War of the Roses: A Petal Plucker Prelude

by Morland, Iris

It was three days after Jacob had visited Buds and Blossoms. I’d told no one of his moving back to Seattle, although I knew my parents wouldn’t be thrilled. Actually, they hated him for what he’d done to me at prom. My mom had even cursed him using her most powerful crystals; my dad had gone so far as to call him a “selfish little shit.” My dad never swore, so that was saying something.

  So, I had no reason to tell them. Besides, it felt like a secret I’d rather keep for myself—a secret I could hold close to my heart and ponder over in the wee hours of the morning when I couldn’t sleep. I still didn’t know why he’d stopped by in the first place. My more negative side wondered if he had wanted to scope out Buds and Blossoms, but why now? They’d been our direct competitor for years. If they were just starting to snoop around, they were about twenty-five years too late. Then again, things were different now that Jacob was back.

  “Dandelion, I’m so glad you’re here,” said my mom as she hugged me, as if I hadn’t just seen her last Sunday. “Come help me pot these begonias. Your sisters are useless with plants.”

  “Mari is good with plants,” I pointed out.

  “She is, but she says she just got her nails done and can’t handle the soil.” My mom sighed, as if Mari had told her she was disowning the family entirely.

  I went outside with my mom after saying hello to my dad. He was the one cooking dinner; my mom had a green thumb but zero cooking skills. One time she made us pancakes and had forgotten the flour. She’d basically made us curdled, milky eggs that had scarred us all for life. To this day, I couldn’t eat real pancakes.

  “I heard some interesting news,” my mom said after we’d put on gardening gloves. “I heard that boy is back.”

  I didn’t need to ask her who she meant. “And?”

  She shot me a surprised look. “He broke your heart and that’s all you have to say?” She clucked her tongue before picking up a begonia plant. “Move the dirt for me, will you? Apparently, he’s back for good. Josie told me about it. His father had a stroke and wants him to take over the business.” She snorted. “Like a boy like him could run a store like that. He’ll run it into the ground, mark my words.”

  “Didn’t he get an MBA?”

  “So? It’s one thing to know about the business side of things. It’s another to understand the floral side of things. I bet that boy hasn’t grown a plant since he left home.” My mom said the words like you would say that someone hadn’t bathed in ten years—with complete and utter disgust. The statement was immensely ironic, given that Mom had handled the business side of things for Buds and Blossoms since its opening.

  I had no reason to defend Jacob West, yet I found myself doing just that. He had fucked me over quite thoroughly nine years ago. I had a right to be angry, but at the same time, my parents had never liked the Wests to begin with. When Jacob had stood me up for prom, they’d almost been strangely pleased, as if the universe had finally shown me the light. What can you expect? He’s a West, they’d said over and over again.

  “He stopped by the store,” I said.

  My mom froze. “What? Why?” She wiped her forehead, which left a streak of dirt there. “He must be trying to learn our secrets. Did he buy anything?”

  “Mom, come on. He just wanted to say hello.”

  “I can’t believe you’re being this naive, Dani! That boy is no good.” She wagged her finger in my face. “No good, you hear me? He wants to take over our store, maybe buy us out.” She took another begonia out of its plastic container so roughly I stared at her in shock. My mom never handled plants with anything except gentleness. She usually treated them like delicate china dolls. She wouldn’t even step on the dandelions in our yard, reasoning that they had a right to live as much as any other plant or animal.

  “Mom, it’s fine. He isn’t going to keep coming around.”

  “Who isn’t going to keep coming around?” Mari came outside, leaning against the doorframe.

  With her long, auburn hair, milky skin and bright green eyes, Mari looked like something out of a magazine. She’d always been pretty, but when she’d started learning how to become a makeup artist in high school, she’d managed to turn herself into a knockout. Everything about her was perfectly manicured, from her nails to her hair to her clothes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her with so much as a zit. A large diamond sparkled on her left hand. Her fiancé had proposed two months ago, and she’d been on cloud nine ever since.

