Flowers for Someone Else

There are certain days that acquire rituals whether you intend them to or not, days that arrive carrying their own instructions, and for eleven years the seventeenth of September had instructed me to dress properly, leave my apartment before noon, buy white lilies, drive to Greenwood Cemetery, stand beside my husband's grave for as long as politeness toward the dead seemed to require, and then return to the enormous apartment on Park Avenue where almost nothing had changed since his death except me. My husband, Richard, had loved lilies. I had never particularly cared for them. That seemed, somehow, beside the point. He had been sixty-three when his heart stopped while shaving one Tuesday morning, leaving behind two grown children, several investment accounts whose complexity embarrassed even our accountant, a collection of antique watches, and a wife who discovered rather abruptly that thirty years of being somebody's other half does not prepare you especially well for becoming an entire person again. I was fifty-six now. Old enough, according to my daughter, to stop speaking about myself as if life were nearly over. Young enough, according to my son, to horrify both children by occasionally ordering a second martini. And wealthy enough that I could have called the florist that supplied arrangements for every benefit dinner I had attended in the previous decade and asked them to send something tasteful directly to the cemetery. Instead, for reasons I could not explain that morning, I walked. Perhaps grief occasionally becomes tired of luxury. Perhaps I was tired of having other people arrange everything for me. Three blocks from the avenue, between a laundromat and a narrow Puerto Rican bakery whose windows always smelled of sugar and coffee, I saw a little flower shop I had somehow never noticed before. The painted sign above the door read MARISOL FLOWERS , though one corner of the lettering had faded enough that the final S was nearly gone. Buckets crowded the sidewalk beneath it: chrysanthemums, carnations, dahlias, roses, eucalyptus, baby's breath, sunflowers leaning toward passing pedestrians as if asking for attention. I stopped. There were lilies in the window. So I went inside. A little bell rang overhead. Someone behind an arrangement of hydrangeas said, “Give me one second, please, I’m winning a fight with a ribbon.” I smiled despite myself. “You seem confident.” “I’m lying.” A pair of hands appeared first, tugging furiously at a length of cream ribbon, and then the woman attached to them stepped around the display. She was young. Very young, I thought immediately, though not in the vague way women my age sometimes call everyone under forty young; she really was young, perhaps twenty-five, with warm brown skin, dark eyes, thick black curls gathered into an unruly knot at the back of her head, and a green florist's apron over faded jeans and a rust-colored blouse whose sleeves had been rolled above her elbows. There was a tiny smear of soil near one cheek. I noticed it before I noticed anything else. Then she smiled. And something happened to me that I would have considered embarrassing had I been granted time to consider it at all. It was not desire exactly, although desire arrived quickly enough afterward. It was recognition without knowledge. A sudden, unreasonable certainty that I wanted this woman to keep looking at me. “Hi,” she said. “Hello.” She waited. I continued staring. Her smile became amused. “Flowers?” I glanced around us as if remembering where I was. “That would probably be sensible.” She laughed. And that sound, bright and effortless and slightly husky, did something unpleasantly effective to the center of my chest. “I’m Sofia,” she said. “What are we looking for?” “Lilies.” Her eyebrows rose. “Lilies.” “Yes.” “All lilies?” “I wasn’t aware there were controversial quantities.” “There are always controversial quantities of flowers.” She came around the counter and walked toward a galvanized bucket near the window, and I followed her, perhaps more closely than necessary. “White?” she asked. “Yes.” She selected one stem, inspecting it with the seriousness of a jeweler considering a diamond. “Okay,” she said, “white lilies are beautiful, but if this is romantic, I’m going to interfere.” “Romantic?” She looked at me. I looked at her. Something in my expression apparently confirmed whatever theory she had invented because she nodded knowingly. “You’re dressed beautifully, you walked in asking for white lilies, and you look nervous.” “I do not look nervous.” “You absolutely look nervous.” “People generally have the good manners not to tell me.” Her mouth twitched. “Then apparently you needed a florist.” “Apparently I did.” “See? We’re useful for more than flowers.” “I’m beginning to realize that.” She laughed again. I found myself wanting to provoke it deliberately. “So,” she continued, “if this is for someone you’re seeing, lilies are risky.” “Why?” “They can be too formal. Too ceremonial.” “That sounds ominous.” “It can be. Flowers talk.” “Do they?” “All the time. People just don’t listen.” She set the lily down and began moving among the buckets with growing enthusiasm. “Red roses say