through the motions of living, an actor playing the role of the old me. I didn’t want to go back to that tired role.
I went online and did a search. I had thought what I wanted would only entail the use of my credit card, but it quickly became apparent that I was out of my league and needed help. After doing a search of florists and determining that none of the twenty-four-hour cookie-cutter sites could help me, one particular florist and his claim caught my eye: “Whatever flower it is, no matter how rare, I will find it for you.” The floral shop making this promise was located in Connecticut.
It was a little before nine on the East Coast. The male voice that answered my call already sounded aggrieved, maybe because it was early in the morning, or it was Monday, or he just enjoyed acting put-upon.
“I’m calling from Los Angeles,” I said.
“My condolences,” he said in a condescending tone.
“I didn’t call for sympathy. I am looking for a particular flower. According to your ad, you can find it for me.”
“Oh, dear boy, some copywriter came up with that phrase. I am not the floral Mountie. I don’t always get either my man or my flower, but Lord knows I try.”
“Forget-me-nots,” I said.
“What was that you said? I forget.”
“I’d like a bouquet of forget-me-nots.”
“No, you really don’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“Have you ever seen a forget-me-not?”
“I’m looking at a picture of one on my computer right now.”
“The picture you are looking at was taken with an oversized lens,” he said, somehow managing to infuse a prurient edge into his words. “Forget-me-nots have small flowers that are difficult to appreciate without magnification.”
“I want to send the thought more than I do the flower.”
“Oh, no,” he said. “I think I hear the wailing of disco past.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I wasn’t exactly being truthful. I did know what he was talking about.
“Do you want to sing it for me?”
“Sing what?”
“Are you afraid of your voice, or is it sentiment in general?”
“Both,” I admitted.
“Forget-me-nots,” he sang, actually hitting the high notes.
I interrupted before he could sing any more. “Okay, maybe I was inspired by the song ‘Forget-Me- Nots.’”
“Who recorded it?”
I played his trivia game: “Patrice Rushen.”
“She should have sung about pink hydrangeas. I can get you some beautiful pink hydrangeas.”
“Can you get me the forget-me-nots?”
“I don’t know.”
“Today?”
“You must be kidding.”
“I am afraid not.”
“All women love roses. I can definitely get those delivered today.”
I thought of baby Rose. Roses wouldn’t do. “My mind is set on forget-me-nots.”
“Do you understand that a bouquet of forget-me-nots is out of the question? They’re not flowering this time of year, and even if they were flowering, their flowers would be too small for a bouquet. My advice for you is to forget forget-me-nots.”
“What about a forget-me-not plant?”
“What kind of statement are you trying to make? That plant would have the appeal of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. Even the Almighty overlooked forget-me-nots, or so the story goes. That’s how the plant got its name.”
“I don’t know that story.”
“And you think I’m Hans Christian Andersen?” He mock-sighed and then said, “Supposedly God had named all the plants in the world except for one. He had overlooked a small flowering plant, and it cried out, ‘Oh, Lord, you have forgotten to give me a name.’ And so He called it ‘forget-me-not.’”
“That’s a good story.”
“It’s a legend. A good story is what I will need to take on this mission.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Before proceeding on this fool’s errand, you’ll need to tell me a good story about why I should spend my morning hunting down a weed that’s probably not even flowering this time of year.”
“I’m not rich. I’m a cop. But I’ll pay you for your time.”
“That’s not a good story unless I somehow missed a part about handcuffs. That’s like me telling you I am a florist and then asking you to fix a parking ticket for me for a fee. I’ll need a story from you to work on.”
“What the hell kind of florist shop do you run?”
“As you might have imagined, it’s a quirky one. But it’s also quite popular and customers are already waiting for me to open my doors. I chose my line of work because I like to be surrounded by beauty. And I like to be inspired in my work.”
“I called to get flowers, not psychotherapy.”
“I throw the therapy in for free.”
I considered hanging up, but then found myself talking. “My wife died three years ago. Two years ago I was burned in a fire. In some ways being burned was a relief because it gave me an excuse to not get on with my life. I could tell myself it was just enough to survive. But this week I asked a woman out, and for the first time since my wife died I began imagining a future with someone else. Yesterday, though, we had a spat. I don’t want us to be over before we’ve even begun. And that’s why I want forget-me-nots.”
“Now that’s a good story. And because it is, I will try and do the impossible to get you your forget-me-nots and have them delivered today.”
“I really appreciate that.”
“I’ll include some poem or lyrics with the plant so that she realizes the uninspiring potted plant you’ve sent her is a token of much more.”
“She’ll know the song. She’ll know what I was trying to say.”
“Yes, about that song. You do realize that for the rest of the day it will be cycling through my brain?”
“It could have been worse. It could have been ‘Disco Duck.’”
For the first time since our argument, I felt better. The condemned man had a pulse. Maybe my relationship with Lisbet still had a chance. It would be up to her to forgive or not, and to forget or not.
I picked up a large coffee at a drive-through and finished it over the course of my commute. There was no one in Robbery-Homicide, and I felt a bit like an interloper. I had a right to be there, but I didn’t feel as if I belonged. I commandeered a conference room and spread out some papers. Gump and Martinez arrived a few minutes after I did, and we started comparing notes and divvying work.
“I’ve been going through the bully list,” Martinez said, “and checked out eight of the eleven names. Three of the names I wasn’t able to cross-index with school records.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” I said. “Jason Davis only knew Dinah Hakimi by the nickname the Agency gave her: Bugs.”
“What an embezzle,” Gump said in a Bugs Bunny Bronx accent. “What an ultramaroon.”
“Who do you still need to run down?” I asked.
Martinez handed me the list with Travis’s writing. Three of the names were circled: Sophie Gabor, Danny Marxmiller, and Laura Barrel.
“I’ll go back to Davis,” I said, “and tell him to do better with those three names.”
