The Art of Arranging Flowers (10 page)

W
ELL
,
we survived another year,” I announce to Clementine as I lock the front door and flip the sign from
Open
to
Cl
osed
.

She has risen from her resting spot under the table and is watching me. When she sees me grab the stool and put it by the counter, she heads back to where she was, realizing we're not leaving at our usual time. I walk over to the cash register and blow out a big breath, glad the busiest day of the year is done.

Jimmy and Nora just left and even though I'm tired, I still want to tally the orders and check the cooler before heading out. I know I can do this tomorrow, but I haven't added the numbers and I'm curious about the day's total sales. I'm pretty sure the shop was successful but I can't help myself, I want some confirmation that we did in fact have a good day.

I glance around. All of the teddy bears and boxes of candy are gone. I used most of the roses that Cooper delivered and from what I can see, there are only two arrangements left in the refrigerator. The ribbon rolls are empty and I'm running low on green tissue.

I'm happy to see that my inventory is pretty much wiped out. And even though that could be dangerous for other types of businesses, for a florist, emptying the shop of supplies is actually the sign of a very good day. Luckily, I shouldn't need any red ribbon for a while; there are plenty of rolls of other colors, and even though I have used every one I had in stock, I don't usually get orders requiring bud vases during February and March, and with a few weeks before Easter I should have a little break before having to order another large shipment from Cooper. I am confident that there are still enough flowers left for the Sunday church services and birthday bouquets for the weekend, and I never run out of potted plants. I am not worried. I should be fine until next week.

I sit down on the stool and open up the accordion file by the cash register and pull out the tickets. First, I decide that I'll go through the early orders, some of them made weeks ago, making sure once more that I didn't forget or misplace one. I went through this process twice already, but I just need to be confident that I filled all the orders and made all the deliveries.

I am happy to report that after twenty years in this profession, I have never missed a delivery. From the very beginning of running this business I have understood that a florist forgetting to fill an order for Valentine's Day or any special occasion can never really be forgiven.

Most folks are gracious when mistakes are made. They'll overlook pricing problems or misspelled names; they'll not make too much fuss if you forget to add flowers that were suggested for a bouquet. But losing an order and missing the important delivery date, well, that's just a mistake that cannot be forgiven. There is no room in the florist profession for those glaring errors.

I look over the names and recall the reactions I received when I made the deliveries earlier: plenty of smiles, a few rounds of applause, pure delight and pleasure. I discovered I didn't mind so much having to leave the shop and make the deliveries after all. I know now why Jimmy likes this job so much better than driving a bus. Bringing flowers to people is a whole lot more fun than picking up children and dropping them off at school.

I think about the places I walked in with bouquets today, and one thing was the same everywhere I went. High school girls, blue-collar workers, and professionals: the jobs and titles don't matter, women do love their flowers.

I glance through the messages from their husbands and lovers, their fathers and sons.
With all my love.
You are my everything.
Please be mine.
You're the best.
Every note is personal and prized, and as I read these short notes of adoration, I feel the tears gather in my eyes. It doesn't matter how long I do this work or how exhausted I get, every year I have the same reaction. I'm just a sucker for Valentine's Day.

Relieved that I didn't miss a preorder, I straighten the stack of papers and bind them together with a rubber band. Then I place them back in the folder so that Nora can log them on the computer later and then add them to the year's file box that we keep in the rear of the shop. I tally up those numbers. We definitely exceeded our sales from previous years. The teddy bear special worked out nicely.

Finally, I reach in and pull out the orders that came in today, the ones that were given and picked up while I was out making the deliveries. Nora writes down the names of the customers so I can make sure the purchases are added to their lists. She understands that I always like to know who stopped by or phoned in and what they bought.

Henry Phillips had come in sometime during the day and bought the large arrangement that I put together yesterday afternoon, the one I named Charmed and Romanced, created with light yellow roses, pink Asiatic lilies, yellow alstroemeria, and white waxflower, accented with leatherleaf fern. I suppose he was taking them to the library and hand-delivering them to Lou Ann. I wonder about their romance and if the flowers are helping it along.

