Love in Bloom

by Sheila Roberts

  “I should have been an art major,” she decided. Why hadn’t she thought of that? It wasn’t too late to go back to school, but did she really want to study about dead artists who painted cherubs on church ceilings?

  Home decorating! She liked making things look pretty. Maybe she should go to school and become an interior decorator. Or sell pretty house things on the home party plan. She loved parties. She could probably make a fortune. And, if she did home parties, she wouldn’t have to dodge overly friendly men who were always wanting to grab her butt.

  “So, how’d you end up with a flower shop?” Jason wanted to know.

  Um. “It was a good thing to do with my sister,” she said, thinking fast.

  “I’ll bet you two have a great time together.”

  “We do. She’s awesome,” Bobbi said. “She’s always been there for me.” She still was.

  The waitress came and gave them their menus.

  Jason opened his. “What’s good on the menu?” he asked the waitress.

  “Not much,” Bobbi answered, making her frown. “But you can’t go wrong with the pizza.”

  “Okay, pizza it is,” Jason decided. “We’ll order now. What do you like on yours?” he asked Bobbi.

  “Anything but anchovies.”

  He grinned and ordered a deluxe large and two Cokes. “And we’ll do the salad bar,” he added, smiling at Bobbi.

  Wow, it was like he knew without even asking her. “How did you know?”

  “You don’t exactly look like the kind of woman who pigs out on pizza.” He shrugged. “But I guess I could have been wrong. When I first saw you, you didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who’d be into poetry.”

  “I’m no expert,” she said, stretching the truth till it snapped.

  She had never in her life, of her own volition, picked up a book of poems. Maybe if she’d been paying less attention to Gregory Wilson in the ninth grade and more attention to her English teacher, she would have developed a taste for that stuff. But she doubted it. Who wanted to read about love when you could live it?

  “I’m not much of an expert myself,” said Jason. “But I’ve got my favorites.”

  He did? What guy liked poetry, anyway? If he was trying to impress her, he could stop now. She suddenly felt fidgety. They were creeping onto dangerous ground here. If she asked him who his favorite poet was, he was bound to ask hers. If she didn’t ask, he might think she wasn’t interested in him. What to do?

  When it came to men, Bobbi’s mind was a computer. She inputted her questions and concerns and the answer quickly came back: look interested. Ask him something about poems.

  “So, what’s your favorite poem?”

  “I like a lot of stuff. I really like Robert Service,” he said.

  “Who?” Way to sound dumb, Stupid.

  Jason smiled. Her ignorance had amused him. Whew, that was a close one.

  “He wrote about life in the Yukon. His most famous poem is ‘The Cremation of Sam McGee.’ Ever hear of it?”

  “Eeew. No.” He wasn’t going to quote it to her right before they were about to eat, was he?

  “Actually, it was a funny poem. I’ll tell it to you sometime.”

  “Like about a hundred years after we’ve eaten.” Before he could ask her who her favorite poet was she stood up, saying, “Let’s check out the salad bar.”

  Now they were done with the subject of poets and they could move on to more fun topics, like TV shows and movies and what they each liked to do for fun.

  But oh, no. As they moved along, spooning lettuce and olives and baby corn cobs onto their plates, he picked up the conversation again. “My dad turned me onto Robert Service. I think he figured it would be a good way to whet my appetite. Mom’s an English prof and she insisted my brother and I be well rounded, so even though we’d rather have watched football or worked with Dad on construction sites, she forced us to do unguy things, like read poetry and go to musicals. I was even in one once.”

  “Only once?” He was so good looking he could have been on Broadway. Or at least American Idol.

  He shook his head. “Once was enough. I sucked. Anyway, sports took most of my time.”

  Oh, Lord. She hoped he didn’t like outdoor sports like hiking. She decided not to ask. Instead, she said, “I like musicals. My favorite is Phantom of the Opera; I loved that movie.” The phantom had been so sexy. She’d never been able to understand what what’s-her-name saw in the wimpy hero when she had that big, bad boy panting after her.

