Love in Bloom

by Sheila Roberts

  Hope was in the middle of stocking the refrigerator case when the phone rang for what felt like the millionth time. The frazzled, irritated side of her wanted to snarl, “What?,” but, professional that she was, she said a calm, “Changing Seasons. May I help you?” Until she heard the voice on the other end of the line. “Clarice! Where in the world are you? If the answer isn’t Timbuktu, being held by terrorists, you’re dead meat.”

  “I’m in Vegas. I’m married!”

  Hope blinked and gaped at the receiver. “To Borg?”

  “I am totally in love. He is amaaaazing.”

  No, amazing was that Clarice could run away to Vegas with someone she’d known a whole week. And leave her boss stuck up to her neck in flowers. “Why didn’t you at least call me and let me know you were going?”

  “Well, it was kind of sudden.”

  Kind of? There was an understatement. Clarice tended to take her whole free-spirit thing too far.

  “Borg got laid off and was going down there to check out working at his cousin’s garage. And he found this great deal on Travel-ocity, so we figured, what the hell.”

  What the hell. No job, no money, just jump and hope a net appears. It sure took all kinds of people to make the world spin. And thanks to Clarice, Hope’s was going to be spinning like crazy.

  “We’re staying at the Bellagio,” Clarice continued. “Borg used his whole last paycheck for this. Isn’t that sweet? You should see the fountain. It’s awesome. This whole place is awesome.”

  Hope tightened the phone ear bud and went back to her birthday arrangement. “I’ve heard it’s fabulous.”

  “And the shopping. Oh, my God. We are having so much fun. I’m so happy,” Clarice ended on a squeal.

  Hope couldn’t help smiling. Clarice knew how to live in the moment, that was for sure. She just wished Clarice was living in the moment here at the shop, helping her. “Well, I wish you both the best. Good luck. And let me know where to send your last check.”

  “Thanks. You’re the best. Speaking of luck, I’ve gotta get back to the slots. Take care. And, Hope?”

  “Hmm?” Hope said absently, her mind already on the mountain of orders still waiting to be filled.

  “Go for it. Find somebody and just . . . go for it.” Before Hope could respond, Clarice was talking to Mr. Wonderful. “Hey, baby. What? You lost how much? Damn.” To Hope, “Gotta go!” Then the line went dead.

  The bell over the shop door jingled and a familiar voice warbled, “I’m here to save the day.”

  Thank God. Help. “I’m in the back,” Hope called.

  A moment later, the red velvet curtains partitioning off the work room parted and through them stepped her little sister, the reincarnation of Scarlett O’Hara, only with blond hair and bigger boobs. She was wearing jeans, boots, and a black leather jacket over layers of style.

  She blew over to Hope and hugged her, enveloping Hope in a mist of DKNY perfume. Bobbi never could put on perfume with a light hand. The parade of men who chased her never seemed to mind.

  Normally Hope wouldn’t, either. But when she was going through chemo the smell of perfume had made her sick. It still did a little. Now she had to be careful around the thing she loved the most: flowers. She still couldn’t come close to the most potent ones like stargazer lilies. And selling potpourri and scented candles was not an option yet, either.

  She pulled away and tried not to make a face.

  “What?” Bobbi’s eyebrows rose with sudden understanding. “The perfume? You can smell it?”

  “Um.”

  “Sorry. If I’d known I was going to be coming here, I wouldn’t have put any on. I’ll wash it off and go perfume-naked the rest of the day, I promise.”

  Hope nodded. “Thanks. I hate to cramp your style.”

  “Nothing cramps my style,” Bobbi said with a grin.

  “Well, that’s good to know, ’cause if you kept dousing yourself with that stuff, I’m afraid I’d have to lock you in the cooler.”

  Bobbi stuck her tongue out and went off to de-scent herself.

  “Thanks for bailing me out,” Hope said when she returned.

  “No problem. I’d have just sat around and ate chocolate or something anyway. That’s the problem with working nights. You’re home all day with nothing to do but fold your laundry and eat.”