Justin Dexter stopped by. I thought of him yesterday morning and figured with all that he's been doing to take care of Jenny, the day would just sneak up on him, and I had been right. I was glad to see that Nora had given him the arrangement I had made with them in mind.

I study the ticket and confirm that he bought the Yellow Spring Delight arrangement with stems of white freesia, fresh yellow tulips and calla lilies, white ones, mixed with stalks of green viburnum and graceful tendrils of ivy. The yellow would be good for Jenny, better than red, I had decided, so I'm glad he was happy with my choice, and I hope she felt well enough to enjoy his gift.

It appears as though the orchid did its magic for Conrad because it was Vivian who stopped by the shop after lunch. According to Nora's note, she bought the small but tightly arranged bouquet of hydrangeas, green and pink ones, lavender roses, tulips and green myrtle. It was a more feminine arrangement but still clearly a romantic one. I smile and think Conrad will be pleased.

There's a ticket for Will. I read over the order and it appears as if he came in the shop after school, walked Clementine, and bought flowers. The little boy must have spent all the money he made working last week to buy a small vase of belladonnas, vibrant blue delphiniums surrounding one red rose, and I assume the purchase was for his grandmother, Juanita. I see Nora didn't charge him the full price and I'm glad she knew to discount the boy's order.

I can see Will in my mind's eye sorting through the flowers in the storage room and picking the blue ones. Nora must have put the bouquet together and I'm sure she added a few sprigs of gypsophila, the tiny white buttons that accentuate the darker colors in arrangements. Juanita must have been pleased and surprised to receive her grandson's gift, and I feel the tears well again, thinking about a young boy's gift to his mother's mother, thinking of the tender ways children love.

With this second round of weepiness and knowing I still have one stop before going home, I decide I'm too tired to keep reading tickets. I'm stacking them together, putting them back in the file, confident I'll hear about the day's orders from Nora in the morning, when one slip of paper falls out of the stack and onto the floor. As I bend down to pick it up, I read the name and I suddenly feel an unfamiliar emotion. The tenderness is gone. This feeling is something akin to disappointment or envy; I can't say for sure. All I know is that when I see the line marked
Customer
and read the name
J. Cash
, I don't feel quite so in love with the day.

I stop to study the order. The veterinarian had also made a purchase today. He had obviously come by the shop, but not to see me, as I had imagined was the reason for his visit yesterday, but rather to buy flowers, to buy flowers for someone else. I feel a sudden twinge of that emotion again, or maybe it's more of a pang. I can't say, since everything about this feeling, this reaction, is new for me. But I read the ticket and know right away that he had someone special in mind when he placed the order. I glance over at Clementine.

“Did you know about this?” I ask.

She slides a bit farther under the table so that she doesn't meet my eyes.

He bought the Graceful Heart Bouquet, the last arrangement I made before going home last night, the one that used all the remaining roses, the one I put together so carefully, so deliberately, the one I created without knowing for sure who would buy or receive it. Bear grass pulled into the shape of a heart, tied with purple waxflower blossoms, velvety red roses with pittosporum, and all delicately placed in a ruby-red cube vase, the only one I had, the one Cooper gave me as a gift, the one I studied before filling it with blooms.

Dr. John Cash picked this arrangement to give to someone on Valentine's Day, and even though I am very clear I have absolutely no hold on the man, no ties to him—I barely know him, after all—the thought of him giving my delicate creation to another woman pinches a bit more than I think it should. And although I had not really given it any consideration, “pinched” is not at all the way I wanted to be feeling at the end of this day.

S
ORRY
I'm late,” I say, brushing off the snow from the headstone and placing the tall gray cement vase back in its holder at the bottom of the stone. “I had to deliver today,” I add, confident that my sister understands what that means.