desire, obviously, but they’re almost too obvious unless you really mean it. Pink roses are softer. Ranunculus says you’re dazzled by someone.” “Ranunculus says that?” “Basically.” “I had no idea flowers were so indiscreet.” “Oh, they’re terrible gossips.” She held up a cluster of pale pink blooms. “These are sweet peas. Pleasure. Gratitude. Sometimes goodbye, depending on who you ask.” “That seems indecisive.” “They’re complicated.” “So are people.” “That’s why flowers work.” She smiled at me again. There it was. That pull. Ridiculous. Immediate. And, to my considerable annoyance, impossible to dismiss. “What would you choose?” I asked. “For your date?” I should have corrected her then. Instead I said, “Hypothetically.” Her face brightened. “For a woman?” I stared at her. She froze. Then she said quickly, “Or man. Or anybody. I shouldn’t assume.” “No,” I said slowly. “A woman is fine.” Something changed in her expression. Not surprise. Interest. Small but unmistakable. “Okay,” she said, and her voice softened a fraction. “For a woman I really liked, but didn’t want to scare?” “Yes.” “Peonies, if I could get them. Garden roses. Maybe freesia. Something that looks like you thought about her without looking like you hired a committee.” “I frequently hire committees.” “I could tell.” “Could you?” “You have committee energy.” I laughed. “I'm not certain that's a compliment.” “It isn't.” She walked toward another bucket. I followed. By then I had entirely forgotten the lilies. “What about these?” I asked, touching one small purple flower. “Lisianthus.” “And what do they say?” “Appreciation. Charm. Sometimes lasting bonds.” “That’s a great deal of responsibility for such a small flower.” Sofia looked at me over the blossoms. “Sometimes small things carry a lot.” There was a pause. Not awkward. Worse. Charged. I was suddenly acutely aware that she was standing perhaps eighteen inches away from me, that I was old enough to be her mother if biology had been impatient, and that neither fact seemed capable of persuading me to stop noticing the warmth in her eyes. She looked away first. “So,” she said, clearing her throat. “Who is she?” And because lies become much harder when asked kindly, I finally answered. “There isn't anyone.” Her hands stopped among the stems. “Oh.” “The lilies are for my husband.” The disappointment—or confusion—I saw flash across her face was so quick that another woman might have missed it. I did not. Then she looked mortified. “Oh. I’m sorry, I thought—” “He’s dead.” The words landed between us. Sofia's expression changed entirely. “I’m so sorry.” “It was eleven years ago.” “That doesn’t mean you stop missing someone.” No. It didn't. I looked toward the window. “Today is the anniversary.” She did not immediately offer condolences again, which I appreciated more than she could possibly have known. Instead she asked, “Were lilies his favorite?” “Yes.” “And yours?” I looked back at her. “No.” She nodded slowly. “What are yours?” The question was so simple that I had no answer. “I don't know.” “You don't know your favorite flower?” “No.” “That seems like something we should fix.” I smiled faintly. “Today?” “Especially today.” She removed the lilies from the counter. I stared. “What are you doing?” “Making you a different bouquet.” “I asked for lilies.” “I know.” “My husband liked lilies.” “I know that too.” “Then why are you removing them?” She leaned both palms against the counter and studied me with astonishing seriousness for a twenty-four-year-old woman wearing an apron covered in flower stems. “Because you’re alive.” I said nothing. “And I don’t mean that in some inspirational-poster way,” she continued quickly. “You should take him lilies if that matters to you. But maybe they don’t have to be the only flowers.” I swallowed. She turned and began choosing stems. A white rose. Purple lisianthus. A spray of soft pink ranunculus. Eucalyptus. Something small and blue whose name I never learned. “What are those saying?” I asked. She continued arranging. “White roses can mean remembrance.” Another stem. “Lisianthus because you stayed.” I frowned. “Stayed where?” “In your life.” I felt my throat tighten. “And the ranunculus?” She looked up. “Those are for being dazzled.” “By whom?” Her gaze held mine. “Whoever comes next.” Neither of us moved. Then she looked down again and added eucalyptus. “For protection,” she said. I could not speak for several seconds. “You’re very young to be this wise.” She snorted. “I’m not wise. My mother was.” The change in her face told me immediately. “The shop was hers?” “Yes.” There was affection in the word and pain underneath it. “She died two years ago. Cancer.” “I’m sorry.” “Thank you.” She folded paper around the bouquet. “I almost closed after that. The rent keeps going up, weddings go to big event companies now, everybody orders online because apparently flowers should arrive in cardboard boxes like replacement printer ink.” I laughed softly. “But you kept it.” “Barely.” “Why?” She tied the ribbon. “Because she loved it.” Then she looked at the bouquet. “And because I think I do too.” Suddenly I understood her in a way I had not expected. The shop was her lilies. Not necessarily what she had