The Final Arrangement

by Annie Adams

  Alex had nearly put the fire out by the time the fire truck stopped in front of the house. He conferred with the men from the fire department, as my neighbor Sarah came over and sat with me. She told me how sorry she was about the hydrangea bush. I had previously asked for her advice on how to care for it and keep it growing. She knew what it had meant to me. Alex came over to where Sarah and I were standing.

  "They say it was definitely arson. Whoever did it wasn’t too smart about it either. They left matches all over the ground. At least they didn't burn the house down." He put his hand on my shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Quincy. I'm sorry I didn't take the last fire more seriously. Obviously something’s going on. I'll make sure we look into your sister's boyfriend. Is there anyone else who has a grudge against you, maybe a disgruntled customer, or something like that?"

  "You mean besides my psycho ex-family? I haven’t seen them in a while but I saw a red pick up truck passing us when we came around the corner. I didn’t see inside of it, though.”

  The fire captain came over and told us his crew was ready to leave. Both Alex and I thanked them. Sarah gave me a hug and went home.

  "Lets go inside, we need to talk." Alex’s tone wasn’t nearly as fun as it had been in the truck.

  We went in and sat down on the couch.

  "Quincy, I feel responsible for this."

  "For what?"

  "For all of this. If I had listened to you after the first fire, this wouldn't have happened. I could’ve been here to prevent it."

  "We were out together. You wouldn't have been here without me. You shouldn’t feel any kind of responsibility. You just happened to stumble into the situation with the hit-and-run.”

  “No. What if you had been here? What if he plans on coming back later to see if you’re here? I know you don’t want some guy telling you what to do, but I let this happen. Let me stay here on your couch tonight and keep watch just to be safe.”

  My overactive imagination thought this would be a great idea, and I was thoroughly tempted for a few seconds, but then I remembered my big speech about not needing a man for anything. But how bad would being a hypocrite be? It’s not like I could be put in jail for that right? I didn’t need the man, but wanting was a different story. After a little carnal daydreaming I came to my senses.

  “Alex, I appreciate the thought behind your offer, but you’re right. I don’t want some guy telling me what to do. I’ll be perfectly fine on my own. I’ve managed to make it this far by myself, and it’s important to me to keep doing so.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Just let me stay here. I’m a cop for hell’s sake. It’s not like I’m trying to hit you over the head and drag you to my cave. I protect people for a living. Quit being stubborn and do what’s good for you. You can’t be in charge all of the time.”

  “Well it’s my house we’re talking about here, so I think that I can be in charge. Whether I’m stubborn or not, you’re not staying here tonight. Thank you for dinner and for extinguishing the fire. I’ll be sure to lock up after you leave.”

  Alex stood and glared at me, his mouth open with no words coming out. His fists were knotted at his sides.

  “You’re too hard-headed for your own good.”

  I didn’t speak another word. I just watched him leave before triple checking every door and window lock in the house.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  After a night spent imagining what I should've said to Alex, I realized I wasn't going to be sleeping any time soon. At six a.m. I pulled on some running clothes and laced up my hardly worn shoes. As I left the house I imagined Brad Wilkinson watching me with his undeservedly handsome face, but realized he would more likely be stalking at my mother’s house, since Allie had stayed there the last night.

  I decided the feeling of being watched was due to the lack of sleep and I began to jog. The sunlight had just peeked from behind the mountains, and people were already out working in their yards to avoid the skin-crackling high desert sun of the afternoon. I jogged for about ten minutes, painfully realizing it had been too long since the last time.

  I walked the rest of the way. While I strolled, my mind ran through all of the events of the previous days. A colleague had been murdered, my driver and van had been through a hit-and-run, my sister had been beat up by her boyfriend who then set a bag of poop on fire on my porch, and then did the same to my prized hydrangea bush. I’d met a handsome police officer, found out my dead colleague had been cooking the books, I’d accidentally eavesdropped on a love affair, and I had groped a corpse. Pretty impressive for forty-eight hours.