  Who was Bobbi kidding? She never stayed home for long. She was always out, either having coffee with a friend or lunch with some man she’d met at the Last Resort, where she worked as a cocktail waitress while she tried to figure out what she really wanted to do with the rest of her life.

  Bobbi plopped her purse under the work counter. “So, how many million corsages do we have left to make?”

  The phone rang. “Ask me after this call,” Hope said, and took the order. “We’re going to be here till midnight,” she groaned when she hung up.

  “You’re going to be here till midnight,” Bobbi corrected her, starting on a corsage. “By midnight, I’ll be serving drinks and dodging losers trying to cop a feel.” She heaved a sigh and shook out the silver bangles at her wrist. “I don’t know how long I’m going to last over there.”

  What to say to that? When it came to careers, Bobbi tended to have a short attention span. In fact, when it came to most things she didn’t have a very long attention span. She started books but never finished them (unless they were romance novels, and even those had to be short), and she tried on different hobbies like they were shoes. So far she’d tried hiking (with one of her buff boyfriends—she’d hiked through a nest of wasps and that had ended that), cycling (“Boring,” she decided), French cooking (she almost set the kitchen on fire), and knitting (it took too long to see results). Her relationships didn’t last long, either—not surprising, considering the undependable guys she picked. If a Hollywood producer decided to make another Legally Blonde movie, Bobbi would make the perfect star. She wouldn’t even need a script. The producers could just follow her around all day. Legally Blonde: The Reality Show. And it would be a hit because everyone would love her.

  “What we don’t get done today, we’ll finish tomorrow.” Bobbi put a hand over her heart. “I pledge to make sure that no Heart Lake High School dance queen goes without her flowers.” She gave a stack of pink tissue paper a dramatic tug and managed to knock over a container of carnations in the process. “Oops. Don’t worry. I’ll get it,” she said, reaching for the paper towels.

  Maybe calling her sister for help hadn’t been such a good idea.

  “Don’t worry,” Bobbi assured Hope, as if reading her mind. “I’ll get into the rhythm here in a minute.”

  “It’s all good,” lied Hope.

  “So, have you heard from Clarice yet?”

  “She eloped to Vegas.”

  “Oh, fun!” cried Bobbi. “I so need to go to Vegas. I hear the shopping there is incredible.”

  “You wouldn’t go with someone you’d known only a week would you?”

  Bobbi gave a little shrug. “You don’t need years to know if it’s right.”

  This coming from the woman who’d had one starter marriage and six boyfriends in the last three years. Talk about starting your twenties with a bang. “Sometimes you worry me, Bobs.”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Bobbi said. “Even though my relationships haven’t worked out, I still believe in love at first sight. I just have this way of killing it before it can grow.”

  “I hate it when you talk like it’s all your fault that things didn’t work out with those bozos. It takes two to kill love,” Hope said, snapping the plastic container shut over a carnation wrist corsage. “You just haven’t found the right man yet.”

  Bobbi sighed. “I need to quit dating losers.”

  Hallelujah, thought Hope. It’s about time.

  “I need someone who’s nice. And responsible. Someone who doesn’t just want to get into my pants.”

  “Well, for that he’d have to be gay,” teased Hope.

  Bobbi g
ave the florist wire holding her carnations together a vicious twist. “I hate men. They only want one thing. Nobody ever cares about your mind.”

  “Your mind is mostly on The Bachelor and People magazine. Most guys aren’t into that kind of thing,” Hope said.

  “I like other things,” Bobbi protested. “I like dancing and shopping and . . . all kinds of stuff.”

  “Soap operas and romance novels,” Hope supplied.

  “So, what’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing. I’m just not sure those are subjects most men are interested in talking about.”

  The shop bell summoned Hope to the front of the shop, and she emerged to find Jason Wells, the hunk, standing in front of the refrigerator case, hands shoved into his jeans back pockets, looking at her premade arrangements. Her body had an instant high-voltage reaction. What cruel joke of fate was this, anyway? Of all the flower joints in the world, he has to walk into mine.

  “You’re back,” she said. Real professional, Hope.

  He smiled at her. It was a friendlier smile than what she’d seen the day before, maybe even a mildly interested smile. “The flowers for my mom were a hit. Now I need something to make a woman feel better.”

