The Art of Arranging Flowers

by Lynne Branard

  “What is it with you and all these questions? Is this the wine talking or did that porcupine and that epiphany suddenly make you extraordinarily inquisitive?”

  I shrug because I have no idea why I’m asking him these things.

  He smiles. “This morning as I walked along the lakeshore, I fell in love with a wren and later in the day with a mouse the cat had dropped under the dining room table.”

  I know I appear confused. I never knew Dan had a cat.

  “It’s from Billy Collins, the poet.”

  “Oh,” I respond, still unsure of what he’s trying to say to me.

  “Yes.” He gives me a real answer. “Yes, I have been in love: aimless love, familial love, platonic love, and the best one of all—once I knew what it was to experience romantic love. I have known them all.”

  I nod.

  “And you?” he asks, and I know it’s only fair to have the question tossed back in my direction.

  I think about Stephen Bartlett in tenth grade, his curly blond hair, his lanky stance and perfect chin, the shy way he’d smile. I think about Anthony Jaramillo in college, the lilt in his Shakespeare recitations, the Latin bravado, the dark brooding eyes; Casey Merlin from the library at law school, so quiet and studious, so knowledgeable about constitutional amendments and contractual agreements, his small delicate hands. At one time I thought I loved them all, thought they had something that might fill the emptiness, open wide my heart; but now I don’t know. I’m not really sure I have ever let myself know what it is to feel such a thing.

  He seems to recognize the hesitation and doesn’t press. “There’s still time,” he says, turning again to the stove and the task of fixing dinner, his response jolting me back to the conversation.

  “Is it worth it?” I ask, not sure why I want an answer, what I would even do with what he might tell me. “All the anguish and struggles, the knowing and not knowing, the loss and the turmoil, is it worth all that?”

  I think about my customers. Henry risking everything on the librarian, who only knows the books he reads, the facts and stories that fill his head. Justin, sitting in hospital waiting rooms for weeks at a time, watching daytime television and hoping for a miracle. Stan and his yellow roses for his high school sweetheart, Viola, who left once and came back. The fights and then the making up, the highs and lows, the proposals and weddings, the hospital stays and funerals, all the flowers arranged to say what is either breaking or filling their hearts.

  Dan turns down the heat on his sauce, puts a lid on the skillet, takes the pasta from the plastic bag on the counter and breaks a handful in half, drops it in the boiling water, wipes his hands on the towel that is flung across his shoulder, turns to me, and is suddenly very serious.

  “Loving only once—giving myself utterly and fully without ever really knowing it might actually be reciprocated, losing myself so completely to an emotion, to another person, only having the chance, only taking the chance just once—is my only true regret of this lifetime.” He reaches for his glass of wine. “I should have tried again.”

  He takes the last sip, puts the glass on the counter, and turns back to the stove. “Dinner is ready,” he announces, and I say nothing more about love.

  •THIRTY-THREE•

  HE made me drink grape juice for two days.” Jenny is home from the hospital and has had two sessions with the healer from New Mexico. Dan brought Dr. Singh to Creekside after he talked to both Jenny and Justin and decided she was a perfect candidate for the man who put his cancer in remission.

  “That’s not so bad,” I say. I am able to stand now for extended periods of time. The cast is off and I rest my foot and leg on the seat of a walker while I make my arrangements. Today I’m working on prom corsages. I have orders for forty. Roses mostly, wristlets, tiny buds, pink and red and white, clipped and pressed together along with slender leaves of ivy and pitta negra. There are a few orchids, one or two carnations, and spread all across the table are tiny satin bows.

  Jenny is sitting in a chair across from me. She’s giving Clementine a good rub.

  “It’s better than prune juice,” I add. I know this because I was terribly constipated following the surgery and it was a suggested remedy. I gave it a try but decided I’d just as soon never go to the bathroom again as to have to drink any more of that stuff.

  “Ick,” she responds.

  It appears Jenny has been given the same remedy.

  “What does he tell you to eat?”

  “Nothing yet. Dr. Singh told me that I needed to clean out my system before taking any more food.”

  I look over at Jenny. She’s so frail, so skinny. She can’t weigh ninety pounds. I don’t want to say anything, but it worries me that she’s only drinking grape juice.

  “I actually feel better, though,” she reports. “I don’t have that metal taste in my mouth anymore and I don’t feel nauseated like I was feeling when I was in the hospital.” She shrugs and wipes her hands on her legs. “Maybe this guy is for real.”

  Clementine lies at her side.

  I think about the healer, this Indian man from New Mexico that Dan introduced me to a few days ago. Dan brought him by the shop and at first it seemed he mistook me for Jenny, the one in need of his services. As soon as he met me, he knelt down and touched my leg. I immediately felt a kind of warmth in my calf and down into my foot, but I also felt embarrassed because I was standing and still had my hand out to shake while he was kneeling in front of me. When Clem walked over and gave him a big lick on the cheek, he finally stood up, met my eyes, and took my hand. I have to say, though, my ankle has felt a lot better since then.

  “Well, it can’t hurt to let him try, right?” I ask.

  “Do you really think he healed the astronaut of cancer?”