  I’d always thought her name was too banal for her. Marigolds were cute, but Mari herself was more like a hibiscus: eye-catching and gorgeous, her hair the deep red of the center of a hibiscus. I’d once told her that I’d thought of her compared to that flower, and she’d told me I was silly before going out and buying a hibiscus plant for her apartment.

  I’d yet to understand what Mari saw in her fiancé, David. He was average in every way: average height, average appearance, average bank account. He talked of average subjects (the weather was his number one favorite), drove a Prius, and had a dog very aptly named Spot. He had no imagination; he thought gardening was pointless. He talked to me about the pros and cons of a traditional and Roth IRA for an entire evening once, and I almost died of boredom.

  Mari was too vibrant for a guy like David, but she seemed happy. So when she told us she was engaged, we all acted like we were excited and gushed over her ring. At least he’d gotten her a nice, big diamond.

  As far as Kate, she was more like me, in that she preferred sweatshirts to dresses and didn’t know how to put on eyeliner. The only reason Kate didn’t have a flower name like me and Mari was because my mom had been so doped-up on pain meds after Kate’s birth that my dad had been able to fill in the birth certificate with a normal name. My mom hadn’t been particularly pleased when my dad had told her what he’d done.

  Kate was seven years younger than me and had been an oops baby. It had been strange, suddenly becoming the middle child after years of being the youngest, but Kate was such a mixture of enthusiasm and unintentional deadpan humor that it was difficult not to like her. Even if she’d liked to pluck blossoms from the flowers I had blooming in my window when she’d been little. In a twist of irony, Kate had grown up to have a completely black thumb. I’d been a little worried she was a serial killer when she was younger, but she’d only grown up to be a science nerd instead.

  “No one is coming around,” I said at the same time my mom replied, “That West boy. He’s back.”

  Mari’s eyebrows rose. “Reallllllly?” she drawled. She crossed her arms. “I thought he lived in New York.”

  “Not anymore. And he came to Buds and Blossoms to scope it out.” My mom took off her gardening gloves as she shook her head. “Dani was just telling me about it.”

  Hurt curled inside me—stupidly so—that my mom hadn’t even considered that Jacob had come by to see me. But why would she? The only thing she knew was that Jacob had played a cruel prank on me nine years ago.

  “Who’s living in New York?” This came from my dad, and soon Kate was standing on the porch, the entire family together.

  I groaned inwardly. I didn’t need Kate teasing me about Jacob, and I didn’t need my dad warning me away from him.

  “Jacob West is back. He’s moved back to Seattle to take over Flowers. His dad had a stroke, in case you didn’t know. He stopped by the store a few days ago to say hello. Nothing else happened and nothing else will.” I stood up and went inside the house to forestall further questions. I heard Kate say, “What’s her deal?”

  Dinner was a little awkward after that. My mom kept shooting me concerned looks, while my dad kept asking me questions about how the store was doing. “Did you sell those peonies? They weren’t growing well last time I checked” and “What are you planning to enter into the next competition? You can’t keep doing these weird arrangements. You’ll get pigeonholed. You don’t want to be known as a designer who can only do one kind of arrangement.”

  Mari leaned over to whisper in my ear, “I want to
hear all about Jacob.” She was the only one who had an inkling of my prior feelings for Jacob. Even then, she’d never known the extent of it. It had been too humiliating to confess that I loved a boy who hadn’t really cared about me, while Mari had to fend off boyfriends left and right. But I wasn’t seventeen anymore. I wasn’t going to wallow because, God forbid, some guy only saw me as a long-lost childhood friend and nothing else.

  After dinner, my dad called me into his office, which was more of an indoor garden center. There was a desk somewhere amongst the plants, but it had been hidden long ago. His beloved orchids sat next to the large window that faced south, receiving lots of sunlight when Seattle felt like being sunny.

  I touched a set of tiny seedlings on a chest of drawers. “Brussels sprouts?” I guessed.

  My dad raised an eyebrow. “How could you tell?”

  “Mostly because you always start your sprout seedlings this time of year,” I said, smiling.