  Was he kidding? All he’d have to do was walk into a room. “Can you give me some details?” Who’s the woman, your girlfriend? Like it mattered. She was not in the market for a man. But if she was, she’d take this one in a heartbeat.

  “You can handle having flowers delivered in another state, right?”

  “Sure. We’re an FTD florist,” Hope said, moving to her computer. “What’s the occasion?”

  “Well.” He cleared his throat. “It’s not exactly an occasion.”

  She raised her eyebrows and looked at him.

  “They’re for . . .” He stopped mid-sentence, the words falling from his open jaw.

  Hope didn’t have to turn around to see what he was looking at. She knew. Bobbi had that effect on men.

  “Hi,” she said from behind Hope. What was Bobbi doing out here anyway? Why wasn’t she in the back room where she belonged, toiling away on corsages?

  Jason closed his mouth and managed a feeble, “Hi.”

  Hope tapped the keyboard impatiently with her fingers. “The flowers are for?” she prompted, trying to return some of the oxygen her sister had just sucked out of the room.

  He cleared his throat again. “My . . .” He shook his head as if trying to restart his brain. “They’re for my sister.”

  “For her birthday?” asked Hope.

  “No, just because she needs ’em.”

  “What a nice brother. Sending flowers to your sister,” cooed Bobbi.

  For a flash, Hope had thought he’d just made up an excuse to come in and see her again. Maybe he had. But now he only had eyes for her sister. She could feel a weed of jealousy growing in her the size of a sunflower. Yank that out right now. You can’t have him anyway.

  “She broke up with her fiancé,” Jason said, eyeing Bobbi. “She feels like crap.”

  “Boy, I know the feeling,” muttered Bobbi.

  Jason moved closer to the counter where Bobbi stood next to Hope. “I bet you’ve never had that problem.”

  She shrugged. “It always hurts to break up.”

  Hope inserted herself into the conversation. “How much would you like to spend?”

  “This man looks like he’s got a big heart. I bet if it’s for his sister, he doesn’t care,” said Bobbi, and Jason’s face took on a slightly red tint. Gorgeous as he was, he should be used to flattery from women. His embarrassment didn’t stop him from smiling at Bobbi. It wasn’t a casual smile. It wasn’t a mildly interested one, either. It was the kind of smile ignited by the sparks of high-voltage sexual attraction.

  “I just want something nice that will make her feel good,” he told Hope. “Have you got a flower for that?”

  “Let’s see,” she said, trying to ignore the sudden desire to give her attention-stealing sister poison ivy. A song from her favorite old movie, White Christmas, came to mind. “Sisters, sisters,” mocked Rosemary Clooney.

  You can’t have him, she reminded herself, so why not let Bobbi have him? Because even though he wouldn’t want Hope, she wanted him. And that was enough reason to balk at sharing with her sister.

  But it was a shameful reason, especially since Bobbi had never done anything but look up to her. Oh, and chauffeur her to chemo, and buy her pretty scarves and hats to cover her bald head. Hope felt suddenly hot with shame. She should give herself poison ivy.

  She ran a hand through her hair and redirected her brain to the business of selecting just the right flowers for the occasion. “Lily of the valley would be nice. It signifies a return to happiness.”

  He snapped his fingers. “That’ll do.”

  “I agree,” said Bobbi. “Now, how about something for your wife?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t have a wife.”

  “Girlfriend?” persisted Bobbi.

  Another head shake. “Nope.”

  “Boyfriend?” Bobbi ventured, looking ready to be thoroughly depressed.

  He made a face. “Uh, no.”

  “Oh,” she said cheerily.

  “How do you want the card to read?” asked Hope.

  “She loves poetry. How about something . . .”

  “Poetic?” Hope teased. She loved poetry. She suspected she’d like Jason’s sister. “Hmmm.” She gave the keyboard a thoughtful tap. How about this one? Though lovers be lost love shall not.”

  “I love that one,” lied Bobbi.

  “That’s good. It sounds familiar. Who’s the poet?”

  “Dylan Thomas,” said Hope.