“It'll be more than a couple of months before Jimmy gets his license back, and I can't afford another driver and he can't afford to lose this job.” I reach around for the plastic stadium seat I had dropped and slide it closer, plopping down on it. I wrap the blanket around my shoulders and pull my wool cap down over my ears. Clementine is sniffing something at the base of the tree in front of us. She glances over at me and I nod, signaling that I see her and that she is fine.

“I ran out of the hot pink ones,” I note, reaching up and clipping off a drooping leaf from the gerbera. “Hope you don't mind orange.” I sit back and study the bouquet I made for Daisy. “All the red ones were spoken for.”

Like most of the arrangements I keep at the cemetery, this one is filled with the brightest colors I could find. Today that means orange and yellow and bright gold. Daisy liked her flowers to pop.

“Cooper was late again and I was starting to think I would have to drive down to Spokane and pick up a couple of buckets of roses from the wholesale grower off Champion Street, but he finally showed up at two o'clock in the afternoon. That only left me four hours to get all the orders filled.” I lean back on my elbows.

“Crazy guy. He claims it was traffic that made him late, but I know he was hitting on every florist from here to Moscow. He always thinks Valentine's Day is going to be his lucky day, even though every year I remind him that we are all too tired after this holiday to think about romance for ourselves. The last thing a florist wants on February fourteenth is for some horny salesman to try to get her in bed.” I can hear my sister laugh. I figure she's heard this story before, but she always humors me by not interrupting.

“Did I tell you he kissed me once?” I know this will pique her interest.

I shake my head, remembering how he leaned in, smelling of mints and coffee, how I thought he was only going for a hug and how I leaned in as well, only to meet him lips to lips. I had known him for exactly one month.

“He had his tongue down my throat before I even realized what was happening.”

Clementine suddenly joins me, drops down at my side. She remembers that day because she had to hear about it for weeks. When she knows the story I'm telling, I figure she'll get up again and walk away. Clementine hates to hear the same thing over and over. She doesn't leave, however; she just closes her eyes and sighs.

“I know you would have clocked him, but, well, I was just starting the business and he was giving me ninety days to pay instead of sixty and I needed the extra time, so I just pulled back and started trimming stems of aspidistra. You know me, I acted like nothing had happened even though I'm sure that he got the message loud and clear, and that's the last time he's tried anything with me.” I glance up at the sky. It's getting dark and I count a few stars.

“I'd clock him today, though.”

I think about John Cash and consider telling Daisy about the new veterinarian and the special order he placed sometime during the day while I was away, the tiny spark I thought I felt between us. I study the headstone and change my mind. She'd want to hear every detail and I don't even know them all to tell.

“It turns out Frank Goodrich didn't want any of his teddy bear arrangements. He ordered two bouquets of a dozen roses each again this year. One had red and the other had pink. I don't know who got the pink ones, since he picked them up himself, but I delivered the red roses to Verna Johnston over at the clinic. I think she's a little suspicious of Frank since she took a long time reading the card. I stood there a minute just to be polite, but when I got the feeling she might ask me questions about Frank and his flower orders, I headed out.”

I remember how the young receptionist peeked over the card, her dark eyes casting a look of doubt, and how Jane Dryer, her coworker, walked over to the counter and stuck her face in the bouquet. “Someone must really love you,” was the last thing I heard before clearing out.

There are things florists know that we must take to our graves. I glance up at where I'm sitting. “Or maybe to our sisters' graves,” I say as a joke.

“Jenny isn't doing well.” I change the subject and lean forward, pulling my legs under me. “I heard from Louise that she goes back to the hospital next week for more treatments.”

I am disappointed that the narcissus didn't help with her insomnia. I recall Justin stopping by a few days ago saying she was still up every night after only a couple of hours of sleep. It worries me that none of the remedies I send are helping with her symptoms, alleviating none of her aches and pains. The only thing that seems to help any at all is the lavender. She seemed to like the little sachet I made for her to place under her pillow, and I send her sprigs in every bouquet Justin buys. I worry for them both that the cancer is more aggressive than they know.

