The Blue Iris, page 2
Back to her.
Screw you, Sam.
The mercury had only a few millimeters more to climb before the local gossips started pouring in. Once they realized their beloved flower frontman was gone, the whole neighborhood would be talking. Six-point-two million souls in this bustling city, yet you couldn’t drop a Grande Americano on Morrow Avenue without thirty of them hearing about it. Charlie had none of the sordid details they wanted, but like tuna sandwiches at a wake they’d linger too long anyway, casually riffing on plausible scenarios, as if they were helping. As if she hadn’t imagined each soul-curdling one a thousand times already.
When Sam’s Chevy was found half-buried in snow up by the cabin, there was still plenty of reason to believe the man who had run this place wanted to be gone. January winds had carried him off countless times before, Charlie, too, in the opposite direction, bent on saving the world one off-season at a time. But last week, the spring thaw pushed his trashed snowmobile onto the ice-cluttered shores of Killbear Provincial Park, one hundred and four-point-seven nautical miles downwind from the cabin per Google Maps, and her stomach hit the ground like a rusty anchor.
She poked her head out the open side of the window, as though the glass might be distorting her view of Sam’s brother, Darryl, the wrecking ball in black coveralls, hovering over a flat of Marguerite Daisies. The pinch in his wide face confirmed he was trying to figure out whether to shelve them under M or D. Never, in twenty-seven years, had the outdoor stock been shelved alphabetically; it was the stupidest imaginable way of doing it. Yet, every spring, Darryl tried anyway. And like everything else the miserable oaf touched, his big brother, Sam, had come through afterwards and fixed it.
“Don’t even think about it!” she yelled. When Darryl’s middle finger flashed above the racks, Charlie pulled her head from the window and stormed outside, prim elbows pumping. She picked up two fluffy trays Darryl had shelved and slammed them back where they belonged.
His arms shot through the air. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Charlie waved him off like a fruit fly, grabbing more flats.
Darryl followed, the two of them shuttling the plants back and forth between the aisles. At last, he squatted, hands on his knees, and spat his words across the open shelving. “It was alphabetical.”
Charlie met his stare, then raised an eyebrow. “Since when?”
Darryl grunted. “Right. Whole place never existed until Queen Charlie showed up.”
“Feeling really in charge, aren’t you?” she poked. Sam would have been hovering by now, ready to quell another surge in this decades-long storm. “Like you’re—” Charlie’s voice climbed, forcing her to stomp it. Like you’re him. “Now, there’s a stretch.”
In a blink, Darryl hurled a flat of blue hosta through the open shelves. Charlie, long immune to his public displays of volatility, didn’t even flinch as it sailed past her head and exploded against the wall in a fireworks of roots and soil. “Go back inside, Spider,” he said. “Everything in there’s already dead . . . just how you like them.”
Too far, even for him. Charlie lunged across the shelving, fists bouncing off his massive body. “It’s my fault he’s gone? Who stepped up when you abandoned that counter in the first place, huh? You made your own brother carry all of it!”
“Again, with this shit,” he said, spittle flying. “Sam the Saint, everybody’s fault but his. Like I didn’t clean up my share of the mess? Like you’ve got one goddamn clue about any of it?”
Their eyes locked. Infuriatingly, Charlie’s lip trembled. Darryl backed away, repelled per usual by any emotion besides rage, aiming two thick fingers at her like a Smith and Wesson. “You keep the hell out of the way.”
Charlie, already halfway inside, tossed the reply over her shoulder. “Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”
Back to her cymbidiums. Charlie held a single stem to the light—sixteen meaty blooms, veins the color of a newborn’s eyelashes. A creature this majestic demanded to be showcased alone. Charlie would rewrap each orchid in its own sleeve, even if it took all day. Indeed, there were way too many here; Sam would’ve brought in half as many in a month. But did anybody think to ask her?
Pasqueflower / Pulsatilla hirsutissima
“Passing Over.”
TESSA
From the doorway, Tessa surveyed the shop’s Monday offering of tattered stems left over from the weekend. The grumbling fridge showcased foggy glass and roses on overturned milk crates, while potted plants claimed the natural light, washing the room in greenish grey. Rowan, the owner, had the phone to his ear, its relic cord twisted through his fingers. A smile flitted before he riffled through a binder, pretending he hadn’t seen her.