  No wonder you end up with losers. You always like bad boys, even in movies.

  But no more. She was getting smart and picking smart.

  “Most women like the Phantom,” he said. “Hard to understand why though. I think it must be the mask.”

  She smiled. “Women like secrets.”

  “So do men.” He gave her a look that just about set her on fire. “I found out what those flowers stand for.”

  The acacia. She’d already forgotten. She’d been more into the food goodies that went into the basket. Pleeeease don’t ask me to tell you if you’re right. If he did, she’d run to the bathroom and call Hope.

  But he didn’t ask her. He did something worse. He brought them back to a subject she thought they were done with. “That was an awesome message on the card. I’m always impressed by people who can do cool things with words. You’re quite a poet.”

  “Oh, not really,” Bobbi said, frantically searching her brain for a new topic.

  “So, got a favorite?”

  “Oh . . .” Crap. Her mind was a blank. What kind of guy asked questions like this? Oh, yeah. One who wanted to know more about her, who wasn’t a bad boy, one who was perfect. You have got to impress this man. She felt her blood pounding in her ears, heating her neck and cheeks.

  She should tell him the truth right now, tell him all about how she hadn’t paid attention in English class, how she’d jumped from school to school and job to job trying to decide what she wanted to be when she grew up. She should ask him to educate her, teach her to appreciate poetry. And math. Maybe he could teach her how to balance her checkbook.

  He was looking at her, waiting for an answer. She tried to pull up some poet’s name from her mental computer, but this was hard considering the fact that she had never programmed her computer with this sort of information. She’d never needed it. Come on, give me something.

  She blurted out the first name that came to mind. “Jane Austen.”

  His eyes widened in surprise. Uh-oh. Wrong answer.

  “I didn’t know she wrote poems. You learn something new every day.”

  “Yeah, you do,” Bobbi agreed, all the while hoping that Jane Austen, whoever she was, wrote poems. Why had that name come to mind? Where had she heard of Jane Austen? Somewhere.

  Too late to retrieve her misstep now. And he was on to new conversational territory. “I’ll bet you’re into all those movies they made out of her books.”

  Of course. Now she remembered, Jane Austen wrote books. Hope loved her books. Well, old Jane probably wrote poems, too. Those writers were always scribbling something.

  “My sister is big into those movies,” Jason was saying. “She and my mom tried to make me watch one once. Too slow for me. I couldn’t keep track of what was going on. I’m more of a Die Hard man.”

  Finally, something she knew. “Me, too,” she agreed, leaning forward. “Didn’t you love the last one?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Jason was leaning forward now, too. “I like action.”

  She knew they had a ton in common. At last they’d found it. “Me, too.”

  He cocked his head and studied her.

  “What?” she prompted.

  “I’ve never met anyone quite like you. You’re beautiful, talented, smart—just too good to be true.”

  “That’s me,” she said lightly, and vowed to work on getting smart as soon as she found her library card.

  AFTER LUNCH WITH Bobbi Walker, Jason went to see how things were
going at the site of the two duplexes A-1 Construction was building on the outskirts of town. Duke Powers, his right-hand man, looked up from his clipboard and greeted Jason with a jealous smirk. “So, how was it?”

  “Great. Did you get ahold of Barrett? Are they delivering the rest of those two-by-fours today or not?”

  Duke frowned. “Not. He claims they’re short on guys.”

  “The only thing those clowns are short on is brains,” said Jason, disgusted.

  “Speaking of brains, what’s the verdict?”

  Jason smiled. “This one’s got ’em.”

  “So, it looks like you’ve finally graduated from bimbos,” said Duke. “Think you can bring this one home to Mom and Dad?”

  “Oh, yeah.” This woman had keeper written all over her. She was perfect: easy on the eyes just like her sister, fun, and off-the-charts smart. And obviously the driving force behind the flower shop.

  “Hey, if things don’t work out and she wants a real man . . .”

  Jason looked around. “Where? Anyway, there’s no way I’m introducing her to you. She’ll take one look at you, see what kind of friends I have, and dump me before we can even have a second date.”