  But I still hadn’t uncovered the secret for winning back the funeral business referrals and until I did, the future of my business was in jeopardy. I needed to think of any leads that could direct me to the right person to talk to. Derrick’s designer had mentioned an older guy, probably Irwin Shaw. As soon as I could, I would pay a visit to the shop he ran with his wife.

  It was still early when I made it to work, so I took advantage of the time to get some bookkeeping done. If only I got up this early every morning to do paperwork, I would be caught up. The time flew by and before I knew it, Cindy let herself in.

  I was in the back design room when I heard the doorbell. I leaned over and peeked around the door to make sure it was her. It was her all right. Her hair was teased and sprayed in an apparent homage to Dolly Parton and the singer's wigs. Her breasts were displayed in a way that might also have made Dolly proud, in a sheer yellow peasant blouse with a generously cut neckline. The black lace bra, which was obviously filled to capacity and then some, added that touch of style that can only be found at truck pulls and state fair breezeways. She completed the ensemble with a denim mini-skirt and brown cowboy boots.

  “Morning, Cindy.”

  “Morning, Quincy.” Her voice rang out nearly in song. She sounded giddy.

  “New outfit?”

  “Yeah, do you like it?”

  I paused to think of what kind of day we had ahead, and whether it was worth answering truthfully or not. She interrupted before I had to make the decision.

  “I went shopping yesterday. I read in one of my magazines that this job is good for at least one thing.”

  “Oh yeah, what’s that? An income?”

  “Ha ha, Quincy. No, working in a flower shop is one of the top ten places to work for meeting guys.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, so I decided to take advantage of something I was already doing, which is working for you, and all I have to do is look like I normally would while I’m out meeting guys. And you get to benefit, because I’m all dressed up for work now.”

  She certainly was. I wasn't going to point out most of our male customers were married or sending flowers to girlfriends.

  "I'm glad that you're being proactive, Cindy."

  She beamed at the compliment, and while it pained me to keep my mouth shut about her outfit, I was proud of her for taking action to reach a goal.

  The phone rang and I answered a call from a man who wanted to pick up an expensive bouquet in twenty minutes. Hooray! I could use what was left of my fresh inventory, and buy some new when the bucket truck came around in the afternoon. The order was unusually large for a summer day; it couldn’t have been better timing for my bank account.

  I went into the cooler and started gathering flowers. With an order that size and a customer who says, “Just make it pretty,” it feels like an all you can eat buffet for a floral designer. You can pick whatever flowers you want to use and you can actually design the best possible arrangement with the prettiest flowers, rather than being stuck within the strict confines of a pre-determined recipe trying to duplicate a picture of an out-of-season bouquet.

  I faced the back wall of the cooler as I pulled oriental lilies, dendrobium orchids, flax, dogwood branches, gerberas and bells of Ireland out of buckets. The fan droned on near my ear.

  “QUINCY,” Cindy yelled. I shrieked and squeezed the flowers to my
chest, breaking the petals of a ten-dollar lily. I looked behind me to find Cindy standing less than two feet away.

  “What?”

  “Your mom is on the phone.”

  Fantastic, only fifteen minutes left now to make this expensive bouquet for a great customer, and my mother wanted to talk. Perfect timing as usual.

  “Did you tell her I was here?”

  “Yeah.”

  Damn. “Okay,” I sighed. “Will you prep that cool green vase with the swirls while I talk to her, and take these out of my hands, and replace the lilies that I just broke?”

  “I guess so.” Such enthusiasm.

  Following Cindy, I ducked out of the cooler doorway, which was custom built with a higher step, for someone who barely broke five-feet-tall. I then braced myself against the wall next to the phone in preparation for the forthcoming conversation. “Hello, Mom.”

  “Quinella Adams McKay.” Not only had she used my full name, it came out of her mouth like a machine gun in short angry spurts.

  “What did I do?”

  “Lorraine Elliot informs me that she saw you at Skinny’s last night.”