“Stan remembered to get something for Viola this year, and Henry seems to be smitten with the librarian.” I have a clear picture in my mind of the bouquet the barber bought and again find myself hopeful that Lou Ann is pleased by his affections.

“I think you're right about Jimmy and Nora,” I report, recalling how Daisy once told me about her AA sponsor, how she had an affair with the man for two years before he left town, cutting it off. She said they are reminded over and over in meetings that sex is not to be considered by two recovering alcoholics bound by the twelve steps, but sometimes addicted people just can't help themselves. The shared stories of regret and disappointment, loss, and the day-in and day-out struggles create such intimacy between a pair that the only thing that keeps them from buying a bottle of booze is the wicked desire to be together.

“It's not supposed to happen,” she told me one night in the hospital after I caught her in bed with the older man who she said had been her arresting officer, a policeman who had been the speaker at the meeting she had attended earlier that week. “But sometimes it just does. The sex doesn't last as long as a trip or a buzz, but it sure does take your mind off drugs for a minute or two.” She had laughed when she said it, and for whatever reason I had laughed too. Daisy could find the humor in anything.

I see the longing in both Nora and Jimmy. I just don't know what it's for. Maybe redemption. Maybe to be connected to someone. Maybe it's just the desire to be lost in or to something other than addiction, other than despair. I don't know what the two of them do or even where they go when they leave the shop together, Nora driving them out past Main Street, heading north on Highway 311, the opposite direction from where both of them live. Since Jimmy's been back, I figured it was to an AA meeting in Colville or the evening one held at the nondenominational church in Valley, but I've never asked and they never tell. But I can't help but see how deeply they care for each other, how deeply they want for each other not to be broken.

I study the headstone in front of me, the vase of flowers, freezing now in the evening cold, and I think how we are all broken over one thing or another, how we all limp about, dragging our sorrows and troubles, our failures and disappointments, our perfect loneliness, and how it is when we suddenly open our eyes and see someone next to us dragging their own smashed bones. It seems only natural that we would want to crawl in their direction holding out our hands.

Daisy was an alcoholic and a heroin addict, but she always knew how to meet others, how to reach them, connect with them. I may not drink until I pass out or crave being high, but that certainly doesn't make me better than her because I could never do what my sister could do. People think I'm the smart one, the fortunate one, the unbroken member of the Jewell family, but they're wrong. Even Mama knew how to take a lover and squeeze life out of a roll in the hay. Daisy had so many friends that after she died they lined the walls of the funeral home, poured out the front door and stood under the windows. They all made sure they told me what Daisy meant to them. It was a little overwhelming.

Me? My heart can open to blooms and stalks, delicate petals and green leafy plants; I can love these creatures of beauty. But what I know of intimacy is wrapped too tightly in loss and misery and I cannot risk an unfolding. It is enough to fan the flames of adoration for others, sweeten the romance for someone else. It is enough to caress my flowers and cherish my dog. And without saying a word to my sister, I shake the thoughts of John Cash and a Graceful Heart betrayal out of my head. Daisy is bound to know I'm not telling her everything about Valentine's Day this year, but lucky for me, she can't force me to say anything more than what I have already said.

“I love you, Sis,” I say as I place my hand on the headstone, spreading my fingers cold across her name. “It was a good day. I can pay the mortgage.” And I stand up to leave.

I am almost by the gate when I catch a glimpse of the blue flowers as I'm throwing the beam from my flashlight from side to side. I recognize the bouquet right away from the description I read on the order slip, and I suddenly realize that I am not the only one who visited a grave that day. I walk over and read the name on the newest monument on the west side of the cemetery.

“Diane Norris,” I say out loud, and quietly note the dates of her birth and death. “Beloved daughter and mother.” The small delphinium blooms, blue stars, now wilted and drooped in the clear vase, were not given to Juanita after all. The bouquet that I imagined was lighting up a dinner table or a small bedroom desk, a grandson's token of love, had been bought and left at a grave.

“Happy Valentine's Day,” I say to Will's mother. And I sense Clementine near me. I reach around, feel her warm breath on my hand, and turn to head home.