The Art of Arranging Flowers (6 page)

I
DON
'
T
understand.” Nora is on the phone. I check the clock. She's early and I wonder if Jimmy called her too. I know they are friends and I wonder sometimes if their relationship isn't something more.

I smile at her and she lifts her hand as a greeting. Clementine pushes me along and takes her place under the table.

“So, you want the Valentine special but you don't want it delivered on Valentine's?” She rolls her eyes at me.

I walk over and put my lunch in the fridge and take a cup and pour myself some coffee. Nora has made a fresh pot. I fix it the way I like it, with a little milk, head back to the cooler, just to check on the flowers, see what needs to be thrown out, what must be used in arrangements today, and then make my return to the counter. Nora is still on the call.

“Let me ask Ruby.” And she drops the receiver beneath her chin and blows out a breath. “It's Steven Peters.” I don't know who that is, and the expression on my face gives me away. “Stevie, Maude's youngest,” she clarifies.

I know now. Stevie is in his second semester at a college in Idaho; he's a good kid.

“He'd like to order the special for next week, the bear and the chocolates, but he doesn't want it to be delivered on the fourteenth. He wants it delivered on the seventeenth.”

“But that's not Valentine's Day,” I say.

Nora rolls her eyes again. “I know! That's what I've been trying to explain.”

“But the candy has
Happy Valentine's Day
written on the top of the box, and the bear has a heart on its chest that says the same thing. It won't make sense to send it on the seventeenth.”

She's staring at me as if to say she's already gone through all of that reasoning with Stevie.

There is a pause. I'm not sure what is being asked of me.

“If he wants it delivered on the seventeenth, that's fine. We can deliver it on the seventeenth.” I take a sip of coffee. “Who is he sending it to?” I ask before she has the chance to pass along what I've said.

“Jessica Roberts,” she answers.

“Is it some kind of joke?”

She shrugs.

I reach out for the phone. She hands it to me.

“Stevie, it's Ruby,” I say.

“Hello, Ms. Jewell.” Steven is always very polite and respectful.

“So, you want a Valentine's Day special but don't want it sent on Valentine's Day, is that your order?”

He stalls a bit and I can see he hates that he ever made this call. “It's a joke,” he finally explains.

I guessed right. “It's not a very funny one,” I say. “Haven't you and Jessica been dating a while?” I recall the high school prom from last spring. He ordered a lovely wrist corsage, tiny red sweetheart roses, and a matching boutonniere. She wore a red strapless dress. He wore a red bow tie. Maude brought pictures.

“About a year,” he says. “But this is our first Valentine's Day together and I always get dates for special occasions wrong.” He hesitates. “It's like a private joke. I thought Thanksgiving was a week earlier. I missed her birthday by a day. I wanted to be a few days late for this holiday too. She thinks it's funny.”

“Steven, she really doesn't,” I reply.

He doesn't respond, so I explain.

“She's acting like she thinks it's funny because that's what girls do for the first year they're dating somebody, they act like stuff their boyfriend does is funny, but trust me, nobody likes to think their significant other forgets important dates. See, it'll be February fourteenth and all of Jessica's friends will have gotten something—cards, flowers, candy, jewelry, something—and even though she might remember your little private joke, for three days she has to be hiding from her friends so as not to have to say you didn't get her anything or she has to lie or she's forced to try and explain this private but not very funny joke the two of you have. And Steven—” I wait to make sure he's listening.

“Yes, ma'am.” He is.

“Missing Valentine's Day really isn't funny.”

“Could I send it the twelfth?”

I sigh. “Well, it's better than the seventeenth,” I say.

“Can you deliver it to the school on the twelfth?”

Nora is still standing next to me. She has folded her arms across her chest.

“Yes, Steven, we can,” I answer.

“Okay, that's what I'll do then. I'll send it early.”

“Okay.”

He sounds so confident, so sure of his decision, I don't try to change his mind. I just take the credit card number, what he wants to say on the card—
Happy Valentine's Day, Jessica
, not very original—and confirm once more his order. When I hang up the phone, Nora is shaking her head.

“I thought he was the one boy in that household with some sense. I guess all Maude's sons are missing a little something upstairs.” She taps her forehead.

I know she's referring to Maude Peters's oldest child, who's in prison for breaking into a church, and her middle son, who dropped out of high school to join a group of hippies who came through town last summer. I have to agree with her because I thought Steven was a smart boy, but now, I'm not sure he's any brighter than the other two, just in college.