chosen. What she could not yet bear to surrender. We stood together in the quiet between customers, surrounded by things meant to bloom briefly and beautifully and then disappear. “I think,” I said, “your mother would have liked this arrangement.” Sofia smiled, but her eyes glistened. “She would’ve told me the ranunculus were too expensive.” “Then I definitely want them.” She laughed through the emotion. I reached for my wallet. She shook her head. “No.” “I beg your pardon?” “I’m giving them to you.” “That is absolutely not happening.” “Yes, it is.” “Sofia.” “Margaret.” It was the first time she had used my name. I had given it to her somewhere during the conversation without realizing how much I would like hearing it in her voice. “You are running a business,” I said. “Poorly.” “Which makes accepting payment especially important.” “This bouquet isn't business.” I looked at her. “What is it?” She hesitated. “A gift.” “From you?” “Yes.” There are gifts whose value has nothing to do with cost, and when she handed me those flowers, wrapped in brown paper with an imperfect cream ribbon tied around their stems, I received something more intimate than bouquets worth ten times as much had ever managed to offer me. “Thank you,” I said quietly. “You’re welcome.” I held the bouquet against my chest. Our fingers touched as she released it. It lasted perhaps half a second. I felt it for the rest of the afternoon. I went to the cemetery. I placed lilies on Richard’s grave after all, bought from another shop because some rituals deserve to be respected even when they begin changing, but Sofia's bouquet stayed in my car. I could not leave it there. That surprised me. For eleven years the flowers had belonged to him. These did not. I sat on the stone bench near his grave and told him, aloud because grief eventually makes embarrassment irrelevant, that our daughter was considering divorce, that our son had finally purchased the ridiculous motorcycle he had threatened to buy since college, that the Yankees were disappointing, and that I had met a florist who believed flowers talked. A breeze moved through the trees. “You would tease me about her,” I said. Then I stopped. About her. I looked down at my hands. There had been women before Richard, although not many and none that my family ever knew about, and there had been women after him too, mostly discreet dinners that occasionally became discreet weekends and then, with remarkable consistency, became nothing, because I had grown accustomed to a life in which companionship remained negotiable but vulnerability did not. Sofia had bypassed all of that in approximately twenty minutes. It was absurd. She was twenty-four. I was fifty-six. She was struggling to save a flower shop. I had spent that morning negotiating terms on a charitable foundation endowment large enough to purchase her entire building. We inhabited different worlds. And still, when I closed my eyes, I saw soil on her cheek. I laughed at myself. Richard, had he been alive, would have recognized the sound. “You’d tell me I was being ridiculous,” I said. Then I thought about him for another moment. “No. Actually, you’d tell me to go back.” That was the irritating thing about remembering someone honestly. They refuse to behave conveniently after death. I returned home shortly after three. I put Sofia’s bouquet in a crystal vase on the table beside the window. I stood looking at it. White. Pink. Purple. Blue. Nothing like the lilies I had purchased every September for eleven years. The apartment looked different with them there. Or perhaps I did. I went to the kitchen. Made coffee. Did not drink it. Answered two emails. Read the same paragraph of a contract three times. Walked through the living room. Looked at the bouquet again. At four fifteen I picked up my coat. Then I stopped. I needed a reason. At fifty-six, apparently, I had become a schoolgirl. I searched my handbag. Keys. Phone. Wallet. Gloves. I removed the gloves and placed them deliberately on the small table beside the vase. Then I left. Halfway down in the elevator, I realized how ridiculous this was. I nearly went back. Then the doors opened. I walked out. The bell above Marisol Flowers rang again at four thirty-seven. Sofia looked up from behind the counter. The moment she saw me, her face brightened in a way that completely justified every undignified decision I had made in the previous twenty minutes. “You came back.” “I seem to have forgotten my gloves.” She looked around. “In here?” “Yes.” She glanced toward the counter. Then toward the display table. Then back at me. “Okay.” I stood very still. She folded her arms. “Where?” “I’m not entirely certain.” “You were holding flowers when you left.” “I was distracted.” “By grief?” I should have said yes. Instead I looked at her. “No.” Her expression changed. The room seemed to become very quiet. A delivery truck rumbled past outside. Somewhere in the rear of the shop, a refrigerator hummed. Sofia slowly unfolded her arms. “What distracted you?” There are advantages to being fifty-six. One of them is that eventually you recognize cowardice before it has time to become a habit. “You did.” She stared at me. “Oh.” “That sounded much more