Charlie clamored into view, her petite frame clenched as she attacked the floor with a broom. She noticed Tessa and uncurled, swiping one cheek with the heel of her palm. “Yo, girlie. Ready to get your hands dirty out there?”
Tessa’s eyes pulled wide. She’d assumed she would be working in here, at Charlie’s practiced elbow, with bouquets and common houseplants, where the margin for error was slim as eight-dollar tulips. Where her mother’s laugh lingered like soft perfume. She never dreamed the job would be out there, the open-air storefront, where nursery stock was sold by the plastic tray.
Rowan hung up, veering around the counter. “Come on, I’ll show you the ropes.”
The pilot light of panic flared under Tessa’s ribs. It was one thing to shuffle a few stems to fleeting effect, but she knew nothing about gardening. Couldn’t tell annual from perennial or tropical from vegetable. The snippets drifting in through the window said it all. Out there was an overgrown tangle, powered by forklift exhaust and testosterone.
But she’d followed her gut this far; what choice did she have?
Outside, his hands crammed into his pockets, Rowan delivered the new-hire orientation in one breath followed by a wheezy gasp, almost like he’d written it out ahead of time.
“All set?” he asked. But before she could answer, he hurried off like he’d left his wallet somewhere.
Aisles of sagging plywood stood all around, orange trailing the frames like rust-colored sobs, the stock lean and haphazardly arranged. Tessa busied herself checking the care tags, separating perennials from annuals. Lining sun-lovers along the top, and shade plants underneath. She tackled the clutter under the counter; a garbage bag overflowing with garbage bags, pen after pen that didn’t work, half a mouldy sandwich in wax paper.
Darryl’s mugshot stare pulled her gaze upwards. The wolf tattooed on his massive forearm glared at her. “Who told you to do that?”
“I just thought—”
He slammed his palm into a shelf, the speed of his rage all but blowing Tessa’s hair back. “Who’s paying you to think?”
Despite his staggering size, Tessa’s own hair-trigger temper reared, which could sometimes be a problem—not least of all because it was inextricably wired through her tear ducts. She stared back, certain her voice would crack if she spoke.
Darryl’s mouth turned up at one corner, his eyes dry ice. Tessa couldn’t tell if he was amused or itchy.
“He’s trying to break you,” Charlie shouted from the window. “Do not let him!”
Darryl looked at Charlie. The air between them grew so intense that Tessa stepped back from the line of it, her stomach pumping in time with the vein in Darryl’s neck as Rowan, back with trays of coffee, set about biting the skin around his nails.
Yes, out here was definitely a mistake.
A tractor trailer pulled up, the diesel engine setting the corner vibrating harder. Without a word, Darryl shuffled off towards the truck and Charlie disappeared from the window.
Rowan turned to Tessa, his thin face a worry line. “The only one who ever could keep those two from killing each other was Sam.”
Darryl fired off a loud whistle. Tessa’s other two coworkers appeared from the back. Luke and Tony (she wasn’t yet sure who was which). Both sidestepped Tessa like she was selling timeshares and joined the scrum forming at the curb. Darryl wanted to offload the metal carts of product from the truck via the forklift. Rowan insisted the forklift couldn’t cross the sidewalk. Darryl asked how-the-fuck Rowan thought trucks got unloaded before hydraulic liftgates. Rowan recounted the time a cart fell off the forklift and hit a passing Lexus.
A customer came looking for peat moss. Tessa stared at the woman’s blue gardening clogs, flustered because she had no idea what peat moss was. Her entire way forward had been built on knowing the correct answers.
“It’s soil, dear.” The woman gestured to the wooden fence along the back of the storefront. “They keep it back there? While you’re at it, I’ll take a bag of sheep manure, too.”
The alley behind the fence was lined with many varieties of dirt, all packaged in manageable, pillow-sized bags—except, naturally, the peat moss, sold in cubes the size of a three-drawer filing cabinet. Tessa nudged one; perhaps it was a lighter, fluffier dirt than the rest? She gave it a shove, shifting her weight, ramming until sweat dampened her face. It wouldn’t budge.