  I nod. “He says so. I don’t think he has any reason to lie about it.”

  “I feel different when I’m with him,” she says.

  And that piques my interest. “What do you mean?” I combine the two pink spray roses with four blooms of alstroemeria. I hold the corsage up and Jenny nods her approval. I reach over and take the roll of pink ribbon and start to cut.

  She ponders the question for a bit. “There’s just something about him. It’s like the way I feel after I’ve just woken up from a good nap, like I’m rested or something.”

  I consider again how it was when I met Dr. Singh. He is a very centered man, I can say that. “What does he do in his sessions?” I ask.

  “Well, the first time he reached out his hands and held mine for almost an hour. I waited for him to say something but he was just real quiet like he was listening to something inside himself, so I just sat and closed my eyes. He didn’t really say anything then, just told me to drink the grape juice and not to eat anything.”

  “And the second time?” I ask, hoping there’s something more to what this man has to offer than just holding hands.

  “The second time he did the same thing but only for maybe half an hour and then he asked me to think of a time when I felt really strong and he wanted me to tell him everything I remembered about it.”

  I stop making the corsage and listen.

  “At first, it took me a while to think of a time and we sat there for what felt like an eternity, but then, I finally remembered something from when I was ten years old.”

  I wait for more.

  “And then for about twenty minutes he asked me questions. Who was with me? What did I do? What did it feel like? So I told him the story.”

  She pauses, so I have to ask the question.

  “What story?”

  “Okay, it was my birthday and I got a new bike. That afternoon my cousin came over and we rode our bikes down to the elementary school. We were just riding and hanging out and when we rode around to the back of the school, there were these boys playing basketball. They looked like they were about thirteen or fourteen. I didn’t know them. I was ahead of my cousin, and all of a sudden I hear a crash and her start to cry. When I stopp
ed and turned around, I could see that she had fallen and that there was a basketball right beside her. That’s when I noticed that the boys were laughing, and I figured out that one of them had thrown the ball and knocked my cousin off her bike. When I got to where she was, it was like something just came over me.” She stopped and turned to me. “Do you know what I mean?” she asks.

  I nod because I kind of do.

  She continues. “After I made sure that she was okay, I stomped over to that basketball court and stood right in front of those boys. I told them they were jerks and bullies and that if they ever did anything like that again I would kick their butts.” She shakes her head, remembering.

  “And I think they were so shocked that this little girl had threatened them, they didn’t say anything. So I stomped back, picked my cousin up and got her on her bike, and then I got on mine and I stole their basketball. As soon as they realized what I had done, they started chasing us, but we had a good head start and we flew home, both of us scared to death, and we hid in my garage until after dark.” She laughs.

  “It was the weirdest thing but when I realized that they had knocked my cousin down, it was like I became somebody else, somebody stronger and tougher. I wasn’t afraid of any of those boys and they were at least twice my size.” She slides her hands down her legs, smiling. “I kept that ball for the longest time, like it was some kind of trophy or something. Crazy, right?” And she shakes her head.

  I don’t answer. I am thinking about her story, the courage of a ten-year-old girl, the way she stood up to teenage boys, the care she took for her cousin. I think about Daisy and me when we were kids and all the scraps we found ourselves in, all the bullying, name-calling, the way we were always there for each other, the way she made me brave. I feel the sting of grief. “Why does he want you to think about that?”

  Jenny shrugs, bites her bottom lip. “He told me I need to find that strength again. I need to be confident and unafraid of the disease that has entered my body, to be just as tough and just as angry as I was at those boys, to tell the tumors they cannot live in my body, to confront them and take their power away from them. He says I somehow lost that little ten-year-old girl and I need for her to come back, that only she can help me get rid of the cancer.”

  I finish the corsage and start another. I decide to use hot pink spray roses for this one. This one is for Madeline Marks’s granddaughter, Katie Phelps, a young girl who graduates this year and didn’t think she’d go to the prom because she didn’t have a date. At the last minute she’s decided to go with a friend. She called and ordered herself a corsage, so because I like her grandmother and because I know what it is like not to be asked to the prom, I want her flowers to be extra-special.

  “I haven’t told anybody about that,” Jenny says softly.

  “Why?” I ask, adding two green dendrobium orchids to the tiny bouquet.

  “I guess I’m afraid people will think it’s silly.”

  I twirl the finished corsage around in my hands. “Well, it’s not really anybody else’s business,” I say. I wrap the flowers tightly in white tape and squeeze the ends together, adding three pearl pins. “This is about you and your body. You don’t need to worry about what anybody thinks about what you’re doing to try to get better.”

  She pauses and I see her watching the traffic out the front window. She’s wearing a bright yellow, pink, and orange scarf to cover up her bald head. She looks like a bouquet of gerberas, the kind of flower she likes the best. She turns to me.

  “I think he’s right,” she says, and I stop what I am doing to pay closer attention. “I mean, look at me. I’m not even able to think about the things he tells me because I’m worried about what somebody might say about me for listening to a healer.” She shakes her head. “I can’t believe I’m so stupid.”

  “Well, thinking that is probably not very helpful,” I say, but it doesn’t appear she’s listening.

