AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Forget Me Not
––––––––
It was a Monday morningjust like most Mondays.
Aside from the sound of sleet hitting my bedroom window everything was as it was on every other morning of every other week during every other month. I rolled to the left to gaze upon a beautiful ginger-blond sleeping peacefully beside me. Smiling at the innocent look on his face while wondering what he was doing there, I reached out and ran a hand over the ferret snoozing away on the spare pillow.
“Excuse me, good sir, but how did you get out of your cage?” Legolas blinked awake, stretched, and scurried over to cuddle up on my neck. He loved my beard. It was hard to stay mad at the cinnamon-colored little shit. He was a clever thing, lively, talkative, troublesome, and a sheer joy. “I’m not sure that you’re exactly the sexy man in my bed that I asked the gay gods to bless me with last night.”
He made a whimpering sound as he curled into a ball. I lay there for a few minutes, knowing my alarm would sound soon, watching the sleet building up on the outside of the window. I hated winter. My forty-two year old bones disliked it as well. Why I had stuck around Albany, New York for my entire life when I despised the cold was anyone’s guess. Glutton for punishment, I suppose. Sure, I’d been born there, and my business was there, and what remained of my small family was there, but other than that I had no reason not to move.
God knows Steve hadn’t let the grass grow under his feet. Legolas began snoring, and that wiped the memory of my ex-boyfriend from my mind. Buying this little critter two years ago had been the best thing I had ever done. Man you love moves out. Buy a ferret.
My phone alarm went off. Legolas groaned as if he had the weight of the world on his long back. I picked him up, placed him on the bed, and eased out from under the covers. He slept as I showered and dressed. Then we padded around my cozy second-floor apartment, him on my heels, and made breakfast. The local news on the TV was calling for more sleet then sun later in the week. I ate my maple oatmeal as Legolas feasted on his morning treat of kitten food.
Typical morning on a typical day.
I sighed at the normalcy of it all as I cleaned the kitchen. My life was not going at all as I had anticipated. Yes, I did have my own business. Posy Pusher did well. Or okay, I suppose I should say. I made enough selling flowers to pay my rent, give Midge a small salary, and keep Legolas in the prime ferret food he loved. I even had a little socked away for a rainy day, or a romantic trip to Hawaii with that special man. I’d thought that man had been Steve but Steve had thought otherwise.
“Okay, let’s get you into your cage.” I knelt on the floor to fish my pet out from under the sofa. I found a small mound of food. “You do like to ferret things away for later, don’t you?”
I laughed at my joke. Legolas gave me a scowl and wiggled out of reach. After I moved the sofa and caught the little bugger I walked him to his cage. It was a huge thing with three levels, ladders, a nice clean litter box, and toys galore. The door was open.
“I’m not sure how you do this but Iwillget a new lock on the way home,” I told him, kissed his furry head, and then placed him in his cage. I filled his food dishes and waterer then used a twist tie to secure the sliding lock. Standing back, I gazed at my work with pride. “There. That should hold you.”
He chirped at me. I turned, found my phone on the end table where I’d left it to charge overnight. When I picked it up I saw that the charger cord had been gnawed in half. I threw a withering look over my shoulder. Legolas gazed at me in innocence.
“What would the other members of the Fellowship think of this behavior?” He ran off to hide in his carpeted tube. I glanced at my gaming console. Relief washed over me to see that the cord to charge the controller was untouched. “I’m going to report this to your father. This is unfitting for a prince of Mirkwood.”
He stayed hidden in his tube.
I made a mental note to run out and buy another new charger for my phone during my lunchbreak—if I got one. We had ten days until Valentine’s Day, and the orders had been flowing in. The employees of the state capital who had used Mercutio’s Florals were now slowly drifting my way now that Mercutio had been caught importing more than flowers. Of course, many were still using the florist shop inside the rotunda, but my sales had increased nicely. And Mercutio had been a bitter bitch anyway. Always making fun of my midlife spread, my beard, and the scars that acne had left on my face, when we attended the New York State Floral Society dinners.
Italian twinks were easy on the eyes but killer on the self-esteem.
Shucking on my coat, I then hustled down the stairs of the brownstone, stopping only briefly to visit with my landlord, Mr. Merkle, as he scattered salt on the icy steps.
“No bike for you today,” he said as I gingerly made my way down the four concrete steps. The sidewalk was coated with ice and topped with a fine layer of sleet. The small bits hit me in the face, stinging madly wherever they met skin.
“Nope!” I shouted as I pulled the hood on my coat tighter around my face. Spring couldn’t come soon enough. I loved biking to the capital district which was ten blocks away in the summer. Today I’d have to use mass transit or walk. I glanced skyward. Gray clouds lay heavy over the city. Ice particles hit me in the eyes. Cussing to myself as my eyes watered, I slipped and slewed my way to a CDTA bus stop. The buses were late so I arrived at the shop a few minutes after nine. Sliding into the back door, I smelled the coffee perking.
Midge was somewhere in the shop, probably out front flipping the CLOSED sign to OPEN. She lived above the shop now. She and my mother, Mona, had shared a small place in the Pine Hills district. When Mom had died two years ago from breast cancer, Aunt Midge had sold her rowhome and moved here. I charged her no rent for the flat above the store, and this way I could keep an eye on my only close living relative. Or perhaps she was keeping an eye on me? That was up for debate, to be honest.
“Aunt Midge?” I yelled as I stamped my feet and shrugged out of my coat. No reply. I shouted louder. She was quite deaf but refused to get a hearing aid. Why? Who knew. I could ask her every day and she would have some crazy answer. Yesterday it had something to do with radioactive waves being picked up by hearing aids and transmitting into the human brain. She watched far too many movies. “Aunt Midge!!” I bellowed.
Midge came waddling out of the storage room. She was a tiny thing, built like my mother—short and round with the same dusky brown hair that I had, only hers was streaked with silver. Tiny glasses sat on her pug nose.
“Why are you always yelling?” she asked.
“Because you can’t hear. Why don’t you get some hearing aids?” I enquired, just because it was part of our dynamic.
“They make my ears feel funny. Where’s the salmon ribbon?”
“Those are called sound waves, Aunt Midge.”
“Oh, bullshit. Why did you put the damn ribbon in the fridge?”
“No. I said...” She was already gone. Into the breakroom to look for ribbon in the fridge. I glanced skyward. “Please, whoever is up there listening, give me patience.”