  “Mom, I don’t even know who Lorraine Elliot is. If I did I would have said hello, I swear it.” My mother’s legion of spies encompassed a network of ward members, old schoolmates and the multitude of relatives that come with having a polygamist great-great grandfather.

  “Well I don’t expect you to remember everyone, my dear…”

  Lie.

  “I’m calling to ask what you were doing having dinner with a young man who ordered a beer?”

  “Oh for hell sakes, Mother…”

  “Now you’re swearing too? I don’t know where I went wrong with you, Quincy. I just don’t know what else I could have done to raise you. I’m going to call Bishop Denning and make an appointment for us to talk to him.”

  “Mom, you are not calling the Bishop. Besides, why haven’t you mentioned the fire at my house last night? I thought for sure your spies would have followed protocol and contacted you immediately with the presence of a fire truck in the neighborhood.”

  “A fire! What fire? Why doesn’t anyone tell me anything anymore?”

  What was I thinking? The last thing I needed was for my Mom to have something else to worry—no, make that nag about. She would add this to her list of grievances about her rebel daughter Quincy, whom she would ask her Relief Society sisters to help her pray for.

  “Mom, it was nothing, just a neighborhood prank that got a little out of control. A tiny plant in the yard was damaged a little, not a big deal.” She didn’t need to know that maybe Allie’s crazy ex-boyfriend had targeted my house not just once but twice in two days.

  “I’m glad no one was hurt. It’s a good thing Allie was here with Brad. At least I know where she was and who she was with.”

  “She was with Brad?” I couldn’t believe the sound of his name as it came off of my lips. What was Allie doing? I wanted to ask my mother what they talked about since I’m sure she had an ear to the door.

  “Yes, she was with her returned missionary, not someone who drinks beer.”

  “Mother, I don’t have time to argue the virtues or lack thereof of the son of a bitch my sister has gotten herself involved with. And beer drinking is not a sin.”

  “Oh, Quincy. What am I going to do with you?”

  “Think of the Word of Wisdom as more of a guideline. And besides, even though I am an adult, I hope it will offer you just a little consolation to know that I didn’t order a beer myself. But you never know. Your spies can’t be everywhere all of the time. Maybe there’s a six-pack of cold ones sitting in my fridge right now. In fact, go ahead and make that appointment with the Bishop, I’ll bring some refreshments along.”

  “You’re teasing me now aren’t you? You’re terrible.”

  “I’ve got to go, Mom; I’ve got an important customer arriving any minute. Goodbye.”

  “But Quinc…” I hung up before she could continue. The man would be here any minute and I needed to get that arrangement finished before then.

  I was relieved to find that Cindy had prepped things like I had asked and I went to work, slicing furiously. My body was on autopilot, I didn’t notice each individual cut made to the stems of salal and trachelium. I formed the base of the arrangement with greenery, which was my usual habit. I often found myself using designing time for deep thinking.

  I couldn’t stop dwelling on the fact that my mother had always favored Allie over Sandy or me. A rose snapped when I shoved it into the vase and realized I wasn’t heeding the advice of my Aunt Rosie who told me never to project my negativity into the flowers as I arranged them. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about my sister.

  What are you doing Allie? My heart ached to hear of my sister being so foolish. After what she’d been through already with him, and after what we had talked about, how could she stay with Brad?

  “Ow!” I felt a familiar hot burning in the fleshy part of my left thumb. I dropped the knife and saw blood running from the tip of the thumb down to the first knuckle. Just as I had thought of that creep’s name I had sliced a digit instead of a flower stem with the serrated edge of the knife. I had cut myself many times before; it’s just a regular part of the job. But the blood pumped out of the gash where the skin had been filleted open. The pain throbbed with my pulse. This was gonna leave a mark.

  Cindy came over when she heard my exclamation. “Lemme see.” She grabbed my hand and examined the damage. “Eww gross. That looks bad. You’re gonna need stitches.”