  “I was so different when I was little. Nothing frightened me then. When I think about those boys, I see now they could have beat the crap out of me, but back then I didn’t care.”

  She leans against the wall, stretches out her legs in front of her, clasps her hands, and drops them on the top of her head. She closes her eyes, thinking about everything, I guess.

  And then she sits up and turns to me as if she’s come to some realization.

  “It’s weird, isn’t it, how we grow up and lose parts of ourselves that were so important to us when we were kids? I never used to back down when I was a little girl. I would fuss and argue about anything I thought deserved a fight; I was always asking questions and wanting explanations. I used to drive my parents crazy and my teachers crazy because I wanted them to tell me why things were the way they were. I never accepted anything I was told unless I believed it.” She slumps back in her chair.

  “And then, I don’t know, it’s like I just lost my voice, got afraid of what everybody would think of me and just started accepting everything I was told. It’s like one day I just grew up and turned into somebody else.” She takes in a breath and lets it out.

  “You know, Dr. Singh is right. It’s no wonder the cancer keeps coming back; it’s like I open the front door to it and give it a place to live.”

  I watch her as she contemplates what the healer has told her, the story from her tenth year, the ways in which she lost herself. She sits forward, her elbows on her knees, thinking about all of this.

  “Well, you know what? I’m not going to do that anymore,” she says. “It’s time I make a change.”

  I think about Katie Phelps, her resolve to go to the prom unaccompanied. I hold her flowers close to my face and take in a deep breath, the fragrance of the roses and the resolution of a young woman filling me. I glance back to Jenny, her chin somehow held a little higher. She watches me as I place the corsage in the narrow cardboard box.

  “I guess you’re going to have to steal some more balls,” I say, folding over the top and setting the box aside.

  And she smiles. “I think I’ll just grow my own.” And when she stands to leave, I swear she’s gained a couple of inches and at least twenty pounds.

  •THIRTY-FOUR•

  TWO weddings, homecoming at the Baptist church, a graduation party, and now, Bernie Wilson just called and asked for a large arrangement to take to Cheney for his mother’s birthday on Friday. It is a busy week.

  Nora is billing the accounts, organizing the vases, cutting the ribbon, and trimming the foam. Jimmy got his license back earlier than expected, provisional only for daytime hours, but he is now available to pick up a few necessary supplies as well as make a few runs, and Cooper, who has already made one extra delivery for me, is planning to stop back by on his way from Metaline Falls and let me have any flowers he has left over. Even Will is sweeping the shop and changing the water in the buckets, bringing up boxes of vases from the basement. Everybody is pitching in.

  My ankle is much better, although it swells after a day of standing and it still aches a little at night. It’s been more than two months since the fall, but the doctor tells me it might be four to six months before I’m able to run on it. I’m not sure which patient he has me mixed up with, but I never asked about running; I only need to be able to lean against a table and arrange flowers. Walking is good; Clementine is glad to have me back in shape for that, but I don’t even think she would be interested in taking up jogging at our ages.

  “What are these for?” Will asks as he reaches up and puts the small cardboard box on the counter. There isn’t any room on the design table. He takes out a bag of satin rose petals.

  “The flower girl,” Nora answers. “We just need one of those; you didn’t have to bring the whole box.”

  “Oh.” He stares at it. “I’ll take it back.” He glances down at the plastic bag in his hand. “What’s a flower girl do?”

  “She sprinkles rose petals on the floor before the bride comes out.” Nora takes the bag from the boy.

  He nods
like he understands and then turns to me. “Why?”

  I am working on the Saturday wedding. It’s a small affair: daffodils, freesia, and golden alstroemeria. It turns out that Lou Ann Peterson was as eager to marry Henry as he was eager to marry her. It seems she was carrying her own torch for her most loyal library client, the one who read every book she gave him, thanking her every time. She knew the flowers were from him as soon as she got the first bunch. She had been waiting for him to get the nerve to speak to her, and when he finally asked her out, finally admitted that he had been her secret admirer, she confessed her love for him and they were engaged by the end of the date.

  They’re getting married behind his barbershop, a spot of yard hidden behind a tall wooden fence that I’ve never seen until he took me there last week. I had always wondered what Henry was doing back there, but now I know. He’s been landscaping the little piece of property as if he has been planning his wedding venue for years. He has created a beautiful greensward with highbush cranberry, swamp rose, and red-osier dogwoods. There are tall, brightly colored hollyhocks all along the fence, goat’s beard, lady fern, and small fruited bulrush in small clumps all throughout the garden. And in the northwest corner of the yard, along the rear fence, is his prize.

  Henry has created a lovely pond filled with brightly colored koi. A waterfall, large slate rocks, elephant’s ear, and lotus plants surround it. I was as surprised by his backyard as I was by the announcement of the marriage. It will be a beautiful place for the wedding. And with the reception planned to be held at the library, it is a perfect combination for the bride and groom, and I am making baskets and bouquets of yellow flowers for both events. “Just like sunshine,” Henry had remarked when he saw my first arrangement and what he said he wanted when we discussed the floral arrangements for the backyard and the reception. “I-I want y-y-yellow f-flowers everywhere!”