  “Love him,” Bobbi gushed. The only Dylan she’d ever heard of was Bob Dylan and she was barely familiar with him.

  Jason nodded approvingly. “I like him, too. That’ll do great.”

  Next to Hope, Bobbi preened like she’d thought of it.

  Jason produced his charge card and they finished the deal.

  “Come back again,” Bobbi said.

  “I will.” He smiled at both of them, but when his gaze finally picked one to settle on, it picked Bobbi.

  Hope felt a sharp stab deep in her chest, and then she deflated inside as all the happiness drained out of her. Not the happiness of the moment. This hadn’t been a particularly happy moment. It was worse than that. She felt like all the happiness she’d ever had, all the happiness she ever would have just rushed away. Plehhhhhh.

  She needed to send herself some lily of the valley. Silk ones so they’d last a lifetime. She’d keep them on her vintage yellow Formica table to remind herself every day that she should always be happy just to be alive.

  “That man is amazing,” said Bobbi.

  “He’s okay,” said Hope. Her pretend lack of interest made her remember the time when they were kids and she tried to convince Bobbi she didn’t want any of Hope’s Hershey bar. “It’s chocolate. You’ll hate it. You like Skittles.”

  But Bobbi had insisted on trying some of that chocolate. And after one bite, there was no going back. Hope had lost half her chocolate bar that day.

  Jason Wells is not a chocolate bar, she told herself sternly, and he’s certainly not yours.

  She sighed inwardly. She wouldn’t have gotten this man anyway; she knew that. But it was going to be really hard to watch him fall for her sister.

  FOUR

  HOPE WAS WILTED by the end of the day. “I owe you big time,” she told Bobbi, giving her a hug.

  “Yes, you do owe me,” Bobbi said with a sly grin.

  Hope knew what that meant. They’d spent most of the afternoon brainstorming ways that Bobbi could interest Jason Wells (as if he wasn’t interested already), and Bobbi had finally come up with the perfect plan, one which, naturally, involved her older sister.

  “Oh, not now,” Hope moaned. “Tell me you don’t want to do this now when my feet are about to fall off.” She craved home and a bubble bath, followed by
an evening on the sofa with her novel. In spite of Bobbi’s many runs to Organix for juice and yogurt and anything else she thought would keep her sister going, Hope was drained. “Can we do this first thing tomorrow?”

  “I want to do this today, while he still remembers me.”

  Hope couldn’t help smiling. “Trust me. He’s not going to forget you.”

  “I promise I’ll be quick.” Bobbi produced the grocery bag full of guy junk food she’d picked up at the Safeway store on her last food run. “I can put the gift basket together. I just need you to help me with the card. You’re so much better with words than I am. I don’t want him to think I’m an airhead.”

  “He won’t care.” That hadn’t sounded right.

  “Well, I’m not an airhead. Okay, not a total one,” Bobbi amended. “Come on, you promised you’d help me. This guy looks like a keeper. I need to impress him.”

  “Bobs, you already did.”

  “No. I need to impress him with my brain. I can’t just send him a basket and say, ‘Call me.’ That’s totally boring.”

  “But to the point. You want him to call me, er, you.”

  “I want more than that. I want him to think I’m amazing.” Bobbi’s gaze dropped. “I’ve got to brainwash him early, before he finds out I’m just a cocktail waitress.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with being a cocktail waitress,” Hope argued. “It’s an honest living.”

  “You don’t exactly have to be a genius to serve drinks.”

  “Yeah, well serving drinks doesn’t make you dumb, either. You shouldn’t put yourself down.”

  Bobbi pulled out a big bag of corn chips and nestled them in her basket of shredded paper next to a jar of salsa. She shrugged, keeping her back to Hope. “I’m not you.”

  Hope gave a disgusted snort. “You don’t want to be, believe me.”

  That made Bobbi whirl around. “Just because you were sick for a while.”

  “And am now Franken-boob.”

  Bobbi pointed a scolding finger at her. “Don’t go there. There’s more to you than your boobs.” She smiled. “Just like there’s more to me than my body.” She sprinkled a bunch of Hershey’s Kisses around the basket. “Now, what kind of flower should I add?”