  “Stitches? I don’t have time for stitches. If you’re going to be a florist, Cindy, you’ve got to get used to this happening once in a while.” I showed her a little florist’s first aid by cleaning the wound at the sink, and then slapping some wadded toilet paper on it and wrapping it up with pot tape. Adhesive bandages don’t stay on a cut like that while you’re trying to work. Pot tape is made to secure wet floral foam to a container, so it’s water proof and very sticky. It worked perfectly.

  The bouquet looked spectacular when I finished. I did a double check to make sure the blood from my cut didn’t leak onto any of the flowers, stems or leaves. The customer who had ordered it arrived just minutes later. He loved it and complimented ebulliently. I’ll never get tired of that type of customer.

  ###

  I needed a few things from the bucket truck that comes to my shop every afternoon. Keith Tanner, the owner of Daily Fresh Floral Delivery and driver of the truck had been coming to the shop every day since before I took over. Every shop owner in northern Utah knows that if you want to get any information about the industry, you ask Keith.

  If anyone knew anything about the goings on in the funeral flower business and Derrick Gibbons, it would be Keith. He pulled up in his heavy-duty cargo van at the usual time. I walked outside to meet him as he got out of the van. I didn’t want Cindy to overhear my inquiries on the subject of Derrick.

  Keith should be the pin-up model for the all-around good guy. When times are slow, he extends a little credit with the promise of payment later and he doesn’t hold it against you when it’s just plain slow and you don’t want to buy any flowers that day.

  I approached the driver’s side as he stepped out, then we enDerrickd in the strict parliamentary procedure, which must be followed when a transaction of industry gossip is being proposed.

  “Hi, how’s it going today?” I asked. Pleasantries are the first step in the unwritten rules of decorum.

  “Oh it’s kind of slow but things seem to picking up a little bit.”

  “I don’t have any special orders today, but I do need a few every-day things.” Now, according to the dance, he would open the back doors and pull out the tray he had custom built to hold buckets of flowers.

  “So I’m sure you heard about Derrick.” Keith said.

  “Yeah, I heard. It’s awful. I feel so bad for his family.” That much was true. “Did you ever do much business with him?” I asked, in
nocently.

  “I did a fair amount of sales with him. I talked to his designer this morning. Until further notice, she’s gonna keep the shop going. She asked me to come up there today.”

  “Really? I'm surprised. But, I suppose the Hansen mortuaries in the other cities still have services to take care of. That’s the only reason I can think of that they would need flowers. Derrick couldn’t have had very much walk-in traffic in that hole-in-the-wall shop.”

  “I’ve never seen them sell a vased arrangement out of there.” Keith said. “In fact, all I’ve ever seen there are funeral flowers; mostly casket sprays.”

  “What I don’t understand is why everyone is buying from them. The arrangements are ugly and overpriced.” I said.

  “Well you didn’t hear this from me,” this is an obligatory phrase in the gossip exchange, “but Derrick used to talk about his business partner a lot. He never said his last name just Doug.” Keith informed. “I wonder if the partner was the marketing guy for the business.”

  BOOM!

  A blast that seemed to suck the air out of the atmosphere rippled through my body. I reached out and wrapped my fingers around Keith’s forearm in a death grip, while he ducked down like a foot soldier in a foxhole.

  We looked up at each other, eyes big as dinner plates.

  “Holy shit, what was that?” I said.

  “It sounded like a shotgun.” Keith said.

  We paused; remaining crouched for a few seconds, and then looked around.

  “Maybe it was a car back-firing,” said Keith, as we rose slowly. There is a busy street on the North side of the building, but I wondered if a car could have produced the percussion I felt ripple through me from that far away.

  I laughed, “Wow, that was intense. I’m glad it doesn’t happen every time you come around. We might have to change our business arrangement.”

  BOOM!

  A shriek escaped me; Keith exclaimed some kind of oath. I don’t remember what he said; the feeling of my heart bursting from the sudden shock served as a bit of a distraction.

  “Let’s get outta here!” he yelled.