No.
Nope.
I wasn’t borrowing stress from something in the future. I had to stay in the present moment. And in the present moment, I had a good friend/employee, amazing coffee, and a reasonably successful business.
No, I’d never be a millionaire. But I was pretty comfortable. I wasn’t stressing about bills. I had money to buy take-out. Which was great since I hated to just cook for myself. And, I thought asI moved into the shop and saw the dog sleeping on a giant round bed behind the counter, I had Ernest.
He was a loose-skinned, long-eared, short-legged lemon Basset Hound who couldn’t be bothered to lift his head for anything other than the opening of a snack wrapper.
Ernest had been my mother’s gift to me after I—well, after things got hard for me. She thought he would bring me comfort and structure, give me a reason to get out of bed, provide unconditional love, and match my lifestyle. Which at the time involved a lot of time in bed.
Life was busier now. Ernest did not appreciate being nearly dragged off the bed in the morning, nor being forced to get in the car after breakfast and walkall the wayfrom the parking lot of the shop to his bed. But he was a calm, cute store staple that people loved to see when they came in.
“Hard at work, I see,” I said as I passed. I got a slightly cracked eye before he went back to sleep, letting out a huff. I swore it said ‘Hey, I didn’t sign up for this. I was supposed to be an emotional support bed dog, and this is what you do to me?’
I put my coffee down on a plant saucer on the desk, then walked around to turn on the plant lights, flip the Open sign, unlock the door, then, finally, switch on the music.
“Yesss,” Traeger said as he came in from the back. His arms were up, his coffee cup waving in the air as he danced around to theDeath Becomes Hermusical soundtrack.
Traeg had been the only person in my life to know I’d named my dog after the nineties movie. Was Ernest the most interesting character in the movie? No. But he was the only real male lead.
Both Traeg and I had been thrilled when the musical came out and we could belt out theTell Me, Ernestsong to the very uninterested dog.
I was keeping it a secret, but I’d gotten us tickets to go see the Broadway musical for his birthday. After over a year of watchinggrainy videos online of it, we were finally going to get to see the real thing.
The morning was a little slow with a trickle of women coming in after the school drop-off. We had a big group of teens who talked about hand embroidery and crochet as they perused the plant selections, making me shoot Traeger a confused look.
“The kids, they be into granny hobbies now.”
“Kids,” I snorted. “You’re a kid.”
“And I do pottery,” he reminded me. “And make quilts in my spare time.”
“Fair enough.” I had one of his first quilts. It was a gorgeous, wild, chaotic thing that I loved because it reminded me so much of him.
“You can tell Glam-ma that I am almost done with hers,” he told me.
“She’s going to be so excited.”
I rang up a few succulents for one girl and a dramatic nerve plant that ‘fainted’ when it was thirsty for another girl.
The two of us watched them leave, then sat around for the next hour with nothing to do.
“You mind if I head back into the shed for a bit? You can text me if you get a rush.”
Unlikely.
I technically didn’t really even need an employee. I kind of just liked the company.
“Sure. Go ahead. Get that money.”
“Bag,” he corrected. “Get that bag.”
“Right. Get that bag,” I corrected.
Traeg wasn’t eventhatmuch younger than me, but I was losing track of the younger generation’s slang at an alarming rate. Hell, mygrandmotherhad started incorporating the words into her daily language, and I needed to ask her what it meant.
The rest of the workday was our usual kind of busy. Meaning some people here or there. Many bought the cheap, common plants. But a few were local plant enthusiasts and picked up the pricier ones, keeping the store in the black as I did some little cleaning tasks around the store.
