The Art of Arranging Flowers

by Lynne Branard

  “Palms,” I say, noting the date on the calendar. Madeline always calls in January, a few weeks before Ash Wednesday, to order fronds for the Palm Sunday church service. A small group of women on the altar guild dry and fold them into crosses to hand out the Sunday before Easter. It takes them at least a month to do all the work.

  The Catholics just give out the stems, so Ruth Jane doesn’t call and order until a week before the event, and the Baptists don’t order any flowers for the spring season except the lilies. They don’t care a thing about pomp and liturgy, but they do want their Easter lilies to line the stage and fill the windowsills at the sunrise service, and they do want them full and blooming when they pick them up after the eleven o’clock hour to take them home.

  “We’ll have the usual,” she says, meaning she’s ordering the stripped double palms with the split leaf fronds that I get from Plant City, Florida.

  About five years ago Madeline saw a special offer listed in some church supplies catalog for palm fronds and just ordered direct when she was getting bulletins and communion wafers and qualified for free shipping. When the palms arrived—date palm fronds, stems of short, curved, green tender blades—the palm frond cross committee called an emergency meeting with the pastor and Madeline almost lost her job.

  Stripped double palms are what the members of the altar guild want, and stripped double palms are all I order. Madeline doesn’t try to pinch a penny when it comes to Palm Sunday anymore. She just tells me how many stems to order and who will be picking them up. She doesn’t even ask me if the price went up; she just confirms the number and tells me the name of which altar guild member will be stopping by when they arrive and stays out of it.

  “Sixty?” I ask, flipping through the Lutheran church notebook that I pulled off the shelf from beneath the register.

  I use the computer calendar, but I also like to keep handwritten notes about my customers. All the regulars have their own notebooks: small spiral-bound notebooks, red, yellow, and blue ones that I buy in bulk and keep for five years before moving them to boxes in a back closet and starting over.

  “Sounds right,” she answers. “We never have more than forty in worship, but you know how the altar guild feels about running out of palm crosses. I tried to tell them one time that we could collect the crosses we didn’t use, keep them in a good dry storage place, and save them for the next year, but you would have thought I suggested that we give the organist a raise.”

  I hear her take a breath.

  “That is not how we do things, Madeline Margaret Marks.”

  And I know she’s imitating Clarise Witherspoon. Her voice is high and pinched.

  She sighs. “And that was the last time I made a suggestion to the altar guild.”

  “Probably for the best,” I say.

  “Daphne will pick them up,” she adds, knowing I have her number. “I also need to order two arrangements for Sunday’s service. It’s Lila’s birthday.” That is all the information I need.

  Lila Masterson was the matriarch of Creekside Lutheran Congregation and died about six years ago. Every spring her daughter from California calls, asking to have two vases of flowers placed in the sanctuary on the Sunday closest to her mother’s birthday. She also asks that after the service Madeline takes one arrangement and places it on Lila’s grave and that the other one gets delivered to the nursing home where Lila died.

  It’s a lot of work for a church secretary who only makes eight dollars an hour and lives thirty miles out of town. I started delivering the flowers on Saturday evening and picking them up after church and fulfilling the requests of the bereaved daughter three years ago when Madeline had a breakdown placing the order. She cried and explained that if she had one more thing to do for that church, she was pretty sure that she would be putting the flowers on her own grave. That’s when I stepped in.

  “Has it already been a year?” I ask. I glance over at my calendar. My Sunday was empty but I knew I had been considering a drive to Waits Lake this weekend. I like to see it in the winter, the thin sheets of ice forming along the shore.

  “I hate to ask you to do this again.” Madeline apologizes when I don’t say anything else.

  “It’s fine,” I reply. “I don’t mind.”

  “Put something tropical in the arrangement,” she says. “That costs more, doesn’t it? Birds of paradise, aren’t they expensive? Or better yet, Ruby, charge extra for your services since you have to make more than one delivery. She won’t miss the money. Lila left her a fortune.”