Fed up with this job, so different than planned and unimpressed by all she did know, Tessa slammed her palms into the dirt. Then, angry at it for jarring her wrists, she kicked it, jamming her foot. She was shuffling around the alleyway in a private fit, cursing and shaking out limbs, when the customer and Luke-or-Tony appeared. They looked at each other, eyebrows cocked.
It was the sort of look that had kept Tessa in anonymous lecture halls all these years, reluctant to commit to any environment for longer than an academic term. It was yet another reason she should be helping Will at the firm this summer, where she’d receive no looks of any kind. She was too porous. Everything around her seeped in without permission, while everything inside her refused to be contained. Sooner or later, colleagues noticed. Coworkers talked. Before long, it didn’t matter how well she performed; they’d already decided she was uptight, or weird, or too intense. All of which really meant crazy.
Luke-or-Tony’s face, cloaked in dark sunglasses and even darker stubble, was wary, like she had a ticking timer on her forehead. Like he, too, had already decided. “Chill,” he said, “I’ve got it.”
If Tessa did have a timer, the word chill would have flipped it straight to flashing zeroes. Did people think chill was readily available to her? That it could be scooped up by anyone, in any quantity, like dry-roasted peanuts at Bulk Barn? That given the option, she wouldn’t go walking around in a permanent state of chill?
He gave a cool shudder, as if reading her thoughts, then slid the peat moss into the customer’s Subaru as easily as a bag of marshmallows. Tessa heaved the manure over her shoulder and stalked after him. She had only a few steps to go when the plastic packaging split with a dreadful flutter. Black earth poured like sugar down her side. She gasped as the cold, damp granules wriggled inside her clothes, working their way down her shoes.
It wasn’t entirely surprising. Objects around her ruptured sometimes, as if acted by force. Tessa used to imagine she had telekinesis, like in Matilda, except she never did learn to control it nor was there ever any gratifying outcome—besides the one, nearly eight years ago, that redeemed all the rest.
Tessa had been at a party, pretending she enjoyed parties. As she approached the screen door to go outside, it popped clean off its track, activating the backyard motion lights. She tumbled over it, vaulting across Ainsley Murphy’s midnight lawn like a spot-lit monkey in front of the entire senior class, including the new transfer, a Westlake, plus a mob of other guys from school crammed around him, trying to become cooler by proximity. Will marveled later at how unrattled she’d seemed. Tessa assured him she’d been mortified, just not surprised.
Tessa’s coworker, expressionless, fetched a new bag of manure. “A little poop never hurt anybody,” the customer offered. “Some say it’s good luck!” The woman handed him a five-dollar tip before driving off.
“Who?” Tessa muttered, sweeping the mess. “Who says that? The people covered in poop?”
Luke-or-Tony angled the dustpan. Tessa caught the shadow of a smile, and hoped maybe he hadn’t decided about her after all. Maybe she could still make a go of this place long enough to figure out why her mother wanted her here.
On their way back to the storefront, he pulled the fiver from his pocket. “Here. She was your customer.”
Tessa waved the money away. “Besides acting like a total jackass back there, I cost us a bag of manure.”
“Nah, Tony probably went too deep with the box cutter when he unwrapped the skid.”
Mystery solved: the dark-stubbled, supremely chill one was Luke.
Sniffing herself, Tessa made a face. “It’s actual shit, isn’t it?”
Luke winced. “Afraid so.”
She shook her head in question. Why?
“Veggie gardens, mostly. Manure is a natural fertilizer.”
“And peat moss?”
“You add it to the manure. Keeps the roots from drying out.”
Tessa wondered what sort of mix Pop used at the house. “And the difference between cow and sheep manure?”
Luke’s heavy shoulder lifted. “One falls farther?”
Tessa’s laugh shot to the sunlight, her stomach starting to uncoil. “So much to learn.”
Back at the half-emptied truck, Tony whipped a dead bloom at Luke. Luke returned fire, the bud slapping off Tony’s cheek. Everyone chuckled. Tessa lingered awkwardly, wanting to help but feeling strangely like this was invitation only. Cautiously, she transferred two flats from cart to shelf. Darryl ignored her. Luke nodded, so she kept going.
