The Language of Flowers

bills. Walking back outside, she held out the cash.

“Your final paycheck,” she said. I didn’t count the money she handed me, but I could tell it was much more than I had earned. When I had put it in my backpack, she handed me the envelope and her unopened burrito. “Protein,” she said. “That’s what my mother always says. It builds the baby’s brain. Or maybe it’s the bones—I can’t remember.”

I thanked her, turning to walk down the hill.

“If you ever need anything,” she called after me, “you know where to find me.”

The rest of the day I spent in the blue room, fighting off waves of nausea as the baby fluttered inside me. The red envelope lay on the white fur floor like a bloodstain, and I sat cross-legged beside it. I couldn’t decide whether to open it or to slip it under the rug and forget about it.

Finally, I decided I had to know. It would be hard to read Grant’s words but even harder to go through the pregnancy without knowing if he had guessed the reason for my abrupt parting.

But when I opened the envelope, it was not what I had expected. It was a wedding invitation: Bethany and Ray, the first weekend in November, Ocean Beach. The wedding was less than two weeks away. I was invited, Bethany wrote on the back, as a guest, but would I also do the flowers? What she wanted most, she wrote, was permanence, and after that, passion. The opposite of the cherry blossom, I thought, cringing at the memory of the afternoon in Catherine’s studio and everything that moment had become. I would suggest honeysuckle, I decided, devotion. The very strength of the vine suggested a permanence I had never experienced but hoped Bethany would.

Bethany had included her phone number and asked me to call by the end of August. The date had long passed, and she had likely found another florist, but I had to try. It was the only foreseeable source of income in what would be a long, idle winter.

Picking up on the second ring, Bethany gasped at the sound of my voice.

“Victoria!” she said. “I’d given up! I found another florist, but that woman is about to lose a job, deposit or no.”

She and Ray could meet the following day, she said. I gave her directions to my house.

“I hope you’ll stay for the wedding,” she said before she hung up. “You know, I credit your bouquet as the beginning of everything.”

“I will,” I said. And I would bring something resembling business cards.

I asked Natalya if I could meet with Bethany and Ray downstairs, and she agreed. Early the following morning, I bought a card table and three folding chairs at a flea market in South San Francisco. They fit inside the back of my car, the hatchback tied down with a rope. In addition to the furniture, I bought a rose-colored cut crystal vase with a discreet chip for a dollar and a white lace tablecloth with a pink plastic liner for three. I wrapped the vase in the tablecloth and took the side streets home.

Before Bethany and Ray arrived, I set up the card table in the empty office space. Covering it with the lace cloth, I set the crystal vase in the center, full of flowers from my garden in McKinley Square. Next to the vase sat my blue photo box. I checked and rechecked my alphabetization while I waited for the door to open.

Finally, it did, and Bethany stood in the empty doorway more beautiful than I remembered, Ray more handsome than I imagined. They would make a breathtaking couple, I thought, draping honeysuckle in long lines through the white sand.

Bethany opened her arms to hug me, and I allowed it, my belly a ball between us. Looking down, she gasped and placed her hands on my stomach. I wondered how many times I would have to endure this in the coming months, from acquaintances and strangers on the street. Pregnancy seemed to remove the unspoken societal laws of personal space. I disliked it almost as much as the feeling of another human being growing within my body.

“Congratulations!” Bethany said, hugging me again. “When are you due?”

It was the second time I’d been asked in two days, and I knew the frequency would increase along with my size. I counted the months in my head.

“February,” I said. “Or March. The doctors aren’t sure.”

Bethany introduced me to Ray, and we shook hands. Motioning to the table and chairs, I asked them to sit down. I sat across from them, apologizing for taking so long to call.

“We’re just so glad you did,” Bethany said, squeezing Ray’s thick arm. “I’ve told Ray all about you.”

I pushed the blue box toward the couple. It glowed under the fluorescent office lights. “I can do anything you want for your wedding. Nearly everything is available at the flower market, even out of season.” Bethany opened the lid, and I cringed as if she was again touching my body.

Ray picked up the first card. In the years that followed, I watched many men squirm in front of my flower dictionary, the fluorescent lights casting a sickly shadow on their nervous faces. But Ray wasn’t one of them. His bulk was deceiving; he discussed emotions like Annemarie’s lady friends, with loquacious enthusiasm and indecision. They got stuck on the first card, acacia, as Grant and I had, but for completely different reasons.

“Secret love,” he said. “I like that.”

“ ‘Secret’?” Bethany asked. “Why secret?” She said it with mock offense, as if he was suggesting they hide their love from the world.

“Because what we have is secret. My friends, when they talk about their girlfriends or wives, complaining or bragging, I just keep quiet. What we have—it’s different. I want to keep it that way. Untouched. Secret.”

“Mmm,” Bethany said. “Yes.” She turned over the card and viewed the photo of the acacia blossom, a feathery golden sphere-shaped flower hanging on a delicate stem. There was more than one acacia tree in McKinley Square. I hoped they were in bloom. “What can you do with this?” she asked.

“It depends on what else you want. Acacia isn’t a centerpiece flower. I would probably drape it around the edge of a nosegay, half concealing your hands.”

“I like that,” said Bethany. She turned back to Ray. “What else?”

In the end, they decided on fuchsia moss roses with pale pink lilac, cream-colored dahlia, honeysuckle, and the golden acacia. They would have to return the bridesmaid’s dresses; the burgundy silk would clash. Bethany was relieved they were from a department store and that she hadn’t special-ordered. The flowers were the most important, she said with confidence, and Ray agreed.

As they stood up to go, I told them I would deliver the flowers at noon and return for the two-o’clock wedding. “I can adjust your bouquet at the last minute,” I told her, “if it needs anything.”

Bethany hugged me again. “That would be wonderful,” she said. “My greatest fear is that the roses will suddenly snap when the wedding music starts to play, and both my wedding and my good fortune will be shattered.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Flowers don’t spontaneously combust.” I looked from Bethany to Ray as I said it. She smiled. I was talking about Ray, not the flowers, and she understood.

“I know,” she said.

“Do you mind if I bring business cards?” I asked. “I’m just starting out here.” I nodded to the white walls.

“Of course!” she said. “Bring cards! And bring a guest; we forgot to tell you that.” Bethany nodded to my stomach and winked. The baby kicked; my nausea returned.

“I will,” I said, “bring cards—not a guest. Thank you.”

Bethany looked embarrassed, and Ray, flushing, pulled her to the door. “Thank you,” she said. “Really. I can’t thank you enough.”

Standing at the glass door, I watched them walk up the hill to their car. Ray wrapped his arm around Bethany’s waist. I knew he was comforting her, assuring her that the strange, solitary young woman with the magical way with flowers was happy to be having a fatherless child.

I was not.

4.