  I smile. “I need to go to the nursing home anyway,” I say. “They have a box of vases ready for me to pick up.”

  “Then charge her at least for the stop at the cemetery.”

  “I will, Madeline,” I reply, knowing I won’t. The cemetery is just behind the church. I can’t really justify adding charges even if it is another stop and even if it means I can’t get to the lake. “But just to ask, how come nobody in the church won’t just pick it up and take the arrangement to her grave after the service?”

  “Phhhhh . . .” She makes a noise as if she’s waving the thought away. “Everybody in this church is too old to walk out to the cemetery with a vase of flowers. There ain’t room on anybody’s walker for a floral arrangement. It would take the entire ladies’ Sunday school class to get out there and put it on the grave, and even then somebody would fall and twist an ankle or break a hip. I tell you, Ruby, this place is nothing but a funeral parlor just marking one death after another.”

  I shake my head. She’s been saying the same thing for ten years. Still, it’s true. Lila was eighty when she died and they all said she was the youngest soprano in the choir.

  “I’ll order the palms and I’ll make sure the flowers are on the altar table Saturday evening. And I’ll stop by before supper on Sunday and take them out.”

  “You’re a good egg, Ruby Jewell, everybody says so.”

  “You’re one of my best customers, Madeline. Got to keep those Lutherans happy even if everybody has to stick their noses in the arrangement to be able to tell what flowers I actually put in there.”

  I hear a laugh.

  “I’ll leave you a little something on your desk.”

  “Oh, Ruby, I must say I do like that part of Lila’s birthday week.”

  I smile. She knows that I always take a small vase and make an arrangement for her before delivering the flowers to the cemetery and the nursing home. I figure that’s the least I can do for a woman who takes care of so many and who always makes sure the church treasurer pays my bill first. “Tell Reverend Frederic I said hello.”

  “If I see him, I’ll tell him. He hasn’t been in all week. He was off Monday and Tuesday for his sister’s surgery in Colville, had a golf game on Wednesday, a pastor’s meeting in Spokane on Thursday. I had to do the bulletin without any help. I just hope he likes the hymns I picked and the opening prayer I wrote for him. If he hadn’t called this morning, I was going to make him up a sermon title.”

  I laugh again. “I’ll see you, Madeline,” I say.

  “See you, too.”

  And we hang up.

  I glance out the window, and the boy I saw before the phone rang is gone.

  •THREE•

  I HEAR the sounding of the bell on the back door. Cooper has arrived.

  “Ruby!” He sings out my name. “Ruby Jewell!”

  And I smile. I love how Cooper thinks of me as a musical number. He walks through the rear of the shop and into the front part of the store. His face is hidden behind an armful of gladiolas. White ones and pink ones, they are beautiful even if they are out of season and grown down in California in a greenhouse.

  “Gladiolus,” he says, his face still shrouded. “Diminutive of gladius, which of course means ‘sword.’ Sometimes called the sword lily.” And he tilts his head around the blooms. “En garde!”

  “They are lovely, Cooper.” I reach out and take the handful of long stalks to smell. The fragrance is slight, easy. “Do y
ou just have the pink and white?”

  He shakes his head and walks over to the glass candy jar that is sitting by the cash register on the counter. He reaches in and takes out a cinnamon fireball. He unwraps it and tosses it in his mouth.

  “We have lavender with the white markings, creamy orange, and red.”

  “Perfect.” It is the week of the Ladies’ Auxiliary Annual Luncheon and they always love the long, thin flowers, iris and glads. They say the tall ones improve their posture, make them sit up in their chairs.

  I take the stalks he has given me and walk back to the cooler. I open the door and place them in the large black plastic bucket.

  “O my darling, O my darling, O my darling Clementine.” He sings the lyrics while he bends down and scratches Clem’s head. He stands up as I walk around the corner, and he takes a seat on the stool next to the arranging table.

  “Will you marry me, Ruby Jewell?”

  And I laugh. I pop him with the stem of myrtle I just picked off the floor. “You were married once before, Cooper,” I remind him. “It didn’t go so well.”

