Chapter 1
Springtime hasn't always depressed Leslie McHugh. When she was a girl, she looked forward to the days when the sun would try to stay in the sky just a little longer, signaling everything below to get up and get going: to sprout and bud and bloom. She could even feel herself open up, a blossom, roused by the season's potential. A flower.
And then she started working at Sauganash Flowers and Gifts for ten bucks an hour.
Today she sits at the front counter, flipping through an American Floral Distributors product catalogue, waiting on six o'clock. Behind her, a giant poster of a fresh rose–covered wedding cake fades with each passing year, and there's not much to look forward to. Business has been dead since Easter, so Raylene took the afternoon off, let Leslie close up shop. She sits, her enthusiasm as stagnant as the humid air. She hopes the phone doesn't ring, because if it isn't a customer it's Raylene, calling to make sure she didn't cut out early. Either way, she's stuck.
At twenty to six she ditches the catalogue and gets up to treat the leftover flowers. One by one, she takes the buckets from the cooler: the six varieties of roses, the daffodils and the hyacinths, the tulips. She transfers each bunch into its own new bucket filled with fresh Chrysal solution and, once immersed, draws a sharp knife across the stems of those that look a little peaked.
Afterward, she returns the buckets to the cooler, so that the happy daffodils and the showy purple hyacinths may sit like trumpets and bells, on display at eye level to announce to the customers another glorious day. That's what their positioning is supposed to do, anyway. Leslie, being the one in charge of keeping them alive, finds the whole scene contrived, and very sad. Each flower holds on for dear life here, being treated and temperature-controlled like a corpse until it's bundled or bouqueted and sold to someone who thinks a spray of pastels will brighten up their little corner of the world.
When she's through with the cold-stored flowers, she uses a mister to keep the warm-climate plants hydrated: the zinnias, the completely out-of-season sunflowers. Raylene buys those in the lightest yellow, so customers think of summer instead of fall.
Leslie takes the dirty buckets to the back and cleans them out with bleach and water, the familiar solution no less abrasive to her poor corroded nostrils, her roughened skin. The bleach still stings her thorn-pricked fingers, and she's never away from this place long enough to get the chemical smell from her hands.
At five to six, the front bell rings. Great, she thinks: just in the nick of time, some husband forgot his anniversary, or some woman wants to browse.
When she trudges up front, she wishes she'd have closed up early, because it's not just someone. It's Niko Stavrakos, her daughter's newest boyfriend.
Leslie feels like she should check her hair. "Niko, is that you?"
"Mrs. McHugh," he says on his approach, arms out. "Yassas." He addresses her formally, but his kisses to both cheeks are as familiar as those from any one of her cousins. He's twenty, too old for Ivy, she thinks; too polite, in any case.
Leslie hasn't seen him in a few weeks and he seems taller; plus, he's grown his sideburns, shaved them to clean rectangles that cut his jaw. He'd introduced himself to Ivy at the Heartland Café three months ago, and Ivy said he was "nice." He's more than nice.
"What are you doing here?" Leslie asked him.
"I need to buy some flowers."
"Don't tell me you and Ivy are fighting. I was going to ask her why you haven't been around—"
"It's nothing like that. I'm a busy guy."
"If the flowers are for Ivy, I can tell you she will not be impressed."
Niko scratches at one of his sideburns, tolerant, but like he's already had this conversation. "They're for my mother. She hasn't been feeling well; you know the Greek-mother thing, right? She has too much to do to be sick."
Leslie isn't exactly thrilled to be lumped into the Greek-mother category: visions of her own mother, busy and frumpy, ruin any possibility of feeling attractive.
Maybe Niko senses her annoyance because he says, "Ivy suggested I come see you."
"That's a surprise. She doesn't exactly respect her mother the way you seem to respect yours."
"Ivy's young," he says, picking up one of the cheap plush chicks left over from Easter off the front display, turning it around in his hands. "Anyway, my mother is pretending she's not sick, and I thought I would bring her a little something to keep her going." He tosses the chick back on the display and smiles at her like his mother has nothing to do with it.
How thoughtful, Leslie thinks, careful not to let his smile lead. He watches her mouth as she says, "Let me show you what we have available," and she wonders what he's watching when he follows behind, over to the cooler.
She slides open the door, says, "These Casteras are nice, I just clipped them," and takes a bunch of the slender, beautiful brick-red-tipped roses from their bucket.
"They're nice. But what about these?" He points to the bucket of Madame DelBards, the bright, velvety bestsellers.
Leslie puts all but one of the Casteras back in the bucket, keeping it to convince him otherwise; isn't it just like a man to believe the bigger and brighter, the better.
"The Casteras are very fragile," she says, "but they're worth the price."
"You mean they're expensive, and they'll die?"
"Sometimes the beauty of the thing lies in the moment."
"I don't know, these big ones look nice." He turns the bucket of Madame DelBards around on the shelf, checking them out.
"They do last longer, but you could buy them at the grocery store. The Casteras are unique." She twirls the single rose between her fingers.
"But they die."
"Everything dies, Niko."
"Geez," he says, his hands up, surrendering. "What was I thinking? I'm going to buy my mother roses so they'll die? She'll take it as a bad omen. She'll freak out."
"She shouldn't. I can't imagine anyone getting too worked up over a flower."
He considers the Casteras, and reconsiders. "I better get the ones that last the longest. So they'll be alive until she feels better."
"Fair enough." Leslie selects a dozen of the freshest roses and takes them to the counter, all the while feeling Niko's eyes fastened on her. He doesn't make conversation and she doesn't know what to say; there's something between them, but she doesn't know what.
"You talked to Ivy today?" she asks, the best she can come up with.
"No, not today."
Leslie hasn't, either. She pretends wrapping up the roses takes all her attention.
As she's tying the bow around the box, Niko says, "I'll bet you never get flowers, with this job and all."
"This job, yes, that's one reason." She doesn't say that another would be because these days, Craig is about as romantic as a carp. He blames his job, though he's been a cop for more than twenty years and never this much of a jerk. She hands Niko the box, says, "Ivy's father works a lot."
"Well, it would be silly for him to waste money on flowers when they aren't as pretty as you."
She can't look at him but she says, "Niko," her tone dismissive, embarrassed.
"I'm sorry," he says. "You know us Greek men. We can never resist beauty."
"You know us Greek women," she shoots back. "We can always resist your charm."
She still doesn't look at him. Silly boy.
After Niko leaves, Leslie closes up shop, and she doesn't make much of his visit until she goes out to her car. There, stuck between the windshield and the wiper, is a single Madame DelBard rose.
Copyright © 2007 by Theresa Schwegel. All rights reserved.