dramatic than I intended.” “No,” she said. “It was good.” “Good?” “Very.” I laughed under my breath. “I did not forget my gloves.” “I guessed.” “They’re sitting on my table.” “That's very far from here.” “Three blocks.” “Tragic.” I smiled. She smiled. And there it was again, that immediate astonishing pull between us, but now neither of us could pretend it belonged solely to imagination. “I came back,” I said, “because I wanted to see you again.” Her eyes softened. “I hoped you might.” “You did?” “I almost gave you my number with the bouquet.” “Why didn't you?” “You were going to your husband's grave, Margaret.” The answer was so considerate that I wanted to kiss her. I did not. That was not what this encounter was supposed to become yet. “So instead,” she continued, “I spent the last two hours wondering whether a fifty-six-year-old woman in a very expensive coat would ever have a reason to come back to a shop where she had already gotten her flowers.” I lifted an eyebrow. “You noticed the coat?” “I work with color and fabric all day.” “It’s cashmere.” “I know.” “Show-off.” “Rich lady.” I laughed. “Impertinent florist.” “See? We already have chemistry.” We certainly did. But beneath the teasing remained the obvious question. “You're twenty-four.” “Yes.” “I’m fifty-six.” “I noticed you weren't twenty-four.” “That is reassuring.” She came out from behind the counter. “I know it’s a large difference.” “It is.” “You’re thinking about it.” “I would be irresponsible not to.” “Good.” “Good?” “I'd worry if you didn't.” She stood perhaps four feet away now. “So think about it.” “I have.” “That was quick.” “At my age, Sofia, I’ve learned not to waste time when I already know the answer.” She laughed. There was my reward. I continued, “And having thought about it, I would like to ask you something.” Her expression became almost shy. “All right.” “Would you have lunch with me?” She blinked. “Lunch.” “Yes.” “As in a date?” I discovered that the word pleased me immensely. “Yes.” Sofia tried, unsuccessfully, to hide her smile. “When?” “Tomorrow.” “I work tomorrow.” “You own the shop.” “That means I work more tomorrow.” “Sunday?” “Also work.” “Sofia.” She laughed. “I’m teasing you.” “You're remarkably brave.” “You came back because you pretended to forget gloves. I have leverage.” “Then use it responsibly.” She thought for a moment. “Saturday. One o’clock.” “I can do Saturday.” “You sound like your assistant just checked your calendar.” “My assistant would be horrified by this entire conversation.” “Why?” “She has spent nine years trying to convince me spontaneity is not a medical condition.” Sofia grinned. “Saturday at one.” “Yes.” “There’s a little Puerto Rican restaurant around the corner.” I glanced toward the avenue. “I was thinking somewhere—” “Expensive?” I stopped. “Yes.” “No.” “No?” “You asked me.” “I did.” “So I choose.” “You negotiate aggressively.” “I’ve had to. You’re surprisingly difficult for someone who came in here asking for lilies.” “And you’re surprisingly bold for someone trying to sell me flowers.” “I gave you the flowers. I’m trying to sell you on lunch.” I smiled. “All right. Your restaurant.” “They make the best mofongo in Manhattan.” “That is a significant claim.” “I’ll prove it.” “And if you're wrong?” She stepped closer. “Then you get to pick the second date.” My heart made an embarrassingly youthful movement. “A second date is already under negotiation?” “It’s an option clause.” I laughed so loudly that an elderly woman examining carnations near the window turned toward us. Sofia lowered her voice. “Saturday?” “Saturday.” “One o’clock?” “One o’clock.” She held out her hand. For a moment I thought she was making the agreement absurdly formal. Then she said, “Phone.” I gave it to her. She typed her number, then handed it back. The contact read: Sofia — Flowers That Talk I looked up at her. “That is extremely presumptuous.” “You’ll remember me.” “I wasn't in danger of forgetting.” The teasing disappeared from her expression for just a moment. “Good.” I left Marisol Flowers at four fifty-three without gloves, because naturally I had not brought them, and without flowers, because I already had the bouquet I wanted. But I had a telephone number. A Saturday lunch. And for the first time in eleven Septembers, I walked home from the anniversary of my husband's death thinking not only about the life that had ended, but about something that might begin. Halfway up the block my phone vibrated. A message from Sofia. One more flower lesson. Then another. Daffodils mean new beginnings. I stood on the sidewalk reading it while taxis moved around me and strangers hurried home and Manhattan continued performing its daily miracle of refusing to notice anyone's private transformation. I typed back: Should I bring some Saturday? Three dots appeared immediately. No. I'm the florist. Then: You just bring yourself. I looked at the words for a long moment. Then I smiled and continued walking. Saturday, one o’clock. A date. And somewhere three blocks behind me, in a little shop wedged between a laundromat and a bakery, was a twenty-four-year-old woman who had given me flowers meant not for somebody I had loved once, but for the woman I still might become.