  “Yes, but that was because she didn’t understand me. She knew nothing of beauty, nothing of queen cups and bluebells. You know my heart.”

  I study him for a minute and I almost take him seriously, and then I remember that it’s Cooper saying these things. I swat him again.

  “You cheated on her with the florist from Spokane Valley,” I say. “And when you were engaged to her, you slept with the florist in Moscow. You’re a rogue, Cooper Easterling, and I know better than to believe anything you have to say.”

  He shrugs. “It’s the flowers,” he says with a sigh. “They intoxicate me, make me do things I shouldn’t do.”

  I walk over and straighten the green tissue that is stacked on the edge of the table. “I somehow think you’d be the same guy even if you sold cuts of meat.”

  He shakes his head. “Have you ever seen a butcher?” he asks. “I seriously doubt I’d have the same reputation if I were hauling slabs of elk and sides of pork across the state. I don’t think that cargo lends itself to romance.”

  “True.”

  He holds his hands in front of him, interlocks his fingers, stretches out his arms, and raises them above his head. His shirt rises and I see the gray hairs covering his belly. I turn away. The sight of his exposed abdomen makes me nervous. It’s too naked. He’s too vulnerable.

  “So, who are you working on this week?” he asks as he drops his hands on his knees. His lips are starting to turn red from the cinnamon candy.

  “I’ve still got more to do on Conrad and Vivian,” I answer.

  “I thought you finished with those two. I thought the winter arrangement of the thin green holly leaves and the roses, the large ones, all swirling with red and white, the tiny stems of anemones, I thought they did the job. I honestly thought you were done with those two.”

  I shake my head. “She’s not convinced.”

  “Did you use the light red ribbon?”

  “Twisted it with the gold,” I reply.

  “Clear or painted vase?”

  “White porcelain, one of those you brought from Oregon.”

  He nods, remembering the shipment.

  “Medium or tall?”

  I sigh. I had thought of everything. “Tall.”

  He makes a tsking noise with his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Tsk . . . tsk . . . tsk.” He doesn’t say anything for a couple of minutes and I tap at the edge of the stack of tissue.

  “Maybe it’s just not meant to be,” he finally says.

  “No, I just have to try harder,” I answer him.

  “I have belladonnas,” he informs me. “Fifty stems. I have three boxes of ginger and at least a hundred stalks of September flowers. Freesia, alstromeria, orange and yellow, purple iris, orchids.”

  “Which ones?” I ask.

  “Arandas and Mokaras. Purple and yellow. I sold all my pink in Spokane.”

  I shake my head. “It’s too early for orchids,” I say, mostly to myself, but Cooper is listening.

  “A stem of cymbidium,” he suggests.

  “White or pink?” I ask.

  He smiles. “White with that little narrow lip of purple.”

  “A stem of cymbidium.” I’m thinking. “Elegant,” I note.

  “Slid into a nest of purple dendrobiums.”

  “Thai,” I recall the orchid.

  “Sexy,” he responds.

  “I don’t know, Cooper.” I hesitate. “Vivian scares easily. She hasn’t gone out on a date since her brother took her to the spring fling.”

  “I don’t think that qualifies as a date,” Cooper notes. “Not even in this town.”

  I’m still thinking. “Conrad is just as nervous. He lives with his mother on the other side of the mountain. He only comes to town to work and go to church and bowl on Thursday nights. He doesn’t even grocery shop here. It might be too much, too fast.”

  “How long have you been working on the two of them?” Cooper asks.

  I add up the months in my head. “Six years,” I answer.

  “And Conrad and Vivian are at what age?”

  I shrug. “Forties,” I say, sounding a bit unsure.

  “It’s time, Ruby. They’ve had long enough to try this thing on their own. Give her the orchids.”

  I pause. It is a big decision.

  “You’re right,” I agree. “I’ve been cautious long enough.” I take in a breath. “What is life if not rising to a challenge?”

  He claps his hands together.