Behind that truck, another waited. Then, another. They all seemed to hold impossible quantities of plants. When the final engine slunk away, the corner fell silent again. Rowan took off up the street. Darryl retreated behind the fence. Tony and Luke bumped fists and fished cigarettes from their pockets, Tony’s dangling from his lip, Luke’s tucked behind one ear as they, too, disappeared into the alley.
Tessa looked around, tipsy on hue and texture. An overflowing landscape had sprung from the barren concrete like a time-lapse video. Hydrangeas in rustling plastic lined the sidewalk. The boulevard was a meadow of tulips and crocuses, color seeping to each rounded top. Yellow-orange pansies stretched to the sky like hungry birds’ beaks, the purple hyacinths fragrant on the breeze. The morning’s haunted expanse had vanished. She stood, entranced, until Rowan reappeared with grilled sandwiches, and her stomach leaped at the smell. Suddenly, she was starving.
Asphodel / Asphodelus
“My regrets follow you to the grave.”
CHARLIE
She was securing clear plastic to what felt like her thousandth orchid when the elastic snapped. Charlie clenched her teeth, shaking the wet sting from her fingers. Goddamn you, Sam. Here, between these ghost-grey walls, her thoughts wouldn’t steer clear of him. In this time zone, he still drove her every gesture.
She marched to the staff room, barely bigger than a phone booth with a laundry tub stained the color of cold cappuccino. Rowan was in the walk-in cooler, its vault-like door propped open while he sorted cash for the bank drop. Charlie leaned against it, picking at one of the rust patches. “Give me Tessa in here,” she said. “Just for the weekend.”
Rowan looked up in alarm. Typically, he would have hired a seasonal worker to assist her with the cut flowers through the summer, but this year Charlie insisted he didn’t. If Sam truly hadn’t resurfaced by now, keeping frantically busy in here was the minimum penance she deserved and besides, in that case she’d be less likely to dwell on it: the first time in twenty-eight summers that she was here, and he wasn’t.
“You do realize it was your idea to put her on the outside counter,” Rowan said.
“Actually, now, I say you let her handle the storage yard.”
Rowan looked doubtfully at Charlie. Through her humanitarian aid efforts over the winters, she’d seen that same look on benefactors, many of them also well-meaning men with fistfuls of cash who struggled to reconcile her delicate stature with the idea that she did, in fact, know what she was talking about.
“She’s still getting her feet wet,” Rowan said, apologetic in the usual way. “I need her to hit stride by May two-four, or Darryl’s going to pop an aneurysm.”
The May 24 long weekend, the shop’s most gruelling three-day stretch, marked the official kickoff of planting season. But that was two weeks away, a lifetime in Blue Iris hours. Charlie smashed a woody lilac stem with her mallet, conditioning it to draw water. “Darryl is an aneurysm. Come on, it’s Mother’s Day. I need a buffer.”
Rowan’s expression softened. While the rest of the world would assign Charlie a level of grief appropriate to any longstanding employee—far below that of Sam’s two children, his three ex-wives, hell, even his mistresses—Rowan was the only living soul who knew the truth. Most of it, anyhow. He nodded as Tessa slid into the staff room with more cash from the till.
Charlie smiled at her. “You up for helping me in here with the cuts this weekend?”
Tessa lit up. “Definitely!” She slammed her a high-five. “It’ll be such good times.”
No, girlie, it won’t be anything close. But Tessa would prove a quick study, and already she seemed to have made it her personal mission to make Charlie laugh. Almost like she knew.
A handsy couple who had obviously made it to the bloody dance lined up to pay for some orange parrot tulips. Charlie twirled the feathery stems into a paper cone, ringing it in a touch too vigorously.
“You forgot the flower food,” the woman told Charlie.
Charlie forgot nothing. Tulips hated that stuff. Much preferred a daily trim and water change. But as she explained this, the couple stared like judges at a dog show, amused by her show of tricks with zero intention of trying them at home. Sighing, Charlie tossed in the preservative. Since when was the truth enough to sway a woman’s mind?
Like every third customer this week, the couple debated whether Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day was busiest in a flower shop, and like every customer ever, settled on the latter. Charlie didn’t bother correcting them; if decades behind this counter had taught her anything, it was nobody cared about being right when they were trying that hard to sound like it.
