Forget-Her-Nots (3 page)

Laurel had to nod. She peeked over the bushes, while Kate hunched at her shoulder. Miss Spenser’s laugh, high and musical, rang through the silence. The late afternoon sun glinted off her red hair, and she smiled girlishly as she rocked backward on her heels.

Kate dropped to her knees. “My legs are killing me. What are they sayin’?”

Laurel peeked higher. “I have no idea, but I think she’s actually flirting.”

“Nooo.” Kate bobbed her head for a better view.

The man glanced at his watch. Then, as earlier, he leaned into the vase of flowers.

“He’s sniffing them again,” Laurel whispered and wondered if he felt the flowers, too.

“Sniffin’ what?”

“My—I mean, Miss Spenser’s flowers.”

Straightening, the man put out his hand, and Miss Spenser extended hers. In a chivalrous sweep he lifted her hand to his lips. Miss Spenser stood motionless until he released her.

“Saturday, then. At seven,” he called out in a buttery Southern accent.

Miss Spenser managed a nod. “Yes, Luke.”

The man started briskly toward main campus. Hugging the vase to her chest, Miss Spenser sat down on the porch swing and buried her nose in the blooms.

“Spinster Spenser has a boyfriend,” Kate said in a singsong voice.

Laurel’s eyes were wide. “And he got the message.”

Kate tilted her head to the side. “What?”

“A hope for love and happiness. Remember? That was
the message the tussie-mussie was supposed to send,” Laurel explained. “And now look. Total romance.”

“Like love at first sight,” said Kate as they slinked back to the path.

Laurel shook her head behind Kate’s back, because that wasn’t it exactly. It was the tingling and the humming and the explosion of scent. Something from the flowers—an energy, a power—had moved through Laurel and out of her, awakening romance. “Say it with flowers,” she mumbled.

Once they hit the path, they started running and zipped past the bow-tie man, who was whistling merrily. Tara stood far ahead with her hands on her hips.

“Hey, keep this a secret, okay?” Laurel whispered. “About the flowers, I mean.”

“Why?” Kate asked.

“Pleeease?” They slowed to walking. “What if your
whole
life you dreamed of love, like Miss Spenser? And what if this is her last chance?”

Kate looked at her quizzically. “Okay, okay.”

“Where did you two go?” Tara frowned. “How did you get so dirty?”

Laurel and Kate looked at their matching, mulch-stained knees and laughed in unison. Laurel could practically feel Tara’s darts of disapproval, but she didn’t care one iota. A fabulous idea was germinating in her mind.

B
otanical
prints that had belonged to her mom decorated the walls of Laurel’s small dorm room. She’d also brought her mom’s favorite upholstered chair to campus, because she felt close to her mom when she sat there, as if the chair were hugging her. A textbook lay open in her lap, but Laurel couldn’t concentrate on any history other than her own.

Setting her book aside, she reached for the flowers on her desk. Almost a week had passed, so their scents—those of the mystery bouquet and the leftovers—were faded. Holding the glass vase between her hands, she whispered the words that streamed through her head like song lyrics, “Bright cut flowers, leaves of green, bring about what I have seen.”

Laurel waited expectantly—as she had all week—but nothing in her body tingled, and her fingers felt cool around the glass. She pulled out the dripping stems, repeated the words, and sniffed deeply. Still nothing. She shoved the flowers back into the vase.

If this mystery bouquet
was
carrying a message, then someone else on campus had to have known about the language even before Laurel’s presentation. She knew it was next to impossible that Justin had left it, but she still wished she’d talked to him in the dining hall. He’d stood up for her, and Kate was right—Laurel should’ve thanked him. She had tried to talk to Kate about the flowers a few times, but Kate was almost never alone.

In the room next door Tara played her music far louder than the rules allowed. Not for the first time, Laurel wondered if the dorm mother, Mrs. Fox, who lived near Kate’s room, was deaf. Or maybe her reaction time varied according to how much a student’s family donated.

As Laurel banged her fist on their shared wall, her eyes strayed to the wooden wardrobe, which was stock furnishing in the dorms. Her dad had called it a wardrobe when he’d moved her in, and it made her think of the one in
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
. Its doors were open, and she could see her “special stuff” box on the top shelf. She spread her hands against the solid wood at the back. She didn’t expect the snows of Narnia, but
touching the wood was like a ritual now. She desperately wanted to believe in other worlds—especially in a world where she had tons of friends who weren’t scared off by the sadness she sometimes wore like a hooded cloak.

Laurel dragged over her desk chair and stood on it to reach the white cardboard box covered with large pink roses. Cabbage roses, her mom had called them when she had given the box to Laurel years earlier. Struck by a sudden thought, Laurel leaped off the chair and grabbed her paperback
Language of Flowers
.

“Cabbage rose,” it said. “Ambassador of love.”