  “Bring me the dendrobiums,” I say with confidence.

  Cooper jumps off the stool, landing on both feet. He puts his hands on his hips. “It’s for the best, Ruby,” he says, and bends down once more, giving Clementine a good rub. He rises up, gives me a big nod, and heads out the back door. “You’ll see.”

  I roll my eyes and shake my head. Cooper Easterling will be the death of me.

  •FOUR•

  CLEMENTINE and I have a brief walk around the block and it is after lunch before I have a chance to check the e-mails and see if I have any online orders. There are six. Valentine’s Day is just a few weeks away and the new website that Frank Goodrich designed for the shop has been featuring holiday specials. I’ve already gotten ten requests for the Chocolate, Bear, and Roses Arrangement. That was Frank’s idea; he claims he’s a marketing genius.

  There’s actually really very little floral work involved in this seasonal gift. He found out that I could order a box of stuffed bears from a toy warehouse wholesale and that I could get a supply of chocolates at very little cost from Denny at the drugstore. Denny’s employee, a high school student with math deficiencies, ordered twelve dozen mini boxes of Valentine candy instead of just one dozen and when the mistake was realized, the supplier wouldn’t take them back and Denny was desperate for a buyer. I’m not sure how Frank found out.

  Denny promised to sell the candy to me at a really great discount, which Frank said I could use as a promotion with a stuffed animal and one long-stemmed rose. I thought it was not a bad idea, ordered the bears, bought the chocolates, but then felt bad later when I had to decline Denny after he begged me to hire the employee who had made the mistake. I told him I already had Jimmy to deliver and Nora to help at the counter and clean up. I didn’t need a high school student who couldn’t do basic addition and subtraction. “Besides,” I told him when he phoned, “she’s your daughter. I suggest you get her a math tutor. She’s going to be with you a long time.”

  People assume that florists love Valentine’s Day, that it’s our bread and butter, our greatest money-making holiday on the calendar. And they’d be right that it’s busy; and they’d be right that we make a fair amount of our income on that one day of celebration. But I don’t know a florist who loves Valentine’s Day. It’s hard work and most of the orders are too constrictive. Most everyone only wants the red roses. Traditional. Long-stemmed. A dozen. A little baby’s breath or be
ar grass. A tall clear vase, thick red ribbon. No imagination. No room for personal preference or creative imagination. A dozen long-stemmed red roses in a tall vase with a red ribbon. No deviation.

  I used to try to make people see, try to show them what they really needed, what their loved one really wanted, tried to explain that violets were actually the true Valentine flower, but I got tired of the hassle and the disappointment and the long stares that came from minds already made up. So I just tell Cooper how many buckets of red roses I want, and I collect the tall clear vases from everyone throughout the year and I make thirty-five or forty traditional arrangements.

  Over the years I have, of course, proven myself with the regulars. And they rarely disappoint. “You know best, Ruby,” my old-timers will say. “Just put a little of your magic in it and I don’t care what flowers you stick in that vase.” I do get a fair number of those requests on Valentine’s, and that’s what keeps me from closing down the shop during the second week in February. That and the fact that Jimmy and Nora need the work.

  “You still open?”

  I glance up. Jenny Seal is standing at the door.

  “Yes, yes,” I say, waving her in.

  “How are you, Jenny?” I ask. I remember that Justin, her fiancé, had ordered a small bouquet for her, to be delivered last month. She was in the hospital, on the sixth floor. Oncology.

  She turns slowly, closes the door, and walks over to the counter. She keeps her head down. “I got home from the hospital a couple of weeks ago,” she says.

  I nod. “I’m so glad.”

  “I have cancer,” she announces, and her candor surprises me.

  I nod again.

  “I had my breast removed,” and she reaches up and touches the left side of her chest. She keeps her hand there and she looks like somebody getting ready to say the Pledge of Allegiance. After a bit, she lowers it.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “A little sick, like when I had my tonsils out,” she answers. “Weak, you know, like I haven’t eaten.”