which I had never seen before, and directed a coy glance my way.
For the first time in over a year, I felt my heart come alive...not to mention, my other dormant body parts. I tilted the wineglass and emptied the contents in one go when my throat dried up. Playing with the collar of my blouse, I wondered if I was suffering a bout of hot flashes. If he continued to stare at me that way, I’d melt into a puddle on the slate floors. Thankfully, he looked away and pushed open the door.
My relief was short-lived when I entered a greenhouse. How had I never noticed this before? I’d never wondered what Darwin did after he closed the shop. Only assuming he dragged his tired body to bed like me, night after night. But this made more sense. With words stuck in my throat, I maneuvered around greenery on pots and raised beds, ducking under low-hanging vines, air plants and exquisite orchids blooming upside down from sky planters. The temperature in the room was set to tropical, creating beads of sweat on my forehead and upper lip. My shirt stuck to my moist skin.
Not paying attention to the person with me, in front of me, I bumped into him when he suddenly stopped. Darwin reached out for my arms, steadying me before I tumbled on the floor. Such strong hands on my fleshy arms. Avoiding further embarrassment, I made a poor excuse that I drank the wine too fast causing a bit of dizziness. Darwin let go of her arms, then stepped aside.
"I wanted to show you this."
My jaw dropped. Compared to Darwin, I still didn’t know much about flowers or plants, let alone rare orchids, but I knew one when she saw one. It wasn't anything similar to the specie on the coffee table book. The three blossoms hanging delicately off the dark green stem had petals so red that they look like they were bleeding. The petals' edges were frilly, like a woman's flirty skirt hem. Amazed, I raised a hand, forgetting for a moment whose greenhouse I was in. Before I touched the blooms, I paused, my shaky hand hovering over the crimson red flowers.
"They're beautiful." I kept my gaze on the orchid.
"She is." I risked a glance at the sound of his husky voice.
Swallowing a lump that had suddenly appeared in my throat, I asked, "Did you...make it?" Thinking about the orchid Darwin had created for his wife.
With a steely blue gaze on me that would melt any glacier, he replied, his tone low, yet confident and proud, "I did. I've been working on it for almost a year."
"It's perfect."
"It will only grow around this day, Valentine's Day."
I returned my admiration back to the beautiful creation. "What do you call it?"
One strong hand reached out for mine, and Darwin tugged at my hand, forcing me to face him. Darwin intertwined our fingers, and with the other hand, he nudged my chin up. In his darkening eyes, I saw nothing but pure adoration. "Dendrobrium Morgana."
A blush bloomed on my cheeks as Darwin lifted my hand and brushed his lips over my knuckles. "Happy Valentine's Day, Morgan."
For a moment, I was at a loss for words, and once I found my voice again, it faltered when I asked, “You named it after me?”
He nodded, his lips still hovering over my fingers. “I may not be the easiest man to be around with, but if you give me a chance I think I can prove to you I’m worth the work.”
“I…I don’t know what to say…”I stammered. “I think I need to sit down.” I groped around behind me with my free hand.
“Here, why don’t we go back inside?”
“Yes, please.” He kept me close, wrapping my hand around his arm, and guided me past the flowers and plants and back to his kitchen.
“Water or more wine?” he asked once I was seated on a chair.
I fanned myself, blowing air out of my lungs, which had constricted. “Water. I might pass out if I have more wine.”
A deep chuckle escaped from his lips and all I could do was stare at him, wondering what the hell was happening. I watched him pour water in a tall glass and dropped a slice of lemon in it. “Here.”
“Thank you.” I took my time drinking that water. All the while trying to figure out what to do or say next.
“You must be hungry,” he said as he leaned against his kitchen counter, looking at ease. “Do you like pasta?”
“I’m half Italian. Pasta runs in my blood.”
He smiled at my reply and the dimple appeared again. I still couldn’t believe I missed that, but then again, he didn’t smile much around me.
“I made the sauce last night after your left, and the fresh pasta this morning before you came,” he continued talking, and I was so flabbergasted that all I could do was nod at him and watch him move around his small kitchen.
While he boiled the Tagliatelle, he sliced crusty bread on a wooden board, and placed it in front of me on a plate with a small bowl of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. “While you wait.”
“Do you need a hand?” I offered.
“Please, no. You’ve worked hard enough today. Do you like music?”
“Yes.”
He stirred his pot of tomato sauce before wiping his hands together and walking back to the living room. Not a moment sooner, the rich voice of Nat King Cole filled the entire apartment. Still not believing what I was seeing, I squeezed my eyes with my fingers, convinced that once I opened them again, everything would go back to normal. The aroma of fresh tomatoes and basil, and the soothing jazz would all disappear. But I was wrong.
“This is really happening,” I said more to myself, but Darwin had been paying attention.
With a hand on the table, he leaned in and played with a loose curl around my face. “I’m a little rusty. I haven’t asked a woman out on a date since I met Eva.”
A date?
“I get that I didn’t really ask you. I was going to, yesterday, but I found out you were working and I thought, why not just show you what I’ve been working on?”
“But…you’re always grumpy.”
Darwin pulled a seat out and angled it to face me. “I know I’ve been awful lately. You have no idea how much I’ve kicked myself for not treating you better. I admired you ever since I met you. When you came in with your résumé.”
“So that’s why you hired me?”
“I thought you were beautiful. You are beautiful and I you promised me you’d work your butt off.”