“He's sending it early then?” she wants to know.

I nod. “But I'm going to add another delivery for Jessica on the fourteenth. We'll be going to the high school anyway and I like Stevie, even if he lacks a sense of humor.”

“But aren't you creating a false sense of security for the girl, making her think her boyfriend knows more than he does?”

I give her a look. “Richard Dell, Kevin Watson, Stan Marcus . . .”

She interrupts. “Okay, okay, I get your point.”

I was naming the men whose wives and girlfriends have gotten flower arrangements before an order was made. The men count on me to remember what they so often forget.

“You know that you spoil the men in this town,” she notes. “There isn't another florist in this state who can be given credit for keeping marriages intact. You're better than Dr. Phil.”

“Yeah, well, it's a shame I don't make his money.” I add Steven's order to my Valentine list. I think about Jimmy and how I'm going to make all these deliveries next week.

Nora reads my mind. “I can drive the van,” she says.

I take a sip of my coffee and turn to her.

“He phoned me after he talked to you. They let him make two calls.”

I raise my chin. I can't think of what to say.

“We don't usually talk about these things, but you should probably know,” she says. “I'm Jimmy's sponsor.”

So that's it
, I think; that's why the two of them seem so close. I knew Nora was an alcoholic too, but I had never considered that she was his sponsor. It does make perfect sense now, though, because as I recall, when I was thinking about hiring Jimmy, she had mentioned that she thought it was a good idea. I guess she figured it would help her keep an eye on him. And yet, thinking about the way things turned out, I'm not so sure it all worked out exactly as she had hoped.

“Do you know what happened?”

She shakes her head, walks over and picks up the broom, starts sweeping. “What always happens, I imagine.”

I wait and I lean in. I realize I've waited for this answer all my life.

“He got thirsty.”

I feel my eyebrows knit together. “That's it? That's what always happens?”

She shrugs. “That's what happens to me,” she answers.

I'm about to ask her something else, something more, when the chime on the front door rings and we both turn to see who's coming in so early.

R
UBY
,
I need some plants to take to an open house.”

Kathy Shepherd walks in the door. I feel my backbone straighten. Kathy Shepherd is a real estate agent. She was the one who sold me the shop. She's also my yoga instructor and she is always reminding me a string is pulling on the top of my head. “Up, up,” she says, lifting my posture every Saturday. She's a little bossy in class but she's all we've got in Creekside. There's a gentle stretching class for seniors, but they're real strict about the age limit because too many people were signing up and the old people complained. Kathy's yoga class is the only one that those of us under fifty can join.

“Nothing too exotic,” she says. “It's the Buckley place.”

I know which house she means. It's a traditional Colonial Revival style and sits on a large lot on the west side of town. Wade Buckley was the town veterinarian until he sold his practice and moved out to Waits Lake at the end of last year. He got ordained on the Internet and does weddings and pet funerals.

“Somebody's looking to buy Wade's house?” Nora asks, and I wait for the answer.

“The new guy who bought his practice. John Cash is his name and I hope he's got a lot of it.”

“A lot of what?” Nora asks. She's not always quick on her feet.

“Cash,” I say.

“Oh. His name is John Cash, like Johnny Cash?”

Kathy shrugs. “He's from the southern part of the state, near the Oregon border,” she tells us. “Recently divorced, I heard.”

Nora glances over at me, giving me that hopeful look.

“Has a lot of dogs,” Kathy adds.

“Well, he is a vet,” I respond. “They're supposed to like dogs.” I turn to glance down at Clementine. She looks up and winks.

“Anyway, I need to borrow four or five,” Kathy says.

I have a deal with the real estate agents. They can rent my plants for ten dollars a day. I know all the agents in the county and I've never had a problem with this business arrangement. It's a good use of my plants and they usually buy one of the spathiphyllum or schefflera arboricolas when they make a sale. For the most part, they're all good customers, although Kathy isn't one of my best. She rents a lot of my plants, never damages any of them, but she prefers to give baked goods to her clients. I suppose she has some kind of arrangement with the Mennonite baker up the street. Kathy is real skinny; she does a lot of yoga, but Kathy also likes pie.

“You want me to give them to you now or deliver them later?”

