Page 51 of Grim Tidings

Darcy

The trick to making a bouquet is picking a focal flower, then filling in the space around it with complimentary ones.” Frank peers over his glasses at the abomination in front of me. “Hm,” he says.

I poke at one of the daisies hanging lopsided. “No need to mince words.”

“I’m not mincing them—I’m finding them.” His eyes narrow. “I’ve never seen anyone use sage palm like that before.”

“Which one is the sage palm?”

He points at the thick clump of leafy greens I thought might add some much-needed texture. Instead, it looks like my bouquet has an incurable disease. Which is sort of fitting, but—

“Oh.”

I’ve been working steadily on my arrangement for the past forty-five minutes while Frank moves around his store, pruning and organizing and whipping up flawless-looking bouquets with a few quick flicks of his fingers. I’m convinced he might be part woodland fairy or nature nymph.

“I feel like I should compensate you for the flowers I’ve wasted.” I pull out an oversize sunflower and replace it with a bunch of lavender. It doesn’t help. “I’m not sure this one will sell. You don’t have to put it in your display case if you don’t want to.”

Frank laughs. “Oh, honey. Of course I’m not going to put it in the display case. It’s awful.”

A surprised laugh shakes my shoulders. “Fine. I’ll keep it, then. I’m going to take it home and put it in a place of honor.” I shove the sunflower back in the middle. “It’s going on my nightstand, so I can look at it every morning when I wake up, and every night before I go to sleep.”

Though I haven’t been indulging in that mortal habit lately. Instead of sleeping, I’ve been making contingency plans. Drafting exit strategies. Meditating in the middle of the living room with Tater Tot’s head in my lap, trying to dissect the pieces of the vision I have.

Wet asphalt. Cracked glasses. Music coming from somewhere far away. A flickering neon sign, glowing orange in the melting light.

When, when, when.

Frank takes off his glasses, still chuckling, and wipes his wrist across his forehead. He leaves a smudge of dirt behind, and I smile fondly at him.

He slides his glasses back up his nose and reaches for my flower disaster, plucking things at random.

“Replace these with, ah—” He reaches behind him for one of the massive buckets on the wall. “Try gypsophila.”

At my blank look, he grins.

“Baby’s breath,” he explains. “And then—” He limps his way over to a massive bucket tucked under the workbench, bending at his waist.

“I keep thistle in here,” he calls, his top half hidden by the container. “Most florists don’t use it in their bouquets on account of the sharp spikes, but I like the texture.” He stands back up, his fist clenched around a few twisted stalks of thin, spidery-looking flowers. Each has a small purple bud on the end, the leaves curling up, almost as if it’s protecting itself.

Frank extends one to me, and I hold it carefully, examining it. “They’re beautiful.”

“Some think they’re prickly, but I have a fondness for them.” His lips quirk up. “We can add some of these to your bouquet. With the lavender, they’ll look lovely.”

He dismantles my arrangement efficiently, laying out all the flowers on the worktable while humming a disjointed tune. I drop my hip against the counter and watch him.

“Have you always loved flowers?”

His hands still for a moment. A half-second pause before he resumes.

“My wife did.” He places the thistle back into the mason jar I’ve been using as a vase, then the lavender in front of it. “I started making bouquets for her with the wildflowers I found along the road on my way home from work. Kept at it enough that she got it in her head I should open my own shop. She said—” He blows out a blustery sigh. “Well. She said if I loved flowers so much, maybe I should spend more of my time with them. But I don’t think she realized the only reason I ever loved flowers is because she did.”

He adds the baby’s breath, then rotates the jar to show me.

“I love it,” I tell him. “Much better than my sunflower.”

My sunflower, which Tater Tot is now holding clamped in his mouth, his head on his paws as he stares out the window. There’s a pair of cardinals on the bike rack just outside, taunting him. He’s been tracking their progress as they hop back and forth between the ledge and the pot of wildflowers, chirping happily.

“She was right, though, wasn’t she? You love your shop.”