  “Which I’ll bet you already set up.”

  Jason smiled. “Sunday.”

  “Sunday? What’s wrong with Saturday night? Does she turn into a werewolf or something?”

  “Sunday night is some kind of dancing at the Grange Hall.”

  “Dancing? Since when do you dance?”

  “Since now.”

  Duke shook his head. “A hot chick going out with a klutz foot like you. Man, what a waste.”

  “She doesn’t think so.”

  “And that makes me think this chick isn’t as smart as you think she is,” Duke said with a grin.

  SEVEN

  EASTER WEEKEND HAD been soppy, so Amber opted out on the annual egg hunt at Grandview Park, instead giving Seth as elaborate a hunt as she could manage inside their tiny, two-bedroom cabin. Ty had taken the car in to get fixed on Monday, then it had rained again Tuesday and Wednesday, leaving her with a house bound and increasingly cranky little boy.

  But this was Thursday, she didn’t have to work, and Heart Lake was getting a sun break. It was the perfect day to deal with poop— the garden variety, not what she was dealing with at home. So, she and Seth began their garden adventure with a visit to the Trellis, the town’s nursery and one of its oldest businesses.

  There was something calming about walking past all those bushes and trees, flats of flowers, and little fountains. A woman could find anything she wanted here, maybe even peace of mind. It was run by the Nakata family, old-time lake residents. In addition to carrying every plant, shrub, and tree known to man, it offered garden art, tools, and soil preparations.

  One corner of the shop even offered unique home interior decorations and kitchenware. Amber eyed the yellow polka dot dish setting displayed on a glass patio table with a lustful eye. She would love to have a set of dishes like that. And the patio table. It would have all gone so nicely on their front porch. That house had great potential for entertaining. For a moment, she closed her eyes and envisioned herself as the Rachael Ray of Heart Lake, whipping up meals in minutes for happy guests. No point going there, not yet anyway. She first had to find a way to turn her house into a happy place before she could think about making company happy. First things first. Tackle the garden.

  “Mommy, look,” cried Seth, kneeling in front of a big, stone cat. “Can we have this in our garden?”

  She looked at the price sticker. “Not today, Sethie. If we can’t use it to grow something to eat, we’re not getting it.” She spotted a line of little, red wagons and got one for him. “But here. You can pull the wagon for our seeds and things. Okay?”

  That satisfied him. Now, if only there was a grown-up version of that red wagon for her. She got another wagon so she could carry their heavier purchases, then, averting her gaze from the plates, she led her son off in search of fertilizer.

  It didn’t take long to find the rest of the things she needed to become a gardener. It didn’t take long to rack up a bill, either. Amber watched the mounting total as the clerk rang up her purchases and tried not to panic: garden gloves, seeds, chicken manure, and two spades—one for her and one for Seth. Yikes! It sure cost a lot of money to save money on food. At least she already had a shovel in her car trunk. It was a rusty old thing that she’d found in the shed behind the house, but it would do fine for working fertilizer into the ground.

  As she handed over her charge card, she reminded herself what a good thing this garden was going to be. Fresh air, organic food, something fun to do with Seth—it was all good. And it was better than hanging around the house watching Ty mope in front of the TV. He’d had two interviews in the last couple of days, but neither one had netted a job offer.

  She let Seth carry his spade and he bounced ahead of her as they made their way back to the car, singsonging, “We’re gonna garden, we’re gonna garden.”

  This will be fun, she told herself, trying to work up to her son’s level of enthusiasm. But it wasn’t fun, really. The fertilizer bags were heavy and a real pain to haul to their garden plot. And the stuff was stinky. She got some of it in her tennis shoe while dumping it out. Ick! And, good grief, who’d have thought it was such hard work shoveling dirt? The earlier rains had made the ground sodden, and it felt like she was shoveling cement. It wasn’t work for Seth. He was having a great time using his new spade to fling soil and manure everywhere.