  He chuckled. “Of course. Your old man is nothing if not predictable.” He sat down in his favorite chair and began to prune one of his bonsai trees. He’d recently bought a few and had declared that he loved them almost as much as his orchids. “Sit down. I wanted to talk to you.”

  On the bookshelf across from where we sat stood dozens of trophies and ribbons: some were mine, while most were my dad’s. Trophies I’d earned from floral designer competitions as a kid and teenager still resided here, while the ones I’d earned as an adult were at my house. I wasn’t close to overtaking my dad’s number, but I would by the time I was fifty if I kept winning at my current rate, I’d calculated.

  “You remember this one?” My dad stood up and took down a trophy that wasn’t remotely trophy-shaped, but instead a glass lily. “I was sure that girl who’d made the arrangement in the pumpkin would win, but you sneaked by her. You won by ten points.” Pride lit his voice. “The one you did was pure genius.”

  “Oh, I remember,” I said dryly. “You cornered the previous grand champion, and when she wouldn’t tell you her soil composition for her orchids, she almost started crying. I remember, distinctly, security tried very hard to throw you out, but you bribed them with free bouquets for their girlfriends on Valentine’s Day.”

  “A man has to do what a man has to do.” My dad folded his hands. “Speaking of competitions, you haven’t told me what you have planned for the LA show.”

  As a kid, I’d loved having these sessions with my dad to discuss my ideas for a competition. I traveled cities across the country, entering my arrangements for prizes and trophies, and every time I won, I loved making my dad proud the most. But every time I lost or didn’t get first place, I always felt the failure immensely. My dad would look disappointed, give my shoulder a squeeze, and say, “Next time, kiddo.”

  Now, though, I didn’t want to talk about my ideas, because my dad rarely understood them. Our design aesthetics were day and night: he thought I was too outlandish, that I missed the point entirely of what an arrangement was supposed to be. I always countered that his designs were too safe. He would then point out that he’d won more trophies than me.

  He always pointed out that little fact, never mind that he was twice my age. He never took that tidbit into account.

  “I haven’t completely decided yet,” I hedged. It was true—mostly. I was ninety-five percent sure at this point what I was going to do.

  “What about an arrangement with peonies and dusty miller? It could’ve used more greenery and it rightly won fourth place, but I thought you could improve upon the design.” He pulled up a photo on his phone, only to show me one of him lying on a bed, buck naked. The only good thing was that he had his hand covering his junk.

  I let out a screech of horror. “Oh my God, Dad! What the hell?” I covered my eyes and shook my head, as if I could dislodge the photo from my mind. Fuck, I’d see my dad in that pose until I was dead, wouldn’t I? I’d probably go to hell with that memory in my mind.

  He glanced at his phone. “Oh. Yes. Oh dear. Your mother and I—”

  “Do not finish that sentence. Don’t even think it.”

  He cleared his throat, a faint blush tingeing his cheeks. “Anyway. Here’s the photo.”

  I was afraid to look now. What if he accidentally swiped to a dick pic? I’d never recover. I really would die a virgin.

  I looked at the photo—thankfully, it was just an arrangement—and said, “That’s nice.”

  “I agree. You can make a better version of it.”

  I blew out a breath. “I don’t want to do one with dusty miller. It’s safe. Boring. They always look like wedding flowers.”

  “Then what are you going to use instead?”

  “I’ve already put together one with roses and buckeye.”

  My dad grimaced and rubbed his temples. “Dani, I know you’re in some kind of phase right now—”

  “Dad, I’m not thirteen.”

  “—where you think using flowers that aren’t suited for arrangements is somehow more interesting, but we both know it isn’t. Didn’t you get second place last year when you did that one with ragweed?”

  I gritted my teeth. “Yeah, but the judges were total hacks.”

  “I won’t disagree.” His lips tilted into a smile. “Look, sweetheart. You know I just want you to do your best. Take your old man’s advice for once, huh? Thinking outside the box is all well and good, until the box turns into a spaceship and you’re catapulting to the moon.”

  “That metaphor doesn’t even make sense.”