“Do you mind taking them out there around lunchtime?” She turns to look out the window and I see she's driving her Cadillac and not the SUV. It's parked right in front of the shop. “I hate to ruin my seats.”

“Sure, I can do that,” I answer. I don't recall having any deliveries for today. I was mostly going to make the arrangements that go out later in the week. “You want to pick out the ones you want?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Just get me four and put two on stands by the front door, one on the dining room table, and one upstairs in the master bedroom. Wade left a lot of his good stuff in the house since that lake cabin doesn't have as much room. He wanted to sell everything before he moved, but I told him it shows better to have a little furniture in the rooms, gives it more of a homey feeling, and that house needs all the homey feelings it can get. It's very spacious.”

I think about the Buckley house. It is very spacious. Wade's wife liked to entertain. She died last summer and I suspect that's why he's made such a huge life change.

Kathy reaches into her purse and pulls out a couple of twenty-dollar bills. “Can you leave them for tomorrow too?” she asks. “I want to take a few pictures and I don't have time today.”

I think about the request. I know there are a few deliveries scheduled for tomorrow. It's Jane Clinton's birthday and I need to get arrangements to the community center for a luncheon. I've got a lot to do today, but I shrug off those thoughts for now. I can pick the plants up after I make the deliveries. “Sure,” I answer. “How do I get in?”

She rifles through her purse and pulls out a small plastic bag. There are four keys inside it and she takes one out. “It opens all the doors,” she explains, handing it over. “I'll come by and pick it up later in the week. I also need to buy some flowers for my parents' anniversary party this weekend. I need a big centerpiece and a couple of small arrangements to place around the room. It's their fiftieth. That's gold, right?”

I nod.

“What kind of flowers go with gold?” she asks, and then waves her hand in front of her face before I can answer. “Just make them look like that arrangement you did for Cora and Ralph's fiftieth anniversary party.”

I recall the event she means. It was in November, held in the fellowship hall at the Baptist church. I called the arrangement A Bit of Gold and it had white roses, white spray roses, white alstroemeria, and white lilies, accented with greenery in a golden ribbed Jardinière vase. Kathy attended the party because she sold Cora and Ralph's house when they moved into a condo on the golf course, and she had mentioned then how much she liked the flowers.

“I think that was perfect with the gold decorations.” She pauses to consider what she wants. “Let's see. I'll need a little one for the table when you walk in the door to sign the guest book, the large one for the head table where my parents will sit, and another couple of small ones for where people place the gifts.” She taps her finger on her chin. “Do you have four gold vases?”

My mind is reeling because I have to call Cooper right away. I'm going to need to order white roses. “Um, yes,” I reply, recalling the box of silver and gold vases I bought from a floral show last year.

“Great! Let's put all of the arrangements in gold vases. That should satisfy my sister. She said for me to spend about two hundred on flowers. Oh, and a corsage for Mom and a small rose for Dad, something that matches all the others. Let's go with white, I guess. Will that be about two hundred dollars?”

Nora is punching numbers on the calculator. She does my bookkeeping in addition to helping me clean and work the counter. “Two hundred twelve,” she answers, and I'm impressed that she knows enough about the arrangements to know how much to charge. I give her a big grin.

“Perfect,” Kathy responds. “You have my credit card on file, right?” And she takes back the twenty-dollar bills she had placed on the counter to cover the plant rental. “Just put everything on that.”

I nod. I'm pretty sure she has a Visa card for the real estate company on file with me, but I'm not one to ask about business and personal charges. I let the customers sort that stuff out. I take out my pad and write down the order so I won't forget this conversation.

“So, just get the plants at the Buckley house by two this afternoon. My appointment with Mr. Cash is at three. And then you can pick them back up any time after lunch tomorrow. I'm going to try and take my pictures in the morning. And I'll come by Friday before you close to pick up the anniversary flowers. The party is Saturday evening at the Silver Bear Lodge. We can put those in a box or something so they won't spill, right?”

I nod. I'm making all the notes I need to have for myself about plants and golden vases and white roses. “Thank you, Kathy.” I finish writing and glance up from the counter.

She studies me. “Posture,” she says, and I snap up tall. “And don't forget to breathe.”

I inhale.

“Perfect,” she responds with her teacher's voice. “I'll see you on Friday,” she adds. And she turns to walk out the door.

We watch as she opens the driver's door and gets into her Cadillac.

“I never liked her,” Nora says, and her comment makes me laugh.