  Just when she thought it couldn’t get any better—ha, ha—a fat raindrop hit her nose. Where had the blue sky gone? She looked up. Gray clouds had eaten every scrap of it. And she was only half done. “We’d better hurry,” she told Seth.

  Taking her at her word, he began to toss spadefuls of dirt in the air. The rain was really coming down now and the dirt was turning to slop. Suddenly, something splattered the side of her head, getting in her hair and on her face. Oh, please don’t let this be what I think it is. But she knew, even before she put a hand to her cheek, she knew.

  “Iiiick,” she cried and dropped her shovel. “Ick!” She began dancing around, shaking her head, swatting at her manure-mud-coated curls.

  Seth thought she was doing this for his entertainment and began to laugh, going into a Tasmanian dev il frenzy, flinging glop every which way.

  “Enough, Sethie,” she cried, grabbing his hand and stopping him. “This is gross. It’s time to go home.”

  “No,” protested Seth, his voice suddenly tearful.

  “Yes. It’s raining and Mommy is all icky. We’ll come back.”

  In about a million years. People did this for a hobby? People actually thought it was fun to get dirty and stinky like this? At the car, she loaded up the shovel and spades and threw the floral-print gardening gloves into the trunk after them. The pouring rain pelted her and she could feel drips from her hair trickling a river of polluted dirt down her neck. Ick, ick, ick!

  This was insane and she was going to stop the insanity now. She would see if she could get some more hours at the bakery, or she’d make cookies and sell them at the farmer’s market and use the extra money for groceries. But the garden thing was not happening. It was not her. If people had been meant to grow their own vegetables, there’d be no such thing as a produce department.

  “I don’t want to leave,” Seth whined as she climbed behind the wheel.

  “Mommy needs a bath,” Amber said. Mommy needs Prozac.

  The car smelled like poop, thanks to her garden hair treatment, making the enclosed space torture. Even though she knew she’d get blasted with cold air and rain, she let down her window. If she didn’t get fresh air in this car, she was going to throw up.

  The air didn’t help. Knowing what was in her hair was making her want to throw up, anyway. A shower, a nice warm, clean shower would be Nirvana. It was all she could do not to speed as they drove along Lake Drive.

  “Can we go
tomorrow?” asked Seth.

  His cheeks were rosy. He looked so cute in his yellow rubber boots. She felt like a rat for not wanting to ever see that stupid garden again. “We’ll see,” she said. “Here, let’s listen to your Veggie Tales songs.” She put in the CD to distract him. Now, if only she could find something to distract her. Shower, shower, shower. Darn, it was hard to drown out singing tomatoes and cucumbers.

  They got back and Seth ran ahead of her into the house. Ty was already making lunch for them. It was something he’d started doing on the days she worked, and the part-time lunch service had evolved into an everyday offering. It was one of the few things he did that showed her somewhere, deep inside, he hadn’t lost hope, that he wasn’t completely ready to give up on life. On them.

  He sent Seth to his room to peel off his muddy clothes. Then he took one look at Amber and his eyes got saucer sized. “Whoa. New look?”

  Ha, ha. “I’ve got poop in my hair,” she informed him, and kept on moving to the bathroom, pulling off her jacket as she went.

  Ty followed her in. “What happened?”

  “We were shoveling in the chicken manure. Seth got carried away. I hate gardening!” She pulled off her sweatshirt. “And I spent a ton of money just to get the stupid, damned, stinky poop for the garden and stupid, damned stinky garden gloves and the stupid, damned stinky seeds. And I’m not saving any money,” she finished on a wail.

  “Hey, at least you’re doing something.”

  She felt Ty’s hand on her shoulder. Next thing she knew he was pulling her to him to comfort her—something he hadn’t done since those early days when they first saw trouble looming outside their little restaurant.

  It made her cry all the harder, for what they’d had and lost, for where they were now.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Forget the garden. You’re doing enough anyway.”

  “Mommy?” Seth stood in the doorway, stripped down to his Spider-Man underwear, his round little face tight with worry.