  He patted my hand. “It does if you squint.” He returned to pruning his bonsai tree, effectively dismissing me.

  I kissed his cheek and headed home after saying goodbye to my sisters and mom. I’d tell Mari about the Jacob thing some other time; I didn’t have the energy right now.

  As I walked home, the summer sun just beginning to set, I felt a heaviness settle onto my shoulders. Not just because I’d gotten an eyeful of my dad—I shuddered at the memory—but because I wasn’t sure I’d ever measure up to what my dad wanted me to be. He’d always pushed me to be the best, the smartest, the most ambitious. He’d always told me that my sisters were lovely girls, but I had grit. Gumption. And a thumb as green as his.

  I also just realized that my parents had a better sex life than me. How tragic was that? I had cobwebs practically growing from my vagina and here my dad was, sexting my mom. Did they send each other lewd plant-metaphor sexts? I can’t wait to stroke your stamen. I’m dying to pet your pistil.

  “I need psychiatric help,” I muttered as I climbed the stairs to my apartment. When I opened my door, my cat came bounding toward me.

  “Hey, Kevin.” I picked him up and he started purring. With only three legs and one eye, Kevin wasn’t exactly a looker, but I adored him anyway.

  I thought of Jacob suddenly. Was he alone in his apartment right now? Or with his parents? Or maybe his girlfriend had moved to Seattle with him. My stomach curdled at the thought, which was so very, very stupid.

  Strangely, I wanted to trust him. I wanted to believe that he’d just come by my store to say hello, but I had no reason to trust him. Not really. He was my direct competitor, for one thing. Was he just another Scott or Paul, destined to show his true colors and disappoint me?

  It’s not like you’re going to be dating him, my mind reminded me. So there’s no reason to get worked up over him.

  Jacob West had never been mine and he never would be. I needed to get off the damn spaceship my dad had talked about and get back to Earth before I got hurt.

  Chapter Three

  If you’re thinking my lack of dating experience is because I’ve been pining for Jacob for nine years, then you’d be wrong.

  I had enough self-respect not to keep pining for a guy who’d stood me up for prom. I might have pined for the idea of him, if you want to get existential about it. But did I cry into my pillow every night, wishing Jacob would show up at my dumpy apartment at UW and tell me he loved me?

  Hell
no. The only thing I was crying about in college was the fact that my biology professor refused to grade our midterms on the curve.

  But my dating experiences were always a mess, no matter who I dated. My first boyfriend, Todd, was in my biology class in college, and he wore glasses that had such thick lenses that when he looked at you, he was bug-eyed. It was hard to take Todd seriously when he looked like he had magnifying glasses stuck to his face. But when he asked me out for coffee, I said yes.

  Todd proceeded to tell me all about his collection of Star Wars memorabilia, which would’ve been fine, if he hadn’t insinuated that he’d really like me to dress up as Princess Leia. And not in her standard white dress, but in that ridiculous metal bikini. I didn’t even finish my latte before I booked it out of there.

  I went on a few dates with some other guys—Scott first, then Paul. Scott told me he worked in tech. He had a stable job, good family. He even owned his own home. Until I found out his name was not Scott, the only thing he owned was a tiny, hole-ridden houseboat on Lake Union, and that he really, really wanted me to join this great pyramid scheme with him.

  Paul was the worst, though. I dated him for six months before I discovered that he was already married. With three children. We had been at our favorite Thai restaurant, and I’d just bitten into a spring roll, when a woman—who turned out to be his wife—stormed in, threw a glass of bubble tea into his face, and caused such a scene that the cops were called. Suffice to say Paul and I didn’t last beyond that little nugget of information getting out.

  My friend Anna kept telling me that I chose these guys for a reason. “You subconsciously knew they were creeps and that you’d never have to commit to them,” she would always say. “How about you try dating someone you don’t meet on Tinder?”

  I tried my hardest to vet the guys I dated. I really did. As the years had passed, I developed what I called my Honesty Policy. I tried to be as honest as I could, and I expected the same of other people. Should’ve been simple, right? Except honesty is apparently one of the hardest things ever for people.