Laurel’s fingertips traced the paper blossoms—very persistent ambassadors. Her mom couldn’t have known Laurel would put the birthday letter in this particular box. Her mom couldn’t have imagined writing such a letter when she gave Laurel the box. The cancer had still been hiding then. And yet . . . 

“You can’t be dead,” Laurel whispered. “You’re still sending me messages.” She took off the top and handled the letter gingerly so the flowers wouldn’t crumble into meaningless bits. Her mom’s voice filled Laurel’s mind as she read.

Laurel had read the letter every day since it first surprised her, but one word stood out now:
bloom
. Flowers had been one of her mom’s favorite things. Their restored farmhouse in northern Virginia had been surrounded by an acre of gardens, and her mom was always sending
Laurel to deliver little bouquets to friends or neighbors. Even now—though it seemed like eons since she’d lived there—Laurel could lose herself wandering through memories of that house. Year round, sunny flowers or branches bright with berries cheered the rooms.

Her dad had sold the house only one month after her mom’s death.

“That house
was
your mother,” he explained brusquely. “You can’t expect me—us—to start over in that old place.”

Everything had happened so quickly that it felt like someone else’s life. Her mom had died late in July, and by Labor Day Laurel and her dad were living in a brick row house in Georgetown. Her mom’s garden was sold, bulldozed, and replaced with four McMansions. Her dad had tried to keep Laurel in the same public school with her old friends, but he wasn’t able to once they’d moved. He got her into a private school near Georgetown, but she felt like she was sleepwalking and couldn’t summon the energy to smile or chat or care about clothes. For a while her old friends called or IM’ed, but she wasn’t in the loop. Laurel felt like an outsider nearly everywhere she went.

Her dad had always worked late as a lobbyist on Capitol Hill, but after the funeral his hours ballooned. Laurel wandered the lonely rooms of his row house and
felt like she couldn’t breathe the city air deeply enough. Worst of all, she suspected that the barrage of women who called her dad “to check up on him” wanted more. Laurel begged him to let her board over two hours away at Avondale, where her mom had been happy once upon a time, where her Grandma Cicely had gone, and where her genius cousin Rose was a sophomore. Weeks of relentless nagging wore him down, and she’d moved into her dorm room at the beginning of the second semester.

“‘Love will flower like a meadow,’” Laurel repeated. She couldn’t believe that all this—the roses on the box, the mystery bouquet, Miss Spenser’s new romance—was coincidence, but her mom had never mentioned a flower language when she was alive. It was pure luck that Laurel had seen the paperback in the florist’s window. Her mom couldn’t ever call or e-mail again, and yet Laurel wanted to believe that her mom had found other ways—antique ways—to send messages.

Could the mystery bouquet be from her, too? Laurel looked around the room, trying to see everything with fresh eyes. Messages could be anywhere. Suddenly the room felt unbelievably stuffy. The sky outside her window looked gray and wintry again, but it wouldn’t be dark for several hours. Whoever had created the mystery bouquet had probably gathered snowdrops from the garden, so the red flowers might be there, too. Waiting to
be found. She touched the window to guess the temperature and then pulled on mittens and her winter coat.

Her quick steps crunched across the frozen mulch on the way to the garden. Finding a few snowdrops still standing, she scanned the gently rolling landscape for the color red and hoped the flowers could survive the pinpricks of ice now hitting her face. She was just about to head back when a color caught her eye, and she ran toward a large shrub.

Many of its roselike blooms were lying frozen to the ground, but a few had been sheltered by glossy evergreen leaves. Breaking off a flower, Laurel lifted it to her nose. It had no scent at all, but it was the same kind. She walked around the shrub twice, but there was no marker to tell her its name, its meaning in the language.

Laurel frowned at the stiff petals. Someone had sent her this message, but it might as well have been written in Urdu.

Midway through the following Tuesday, Laurel was walking in a stream of girls when she spotted Justin on the other side of the quad. His black hair was glossy in the sun, and he towered over everyone around him. Her stomach fluttered, and she jumped out of the flow to watch him from the edge of the grass. His stride was confident, but it didn’t seem like arrogance. He was
talking to a guy with brown curly hair, and they were headed away from her. She thought about yelling out his name—
Justin!
—but everyone on the entire quad would turn, and he might not remember her. They hadn’t actually said a word to each other.

Later in the cafeteria Laurel asked Rose why guys were on campus that day.

“Advanced Classical Seminar,” Rose explained. “For Latin geeks. We have a fabulous Latin teacher, so some guys come here for a long class once a week.”

“And it’s the same schedule every week?” Laurel tried to keep her voice casual.

“Yep.” Rose narrowed her eyes. “Spill, cuz. Who’s beeping on your radar screen?”