“And I have.”
“Yes.”
Hearing the pot on the stove rattling behind him, I pointed it out. “I think your pasta is one.”
“Right. Of course.” He stood and turned, but he faced me again. “You don’t mind staying? For dinner?”
Everything he’d said and done so far tonight had been a huge surprise. I was fond of surprised. I offered him a warm smile. “Well you did name an orchid after me. The least I could do was stay.”
“Tell me about your wife,” I picked up my glass of wine and swirled the contents without spilling. Or trying not to spill. It was another delicious red, full-bodied wine from Darwin’s personal collection.
His eyes crinkled at the corners as he twirled one of my wayward curls around his finger. He leaned in closer, his nose grazing the skin of my neck and goose bumps exploded at the subtle connection, before he sank deeper on the couch beside me.
“What do you want to know?”
I caught my breath. My heart was all atwitter as I took another sip of my wine before placing the glass back on the coffee table, beside the thick book. “Anything, really.” He
Darwin stared at his hands. They were calloused, wrinkled, scarred by small nicks and tears—wounds he had gotten from arranging flowers. He had been forthcoming the entire night. Dinner had been quick and for the most part, quiet but endlessly nerve-wracking. When he served me a chocolate soufflé for dessert in heart-shaped, red ramekins, I knew I was done for. With sugar and caffeine rushing through my veins, we got to talking. There wasn’t anything he didn’t answer, but I chose my questions carefully. I wanted to know more about him. About the man behind the frown.
“She loved plants, flowers, animals, everything she can take care of,” he began, “She had a nurturing quality.” He looked over to the side and smiled at the woman he was referring to. “She’d always wanted to own a flower shop.”
“This was her dream?” I waved my hand around.
He nodded and turned back to me. “I didn’t like staying in one place. We met at a conference in Johannesburg. She was the star of the show, the keynote speaker. A young biologist in the cusp of discovering something that could change the world.”
“A biologist? What were you doing in a biology conference?” I was quite unsure of how to ask my question. His wife had clearly been a smart woman. I could barely stand to read a nonfiction book unless if it was for work or it was a celebrity biography.
“I was a Canadian botanist,” he replied. Pride colored his eyes but his lips remained soft and relaxed. He wanted me to know it had been his past life. “Botanists are explorers by nature. We thrived outdoors. Our lives revolved around chloroplasts.” He laughed so low it was almost a hum. “I argued her speech.”
“You did? That was…”
“Brave?” He took my hand and kept it wrapped in his on top of his lap.
With a quirk of a brow, I smirked and said, “I was going to say stupid.”
He laughed, and his chest shook as he did so. The dimple on his cheek deepened. “You might be right about that. I was drunk. We botanists don’t go out much.” I pressed my lips together not wanting the thought in my head—that he still didn’t step out of the shop as much now—to spill out of my mouth and ruin our moment. “I argued each point of her presentation.”
“And that impressed her?”
He chuckled one more before saying, “No, she knocked me off my pedestal. Eva was a stubborn, intelligent woman, who spent most of her life proving she was right and smarter than most men in her field.”
“It sounds like she was right though.”
“She was. That she was…but instead of telling me to leave her alone afterwards, she asked me out on a date. And the rest, as they said, was history.”
He paused and I commiserated over his loss. He loved his wife. Even now, as he held my hand, I knew he still loved her, and would forever do so.
“How did she die?”
At first, I thought he would retract his hand and tell me it was time to leave. But his grip tightened, and he pulled me in his arms, letting me snuggle close enough that I could hear the beating of his heart. He smelled of patchouli, roses, of eucalyptus and chocolate.<
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“She had ovarian cancer. It had been too late when we found out.”
“God, I’m so sorry.” Tears welled up in my eyes and prickled behind my lids. “How long until...” I let the rest of the words hang in the air. My chest was too constricted for me to say more.
“Seven months.” He paused and reached over for his own wine without letting me go. He had a sip and placed it down again. A little liquid courage, or something to ease the pain?
“You don’t have to say more.”
“It’s fine. It’s not as hard to talk about it anymore,” he said and placed a kiss on top of my head.
Even as we talked about this gut-wrenching memory of his wife’s illness, he was the one caring for me, making sure I was okay. He truly was a unique man, and just as how he was with me, there was no doubt he had been the same, if not more, to his wife until her last breath.
“We tried everything we could, but at the end, she was exhausted. She wanted to rest.” I put my palm on his chest, feeling the thundering inside it. “I was angry at her for a while. Mad that she chose to leave me behind.”
“But it wasn’t like that at all.” My voice caught at the end.
“No, not at all.”
With both my thumbs, I swiped the tears off my cheeks. I sniffed as I sat up. “You couldn’t have been that mad at her. You kept this shop.”
“I had to…it was all I had of hers.” He pulled me back in his arms, and I settled in his warm cocoon.
“You’re doing so well. She would have been proud of all your creations.”
We stayed quiet after that and just held each other.
The rain didn’t relent even as the clock ticked close to midnight. Darwin drove carefully. I remained silent, letting his concentrate on the dark, slippery roads.
I could have stayed longer in his apartment, safe, dry, warm. We could have talked more, a lot more, but as I’d told Nica yesterday afternoon, I hadn’t been on a date in a long time. I wasn’t still sure I could call this a date. Darwin had asked me to see the orchid he had named after me, and I stayed for dinner and dessert and a nightcap.