Stifling the smile that might give her away, Laurel rearranged the items on her tray. “Nobody. I just saw some guys and wondered. I take Latin, too.” If Laurel wasn’t careful, Rose would launch into a frenzy of teasing, but Laurel made a mental note to walk down the quad at that exact time the next week. She’d looked up Justin’s e-mail address and checked out his Facebook page. He’d friended her, but that didn’t mean much.

As the week passed, Laurel kept expecting to hear the latest about Miss Spenser’s love life, but so far she’d heard nothing. Miss Spenser seemed to laugh more often, and Laurel caught her smiling dreamily during
a pop quiz. Rose told Laurel that the new Willowlawn teacher—Professor Featherstone—had come out of university retirement to teach Ancient Civilizations when a faculty member left unexpectedly. Rose was adding his course to her already heavy schedule. Laurel couldn’t wait to give Miss Spenser more flowers she could carry, like ambassadors of love.

When the bell rang at the end of English class, Laurel waited for Tara and Nicole to exit the room first. “Kate,” she whispered.

“Hey, Laurel,” said Kate. “What’s up?”

“I’m dying to know how Miss Spenser’s date went. You know, last weekend.”

“Oh, yeah. I totally forgot,” said Kate, following Laurel to the front of the room.

“How may I help you, ladies?” asked Miss Spenser.

“We were just wondering if you had a good weekend,” Laurel began.

“Like say, Saturday night,” Kate added.

Miss Spenser looked at them over her reading glasses and straightened some papers on top of her podium. “Yes. I had a very good weekend. Thank you for asking.”

That answer was far too generic for Laurel. “But did you have a good time with that professor?” she blurted out, half shocked at her own boldness.

Miss Spenser pursed her lips. “Who told you about that?”

Laurel couldn’t think of an excuse that didn’t involve eavesdropping, but Kate threw her a line. “News spreads like kudzu at Avondale,” said Kate. “You know, that huge vine that takes over everything in its path.”

Laurel had to bite her tongue to keep from smiling.

“I know what kudzu is,” said Miss Spenser. “But who told you about my date?”

Kate tilted her head. “I don’t exactly remember. Do you, Laurel?”

“Not exactly,” Laurel said. “I guess it was somebody. Or other.”

“Somebody,” Miss Spenser repeated. “Or other.” A corner of her mouth edged up.

“You had fun.” Kate shook her index finger. “I know you did.”

Miss Spenser’s eyes were smiling, but she somehow held her mouth straight. “Now girls, enough.” She took hold of Kate’s shoulders and turned her toward the hallway. “This is not
Days of Our Lives
.”

Laurel followed Kate but spun around at the door. “But did you take any of my flowers with you? Those ones I gave you in class?”

Miss Spenser smiled. “You know, I did put some in my hair. Some lily of the valley. They were so sweet, and
Luke—Professor Featherstone—likes that scent.” She placed a light hand on Laurel’s shoulder. “Thank you again for them. It was very thoughtful.”

But Laurel had to know more. “Did my flowers make you feel anything?”
Spinny, tingly, dizzy.
“Like sometimes flowers make me feel all tingly.”

“Tingly?” Miss Spenser’s face reddened. “I suppose you could describe it that way. Receiving flowers gives any woman a certain”—she hesitated—“a certain confidence. Maybe that’s why men have given women flowers for centuries.”

“But
I
gave them to you,” Laurel said.

“Yes,” said Miss Spenser, suddenly confused. Girls were streaming between them into the classroom. “Excuse me. I have to prepare for my next class.”

“For the return of happiness,” Laurel said as she trailed Kate to their math class. “Miss Spenser seems happier, don’t you think?”

“For sure,” said Kate. “Maybe she’ll ease up on the pop quizzes.”

Laurel grabbed Kate’s sleeve just outside their next class. “Please don’t tell anyone about all this, okay? Not yet.”

“But it’s cool. She got all blushy.” Kate’s voice switched to singsong. “Spinster Spenser’s in love. Nobody’s gonna believe this.”

“Please,” said Laurel. Gossip spread
faster
than kudzu on campus. Whatever was happening with the flowers, she wanted to figure it out for herself before Tara—or anyone else—could mess it up.

As the bell rang, she and Kate stepped into the classroom together. Glancing at Tara, Laurel could see that she was taking it all in. Tara’s mouth tightened as she ripped a square of paper out of her notebook for her weapon of choice: the private note. Between geometry proofs Laurel watched Kate open the note and skim its contents. Kate smiled, but Laurel cringed because it
had
to be about her.

After math they had a few extra minutes to grab a snack or switch books. Tara and Nicole flanked Kate like bodyguards, so Laurel sat cross-legged outside her locker and bit into an apple. It was still bizarre for her not to see guys in the hallways, not to sit next to them or talk between classes. It would be so simple for her to find a way to bump into Justin if he weren’t three miles away on another campus.